Arabesk (23 page)

What interested him most, though, was a raw, weeping graze down one cheek of his depressingly adolescent face. A surface wound only, probably from where he had hit the filthy concrete floor on blacking out. That seemed most likely. But wherever the injury had come from, it was bleeding—which was a start.

The tub of ibuprofen in his bathroom cabinet suggested one 200 mg tablet, increased to two if the pain didn’t go. ZeeZee gulped four, washed them down with a couple of bottles of cold Bud from the fridge and waited impatiently for both beer and analgesic to bite on his vomit-emptied stomach. He wasn’t brave enough to beat himself up while sober.

The first blow ZeeZee threw did no more than make his eyes water, which was less than useless, so he went back to the fridge. Maybe you had to be furious or drunk to be able to hurt yourself properly.

As a fourth Bud followed the third down the boy’s gullet and the alcohol finally began to flood his veins, ZeeZee found the courage to punch his own face. Or maybe it was the idiocy. Whichever, he slammed his face down into an upcoming punch and felt an eyebrow split.

When he stopped swearing and crying, he watched the eye socket beneath the split brow close up in front of him, as he looked into a wall mirror, seeing a naked boy squint hazily back. Now was the time to wrap ice in a dishcloth or use a packet of frozen peas. But ZeeZee did neither. Instead, he took an old Opinel knife out of a kitchen drawer and yanked open the blade. Without giving himself time to think, ZeeZee lifted the knife to his face and slashed across his chin, opening a two-inch long cut that curved under his jaw.

All he needed now was a plaster and sleep…

Winter rain against the window of ZeeZee’s bedroom woke him with a steady roll of sound, too fast to be defined as drumming. Occasionally the clatter rose as gusting wind hurled droplets like gravel straight against the glass. The temperature inside his apartment was cold enough to make even him huddle under a fourteen-tog quilt.

It was partly that his only radiator was broken but mostly the cold came from an open window. He had his years at Scottish boarding school to thank for that. In Switzerland there had been individual rooms, shower cubicles and underfloor heating. None of his Scottish dormitories had even been heated and all the windows were forever open, even when snow was falling. Fresh air and healthy living were the reasons given. Neither was true. Shut the windows and the stink of fifteen adolescents became unbearable; made worse by clouds of cheap deodorants and too much aftershave. Open windows made up for lack of washing and a once-weekly bath.

Rolling slowly out of bed, ZeeZee pulled back the curtains to give himself light and white walls that had been lost in darkness washed yellow, in the sudden sodium glare of the wet city outside. All he needed was enough light to piss—that, and another dose of analgesics. One day, of course, he’d get a real life. Probably around the time he got measured for a coffin.

Underneath its plaster, his cut had joined cleanly, the edges already lightly bound together by insoluble threads of fibrin. And now that his hands were steadier ZeeZee took time to cut and apply the neatest possible butterfly plasters. Hu San liked neat so that’s what he’d give her. As promised on the box, the plasters slowly took on the colour of his skin until they were almost invisible. All the boy could now see was a clean, neat edge to the cut beneath.

Better than perfect.

What came next? Ribs, transport and clothes. Winding a long crepe bandage round fractured ribs wasn’t something he recommended. Mostly the pain just froze his lungs but sometimes, as ZeeZee reached for the unravelling roll of bandage, neural lightning caught at his heart as well. By the end, pinpricks of sweat prickled his hairline and his whole upper body felt as if it had been bound into a nettle corset. So he chewed yet more ibuprofen, though this time round he passed on the iced beer.

Usually ZeeZee had no trouble with stuff like which clothes to wear: he bought five of everything and rotated it. But today was different. Hu San wouldn’t be expecting him at the breakfast meeting and, even if she was, she’d expect him to turn up in the usual dark suit, white shirt and red tie like he always did. Well, he was going to borrow a few of Wild Boy’s feathers.

“Seattle Taxi Service,” said a woman after he punched nine digits on his home phone from memory. “How can we improve your day…?”

“A cab from here to the Seattle Harbour Hotel,” said ZeeZee. Then told the woman where he was and when he wanted the car, which was right then.

The line went silent. “Yeah, we can do that. You going to let me see you?” This was a sight check, to see if he looked like some dustout or merely sounded like one.

