The Search for Yaser Abel Said (Part 48)

CHAPTER 48:

“YOU NEVER BROUGHT

THAT ONE BACK”

Bernard Piffy was not an expert in the Qur’an nor in any other Holy Book; he had never finished the Bible—not the one he got from Mom and Dad the day he graduated from High School or the one that had laid on Grandma Piffy’s dresser during her long and fruitful life or the one Grandpa Piffy used to prop open the window in his study on those hot, humid summer nights in Mayberry County, but he knew what al-Kabibble meant when he said, “It is no sin.” The look in the Sheikh’s eye was warning enough. There would be one hot time where the devil met with Jack the Ripper and the Marquis de Sade if the Sheikh should discover that the object of his amorous intentions was not what she appeared to be.

Piffy could have put an end to the Sheikh’s adolescent drooling by telling the creepy old bastard that he, Bernard Piffy, wasn’t a girl—that he was, for better or worse, a ten-year-old boy in a wig, a crop top Bratz bra and nylon-lycra rosebud panties. But he was not at all sure he would gain anything by a confession. The chances were he would be arrested, thrown into jail, made target practice for the Mujahideen or al-Qaeda—if not beheaded. It would be best to continue with his masquerade for if he should be escorted from Aisha’s room, a prisoner of war, it would be over and done with and he wouldn’t get a chance to make a break for it by appearing to be something he wasn’t.

Why did these things always happen to him? They never happened to Mike Hammer or Travis McGee or Shell Scott and they were admired as great heroes, yet he had gone through more in the last few weeks than Hammer and McGee and Scott had in their entire careers and he was virtually unknown! It wasn’t fair! If he lived through this he was going to write a book.

The Sheikh smiled at the ten-year-old in the crop top bra. It was time to quote the Qur’an. “You may have whomever you desire;” he said. “There is no blame.”

Then to demonstrate his mastery of the situation he took the child by the cheek with his thumb and his forefinger and he gave the soft, pliant, preteen flesh a vigorous tweak!

Piffy tried to pull away. “Let go!” he squealed.

“My! My!” said the Sheikh. “You are a feisty one!” The Marquis de Sade eyes in the wrinkled face were sparkling with untold delight.

“I said, ‘Let go,’ you old bastard!” said Piffy, his voice shrill with anger.

The Sheikh’s face turned ugly. He pinched the ten-year-olds cheek as hard as he could, twisting with his thumb and his forefinger until the youth cried out in pain.

“Dress yourself!” he ordered. “The limo is waiting!”

Then he turned to Hanadi. He smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I must put you off for another time,” he said. “I am truly sorry to disappoint you. It is nothing personal. You seem to have developed too rapidly and I was led to believe you were younger than you are. You will make some Mujahideen a fine wife. It is a pity you are already past your prime.”

He turned back to Piffy. The ten-year-old in the crop top bra had not moved an inch—he was still standing where the Sheikh had left him, grimacing, massaging his cheek. “Didn’t I tell you to get dressed?” snarled the Sheikh. His hand shot out and he caught Piffy by the ear with the same thumb and forefinger he had used on the child’s cheek.

The Sheikh was never able to reconstruct what happened next, one thing followed another so quickly—he might have been mistaken for a calf at the Pendleton Round-up by some overzealous preteen cowboy or he might have been trampled under the boots of Easy Company, Second Battalion, Second Marines as it came ashore at Tarawa. Perhaps he had been caught in the middle of that famous barroom brawl in Grafton’s Saloon for suddenly he was sitting on the floor, staring into the muzzle of a Colt Single Action pearl-handled .45 caliber 1873 Army Revolver!

But none of that would have made any sense. He wasn’t at the Pendleton Round-Up or on Tarawa or in Grafton’s Saloon, he was in a little girl’s boudoir at the Osama bin Laden Madrassas for Girls in the Gaza Strip. He was confused. He eyed the 1873 Army Revolver. It looked familiar! Allahu akbar! It was his General Patton! How could this be?

“Unless you’ve already got a room picked out in Allah’s Great Whorehouse in the Sky,” warned the ten-year-old, “you’d better keep your mouth shut!”

“Wow!” exclaimed a wide-eyed Fatima. “You are the Christ Child!” They say credulity begins at home or maybe from a picture in an old forbidden book.

“You…you can’t get away with this,” blubbered al-Kabibble.

“Maybe not,” said Piffy, “but I can try.” He grabbed the Sheikh by the ear and dragged him across the floor to the closet. He found a long belt sash; set General Patton aside.

The Sheikh made a grab for the gun. But he was old and feeble and it was Tarawa or Grafton’s Saloon or maybe the Pendleton Round-Up all over again. The three-time Mayberry County Junior Calf-Roping Champion had the old geezer’s hands tied behind his back and stuffed out of sight under his dark brown djellaba so quickly the poor wretch was left dazed and muttering incoherently on the floor, his scrawny legs visible to the thighs.

“Some people never learn,” said Piffy. “You would think once would have been enough.”

Fatima had come around the bed to get a better view of the action. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “Where did you learn that?”

