The Blue Knight (25 page)

So that was the story of old Kamian, and I didn’t doubt any of it, because I’ve known a lot of tough bastards in my time that could’ve pulled off something like that, but the thing that amazed me, that I couldn’t really understand, is how he could’ve taken the little girl with him that night. I mean he could’ve helped her, sure. But he purposely
gave
himself to her that night. After what he’d already been through, he up and
gave
himself to somebody! That was the most incredible thing about Mr. Kamian, that, and how the hell his fingers knew exactly where to go on that
oud
when there were no frets to guide them.

“You eat plenty, Bumper?” asked Yasser, who came to the table with Ahmed, and I responded by giving him a fat-cat grin and patting him on the hand, and whispering “
Shukran
” in a way that you would know meant thanks without knowing Arabic.

“Maybe you’ll convert me, feeding me like that. Maybe I’ll become a Moslem,” I added.

“What you do during Ramadan when you must fast?” laughed Yasser.

“You see how
big
Abd’s kids?” said Yasser, lifting his apron to reach for his wallet, and laying some snapshots on me that I pretended I could see.

“Yeah, handsome kids,” I said, hoping the old man wouldn’t start showing me all his grandkids. He had about thirty of them, and like all Arabs, was crazy about children.

Ahmed spoke in Arabic that had to do with the banquet room, and Yasser seemed to remember something.

“Scoose me, Bumper,” said the old boy, “I come back later, but I got things in the kitchen.”

“Sure,
Baba
,” I said, and Ahmed smiled as he watched his father strut back to the kitchen, the proud patriarch of a large family, and the head of a very good business, which Abd’s Harem certainly was.

“How old is your father now?”

“Seventy-five,” said Ahmed. “Looks good, doesn’t he?”

“Damn good. Tell me, can he still eat like he used to, say ten, fifteen years ago?”

“He eats pretty well,” Ahmed laughed. “But no, not like he used to. He used to eat like you, Bumper. It was a joy to watch him eat. He says food doesn’t taste quite the same anymore.”

I started getting gas pains, but didn’t pop a tablet because it would be rude for Ahmed to see me do that after I’d just finished such a first-rate dinner.

“It’d be a terrible thing for your appetite to go,” I said. “That’d be almost as bad as being castrated.”

“Then I never want to get
that
old, Bumper,” Ahmed laughed, with the strength and confidence of only thirty years on this earth. “Of course there’s a third thing, remember, your digestion? Got to have that, too.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Got to have digestion or appetite ain’t worth a damn.”

Just then the lights dimmed, and a bluish spot danced around the small bandstand as the drums started first. Then I was amazed to see Laila Hammad run out to the floor, in a gold-and-white belly dancer’s costume, and the music picked up as she stood there, chestnut hair hanging down over her boobs, fingers writhing, and working the
zils
, those little golden finger cymbals, hips swaying as George’s hands beat a blood-heating rhythm on the
darbuka
. Ahmed grinned at me as I admired her strong golden thighs.

“How do you like our new dancer?”

“Laila’s your dancer?”

“Wait’ll you see her,” said Ahmed, and it was true, she really was something. There was art to the dancing, not just lusty gyrations, and though I’m no judge of belly dancing, even I could see it.

“How old is she now?” I said to Ahmed, watching her mobile stomach, and the luxurious chestnut hair, which was all her own, and now hung down her back and then streamed over her wonderful-looking boobs.

“She’s nineteen,” said Ahmed, and I was very happy to see how good-looking she’d turned out.

Laila had worked as a waitress here for a few years, even when she was much too young to be doing it, but she always looked older, and her father, Khalil Hammad, was a cousin of Yasser’s, who lingered for years with cancer, running up tremendous hospital bills before he finally died. Laila was a smart, hard-working girl, and helped support her three younger sisters. Ahmed once told me Laila never really knew her mother, an American broad who left them when they were little kids. I’d heard Laila was working in a bank the last couple years and doing okay.

You could really see the Arab blood in Laila now, in the sensual face, the nose a little too prominent but just suiting her, and in the wide full mouth, and glittering brown eyes. No wonder they were passionate people, I thought, with faces like that. Yes, Laila was a jewel, like a fine half-Arab mare with enough American blood to give good height and those terrific thighs. I wondered if Ahmed had anything going with her. Then Laila started “sprinkling salt” as the Arabs say. She revolved slowly on the ball of one bare foot, jerking a hip to each beat of the
darbuka
. And if there’d been a small bag of salt tied to the throbbing hip, she would’ve made a perfect ring of salt on the floor around her. It’s a hot, graceful move, not hard at all. I do it myself to hardrock music.

