A Fire in the Sun (23 page)

Hajjar's eyes narrowed. "I didn't say anything about Abu Adil, did I? You'd better lay off him. I'm talkin' about this dink, On Cheung. The baby seller. Can't afford to let his trail get cold."

I felt a cold chill pass through me. "Anybody can follow up on On Cheung," I said. "I got a special interest in finding Paul Jawarski."

"Martd Audran, Man on a Mission, huh? Well, forget it. We don't need you roarin' around the city workin' off your grudge. Anyway, you ain't shown me yet that you know what you're doin'. So I'm assignin' you a new partner, somebody with a lot of experience. This ain't some ladies' volunteer club, Audran. You do what I tell you. Or don't you think puttin' On Cheung out of commission is worth your time?"

I gritted my teeth. I didn't like the assignment, but Hajjar was right about it being just as important as collaring Jawarski. "Whatever you say, Lieutenant."

He gave me that same grin. I wanted to whack it off his face. "You'll be ridin' around with Sergeant Catavina from now pn. He ought to teach you plenty."

My heart sank. Of all the cops in that station house, Catavina was the man I least wanted to spend time with. He was a bully and a lazy son of a bitch. I knew that if we ever did catch up to On Cheung, it wouldn't be because of Catavina's contributions.

The lieutenant must have read my reaction from my expression. "Any problem with that, Audran?" he asked.

"If I had a problem, is there any chance it would change your mind?"

"None whatsoever," said Hajjar.

"Didn't think so."

Hajjar looked back at the screen of his data deck. "Report to Catavina. I want to hear some good news real soon. You cut the legs out from under this dink, there may be commendations for the two of you."

"I'll get right on it, Lieutenant," I said. I was impressed with Hajjar's cleverness. He'd skillfully maneuvered me away from both Abu Adil and Jawarski by throwing me into a time-consuming but perfectly valid investigation. I was going to have to find a way to accomplish both my official assignment and my own personal goals.

Hajjar paid no further attention to me, so I left his office. I went to find Sergeant Catavina, I'd rather proceed without him, but that wasn't going to be possible.

Catavina wasn't that excited about being paired with me, either. "I already got the word from Hajjar," he told me. We were walking down to the garage, to pick up Catavina's patrol car. Catavina was trying to give me the benefit of all his years' experience in one disjointed lecture. "You ain't a good cop, Audran," he said in a grim voice. "You may never be a good cop. I don't want you fucking up with me like you fucked up Shaknahyi."

"What's that mean, Catavina?" I asked.

He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. "Figure it out. If you'd known what you was doing, Shaknahyi'd still be alive and I wouldn't have to be holding your hand. Just stay out of my way and do what I tell you."

I was mad as hell, but I didn't say anything. I planned to stay out of his way, all right. I figured I'd have to lose Catavina if I wanted to make any progress.

We got into the patrol car, and he had nothing more to say to me for a long while. That was okay with me. I thought he might drive back to the neighborhood where On Cheung was last known to have operated. Maybe we could learn something useful by interviewing those people again, even though they'd been so uncooperative before.

That wasn't his plan, however. He headed west, in the opposite direction. We drove about a mile and half through an area of narrow, twisting streets and alleys. At last, Catavina pulled up in front of a crumbling apartment building, the tallest building on the block. The windows on the ground floor had been covered over with plywood, and the front door into the foyer had been taken off" its hinges. The walls inside and out were covered with spray-painted names and slogans. The lobby reeked; it had been used as a toilet for a long time. As we crossed to the elevator, we crunched broken glass beneath our boots. There was a thick layer of dust and grit over everything.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

"You'll see," said Catavina. He punched the button for the elevator. When it arrived, I was hesitant about getting in. The condition of the building didn't give me any confidence that the cables would hold our weight. When the elevator asked what floor we wanted, Catavina muttered "Eight." We looked away from each other as the door slid closed. We rode in silence, the only noise coming from the elevator as it creaked its way upward.

We got out on the eighth floor, and Catavina led the way down the dark hallway to room 814. He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door.

"What's this?" I asked, following him into the seedy apartment.

"Police officers' lounge," said Catavina.

