A Hologram for the King (19 page)

No, no. Probably unhelpful. All of it. But that's enough for tonight, Alan thought, and rewarded himself with a long pull.

Soon he was content, so content with siddiqi's glow.
Grandeur
, he thought.
This is grandeur
. He arranged himself on the bed, found an old Red Sox game on cable, and was out cold by nine.

In the morning, he finally got Yousef on the phone and asked if he wanted to come for a meal. No, can't, Yousef said. Not for a while. He was hiding in a cousin's house, afraid to leave. The texts from the husband
and his henchmen had hit a new level of menace.

Alan ate his lunch in the hotel restaurant, reading the
Arab News
and watching a group of businessmen, European and Saudi, at the table across the way. He heard a loud trilling laugh and looked around. A pair of women, Western, were talking to the concierge. They were wearing scarves on their heads but the rest of their clothing was uncompromising — tight pants and high heels. Their voices were too loud, bursts of cackling laughter. They were asking about beaches.

In the afternoon he went to the gym and spent an hour there, pretending at various machines, and rewarded himself with a tri-tip and the rest of the moonshine.

When he was feeling good, free of self-censor, he tried for coherence with Kit. He tried to address her concerns, her complaints, one by one. He typed madly away.

‘Kit, in your letter you mention the thing with the dog.'

Kit was six. The three of them had just left church, and the woman was walking by, led by her dog, a beagle. Ruby asked if the dog was friendly, and the woman said yes, and right then the dog went straight for Kit's face and bit her chin. What the hell! Alan had yelled, within earshot of the priest, the congregation. He'd shooed away the dog, who was cowering, whimpering, as if it knew both his crime and his fate.

‘There was blood soaking your mouth and your blue dress and you were screaming in front of hundreds of people. Yes, your mother said
“That dog will be dead by Wednesday.” I was there. I heard it, too. And the dog was indeed put down that week. I know you think it was some sign of her coldness or sadism, but…'

Alan paused. He had another long pull.

There was a terrible, clinical precision to how she said it, wasn't there? But a dog lashes out like that, bites a girl, they put it to sleep. What was Ruby's crime? Being correct?

Alan recalled the venom of those words.
That dog will be dead by Wednesday.
To have the presence of mind! In the seconds after the bite, Alan was panicking, scrambling, wondering if he should run Kit the twelve blocks to the hospital, or call 911, or put her in the car and drive her there. But Ruby was already sentencing the animal to death. That kind of calculation!

After the animal was dead, the owners sent a photo of the dog. Or dropped it off. An envelope in Alan and Ruby's mailbox, a photo of the dog inside, in happier times, wearing a bandanna around his neck.

But enough of the dog. He'd settled the matter of the dog. He poured some more, drank some more. Now there were just the matters of the DWI, the clearing of all of Kit's possessions while she was at school, the strange presence of Ruby's boyfriends at Kit's most delicate ceremonies, confirmation and graduation among them…

He was feeling good, despite the letters. He was feeling buoyant, flexible. He wanted to go jogging. He stood. He couldn't go jogging. He called room service and ordered a basket of breads and pastries. Wanting to be presentable for the waiter, he brushed his teeth and
straightened his hair, and while in front of the mirror he had a notion. He would need a safety pin.

He looked through the room's drawers and found nothing. He looked in the closet and found a sewing kit. Even better.

The bread came and he signed for it, holding his breath. He did not want trouble with the muttawa. Alan had brushed his teeth, yes, but perhaps the waiter would know. Alan glanced at him as he set the tray on the bed, but the waiter's eyes seemed benign. He was not interested in Alan, and he left, and Alan closed the door behind him and felt spectacular. He lay on the bed and ate his pastries, looking at what he'd written thus far to Kit. It made no sense.

‘I would not do what Charlie did, in case you're wondering,' he wrote, then crossed it out. Kit would not have thought such a thing in the first place. Stay focused, he thought.

‘Oh God Kit I'm sorry for that time in Greenville. I was part of that stupid decision. We were getting squeezed by the unions in Chicago and we decided to move it all to Mississippi, where we wouldn't be bothered by any organizing. Oh hell what a mess. The bikes we made there were junk. We'd tossed out a hundred years of expertise. We thought it would be more efficient and it was the opposite. And I was gone all the time. I was already onto Taiwan and China. I missed a few years there. I didn't want to be in Taiwan, did I? But everyone else was. I missed a few of your important years there and I regret that. Goddamnit. More efficient without the unions, cut em out. More efficient without American workers, period, cut em out. Why didn't I see it coming? More efficient
without me, too. Hell, Kit, we made it so efficient I became unnecessary. I made myself irrelevant.

‘But your mother was there. Whatever she's done that has displeased you I want you to know that you are who you are because of your mother because of her strength. She knew when to be the tugboat. She coined that term, Kit.
The tugboat
. She was the steady, she navigated around the dangers lurking below. You think of me now as the steady, but did you know that all that time it was your mother?'

He knew as soon as he finished writing he wouldn't send any of this. He was a mess. But so why did he feel so strong?

He went to the mirror and found the needle. He had in mind the trick when baking cakes — insert the toothpick, see what sticks. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready.

He looked for a match. He had no matches. He was drunk and tired of looking for things. The needle seemed sterile enough. Turning back to the mirror, he held the lump between with his left hand and aimed the needle with his right. He knew what it would feel like; he'd punctured the skin before. But now he needed to go deeper, deep enough that whatever cancer was there would adhere to it. Of course it would. The foreign clings to the foreign.

