An ambulance arrived remarkably fast. The Nigerians were still watching as attendants put Stavro on a gurney and into the ambulance and drove him away. By then Frank was gone. As were the elderly couple, and the tourists photographing the mausoleum, and the men from the synagogue. Okoro looked behind him to see if the incompetent spy was still there— he’d never gotten the man’s name—but he was gone, too.

Reggae

REGGAE

Majid was waiting at the bar when Rafe walked in. The nightclub was in the Paquis, not far from his apartment, but he had never been there. A reggae band was playing on a raised stage, and people, black and white, mostly young (with some surprising exceptions), were dancing. Majid looked animated, as if he was three drinks in, but the bottle in front of him said lemon Pellegrino.

“You come here often?” Rafe asked. Majid had picked the venue. It didn’t seem like Majid’s kind of place.

Majid was smiling. He wasn’t used to feeling this way, riding this kind of wave, a wave that had peaked when he’d seen Stavro collapse back into his chair, unconscious. Defeated. Some people think all Arabs are terrorists? Well, some people are wrong, you fucking asswipe. You son of a dog. Ya ibn al kalb.

Majid noticed that Rafe was talking again. “I couldn’t hear what you said in the park, but I gather you did a good job.”

The band was singing. The harder they come . . .

“It didn’t matter what I said. I just had to get him there.”

“Yes. But even so.” Rafe waved down the bartender and ordered a Woodford. The Double Oaked. “Maybe you have a knack for it.”

“I took an improv class in Cambridge. Upstairs in Inman Square. People kept telling me I had to loosen up. I thought that would help.”

“You did? Did it?”

“It taught me how to lie with conviction. Which turned out to be useful for recruiting clients.” Majid had not stopped smiling. Rafe took another look at Majid’s drink. The bottle did say Pellegrino. Had Majid poured something else into the glass?

“Where did they take him in the ambulance?” Majid asked.

Rafe shrugged. “Not for me to know. But safe to say it wasn’t a hospital.”

“Is he alive?”

“That was the point. Alive and talking.”

“And if he doesn’t? Talk.”

“I suppose they drop him somewhere visible. Where his associates can find him.”

Majid liked that. “Yes. The people who think he stole their money. They don’t like that, do they?”

“No. And I don’t think they register their displeasure by suing.” Rafe’s bourbon arrived and he took half of it in one swallow. He was feeling pretty good, too. “You got your robots on the camels,” he said.

“Not soon enough.” Majid’s smile faded. “I never should have helped them in the first place.”