-------------------------- [u][b]The Maltese Sahle[/b][/u] -------------------------- Addis Ababa is a hard town, like the asphalt that crowns its central street. The people who call this corrupt moshpit home have a saying: "Live slowly or live quickly, you'll die eventually". And it's true. It's always been true in this goddamned place. Samuel Selassie sat underneath the only working ceiling fan on the block, watching it chop up the smoke he'd filled the room with after a morning's worth of smoking. From his seat, he saw his name printed backwards on the door to his office. If he were standing outside, it would read correctly, but as seen from the glass on the inside, it was backwards, and he wouldn't have been able to read it if he didn't know it was his own name. "This is a hard city. Like the asphalt that crowns its central street" he muttered to himself, flicking ashes into an ashtray. Chain-smoking had made his originally white clothes, a robe and a shamma, the yellow of unclean teeth. His straw hat also bore the stains of tobacco abuse. That is when she came in, pushing through the door, letting it swing in so that Samuel could briefly read his name from the right side before it swung shut again. She was a young kitten of a woman, her richly embroidered clothes telling him that she had money. Her legs didn't quit until they hit the floor. "Weyzero" Samuel greeted, "What can I do for you..." "Shanani Haile" she sat down and swooned just a little, "I hear you can find lost items?" "I can do that, and so can a dog." Samuel smashed his cigarette into the ashtray. "How did you lose this... item?" "It was..." she looked both ways nervously, like she was crossing a street where all the cars were driven by her ex-lovers. "...it was stolen." "Stolen. That is my kind of business." Samuel said. "What is the item?" "A golden bust of the Emperor." she said, still nervous, but now Samuel understood why. The Emperor gave busts of himself out to close friends every year on his birthday. Such an item was priceless, and if the Emperor were to visit the young lady and find out she hadn't kept track of the bust, she could hurt his feelings. Emperors were sensitive souls. Soft. Not hard, like this town. "I think I can find your missing head. What is in it for me?" "I'll pay you." Shanani said. "My family has a lot of money. We could give you an island in lake Tana if you desired. The bust is important enough for that. The Emperor gave it to my father..." Samuel waved, and she went quiet. "I don't need an island. What can I do with an island if I do not have a boat?" "We could give you a boat too." she offered. "Well that really is generous." he paused to drag on another cigarette. "But I think I will take the money. Money has more... possibilities." "It's settled." She said, "Now, what will you need from me?" "I will need to see the place where the bust was last seen." Samuel said, "Is there a good time for you?" "Three this afternoon. That is when my roommate comes back from work. She is a civil servant, you know." "I will be there. In the mean time, did you have any enemies?" "No" Samuel shrugged. "That's the only question I have. Go about your business for the rest of the day. I will be at your place at three. I will just need the address..." She wrote down all he needed to know and left. He spent the rest of the early afternoon considering how hard this town was. -- Samuel Selassie arrived at the woman's flat around three. She lived above a shoemaker's shop. Samuel inspected the place briefly, but made the determination that there was nothing suspicious about the shoemaker except for his workmanship. He knocked at the door to the flat, and a younger woman who he had never met before answered. She also had noteworthy legs, and heavy eyelids that made her every glance sort of seductive. "Excuse me, is Shanani home?" Samuel asked. "I'm here!" he heard her voice from the back. The younger girl let him in. He was greeted by a room decorated in wicker and wooden furniture of the nice hand-crafted type. "You look like the hard-boiled type." the younger girl said, "Like the egg in a spicy doro wat." "I am." he said. "Who might you be?" "I'm Tigist" she said, "The roommate." Samuel found Shanini swooning a little in the back room. "This is where it was, before..." she swooned a little more. Samuel found the place; a dusty table with a great big undusted spot conveniently marking where the base of the bust once had been. Samuel ran his finger along the table. It tasted like dust, and a little bit of something else..." "Cocaine." Samuel said excitedly, "Do either of you partake in satan's powdered sugar?" The girls look confused and shook their heads. "Of course you don't. Cocaine has another nickname in this hard town. Some people call it '[i]The Emperor's Nose Jizz[/i].'" "Does that mean the Emperor stole it?" both of the girls asked, startled both by the idea, and the fact they had said it at once in exactly the same words. "No, but it tells me that the statue was authentic. A regular golden statue would just shed gold and dust. Only a statue in the presence of the Emperor would shed this much cocaine." "Tigist." Samuel grabbed the girl before she could react and held her by the shoulders. It was like he was trying to drill out her eyes with the power of his own eyes, that was how intense his look was. "Did you steal this bust?" "No!" the young girl squealed, "Let go of me you hard-boiled egg!" He decoupled from her dramatically. "I must believe you. This means I am out of ideas. There is only one other option..." "What is it?" Shanani asked, sounding worried. Samuel took out a smoke and started to smoke it. "Don't you worry, sugar. I have my ways. My mysterious ways..." -- "You sure you need that many berries, friend?" the