Tehran Noir Read online

  I mumbled something that was supposed to mean yes. What I really wanted to do was cut the boy’s nose off.

  Naser said, “But how am I to get gold coins for you every time? In the rest of the world they deal in cash, you know?”

  The guy shrugged. “The rest of the world you’re talking about is America. America has dollars. When you’re in Iran it’s gold you need to use. Cash means nothing here.”

  This kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen. But he understood things. Some people, even by sixteen they’re wise. They know how to get ahead. While other people can live fifty years and still get nowhere. I was disgusted with myself. I felt like I didn’t even know half the things this girly boy did. I was thinking of the words he’d used—America, dollars . . . all of them words that smelled of life and success. Words that I knew nothing about.

  They measured out the stuff for us in a little bag and even put a pink ribbon around it. You could have lifted the thing with a couple of fingers. Then I was driving us back to Mowlavi. My mood had changed for the better now. It was as if we carried the world in that pink-ribboned bag of possibilities. Suddenly I felt myself closer than ever to dollars, to gold, and to pretty girls who put red nail polish on their lovely feet.

  I drove us fast. But then less than a minute away from the butcher shop, I had a snake—I kid you not—slithering and showing its fangs on the front windshield of our car. I hit the brakes and we all watched the monster in awe. It was Indian Ebrahim’s snake. As long as I’d known the guy, that was what he did, dealt in snakes. He came lumbering up to the car, stoned as a doorknob. Yet he was expertly able to grab the creature by its head.

  “Fellas, my apologies. This is one wild fucker. I’m taking him to Javad the Cadaver to give him some morphine, slow him down a bit.”

  And then he was gone and we were parking the car by the shop. It was the four of us: me, Naser the Tiger, Fat Rambod, and my brother Abbas.

  Abbas grabbed a tablecloth and laid it out on the floor in the back of the shop. We sat around that cloth and started cutting up the New Year’s powder and preparing it for business.

  We were measuring out the coke on a scale and wrapping it. Meanwhile, Naser had texted a select list of his customers who quickly began to reply with their wishes.

  When we were done, Naser took out a bill from his pocket and rolled it for the leftovers. It was time to have a little fun and try the stuff for ourselves.

  And that’s when it started. That lazy fat fuck Rambod! At first he said how great he was feeling. How he wanted to dance. And then, after the second or third sniff, suddenly his face went white. Cold sweat appeared on his forehead and he began shouting that he was dying.

  Naser laughed, “You’re not dying. You look fine.” Naser had actually sniffed three times more than the rest of us.

  Rambod started screaming, and I mean at the top of his voice. “My balls are on fire!” He ran around the place yelling and tearing his clothes off until I finally managed to wrestle him to the ground. Abbas threw me a small pillow which I stuffed in his mouth. “Shut the fuck up!” We were lucky so many people had left town that day, including my father who had gone out to Karaj to kiss his older, richer brother’s ass as usual so he could borrow money from that asshole.

  Anyhow, it was as if Rambod, in his nakedness, had grown supernatural powers. He threw me off and began his screeching again. We were all scared. I know I was. We didn’t know what to do with this fool.

  Abbas and I watched in horror as Rambod now took a sandal and threw it in Naser’s face and began cursing him. We were dumbfounded. This guy was cursing one of the most frightening tough guys in the city and tossing things at him. We saw blood written all over Naser’s face. Meanwhile, Rambod ran into the bathroom and turned the water on, all the while screaming and swearing at Naser.

  Naser slowly got up and went to where my father kept his butcher knives. He came back out with the biggest cleaver in the shop. The thing had an ominous-looking blot of dried brown blood on it.

  I ran up to Naser. “Tiger, what are you up to?”

  “I’m going to cut him up.”

  “Let him go, brother. He snorted too much. He’s not himself.”

  The powder that had gone up Rambod’s nose had gone up mine too. My head was already starting to spin. I was talking to Naser and in the back of my mind I was still thinking about why I was so behind in life.

  Rambod screamed, “Bring me some ice! My balls are on fire!”

  “I’ll strangle him,” Naser growled.

  I turned to Abbas. “Lend a hand here, won’t you?”

