Snoop, I want to meet with Alia. How much for thirty minutes?”
“I thought you didn’t do that.” He looked at me like I’d disappointed him in some profound way.
I dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Don’t worry about that. How much?”
He tapped at his knee, seemingly hesitant to upset the delicate laws of the outpost’s ecosystem. He was right, of course. Officers weren’t supposed to ask for the cleaning woman.
“Just this once,” I said. “No one will know.”
“Forty dollars. No dinars.”
“Set it up. And Snoop? I’m going to need you there.”
He tilted his head to the side, then shrugged. “If you want. That costs double. But no gay freaky-freaky, okay?”
Two hours later, after explaining to Snoop exactly why he was needed there, we stood face-to-face with Alia in a town council office downstairs. Everything was taupe-colored, the carpet marred by a deep stain the shape of Wisconsin, the walls adorned by a small portrait of a long-dead mayor. Three electric lamps in need of dusting hung from the ceiling, giving the room a bright golden glow.
Alia didn’t present herself as an exotic jezebel selling her body for profit; short, chubby, and dressed in a black abaya and head scarf, she just looked like someone trying to get by. She removed her veil, and I recognized the bags and wrinkles of a hard life. There was a coldness to her face. She was wearing perfume that smelled like a mixture of honeysuckle and kerosene. I gestured for her to join us at the rickety conference table, and, after some coaxing by Snoop, she did.
“Snoop, explain to her that she’s not here for . . . sex.” I took a deep breath and looked at the locked door. I’d never spoken to a prostitute before. “Tell her we need to discuss something.”
“She wants to know if you still pay for time.”
“Of course.” I slid across two American twenties I’d gotten from a Camp Independence ATM. “Tell her she’ll get more if she answers thoroughly.”
Snoop crinkled his eyebrows in confusion.
“Good. She gets more money if she answers good.”
“Ah.”
Snooped conveyed the message and then signaled to me that she understood.
“I want to know about an American soldier named Rios,” I said. “The Shaba.”
She raised her chin, curious chestnut eyes meeting mine. I dropped my gaze to the concrete floor, my cheeks flushing from the intensity of her stare. When I looked back up, she wore a sad smile.
“He was a wonderful man,” Snoop translated, matching the soft tone of her voice. “The best American to come to Ashuriyah.”
“Why? What was so great about him?”
Snoop gave me her answer. “He was a true habibi to Iraqis. He wanted to help and gave all good people moneys, like teachers and storekeepers. Other Americans cared about certain Iraqis, but he cared for all of them. She say it’s because he wanted to be one of them.”
“How’s that?”
“She say this is a dangerous topic, LT. She say she needs more to talk about Shaba.”
I slid a ten across the table. It stayed there for a few seconds before she grabbed it with long, elegant fingers that seemed to belong to another body. Her eyes remained on the table.
“He wanted to be one of who?” I asked. “The Sunnis? Shi’as?”
While Snoop questioned Alia, I studied her face. She wasn’t beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but under the worn skin was a round, intelligent face made up with dabs of green eye shadow and a subtle blush. You could also tell she plucked her eyebrows—not a common practice for women in Ashuriyah. Also, she had pouty, bulging lips that could certainly do what Hog had said they did.
A whiff of perfume filled my nose, and to my dismay, the humblest beginnings of an erection stirred in my groin. My eyes opened wide and my cheeks flushed again and I scrunched my legs together, which made things worse. I looked at my boots and thought about cold water and basketball statistics and medical reports of soldiers coming down with the clap and—
“LT Jack? You hear me?”
“Sorry, man. Say that again.”
“She say if Shaba didn’t die, he would’ve desert-ed the American army and moved to Iraq. Is that possible? Or just crazy bitch talk?”
I wasn’t yet sure, but it was something.
I continued, and began thumbing the beads on my bracelet. “I understand that Shaba was a great soldier, that he spoke Arabic and caught bad guys and brought peace here,” I said. “But what can you tell me about the murder of a local when he was here? By American soldiers.”
Snoop translated. She spoke. Snoop groaned. “Any talk of murder costs more, LT. She is running a swindle! I do not think you should give her more.”
I slapped a five on the table. She didn’t respond. I slapped a second five on the table. Snoop cursed under his breath. Alia nodded this time and slid the two bills off the table and into her chest. Something about her just then, the combination of an arched eyebrow and the faintest trace of a smile, suggested a guile I hadn’t recognized before. A second later, it was gone, and she was just a cleaning woman with a sordid side business again.
“Who was murdered?” I asked.
She answered, but Snoop shot back in Arabic, his voice assuming a sharper edge than usual. She replied in turn, her voice measured. Then he barked a laugh and shook his head in disgust. “Lots of people, she say. This was a bad place a couple years ago. She needs more details from you, then maybe she can remember.” Snoop faced me, lowering his voice. “LT, I don’t know if she knows what you want, but it will take too much moneys to find out. Just my opine-ion.”
We turned back to Alia, who watched us with her forehead slanted down, eyes straight and hawk-like. I decided I agreed with Snoop.
I cupped a palm and whispered to him: “Think she understands English?”
“Maybe,” he whispered back. “She’s smarter than I think before.”
I took a swig of Rip It, and my right leg began to twitch. I tried to hold it in place with my hand, which only resulted in it slowing its tempo. What a world, I thought, turning the beads of my bracelet again. So much for the hooker with a heart of gold.
“Want to know why Shaba wished to move here?” Snoop asked. “That sounded important, maybe.”
“Ask away.” Perhaps I just need to get fired, I thought. Or quit. Let Chambers win. The staff lieutenants had a pretty nice life on Camp Independence. Hot showers. Steady meals. Air force females at the swimming pool. That was one of the good things about the military: they kept paying you whether you worked hard for it or not.
And leave my men in the charge of a fucking psychopath? I thought. Or leave Iraq without my Combat Infantryman Badge? Fuck that.
“LT? She say Shaba wished to stay for a beautiful woman. Rana, the only daughter of a powerful Sunni sheik. Shaba was supposed to marry her.”
“How Romeo and Juliet of them,” I said. “How does Alia know that?”
“She won’t say. Which means more moneys. She did say that Shaba and Rana was a big Ashuriyah secret, even after he died.” He sighed deeply. “That’s how Arabs are. All feelings.”
“How did Shaba die?” I asked. “And did it have anything to do with that murder I mentioned?”
Before Snoop could translate back to me, Alia raised her hands up and pantomimed a rifle, squeezing the trigger with her back fingers.
“Like anyone else in Iraq,” Snoop said. “By the gun.”
“You are one cunning lady,” I said. She stared back vacantly. “She remember Chambers?”
“No. All American army men look the same to her, except the black ones. For more moneys, she will tell the whole story of Shaba and Rana. She thinks you would like to hear it. But it’s a long one.”
“I’m sure it is.” A twitch in my temple started up, complementing the one in my leg. I had only five dollars left, and I remembered what Will had taught me about gambling once: know when to walk away. I slid over the last bill and told her to stay quiet about our meeting.
“Al-ways,” she said in strained English, clasping her hands and bowing her head.
I was already in the doorway when Snoop called after me.
“LT? She wishes to know why you kept playing with your bracelet during the meeting. She asks if it’s special.”
I spun around quickly, like a dancer. The two of them had risen from the table, and while Snoop’s face was lit with interest, Alia’s remained fixed on the ground.
“Nothing like that,” I said. “Just something to do.”
It took a lot of resolve not to slam the door behind me.