Florence of Arabia (15 page)

"Bobby?"

"Mr. Thibode
aux."

"H
e had to go back to the
State
s."

"Oh? When?"

"Earlier in the week." Florence said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

"Pity."

"Why?"

"I wanted to ask him something."

"I'll probably be speaking to
him. Anything I can pass on?" L
aila looked at Florence. "He's coming
back?
"Of course."

"When?"

"As soon as he can."

"Ah. It can ... wail," L
aila said, though her look had turned into a stare that was making Florence squirm.

FLORENCE PHONED UNCLE SAM on the secure satellite phone, the one Bobby had said to use onl
y "once we start taking mortar f
ire."

'How's mv girl? Hew 1 love the new show. I'm betting on Tafas to swoop down
at the last minute and rescue F
atima."

"Mahnaz."

"1
thought they were all named F
alima. Hard to tell them apart with those veils."

"That's what we're trying to change. It may not be
Mahnaz who needs rescuing. H
ave you spoken to our friend?"

"Oh yes, oh yes
. He called in this morning. H
e's in—we're on the secure phone, I see—Paris."

"Paris?"

"I le's finding out all
sorts of interesting things. H
ave you been gelling any knocks on your door in the middle of the night? They're notoriously incompetent, the cops there."

"No. I had to tell George and Rick. And Laila just dropped by and seemed kind of curious about our friend's absence."

"She's a sharp one. the sheika. It's that British education. Well, you're doing God's work over there, young lady, keep it up. Uncle is proud, darn proud. Don't speak to any stra
ngers. And keep that phone handy,
remember, it's your lifeline."

Florence hung up. She fell paranoid. She wished Bobby were here, but if he was on to something fruitful in Paris, good.

G
eorge was off pouting some
where, so she sought out Renard,
who always managed to cheer her up with his unabashed venality and outrageous schemes.

"Rick." she said, "what did you want to be when you were growing up?"

H
e looked up from his editing machine. "You mean, did I always want to be a sleazy PR hack?"

"I didn't say that."

"Gosh. Frenzy
"—Frenzy was his nickname for Flore
nce, a corruption of George's F
irenze—"all I wanted to do was help people."

"Really
?"

"I remember clearly as a young boy of seven or eight, dreaming of one day helping rich Florida citrus growers get sweeter tax breaks out of the Appropriations Committee at the expense of California melon growers."

"You're very cynical, you know."

"I'm not say
ing I don't have standards. I turned down Michael Jackson as a client."

"You did?"

"I wasn't sure he had the money. But look at me now, Renard of Arabia, helping to liberate nearly a billion veiled women, to crea
te lasting peace in the Middle E
ast, a region that has known nothing but strife and sectarian haired for thousands of years. Look." He pointed to his forearm. "Goose bumps."

"That's sunburn."

"You step outside here for thirty seconds and—zap—skin cancer. It's like walking around inside a microwave oven. No wonder they dress like Casper the Ghost. It's a very strange place, this."

"Why are you here? 'T
he money?"

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure I believe that." "There might be another reason." "Oh?"

"I'm not sure you want to hear it. At least right now, what with everything going on."

Florence stared, mute, inarticulate, lie was attractive, Rick, lean and wolfish, and had circumstances been different, who knows.

"No." H
e smiled. "Don't ruin the exquisite awkwardness of the moment by saying something nice. Anyway, at Renard Strate
gic Communications, we never get
emotionally involved with the client. It almost always ends with them wanting a discount."

Rick turned back to his editing machine. "I've got a killer idea for a new-show. I've been kicking myself in the ass that I didn't think of it sooner."

Georges reaction was
"You
can't
be .serious." This persuaded Floren
ce that it was exactly the way t
o go. George was still in many ways a creature of the State Department, and if it made
him blanch, the idea was certif
iably bold.

The
three of them presented it lo L
aila, who kept saying as
Rick laid out the plots of the f
irst three episodes, "Oh my," "Oh my
my"
and "Jesus." When he was finished, she said, "This will go down like a pound of bacon in the middle of Ramadan."

"Do you want to give the emir a heads-up?" Florence asked.

"Good
God. no." L
aila laughed. "No. I think we'll make t
his a surprise for the emir. He
's so busy these
days. The hectic pace of Um-bese
ir. How he survives, I don't know."

Flore
nce and Rick got up to leave. L
aila said, "And how is Mr. Bobby?"