When Laila was finished with her dance and ran off the floor and the applause died down I said, “She’s beautiful, Ahmed. Why don’t you con her into marrying you?”

“Not interested,” said Ahmed, shaking his head. He leaned over the table and took a sip of wine before speaking. “There’re rumors, Bumper. Laila’s supposed to be whoring.”

“I can’t believe that,” I said, remembering her again as a teenage waitress who couldn’t even put her lipstick on straight.

“She left her bank job over a year ago. Started belly dancing professionally. You never knew her when she was a real little tot. I remember when she was three years old and her aunts and uncles taught her to dance. She was the cutest thing you ever saw. She was a smart little girl.”

“Where did you hear she was tricking?”

“In this business you hear all about the dancers,” said Ahmed. “You know, she’s one of the few belly dancers in town that’s really an Arab, or rather, half-Arab. She’s no cheapie, but she goes to bed with guys if they can pay the tariff. I hear she gets two hundred a night.”

“Laila’s had a pretty tough life, Ahmed,” I said. “She had to raise little sisters. She never had time to be a kid herself.”

“Look, I’m not blaming her, Bumper. What the hell, I’m an American. I’m not like the old folks who wait around on the morning after the wedding to make sure there’s blood on the bridal sheets. But I have to admit that whoring bothers me. I’m just not that Americanized, I guess. I used to think maybe when Laila got old enough . . . well, it’s too late now. I shouldn’t have been so damn busy these last few years. I let her get away and now . . . it’s just too late.”

Ahmed ordered me another drink, then excused himself, saying he’d be back in a little while. I was starting to feel depressed all of a sudden. I wasn’t sure if the talk about Laila set it off or what, but I thought about her selling her ass to these wealthy Hollywood creeps. Then I thought about Freddie and Harry, and Poochie and Herky, and Timothy G. for goddamn Landry, but that was too depressing to think about. Suddenly for no reason I thought about Esteban Segovia and how I used to worry that he really would become a priest like he wanted to be when he returned from Vietnam, instead of a dentist like I always wanted him to be. That dead boy was about Laila’s age when he left. Babies. Nobody should die a baby.

All right, Bumper, I said to myself, let’s settle down to some serious drinking. I called Barbara over and ordered a double scotch on the rocks even though I’d mixed my drinks too much and had already more than enough.

After my third scotch I heard a honey-dipped voice say, “Hi, Bumper.”

“Laila!” I made a feeble attempt at getting up, as she sat down at my table, looking smooth and cool in a modest white dress, her hair tied back and hanging down one side, her face and arms the color of a golden olive.

“Ahmed told me you were here, Bumper,” she smiled, and I lit her cigarette, liberated women be damned, and called Barbara over to get her a drink.

“Can I buy you a drink, kid?” I asked. “It’s good to see you all grown up, a big girl and all, looking so damn gorgeous.”

She ordered a bourbon and water and laughed at me, and I knew for sure I was pretty close to being wiped out. I decided to turn it off after I finished the scotch I held in my hand.

“I was grown up last time you saw me, Bumper,” she said, grinning at my clownish attempts to act sober. “All men appreciate your womanhood better when they see your bare belly moving for them.”

I thought about what Ahmed had told me, and though it didn’t bother me like it did Ahmed, I was sorry she had to do it, or that she
thought
she had to do it.

“You mean that slick little belly was moving for ol’ Bumper?” I said, trying to kid her like I used to, but my brain wasn’t working right.

“Sure, for you. Aren’t you the hero of this whole damned family?”

“Well how do you like dancing for a living?”

“It’s as crummy as you’d expect.”

“Why do you do it?”

“You ever try supporting two sisters on a bank teller’s wage?”

“Bullshit,” I said too loud, one elbow slipping out from under me. “Don’t give me that crybaby stuff. A dish like you, why you could marry any rich guy you wanted.”

“Wrong, Bumper. I could screw any rich guy I wanted. And get paid damn well for it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Laila.”

