In the Kingdom of Men (38 page)

I heard ice drop into a glass, heavy steps come from the kitchen, and looked up to see Ross Fullerton, in his hand a deep shot of whiskey.

“Virginia,” he said, his voice nearly jolly. “Virginia Mae McPhee. Mind if I sit?” Before I could answer, he lowered himself into the chair, settled his hat atop his knee. A welter of sweat ringed his forehead.

I sat up straight, working to keep the surprise from my face. “Where is Yash?” I asked.

Ross pulled out a half-smoked cigar, rubbed it around in the ashtray. “I sent him on out,” he said. “Back home.”

“But I haven’t had my dinner,” I said, as though that were the thing that mattered.

“I bet you can make yourself a sandwich.” He grimaced a smile. “Houseboys are a dime a dozen around these parts. One starts riding the ladies’ bus, forgetting his place, it’s time for him to move on.” Ross’s upper lip jumped like it was hooked to a string.
“Candy told me he spent the night here with your husband gone, but sometimes she imagines things.”

I looked to the kitchen. I wanted to leap up right then, shout throughout the house, believe that Yash would appear around the corner at any moment. I wanted to say that it was all my fault, to take the blame, but I knew it wouldn’t change a thing. I could feel Ross watching me, gauging my reaction.

“Where is Mason, Ross?” I asked. “Where is he?”

Ross shoveled deeper into the chair. “Well, now, I was hoping you might tell me.” He pooched his lips, rubbed his fingers and thumb together. “It’s not uncommon for a man to need some time to think things over.” He lit his cigar, gave it a long pull. “Only thing is, we made a deal, and now he’s left me in a lurch.” He squinted, then heaved a pained sigh. “Hell, Ginny Mae, he’s got us all confounded. Maybe he just took a powder, lit out for the territories. Wouldn’t be the first roughneck I’ve seen do it. Run like the nomads that way.” He moved the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “All I know is that his passport is sitting in Dhahran.”

I saw the way he flattened the beefy expanse of one hand against his knee, like he was covering a card. I knew better than to trust him. I kept my eyes down, rubbed the knobs of my knuckles—pretending the timid company wife I could never be.

“Are you going to make me leave?” I asked.

“You’re part of the family, Ginny Mae. You know that Mother Aramco takes care of her own.” He studied me from the fleshy puddles of his cheeks, then looked around the room. “Knew Buck Bodeen since the beginning,” he said. “He was a friend, a good one.” He squinted one eye shut and sighted down the crease of his hat. “When I found out he was mixed up with Alireza, I knew it was big trouble. I had to get him out of here.” When I looked up, Ross wiped his nose, cleared his throat. “Thought I had more time to get things back in order, get the plant working the way it needed to be, but I was wrong.” He raised his face, his jowls sacked
with regret. “It’s as much my fault as anyone’s that Burt Cane and those other men are dead. The best I can do now is try to set things right. I trust you’ll help me out, tell me what you know.”

“I know that Lucky was in on the deal,” I said.

Ross blinked once. “Who told you that?”

I hesitated, not sure how much I should reveal. “Lucky told me,” I said, “after Ruthie died.”

He rolled his tongue, shook his head. “Goddamned Cajuns,” he said, almost to himself, “always running the endgame.” He cast his eyes to the ceiling, ran his hand back and forth over his head like he was buffing a shoe. “Damn it,” he said. “Damn it to hell.”

He grew quiet, and in the momentary silence, I heard the rhythmic pull of Faris’s rake across the lawn.

“I’m afraid there’s been some trouble,” Ross said, and looked at me with his hangdog eyes, let me see just how sorry he was.

“The girl they found dead,” I said.

He tilted his head to see me better. “What about her?” he asked.

“She was Abdullah’s sister,” I said. “I know they think someone killed her, but Mason didn’t do it. He’s being set up.”

“Set up.” Ross clicked his jaw to one side and then the other. “Now, where would you get an idea like that?” I could tell by his tone, the flatness of his gaze that he knew just where I had been, that I had been talking to Carlo. A cold dread prickled up the back of my neck as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Here’s the thing, Ginny Mae,” he said. “If that boy of yours thought he could waltz into this mess and play sheriff, well, that would be some special kind of foolishness, and maybe all the reason that Alireza needed to kill that girl.”

