“Is still okay.”

There was a pause. Aziz stomped his foot. The night cold bit at his ears. How to touch here and not there, to nudge Ghazi where he could get a better look at him without Ghazi noticing. He thought of hinting at Soumeya, but no, not yet. Besides, Rafik would be driving up soon. Or maybe not. Rafik with his women. Aziz guessed Heather knew and no longer cared. But Rafik—it might help to find where Ghazi stood on him.

“Listen. Rafik, he—”

“Tunisia,” Ghazi said quickly.

“So you know,” Aziz said, surprised.

“Yes,” Ghazi said.

“Do they know back home?”

“Who, his parents? No.”

“You learned of it from—?”

Ghazi’s face was blank. “One who was with Rafik in Tunisia,” he said.

Aziz knew it would be strange in Ghazi’s eyes to ask more. He veered instead.

“He is still . . . Rafik.” Aziz shook his head. “I worry. I have smelled hash. The clothes. The suitcases.”

“Suitcases?”

“Heavy. Locked. Maybe hash. Maybe something else. I know he is stealing suits. And underwear.”

“Underwear?”

“French and Italian. Steal here, sell somewhere else.”

“Underwear,” Ghazi mused. “An opportunity I had not imagined.”

Aziz had to laugh. Ghazi shook his head and smiled.

“Goddamn,” he said.

“Kamal is in it with him,” Aziz said.

“Kamal?”

“Kamal Gamal. He knew him in Paris.”

“Not from Arzew?”

“No.”

“Where?”

Aziz had no idea. He raised his shoulders and shook his head. It worried him, now that Ghazi asked, that he did not know.

“Kamal—how can I tell you?” Aziz said. “He lived with Rafik. Went after Heather with a chair. There was some fight long between them. Hit me by mistake trying for her. After that, he left.” It was too much to tell of the hospital, the burns, Linda, the move.

“For Paris.”

“No, somewhere in East Boston. At a girlfriend’s place. Brazilian one. He drives a cab.”

Ghazi blew on his reddened knuckles for warmth. “So Mourad made Rafik get rid of the hash.”

“No, I did. But now I think he rents a storage.”

“A storage?”

“Here they have businesses where you rent a small room and get a key and put things in it. Rafik has one.”

“We will steal the key and find out what is in it.”

“Cousin, we—” Aziz began. Ghazi made these jumps.

“I think we will do this.”

“But he will know.”

“He will not know.”

“I do not want to know.”

Just then Aziz saw Rafik approaching in Heather’s BMW. “He is here,” Ghazi said, as if that settled it. Aziz felt stiff. He had turned wrong in the conversation. Fixing it was unlikely.

Rafik opened the car door and the radio blasted into the coldness. He turned it down and gave Ghazi a slap on his back, saying, “You need the kind of hot I just had.” Ghazi did not grin, as Rafik wanted him to; Aziz could tell Ghazi was calculating.