Derek and Sun Yen watched in fascination as she ate a bowl of bread.
“You expect to see the food go around my insides?” Mooshie growled. “So here I am. I don’t know how. I only care about proving Grandma killed me.”
Singh and Sun Yen’s eyes flittered back and forth.
Hazel sighed angrily. “Just tell her.”
The men looked away.
“It can’t happen unless you’re honest.”
“About what, mi amigos?” she asked.
“We killed Mooshie Lopez,” Derek said softly.
Her fingers dug into the couch. “Now we’re even. I don’t believe you.”
Singh silently ordered Sun Yen to lower the shotgun. “Lopez was a lump in everyone’s throats. She had tons of fans who still loved her, despite her drunken babblings. She criticized the government and became a rallying point.”
“And we didn’t need that,” Sun Yen added. “Enough innocents were rounded up and sent north to detention camps in Nova Scotia.”
“As long as the great Mooshie Lopez was out there saying there had to be a reason for 10/12, that the war was badly run, we were being betrayed, well, the heat was on both sides. Everyone wanted to hide.” Derek gestured around the cozy office. “We had our shot and missed. We had millions. Tens of millions of followers.”
“Still do,” Sun Yen grumbled.
“Every goddamn ex-military, all the baseball fans who wanted this country back to where you could sing God Bless America and not be called a racist. Yeah, we fucked up on 10/12 because we didn’t kill Grandma. If we had, then we could’ve dropped a few tactical nukes and got the Camels’ attention and given us time to really re-arm. But we didn’t get Grandma and we didn’t need Mooshie Lopez pissing into the open wound. No one did.”
Sun Yen poked Mooshie in the back with the shotgun. She spun around, bending the weapon over her knee and flinging it into the corner, knocking two pictures off the wall. The men’s mouths dropped.
“You bastards. You were my friends. My best fucking friends.”
Singh slowly smiled. “It is you.”
Mooshie clenched her groin in disdain.
He gently put his hand on her shoulder. Mooshie twisted his arm.
“What the fuck do you pricks want?”
Despite the pain, his smile widened.
“We need you to help finish the job.”
• • • •
THE DWARF TOOK pleasure in making them rehearse over and over, especially dabbing the Son’s face with powder. Abdullah would blush and the dwarf would shriek about looking like clowns and dab more powder. Finally Grandma sent the dwarf back behind his camera where he made unpleasant noises, dragging the recording process out over hours.
Azhar fell asleep on a cot in the abandoned building a few blocks from the diner. Light peeked through the window and he panicked, running around the grayish floors until he found the Son snoring in a chair in a cramped room.
Grandma burst in with that recyclable energy and served them breakfast. Once they finished, two portions each, she proudly explained that the eggs, called SCs for so-called, were all bio-agra generated. This is how you’ll feed your people.
Abdullah had sat before the empty plate with a mild sense of guilt before he made a long speech about the class system in the Caliphates, the rulers and the wealthy and the privileged and the connected. He went on for nearly an hour, Grandma listening politely although Mustafa would’ve sworn before Allah that she was snoring.
The dwarf or midget, Mustafa could see no difference since he’d never seen either, reappeared, announcing the genius of Ian Schrage had triumphed once again and crowded them into a screening room to show the announcement.
Grandma beamed and even Abdullah seemed pleased; he made a slight suggestion about a camera angle. The little one turned into a moody rock, folding his arms petulantly until Abdullah apologized for his amateurish remark. The tiny person grudgingly finished the screening and wouldn’t smile until they applauded.
Was he making the history or were they? Another bafflement of this baffling land. When they finally left the studio, the dwarf disappeared down an alley. Abdullah and Azhar waited for the proper transportation, but Grandma waved down a small black taxi. They crowded into the back seat.
A robot turned around to greet them good morning and Azhar nearly lost his bladder; the Son gripped his wrist in fright. The thing had no face, just eyes and a sort of mouth, but it seemed very cheerful, mentioned its name was Andrew to its friends, and chattered on like a real human all the way through the many secret pathways around traffic only it and it alone knew.
Grandma was very pleased by a robot driving a taxi and explained that in Georgia, where her visitors were from, people still drove cabs. The robot remarked it wasn’t the brightest wiring in the socket but that seemed a waste of human skills.
Abdullah muttered inaudibly.
The taxi skipped down a hill and then a ramp, rolling into a subway tunnel. Grandma tried explaining why cars went in a subway tunnel but the robot named Andrew kept interrupting, launching into the history of the Allah attack on Manhattan, the quarantine period and the riots of survivors in ’72.
The Son turned brooding, refusing to so much as nod when the tank crew stopped them at the end of the battered tunnel and asked for papers. Grandma, who called herself Lenora Chin, breezily explained her friends were exhausted from sightseeing. The helmeted crew member peered suspiciously at Abdullah before waving them through.
And now here’s the Bronx, Andrew announced, zipping up hills and down side streets. At least here there was normalcy, Crusaders walking along, shopping, well-dressed, smiling. Like home. Azhar felt a twinge of sadness, wondering how Jalak was, if she missed him, whether Abdul had scored goals in the last game and if Omar still hated him.
As they passed by a large very green park, Grandma instructed Andrew