I focused on my fingers, twisted the diamond ring, and felt the rasp of sand underneath. The corners of Ross’s mouth arched into a cramp, and he poked the handkerchief back in his pocket.

“What I’m saying is that if you got any information that
might help me, you’d better give it right now, because I’ll tell you this—” He nodded and his voice graveled. “—if we don’t find that husband of yours first, we might not find him at all.”

I moved my eyes to the floor, afraid that Ross could somehow see that I was thinking about Lucky and the
Arabesque
, the last hope I had. He studied me for a long moment, fingering his cigar, then took up his hat.

“Heard the gales hit ninety during that last
shamal
,” he said, “waves running twenty feet. You’d have to be a brass-balled cowboy to wrangle that ride.” He ignored the shock that crossed my face when I realized he must already know about the boat and rocked himself to a stand, wincing with the effort. “This place saps the vinegar right out of you,” he said. He paused beside me, tapped two heavy fingers against my collarbone. “Probably best if you stay inside, lock your doors.” He clucked his tongue as though it was a pity. “Desperate men,” he said. “I’ve seen them do some desperate things.”

I heard the door swing open, click shut. A hot breeze shot through, scattering the ash of his cigar. I stared at his empty glass until I could focus again, remember my plan. I would take Bodeen’s ledger, find some way to reach the emir, get to Alireza before he or anyone else could get to Mason.

I rose and went to the study, pushed open the door. Why was I surprised at what I saw? The books pulled from their shelves, the drawers dumped out, the files rifled, my photographs tossed aside. The miniature ship lay in the shards of its bottle, the mast snapped in two. The red leather ledger was gone.

How long did I stand there, dazed, unblinking, before going back to the entryway, already knowing what I would find? My purse, my identification card, my camera and film, the few riyals Yash had given me—Ross had taken them all. I slumped against the wall and remembered my mother in the last throes of her life, taken by morphine, the wildness in her eyes gone dull, like the
eyes of the animals my grandfather killed for meat. More than anything, I wanted to escape the pain and confusion, find that smoke-gray place of nothingness.

Please, I thought, and realized that I was praying.

I willed myself upright and moved through the house, past the familiar furniture, the hi-fi, the tapestry on the wall. I opened the blinds on every window and watched the hot light spill in.

Set it all afire, I thought.

Burn it all to ash.

The everyday rites of survival, the actions that become ritual—so often, they are what saves us.

I remember how I took Ross’s glass to the kitchen and scoured it with soap until it squeaked and smelled like lemons. I brewed a pot of tea, raised the cup to my face, and breathed in, wishing I had drunk every drop that Yash had offered. In the refrigerator, I found what remained of the curried shrimp he had made for me and savored it like a last meal. I remembered the liquor in the cupboard that Lucky had brought from Bahrain, how he said we would celebrate when all this was over, and poured myself a shot. I raised the glass, whispered,
“A la sature,”
and swallowed it down.

I went to the linen closet, pulled out a folded towel, then stopped to consider the tapestry: a flowering field of French knots and raised roses, tight satin stitches filling the body of the white unicorn. I ran my fingers along the silken thread, thought of all the hours Betsy Bodeen had sat in this house, plying her needle and thread even as her life was unraveling just as mine was now. What had the unicorn meant to her, captured as it was in its small
pen?
A representation of Christ
, Mason had said,
alive again
. When had I ever known such faith?

I took a shower so cold that my teeth chattered and my lips turned blue, rubbed myself dry, pulled on Mason’s work shirt and jeans, dropped the fob Abdullah had given me in my pocket, and toed into my mother’s boots. I combed my wet hair, tied on a scarf. I knew I was going somewhere. I didn’t know where that somewhere might be.

The knock at the back door startled me with expectation, and then fear, but it was only Faris, standing there like a delivery boy, holding out a fistful of beets from the garden. I took them, felt their greens nettling my arms.

“Thank you,” I said, and then lowered my face, wondering how it could be this that made me cry. “Do you want water?” I asked. “Sweet water?” But he just peered at me, his eyes clouded with cataracts, and ran his tongue over his wrinkled lips before motioning me out the door. I followed him around the house to the front yard, where he stopped and pointed. A quarter mile beyond the fence, a wavering image shifted and disappeared, only to appear again—a black tent pitched like a mirage against the backdrop of sky. The familiar leanings and ropes, the single white stripe—even from a distance, I knew it was Abdullah’s.