“Sure.” He hit visual on his phone and the woman yelped.

“You’re naked.”

“Yeah,” agreed ZeeZee. “But I’ll be dressed by the time the cab arrives.”

Her laugh was abrupt but not really unkind. “You’d better be. Five minutes max…”

Which was what he needed, ZeeZee told himself. A countdown. He skipped on shaving because one, it would hurt and two, Hu San was obviously into rough trade. All the same, he took a razor to his jaw line. Black jacket, because that was the only colour he wore. A PaulSmith leather job, tailored but not tight. From right at the back of his small cupboard, he pulled a slate-grey silk shirt he’d bought but never worn and matched it to a pair of deep red trousers some Polish girl had given him two weeks before they split. She’d also been responsible for the silk shirt. He couldn’t recall her name but he remembered the snakeskin bag he’d bought her, the by-product of one of his random attacks of senseless guilt.

Black shoes, black tie, and finally a pair of Armani shades with smoke-grey lenses that he’d found left forgotten on a café table near Hu San’s shop. ZeeZee was dressed before the taxi arrived.

A porter rushed to open his taxi door and ZeeZee slipped the man $10. Maybe it was meant to be more, but that was what he had and it seemed quite enough to do the trick.

“HS Export,” he told the girl at the desk.

“They’ve already started,” said an older man, materializing behind her from some cubbyhole where assistant desk managers lived. He was trying hard not to stare at the cut on ZeeZee’s face and not doing a good job.

“No problem,” said ZeeZee lightly. “Have they actually started breakfast yet?”

The man looked at the girl who picked up an old-fashioned desk phone. “Yes,” she said, “I’m afraid so.” She nodded as she spoke, emphasizing the fact.

“Then perhaps you could order me Earl Grey and toast and have it brought straight in…” ZeeZee smiled before turning away. He knew which door to head for because there was a sign on it saying
HS Export—meeting in progress
and, besides, it was the same conference room every week…

“My apologies.”

Hu San looked up, saw the English boy standing stiffly in the open door and almost smiled. Saving face was something she understood.

Safe behind his shades, ZeeZee skimmed the room, editing out Victorian landscapes, Persian rugs, a large silver samovar and other examples of instant antiquity, probably bought by the yard. What ZeeZee was interested in was his audience. The one he was about to wow by doing precisely nothing.

Mostly they were suits. A couple of enforcers. Plus Wild Boy and Hu San. All sitting round a table in front of their almost-finished breakfast. Same as it ever was.

“You’re late…”

“I overslept,” ZeeZee’s voice was languid. The kind of drawl for which he used to beat up kids at school.

“Overslept?” Hu San did smile at that. “Sit down,” she told ZeeZee shortly and he did, taking the only place still free. At the other end of the long walnut table, directly opposite her.

Timing was everything in life, so the fox once said. ZeeZee waited until Hu San was in mid flow, running down a list of recent successes and the very occasional failure, pulling facts and figures alike out of her head, and then he slowly and silently took off his shades and watched her words slow, falter and finally dry up.

When she spoke her face was utterly impassive. That was how everyone sitting round the table instantly knew she was furious, though most of them still assumed it was with ZeeZee.

“What happened to your face?”

“My face?” ZeeZee’s fingers came up to caress the slight graze on his cheek, the understated scar across his chin and the dark and swollen eye that removing his shades had suddenly revealed. “I came off my bike.”

“Did you?” Hu San stood up and walked the length of the table. She didn’t even make the boy come to her. Gripping ZeeZee’s chin between her first finger and thumb, she twisted his face towards the light, only to drop her hand as pearls of blood oozed between the butterflies.

“You came off your bike?”

The boy nodded. “Sure. I had supper with a friend, drank too much and slid the Suzuki on my way home. These things happen…”

“Is the bike damaged?”

“No.” ZeeZee shook his head. “Like me, there’s hardly a scratch.”

Hu San opened her mouth to answer but whatever she intended to say was stopped by a knock on the door.

“What…”

A waitress stuck her head nervously round the doorway. Her cheeks had gone red before she’d even stepped into the crowded room. In her hands was a tray. “I’m sorry, Madame. It’s the tea and toast that
—”

“Over here,” indicated ZeeZee, flipping up one hand.