fruit seller in the bazaar asked, giving Samuel a sideways glance. "That many berries are liable to put you into a coma, or maybe some kind of trance like state." "I know what I am doing." Samuel answered, his voice as hard as this town. He took the berries away to his office, where he mixed them with the ingredients handed down to him from ancient generations. He smashed the berries into a juice, staining his hands red so that when he pulled his hands up, they looked as if they were covered in blood stains. The finished pulp looked like somebody farted out their beating heart into a cup. He covered it with a lid and went outside, walking down those hard streets, alone. He walked along the gravel path until he saw a young boy playing in the mud. As natural as a cat, Samuel pulled out his gun and approached the kid. "Hey kid." he said, opening the cylinder and taking out a bullet. "I'll give you this bullet if you drink what is in that cup." "Woah, a bullet!" the boy said. "If I hit it with a hammer, would it go off?" "Probably." Samuel said. "But first, you must drink." The kid shrugged and drank. "This tastes bad." he complained. "Life is bad. Keep drinking if you want the bullet." The kid finished the concoction with a constipated look on his face. "I feel bad. Did you poison me?" "No." Samuel said, "Feeling bad is normal. That's why people drink. Lay down and the feeling will pass." The boy seemed to fall asleep, but at a snap of a finger, his eyes shot wide open. The boy's eyes were completely vacant. "A bust of the Emperor Sahle was stolen from this neighborhood. Do you think you can find the culprit?" Samuel asked. The boy said nothing. He ambled off dead of soul like Frankenstein's monster. Samuel followed from a distance. He watched the kid turn corners, moving as if every turn had a scripted purpose, no question about where he was going. Of course. How many busts of the Emperor had been stolen? Just this one, like, since forever. Whatever magic fed this result of the drug had no background noise to contend with. The boy went inside somebodies home. Samuel sprinted across the street and burst in, where he saw the child go to sleep on a couch. "What is going on here!" a fat man came from the back, "I will have you know that I am a very important falasha, and I don't need people treating my front room like a bar! What is the meaning of this!" "A Jew, huh?" Samuel smirked. "I have you dead to rights." "Excuse me?" the man was surprised. "Where did you hide the bust of the Emperor?" "What are you talking about?" "You gonna play it like that, huh?" Samuel grabbed the man and took firm hold of him. "We'll see what the magistrate says." -- After depositing the suspect at the Magistrates house, Samuel retrieved Shanani and brought her as a witness. It was the four of them there in the Magistrates front room - Samuel, Shanani, the criminal, and of course the Magistrate himself. "What is the meaning of all of this?" the magistrate asked. "This morning Shanani Haile reported a missing Imperial Bust." Samuel began, "An investigation of the crime scene revealed traces of cocaine where the bust had once sat..." "[i]The Emperor's Nose Jizz[/i]" the magistrate said astonished, "So it was a gift from the Emperor himself!" "Precisely as Shanani reported. She is an honest broad." "So how did you discover this man was the culprit?" the Magistrate asked. "I'm not!" the guilty jew cried out. "Shut up." Samuel shouted. He turned to the magistrate. "At first I though Shanani's roommate Tigist was the culprit. She's poor, shown by the fact that she works outside of the house like a prostitute, even when she has the example of Shanani sitting around the house like a swooning vegetable, which is how a true lady should act." "Naturally." said the magistrate" "That lead me to the ancient ritual of [i]Liebasha[/i]. The boy I chose for the ritual lead me to the house of this man." Samuel motioned to the writhing Jew. "[i]Liebasha[/i] is admissible as evidence, this is technically true." the Magistrate said, "But modern judges do not consider it legitimate, since Western methods fail to reproduce it. Plus there are many problems that might arise if the ritual of [i]Liebasha[/i] is improperly acted. For instance, did you correctly administer the potion?" Samuel smirked. "You know me. Have I ever failed to drug a young boy?" "Perhaps not." the Magistrate conceded, "But I want something more than the [i]Liebasha[/i] as evidence in this case. Did you recover the stolen statue?" "No." Samuel admitted, "But this man is a Jew." "That's enough for me. I declare this Jew guilty of theft!" Shanani broke down crying. "Why did you do this to me?" she pleaded at the bewildered Jew. "Did I ever do anything to you?" "I didn't steal the bust." the Jew replied. Shanani went running from the room, her hands pressed against her bawling face. "You are sentenced, you thieving Jew, to have both hands cut off at the wrist as punishment for your crime." "What the fuck!" the Jew screamed, "What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Beg? Entertain men with my mouth? I can't do that! My teeth are too sharp!" "Shut up or I'll take your balls." The judge threatened. The Jew shut up. Samuel left the building and found Shanani crying around the corner behind the Magistrate's house. "It is over. This town is hard, but you cracked it." "Why is the world so cruel." she looked up at him. Samuel pulled her close. "I want to hold you like a refugee holds onto their worldly possessions." he said, "I would kiss you like that too. Together, sweetheart, we'll crack every hard town in this whole universe. This town won't mean an amba of teff to me if I am with you." "I love you, Samuel Selassie" she swooned, "Even though I only met you this morning."