A sharp thumping like the fire of a heavy machine gun brought Omar Yussef awake with his heart racing. His glasses were cutting into the bridge of his nose. He righted them and looked around, blinking. His panic persisted a few seconds until he realized he was lying across the bed in his hotel room, his arm draped over his open suitcase, pulling it close as though the scent of lavender within could substitute for the comforting presence of his wife.
He pushed himself upright and rolled his neck with a groan. On the nightstand, the clock showed almost 7 A.M. The hammering started again. He heard a cough in the corridor and realized that someone was out there knocking. He tucked his shirt into his pants and opened the door.
“Do the windows in your room open?” Khamis Zeydan shoved past Omar Yussef.
The schoolteacher blinked at his old friend, the Bethlehem police chief. He felt dull and slow. “What’re you doing here?”
Khamis Zeydan reached behind the curtains, feeling for a catch on the window frame. “I told you half a dozen times I was coming. There’s no point explaining anything to you,” he said. “You only pay attention to Ottoman history and medieval Andalusian poetry. Our president’s visit? You remember? His speech at the UN and consultations with the Americans? I’m advising him on security issues.”
Omar Yussef shut the door and took a swig from the half-empty bottle of water on the bed. “I’m a little sleepy.”
“What’re you talking about? You’re already dressed.” The window slid back, and a strong gust of chilly air cut through the heavy warmth of the room. The cunning lines around Khamis Zeydan’s blue eyes deepened, and the ends of his nicotine-stained white mustache rose. “May Allah be praised. My windows won’t unlock. I’ve already set off the smoke alarm in my room twice this morning.” He took out a Rothmans and lit up with relish.
Omar Yussef looked around for an ashtray to give to his friend.
Khamis Zeydan shook his head. “They don’t allow it here, Abu Ramiz. In America, you have the right to carry a gun wherever you want, but you’re banned from flourishing something as lethal as a cigarette.”
Omar Yussef shivered. “Does the window have to be open quite so wide? It’s February, and this city is almost arctic. When did you arrive?”
“We landed in the middle of the night.” Khamis Zeydan shoved the window until it was open only a few inches and brushed some ash from the lapel of his navy-blue trench coat with annoyance. “Son of a whore,” he muttered.
“Why aren’t you with the president now?”
“He has meetings in his suite all morning and a lunch with some Arab diplomats. I told him that if I had to listen to all the shit they’ll talk, I might whack one of them. He sent me away to be a tourist.” Khamis Zeydan rattled phlegm in his throat, opened the window wider, and expectorated out of it. He watched the wind whip his spit along the street toward the turquoise glass of the UN building. “By Allah, we’re high up here, aren’t we?”
Omar Yussef was comforted by the arrival of his old friend. He went to the window and looked down. His head spun a little as he watched the yellow taxis threading past the double-parked black limos twenty floors down. He wondered if one of the tiny figures below was waiting for him, tracking him. He shivered. “I’m happy to see you, Abu Adel,” he said.
The habitual boldness of Khamis Zeydan’s voice receded as he reached for Omar Yussef’s hand. “Something’s wrong, my dear Abu Ramiz.”
The schoolteacher rested his forehead against the cold glass. “I found a dead man yesterday,” he murmured.
“Allah is most great,” Khamis Zeydan said. He slapped his knuckles into the gloved prosthesis he had worn since a grenade took off his left hand in the Lebanese civil war. “This is a violent city. Even so, what’re the odds that you should find yourself a bystander?”
“Not just a random body. It was Nizar Jado, one of Ala’s roommates. The police took Ala.”
“Took him? Why? Surely he’s not a suspect?”
“He refused to give an alibi. He may be in danger. He hinted that he knows about something that went on between Nizar and their other roommate, Rashid. I can’t believe Rashid is the killer; but if he were, he might try to get at Ala-to keep him from talking.”
“Nizar, eh?” Khamis Zeydan flicked his cigarette out of the window, and the wind carried it away in a brief flurry of orange sparks. He shut the window and shivered. “Where are they holding Ala?”
“At the police station, I think. I can check with the detective.” Omar Yussef took Hamza’s business card from his pocket. He sat by the phone a moment, until he remembered how to obtain an outside line, then dialed.
Immediately, Hamza picked up: “Abayat.”
“Greetings, Sergeant, this is Abu Ramiz speaking, the father of Ala Sirhan.”
“Morning of joy, ustaz.”
“Morning of light, my dear sir.”
“Did you pass a good night?”
“Fine, fine, may Allah be thanked.”
“May merciful Allah bless you.”
“Sergeant, I would like to talk to my son.”
“If Allah wills it, ustaz.”
“Yes, if Allah wills it. You told me it would be possible today.”
“If Allah wills it.”
Omar Yussef wasn’t sure if he had heard irritation or merely fatigue in the detective’s voice. “Where is he?”
“He’s at the Brooklyn Detention Complex.”
“He’s not at the police station?”
“It’s easier for us to keep them at the Detention Complex and bring them to the station for questioning when we need them.”
Them. The criminals, Omar Yussef thought. The suspects, the guilty, the people who cut off heads. But my son? “Where is this Detention Complex?”
“Atlantic Avenue.”
“That’s in Little Palestine?”
“It’s not far away. You can visit your son for up to one hour, provided the lieutenant okays it.”
Omar Yussef spoke quietly. “Hamza, my son.”
“Yes, uncle.” The detective responded to the emotion in Omar Yussef’s voice.
“Has my boy been charged?”
“No. He was questioned through the night by myself and Lieutenant Raghavan.” Hamza sighed. “You understand that we need to work very intensively on a murder case. If we don’t have a suspect within forty-eight hours, it’s likely we might never have one.”
“Have you been up all night?”
“This is the city that never sleeps, ustaz.” The detective laughed wearily. “I can’t follow the short and unpredictable office hours of the Middle East here.”
“If you come to a village where they worship a calf, gather grass and feed it.”
“As they say back home.” Hamza spoke quietly in English to someone in the room with him. Omar Yussef heard the yipping voice of the female lieutenant in the background, then Hamza came back on the line. “Lieutenant Raghavan agrees that you can talk to your son, ustaz. She’ll contact the Detention Complex. They’ll be expecting you. And, ustaz, please try to talk some sense into him. He isn’t helping anybody by clamming up.”
“Thank you, Hamza.” Omar Yussef hung up the phone.
Khamis Zeydan had gone through another Rothmans while his friend talked. He looked at Omar Yussef. “Something else on your mind?”
“I think I was followed. On the subway yesterday, coming back from Little Palestine.” He stared into the dark glass of the building across the street. Though it was early, he saw the outlines of office workers at their computers. “I’m nervous about returning to Brooklyn.”
Khamis Zeydan exhaled smoke from his nostrils. “I always knew we’d end up in jail together one day. I don’t fancy the observation deck on the Empire State Building in this cold weather, anyway. Let’s go to Brooklyn.”
As they walked along the corridor, the smoke detector whined out its electronic siren in Omar Yussef’s room.