"Fine. Busy."

"Will he be rejoining us soon?" "Yes." Florence said. "I'm sure."

"Oh, good." Laila smiled. "It's so very
dull
here without him."

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

T
he knock on the door came not quite in the middle of the night, hut close
enough for dramatic purposes: 11:35 by Florence's digital wall clock.

Looking out her peephole. Florence counted three men. Even in the ambiguous sterility of their white
thobes,
they looked like police—either police or members of a death squad. They identified themselves over the intercom as "Inspectors Muhammed, Rama and Azbekir from the Division of Internal Services, madame."

Florence pressed the redial button on the secure cell phone that Bobby had given her. This theoretically alerted the cavalry.

"Gentlemen," she said through
the intercom, "it is late, and I
was asleep." She spoke in English rather than her fluent Arabic.

"It is most urgent, madame."

"What does it concern?"

"Your colleague, Mr. Thee-thi-boo."

"He's not here."

"Yes, madame, this is the precise urgency."

"If it's urgent, you should speak to him directly."

"But he is not here."

"Then how can it be urgent?"

But
...
madame, you must admit us. We are the police."

She wondered how long she could weave this conve
rsational Mobius strip. Suddenly
, her phone chirruped. When she answered it, a gruff American voice sounding like the personification of the 101st Airborne Division said. "You all right, ma'am?"

"There appear to be policemen outside mv door."

"Did they say what they want?"

"
Questions about our friend."

"We're nearby."

"What should I do if they take me with them?"

"Remain calm. Keep your head down."

"Who are you, anyway?"

"Not quite sure at this point, ma'am."

"I can handle them. I don't want any more shooting."

"Madame!" Inspector Muhammed said insistently over the intercom, sounding plaintive, "you must admit us! It is official business. Please be putting on decent clothing."

F
l
orence opened her door and faced the three men with the appropriately furious air of a chaste and blameless Arab woman rousted from prayers at an uncomely hour. "What is the meaning of this?"

"We must speak to you about your colleague Mr. Tee-boo—Thce-bo—"

"Mr. Bobby. What about him?"

"H
e has departed the kingdom." Inspector Muhammed said with alarm. "So do hundreds, thousands, of people every day." "But there is an irregularity."
"What
irregularity?"

"He was witnessed severally here in Amo-Amas, in this city, by many persons, on the fifteenth of this month."

"So?"

"But we are told by his office here that he departed on the fourteenth. This cannot be true."

"
I don't remember when he left. I
think, yes, it was the day before the big auto race."

"No, madame
. this cannot be." "What is the problem?"

"The problem is that he is desired for questioning." "Why?"

"We are doing the questioning, madame. We have spoken with him by the cell telephone, and he is informing us that he departed Amo-Amas bv Air France on the fourteenth, but there is no such record of his ticket with Air France."

"What does your Immigration Department say? He would have been checked out of the country by the proper authorities at the airport."

Inspector Muhammed frowned. "That is very correct. What you say is precisely the case, yes."

"So?"

"There is an irregularity. The information of the Immigration Department and Air France is not in accordance."

"Who are you going to believe?" Florence said with disdain. "Your own government or some French
airline?"

"The problem is remaining, madame," Inspector Muhammed said.

"Not here and not at this hour. But I'll tell you
what. 1 will personally bring it
up with the emir, may Allah keep him safe for a thousand years."

"The emir?"

"Yes. I
have an audience with His Majesty tomorrow at nine o'clock. Assuming I am allowed to have any sleep before then."

"Than
k you,
madame." Inspector Muhammed said unhappily.

The next morning
..
precisely at nine o'clock, Florence and
Laila
presented themselves before the emir. On the agenda were the latest (eye-popping) advertising revenue figures for TV
Matar.

Florence mana
ged to slip in a coy reference t
o the fact that Matar's answer to the secret police had banged on her door at a late hour. She watched the emir's and sheika's faces closely for a reaction,
Laila
appeared surprised and displeased.

"The Lions of
Matar
." she snorted. "That's their motto. Lions! An ostrich could defeat them in battle."

"L
aila." the emir said, "you must not speak of them that way. They are thoroughly professional and vigilant."

"What about that assassination squad sent from Iraq three years ago to kill you? Who warned you of it? The CIA. Where was the vigilance of the 'Lions of Matar'?"

"Our people knew all about the Iraqi assassins. They work in concert with the CIA."