“I took a correspondence course,” said Piffy

The Sheikh looked up at the ten-year-old in the crop top bra. He wasn’t sure what had happened but he knew he had been embarrassed, humiliated, made a fool of in front of three little girls and his right shoulder was all out of whack—on fire it seemed. But he wasn’t angry. He drew a deep breath. No, he wasn’t angry, he was impressed.

There was more to this little girl than met the eye. Much more! Something was astir inside him, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in years, a sexual arousal so great he felt he might burst. He must have this adorable little girl…he must possess her as he had never had or possessed anything before. And it was allowable…yes it was allowable in the Qur’an.

“If anyone forces them,” he mumbled, “then after such compulsion. Allah is oft forgiving.”

Fatima was staring at the Sheikh. “He’s not mad!” she exclaimed. “He’s smiling!”

“What do we do now?” Aisha whispered anxiously.

“We get dressed,” said Piffy. “And then we get the hell out of here.”

“Just like that?” she said.

“Well—not just like that,” said Piffy. “It will take some doing.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked

“Get something of yours for me to wear,” he said.

Aisha hurried to the closet and brought back what must have been the shortest dress she owned.

Piffy scowled. “Didn’t I wear that the last time?” he said. He was thinking of the day Aisha’s father had surprised them in her bedroom; the dress he had been wearing the night the pole dancer had found him wandering in the alley.

“No, it isn’t!” snapped Aisha. “You never brought that one back!”

“Well, get me something else,” said Piffy. “Something that doesn’t show half of my butt.”

Aisha went back to the closet.

Fatima pointed at the Sheikh. “Now he’s crying,” she said.

Indeed, tears were coursing down al-Kabibble’s wrinkled cheeks.

“Let him cry,” said Piffy. “It will do him good—the life he’s led.”

“He’s crying and he’s smiling,” said Fatima.

Aisha brought another dress from the closet. It was sleeveless and zipped up the back. Piffy set General Patton on the bed and stepped into the garment

“What do we do when we get dressed?” asked Aisha.

Piffy tugged the dress up over his shoulders. It was shorter than he had thought but they didn’t have time to go through Aisha’s entire wardrobe. He would have to remember to keep his knees together.

“Well?” said Aisha. He hadn’t answered her question.

Piffy nodded at the Sheikh. “When we’re ready,” he said, “I’m going to ask King Nebuchadnezzar here, to stick his head out the door and tell the guards to go for lunch.”

“Will he do that?” she asked.

“He will if he knows what’s good for him,” said Piffy.

“What do we do with Hanadi?” asked Aisha. She was full of questions.

“We leave her here,” said Piffy. “They’ll find her…eventually.”

A light tapping had commenced on the door. To those inside the tiny room it must have sounded like the rat-tat-tat of an Schmeisser machine pistol in a crowded Fuhrerbunker with the Russkies at the gates. Piffy froze where he was, bent forward, arms behind his back, fingers struggling with the unfamiliar zipper. Aisha, petrified, stood beside him.

“Is everything okay in there?” a voice called from the corridor.

“Yes, yes,” said al-Kabibble. “The girls are getting dressed.”

Piffy let out his breath. He looked at the Sheikh. “Tell them to go for lunch,” he said.

“Oh, it’s too early for that,” said al-Kabibble.

“Tell them anyway,” said Piffy.

The Sheikh sighed. “Nadjibullah?” he called.

“Yes?” said the voice on the other side of the door.

“Why don’t you and your brave Mujahideen go to the cafeteria for a Jihad Cola Have them put it on my tab; we’ll be here for some time. If you want you can order a pastry.”

“Okay,” said Nadjibullah. “If that is your wish.” He was silent for a while and then he addressed his command. “Come, come, my brave Mujahideen,” he said. “It is on the Sheikh.”

The seconds ticked by slowly in the crowded room, absconded into a minute, then two minutes. There was not the slightest sound of activity in the corridor.

The Sheikh smiled. “The joke is on them,” he said. “I don’t have a tab here. I don’t even know what a tab is but I hear it all the time on Western TV. Put it on the tab, they say—put it on the tab. Here, everything is free—if you are a Sheikh.”

Piffy looked over his shoulder at Aisha. “Zip me up,” he said, “and let’s get out of here.”

The Sheikh caught Piffy’s eye and nodded at Fatima. “You’d better tell your little friend to leave General Patton alone,” he said. “The General has a hair trigger.”

Piffy glanced at Fatima. His ‘little friend’ was sitting on the edge of the bed still in her underwear twirling General Patton round and round in her hand. “Good grief!” he said. “Put that gun down and get dressed before you shoot somebody!”

Shoot somebody? Piffy’s voice must have startled Fatima—maybe it interrupted a daydream—for the words were scarcely out of his mouth when the gun flew from his ‘little friend’s’ hand, bounced once on the floor and went off! A battery of 105 mm howitzers couldn’t have made more noise if they had fired a salvo in Echo Valley!

The reverberations were still bouncing off the walls when Nadjibullah and his brave Mujahideen barged into the room. They must have been waiting in the corridor. They caught Piffy with General Patton in his hand. In less than a twinkling of an eye a half-dozen guns were pointed in the direction of the ten-year-old boy in the Bratz bra and the nylon-lycra rosebud panties!

The only thing that kept him from being shot dead was the dress he was wearing and that was no guarantee—one wrong move and he would be a snicker on Countdown With Keith Olbermann!