When Gravity Fails

I was reluctant to set foot in the Red Light because I didn’t get along with either Fatima or Nassir, so I was last in our little group to sit down. We took a table away from the bar. They kept it as dark in there as Chiri kept her place. There was a heavy, sour smell of spilled beer. A hatchet-faced redhaired girl was dancing onstage. She had a nice little body unless your gaze strayed up past her neck. What she did on stage was designed to keep your attention away from her defects and focused intently on what she had to sell. Fanya, her name was, I remembered. They called her “Floor-show Fanya,” because her notion of dance was mostly horizontal, rather than in the customary upright position.

It was still early in the night, so we ordered beers, but virile old Saied the Half-Hajj, still listening to his manly moddy, got himself a double shot of Wild Turkey to go with his beer. No one asked the undernourished Fuad if he wanted anything. “That’s her over there,” he said in a loud whisper, pointing to a short, plain girl who was working on a European in a business suit.

“She’s no girl,” said Mahmoud. “Fuad, she’s a deb.”

“Don’t you think I can tell the difference between a boy and a girl?” responded Fuad hotly. No one wanted to voice an opinion about that; as far as I was concerned, it was too dark for me to read her yet. I’d know later, when I saw her better.

Saied didn’t even wait for his drink. He stood up and sort of strolled over to Joie. You know, “nothing can touch me because, deep inside, I’m Attila the Hun, and all you other faggots better watch your asses.” He engaged Joie in conversation; I couldn’t hear a word, and I didn’t want to. Fuad followed the Half-Hajj like a pet lamb, piping up in his shrill voice now and then, agreeing vigorously with Saied or denying vigorously the new whore.

“I don’t know nothing about this chump’s thirty kiam,” she said.

“She’s got it, look in her purse,” screeched the Unlucky One.

“I got more than that, you son of a bitch,” cried Joie. “How you go

Tempers were igniting fast. The Half-Hajj had the sense to turn and send Fuad back to our table, but Joie followed the scrawny fellah, pushing him and calling him all kinds of foul names. I thought Fuad was almost on the verge of tears. Saied tried to pull Joie away, and she turned on him. “When my people gets here, he’s go

The Half-Hajj gave her one of his little, heroic smiles. “We’ll see about that when he gets here,” he said calmly. “In the meantime, we’re giving my friend here his money back, and I don’t want to hear about you shaving him or any of my other friends again, or you’ll have so many cuts on your face you’ll have to turn tricks with a bag over your head.”

It was at just this moment, with Saied holding Joie’s wrists together, with Fuad standing on her other side, blithering loudly into her ear, that Joie’s pimp came into the bar. “Here we go,” I murmured.

Joie called to him and quickly told him what was happening. “These cocksuckers are trying to take my money,” she cried.

The pimp, a big, one-eyed Arab named Tewfik who everybody called Courvoisier So

Saied strolled back to our table. “She is a deb,” he said. “Just a man in a dress.” He and So

“Your ugly, thieving, syphilitic whore took thirty kiam of my friend’s money,” said Saied in the same soft voice as So

“You go

“Praise Allah,” said Mahmoud sadly, “it has turned into an affair of honor. It was a lot simpler when it was just larceny.”

“I won’t let nobody call you nothing, girl,” said So

“Make me,” said Saied, smiling.

Mahmoud, Jacques, and I grabbed our beers and got halfway out of our seats; we were too late. So

I heard So

Joie began to scream, again and again; someone finally slapped her a few times, and she shut up. At last Fatima called Nassir out of the back room, and he called the police. The rest of us just sat down at another table. The music stopped, the girls went into their dressing room, the customers slipped out of the bar before the police could arrive. Mahmoud went to Fatima and got a pitcher of beer for us.

Sergeant Hajjar took his time coming around to see the aftermath. When he arrived at last, I was surprised to see that he’d come alone. “What’s that?” he asked, indicating So

“Dead pimp,” said Jacques.

“They all look the same, dead,” said Hajjar. He noticed the blood splashed all over everything. “Big guy, huh?”

“So

“Oh, that motherfucker.”

“He died for thirty lousy kiam,” said Saied, shaking his head unbelievingly.

Hajnar looked around the bar thoughtfully, then looked straight at me. “Audran,” he said, stifling a yawn, “come with me.” He turned to walk back out of the bar.

“Me?” I cried. “I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“With what?” asked Hajjar, puzzled.

“With that knifing.”

“The hell with the knifing. You got to come with me.” He led me to his patrol car. He didn’t care at all about this murder. If some rich-bitch tourist gets done in, the police break their buns lifting fingerprints and measuring angles and interrogating everybody twenty or thirty times. But let someone nip this gorilla one-eyed stable-boss or Tami or Devi, and the cops act as bored as an ox on a hill. Hajjar wasn’t going to question anybody or take pictures or anything. It wasn’t worth his time. To the officials, So