  Abbas shrugged. “When Naser the Tiger makes a decision, who are we to get in his way?”

  I held my ground: “Naser jaan, they call this idiot Fatso Rambod. He’s a mama’s boy. You shouldn’t let yourself get worked up over his going nuts.”

  “Abbas, I’m burning up! Help me!” Rambod screamed.

  Abbas muttered, “Don’t worry, son. Naser the Tiger is going to put you out of your misery in a second.”

  Naser pushed me out of the way and took two giant steps toward the bathroom. I grabbed his hand but he pulled it back.

  Rambod stood in the door of the bathroom now, the long hose from the bidet in his hand. “Naser, what are you going to do to me?”

  “I’m going to rip your heart out. There’s not a man born yet who dares mess with Naser the Tiger. Now you’re cussing at me?” He took another step and raised the cleaver.

  Rambod lifted the hose and shot water into Naser’s face. “Fuck off! If you were a real dealer, this wouldn’t be happening. My eyes are popping out of their sockets. This stuff isn’t coke. I don’t know what it is. But they fooled you.” He moaned, “Everything’s turning purple. I swear. Somebody give me some ice!” He began jumping up and down.

  Naser turned to my brother. “This isn’t cocaine?”

  “He’s full of it, aqa Naser. It’s the real thing,” Abbas said, swallowing hard.

  Rambod started to bawl. “Everything is purple. What the hell is this stuff?”

  “Shut up!” Naser raised the cleaver again, and again Rambod doused him with water.

  “Naser, fuck your mother! Naser the Tiger is Naser the Donkey. This isn’t coke. I’m telling you, it isn’t!”

  “One more scream and I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

  Rambod’s eyes closed. The hose fell from his hand. He began shaking and fell to the floor. I ran up to him, scooped water from the sink, and splashed his face. Naser had turned beet-red; he stood there with the cleaver half raised and a soaked face, not knowing what to do.

  I called to Abbas who brought over a glass of sugar water. We opened Fat Rambod’s mouth and poured some liquid in there. Rambod choked and began uttering nonsense—something about the alphabet and how we should all learn our first-grade lessons.

  We gave him more sugar water.

  He called to me and grabbed my wrist. “Mahmud, I’m a heavy sort of guy, right? I’m better than all of you, right?”

  “Yes, you are, my friend. You’re the best.” I held his head up and dried his face.

  “You learned everything from me, right? I’m the one who made a man out of you. Isn’t that the truth?”

  “That’s the truth, as long as you get better.”

  Now he turned to Naser. “You’re a real pimp, aren’t you?”

  Naser looked like he could kill all of us just then. But he kept his cool. “Yes, I am. I’m a real pimp.”

  He turned back to me. “Anything you guys do, I can do better. You’re all jealous of me—”

  Abbas cut in, “Rambod joon, are you really sick or are you just using this opportunity to give us a piece of your mind?”

  Rambod seemed to drift off again. I was afraid we were going to end up with a dead body on our hands and didn’t know what to do. Then there was some noise from the outside. It sounded like Indian Ebrahim was wrestling with a snake.

  I shook Rambod. “You’re right about th
at; we’re all jealous of you. You’re number one. You’re the heaviest of the heavies in town. Stay with us.” I saw some color returning to his face.

  He opened his eyes a bit. “Naser, do you promise to drop Mahmud and have me drive you around instead? Do you promise to forgive me for cursing at you?”

  I wanted to smash his head in. I said, “Look, Rambod joon, it’s true you’re not feeling well. But don’t exploit the situation.” He began screaming worse than before, but I didn’t want to take any chance with this son of a bitch dying on us. “Anything you want, Rambod joon. You’re right, I’ll get out of the way and you can work with Naser.” I turned to Naser. “Isn’t that right?”

  Naser grimaced. “Sure. We’ll work together. You know what? You can take over my position too. You be the boss and I’ll drive for you. How’s that? Just don’t die right now. All right?”

