Read Online A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lawrence Block
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one guy, the first one, he called me some names."
"I think you mentioned that."
"Raghead, sand nigger. That's a nice one, huh? Sand nigger. He left out camel jockey, that's one I used to hear from the Italian kids at St.
Ignatius. 'Hey, Khoury, ya fuckin' camel jockey!' Only camel I ever saw was on a cigarette pack."
"You think being an Arab made you a target?"
"It never occurred to me. There's a certain amount of prejudice, no question about it, but I'm not usually that conscious of it. Francine's people are Palestinian, did I mention that?"
"Yes."
"They have it tougher. I know Palestinians who say they're Lebanese or Syrian just to avoid hassles.
'Oh, you're Palestinian, you must be a terrorist.' That kind of ignorant remark, and there are people who have bigoted ideas about Arabs in general." He rolled his eyes. "My father, for instance."
"Your father?"
"I wouldn't say he was anti-Arab, but he had this whole theory that we weren't actually Arabs. Our family's Christian, see."
"I wondered what you were doing at St. Ignatius."
"There were times I wondered myself. No, we were Maronite Christians, and according to my old man we were Phoenicians. You ever hear of the Phoenicians?"
"Back in biblical times, weren't they? Traders and explorers, something like that?"
"You got it. Great sailors, they sailed all around Africa, they colonized Spain, they probably reached Britain. They founded Carthage in North Africa, and there were a lot of Carthaginian coins dug up in England. They were the first people to discover Polaris, that's the North Star, I mean to discover that it was always in the same spot and could be used for navigation. They developed an alphabet that served as the basis for the Greek alphabet." He broke off, slightly embarrassed. "My old man talked about them all the time. I guess some of it must have soaked in."
"It looks like it."
"He wasn't a lunatic on the subject, but he knew a lot about it.
That's where my name comes from. The Phoenicians called themselves the Kena'ani, or Canaanites. My name should be pronounced Keh-nahn, but everyone's always said Kee-nan."
" 'Ken Curry' is the message I got yesterday."
"Yeah, that's typical. I've ordered things on the phone and they turn up addressed to Keane & Curry, it sounds like a couple of Irish lawyers.
Anyway, according to my father the Phoenicians were a completely different people from the Arabs. They were the Canaanites, they were already a people at the time of Abraham. Whereas the Arabs were descended from Abraham."
"I thought the Jews were descendants of Abraham."
"Right, through Isaac, who was the legitimate son of Abraham and Sarah. Meanwhile the Arabs were the sons of Ishmael, who was the son Abraham fathered with Hagar. Jesus, here's something I haven't thought of in a long time. When I was a kid my father had this mild feud with this grocer around the block on Dean Street, and he used to refer to him as 'that Ishmaelite bastard.' God, what a character he was."
"Is he still living?"
"No, he died three years ago. He was diabetic, and over the years it weakened his heart. When I'm down on myself I tell myself he died of a broken heart because of how his sons turned out. He was hoping for an architect and a doctor and instead he got a drunk and a dope dealer. But that's not what killed him. His diet killed him. He was diabetic and he was fifty pounds overweight. Me and Petey could have turned out to be Jonas Salk and Frank Lloyd Wright and it wouldn't have done him any good."
AROUND six Kenan made the first of a series of phone calls after the two of us had worked out an approach. He dialed a number, waited for a tone, then punched in his own number and hung up. "Now we wait," he said, but we didn't have to wait very long. In less than five minutes the phone rang.
He said, "Hey, Phil, how's it going? Great. Here's the deal. I don't know if you ever met my wife. The thing is, we had this kidnap threat, I had to send her out of the
"I think you mentioned that."
"Raghead, sand nigger. That's a nice one, huh? Sand nigger. He left out camel jockey, that's one I used to hear from the Italian kids at St.
Ignatius. 'Hey, Khoury, ya fuckin' camel jockey!' Only camel I ever saw was on a cigarette pack."
"You think being an Arab made you a target?"
"It never occurred to me. There's a certain amount of prejudice, no question about it, but I'm not usually that conscious of it. Francine's people are Palestinian, did I mention that?"
"Yes."
"They have it tougher. I know Palestinians who say they're Lebanese or Syrian just to avoid hassles.
'Oh, you're Palestinian, you must be a terrorist.' That kind of ignorant remark, and there are people who have bigoted ideas about Arabs in general." He rolled his eyes. "My father, for instance."
"Your father?"
"I wouldn't say he was anti-Arab, but he had this whole theory that we weren't actually Arabs. Our family's Christian, see."
"I wondered what you were doing at St. Ignatius."
"There were times I wondered myself. No, we were Maronite Christians, and according to my old man we were Phoenicians. You ever hear of the Phoenicians?"
"Back in biblical times, weren't they? Traders and explorers, something like that?"
"You got it. Great sailors, they sailed all around Africa, they colonized Spain, they probably reached Britain. They founded Carthage in North Africa, and there were a lot of Carthaginian coins dug up in England. They were the first people to discover Polaris, that's the North Star, I mean to discover that it was always in the same spot and could be used for navigation. They developed an alphabet that served as the basis for the Greek alphabet." He broke off, slightly embarrassed. "My old man talked about them all the time. I guess some of it must have soaked in."
"It looks like it."
"He wasn't a lunatic on the subject, but he knew a lot about it.
That's where my name comes from. The Phoenicians called themselves the Kena'ani, or Canaanites. My name should be pronounced Keh-nahn, but everyone's always said Kee-nan."
" 'Ken Curry' is the message I got yesterday."
"Yeah, that's typical. I've ordered things on the phone and they turn up addressed to Keane & Curry, it sounds like a couple of Irish lawyers.
Anyway, according to my father the Phoenicians were a completely different people from the Arabs. They were the Canaanites, they were already a people at the time of Abraham. Whereas the Arabs were descended from Abraham."
"I thought the Jews were descendants of Abraham."
"Right, through Isaac, who was the legitimate son of Abraham and Sarah. Meanwhile the Arabs were the sons of Ishmael, who was the son Abraham fathered with Hagar. Jesus, here's something I haven't thought of in a long time. When I was a kid my father had this mild feud with this grocer around the block on Dean Street, and he used to refer to him as 'that Ishmaelite bastard.' God, what a character he was."
"Is he still living?"
"No, he died three years ago. He was diabetic, and over the years it weakened his heart. When I'm down on myself I tell myself he died of a broken heart because of how his sons turned out. He was hoping for an architect and a doctor and instead he got a drunk and a dope dealer. But that's not what killed him. His diet killed him. He was diabetic and he was fifty pounds overweight. Me and Petey could have turned out to be Jonas Salk and Frank Lloyd Wright and it wouldn't have done him any good."
AROUND six Kenan made the first of a series of phone calls after the two of us had worked out an approach. He dialed a number, waited for a tone, then punched in his own number and hung up. "Now we wait," he said, but we didn't have to wait very long. In less than five minutes the phone rang.
He said, "Hey, Phil, how's it going? Great. Here's the deal. I don't know if you ever met my wife. The thing is, we had this kidnap threat, I had to send her out of the
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