I wasn’t sure what Faris had expected me to do, whether he was surprised when I began walking, then running down the street, the beets falling from my arms. He didn’t call after me, didn’t do anything but watch me go. The few cars that passed gave me wide berth, the drivers and passengers peering out at me like I was someone’s lost dog. Habib must have heard me coming, my mother’s boots clopping the asphalt, because he stepped out and sucked in his belly. I didn’t have my purse, my identification card, but I knew that, for better or worse, he would recognize me.

“I have to go to the tent,” I said.

Habib peered back at the compound, his gaze more serious. “Do you think it is all right if you go to the tent?” he asked.

“Fatima is there,” I said. He waited as though he needed something more. “Yes,” I said, raising my voice, impatient. “I think it is all right if I go to the tent.”

He considered a long moment, then nodded and stepped back. I looked to the road open before me. The urge to run that I had expected to feel wasn’t there, only a pounding awareness of the sun beating down. I struck out across the wind-sculpted desert, my boots slewing sand. The goats set up a ruckus as I approached, the camel and her calf bawling until Fatima appeared. I stopped several yards away, breathless and damp with sweat.

“Peace be upon you,” I called, and Fatima raised her veiled face, her graying eyes holding mine. I thought for a moment that she might deny me, send me back through the gate, but she motioned me forward, and I heeled off my boots before entering. The coffee roaster and urn, the pillows and rugs—all arranged just as they had been before, but no sign of Abdullah, the center pole empty of his rifle and sword.

Fatima took off her scarf, her hennaed braids falling to her waist, and began to make our tea, and I remembered what Abdullah had told me about the code of Bedouin hospitality and
dakheel
, wondered for the first time whether Abdullah might have taken Mason in. I looked into the tent’s shadowed corners, saw nothing but the pillows and rugs, Fatima’s loom, felt my hope husk away. We sat across from each other, quietly sipping through the ritual three cups, my impatience quelled by the memory of Yash’s admonishment that I must learn to hold my tea. When Fatima gestured to the space beside me where Ruthie might have been, I lowered my eyes. I didn’t know how to speak of any of it, didn’t know whether I should say Nadia’s name, what Fatima might tell me if she could. I looked up, saw the grief and confusion on her face mirroring my own, heard her murmur as though she understood.

“Abdullah?” I said, tentative, unsure. “Do you know where he is?”

She didn’t answer, but after a moment, she reached for a small
bronze box, opened its lid. She held out her fist to me, and I felt the pearl necklace flow into my palm like sand.

I wanted to tell Fatima that I was sorry, that something had gone terribly wrong, but all I could do was bring the chain to my neck, clasp it behind. In the silence that settled between us, I heard the nicker of a horse, the calming voice of a man. I followed Fatima’s gaze and saw Abdullah silhouetted against the sun. He wore the full garb of a Bedouin, his
ghutra
wrapped at his throat, his robe belted, a dagger at his waist. I hadn’t thought I would be afraid, but I was.

He lifted his chin and studied me for a moment before stepping away, and I heard the sound of a fire being struck, smelled the smoke that carried with it some hint of incense, and then the coffee being roasted, like the burning of summer’s dry stubble. When Fatima mimed as though drinking, pointed me to the open center of the tent, and took up her weaving, I rose slowly as though I were the one stiffened with age.

“Ashkurik,”
I said, and the corners of her sad eyes lifted.

Abdullah stood at the fire, a brass urn and two cups before him. He gestured to his right, where a rug had been spread and dusted free of sand.

He wouldn’t serve me this way, I reasoned, if he meant to hurt Mason. The idea that he might do so seemed suddenly absurd, a drama only a pirate would pretend.

I looked to where Badra grazed a small clutch of brown grass, her back still marked with the dark sweat of her ride. I pressed my fingers against the horsehair fob in my pocket like a charm and took my place, tucked my feet, and waited until Abdullah lowered himself to the sand before looking up. It seemed impossible that we had ever spoken, that there was a language that we shared, that we had told each other stories and teased. I watched as he tended the small fire, each movement precise, efficient, and remembered my grandfather—each morning, the four sticks of
kindling split and feathered, laid atop a twist of paper, the single match struck, the wait to add another piece of wood to the stove, and then another, never rushing no matter how icy the room. “Do it right once,” he would say, “or do it twice wrong.” It was a lesson I seemed never to learn.