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by S. E. Ward
I was on my last Budweiser--my
second--when a gust of frigid wind blew through the bar and
Greg the bartender said, "Sorry, buddy. I'm closing up."
"It's all right," said the guy. Heavy
accent. "I only want one."
Greg, never prone to turning away
business, made a noise. I looked back through the smoke
lingering from a bridal shower that had left at last call.
The kid looked like a Saudi prince in a sweater. Or one of
the petroleum engineering students from the university. He
sat next to me. I moved my beer out of his way.
"I thought you people weren't supposed
to drink," I said. "Word of Allah, something like that."
The guy gave me a twisty little smile
and motioned to Greg. "Could I have a Pepsi, please?"
He seemed a little disappointed when
Greg said they only had Coke, but he took it. Straw, twist
of lime. Greg dropped in one of those stupid paper
umbrellas, which the guy twirled in his fingers.
"You could've gone to Seven Eleven," I
said as the guy took a sip. "Been a whole lot cheaper."
The guy took a handkerchief from his
jeans and blotted his lips. He had one of those stupid
little goatees, just a stripe down the middle of his chin.
"I came for the company." He eyed my
beer. "Just like you."
I snorted and took a drink. The guy
said, "If you were here to get drunk, you'd have whiskey."
"Bourbon. Here, we drink bourbon."
"My apologies."
"What's your name?"
The guy smiled. Really smiled. His
teeth looked like pearls. Saudi prince, indeed.
"Iblis," he said.
Greg looked up from polishing a glass.
"Don't scare my customers." He went back to his polishing.
"Freak."
Greg's a little weird. Reads books.
Not that I know him well, but he's got a stack of 'em next
to the register. Iblis's twisty little smile widened, but
he only turned to face me.
"What's your name?" he said.
I grunted. "Matthew."
"Ahh, Matthew. Like your Gospels."
Iblis shook my hand. He had a hell of a grip. It made my
fingers tingle.
"What's a nice Gospel like you doing in
a place like this?" said Iblis. I inched away as far as my
barstool would let me. Iblis plucked the cherry from his
drink--Greg had really gone all out--and smiled with the
stem sticking out from between his lips.
"I'm married," I said.
"I gathered." Iblis motioned to my
ring. "Fight?"
"Yeah. Sorta." I took another drink
of beer. Kinda wished I'd ordered something a little
stronger. "The wife says I need to help out around the
house a little more, but I work. I'm tired."
"She doesn't work?"
"Not as hard as I do." Some days, I'd
give my eyeteeth for a nice, cushy secretary's job. Better
than managing a goddamn supermarket any day.
"I see." Iblis played with his twist
of lime. Just sitting there. Lazy jerk.
"So what about you?" I said. "Your
daddy paying for you to learn oil wells or something?"
"No, I run part of my father's
business. Outlying regions." He took another drink and
wiped his damn mouth again. Like he didn't want a speck of
dirt on him.
"Oh? What's Daddy got you doing?"
"Prince regent."
I think my jaw dropped. For a second,
I just sat there and stared. And then I laughed like a
loon.
"Greg, get this guy something
stronger. I don't think he's had enough."
"I just said, I'm closing up. Do I
need to send you home?"
I stopped. Home meant fighting. And
housework. My wife just couldn't get it through her damn
skull, I'm tired. She needed to spend all day on her feet,
see how much vacuuming she felt like doing.
I hunched over my beer. I could think
of worse things to do at two in the morning than talk to
some Arab. "So Daddy the Sheik's got you handling his
bedouins."
"'Bedouin' is plural. And, no."
I smirked. "No?"
"Baba's not a sheik. He's a king."
Bull. Shit. But I didn't say it.
Iblis kind of fixed me with a stare. Sucked all the heat
out of the bar. His eyes flickered, almost like they went
from black to a nasty shade of brown.
"The desert is a fascinating place," he
said, still staring at me with a little smile on his mouth.
"I'm the only one of my brothers Baba trusts it to."
I swallowed. "You see Baba often?"
"Oh, yes. We talk almost every day. I
see him on holidays." Iblis lifted his Coke. "Eid
Mubarak!"
