Out of the tunnels. The tunnels are no fucking good. I work with the streets, work by the System. Discreet exit is imperative. They’ll have all known portals covered—

  The answer cracks me upside my noggin, how could I have spaced this? Me inadvertently saying: “FDR.”

  Haifa is quiet for a moment, looking toward her sister, and back to me for clarification. “DR, is that some sort of military acronym, because really . . .”

  I’m off, power-gimping what I believe to be uptown. “The thirty-second US president. Dude rocked a wheelchair cause of polio, didn’t want the Nazis to get hip to it . . . built a tunnel straight out of the train station up to the . . . Fuck it, just follow me, ladies.”

  The girls hang back. Sigh. I turn.

  “You prefer it down here? I reckon you got another hour’s worth of battery on that there lamp, and then it’s just y’all. And whoever else is down here in the dark looking for you.”

  Gets ’em hustling. They’ve really got no choice. We walk briskly at first, then break into a lopsided jog.

  _________________

  When the doors slide open onto 49th Street, sunlight leaves me momentarily paralyzed, as weak as it is. The girls walk right into me, raring to get out. We collide and I shove them back, as gentle as possible. Already got my Beretta out, hold up a gloved hand.

  “Hang tight a moment, gals.”

  Blinking, lean forward and take a peek, east and west, an easy drizzle now, and not a single human form in sight. The only thing I don’t dig is a busted-up city bus about half a block down, partially up on the curb, primarily cause I can’t see around it. Tires have been removed. Billboard on the bus’s ass, dirty picture of a Mediterranean sky, a plane, and the simple proclamation: EMIRATES.

  Listen; nothing but the usual construction buzz and a distant chopper.

  Feeling myself, pretty slick as the three of us ease out the gold elevator doors, situated inconspicuously midblock, next to the parking garage for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The gals in tow, we duck around the corner into the garage and off the street.

  Get my face mask up on automatic. The girls coughing. Not used to sucking the tailpipe. The New York “air.” The Stench.

  “You’ll adjust. Hard to believe, but yo, you’ll acclimate. Here . . .” I dig in my pockets, come up with only one clean mask. Khalid is doubled over, shoulders shaking. “Damn. Oh well. Just, ya know. Breathe through the mouth, like I said.”

  Haifa is holding her shirt up over the lower half of her face. Can’t tell if she’s crying or if it’s just the normal burning shit the atmosphere does to your eyes.

  “Absolute nightmare. Breathe through the mouth. Means we’re inhaling this,” she says, muffled, her watery gaze shifting around frantically. “Bloody fucking nightmare . . .”

  I make a sound like a laugh. “You got that right, angel. And might I be the first to say: Welcome to it.”

  Haifa glances at me. “Good God, your face . . .”

  “No, I’m a’ight, that was earlier. That ain’t nothing, trust it.”

  “How,” asks Khalid, in a soft voice, genuinely amazed, “how can anyone live here?”

  “They can’t. We can’t. But don’t sweat yourselves, it kills you real slow.” Me thinking we best bizounce, get to higher ground. Wherever that might be. “Listen, girls, I don’t know about y’all, but I wanna get somewhere safe, and pronto. Thinking I can get you ladies back to your big-ass boat, and from there . . .” Trail off because Khalid has straightened up.

  Takes me a second, but yes, she has a gun in her hand. Pointed this way, jittery.

  My gun. I touch my left shoulder holster through my jacket . . . empty.

  Sigh. Well, I’ve still got my other gun. Lift the Beretta, slow.

  “Dumpling, I’ve never shot a lady in a veil. But there’s always a first time.”

  Haifa, for her part, backs away, looking appalled. “Khalid, this is not the intelligent way to—”

  “Seriously, sweetheart,” I say, chilly chill. “I can put one through your pretty neck faster than you can blink. But I’d rather keep my lady-killer rep to the realm of the romantic.”

  Haifa laughs. “A lady. Khalid is my brother, sir. Certainly no lady.”

  Say what? But then I’m checking the hands. The hands don’t lie, and Khalid . . .

  Realizing the individual I took to be female has in fact been Prince Khalid all along. Me saying, “Well now. Was that you doing all that horror-movie hollering, Your Highness?”

  “Harlot,” whispers Khalid out of the side of his mouth, words directed at his sister, weapon directed at me. “Whore.”