The girl walked over to where ZeeZee sat at one end of the table and silently put down the tray, leaving just as quietly. ZeeZee knew that everyone was watching him, especially Hu San. That was why he made sure his fingers didn’t shake as he carefully poured the tiniest splash of milk into his cup and followed it with Earl Grey. Then, very slowly, he started to butter his toast.

The Japanese weren’t the only people who could conduct a tea ceremony.

8th July

“Okay,” promised Raf. “Everything’s okay.”

“No,” said Hani crossly. “It’s not. How can it be?”

It was true that Madame Mila had finally gone, taking with her two uniformed policewomen and the court order she’d been trying to wave in Raf’s face. But it had taken threats to get rid of her, even if they were largely unspoken and involved not her life but her career.

“You can’t win,” Raf had said as he’d entered the courtyard and stepped between a furious Madame Mila and Hamzah’s Taureg foreman who was resolutely blocking her way.

“Can’t I?”

“No,” said Raf. “You can’t.” Leaning forward, he lifted the RayBans from her nose and smiled as the magistrate-coroner blinked in the sudden glare. “And before you try you should make sure you understand who you’re dealing with.”

“Yes. I know,” she said. “You’re a pashazade.” The anger in her voice was cut with contempt that Raf could pull rank quite that crudely.

“No,” said Raf, thinking of the fox. “I mean… Who am I? What do I do? Why am I here…?” He paused. “I suggest you have one of your pet policewomen call the precinct to find out.”

At a nod from her boss, the nearest officer flicked a switch on her belt and tapped a throat mike twice with her finger. Raf didn’t hear the question or answer but he saw the woman’s mouth tighten. Then she leaned across to whisper bad news into Madame Mila’s ear.

By now half the precinct would be claiming they’d known he was special forces all along. While a couple of the more out-and-out fantasists would be remembering when they’d met him before. Their lies turned to truth by simple unquestioning repetition. Of course, it just meant if someone did decide to come after him they’d come carrying heavier guns…

After Madame Mila left, Raf rode the lift up to the haremlek, intending to ask Hani where she wanted to live, since she didn’t want to live with Lady Jalila and her other aunt was dead. He also intended to suggest that Donna went with Hani to wherever it was. He’d keep Khartoum on to run the madersa. The old man knew which souk sold what and, besides, Raf needed someone else around. The ramshackle building was far too big for one man to live in on his own, even someone as antisocial as Raf.

By the time Raf reached Hani’s door he’d amended his plan to asking Lady Jalila for advice on good schools. There were worse places to live than away from home; and, in Hani’s case, boarding was probably her best option. Particularly as the only realistic alternative Raf could think of involved sending her to his father in Tunis or trying to find her a foster home.

“And the Djinn who was of the Only True Faith looked closely at the child asleep on the golden bed and marvelled at the loveliness of her hair that was like midnight spun into thread. And the cloth on which she lay was embroidered with pearls like tears and her nightdress was as white as moonlit clouds.”

Hani hiccupped and her screen stopped recording. Carbon dioxide cured hiccups, or so Hani had been told, so she exhaled into her cupped hands and breathed in again, inhaling cinnamon-scented breath. She didn’t really want to tell Ali-Din a story but she’d finished
Golden Road III
for the second time and she was bored. Or rather, the afternoon dragged more slowly than ever if she left it unfilled. And talking to herself kept the hurt at bay, mostly.

Hani clapped to get the computer’s attention.

“And when the Djinn saw her, he unfolded his mighty wings, saying ‘Glory to the True God. This is a creature from paradise.’ And he flew heavenwards until he met the Ifritah and said, ‘Marvel at the poor child who sleeps here in innocence. For you will see none more brave…’”

On the plate beside Hani’s screen were a few cake crumbs, not really enough to bother with but Hani scooped them up crossly, squeezed them into a sticky mass and then pushed them into her mouth. She had heard the lift whine noisily as its wire dragged over the ungreased wheel at the top of the shaft. Aunt Nafisa had promised to get the lifts serviced. That was another thing which wouldn’t come true.