“Has to be,” I said.

“It’s a niceness moddy,” Jacques said. He was having trouble stifling his laughter.

I shook my head in wonder. Until now, the Half-Hajj’s favorite moddy had been Rex, the Butch Brute.

Radomil looked puzzled. “I rather prefer this personality to the one he was wearing when I first met him.”

Saied returned, and while he was handing Radomil a glass of beer and a plate of sushi, Jacques whispered in my ear, “Ain’t love grand?”

“I’m not going to say a single word,” I said. It was none of my business. It would just take me a little while to get used to a “nice” Saied, that’s all.

“Marîd,” Yasmin said, “don’t look now, but here come the Bucket-of-Mud Girls.”

“Who?” Mahmoud asked.

“As in ‘dumb as a bucket of mud,’” Lily explained.

“We’re back!” It was the triumphant return of Baby and Kitty, staggering drunkenly on either side of an obese bearded black man wearing a blue robe and sandals. He had a carefully trimmed beard, eyes like anthracite chips, and a small, bemused smile on his lips. There was something wrong with this picture. He didn’t look like he belonged in Chiriga’s, and he didn’t look like he belonged with Baby and Kitty, either.

They walked a crooked line to one of the booths in the back, near the rest rooms. As they passed me, I said softly, “Where’d you find this guy?”

Baby laughed. “We were in Frenchy’s, and he was buying bottles. He wanted to see Chiri’s. We told him we’d rather stay in Frenchy’s, but he wanted to see Chiri’s.” Baby shrugged. “So here we are. See if he wants to buy us another bottle.”

They squeezed into the booth, all three of them on one side. It looked like Kitty was getting crushed on the inside, but I didn’t hear her complain. “Would you like to buy these young ladies a drink, sir?” I asked.

“Whatever they want,” he said. His voice was low and solemn. He wasn’t drunk.

“A bottle!” Baby said.

I glanced at the man. Bottles went for a hundred sixty kiam. If he was looking for sex, he could get it a lot cheaper almost anywhere else in the Budayeen. I didn’t think he was looking for sex. I didn’t know what his angle was, or even if he had an angle.

“A bottle,” he said. “And for me, just coffee, please.”

I nodded. We didn’t have coffee in the club, but if the gentleman was going to spill cash for a bottle, I could send out for his coffee.

“See?” Baby said. “What did I tell you?”

“I don’t remember what you told me,” I said.

“You asked me before why we don’t like to dance when it’s our turn. Where we worked before, our boss told us that there were like two kinds of girls in these clubs. There are front-room girls and back-room girls. We’re like back-room girls.”

I mulled that one over for a few seconds. “Baby,” I said at last, “how long have you worked for me?”

She looked puzzled. “A couple of weeks, I think. How come?”

“In that couple of weeks, haven’t you noticed that we don’t have a back room?”

“You don’t?” She looked across the heavyset mark at Kitty, who seemed even more bewildered.

“Just take it easy,” I said. “I’ll have Rocky bring your bottle.”

“Happy birthday, Mr. Boss!” Baby called after me. Okay, let her think it was my birthday. Close enough.

I headed back toward the front of the club, and I saw Chiri come in. That cheered me up, because she was sensible enough to cancel out Baby and Kitty, with the Half-Hajj thrown in. “Hey, Chiri,” I said.

“Say, Bwana. I was expecting more of an actual party, you know what I mean? It’s too quiet in here. Play some music, for God’s sake.”

“I don’t know. I kind of like it like this. I get real tired of hearing the same songs all day.”

Chiri nodded. “I brought some different stuff from home. You mind if I play it?”

I shrugged. “Hey, the club’s half yours, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, giving me a smile with absolutely no humor in it. “Half of it.”

“You missed Kmuzu. He and Indihar came in a little while ago. They brought all that food.”

“Choo,” Chiri said. “I wish I’d known they were passing by. They didn’t stay very long, did they?”

I shook my head. “You might’ve been able to talk them into hanging around.”

“I sure as hell would’ve tried with Kmuzu,” she said. “Nothing against Indihar, of course.” She went toward the club’s holo system. For the rest of the night we’d all learn more about Chiri’s taste in music.

About the time her first selection started playing — it was one of those goddamn Sikh propaganda songs, and Chiri knows how much I hate them — I decided it was time to grab myself a few pot stickers. I took a paper plate, plopped six fried dumplings on it, and spooned on the black soy sauce and vinegar combination that Martyrs of Democracy had packaged in a plastic cup. I closed my eyes and murmured “Bismillah” — in the name of God; then I gulped down all six of the pot stickers and took six more. Even though the dumplings had cooled a little by now, they were still great. I told myself I should savor them more slowly. I didn’t.

“Here, Marîd,” Rocky said. She put a white death in front of me.

“Thanks, Rocky. Come on, eat something!”

“Oh,” she said, “I’ll pass. I don’t like the way NOSFFF makes their chicken, and you couldn’t pay me to eat that raw fish stuff.”

“Have some pot stickers then.”

Her eyebrows went up a little. “You mean it, Marîd? I thought they were all for you.”

I laughed. “I can’t eat a hundred of ‘em, Rocky.”

“Bet you could. I’ll try a little of that couscous. The guy who runs the restaurant, he’s a Maghrebi like you, isn’t he?”

“Meloul? Yeah, we’re both from Algeria. I mean, Mauretania. I think he’s a Berber from Oran, though. I grew up in Algiers.”

Rocky shrugged. “Same difference,” she said. In this city, far from the Maghreb — the “sunset” or western lands — it didn’t matter very much. People didn’t care where you came from or what you’d done there. The city — the Budayeen in particular — was a perfect place to lose your past and start over. I’d done just that, and most of the people I knew had done it, too. That made me wonder for a moment: Did I know anyone who’d actually been born and raised here?

“Trouble,” Rocky murmured.

I turned and looked. The ‘ricain kid, Abdul-Hassan, had come in. He shot a black look at Saied and his friend for the night, Radomil. The Half-Hajj hadn’t yet noticed that the kid had joined the party. I hoped Rocky’s prediction didn’t come true, but in a worst-case scenario I could handle Abdul-Hassan. I had proved that before.

Of course, the first thing the boy did was walk right toward me. “May you go and come in safety, Shaykh Marîd,” he said. Hooray, I thought, Saied had finally given the kid an Arabic-language daddy. Then Abdul-Hassan raised himself on his toes and gave me a kiss on the mouth. It was over in about two seconds, but it was a very good kiss.

That caught me off-guard. I glanced at Saied, but his expression was empty of resentment or anger. I didn’t know if the Half-Hajj truly didn’t care, or if his attitude was a function of the niceness moddy. Yasmin, however, was glowering. She was already fiercely jealous of Indihar; I knew she didn’t want to see anything develop between me and the American kid.

“Thank you for your good wishes, O Clever One,” I said. I tried to put a little more distance between us, but as I backed away, the kid followed.

At that moment, Yasmin decided to join the tableau. “Marîd,” she said in a chilly voice, “I really need to talk to you. Privately.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go sit down at the bar.”

Abdul-Hassan put a hand on my arm and slowly scratched downward with his fingernails. “My heart will be empty until you get back from the hajj,” he said. I’d never noticed how long his eyelashes were. He gave my arm a little squeeze.