  Haifa makes a noise with her throat. “Oh yes, darling. And I daresay Allah takes a dim view of bloody transgressors of all colors, however pious.”

  “Haifa,” says the burqa’d prince, “at least I do not lie with barbarians, display my body like a prostitute.”

  “Yeah, well, I like to dress nice, have a couple of drinks, enjoy myself. You want to be with other boys, it’s all the same in the end, isn’t it? Allah despises us both equally.”

  Family tiff. I stay the fuck out, waiting for an in.

  Khalid’s got his slits on me, saying: “Not the Allah I know and adore, dear sister.”

  “Brother, I’m well fucking supportive of your bloody . . . struggle. I’m just pointing out that our imam might not . . . I mean, really, look at our family, look at our own family, look at what they do.”

  Think fast, Decimal.

  Years of this cowboy shit, this frontier living, has given me a bit of a gift, in the sense that I can generally savvy a bitch who is capable of pulling the trigger, and Khalid, even through that hood, is broadcasting willingness in spades.

  So I take a calculated risk as Haifa runs her gums. I aim carefully at Khalid’s gold open-toed sandal. And I fire.

  Only nothing happens. The hammer falls on nothing, with a small click.

  A brother can practically hear Khalid’s grin flower under the mask, as the magazine from my Beretta is produced. He/she fans his/herself with it.

  Me thinking, Come on, Decimal. I’m getting played at every turn. A colossal embarrassment to my trade. I deserve to get served.

  “Perhaps,” Khalid says softly, “this is yours as well?” Dangles that mag.

  Haifa’s peepers are popping out her head, flipping back and forth, not knowing where to land.

  Shrug and pocket my empty pistol. Go sad sack. Say, “Well played, Khalid, shit. Well played. When I’m beat, I’m beat. It’s your ball game, Prince Charming. Do your stuff.”

  The prince inclines his head, all very cultured and polite stuff. “Sister,” he says in that quiet voice, “would you be so good as to relieve this gentleman of his weapon?”

  Haifa swings those eyes, that scar, my way, hesitant . . .

  Me trying to keep him off-balance, saying, “So, Khalid, just my curious mind, you dig putting on those silky lady threads, or is it like a deeper scene, like one of those always-knew-I-was-trapped-in-the-wrong—”

  “I am not a transvestite, sir,” says the prince in that gorgeous voice, “I resent the very suggestion.”

  “Oh shit, sorry. I just figured with the headwear from the ladies’ department—”

  “The hijab is a necessity, a disguise, you buffoon,” says Khalid.

  Haifa pipes up: “He’s a poof, so fucking what, huh? Half my friends are shirt-lifters.”

  Khalid nearly turns to his sister but catches himself and keeps me on lock. “Now, merely because . . .” he sputters. “I don’t like those terms. I don’t like your tone. And I’m as much a man as any, sister.”

  “Khalid, of course you are, my bloody point is that I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t give a toss who you sleep with, or where you go, or what—”

  “Silence!” snaps Khalid with venom. “Be silent.”

  Haifa shuts it, me saying, “I’m gonna change the subject. Cool it down.”

  The prince wiggles the gun. “You shut up too.”

  But I don’t. “How’d they get you here, kids? Cause I got the sense that they didn’t just ask you nice.”

  “Abducted,” says Haifa, hugging herself now. Looking at me, looking at her brother.

  Khalid nods. “In Paris. A violation.” The prince gets choked up a touch. I’m ready to jump on him the moment he wavers but the gun is still in play.

  Saying empathetic-like, “Shit, I imagine that was not easy . . . So you’re saying, you got snatched. Against your will and all that.”

  “Correct, right off the street, manhandled and bundled into the back of a van, in the manner of your own CIA.”

  Haifa is nodding, I look to her. “You get grabbed too, sis?”

  The princess exhales. “Like you don’t know already, right, love?”

  I raise a hand, peace. “I’m just the local guide, sweet stuff. This is learn-as-I-go for me too.”

  “Well, it was awful. Coming out of Selfridges, rushing to get off filthy Oxford Street, not paying enough attention, but no one expects . . .”

  Me saying, “This is in London?”

  Haifa gives me a repulsed look like I just suggested she, perhaps, was a tranny as well. “Um, yes. I’m sorry, is there another Selfridges on some other Oxford Street I might not be aware of?”

