kill each other all they want, but they damn well better leave the Quarter alone, or they'll have us to deal with. We've already given the Nur a few lessons. Every time they kill a joker, we kill five of them. You'd think they'd get the idea, but the Nur's a slow learner."
I told him that Senator Hartmann was hoping to set up a meeting with the Nur al-Allah to begin discussions that might lead to a peaceful solution to this areas problems. He laughed.
We talked for a long time, about jokers and aces and nats, and violence and nonviolence and war and peace, about brotherhood and revenge and turning the other cheek and taking care of your own, and in the end we settled nothing. "Why did you come?" I finally asked him.
"I thought we should meet. We could use your help. Your knowledge of Jokertown, your contacts in nat society, the money you could raise."
"You won't get my help," I told him. "I've seen where your road leads. Tom Miller walked that road ten years ago."
"Gimli?" He shrugged. "First, Gimli was crazy as a bedbug. I'm not. Gimli wants the world to kiss it and make it all better. I just fight to protect my own. To protect you, Des. Pray that your Jokertown never needs the Twisted Fists, but if you do, we'll be there. I read Time's cover story on Leo Barnett. Could be the Nur isn't the only slow learner. If that's how it is, maybe the Black Dog will go home and find that tree that grows in Brooklyn, right? I haven't been to a Dodger game since I was eight."
My heart stopped in my throat as I looked at the gun on the table, but I reached out and put my hand on the phone. "I could call down to our security right now and make certain that won't happen, that you won't kill any more innocent people."
"But you won't," the Hound said. "Because we have so much in common."
I told him we had nothing in common.
"We're both jokers," he said. "What else matters?" Then he holstered his gun, adjusted his mask, and walked calmly from my room.
And God help me, I sat there alone for several endless minutes, until I heard the elevator doors open down the hall-and finally took my hand off the phone.
THE TINT OF HATRED
Part Five
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1987, THE SYRIAN DESERT:
Najib struck her down with one quick blow, but Misha persisted. "He's coming," Misha said. "Allah's dreams tell me that I must go to Damascus to meet him."
In the darkness of the mosque Najib glowed like a green beacon from near the mihrab, the jeweled prayer niche. It was at night that Nur al-Allah was the most impressive, a fiery vision of a prophet, gleaming with Allah's own fury. He said nothing to Misha's pronouncement, looking first at Sayyid, resting his great bulk against one of the tiled pillars.
"No," Sayyid grumbled. "No, Nur al-Allah." He looked at Misha, kneeling in supplication before her brother, and his eyes were full of a smoldering rage because she would not submit to her brother's will or Sayyid's suggestions. "You've often said that the abominations are to be killed. You've said that the only way to negotiate with the unbeliever is with the edge of a sword. Let me fulfill those words for you. The entire Ba'th government can do nothing to stop us; al-Assad trembles when Nur al-Allah speaks. I'll take some of the faithful to Damascus. We'll cleanse the abominations and those who bring them with purifying fire."
Najib's skin flared for a moment, as if Sayyid's advice had excited him. His lips had pulled back in a fierce grimace. Misha shook her head. "Brother," she implored. "Listen also to Kahina. I've had the same dream for three nights. I see the two of us with the Americans. I see the gifts. I see a new, untrodden path."
"Also tell Nur al-Allah that you woke screaming from the dream, that you felt the gifts were dangerous, that this Hartmann had more than one face in your dreams."
Misha looked back at her husband. "A new way is always dangerous. Gifts always obligate the one who receives them. Will you tell the Nur al-Allah that there's no danger in your way, the way of violence? Is Nur al-Allah so strong already that he can defeat the entire West? The Soviets wont help in this; they'll want their hands to be clean."