Firebird (13 page)

He smiled sadly, shaking his head. ‘So I found you at last,’ he said, ‘the boy with green eyes. I’ve seen you in the Shining.’

‘I know you, too,’ I said.

The old man slid his stiletto into a sheath hidden under the sleeve of his
jibba
. He looked at me again. ‘The city is poison to the soul,’ he said. ‘Where are your mother and father?’

‘I have no mother and father.’

‘Then come with me. The tribe will be your mother and father. You belong with us. We need you.’

I just dropped the baseball bat in the dust and burst into tears. It was that word ‘need’ that did it, I think. He put a hand on my shoulder and we never stopped walking till we came to the tumble down archway at the exit of the bazaar. For me it had been a doorway into another life.

When I opened my eyes again, Daisy was slapping my face with her open hand.

‘Ouch!’ I said. ‘That hurts!’

My ears were ringing like dinner gongs, and my jaw felt like I’d just swallowed a full sized football. ‘Jesus Christ!’ Daisy said. ‘Who
was
that bitch?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but whoever she was, she packs a punch like a fucking steam hammer!’

13

When Daisy dropped me on Roda Island, I told her I was going home, but I didn’t. I picked up a taxi, and had it take me to the Scorpion Club on the Gezira, where I knew Hammoudi would be waiting. We’d agreed secretly that I’d make a nightly report to him, and if I didn’t show he’d know something was wrong. The place didn’t look much from the outside — a steel door at the bottom of a flight of steps on a street of half derelict houses and crumbling masonry. The entrance was watched by a Turkish strong man, an ex-pro wrestler called Bakhit, who weighed about two twenty and had a scar running the entire length of his face from hairline to jaw, passing right through the centre of the left eye, which was totally blank. Another one-eyed man. to add to Sanusi’s list. When I entered he turned his good eye on my swollen jaw, and appraised the bruise professionally. He didn’t make any comment, though, and he didn’t bother patting me down for hardware. He knew Hammoudi and me. The Scorpion was still a hangout for pimps, pushers, local gangsters and creeps of all kinds, but once it had been much worse.

When I first arrived in Cairo it had been a meeting place of the Shadowmen — the mob who’d run the local hard drugs scene, and who’d had several key politicians in their pockets. It was Hammoudi who had busted them, with a little help from me, of course. We’d tracked some of the capos back to their derelict hideout in New Cairo — the Gallery it was called — and then moved in with the Special Ops Squad. Problem was, someone in the know had snitched and the Shadowmen were ready for us. That was the day I’d copped a 7.62 short Kalashnikov slug in the ribs — a shot that had been intended for Hammoudi. He never talked about it much, but I could tell from the way he treated me that he’d never forgotten. Anyway most of the Shadowmen bosses were either inside or feeding the Nile perch now, but we’d never pinned anything on the politicians or found the snitch. The Scorpion itself was under new management, but stabbings and fistfights still occurred there almost on a nightly basis. Bakhit’s scar was the result of one such brawl, and he would have been pushing daisies by now if Hammoudi and I hadn’t been there to cover his back. That’s why Bakhit never minded having us around. It helped to know a couple of SID officers were there packing in case of real trouble, but otherwise keeping their noses out. Hammoudi always said he felt right at home here.

Actually, the place was the cellar of a demolished warehouse and it was big — all alcoves and vaulted ceiling arches, lit with violet strips and little table lights done like miniature versions of Aladdin’s magic lamp. There was a bar running half the length of one wall — a glitter of bottles and stainless steel, and barmen whose faces and hands were shadows, and whose white shirts stood out so stiffly in the ultraviolet it looked like you were being served by an animated shirt. Pipe music uncoiled sensuously out of concealed speakers and the atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke and the fumes of apple tobacco, hemp, and smouldering incense. There was a carnival feel to the place. It was a hubbub of voices, groups of men and women in cameo, a shock of faces distorted in the flickering light — women with the black eyes and snouts of wolves, women like Pekineses, and men with bloated cheeks and upturned nostrils like pigs. Or maybe the fact that my jaw was killing me just made it seem like that. In one corner a small crowd was gathered round a snake-charmer, a shaven-headed guy in a multi-coloured dervish cloak, who was swaying drunkenly to the music, holding a hooded cobra in his hands. Even from where I stood I could see the snake’s forked tongue flicking out angrily, and as a rose coloured spotlight turned on him, I saw the guy stick the head of the thing right into his mouth.

