The Fourth Assassin

because whoever killed Nizar might believe we knew something we shouldn’t. He wouldn’t tell me who they were, but he seemed to know who had murdered Nizar. Now Marwan’s dead. That’s why I think his killing is connected to Nizar’s.”

“Don’t touch anything, ustaz,” Hamza said. “Wait here.”

The detective went up the stairs behind the kitchen. Marwan Hammiya’s blood was swirled and smudged on the white floor tiles. For a second, Omar Yussef thought he heard the dead man screaming. It’s your imagination, he told himself, and in any case Rania heard nothing from upstairs. Marwan must’ve died quietly, despite the violence of the attack.

The thought of death dizzied him. He turned from the bloody floor and braced his arm against the wall. His heavy breath rustled some bills in a bulldog clip pinned to a board beside him. His vision clouded, red like the blood on the tiles, and he staggered. His shoulder knocked the papers to the floor. They landed face down, so that the page at the back presented itself to him when he picked them up.

It was the prayer schedule of the Alamut Mosque. The same sheet he had seen affixed to the refrigerator in his son’s apartment. The page bearing the name of a mosque that even Nahid Hantash hadn’t heard of. Marwan had hidden it at the back of a pile of unremarkable invoices, turned to the wall so that even someone looking through the other papers would miss it.

Omar Yussef ripped the sheet away from the stack and lifted his spectacles to read the columns of prayer times for the month. He ran his gaze across from Fajr at 5:26 A.M. to Isha at 6:50 P.M. At first he could make out no special significance to it, but then he noticed that once a week the time of the Maghrib sunset prayers was off by an hour. “Five thirty-five, five thirty-seven, six forty, five forty-two,” he read, rubbing his chin in puzzlement. Something’s wrong with this schedule, he thought. But the mistakes are too regular-one each week. It’s no accident.

Footsteps descended behind the kitchen. Omar Yussef stuffed the prayer schedule into his jacket pocket. Hamza entered, ducking his head beneath the low lintel. He stood to one side, and Omar Yussef saw his son in the doorway, his face gray and heavy with exhaustion. Ala stared at his father and some color came to his cheeks, as though he were angry to see him there.

“My boy, you’re safe.” Omar Yussef stepped forward. “Thanks be to Allah.”

Ala pushed past his father. “I’m not safe, Dad. Was Nizar safe?” He pointed at the blood on the floor. “Was Marwan?”

“But they were involved in something bad. Drugs.”

The young man turned his intense stare on Hamza. “You’re a bastard, Abayat.”

“Another satisfied customer.” Hamza smiled with an indifference that puzzled Omar Yussef.

“A real bastard,” Ala said. “You and your tribe of gunmen have ruined my hometown and now you’re going to destroy what’s left of my life here in Brooklyn.”

Omar Yussef wanted only to get his boy away from the police. He knew Ala’s temper and realized that he’d soon explode beyond all control. “My son, what’re you talking about? Let’s go.”

“He brought me here to see what would happen when he put me in a room with Rania,” Ala said. “To see if she’d let slip some secret, and to see if I’m a part of all this.” He gestured at the blood on the floor.

“Why?”

“He thinks we killed Marwan and Nizar, of course. Me and Rania.”

Omar Yussef frowned at Hamza. “Where’s Rania?”

Hamza’s indifference seemed deeper still. “Upstairs.”

“We sat up there in silence, Dad, which must’ve disappointed this bastard.” Ala threw a hand out toward Hamza. “What did you think we’d say to each other? Two days ago I gave up the woman I loved, and at the same time her beloved was murdered. Now her father is dead. Did you think we’d put our heads together and figure out who to kill next, while you were eavesdropping?”

“It was worth a try.” Hamza made his eyes hard and empty.

Ala slapped his hand down on a steel counter.

“But, my boy, it’s over,” Omar Yussef said. “Now you’re free.”

“Free? Dad, I’m ordered not to leave the city until the police finish their investigation.” Ala’s foot slid on the smeared floor and he grabbed at his father’s shoulder to right himself.

“Don’t fall over,” Hamza said. “You’ll get covered in blood.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you son of a whore,” Ala said. “You’d be happy if this was my blood all over the tiles.”

“I’m not taking bets on whose blood will be the next to spill,” Hamza said. “But that isn’t because I don’t have a good guess. It’s only because gambling is an ‘abomination devised by Satan.’”

“Don’t quote the Koran at me. You’re not even really an Arab any more. You’re an American. Infidel bastard.”

The boy clutched Omar Yussef’s arm, like a baby who fears slipping from his parent’s embrace. His son’s tension fed through his body. Marwan Hammiya had warned him to leave Ala in the safety of the jail. In this room where Marwan had died, Omar Yussef understood that his son would be in jeopardy until the killer of Nizar and Marwan was caught. He glanced at Hamza. The meaning of the cynical smile on the detective’s lips came to him, and his eyes widened in outrage. “You’re gambling, after all-with Ala’s life. You’re releasing him because you think he’s next,” he yelled at Hamza. “You’re setting a trap for this murderer.”

“A trap?”

Omar Yussef thrust his forefinger at his son and shouted, “My boy is the bait.”

Chapter 18

Ala stepped out of the cafe and hurried between the low snowbanks on the sidewalk. Omar Yussef would have gone after him, but he was breathless even before he reached the door, and he knew he couldn’t keep up. He returned to the kitchen and grabbed Hamza’s thick arm. “You have to protect my son,” he shouted.

“You think I should follow him?” Hamza settled back against the steel counter.

“I told you someone’s been following me. They tried to run me down on Atlantic Avenue. Whoever they are, they think I know something I shouldn’t about these murders. Now they’ll try to kill my boy too.” Rania had solved Ala’s problem with the police; but without the protection of the jail, he would now be in greater danger. Unless I can find the killer before he gets to us, Omar Yussef thought.

“Your son won’t go far.” Hamza jerked his thumb at the back stairs. Slow feet descended. Rania came to the door. “You get what I mean, ustaz?” the detective said.

Rania was so pale that her veins showed blue through her skin, seeming to write across her face the fears she held within. She wore a long black coat cut tight around her upper body and a black mendil with a trim of gold sequins around her face. Her lips pouted and her big sullen eyes were edged with the slack purple skin of unhappiness and fatigue.

The detective reached into a large tin of olives, fished in the vinegar, and pulled out a handful. He fed one into his mouth. “Where’re you going?” he asked.

“I’m going to work,” she replied.

Omar Yussef sensed the girl’s horror as she crossed the floor, skirting the smears of her father’s blood. “Long life to you, my daughter,” he said. “May Allah be merciful upon him, the deceased one.”

Rania opened her mouth to speak the traditional response to these condolences, but her breath caught. “The Community Association will help me to arrange the funeral,” she whispered. “It’s best for me to go there as usual. I need to be with good people, Arab people.” She turned away from Hamza with a sneer.

It seemed unnatural to Omar Yussef that her father’s murder appeared to anger Rania, rather than sadden her. Perhaps it’s only her grief that makes her rage, he thought, or the detective’s suspicion.

She let Hamza see her curled lip again. “People with a heart,” she said. Her voice stammered on a strangled sob.