There was a large living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. There wasn't much furniture—a cheap card table and six chairs in the living room, along with a torn black vinyl couch, a small holoset, and four folding cots. There were uniformed cops asleep on two of the cots. I recognized them but didn't know their names. Catavina dropped heavily onto the couch and stared at me across the bare floor. "Want a drink?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Bring me some whiskey then. There's ice in the kitchen."

I went into the kitchen and found a good collection of liquor bottles. I tossed a few ice cubes into a glass and poured in three fingers of raw Japanese liquor. "So what are we doing here," I called, thinking of the department's motto, "protecting or serving?" I carried the drink back into the living room and handed it to Catavina.

"You're serving," he said, grunting. "I'm protecting."

I sat down in one of the folding chairs and stared at him, watching him down half the Japanese whiskey in one long gulp. "Protecting what?" I asked.

Catavina smiled contemptuously. "Protecting my ass, that's what. It ain't gonna get shot up while I'm here, that's for damn sure."

I glanced at the two sleeping cops. "Gonna stay here long?"

"Till the shift's over," he said.

"Mind if I take the car and get some work done in the meantime?"

The sergeant looked at me over the rim of his whiskey glass. "Why the hell you want to do that?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Shaknahyi never let me drive."

Catavina looked at me like I was crazy. "Sure, just don't smash it up." He dug in his pocket and fished out the car keys, then tossed them to me. "You better come back and pick me up by five o'clock."

"Right, Sergeant," I said. I left him staring at the holoset, which wasn't even turned on. I rode the elevator back down to the filthy lobby, wondering what I was going to do next. I felt an obligation to find something that might lead me to On Cheung, but instead it was Jirji Shaknahyi who occupied my mind.

His funeral had been the day before, and for a while I thought I'd just stay home. For one thing, I didn't know if I was emotionally settled enough to handle it; for another, I still felt partly responsible for his death, and it didn't seem right for me to attend. I didn't want to face Indihar and the children under those circumstances. Nevertheless, on Thursday morning I went to the small mosque near the station house where the memorial was being held.

Only men were permitted to participate in the worship service. I removed my shoes and performed the ritual ablutions, then entered the mosque and took a place near the back. A lot of the other cops in the congregation seemed to be looking at me with vengeful expressions. I was still an outsider to them, and in their eyes I might as well have pulled the trigger that killed Shaknahyi.

We prayed, and then an elderly, gray-bearded imam delivered a sermon and a eulogy, going through some weary truisms" about duty and service and bravery. None of it made me feel any better. I was truly sorry that I'd talked myself into attending the service.

Then we all got up and filed out of the mosque. Except for some birds singing and a dog barking, it was almost supernaturally quiet. The sun burned down from a high, cloudless sky. A faint, tremulous breeze rippled the dusty leaves in the trees, but the air was almost too hot to breathe. The odor of spoiled milk hung like a sour mist over the cobblestone alleys. The day was just too oppressive to draw the business, out much longer. I'm sure Shaknahyi'd had many friends, but right now they all just wanted to get to the graveyard and get him planted.

Indihar led the procession from the mosque to the cemetery. She was dressed in a black dress with her face veiled and her hair covered with a black kerchief. She must have been stifling. Her three children walked beside her, their expressions bewildered and frightened. Chiri had told me that Indihar hadn't had enough money to pay for a tomb in the cemetery in Haffe al-Khala where Shaknahyi's parents were buried, and she wouldn't accept a loan from us. Instead, Shaknahyi was laid to rest in what amounted to a pauper's grave in the cemetery on the western edge of the Budayeen. I followed far behind her as Indihar crossed the Boulevard il-Jameel and passed through the eastern gate. People who lived in the quarter as well as foreign tourists came out and stood on the sidewalks as the funeral party made its way up the Street. I could see many people weeping and murmuring prayers. There was no way to tell if those people even knew who the deceased was. It probably didn't make any difference to them.

All of Shaknahyi's former comrades wanted to help carry the particleboard coffin through the streets, so instead of six pallbearers there was a pushing, shoving mob of uniformed men all straining to reach the flimsy box. The ones who couldn't get near enough to touch it marched alongside and in a long parade to the rear, beating their chests with their fists and shouting testaments of their faith. There was a lot of chanting and fingering of Muslim rosaries. I found myself moving my lips along with the others, reciting ancient prayers that had been inscribed in my memory as a young child. After a while, I too was caught up in the odd mixture of despair and celebration. I found myself praising Allah for visiting so much injustice and horror on our helpless souls.

