Chapter 22

I had intended to try to find someone to talk to from the CC 25 gang after we ate, but the more I thought about it the less I liked the idea. It's one thing to prowl Central at all hours, where as a general rule the mean people come one at a time and know me anyway. To go running around in the territory of a gang I knew to be vicious, people who ran in packs and were more dangerous in consequence, was a different thing entirely. And to take Cecelia into that kind of shark tank was out of the question.

So after we ate we headed home. It was late enough that we weren't going to pick up Darlia; she'd spend the night at Letty's, which she'd packed for anyway. We'd eaten like pigs at McDonald's, so we weren't really hungry, but Cecelia fixed up some fried mozzarella sticks, and we ate them while sitting on the sofa reading. After a while she changed into her sweats and went out to the weight shed, and I got a shower. When she came back she got a shower, and when she sat down on the sofa beside me I picked up the remote and fired up the TV. And then I started the DVD playing – Once Upon a Time In the West, my favorite movie.

She put her hand on my leg and leaned against me. "I prefer, as you know, The Wizard of Oz, but I have learned to enjoy this one as well. It was the second movie we ever watched together, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," I said as the bad guys waited for the train. Cecelia and I both know, by now, exactly what's going to happen, and we can quote whole chunks of the dialogue, but we like the movie anyway. "Yours was the first one."

"That was also the first time you ate my cooking."

"At that there table, too," I said, pointing over my shoulder with a thumb. "You had darker paneling on the walls then."

"And now not only is the paneling lighter, it isn't even paneling. Do you remember when we pulled it off, and painted everything?"

"Yeah. The sight of you with dabs of paint in your hair was so funny."

"And of course paint in your mustache was merely a fact of life," she said, and grinned at me. "Now hush – Charles Bronson is getting off the train."

I hushed, and Charles Bronson got off the train. After a while, he put three bullets into the three men inside the three dusters.

We took our time getting up the next morning, for there wasn't any point heading for CC 25 territory before noon. I was sitting at the counter munching on some cinnamon toast when the phone rang. I got up to answer it, but it quit ringing before I could get to it. I was just sitting back down when Cecelia came out of the sewing room.

"That was Sandy," she said, referring to our church secretary. "Yasmeen Hussein would like to talk to you."

I grimaced. She was a Muslim lady who'd been occasionally attending our services and resisting any effort to engage her in any sort of real discussion about Islam or Christianity. And now when I was making progress on the investigation she wanted to talk.

I took the phone from Cecelia. "Yeah, Sandy, when does she want to see me?"

"She wanted to see any of the elders, but they're all working, the ones I can reach." And they worked for employers too – they couldn't get loose whenever they wanted. "You're the last hope, and she says she needs to talk to someone now."

"Is she there?"

"No, she called."

I thought for a moment. I didn't like to do it, but my study made it possible, so I told Sandy, "Okay, give her a call and send her here."

"Okay, and thanks, Darvin."

I growled something and pushed the button to hang up. I handed the phone back to Cecelia and said, "You know how it'll go."

"Yes, I do. I'll see to it that there are refreshments if they become necessary. And I suggest that you array yourself in more appropriate attire."

I glanced down at myself – nothing above the waist, and just a pair of stained sweat pants below it. I don't go out without clothes on, but around the house I sometimes act like a real slob. "I'll be dressed when she gets here," I said. "And you – well, it ain't ever possible to improve you."

She gave me a small smile. Her black dress reached to her elbows and to the floor, and the collar was right around her neck. I couldn't tell what if anything she had on her feet, and other than the lack of a hair covering no Muslim could have called her immodest – and not all Muslims demand the head scarf. For that matter not all Muslim women wear the long dresses that stand out at Wal-Mart. "I shall remain clothed, my love, so you need not fear that I shall embarrass you."

I chuckled at that, and went to get dressed.

I was in my study half an hour later when I heard a car pull up outside. The study used to be the garage, so hearing cars isn't difficult. I went to the door which opens to the right of the wall of windows that Cecelia gave me so I can look out at Inez Park, and opened it as Yasmeen got out of her car. I let her in and went to sit down behind my desk. In deference to both her notions of propriety, and the demands that I place on my own rectitude, the door that led to the house was half open so that no one could say we were alone in a closed room. It was only half open so that we would be private, for very often what people talk to an elder about isn't for public consumption.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"You know I've been coming to church for a while now." Her accent wasn't too strong, but it did reveal that she was a foreigner – I knew that she was from Bahrain, which is an island off the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Arabic was her native language, though she spoke better English than I usually do. "What you might not know is that I've been studying on my own, and thinking about things." She paused. "Did you know I'm a widow?"

"I'd wondered. I'm no expert on Arab culture, but though I know Bahrain's looser than the Kingdom—" I meant the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "—I've guessed from your clothing that you're fairly strict."

She glanced down at herself. She was wearing the typical Muslim dress – not the big black tent-like thing, which goes over other clothing, but a dress with long sleeves, wider at the wrist than at the elbow, that reached to the floor. It was a maroon color with gold embroidery, while her head scarf was white and covered everything but her face, which was young and pretty and exotic. She had heavy eyebrows, and full lips, and a nose which looked just very slightly flat. "Yes," she said, "I have always wished to be modest."