The president broke out in robust laughter.
“Your Excellency,” consoled the doctor, perhaps assuming his patient had gone berserk from the shock, “we need not become hysterical with fear yet.”
Akhmed shoved his Tootsie Roll Pop back into his cheek. “That’s not pathology, you blithering idiot.”
“Your Supremeness, calm yourself. It need not mean the worst and—”
“Where the hell did you get your medical degree—Greece?!” He shook his head. “No wonder we can’t make a stinking bomb!” His laugh sputtered. “I’m telling you that’s not cancer. Sheesh!”
“It’s not?”
“Of course not, you bloody quack. It’s matzo balls.”
The doctor cast a glance at the door, in case he had to make a quick getaway.
“It’s matzo balls, I’m telling you. Nuked on high setting for six minutes.”
“Nuked?”
“Microwaved, you knucklenuts. Get with the twenty-first century.”
“Microwaved,” repeated the internist, holding the film up to the light. “Yes, yes, I see it now. Matzo balls.” He tittered, “How could I have missed it before?”
“Don’t patronize me, you butcher. I’m telling you, I ate a bowl of soup before fasting last night. Ask Hazeem—he’s the one who brought it for me. I was so hungry I swallowed without much chewing. Please don’t lecture me about chewing before swallowing. I’m not in the mood. And, pssst, if you ever tell anyone I ate Jew food, you’ll be sucking Siberian tubers with Nurse Fafoola.”
“But if it’s true—”
The tyrant cut him a death glare.
“What I mean is, why are the…matzo balls, you say?...”
“Go on,” Akhmed growled.
“Why did the matzo balls absorb all this radiation?”
The president peered at the X-ray again. “What do you mean?”
“They shouldn’t be black like this, Excellency. Not unless they were made of base-mineral ore.And even then…”
Akhmed filliped the sucker stick with his pinky.
“There is simply no way any food would show up on this X-ray,” insisted the doctor. “None.”
“The explanation is simple.”
“It is, Great One?”
“Of course. It’s obvious your X-ray machine was made in Iran by Iranian scientists. They can’t do anything else right, may as well make defective diagnostic equipment.”
“The machine was made by Mitsubishi, I believe.”
“Say ‘honest.’”
The doctor semicircled his smock. “Crescent my heart.”
“Japanese, you say?”The president scratched his stubble. He snatched back the X-ray film and held it up once more. “Then what does it mean? Is it ominous? Did they try to poison me? I must say, I feel fine. Ore, you say?”
“Have you any more of these matzo balls, Supreme One?”
“I never let myself run out.”
“I suggest lab testing at once. We should get to the bottom of it without delay.”
Akhmed was concerned. “All right. I’ll have Hazeem bring you a jar. Would you like it frozen or thawed?”
“You say you heated the soup in your microwave oven?”
“Not me. Hazeem.”
“Perhaps we ought to test the oven as well.”
“All right. I’ll have him bring that, too.”
The doctor hesitated.
“What?”
“Maybe it would be prudent to have another party bring the items,Your Good and Plentyness.”
“Another party? What’s wrong with—” He stopped. He cast the doctor a stunned look. “Hazeem? You don’t think… You can’t mean…”
“It’s simply a matter of protecting the experiment from contamination,” the physician said tactfully. “I can send someone around right away with the necessary protective gear.”
“Hazeem?” the president wheezed. “No, no, I refuse to believe—”
The doctor whispered, “These are perilous times, Enormous One.”
But Akhmed hardly heard him. He just lowered his head and, shaking it, kept muttering, “Not Hazeem… By the grace of Allah, not Hazeem…”
“Great news, Mr. President,” Hazeem chirped on the phone the next morning. “I think you’d better pop right over.”
“Right over where?” the leader asked suspiciously, mindful of the doctor’s implied accusation against the president’s so-called friend. Akhmed had not slept a wink imagining Hazeem cornering him in the sauna and beating him to death with a hot rock; locking him inside and turning the temperature to two hundred (he had seen that once in a Matt Helm movie); secretly replacing his baby oil with battery acid.
“To Facility Six-A.”
What was this? Facility Six-A? That was code, of course, for one of the underground nuclear laboratories. Were they in on the assassination plot, too? Traitorous bastards!
“Why there?”
“You’ll see. It’s very exciting. A surprise!”
I’ll bet, the despot sneered silently.
“An early birthday present,” Hazeem pressed.
We’ll just see about that. Akhmed was starting to get a little miffed. Hadn’t he trusted Hazeem with his life? Hadn’t he confided all kinds of personal matters, including his profound love for his cockatiel? Hadn’t he shown him his wallet photos? So this is how the dirty rat repays me. Yes, we’ll just see who is more cunning than whom.You’ll have to get up a lot earlier than this to get the drop on yours truly.
He decided to play along. “Can you give me a hint, my trusted friend?”
“Not over the phone,Your Fullness—not even the cell phone.”
“Convenient.”
“Sir?”
“And I suppose you want me to ditch the bodyguards? Or are they in on it, too?”
“In on what?”
“All right, Hazeem. I’ll bite. But I think there is something you should know first.”
“Yes?”
“Your young niece…the one who attends university in the United States…”
“Samreen?” Hazeem said, his voice rising. “What about her? Is she all right? Nothing has happened—”
“Nothing yet, my trusted friend.”
“Yet? Good heavens, this is no topic for riddles.”
“Quite so. I know how fond of her you are. And vice versa. I know how much she depends on you—as