The Colors of Infamy Read Online Free PDF Page A

abuse in an infuriated
voice, as if Ossama had insulted both his most distant ancestors and his
descendents yet to be born.
    â€œCurses upon your mother! I almost ran you down. If you want to
die, go drown yourself in the river!”
    â€œGod provides for everything,” Ossama replied calmly. “Besides, I
fear nothing. I’m wearing an amulet.”
    Th e taxi driver had time to note
Ossama’s stylishness and his face softened at the thought of an excessively
expensive fare. For lack of a Saudi prince, this young man would do — yes, he
could do justice to his brand-new car. He loathed the lower classes that
clamored aboard en masse and dirtied his seats, eating watermelon as if his car
were a picnic ground.
    â€œAnd where would you and your amulet like to go?”
    â€œIt’s a big city. Take me wherever you’d like.”
    â€œYour wish is my command, your lordship, and may Allah protect
us.”
    Ossama climbed aboard, closed the door, and settled comfortably on
the seat cushions that smelled of new leather. As if to give his noble client a
demonstration of his virtuosity, the driver grasped the wheel and shot the car
forward at rocket speed. Th is barbaric conduct did
not worry Ossama in the least; it fell within the norms of mass hysteria.
Completely at peace with himself, he pulled from his pocket the wallet he had
just appropriated and opened it with the daintiness of a lover unsealing a
missive from his mistress. Crocodile skin, the wallet had no doubt had cost a
fortune; it exuded a strong whiff of corruption. A letter was inside; Ossama
took it out and read the name of the addressee on the envelope — previously slit
cautiously with a letter opener, it didn’t have the slightest nick — sent in
care of the Club of Notables. Th e man’s name had
been in the news for a week due to a dreadful scandal. Th is fabulously wealthy real estate developer was being sued for
causing the death of some fifty tenants of a low-rent apartment building
constructed by his firm; it had collapsed shortly after being unveiled with
great pomp by a government delegation. Dumbfounded, Ossama plucked the letter
out of its envelope and began to read. Th e note,
written by hand on the letterhead of the Ministry of Public Works, seemed to
come from an accomplice who was terrified of the legal consequences of the
carnage. He warned the addressee, in a scathing tone (stamped with unintentional
humor), not to count on his present or future collaboration now that fifty
corpses lay between them — it was not his intention, he said, to increase the
prosperity of undertakers. As for the commission he was owed for his most recent
intercession with the ministry in question, he would spare the addressee. Under
no circumstances could he continue to have the slightest contact with a man
obviously better suited to tombs than apartment buildings, even moderately
priced ones. In short, it was a break-up letter to a discredited associate from
a thief stripped of all good manners by the idea of prison. It was signed by the
Minister of Public Works’ brother — a worthless man very popular with the
capital’s shadiest wheeler-dealers.
    Although Ossama counted himself among fate’s privileged few, this
magnificent bounty was the last thing he’d expected. He reread the letter
several times with fierce satisfaction until he realized he was holding a bomb
in his hands and he did not know how to explode it.

II
    T h e taxi left Ossama on the outskirts of the Sayeda Zenab district. He was born in this poor quarter and had grown up here, and it was neither proper nor decent for him to be seen getting out of a taxi by people who had known him barefoot and dressed in rags. In fact, the young man only came back to this squalid neighborhood to visit his father, a former factory worker blinded when a policeman’s club struck him on the head during a riot following the rise in price of certain