  This quieted him down. He glanced Naser’s way and said, “There’s a lot we’ll have to do. We have to make tons of money. Come Ashura, we have to feed the whole city. During Nim e Shaban, all of Tehran has to eat sweets and sherbet from the hands of Rambod and Naser. We have to make so much money that we keep a separate house just for ourselves. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Rambod leaned half of his face into my thigh, smiling. “We’ll get us a nice-size place behind Niavaran Park. You know, in that area where the Americans built years ago. Any girl who steps into our place will instantly fall in love with us.”

  Naser said, “That’s right, Rambod joon. Whatever you say. As long as it’s a duplex. One for you and one for me and Mrs. Fataneh.”

  I already felt left out of this conversation. It dawned on me I’d never even been to Niavaran Park.

  Rambod went on, “We’ll go skiing in Dizin. We’ll use our cell phones to take lots of pictures. We’ll put them on Internet. Each one of our pictures will get a thousand hits.”

  I was out of the loop and my eyes were filling with tears.

  Abbas, my poor brother, asked where Dizin was.

  I called out, “Fellas, how about Abbas and me?”

  “No worries,” Naser winked. “You guys are with us. We just want our business to grow. We want to have top customers.”

  Rambod: “We’ll turn all the areas around Tajrish into cocaine land. All of Darrous and Fereshteh. Anywhere there’s rich people, we’ll feed them coke.”

  Abbas: “Don’t forget there’s also Shahrak-e-Qarb.”

  Me: “And Saadat-Abad. There’s plenty of rich folks over there waiting for our coke.”

  Abbas: “That’s right. Around Kaj Circle up there. They’ll be salivating over our goods.”

  Rambod: “And then we’ll conquer other cities too. Esfahan, Shiraz, Dubai, Istanbul.”

  Naser: “And we’ll go on a pilgrimage to Mashhad to visit Imam Reza. Don’t forget that.”

  Rambod: “No doubt. We have to go on a pilgrimage.” He reached for the sugar water and drank. “We’ll marry. We’ll have kids.”

  Abbas: “I want two daughters.”

  Naser smacked him in the back of the head. “What good is a daughter to you, stupid? Have sons so your flag will always be up and straight.”

  Rambod: “Daughters are as good as sons. As long as they’re healthy. Enshallah.”

  We all repeated, “Enshallah.”

  Now Rambod sat up. There was light in his eyes. He said to me, “Mahmud, remember that song you sang the other night? Will you sing it again?”

  Naser said, “I even got my harmonica in my bag. I’ll play along with you.” He went and got the little instrument and started playing some bullshit and I began singing.

  Rambod sprawled out comfortably and shut his eyes. He was peaceful.

  The rest of us went back to where we’d cut up the coke. Naser said, “How about we snort just a little bit more?”

  Abbas said, “Most definitely.”

  Naser made a few more lines and we sniffed. We lit our cigarettes and each man was in his own world. I was back to thinking about my life. It seemed like I wasn’t going to see the color of peace and tranquility for a long, long time. I thought to myself, To hell with it, Mahmud! Stick to the high you got right now; forget about tomorrow!

  Naser was quiet. My brother was playing an old song on his phone. And I . . . suddenly I was burning up. My jaws locked and my balls were on fire. As if a thousand worms were creeping inside me. I saw everything go purple. This thing we had snorted, it wasn’t coke.

  “I’m burning!”

  That was my brother Abbas shouting. Next was Naser. All three of us were jumping up and down like men forced to run on hot coal. We were ripping our pants off and reaching for our scorched testicles.

  At that moment Rambod finally got up. He looked like a whale coming to life and he had purpose in his eyes. He went into the freezer and came back with slabs of frozen meat and told us all to stick our nuts in it.

  We did.

  I almost passed out, but the iced meat soothed my eggs. Naser was in far worse shape, though. He had taken way more than us. And by the time the frozen meat arrived he wasn’t together enough to properly cool his balls. Something happened to him that night. And I’ll tell you what that something is: Naser the Tiger became Naser the No Nuts that evening. Man can barely get it up anymore. I’m sure of it. But no one dares talk about that. And if it hadn’t been for Rambod’s quick thinking, I would have lost my balls too.

