George Effinger - When Gravity Fails

There was a warm, late afternoon sun-shower falling. I went to a shop nearby and bought a basket of mixed fruits, then walked back to my apartment building. I enjoyed the fresh, clean smell of the rain on the sidewalk. I saw a long black limousine waiting for me, its engine thrumming. A uniformed driver stood in the doorway of my building, out of the light rain. He saluted me as I got nearer, and he opened the expensive car’s rear door. I got in, addressed a silent prayer to Allah, and heard the door slam. A moment later the car was in motion, heading toward Friedlander Bey’s great house.

There was a uniformed guard at the gate in the high, ivy-covered wall, who passed the limousine through. The pebble-paved driveway curved gracefully through carefully tended landscaping. There was a profusion of bright tropical flowers blooming all around and, behind them, tall date palms and banana plants. The effect was more natural and more cheering than the artificial arrangements around Lutz Seipolt’s place. We drove slowly, the tires of the car making loud popping sounds on the gravel. Inside the wall, everything was quiet and still, as if Papa had succeeded in keeping out the city’s noise and clamor as well as unwanted visitors. The house itself was only two stories high, but it rambled over quite an expensive plot of midtown real estate. There were several towers — no doubt with guards in them, too — and Friedlander Bey’s home had its own minaret. I wondered if Papa kept his own, private muezzin to call him to his devotions.

The driver pulled to a stop before the wide marble stairs of the front entrance. Not only did he open the car’s rear door for me, but he also accompanied me up the stairs. It was he who rapped on the estate’s polished mahogany door. A butler or some other servant opened the door, and the driver said, “The master’s guest.” Then the driver went back to the car, the butler bowed me in, and I was standing in Friedlander Bey’s house. The beautiful door closed softly behind me, and the cool, dry air caressed my perspiring face. The house was faintly perfumed with incense.

“This way, please,” said the butler. “The master is at his prayers just now. You may wait in this antechamber.”

I thanked the butler, who sincerely wished that Allah do all sorts of wonderful things for me. Then he disappeared, leaving me alone in the small room. I walked about casually, admiring the lovely objects Papa had acquired during his long, dramatic life. At last, a communicating door opened, and one of the Stones signaled to me. I saw Papa inside, folding his prayer rug and putting it away in a cabinet. There was a mihrab in his office, the semicircular recess you find in every mosque indicating the direction of Mecca.

Friedlander Bey turned to face me, and his plump, gray face brightened with a genuine smile of welcome. He came toward me and greeted me; we proceeded through all the formalities. I offered him my gift, and he was delighted. “The fruits look succulent and tempting,” he said, putting the basket on a low table. “I will enjoy them after the sun sets, my nephew; it was kind of you to think of me. Now, will you make yourself comfortable? We must talk, and when it is proper, I beg that you will join me at breakfast.” He indicated an antique lacquered divan that looked like it was worth a small fortune. He relaxed on its mate, facing me across several feet of exquisite pale blue and gold rug. I waiting for him to begin the conversation.

He stroked his cheek and looked at me, as if he hadn’t done enough of that last night. “I can see by your coloring that you are a Maghrib,” he said. “Are you Tunisian?”

“No, O Shaykh, I was born in Algeria.”

“One of your parents was surely of Berber heritage.”

That rankled me a little. There are long-standing, historical reasons for the irritation, but they’re ancient and tedious and of no relevance now. I avoided the whole Berber-Arab question by saying, “I am a Muslim, O Shaykh, and my father was French.”

“There is a saying,” said Friedlander Bey, “that if you ask a mule of his lineage, he will say only that one of his parents was a horse.” I took that as a mild reproof; the reference to mules and asses is more meaningful if you consider, as all Arabs do, the donkey, like the dog, to be among the most unclean of animals. Papa must have seen that he had only irked me more, because he laughed softly and waved a hand. “Forgive me, my nephew. I was only thinking that your speech is accented heavily with the dialect of the Maghrib. Of course, here in the city our Arabic is a mixture of Maghrib, Egyptian, Levantine, and Persian. I doubt if anyone speaks a pure Arabic, if such a thing exists at all anywhere but in the Straight Path. I meant no offense. And I must extend a further apology, for my treatment of you last night. I hope you can understand my reasons.”

I nodded grimly, but I did not reply.

Friedlander Bey went on. “It is necessary that we return to the unpleasant subject we discussed briefly at the motel. These murders must stop. There is no acceptable alternative. Of the four victims thus far, three have been connected to me. I cannot see these killings as anything other than a personal attack, direct or indirect.”

“Three of the four?” I asked. “Certainly Abdoulaye Abu-Zayd was one of your people. But the Russian? And the two Black Widow Sisters? No pimp would dare try to coerce the Sisters. Tamiko and Devi were famous for their fierce independence.”

Papa made a small gesture of distaste. “I did not interfere with the Black Widow Sisters in regard to their prostitution,” he said. “My concerns are on a higher plane than that, although many of my associates find profit in purveying all manner of vice. The Sisters were allowed to keep every kiam they earned, and they were welcome to it. No, they performed other services for me, services of a discreet, dangerous, and necessary nature.”

I was astonished. “Tami and Devi were … your assassins?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Friedlander Bey. “And Selima will continue to take on such assignments when no other solution is possible. Tamiko and Devi were paid well, they had my complete trust and confidence, and they always gave excellent results. Their deaths have caused me no little anguish. It is not a simple matter to replace such artists, particularly ones with whom I enjoyed such a satisfactory working partnership.”

I thought this over for a little while; it wasn’t hard to accept, although the information had come as quite a surprise. It even answered a few questions I’d entertained from time to time concerning the open daring of the Black Widow Sisters. They worked as secret agents of Friedlander Bey, and they were protected; or they were supposed to be protected. Yet two had died. “It would be simpler to understand this situation, O Shaykh,” I said, musing out loud, “if both Tami and Devi had been murdered in the same way. Yet Devi was shot with the old pistol, and Tami was tortured and slashed.”

“Those were my thoughts, my nephew,” said Papa. “Please continue. Perhaps you will shed light on this mystery.”

I shrugged. “Well, even that fact could be dismissed, if other victims hadn’t been found slain in these same ways.”

“I will find both killers,” said the old man calmly. It was a flat statement of fact, neither an emotional vow nor a boast.

“It occurred to me, O Shaykh,” I said, “that the murderer who uses the pistol is killing for some political reason. I saw him shoot the Russian, who was a minor functionary in the legation of the Byelorussian-Ukrainian Kingdom. He was wearing a James Bond personality module. The weapon is the same type of pistol the fictional character used. I think a common murderer, killing out of spite or sudden anger or in the course of a robbery, would chip in some other module, or none at all. The James Bond module might provide a certain insight and skill in the business of quick, clean assassination. That would be of value only to a dispassionate killer whose acts were part of some larger scheme.”