I didn't know what that meant, but I
kept my mouth shut. If he was lying, he was crazy, and
crazy meant dangerous. If he wasn't, I didn't much like the
idea of pissing off prince regent to Al-Sandyland.
"But the desert." Iblis held his paper
umbrella over his head. "The sun will scorch you, make you
see things. Fire from above. Like the Jinn--the desert
spirits--are made of fire. It heats the sand, which is
clay, like men. They battle each other, the sun never hot
enough to melt the clay and destroy it."
"I thought sand was made of silicon or
something," I said, and wished I hadn't.
"Silicon and other things. So is
clay."
Iblis motioned with his hands flat, the
paper umbrella stuck between two of his fingers like an
oversized ring. "But under the sand, the desert is made of
fire. It flows. Sometimes, it rises up. Men covet it for
fuel and money and power. But what they let themselves
forget is that the fire beneath is hotter than the sun. It
destroys clay. Melts it. Take the cap from a well and set
it on fire, and it blots out everything."
"Like in Kuwait," I said. Oil wells
burning on the evening news. Iblis barely looked old enough
to remember the Kuwaiti oil wells going up in smoke.
"Hmm." Iblis folded his hands atop the
bar and stared at them. "Baba puts that sort of thing into
my domain. The outlying regions. He guards the capital.
He's pickier about his household than I am."
"What the hell are you doing here? In
America."
"Looking for members for my household.
A court needs many servants."
"I give you many camels," I said, and
bit my lip when Iblis fixed me with that damn stare of his.
"You would make an interesting servant,
I think. You'd learn to keep your house clean quickly
enough." He clapped twice. "On your feet! Make this
sparkle! No more supermarket for you!"
I started to say he could keep his damn
household to himself. But I couldn't remember telling him
where I worked. Thinking it, yeah. But I didn't tell him a
thing.
"They say," said Iblis, and he took a
drink and wiped his mouth. "They say here that cleanliness
is next to Godliness. What do you suppose they mean?"
"Dunno." I looked at my Bud. Decided
it tasted funny. Had a weird urge to do the dishes.
Iblis stood and dropped a fifty on the
counter. "I'll pay the Gospel of Matthew's tab, if you
don't mind."
"You do that, buddy," said Greg. "Then
get out and stay out."
Iblis offered me his paper umbrella. I
looked at his hand. He had an awful lot of calluses for a
prince regent. Maybe it was the fire in the desert that did
it.
"When Baba dies, do you get the rest of
the kingdom?" I said.
Iblis looked puzzled. But his eyes
flickered again, black to brown-and-yellow-and-red. Fire.
Like he was made of the stuff.
"What makes you think Baba would do a
thing like that?" He put the paper umbrella in my fingers.
It didn't make me tingle like his hand had. It just left me
numb.
The moment Iblis left, Greg shook his
head. "If that creep ever bothers you again...."
"Don't worry about it." I pushed away
my beer and stood up. "Why'd you call him a freak?"
"'Iblis' isn't a name. It's what
Muslims call the devil."
"Ah."
"He's pulling your leg, Matt." Greg
peered at me. "Pulled it good. You go home and get some
sleep."
I stuffed the paper umbrella in my
pocket and told myself I wasn't afraid to throw it away. My
skin was numb all over, but inside I was hot. Desert hot.
A Kuwaiti oil fire burning up the landscape.
"Actually," I said, and the fire cooled
a little. "Actually, I think I'm going to go home and clean
house. Surprise the wife. See you later, man."
"Sure." Greg gave me a funny look.
"Get some rest."
Outside, a hot gust blew across my
cheek, like stepping into a blast furnace--then only the
February chill, ice and razors. I zipped my jacket and
hurried toward my apartment. It needed a good cleaning, and
another cleaning every day for the rest of my life. I
worked hard enough already; I didn't need some prince regent
telling me what to do for the rest of time.
Heat and sleet prickled my face and
made it hard to see as I avoided the black ice on the
sidewalk. Once, I thought I heard Iblis laugh in my ear,
though I knew better than to think the bastard might have
followed me. But he didn't have to. He didn't have to.
All six blocks, the streetlamps grinned at me. Like rows
and rows of Iblis's pearl white teeth. |