In the cemetery, I kept my distance again as the unadorned coffin was lowered into the ground. Several of Shaknahyi's closest friends on the police force took turns shoveling in dirt. The mourners offered more prayers in unison, although the imam had declined to accompany the funeral to its conclusion. Indihar stood bravely by, clutching the hands of Hakim and Zahra, and eight-year-old Little Jirji held tightly to Hakim's other hand. Some representative of the city went up to Indihar and murmured something, and she nodded gravely. Then all of the uniformed police officers filed past and offered her their individual condolences. That's when I saw Indihar's shoulders begin to slump; I could tell that she had begun to weep. Meanwhile, Little Jirji looked out over the crumbling tombs and overgrown grave markers, his expression perfectly blank.

When the funeral was over, everyone left but me. The police department had provided a small spread of food at the station house, because Indihar didn't have the money for that, either. I saw how humiliating the whole situation was for her. Besides grieving for her husband, Indihar also suffered the pain of having her poverty revealed to all her friends and acquaintances. To many Muslims, an unworthy funeral is as much a calamity for the survivors as the death of the loved one itself.

I chose not to attend the reception at the station house. I stayed behind, staring down at Jirji's unmarked grave, my mind confused and troubled. I said a few prayers alone and recited some passages from the Qur'an. "I promise you, Jirji," I murmured, "Jawarski won't get away with this." I didn't have any illusions that making Jawarski pay would let Shaknahyi rest any easier, or make Indihar's grief any less, or ease the hardships for Little Jirji, Hakim, and Zahra. I just didn't know what else to say. Finally I turned away from the grave. I blamed myself for my hesitancy, and prayed that it wouldn't lead to anyone else getting hurt ever again.

The funeral was on my mind as I drove from Catavina's secret coop back to the station house. I heard the rolling rumble of thunder, and it surprised me because we don't get many thunderstorms in the city. I glanced through the windshield up at the sky, but there were no clouds at all in sight. I felt an odd chill, thinking that maybe the thunder had been a humbling sign from God, underscoring my memories of Shaknahyi's burial. For the first time since his death, I felt a deep emotional loss.

I also began to think that my idea of vengeance would not be adequate. Finding Paul Jawarski and bringing him to justice would neither restore Shaknahyi nor free me from the intrigue in which Jawarski, Reda Abu Adil, Friedlander Bey, and Lieutenant Hajjar were somehow involved. In a sudden realization, I knew that it was time to stop thinking of the puzzle as one large problem with one simple solution. None of the individual players knew the entire story, I was certain of that. I'd have to pursue them separately and assemble what clues I could find, hoping that in the end it would all add up to something indictable. If Shaknahyi's hunches were wrong and I was heading off on a fool's errand, I would end up worse than disgraced. I would surely end up dead.

I parked the copcar in the garage and went up to my cubicle on the third floor of the station house. Hajjar rarely left his glass booth, so I didn't think there'd be much chance that he'd catch me. Catch me! Hell, all I was doing was getting some work done.

It had been a couple of weeks since I'd done any serious work at my data deck. I sat down at my desk and put a new cobalt-alloy cell-memory plate in one of the computer's adit ports. "Create file," I said.

"File name," prompted the data deck's indifferent voice.

"Phoenix File," I said. I didn't have a lot of actual information to enter. First I read in the names from Shaknahyi's notebook. Then I stared at the monitor screen. Maybe it was time to follow up on Shaknahyi's research.

All of the satellite decks in the station house were connected to the central police database. The problem was that Lieutenant Hajjar had never entirely trusted me, and so I'd been given only the lowest security clearance. With my password, I could only obtain information that was also available to any civilian who came in the front door of the station house and inquired at the information desk. However, in the months I'd worked at the copshop, I'd casually nosed out all the codes from other paper-pushers with higher ratings. There was a great and active underground involved with circulating classified information among the nonuniformed staff. This was technically highly illegal, of course, but in actual fact it was the only way any of us could get our jobs done. "Search," I said.