  She’s trying to bust my chops but I honestly don’t have this information handy, so I lift my shoulders. “Fuck if I know, shorty, I’m from the South Bronx. Didn’t they have one of those joints in the airport over there, like a chain deal, fancy tea and shit? I did make it as far as the airport in London. But I could tell you all about Frankfurt . . .”

  Girl looks confused “The airport . . .” Then she shudders. “Oh God. That’s Harrods. Worlds apart, Mr. South Bronx. Wasn’t that kind of a trendy neighborhood anyway, the Bronx?”

  “The South Bronx?” I laugh. “Na. Fuck it, they tried, but na. It’s many things but I don’t think anybody could accuse that hole of being trendy.” This is a weird conversation, it occurs.

  “Oh yeah. Of course. I’m thinking of Brooklyn,” says the princess. “So right, before I can get to my car I’ve got a bag over my head and am in a bloody van getting knocked around, headed for Heathrow or Stansted, but I’m quite sure it was Heathrow. They had a police siren and—”

  Khalid waves my pistol at my face. “Sister. Perhaps it’s wise to leave it at that, disarm this man, and . . .”

  The princess turns on her brother. “And what? And what? Oi, genius. Do you know the first thing about how to navigate Manhattan? Especially . . .” She gestures helplessly. “Do you have the least clue as to where we should go? Have you thought that far ahead, darling?”

  “This man,” replies Khalid, looking back and forth between the two of us, “this, you know, absolute thug, would have shot me, sister. In fact, he did try—”

  Clear my throat (sand), trying to work that divide between the siblings. “Splitting hairs here, ya know, I recall me placing myself at your service, and you go jumping up my grill with my own gun. Is what I recall, which ain’t exactly courteous.”

  “Khalid,” says Haifa. “Darling, I know it’s been ages and there’s perhaps a great many . . . unresolved family issues, but I’m asking you . . .” She directs a matte-green fingernail out toward the street. “I mean, it’s bloody soldiers and disease and mutant rats and massive piles of rubbish out there, there’s nothing left . . .”

  “Fact, your sister is right, y’all wouldn’t last long. Couple fine-looking gals like yourselves.”

  If Khalid was wavering, he snaps to. “Sir,” his voice quiet but on-the-rocks cold, “I will not stand for insults. I have no patience for such stuff.”

  I backpedal, damn. Knew a couple dudes like this growing up. You know what, y’all, live and let fucking live. You gotta ask yourself why somebody would put himself through all that social bullshit if he wasn’t for rizzle.

  But you know the ghetto, and the ghetto hates a faggot. Especially islanders. You gotta be one diamond-tough-assed, patent-leather-skinned faggot to survive the ghetto. Constant deluge of abuse. Beat-downs for shiz. And God forbid you got sent to the joint. You have to own that stuff, you have to put it up in everybody’s face and tell ’em to suck a bag of dicks if they don’t like it. And you’d better pack a blade, at minimum. Be prepped to cut somebody.

  In my estimation, these folk are hard-core soldiers in a hostile land. Figure: cautious flattery is the way of the wise, me saying, “Fine-looking individuals. And I mean that sincerely, Khalid, with no offense intended whatsoever, you done had me fooled and then some. Passing as a chick.” Switch to the Arabic: “This whole time, I can’t get that bit of text from the holy Koran out of my head, and of course I paraphrase, forgive my sloppy recitation: Say to the believing woman that they shall lower their gaze and guard their modesty, that they shall not display their beauty, that they shall draw their veils around their bosom—”

  “Chapter 24, verse 31, Allah is most merciful,” murmurs Khalid. Softening.

  Motherfucker, these fundamentalists are easily played, stands to reason. It’s all memorization. Snap my fingers, me talking fast, “That’s the verse. The very one. Thank you. With great respect. No, Your Highnesses, no.” I inch closer to both of them, hands out as if to enfold them both tenderly. “Beyond the fact that I would rather suffer the death of a thousand cuts should you come to harm, my employers would see that I was dealt with if I fail. I am entirely at your service.”

  Girls trading glances like what gives.

