Chapter 103
GOZAN REMARI AND Khezir Mazul were dining in Santa Monica at Mélisse, a fabulous restaurant known for its magnificent food and VIP service. Celebrities who came here were treated like gods.
Gozan wanted some god-type treatment. Actually, he needed it. He hadn’t slept or eaten since the bloody horror show this morning and he felt that there was more and worse to come.
He sat stiffly in his comfortable chair under the chandelier in the richly appointed brown-and-white room, smelling herbs and roasting meat while Khezzy played the waiter for a fool.
“These Japanese cucumbers. They are like sea cucumbers that puke out their intestines, isn’t that right?”
“Ah, no, sir. I don’t think so. They are a type of vegetable cucumber. Sliced and pickled.”
“Pickled sea cucumbers, am I right?”
Khezzy laughed and the waiter tried to look amused, but his eyes were fixed and his smile was tight. Khezzy loved to make people afraid. Usually, Gozan enjoyed watching Khezzy, but not now. Now, he was disturbed.
Gozan’s mind went back to the woman on the bathroom floor, her throat cut like swine, Khezzy’s knife lying next to her. And he thought about the subsequent killings and the dressing-down by Balar Aram that had humiliated him and made him worry that he and Khezzy would be sent back to Sumar. And if they were, how long would they be allowed to live?
“Khezzy, we should ask for recommendations, hmmm? And let this young man select for us. I am hungry.”
Khezir said, “Uncle, you will eat, I promise.”
Just then, Khezzy’s phone buzzed. He took it out of his jacket pocket, said, “This is strange. Hello. Yes, this is Khezir.” Then, angrily, “You suck. You can’t touch us.”
He slammed the phone down on the table and said, “Uncle, that pig’s ass of a police captain found my number on your phone. He said he tracked my phone with the GPS…Uncle, where’s your phone?”
Gozan felt his blood leave his head and run into his feet. He had lost his phone somewhere; had hoped it had fallen out of his pocket in Balar’s vehicle.
The front door of the restaurant opened and two men came in, their eyes going directly to him and Khezzy. Gozan recognized the police captain from that night at the Beverly Hills Hotel with the mango and peaches women. The other one had been there too. A private cop. Now the captain showed his badge to the ma?tre d’ and angled his chin toward where Gozan and Khezzy sat.
Gozan said, “They have come for us, nephew. Do not move or they will justify shooting us. Be calm and we will be fine.”
Khezzy swung his head toward the front, then whipped it around as the kitchen doors blew open. Four men in riot gear stormed into the dining room with guns drawn, yelling, “Everyone down onto the floor. Get down!”
Other cops were coming in through the fire exit like cannonballs. People screamed; dishes clattered and smashed. Diners went to the floor as the men converged on them and yelled to the Sumaris to keep their hands on the table.
Khezzy said, “You did this, Uncle. You are too stupid to live.”
Gozan felt light-headed, as if his mind were leaving his body. He leaned over and vomited his martini between his shoes. When the captain told him to get to his feet, he did. He clasped his hands behind his neck, and he kept saying to Khezzy, “Do what they say, Khez. Do what they say.”