The Second Saladin - Страница 40

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“So you were drinking a—”

“But then two others showed up.”

“Americans?”

“No. Latins. Tough ones too, gangsters.”

Trewitt nodded grimly. He didn’t like the sound of this.

“They hurt him pretty bad, the owner. Hit him with a gun, a pistol.”

Trewitt turned, the boy leaned into the light, and Trewitt saw an ugly red swelling above his eye.

“Jesus, Roberto—”

“Hit me too, the cocksuckers. Tough boys, real evil ones.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted to know about a wounded man. They’d heard there was a wounded man in the neighborhood.”

“Did he tell them? This old man?”

“It was that or die. He told them.”

“Dammit,” Trewitt said. He reached with a pale hand and touched the automatic in his belt.

“They must be there by now,” said Roberto.

“Fireworks,” said Miguel gleefully. “Fireworks.”

27

“Goodbye, Leah,” he said. “God will be kind to you.”

“Baby,” she said, “you be careful. Don’t you do nothing stupid. Don’t let no cop bust your head. Stay away from cops, you hear?”

“I do,” he said.

The city was huge. It was no Baghdad, nor even any of the other American cities he’d seen, but something, more America than he’d seen in one place, America piled high, America all over the place, America crazy, bewildering, America spinning itself out. There was no rhythm to this place. It was all one speed, which was fast, and one tone, which was loud.

“Don’t let no big-city boys take you to town,” she said. Behind, a cab honked. The traffic fled by. The air was gray and cold and dirty and smelled of exhaustion. He looked down a canyon of buildings and the details were too multitudinous to be absorbed. His head sang in pain; sullen men on the sidewalk looked at him.

“Jim,” she said, “honey, ain’t nothing here for you. Come on back. Come on back to Dayton.”

“I can’t.”

“You got that same look as the time you went up them tracks. You got Bobby’s look. You come back to me. You hear? You come back to Leah. You promise me that.”

“I will, Leah. By my eyes, I will.”

“Don’t know nothing ’bout no eyes, Jim. I just want you back.”

“I’ll come,” he said, and stepped to the curb and she drove away.

He was near the bus station and he found another small, dirty hotel. She had given him $100 and he paid the clerk $15 for the night. He stayed in the room for a long time, two days. The next part of the trip would be the most difficult.

It took him a long time to find the right place. He knew the name, the address even — from the telephone book — and one night, late, he found a black man.

“I want to find a place. This place.” He showed him the page ripped from a phone book.

“Jack, you talkin’ to the wrong man.”

“Tell me how to get there.”

“Man, you gotta take a bus. Make a transfer. Take another bus. Jack, that’s enemy territory. Ain’t no way I’m going there.”

“What bus? Tell me of this bus.”

“Jack, back way down. Take a cab rent a Hertz car, ride the train or the subway. Man, stay away from me.”

“You must help.”

“No way, Jack.”

Ulu Beg shoved some money at him. “Here. Show me. Show me.”

“Jesus, Jack, you must be hungry.”

It was a small place, tucked away in an obscure old section of the city. He memorized the route, returned late the next night. The neighborhood was quiet then. He waited across the street, watching in the shadows until he was sure the place was empty. Then, at last convinced, he ran across the street and hid in the back another ten minutes. Occasionally a car rolled by, and once a police vehicle crept down the alley, but he lay still until it passed. He stood finally and tested the door, which did not give to his effort. He’d expected nothing else. He moved to the window and examined it carefully.

“Bars you’ll see right away. But look especially for wire. Everybody in America has wires connecting them to the police or to alarm bells, because in America everybody steals from everybody all the time.” He was beginning to see that they were very cynical about America; they hated it. But their vision of it was usually correct and their counsel well taken; he always obeyed. “In the window, along the edge of the glass, the wires. It’s a small place in a poor part and they probably can’t afford anything fancy. But in America, who knows? A salesman may have come along and sold them something fancy. It happens all the time in America. There may also be a dog. If so, it must be killed immediately.”

He looked again at the window: no wires, nothing.

