Copyright material © 2016 by Jake McNicholas

This is an excerpt from Manhattan North Narcotics: Chasing the Kilo Fairy by Jake McNicholas and may not be re-published or shared in any form without express written permission of the author.

Chapter 24One Friday, Aiman Qantan decided to leave Juan, the Mexican running the grill, in charge of the store, and take a trip over to Brooklyn and help celebrate his cousin Salah’s birthday.

He didn’t get to see his first cousin much, but he was always fond of him, and so he drove over to Salah’s one-bedroom, basement apartment near Bedford and Atlantic Avenue, not too far from the Men’s Shelter.

The two of them would have a feast on this Friday. Salah had spent days purchasing the traditional food from various Halal stores in the neighborhood. They

spread out, facing each other on either side of a small, area rug, and began the meal with maraq, the lamb broth soup that Aiman had missed so much. His Puerto Rican wife wasn’t making any of this. They shared salad with yogurt and tomato dressing, and feasted on salta, the brown, meat stew with chilies, garlic, and tomatoes that was served in a spice-rich salsa, all the while washing it down with red tea made from ground cardamom. There was the wonderful Yemeni restaurant on Court Street, across from Trader Joe’s, called Al-Wahda, where Salah purchased the malawah bread, layered and folded in butter, and used to eat the meal.

Copyright material © 2016 by Jake McNicholas

They reminisced and talked of home and family and this strange country where they had settled. Aiman had roots here now and it pleased him to see his young children thriving in school.

The day went quickly, and soon it was the call for evening prayer, and so Salah suggested the small mosque not far from his residence.

The imam was an African-American gentleman, fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable in the Koran. But he troubled Aiman. He began to speak of the terrible tragedy that had been Katrina years ago, but rather than lament the loss of life, chose instead to blame the people of New Orleans, to call the victims infidels and rage that the death and destruction that had they suffered was deserved. He said all the lands of the Jew and the infidel would someday soon meet the same fate.

After prayer, Aiman and Salah remained in the front of the Mosque chatting. By now, the imam had stepped out of the location, and Aiman watched as he went off to the side, near the street, and approached a bright red Escalade. And then he watched as a male Black, wearing a Kansas City Royals baseball hat, exited the vehicle—the same man who had been present at his store a few years ago and tried to rob him.

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