“You old bear,” she laughed, as I rubbed my face which had no feeling whatsoever. “I know Ahmed told you I’m a whore. It just shames the hell out of these Arabs. You know how subtle they are. Yasser hinted around the other day that maybe I should change my name now that I’m show biz. Hammad’s too ordinary, he said. Maybe something more American. They’re as subtle as a boot in the ass. How about Feinberg or Goldstein, Bumper? I’ll bet they wouldn’t mind if I called myself Laila Feinberg. That’d explain my being a whore to the other Arabs, wouldn’t it? They could start a rumor that my mother was a Jew.”

“What the hell’re you telling
me
all this for?” I said, suddenly getting mad. “Go to a priest or a headshrinker, or go to the goddamn mosque and talk to the Prophet, why don’t you? I had enough problems laid on me today. Now you?”

“Will you drive me home, Bumper? I do want to talk to you.”

“How many more performances you got to go?” I asked, not sure I could stay upright in my chair if I had another drink.

“I’m through. Marsha’s taking my next one for me. I’ve told Ahmed I’m getting cramps.”

I found Ahmed and said good-bye while Laila waited for me in the parking lot. I tipped Barbara fifteen bucks, then I staggered into the kitchen, thanked Yasser, and kissed him on the big moustache while he hugged me and made me promise to come to his house in the next few weeks.

Laila was in the parking lot doing her best to ignore two well-dressed drunks in a black Lincoln. When they saw me staggering across the parking lot in their direction the driver stomped on it, laid a patch of rubber, and got the hell out.

“Lord, I don’t blame them,” Laila laughed. “You look wild and dangerous, Bumper. How’d you get those scratches on your face?”

“My Ford’s right over there,” I said, walking like Frankenstein’s monster so I could stay on a straight course.

“The same old car? Oh, Bumper.” She laughed like a kid and she put my arm around her and steered me to my Ford, but around to the passenger side. Then she patted my pockets, found my keys, got them, pushed me in, and closed the door after me.

“Light-fingered broad,” I mumbled. “You ever been a hugger-mugger?”

“What was that, Bumper?” she said, getting behind the wheel and cranking her up.

“Nothing, nothing,” I mumbled, rubbing my face again.

I dozed while Laila drove. She turned the radio on and hummed, and she had a pretty good voice too. In fact, it put me to sleep, and she had to shake me awake when we got to her pad.

“I’m going to pour you some muddy Turkish coffee and we’re going to talk,” she said, helping me out of the Ford, and for a second the sidewalk came up in my eyes, but I closed them and stood there and everything righted itself.

“Ready to try the steps, Bumper?”

“As I’ll ever be, kid.”

“Let’s get it on,” she said, my arm around her wide shoulders, and she guided me up. She was a big strong girl. Ahmed was nuts, I thought. She’d make a hell of a wife for him or
any
young guy.

It took some doing but we reached the third floor of her apartment building, a very posh place, which was actually three L-shaped buildings scattered around two Olympic-sized pools. Mostly catered to swinging singles which reminded me of the younger sisters.

“The girls home?” I asked.

“I live alone during the school year, Bumper. Nadia lives in the dorm at U.S.C. She’s a freshman. Dalai boards at Ramona Convent. She’ll be going to college next year.”

“Ramona Convent? I thought you were a Moslem.”

“I’m nothing.”

We got in the apartment and Laila guided me past the soft couch, which looked pretty good to sleep on, and dumped me in a straight-backed kitchen chair after taking off my sport coat and hanging it in a closet.

“You even wear a gun off duty?” she asked as she ladled out some coffee and ran some water from the tap.

“Yeah,” I said, not knowing what she was talking about for a minute, I was so used to the gun. “This job makes you a coward. I don’t even go out without it in this town anymore, except to Harry’s bar or somewhere in the neighborhood.”

“If I saw all the things you have, maybe I’d be afraid to go out without one too,” she shrugged.

I didn’t know I was dozing again until I smelled Laila there shaking me awake, a tiny cup of Turkish coffee thick and dark on a saucer in front of me. I smelled her sweetness and then I felt her cool hand again and then I saw her wide mouth smiling.

“Maybe I should spoon it down your throat till you get sober.”

“I’m okay,” I said, rubbing my face and head.

I drank the coffee as fast as I could even though it scalded my mouth and throat. Then she poured me another, and I excused myself, went to the head, took a leak, washed my face in cold water, and combed my hair. I was still bombed when I came back, but at least I wasn’t a zombie.