It would be best to go fast, he thought to himself, and plunged the needle in. The pain was acute, white-hot. He felt like he would pass out. But he stood, and he pushed the needle further. He knew he needed an inch at least. He pushed and twisted and the pain, miraculously, diminished. It was dull now, throbbing everywhere, throbbing in his heart, his fingertips, and it all felt very good.

He removed the needle and stared at it, expecting something grey or green, the colors of debasement. But he only saw red, viscous red, as the blood poured down his back in tendrils as it had before.

He felt good, he felt satisfied, as he dabbed at the blood on his back and washed the needle clean. This is progress, he thought.

The next morning would be the start of the Saudi work week. He was still half-drunk but ready to get his act together. He called Jim Wong and told him to fuck off, that there was money coming imminently, and if he wanted it he needed to grow a pair and remember they were supposed to be friends. He did ten jumping jacks and called Eric Ingvall and told him that the King was coming next week and everything would be taken care of. Ingvall couldn't prove otherwise and Alan could always retract. And anyway, Ingvall could fuck himself with a fucking disease-ridden telephone pole. Alan was feeling strong. He did two push-ups and felt stronger still.

He re-applied the bandage, finished the moonshine and got into bed.
Grandeur
, he thought, and laughed to himself. He looked around the room, at the phone, the trays, the mirrors, the towels soaked in blood. This is grandeur, he said aloud, and felt very good about it all.

I
N THE MORNING
, feeling spry, Alan took the shuttle with the young people. The sun, hotter than any other day so far, screamed obscenities from above but Alan did not listen. He talked loudly to the young people and made plans. Today, he told them, he would get at least some semblance of a timeline. Some assurances, some respect. He would check about not just the wi-fi but the air-conditioning in the tent. He felt capable this day, and because he hadn't bothered anyone in the Black Box for a while, he could stride right in, make demands and ask questions, as many as he wished.

—Whoa Alan, where's all this bluster coming from? Rachel asked.

Alan did not know.

He left the young people in the tent and strode to the Black Box.

—Hello, Maha said.

—Hello Maha. How are you? Is Karim al-Ahmad in today?

Alan heard himself speaking like a salesman from another era. His voice was loud, confident, almost overbearing.

Money! Romance! Self-Preservation! Recognition!

—No, I'm afraid not.

—And
will
he be in?

Maha seemed to look at him differently now. Now he was loud, vital, full of expectations. She appeared to cower before him.

—I don't think so, she said, meekly. He's in New York.

—He's in New York? Now Alan was almost yelling. Is Hanne in?

—Hanne?

Alan realized he didn't have her last name.

—Danish woman? Blond?

He meant it as a question but it came out like a command:
Blond!

Maha lost her footing and said nothing.

Alan saw his opening.

—I'll just go upstairs to visit her.

What had just happened? The visit with Dr. Hakem had given him some strange power. He was a healthy man! He was a strong man! Soon he would have a simple operation and would then grow stronger still, and would conquer, conquer! Blond!

And so he walked into the building and toward the elevator. Maha did nothing to stop him. He felt like he could fly up to the third floor, but instead he took the elevator. Once inside, as if it were some kind of Kryptonite chamber, he returned to his previous self, the power draining from him.

When he arrived on Hanne's floor, he found her office and found it empty. He saw no sign of her having been there at all that day.

—Can I help you?

Alan spun, and found himself looking at a young man, no more than thirty, in a black suit and a violet tie.

—I was looking for Hanne.

He tried to sound like the man he'd been in the lobby, but couldn't find the register. —The Danish consultant!

There it was. Maybe it was just volume? One notch above civilized and you sounded like a president. Immediately the man's attitude changed. He straightened, adopted a more formal face. Volume was the difference between being treated like a nobody and being treated like a man who might be important.

—I'm afraid she's in Riyadh today. Can I help you?

—Alan extended his hand. Alan Clay. Reliant.

The man shook it. —Karim al-Ahmad.

The man he'd been chasing.

—You're not in New York, Alan said.

—No I am not, al-Ahmad said.

They stood for a moment. Al-Ahmad assessed him. Alan did not blink. Finally al-Ahmad's face softened into a glossy smile. —Should we have a chat, Mr. Clay?

The conference room had an unobstructed view of the entire development. The canal was visible, the welcome center and the water beyond. Al-Ahmad had apologized for the delay in their meeting and welcomed Alan to the conference room.

—Soda? Juice?

Alan accepted a glass of water, still trying to figure out why this unattainable man was in the building when the receptionist had claimed he was not. Your receptionist said you were out today.

—I'm sorry for that error. She's new.

—Were you here the last two days?

—I was not.

Alan stared at Karim al-Ahmad. He was young and handsome and overpolished, as if sculpted from chrome and glass. His teeth were blinding, his skin had no pores. To look as he did, so crisp and well-groomed, and to speak as he did, with that posh English accent, made it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. They modeled movie villains on men like this. As if knowing Alan's thoughts, al-Ahmad did something with his face just then, twisting it into an apologetic smile, making himself just a bit less handsome.

—It's not acceptable how you have been treated thus far.

Alan liked that. Not acceptable.

—I assure you no vendor is more important to us than Reliant.

Alan decided to take him at his word. —I'm glad to hear that. But we have some issues.

—I am here to solve them.

Al-Ahmad pulled out a leather-covered notebook and fountain pen, uncapped it, and readied himself. The theatricality of it was jarring, but Alan forged on.

—We can't set up our presentation out there.

—Why not?

—We need a hard line.

—I cannot do that.