"Darling, they're imbeciles. Starting with their chief, your
cousin F
ahim." Laila turned to Florence. "The emir has, as you know, seventeen half brothers, all of them half-witted, for a total of eight and a half brains among them."

"Laila!"

"Praise God that my dear husband
was
endowed so well. In
all
respects." "Why do you speak so disrespectfully, and in front of Florence? You embarrass her."

"No. darling. I embarrass
you."

The emir's face
was
a
prune of displeasure. "Truly, I
am out of patience. Show me the advertising figures." As he studied them, the prune was transformed into an apricot, tender and Smooth. "Um ...
hm
...
God be praised... Well, well, I must saw this is
most
satisfactory."

"I am gratified that my lord finds our humble work so worthy," Laila said.

"My wife." the emir languidly said to Florence, "has developed what you
in the West call an enormous 'at
titude' since she started working with you. Some
might
call it a Western
infection."

"The only infection to be found around here," Laila said, "has not been brought to Matar by Florence."

"I will not be spoken to in this manner!" Gazzy exploded. "Is the emir of
Matar
to have no peace in
his
own tent?"

"You do push him," Florence said when they were alone.

"1 might as well have some fun. I assure you, it's just an act on his part It's so he can fly off in a
swirl of self-justification to U
m-beseir and his
huge bed and his Russian hotsy-tot
sies. If he ever gets around to writing his autobiography, it should be titled 'The Seven Pillows of Wisdom.'"

"Maybe we should do a show called that." Florence smiled.

"I've seen it," Laila said.

Mukfellahs, TV matar’s new sitcom
about an inept, though
ruthless, squad of Wasabi-type
religious police, caused a
n
immediate sensation throughout the region. A prominent Cairo television critic dubbed it
Friends from Hell

The opening episode showed the six regulars all relaxing at the office after a hard day of whipping women for a variety of offenses, compl
aining about how their arms hurt
and passing around ibuprofen tablets.

"That last
one put up a struggle. But that'll teach her to walk on the sidewalk without a male escort."

"We live in a shameful world, brothers. If it were not for us, hell would be full to bursting."

"My arm, how it aches! Five hundred la
shes I dealt today. And three ston
ings tomorrow."

"Listen to Mansour! h
e whimpers like that woman at the mall today!"

'G
od's mercy
upon us!" declared another. H
e was reading the label on the bottle of ibuprofen. "These pills are ma
nufactured by a company named Pf
itzer!"

"So?"

"It's Jewish,
you
fool!" "German. Surely."

"Do y
ou want to take that chance?" 'T
he man thrust his linger down his throat and ran off-camera, making terrible sounds.

'T
he others exchanged a glance and then plunged their linge
rs down their throats and ran of
f-camera.

"Clever." Florence said, "the way it deals so subtly with the issue of anti-Semitism."

"Yeah." Rick said, "I was sort of pleased with that, too."

The Grand Iman
of Muk, the highe
st religious authority in all Wasabia, issued a f
atwa calling for th
e assassination—"the more bloody,
the more pleasing in the
eyes of God"—of the entire staff of TV Matar. The fatwa, published in
Al Kuk,
Wasabia s leading newspaper,
further slated that anyone who performed this holy deed would be guaranteed not only eternity in the nectar gardens of paradise but also twice the usual number of kohl-eyed virgins, for a total of— here religious scholars differed, but—more than 140, enough to keep most men, even the stoutest, busy for eternity.

The
reaction to the show from the W
asabi Royal Ministry for foreign Matters was equally furious. They denounced the broadcasts as "an act of gross interference in the internal affairs of Wasabia" and as "a severe provocation."

The Wasabi Ministry for the Enforcement of Chaste Technology was tasked with jamming TV
Matar's satellite broadcasts into Wasabia. This they managed to accomplish, for a few hours. All at once their jamming was counter-jammed by an apparently superior technology, originating, as it turned out. in Tel Aviv, where the broadcasts of
Mukfellahs
had developed an early and enthusiastic following, even among the ultra-Orthodox, who did not even believe in television. The Wasabi Ministry for the General and Permanent Disapproval of Israel promptly look its case to the United Nations Security Council. For several days, soft clucking noises could be heard around the table as Wasabia's indignation was simultaneously translated into 196 languages, at which point the United States delegate pointed out that there were not that many countries in the world. The United
State
s permanent representative to the Security Council, a bald pate set in a sea of frowns, raised his pen high in the air and vetoed whatever it was that needed to be vetoed, and everyone went off lo the Henry Kissinger book party at the Four Seasons Grill Room. The situation in Amo-Amas, on the other hand, was more and more becoming less and less placid.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Explosions are not,
alas, unusual events in the Middle East, hut until now
Matar ("Switzerland of the Gulf") had been spared the ambient blast of gelignite.

