Matt Rees - The Fourth Assassin

“My boy, you’re safe.” Omar Yussef stepped forward. “Thanks be to Allah.”

Ala pushed past his father. “I’m not safe, Dad. Was Nizar safe?” He pointed at the blood on the floor. “Was Marwan?”

“But they were involved in something bad. Drugs.”

The young man turned his intense stare on Hamza. “You’re a bastard, Abayat.”

“Another satisfied customer.” Hamza smiled with an indifference that puzzled Omar Yussef.

“A real bastard,” Ala said. “You and your tribe of gunmen have ruined my hometown and now you’re going to destroy what’s left of my life here in Brooklyn.”

Omar Yussef wanted only to get his boy away from the police. He knew Ala’s temper and realized that he’d soon explode beyond all control. “My son, what’re you talking about? Let’s go.”

“He brought me here to see what would happen when he put me in a room with Rania,” Ala said. “To see if she’d let slip some secret, and to see if I’m a part of all this.” He gestured at the blood on the floor.

“Why?”

“He thinks we killed Marwan and Nizar, of course. Me and Rania.”

Omar Yussef frowned at Hamza. “Where’s Rania?”

Hamza’s indifference seemed deeper still. “Upstairs.”

“We sat up there in silence, Dad, which must’ve disappointed this bastard.” Ala threw a hand out toward Hamza. “What did you think we’d say to each other? Two days ago I gave up the woman I loved, and at the same time her beloved was murdered. Now her father is dead. Did you think we’d put our heads together and figure out who to kill next, while you were eavesdropping?”

“It was worth a try.” Hamza made his eyes hard and empty.

Ala slapped his hand down on a steel counter.

“But, my boy, it’s over,” Omar Yussef said. “Now you’re free.”

“Free? Dad, I’m ordered not to leave the city until the police finish their investigation.” Ala’s foot slid on the smeared floor and he grabbed at his father’s shoulder to right himself.

“Don’t fall over,” Hamza said. “You’ll get covered in blood.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you son of a whore,” Ala said. “You’d be happy if this was my blood all over the tiles.”

“I’m not taking bets on whose blood will be the next to spill,” Hamza said. “But that isn’t because I don’t have a good guess. It’s only because gambling is an ‘abomination devised by Satan.’”

“Don’t quote the Koran at me. You’re not even really an Arab any more. You’re an American. Infidel bastard.”

The boy clutched Omar Yussef’s arm, like a baby who fears slipping from his parent’s embrace. His son’s tension fed through his body. Marwan Hammiya had warned him to leave Ala in the safety of the jail. In this room where Marwan had died, Omar Yussef understood that his son would be in jeopardy until the killer of Nizar and Marwan was caught. He glanced at Hamza. The meaning of the cynical smile on the detective’s lips came to him, and his eyes widened in outrage. “You’re gambling, after all-with Ala’s life. You’re releasing him because you think he’s next,” he yelled at Hamza. “You’re setting a trap for this murderer.”

“A trap?”

Omar Yussef thrust his forefinger at his son and shouted, “My boy is the bait.”

Ala stepped out of the cafe and hurried between the low snowbanks on the sidewalk. Omar Yussef would have gone after him, but he was breathless even before he reached the door, and he knew he couldn’t keep up. He returned to the kitchen and grabbed Hamza’s thick arm. “You have to protect my son,” he shouted.

“You think I should follow him?” Hamza settled back against the steel counter.

“I told you someone’s been following me. They tried to run me down on Atlantic Avenue. Whoever they are, they think I know something I shouldn’t about these murders. Now they’ll try to kill my boy too.” Rania had solved Ala’s problem with the police; but without the protection of the jail, he would now be in greater danger. Unless I can find the killer before he gets to us, Omar Yussef thought.

“Your son won’t go far.” Hamza jerked his thumb at the back stairs. Slow feet descended. Rania came to the door. “You get what I mean, ustaz? ” the detective said.

Rania was so pale that her veins showed blue through her skin, seeming to write across her face the fears she held within. She wore a long black coat cut tight around her upper body and a black mendil with a trim of gold sequins around her face. Her lips pouted and her big sullen eyes were edged with the slack purple skin of unhappiness and fatigue.

The detective reached into a large tin of olives, fished in the vinegar, and pulled out a handful. He fed one into his mouth. “Where’re you going?” he asked.

“I’m going to work,” she replied.

Omar Yussef sensed the girl’s horror as she crossed the floor, skirting the smears of her father’s blood. “Long life to you, my daughter,” he said. “May Allah be merciful upon him, the deceased one.”

Rania opened her mouth to speak the traditional response to these condolences, but her breath caught. “The Community Association will help me to arrange the funeral,” she whispered. “It’s best for me to go there as usual. I need to be with good people, Arab people.” She turned away from Hamza with a sneer.

It seemed unnatural to Omar Yussef that her father’s murder appeared to anger Rania, rather than sadden her. Perhaps it’s only her grief that makes her rage, he thought, or the detective’s suspicion .

She let Hamza see her curled lip again. “People with a heart,” she said. Her voice stammered on a strangled sob.

Hamza chewed another olive.

Rania left the kitchen, her chin up and her glassy eyes straight ahead. If Omar Yussef couldn’t keep pace with his son, he could at least follow this girl across the street. Perhaps she could tell him something that would help track the killer who now seemed a menace to Ala. Omar Yussef took a final look at the blood on the floor and went after her.

“I’ll walk you to the Community Association,” he said, rushing to reach the door before it closed behind her.

On the snowy sidewalk, Rania’s back was very straight and she balanced easily beside Omar Yussef, who was tense and unsteady. “Your father will find forgiveness in Paradise, my daughter,” he said.

“For what must he be forgiven?” Her voice was dismissive, clipped.

“Only you can know that.”

Her neck twitched backward, and her eyes rolled like a thoroughbred in the moment of restraint before its rider lets it gallop.

“And only Allah knows your father’s reward,” Omar Yussef added, “whether Paradise or Hell.”

“If it’s Hell, then my father was paid in advance long ago.” The girl crossed Fifth Avenue toward the Community Association, pulling her shoulders back. She stopped at the sidewalk to wait for Omar Yussef, something regretful in her face. “I’m certain he won’t go to Hell,” she said. “He’ll receive the reward of the martyrs.”

“If Allah wills it. But it’ll be hard to convince people that your father is honored in the Gardens of Delight, once it’s revealed that there were drugs in his kitchen,” Omar Yussef said. “It’ll damage your reputation too.”

The girl folded her arms against the cold. “Do you mean even Ala wouldn’t have me as a wife now?” she said, with a scornful smile. “Perhaps that will be his martyrdom.”

“What about Nizar? What was his reward?”

Rania turned in the doorway of the Community Association and slapped her pale hand against her breastbone. “ I was his reward,” she sobbed.