you, Sammy, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’ The truth was that despite my mother’s later claims, I remembered him as a kind and considerate man who’d loved me. I could even remember the big sad face at the window of a train in Aswan station the day he’d gone for good. In the States I’d tried to find him again, but no one, not even the USAF Records Section, seemed to have heard of a Sergeant Desmond Redfield. He seemed to have disappeared without trace, and the wife and three kids he was supposed to have had — my half-brothers or sisters — had vanished too.
‘So now you hate Americans?’ Daisy asked.
‘I don’t hate Americans,’ I said, ‘I just hate hypocrites and people coming over here telling us our jobs. There’s good and bad everywhere.’
‘What happened to you in the end?’
‘It was bad enough to live with a woman who had no money and who everybody said was a whore. But after she died there was no one to look after me. No one wanted me, I belonged to no one. I wasn’t even an Egyptian — not full-blooded anyway. I went wild, drifted on to the streets, mixed with all the other rejects. I became a regular street rat — I mean I was smoking dope and drinking neat araq before I was ten. Got initiated into a gang and into everything — mugging, pick pocketing, burglary, fights — I carried a shiv as long as my arm. Always in the shit with the cops — I mean if it hadn’t been for my mother teaching me to read and write I’d have had no schooling at all.’
‘Quite a transition — street rat to SID officer.’ She glanced sideways at my sleazy jacket. ‘Though perhaps not. Street gangs — that explains the pierced upper ear, right?’
I fingered the upper fold of my right ear self-consciously, probing for the perforation I’d received at the age of twelve — the brand that would always make me different from others. I’d been right about her spotting it, and I’d have bet money she’d clocked the dagger I wore on my left arm, too. The woman was sharp as a needle. She’d disarmed me in a split second by reaching out for my pistol with a confidence that seemed almost psychic, and a speed that defied logic. Damn Hammoudi, I thought: why the hell had he agreed to this? Daisy had what the Bedouin called guwwat al - mulahazza — an extraordinary perceptive ability. That and her unbelievable speed was a dangerous combination. Given half the chance she would blow my cover, and that was one thing Hammoudi and I couldn’t afford. If we were going to work together over the next few days, I’d have to watch my step.
I pulled my cap down firmly over the pierce mark. ‘Every gang has its own rituals. The earring in the upper right ear was ours.’
‘You should get yourself a bigger cap,’ she said, ‘or grow your hair longer. That’s what they’re designed to hide, isn’t it? Why not just have plastic surgery — it wouldn’t be much of a job these days. I mean, if you’re so ashamed of it, why keep it?’
‘Let’s say it’s because it reminds me of where I came from and who I really am.’
‘And that blade you’re wearing on your left arm. That a souvenir from your street kid days, too?’
I smiled and slid the razor sharp, double edged stiletto from under the cuff of my sweatshirt, showing Daisy its bone handle, intricately and beautifully carved. ‘How’d you guess?’
‘All the time I had a bead on you, you remained completely confident. Most people — even the most macho types — go apeshit when they look into the muzzle of a firearm they know could blow their brains out. But you behaved as if you still had the jump on me and that had to mean you’d got another weapon on you. Then I clocked a bulge in the leather of your jacket above the left wrist. Whatever was there was too small to be a gun, so it had to be a knife. That’s a pretty unpolice-like weapon. I never knew a cop who wore a knife before.’
‘Welcome to Egypt,’ I said, putting the blade
‘So now you hate Americans?’ Daisy asked.
‘I don’t hate Americans,’ I said, ‘I just hate hypocrites and people coming over here telling us our jobs. There’s good and bad everywhere.’
‘What happened to you in the end?’
‘It was bad enough to live with a woman who had no money and who everybody said was a whore. But after she died there was no one to look after me. No one wanted me, I belonged to no one. I wasn’t even an Egyptian — not full-blooded anyway. I went wild, drifted on to the streets, mixed with all the other rejects. I became a regular street rat — I mean I was smoking dope and drinking neat araq before I was ten. Got initiated into a gang and into everything — mugging, pick pocketing, burglary, fights — I carried a shiv as long as my arm. Always in the shit with the cops — I mean if it hadn’t been for my mother teaching me to read and write I’d have had no schooling at all.’
‘Quite a transition — street rat to SID officer.’ She glanced sideways at my sleazy jacket. ‘Though perhaps not. Street gangs — that explains the pierced upper ear, right?’
I fingered the upper fold of my right ear self-consciously, probing for the perforation I’d received at the age of twelve — the brand that would always make me different from others. I’d been right about her spotting it, and I’d have bet money she’d clocked the dagger I wore on my left arm, too. The woman was sharp as a needle. She’d disarmed me in a split second by reaching out for my pistol with a confidence that seemed almost psychic, and a speed that defied logic. Damn Hammoudi, I thought: why the hell had he agreed to this? Daisy had what the Bedouin called guwwat al - mulahazza — an extraordinary perceptive ability. That and her unbelievable speed was a dangerous combination. Given half the chance she would blow my cover, and that was one thing Hammoudi and I couldn’t afford. If we were going to work together over the next few days, I’d have to watch my step.
I pulled my cap down firmly over the pierce mark. ‘Every gang has its own rituals. The earring in the upper right ear was ours.’
‘You should get yourself a bigger cap,’ she said, ‘or grow your hair longer. That’s what they’re designed to hide, isn’t it? Why not just have plastic surgery — it wouldn’t be much of a job these days. I mean, if you’re so ashamed of it, why keep it?’
‘Let’s say it’s because it reminds me of where I came from and who I really am.’
‘And that blade you’re wearing on your left arm. That a souvenir from your street kid days, too?’
I smiled and slid the razor sharp, double edged stiletto from under the cuff of my sweatshirt, showing Daisy its bone handle, intricately and beautifully carved. ‘How’d you guess?’
‘All the time I had a bead on you, you remained completely confident. Most people — even the most macho types — go apeshit when they look into the muzzle of a firearm they know could blow their brains out. But you behaved as if you still had the jump on me and that had to mean you’d got another weapon on you. Then I clocked a bulge in the leather of your jacket above the left wrist. Whatever was there was too small to be a gun, so it had to be a knife. That’s a pretty unpolice-like weapon. I never knew a cop who wore a knife before.’
‘Welcome to Egypt,’ I said, putting the blade
Similar Books