  Good stuff. Speed it up, Decimal. Switch back to English: “Get grabbed in New York City? And trust it, they not taking you to the airport for some duty-free at Shahrods.” Haifa opens her mouth, closes it. Me continuing, “It gets real but quick out there. People hungry. And if they’re not hungry, they’re probably the guys who wanna grab you. Ya heard?”

  Working her mouth soundlessly again, Haifa looks to her brother. Khalid watching a point over my shoulder, expression vacant. Perhaps deflated.

  Reckon: Hell, I got this. The kid is all right. And nobody got hurt.

  Then Khalid brings his eyes forward, glinting dark and icy through the slit in the veil. “Down. Kneel.”

  I don’t move. My hands out. Haifa says his name once, and Khalid silences her with a look. Me saying, “Yo, son, don’t—”

  Khalid raises his voice a notch: “On your knees.” Pulls the hammer back.

  Sigh. Did I not try to walk the way of the peaceful warrior?

  “Oh, you’re not going to really . . .” Haifa is chin-wagging, bemused.

  Okay. I drop to a crouch, hang my head like I’m all played out.

  Then Khalid fucks up huge, darting over to me willy-nilly like an eager nun, hand extended, reaching for my pocketed pistol.

  Haifa more on point than her brother. Gives a warning shriek, but some fools just can’t be told.

  Wrap my reconstructed hand into a fist—and when the boy gets in range, I punch dude in his royal junk.

  Khalid drops everything, clawing at his crotch, and goes down on his shins hard.

  Prince making some ugly noises. Fuck knows, I put my back into it. Plus—that was my fake hand, so not exactly a fair matchup.

  Can’t see his mouth but his eyes tell me homie wasn’t wearing a cup.

  Scoop up my pistol, and the mag for the Beretta.

  Haifa hanging back, looks like she might make a break for it . . . There she goes, sweet thing.

  The girl spins, behind her a pile of Port Authority vehicles, and beyond that dusty dark. One can see the elevator shaft, the door stands open, revealing nothing but black. She jogs a couple steps, stops, turns again. She’s nowhere.

  Her brother incapacitated, me standing between her and the only visible exit.

  “See, that was just some totally unnecessary roughness, star,” I say, holstering the HK and slapping the mag back in my Beretta. Smile at Haifa. “Y’all should learn some basic self-defense moves. Mind, I do training sessions as well. Jiujitsu and shit. But we can talk about that on the flip.” Put the Beretta away as well, hold up my hands. Lose gloves, Grab PurellTM. Apply. “Enough with the guns. Are we done with the guns?”

  Khalid is lying on his side now, breathing ragged.

  Haifa embraces herself. Says, “That was bloody cruel. He couldn’t have possibly hurt you. This is the boy . . . this is the child I once found weeping in our garden, weeping at the beauty of a single Sabi star . . .”

  Well, I laugh at that. The husk of a laugh, overcooked-turkey dry. “Wild-style. Lady, I’m getting the feeling you haven’t seen this young man in a while, am I wrong about that? Child done grown up. Plus.” Raise my pant leg, indicate the long diver’s knife. “Now, that there would have been cruel. Coulda hit him with that.”

  Khalid moans.

  “See, he’ll be good to go in a jiff.”

  Haifa regards her prostrate brother. “Not bloody likely.” She emits a long exhale.

  I remove his headgear. He groans in protest.

  “Hush. I need a face to talk to, masks and shit bug me out.”

  “Hmm. Yet you seem quite comfortable in your own,” says Haifa. All that and observant too.

  Christ, the genetics at play with these two . . . Khalid’s every bit as beautiful as his sister, sleek and clean, dark hair cut close, slick with product, long face, almond eyes, amazing nose, fantastic skin . . . the only issue is a two-day-stubble kind of beard growth which I suspect bums him out.

  He watches me, teeth clenched, looking forlorn.

  Whistle. “You kids should be models and whatnot. For real, you know, or like actors. Or actor/models. That’s just me talking from the heart.”

  “Ha,” says Haifa, one side of her mouth lifting to create a lopsided smile. “Well, I appreciate the compliment on one hand, and on the other, that’s it, isn’t it, this is a problem as well, I mean . . . I was once pursuing a career in academia, right, and it’s a question of being taken seriously. I mean, it’s not on to be making a presentation to a roomful of men just fixated on your tits, is it?”

  “Na, I wouldn’t think that would feel good at all.”