‘Are you serious?’ Patrese said.
‘I never joke about my work, Cicillo, you know that.’
Patrese pursed his lips and blew out; Beradino shook his head.
‘And this guy’s family – Bayoumi – they’re suing?’
‘I think so.’
‘Bayoumi.’ Beradino turned the name over, as though inspecting it. ‘Arab?’
‘Egyptian, I think.’
‘What kind of family?’
‘Wife, one son.’
‘How old?’
‘Early twenties, far as I know. Student at Pitt.’
Patrese knew instantly why Beradino was asking. Ask a bunch of Americans chosen at random to play word association with the phrase ‘young Arab man’, and it was a dollar to a dime that ‘hothead’ wouldn’t be far away.
Call it racism, call it common sense; people did both, and more, and they wouldn’t stop till white kids flew airliners into skyscrapers too.
Tuesday, October 19th. 11:24 a.m.
Dr Bayoumi’s wife – widow – Sameera lived out in Oakland, the university district. Her apartment was one of three in a large, rambling house with a porch out front and Greek columns propping up the veranda roof.
Mid-morning but with all the curtains still closed, as if to block out hope as well as light, she offered them Egyptian tea: hot, strong and, at least to the palates of two Italian-American detectives, undrinkable without three heaped spoonfuls of sugar.
She was darker-skinned than they’d imagined. Like many Egyptians, and Sudanese, she was of Nubian descent, Arab by culture rather than race.
They spoke in near-whispers, mindful of the enforced twilight and the evident numbness of Sameera’s grief.
Beradino, sensing that Sameera would expect the elder and more senior man to take the lead, did the talking.
‘As far as you knew, Mrs Bayoumi, was your husband’s operation routine?’
‘I think so.’
‘Dr Redwine didn’t seem unduly concerned, when you met him beforehand?’
‘No.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How did Dr Redwine seem to you, after your husband died?’
‘I haven’t seen him since then.’
‘Not once?’
‘No.’
‘Have you tried to see him?’
‘Of course. But always, he busy. I remember something Abdul always like to say. With great power comes great responsibility. But Dr Redwine not see it like that.’
‘Would you say the hospital has been unco-operative?’
‘Yes. Very. Not just like that, blocking him from me. I ask for documents, records, and they no interested. Treat me like fly to swat. So I call lawyer.’
She handed them a glossy brochure from the firm in question, a medical malpractice specialist. Patrese glanced at it. Swanky downtown address, shots of a happy but industrious multi-ethnic workforce that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Benetton commercial, and a commitment in bold typeface to ‘help you down the path to a better tomorrow’.
‘What are your motivations for bringing proceedings, Mrs Bayoumi?’
To many Americans, accustomed to a culture where legal representation can seem not just a right but a duty, the question might have sounded odd. But Beradino figured Sameera had enough first-generation immigrant still in her to make recourse to the law a last rather than a first option.
The consideration she gave the question before answering showed him to be right.
‘Abdul and I, we had our own, how you say, parts in the marriage,’ she said eventually. ‘He go to work, I make the home, look after Mustafa. When Mustafa grow up, we keep the parts the same. Abdul still work, I make home, Mustafa live here still. We all happy that way. Maybe not modern, American, but it work for us.
‘And now Abdul gone, where will I find job? I am not educated, not college. Companies, they see my resumé, they say no, no interview, even. So how do I live? That’s why I call lawyer.
‘I want – all I want – is money Abdul earn between now and he retiring. Not a dollar more. I know it not millions, but it enough. That why lawyer, nothing more.
‘I know we can do nothing to make Abdul come back. If you talk of revenge, no, I don’t believe in that. And if the hospital say sorry…’ She made a sound to suggest she thought it unlikely.
‘And Mustafa. What does he think?’
‘Mustafa his own man now. You must ask him.’
‘I understand he’s a student at Pitt, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s he studying?’
‘Chemistry.’
‘So that’s where we’d find him now? In the chemistry department?’
‘Not today. Today, he on outreach. At mosque, in Homewood.’
‘We’ll go talk to him there,’ Beradino said. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bayoumi.’
‘May I ask favor?’
‘Sure.’
‘How you say in slang? Go easy on him. For Arab boy, father is most important man in world. To lose that is very hard for him. So for me too. Mustafa is my world now. He my only son. Allah blessed us with him, no more. I lose one man, I no lose another. I do anything for that boy, you understand? Anything.’
Homewood, Patrese thought; always Homewood. It seemed less a geographical area than a vortex, forever dragging him back in.
On the sidewalk, a handful of youths waved at them, their gestures heavy with sarcasm. Patrese waved back, deadpan, his mind miles away.
After a few seconds, he glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw exactly what he expected; a couple of them flipping the detectives the bird, another pair dropping their pants and mooning.
Patrese laughed. Beradino, swiveling round to follow his gaze, was angry.
‘Stop the car, Franco. Let’s go bust their asses.’
‘Ah, they’re just screwin’ around.’
‘To a marked cop car? You let that go, you let anythin’ go. Zero tolerance.’
‘You don’t like black people?’
‘I got nothin’ against black people. I’m a good Christian man, Franco. Jesus says that we should accept all men equally. I just don’t like these black people. If they were white people actin’ this way, I wouldn’t like ’em any better. Shoot, I’d probably like ’em worse.’ He pointed forward. ‘There, that’s the mosque.’
There was a plaque on the building’s front wall. In 1932, it read, Pittsburgh became home to the first chartered Muslim mosque in the United States.
‘What a claim to fame,’ said Beradino,