He reached into his pack and pulled out a short-bladed knife. He leaned forward and — expertly, as he had been taught — inserted the blade in the slot between upper and lower windows. It was so easy. He worked the blade to the lock quickly and nudged the point against the lever of the lock. Twisting and shoving the blade, he got the lock to move — it fought him for just a second, and then popped free. He withdrew the blade and quickly lifted the window.

He listened for the yapping of a dog. Only silence. He looked each way in the alley; it was empty. From the open window a current of warm air rushed toward him, carrying a familiar range of odors with it. But he could not pause to admire them; he tossed in his pack, and followed.

He lay on the floor, letting his eyes adjust in the dark. A splash of light from the street cut across the floor. It was a simple room, with a few tables encased in cloths, their chairs stacked atop them. Ulu Beg moved swiftly across the floor to a door on the other side and came into the kitchen. It smelled largely of strong industrial soap, but even under this blinding American smell he could pick out the familiar: scents of lamb and chicken, of falafel and grape leaves, of honey cake, spinach and cabbage, kibbe cakes, mint, other spices. It all felt good in his nose and the temptation came to tear open the cupboard, but he didn’t; first, because the longer he stayed, the more danger he was in, and second, because to yield would be to admit how he missed what he’d left, how the grief at losing it cut so very deep.

He moved swiftly. He opened his pack and there, under the wrapped Skorpion, removed a tin.

They had explained it to him very carefully.

“Americans, who live in vast houses, aspire to more primitive things. They cook over coals, like hill people, and think this makes them rugged and vital. You may buy the fluid by which they light their coals anywhere for a dollar without suspicion. It’s less volatile than gasoline and less pungent; it is, quite simply, perfect.”

He opened the linen cupboard and squirted the fluid into it. He moved through the kitchen, squirting rapidly. He could smell the fumes filling the air in the dining room; he doused the curtains and sprayed patterns on the walls.

Then, with a match, he ignited the curtain. The flames spurted in one hot instant, billowing up with a crackling hiss, filling the room with light. He winced in the power of the blaze, watching it go from one puddle to another, in each unleashing a pool of flame that splashed through the room.

He stood for just a second by the window; he could see half a dozen fires in the room, each feeding and leaping. Two joined to become a single larger one; then a third joined in. Through the door of the kitchen he saw bright flames.

He hoisted himself through the window, feeling the air cool and sweet in his lungs. It seemed to him that once in a battle against the Iraqis he’d been trapped in a burning building. A memory of encircling flame came to him, but he could not remember how or when. He only remembered the same joyous feeling as the cool air hit him.

Gripping the pack tightly, he cut down two alleys and was on a far street when he first heard sirens. A police car rushed by, light flashing.

Another thought came to Ulu Beg and he rationed himself one more bitter smile: for had not Jardi once made a prophecy? Some day, Jardi had promised, you’ll burn Baghdad. You’ll burn it to the ground.

As before, Jardi was right.

Ulu Beg turned and walked more quickly into the night.

28

They could see a Ford parked outside the shack.

“That’s it,” cried Roberto. “That’s their car.”

Trewitt grunted uncomfortably.

“Now go shoot those guys,” said Miguel.

“Just a minute,” said Trewitt. He looked about in the twilight and saw nothing, no policía, no other humans. It was the quiet hour in this slum. Usually there were chickens about and goats and children and old ladies and tough young men. But up and down the crooked little lane he could see nothing.

“Use that gun.” coached the younster. “You got a fifty-dollar gun. Go up there and shoot those cocksuckers.”

This kid was really beginning to get on Trewitt’s nerves. Sure, use the gun. Who do you think I am, kid, G. Gordon Liddy? An immense bitterness settled over Trewitt. His options were so bleak. It was not fair.

“Sure,” the older boy now, “go on, shoot those shitheads.”

“You just don’t go shooting people,” Trewitt instructed. But his thoughts were beginning to focus on the pistol, for there seemed no other place to focus them. He sure wasn’t going up there without it. A crappy little Beretta, probably fifty years old, older than he was, a veteran of the Abyssinian campaign, where he was a veteran of nothing beyond several libraries.