There was an ‘ooh-aah’ from the audience. I shuddered and turned away, finding Hammoudi where Bakhit had said he’d be — sitting at a table in one of the secluded alcoves, drinking araq with a girl about thirty years younger than him, holding her hand across the table. My first impression of the girl was that she was overdressed. She was nut brown in the light of the table lamp with heavy, gypsy-like features and rich black hair that cascaded down her shoulders, almost to her midriff. She wore a loose-fitting robe of some velvety stuff that fell all the way to the floor, and her neck, wrists, fingers and ears were weighted down with jewellery that wouldn’t have disgraced Sanusi’s museum. She stood up as I arrived and extended a smooth hand. She smelt of sandalwood and strong musk. ‘Your Presence,’ she said, bowing slightly, before hurrying off into the shadows.

I gazed after her admiringly. ‘Sorry to break up the party,’ I said, sitting down opposite Hammoudi. The girl’s musk lingered.

‘That’s Nadia,’ Hammoudi said, lighting a cigarette, ‘she’s an ‘
Alima
.’

‘Ah,’ I said. Now I understood the robe, the overdone makeup and the heavy jewellery — an
Alima
was a professional singer, one of a caste who could trace their ancestry back to the legendary Baramikah — the entertainers of the Caliph Hiroun ar-Rashid of
The
Thousand
and
One
Nights
.

‘Is she any good?’ I enquired.

Hammoudi winked. ‘She’s on later,’ he said, ‘wait and see.’ He pushed a clean glass in my direction and poured half a measure of araq then topped it up with water from an earthenware jug. I watched the stuff turn cloudy. ‘Drink!’ he told me.

I toyed with the glass, smelling the aniseed. ‘I shouldn’t drink this stuff,’ I said, ‘does funny things to me.’

Hammoudi topped up his own glass and held it out in a toast. ‘Your health!’ he said. I touched glasses, downing the slug in one go, hoping that at least it would stop the throbbing in my jaw. I stroked the bruise gingerly, and Hammoudi noticed it for the first time. ‘Jesus and Mary!’ he said. ‘You and Miss Special-Agent-of-the-Year already had a bust up or what?’

‘Nah,’ I said, glancing round at the tables and alcoves, islets of light, the hunched cameo figures wreathed in smoke and raucous laughter. The snake eater had almost finished the
entrees
, I noticed — the cobra’s tail was now hanging disgustingly from his mouth, flipping ineffectually. ‘I had a fight with a Bedouin woman in the bazaar,’ I said. ‘Actually it was more like a massacre. She got away.’ Hammoudi looked at me, amused. He stubbed out his cigarette and sipped more araq, narrowing his eyes reverently as if it were fine wine. At the far side of the room lights had come up on a small platform, and a traditional orchestra of musicians in striped
gallabiyyas
and loose white turbans were setting up instruments — lutes, tablas, flutes and viols, and a zither-like stringed instrument called a
qanun
.

‘You must be losing your touch,’ Hammoudi said. ‘Yesterday you get disarmed by Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt, and today you get nailed by some granny in the souk. Who the hell was
she
?
’

He poured more araq into my glass and topped it up. Warmth was already spreading through my body from the first one, and the ache in my jaw had diminished. I sipped the araq and attempted a lopsided smile. ‘Had to be a tail,’ I said.

‘Who?’ Hammoudi asked. ‘CIA? Militants? FBI watchers looking out for our favourite Special Agent?’

‘Could be anybody. Bloody woman had a punch like steel.’

Hammoudi stared at my jaw again and chuckled. The band were sitting down now, tuning up their instruments and an expectant hum had fallen over the audience. I drained my araq and felt my jaw again. It was numb — the ache had magically disappeared. Hammoudi filled both our glasses and ordered another third of a litre from a passing waiter. ‘Drink!’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better.’

‘I shouldn’t,’ I said, picking up my glass.

‘So you and Daisy got on all right?’ Hammoudi asked. ‘She’s got the speed of a snake, never saw anyone so sharp. And she doesn’t miss a thing even if she doesn’t let on.’

‘She missed the Sanusi amulet.’

That was a point I hadn’t thought about.

‘What about Sanusi?’ Hammoudi asked.

‘Scared of something, but I don’t know what. He almost had a fit when Daisy mentioned Firebird.’

‘Ah, Ibram’s famous last word. Like I said, nothing came up on that or the name Monod, but I’ve already briefed Halaby. Said he’d look into Sanusi and Monod pronto and meet you here tomorrow night.’

‘Good. If anyone can dig up the dirt it’s Halaby. Anyway, Sanusi confirmed that the Sanusiya’s been out of the picture since 1916 when the British kicked their arses with machine guns at Salloum. He got real shirty when we suggested the Brotherhood might have been reactivated.’

‘What about the amulet?’

‘Reckons a guy called Sayf ad-Din took it. Guy who turned up disguised as an Arab and said he was working for a thing called the “World Council of Islam”.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Neither had Sanusi. Reckoned it was all bogus. In fact, he claimed this Sayf ad-Din was a ghoul. Funny. Fawzi talked about a ghoul too, and apparently Ibram asked the doorman at the Mena whether he believed in them.’