The last time there had been any exp
losion worth noting was in 1936,
during an official visit by H.M.S.
Indubitable,
earning the duke of York, filling in for his brother. Fdward VIII, who had jumped ship in Cap d'Antibes when he learned that Mrs. Simpson was there attending Verbena Goughsborough-Pong's masked ball. He simply announced to his aide-de-camp that he had no intention of continuing on to
Matar
to "swat fl
ies and be surrounded by a lot of frightful smelly wogs," leaving the Foreign Office to explain to a naturally disappointed emirate that His Majesty had been stricken with shingles.

The poor duke of York, who in a few years would be thrust
unwillingly upon the throne of E
ngland after his older brother succumbed to the mysterious charms of the Baltimore divorcee—some said it had to do with ice cubes— was dragged twitching and stuttering down the
Indubitable's
gangway to convey the crown's "d-d-deep f
-f-f
-feelings
of
f
-f-f-f-f
-friendship for the p-p-p-people of Muh-muh-muh ..."

Not desiring to prolong the duke's distress, the
Indubitable's
commanding officer, Admiral Sir Knatchbull Cavendish-Hump, order
ed the commencement of the ninet
een-gun salute. The gunner's male mistakenly loaded a live round, which landed in the Dismalya Quarter, ever after nicknamed "Dismal Street."

The episode provoked a full-fl
edged nervous breakdown in the duke, who was taken below and not seen on deck until the ship reached Aden. A condolence fund was established for the family of the bereaved, and for the building of a vocational school, which still bears the plaque commemorating "the historic bond and comity betwe
en Great Britain and the Royal E
mirate of
Matar
."

The old-timers on Randolph Churchill Street, along Amo's harbor front, sipping mint tea and smoking their noon pipes of
qoosh,
the mildly narcotic herb mixed with tobacco, remarked that this explosion had reminded them of that day back in 1936 when the future king visited.

No one was killed this time. God be praised. A miracle, it was said. The explosive
was in an SUV
parked at the intersection of Charlwell and Marlborough streets. It disintegrated into ten thousand piece
s, but the blast acted as a pro
pellant for a nearby car. Witnesses watched the vehicle loft hundreds of yards into the air and then make a graceful parabolic descent throu
gh the roof of St. Margaret-in-t
he-Marsh Anglican Church. Had Deacon Whitcomb been less ginger, the event might well have ended in tragedy.

Naturally, the incident caused intense speculation in the cafes of Amo-Amas. those hatcheries of Matari gossip. Had the blast been directed precisely at St. Margaret's? And if so, was this the opening
salvo in a jihad? And if so, why
the Anglicans? Could it be a reaction against the recent ordination of the transgendered bishop of Leeds? True enough, the event had not gone down well among the more conservative element in the far reaches of the Anglican communion. Taking no chances, Whitehall announced that it was dispatching a team of forensic experts to "assist" the
Matar
i authorities in their investigation.
Al Matar
called the episode a "wake-up call." while acknowledging that it was unclear who exactly was supposed to wake up.

Meanwhile, Maliq,
now preaching daily from the pulpit of his new madrassa, where students memorized the Holy Koran while learning how to service race cars, denounced the bombing as the work of "foreign blasphemers who have been allowed to defile Matar's holy soil." This was a clear shot at the palace. The emir was not pleased.

"There's never been anything holy about Matar's soil."
Laila
said to Florence. "But it is getting rather messy. I don't suppose you know anything about this?"

"Of course not." It had the advantage of being true. "Only asking. You sound offended."

"Why would I know something about a bomb blast in downtown Amo?"

"Darling. I'm simply saying that things were rather more quiet in Matar until you and your entourage arrived. We used to be the Switzerland of the Gulf. It's starting to look more like
Baghdad. Gazzy's in a slink. H
e's on his way back from Um-beseir, which always puts him in a foul mood. I overheard his man
Fetish
talking about a four o'clock appointment Gazzy has today with Valmar, the French ambassador."