“That’s an odd answer for your people.” Dr. Barrie smiled. Her teeth were large and uneven, but it was a good, honest smile. “You sound like a Catholic. We have doubts about everything.”

“I was raised Catholic.” The lie came easily.

“Converted, did you? I’ve contemplated it myself.” Dr. Barrie checked the doorway, waited for a chatting group of students to pass. “We’re all going to Paradise, but some of us are riding at the back of the bus, if you understand my reference.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Rakkim. “I’m disappointed Professor Dougan isn’t going to make the interview. Did something just come up?”

“She was here when I went to my nine A.M. class Friday and gone when I came back afterward. Never said a word to me about taking a leave of absence. I find that rude.”

“Did she have any visitors that morning?”

Dr. Barrie peered at him over her glasses.

“I’m hoping to find her. I lose this interview, I’m in trouble with my editor.” Rakkim sat in Sarah’s chair, scooted it closer to Dr. Barrie. He glanced toward the open door, lowered his voice. “You know how it is. Even with my conversion, I have to work harder than the rest of them.” He looked sheepish. “I shouldn’t bother you with my problems.”

Dr. Barrie squared her papers. “It’s the same everywhere. Catholics and Muslims are both people of the Book, children of Abraham, yet when it’s time to pass out the earthly rewards…” She tossed her glasses onto the desk, leaned forward, whispering now. “I tell my husband, if I was a Muslim, I would be department head, and if I was an Arab, I would be president of the university.”

“Amen,” said Rakkim. “I was just hoping…if there’s anything you could think of that might help me find her, I’d really appreciate it.”

Dr. Barrie rubbed her brow, finally shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dr. Dougan kept to herself. The students liked her, of course, but her colleagues found her…unacademic.”

“Were there any students in particular she associated with?”

“That’s not really encouraged by the administration. Not with an unmarried professor.”

“I’m talking about something completely innocent. Coffee in the cafeteria…I heard she and Marian in the Sociology Department used to get together.”

Dr. Barrie shook her head. “Not that I know of, but then, sociology is just more junk science, if you want my opinion. I didn’t keep track of Dr. Dougan.”

Rakkim stood up. “Thank you anyway.” He was at the doorway when she spoke.

“I did see Professor Dougan at the Mecca Café Friday morning.”

Rakkim didn’t let his excitement show. “The Mecca Café?”

“On Brooklyn Way, a few blocks off campus. A student hangout mostly, although a few instructors will grab a sandwich there. The food at the campus cafeteria is overpriced.”

“She was there Friday?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t talking with anyone. I was stopped at the traffic light, and I looked over and there she was, typing away on one of the computers in the rear of the café. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I wonder why she wasn’t using her computer here. They’re slow but they’re free.”

Rakkim forced a shrug. “Thanks anyway. I’ll reschedule when she comes back.”

“You might think of interviewing another history professor,” Dr. Barrie called to him. “Someone with a real academic track record.”

Rakkim walked quickly from the Four Kings department store and stepped onto the Pike Street bus. From a seat at the back, he looked out through the rear window, saw no one following him. He kept watch for eight blocks anyway.

It was a habit, this herky-jerky street ballet, doubling back, cutting through abandoned buildings and open-air markets. He rarely spotted anyone trailing him, but often enough; Redbeard’s agents, he supposed, or undercover cops trolling for trouble. Truth be told, he preferred the oblique moves. His caution had saved his life more than once during his first years in the Fedayeen, saved his squad from ambush when he was in combat. The others thought him lucky, favored by Allah, and fought to stay close to him. Rakkim didn’t have the heart to tell them that luck was not a fire, warming those around it. Luck, like the favor of Allah, was a black hole. You either fell in or you didn’t.

After his conversation with Dr. Barrie at the university, Rakkim had driven to the Mecca Café, had a cup of coffee and some conversation with the waitress, and then drove back downtown. After parking the borrowed car, he took a side trip through the crowd at the public market before pushing through the revolving doors of the Four Kings. He had already decided to contact Spider.

He got off the bus at First Hill, joined a swarm of glum hospital workers starting their shift at the nearby veterans’ facility. He stayed with them for a block, listening to their complaints about the hospital administrators, before heading toward the Reservoir District, slogging through the puddles that dotted the sidewalk.

The Reservoir District was a blue-collar section of the city, mostly Catholics and lapsed Muslims, a mix of shabby houses and low-rent businesses. Bulky housewives in plastic coats hurried through the rain, while men gathered around burn barrels, arguing and passing around bottles in paper bags. Go to Mosque was spray-painted on the alley wall, Go to Fuck scrawled beside it in Magic Marker-a dangerous rejoinder, blasphemy could cost a tongue. An ancient Lexus perched on blocks in the front yard of one house, tires flat, rusting quietly in the drizzle. The sidewalks here were crumbling, the street signs stolen to confound the police or strangers.

The bananas under the awnings of the grocery shops were soft and brown, the apples wormy. A music store blared the latest atonal thrash, the bare-chested redhead behind the counter covered in mirror tattoos. Dog shit everywhere. No matter how poor they were, it seemed every Catholic family had at least one dog, a quiet show of defiance to the Muslim majority, who considered the dog an unclean animal. No devout Muslim would enter a home that had a dog inside-you might as well expect them to kiss a pig. Rakkim stepped onto the grass to avoid a steaming-fresh pile in the middle of the sidewalk and had to agree the Muslims were right.

Rain dripped down his collar as Rakkim stepped inside the three-chair barbershop, the outdated laser shears buzzing away. The mutt beside the door looked up at him, yipped once, then put its head back down. Shaking off the rain, he walked past the waiting customers and took a seat on the shoeshine throne at the rear of the shop. He grabbed a well-thumbed newsmagazine and put his boots up.

“Regular or deluxe?” sniffed Elroy. He had a cold. Elroy always had a cold.

“Why don’t you give them that special sealer treatment,” said Rakkim, glancing at a photo of the president congratulating troops home from the Quebec front. Someone had drawn horns on the president’s head. He turned the page. “The stuff with the mink oil.”

Elroy slowly unscrewed one of his tins of paste wax. He was about twelve, small and thin, a surly kid with unruly black hair and hooded eyes. His nose was small, of course, a real button. Rakkim heard that it had been an eagle beak before Spider had it fixed. Spider got all his kids’ noses fixed so they didn’t look anything like him. Too Semitic, too dangerous. Not that Rakkim had ever seen Spider. No one had, but that was the rumor.

Rakkim had used Spider’s expertise five or six times in the last few years, usually to check out the bona fides of people who wanted to emigrate, making sure they weren’t setting him up, or to help with escape routes. Once Spider had hacked the municipal computer system of Boise, Idaho, and learned the disposition of the police and border patrol, even came up with a count of their night-vision goggles, including model number and condition of the batteries. Boise had been a good exit point, a regular sieve until another travel agent, a sloppy greedhead, had gotten snapped trying to ease a party of seventeen along the Snake River. Seventeen. Idiot must have thought he was leading a wagon train. Donner party was more like it. They were all executed, men, women, and children. Rakkim had seen the live feed at the Blue Moon, not reacting. Boise was finished. You couldn’t get a snail darter through there undetected now.