  But all this, as I said, is only between us. I mean me, Rambod, and Naser. And why not Abbas? Because my poor dear brother died that night. That’s why.

  I’d rather think it was Indian Ebrahim’s snake that killed Abbas than the shit we snorted. Because it’s more profitable to think like that. What happened was that while we were jumping around trying to save our manhoods, that evil snake took off again and somehow ended up with us and the frozen meat.

  You can imagine the rest.

  But Abbas’s death wasn’t all meaningless. His death was blamed on the snake, and Indian Ebrahim had to shell out a sizeable diyye, blood money, to my father. Now like I said, I don’t know if it was the fake coke that killed my brother or the snake or a heart attack from seeing a snake at the critical moment when his eggs were on fire. Indian Ebrahim says that the snake was not poisonous and he’s probably right. But in this neighborhood, a death that has a snake in the equation carries a price. If Indian Ebrahim didn’t give the blood money he wouldn’t be able to do business here anymore. One call to the cops and they’d confiscate his damn snakes and throw him in jail.

  But all that aside (including the fact that my father got to spruce up his butcher shop a bit because of the blood money, and that I may stay here and inherit the dump after all), there’s one thing that still burns me: I should have let Naser the Tiger cut up Fat Rambod that night. Because after that, they threw me out of the game and the two of them started working together. Turns out Fat Rambod has a sharp nose for fake powder. If it’s not real, he’ll know it before anybody else. We got an example of this that very night.

  And that works for Naser. Fat Rambod drives Naser around now and examines the goods. Also, Naser raised such hell over the fake stuff from that night and rearranged so many faces that the two of them have already turned into legends, and cocaine is their domain.

  As for me, every time I think of Rambod I get heartsick. But there’s a catch: if I had let Naser cut up Rambod, I guess I wouldn’t have my balls either. Let’s not forget it was Rambod who saved us with the frozen meat. I love my balls. I’d like to keep them. I wouldn’t trade them for all the money and cocaine in the world. Even if they told me I could become the biggest gangster in the city in return for my balls, I’d say no.

  To hell with that.

  For the time being I’m not even working the butcher shop. I’m playing hard-to-get with my old man and I hate the meat business. I want things on my own terms. And my own terms means keeping my honor and my testicles.

  That’s right.

  Because, well, just imagi
ne you are the fattest gangster in all of Tehran but you can’t even fuck Mrs. Fataneh with the fat tits. Imagine your balls had melted away. Who’s going to do Mrs. Fataneh now? Who’s going to stick it between her ample breasts? This is why wise men have always said: Don’t count your eggs before they’re hatched. And, if possible, always keep a little frozen meat around.

  FEAR IS THE BEST KEEPER OF SECRETS

  BY VALI KHALILI

  Rey

  It all began on a really slow day. One of those days when there’s just no news. The hour hand on the office clock was pushing three p.m. and I still didn’t have a report to turn in for the newspaper. Nothing. No murder. No calamity. No burning building. Some days are just like that and they make a crime reporter’s job that much more difficult. Desperate, I’d even called my contact at the Criminal Investigation Department only to be met with the silence of a sleepy Thursday afternoon. So I started hitting the other papers to see what I could find. Which was when I came across it, a little ad about a young man who had gone missing.

  His name: Asghar Ahmadvand Shahvardi. Age, twenty-eight. The photo showed a round face with a fat nose and olive skin. He wore a striped shirt and wasn’t smiling. The ad said he’d left his house exactly three months and ten days earlier. He’d supposedly been on his way to work on a Wednesday morning but hadn’t been seen since. At the bottom of the ad there was a contact number to call if anyone had news about him.

  There was little time to waste. Deadline was around the corner and I needed to get five hundred words in for the day. I figured I’d make a call to the number in the ad, get some inside scoop about the young man from his family, and write my five hundred words. It wouldn’t be the first time I was doing something like this, and sometimes it even paid off in interesting ways. One time I wrote about an autistic sixteen-year-old boy who apparently just got up and started walking alongside the railways tracks. Ten days later they found him 350 kilometers away still walking the tracks. Another time I wrote about a lost teenage girl who was finally located, the victim of a serial killer who’d murdered six other women.