The Fourth Assassin

they sleep-and you say I’m sick?”

Hantash drew his legs up and linked his fingers around his shins. The knuckles were pink and white and scarred, like the skinned knee of a child, reminding Omar Yussef that the man had done battle with the gangs of Brooklyn.

“Americans aren’t innocent of crimes against Muslims,” Hantash said. “In Iraq, they kill thousands. The U.S. government’s secret jails are full of men whose only offense is to have obeyed Allah. On the streets, Islam is mocked and hated. It’s hard for us to live here.”

Khamis Zeydan offered a cigarette to Hantash, who waved it away with a gesture that showed he didn’t object to his guest smoking. “Where are you from, Brother Nahid?” the police chief said.

“I was born in Hebron. My family left the West Bank when I was a teenager.”

Hard-headed and stubborn by reputation, the Hebronites, Omar Yussef thought, and violent.

“May Allah bless your town. Forgive my friend for his ill humor,” Khamis Zeydan said. “His son has been arrested, and he’s very nervous about him.”

“Arrested?”

“He won’t give an alibi for the time when his roommate was killed.”

“He’s a suspect? That’s ridiculous,” Hantash said. “Ala wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Omar Yussef forgot his antagonism and warmed to Hantash with a desperate swiftness. “I want to find out more about Nizar and Rashid,” he said. “My son tells me there was some sort of conflict between them.”

Hantash was silent. His eyelids were low and lazy.

“The police also think Nizar’s death may have had something to do with drugs,” Omar Yussef said, “and that you might be able to give us some leads.”

The young man’s eyes flickered with hostility.

Khamis Zeydan whistled impatiently. “My friend means that, as a community leader, you know what happens on the streets,” he said. “Certainly he doesn’t mean that you’re involved in drugs.”

“No, of course.” Omar Yussef cringed and wrung his hands.

Hantash focused hard on his scabbed knuckles. “The police have been here already,” he said. “We’re accustomed to their harassment.”

“Do they suspect you?”

“The Arab detective Abayat suspects all Arabs. You ought to remember that, ustaz. Don’t trust him just because he calls you ‘uncle.’” Hantash stroked his fingers across the carpet. “In truth, the police have no reason to suspect me. I used to be a gang leader. I led the PLO. We thought that was a good joke- to name ourselves after another gang of Palestinian hard men. But I put an end to it after the attack on the Twin Towers.”

“Why?”

Hantash held up his index fingers, parallel to each other, almost touching. “The hour of Doom is drawing near, and the moon is cleft in two,” he said, parting his fingers. “In the Holy Koran the splitting of the moon into two is a sign of the Day of Judgment. When I saw the two towers explode, they were like the sun and the moon, and their destruction was an image of the end of the world. And everything happened twice- both towers exploded, both fell, and there were attacks in two cities, here and in Washington.”

“A sign?” Omar Yussef couldn’t disguise the doubt in his voice.

“Call it a reminder, if you prefer. The same verse says: We have made the Koran easy to remember; but will anyone take heed? I took heed of that day. I brought the gang to an end. The boys of the PLO became active in the community, instead of running around at night doing unwholesome things. My part was to found this mosque.”

“You built this yourself?” Omar Yussef said.

“I raised the money and led the work.”

“By Allah, that’s impressive.”

“I told you there’s no need to pretend that you’re a believer. You have no bump on your forehead from prostrating yourself in prayer.” Hantash lifted the edge of his stocking cap to show a dark notch like a rough knuckle at the center of his brow. He grinned slowly, so that the black hairs along his jaw seemed to rise one by one as his skin drew back from his mouth. “But I’m proud of this place. Our population is growing, and it needs more mosques.”

Omar Yussef remembered the sheet printed with prayer times in Ala’s apartment. “Where’s the Alamut Mosque?”

“I haven’t heard of it, ustaz.”

“I think it must be nearby.”

“That’d be a strange name for a mosque around here.”

“Would it? Why?”

“Are you telling me you don’t know, or are you pretending once again?” Hantash lifted a finger and faked a frown. “Alamut was the castle of the Assassins-a Shiite sect. Almost everyone in Little Palestine is a follower of Sunni Islam. I don’t see why anyone would name a mosque here after a castle from someone else’s tradition.”

Is the Alamut Mosque just a joke by my little gang of Assassins? Omar Yussef wondered. Or does it connect them to Marwan Hammiya, a Shiite with his roots in the Lebanese region where drugs are produced? “You don’t know any Shiites in this neighborhood?”

Hantash gave Omar Yussef a long look through narrowed eyes. “There’s Marwan, who runs the cafe.”

“Do you think I should ask him about the Alamut Mosque?”

“You should ask me some questions to which you don’t already know the answers. That’s what I think, ustaz.”

Omar Yussef’s spine rebelled against his cross-legged position and he shifted his knees with a grunt. “Let’s get back to what you know about Nizar.”

The skin below Hantash’s eyes twitched. “Nizar lived a debauched life.”

“Drinking and women?”

“I believe so.”

“Where would he have gone for these wild times?”

“Maybe Manhattan. Some Arabic clubs there have belly dancers. But we’re not far from Bensonhurst and Coney Island. You can get up to plenty of mischief in those places without having to leave Brooklyn.”

“Is it easy for an Arab man to pick up a woman?”

Hantash ran his finger along the narrow line of his beard. “An American woman? No matter how easy it is, ustaz, it always ends in frustration.”

“What do you mean?”

“An Arab can drink whisky with Americans and curse every other word as Americans do and even take their women to bed. But, to them, he’s still a stinking Arab.” The young man stared across the gray carpet, his heavy eyes sad and angry. “I don’t think the wild times, as you put it, would’ve made Nizar happy.”

Does this man know what was in Nizar’s mind, or is he superimposing his own disappointments from the days before he turned to Islam? Omar Yussef thought. “That’s all he was looking for, you think? Happiness?”

“If Allah has forgiven Nizar’s debauchery, then he’s in Paradise now with the Master of the Universe, so he found happiness anyway.”

“Was Nizar involved in drugs?” Omar Yussef asked.

Hantash inclined his head in assent, slowly.

“How long was he dealing?”

“A few months.”

“What did he sell?”

“Hashish.”

“Who was his supplier?”

“Well, where does hashish come from these days?”

“Lebanon. The Bekaa Valley.”

Hantash opened his hand and nodded.