Hammoudi smirked grimly. ‘You know I never believed in hocus pocus,’ he said, ‘but I just had a feeling about this case. Somehow I felt it might open up the whole can of worms.’

‘It’s a tentative connection, Boutros. Sanusi’s wacky enough to have imagined it.’

‘Maybe, but you know as well as I do there’s something nasty on the loose in the Khan, whether it’s a ghoul or whatever you want to call it.’

He was right about that. I’d damn near caught up with it two weeks ago, the night it got the tailor’s boy. Could it be coincidence that Fawzi, Ibram and Sanusi had all mentioned the ghoul? Hammoudi’s intuition about the case must have been more powerful than I thought.

‘I tell you Boutros, I saw it that night — something that looked like a human spider — a sort of insect head and legs that were jointed the opposite way from ours. It was just a fleeting glimpse in the shadows, but a few minutes later I found the boy. Sanusi was all boned up on it, and Daisy caught on. I had to tell her the boy died of a rare blood disease.’

The Colonel loosened his massive shoulders uncomfortably and brooded for a moment. I swallowed araq. ‘By the way,’ I said, changing the subject, ‘you get the ballistics report on Ibram’s death?’

Hammoudi looked relieved. He was on safer ground talking about bullets and trajectories. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘FBI lab confirms the shells were 7.62mm short — those are standard Russian military issue. Also confirmed the weapons used were Klobbs — a handheld machine pistol, normally issued to Russian Special Forces. The
coup
de
grace
came from a different weapon, though — a Browning 9mm pistol.’

‘Not much there we didn’t know.’

He grunted in agreement and flicked a cigarette from a flat packet. He placed it cockily in his mouth, brought up his lighter, then halted in the act of lighting it. On stage, the musicians were sitting down on stools and lifting up their instruments. ‘Any minute now she’ll be on,’ he said.

‘Known her long?’ I enquired.

He pretended to look hurt. ‘It’s not that way at all, I’m like a father to her.’

The waiter brought the third of araq and another jug of water. I poured myself half a glass and topped it up. Like a father.
Bukra
flu
mishmish
, I thought.

‘There’s something wrong about that shooting,’ Hammoudi said, lighting his cigarette at last. ‘This
coup
de
grace
business. That’s not Militants. It’s a kind of ritual thing — the Sicilian Mafia does it, but it’s never been a Militant trait. And those Klobb machine pistols. They’re special weapons — I mean you could buy them easily enough on the black market, I suppose, but they’re not the kind of thing any idiot could use. Not like the trusty old A K—47 that’s completely grunt-proof — just point it in the right direction and squeeze. No, the Klobb’s a pro’s weapon. And think of the coolness of the op. Broad daylight. In front of spectators. These guys were professional hit men, not politicals. Either ex-military or a Mafia hit team, I’d put money on it.’

I drank again, probing my jaw. Hammoudi sipped araq and glanced expectantly at the stage. The musicians were waiting in silence. Nadia walked gracefully up to the microphone, her heavy robes swinging, jewellery catching the light. She tossed her luxurious hair, and addressed the audience in a clear, musical voice that held just enough shyness to make it incredibly inviting. I was feeling more relaxed and comfortable now. Too comfortable. The knots of people around us no longer looked like wolves, dogs and pigs, but like hyenas and full-blown vampires. The floor seemed to be rippling slightly, like liquid, and I had the distinct impression I saw one of the snake-charmer’s cobras wriggling under a table. Hammoudi was watching the stage. The spotlights were on Nadia, transfixing her in a rainbow of colour. ‘By the way,’ he added in a faraway voice, ‘that talk about ghouls reminded me. I’ve got some new information.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What?’

But it was too late. Nadia had picked up the microphone and the audience had gone quiet. I turned to look. Suddenly the music started, went straight into a rocking beat without any build up, a snapping rhythm of tablas and castanets that had your feet tapping wildly and made you want to rock to and fro. The strings led the music on subtly, building up inside the clashing beat in an intricate, spiralling pattern that stirred visions of rivers flowing, sands blowing, and gave you the feeling there was something here as ancient as the hills. Then Nadia’s voice came in, quavering in high contralto, as clear as running water yet not overpowering or dripping false emotion like the classical singers. The voice was laid back, a virgin’s voice, not dominating but complementing the music, as if holding a dialogue with the instruments. Nadia sang as if in a trance, swaying only slightly to the beat, then turned abruptly away from the microphone to let the music take over, with a new crash of percussion and swirl of pipes. The rhythm built up and up and the audience began to clap in time.