Green-eyed Thieves has everything a reader could want: fast-paced action, a startling conclusion, and an investigation of the most frightening idea that Firoze can imagine: the idea that all men are brothers. More than that, it offers a pleasure that may well be greater than the illicit joys of the brothers' lives - the bliss of language.
“COLOURS: THE THOUSAND AND ONE shades of green, and the nickel sheen of a lady’s Beretta.
Numbers: threes, lucky sevens, and the sixty grand we took on the Sun City job.
Places: Peshawar, melancholy Lourenço Marques, Brooklyn, New York.
Objects: keys to a blue Mercedes (an SL, not the old Roadster), a cigar box lined in green felt with small-bore ammunition scattered like change. Brioni waistcoat . . . Carrick electrical detonator . . . a rayon bra with big silver-white cups.
With these and many an additional circumstance I conjure my story into life, beginning with docket 3741 presented at the court for the Eastern District in Brooklyn. It arraigned Firoze Peer for impersonating a federal officer. I was also accused of selling passports to those notorious hijackers and violating the security of the United States. But that was the fault of my crackbrained brother Ashraf. We’ve nothing in common except the sulphurous glow in our green eyes.
Ashraf’s not only a brother but a twin . . . an alibi . . . which is why I will never see the end of guilt heaped on me by this patron saint of revolvers, this adorer of Kahlil Gibran and Louis L’Amour, this skinless guy who models his looks on David Hasselhoff. Having the genes of a clod like Ashraf keeps me from having airs.
And keeps me behind bars. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, docket 3741 turned into a conviction over the course of a summer. I didn’t retain counsel. The joke, in this country, is that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client. But with Ashraf as a brother I’d be crazy not to say a few words in my own defence.
The public likes its writers to be incarcerated. This condition indicates an author’s authenticity, some knowledge of things beyond the confines of his skull. It symbolises the truth that a writer is trapped in the pages of his book surely as a bug in a drop of amber. So the world is prepared, I believe, to welcome a manuscript composed on an IBM Selectric on the lower bunk of a cell in Fort Dix penitentiary. (Theatrical inquiries to F. Peer, Master of Arts, #2663, Seven East, FCI Fort Dix – Federal, P.O. Box 38, Fort Dix, NJ 08640.)
Where was my brother? He was my only hope because the judge was unimpressed with my case. Thomas Lodge Cameron was a vinegary, red-bearded man in his sixties. Beneath his bifocals lurked eyes like carp. He spoke with mock respect, poking at me as if fighting a duel. I attributed his outlook to geography. In Brooklyn people need to show they’ve seen the worst in everything, and it doesn’t change their mind about anything. By this July afternoon I expected Ashraf to improve Cameron’s Brooklyn attitude, perhaps by the one-sided fisticuffs my brother relishes. But there was no sign of improvement.
“You won’t condescend to tell us your real name, Mr Peer?”
“Your Honour,” I returned, “You’re jailing the wrong brother. I love this country. I’d never assist a man wishing to harm her. If I did encounter Atta, Mohammad el-Amir, it was only to notice he was a mixed up, very intense specimen. He attempted a seduction on me. I mean, the whole thing is a tragicomedy.”
Cameron wasn’t receptive. “For you more of a comedy, it seems. For us, a tragedy. Well, that’s enough speechifying in my courtroom. Give me a moment, Mr Peer, if that is indeed your name, to finalise my decision.”
I had time to think about love while Cameron did his calculations. The defendant stipulates that he falls in love at the drop of a hat. In four afternoons at court he surrendered his heart to Mrs Velasquez, a fifty-nine-year-old prosecution witness, and then to the court reporter, Irene, whose pea-green eyes flashed in his direction. Like her predecessors Irene was robust, built big around the hips, and small in her freckled shoulders. It’s a rule of human nature that a fellow like myself, on the lesser side of scrawny, gravitates to a broad on the happier side of voluptuous, if he has any real confidence.
“A grand entrance is a suitor’s great ally, but the chain’s fifteen-inch radius prevented me sauntering into the courtroom.”
We make our own punishments. It’s simultaneous heaven and hell, you know, to be inconstant in my way. I possessed a standard love letter done in the Persian style, intended for Fazila in Pakistan. I carry a torch for Fazila, yes, but there’s room in me for womanly multitudes. I addressed a copy of the same letter to Irene on stationery pilfered from the gauleiter’s desk at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre. It was typed on a battered Smith Corona in a booth allotted to defendants. At each stroke the golf ball subsided with a hiss. As a self-proclaimed writer I’m proud of the opening line. (Sweet Irene, Irene of the swallows and the sharks, let me bring you nightingales and such bales of roses, let me cover your humid mouth in parsimonious kisses . . .)
My love letter, I think, takes after my mother’s purple prose. My life, my style, is my brother’s fault. It’s my mother’s fault. It’s the fault of my father . . .
My mother Sameera Peer, an M.Phil. in philosophy, is a leading cultist of Valentine’s Day. We’re both scatterbrains; so my mother understands my tendency to fall head over heels. If Mom had bothered to attend my sentencing she might have appreciated Irene.
Working as a court reporter, I figured, Irene didn’t meet interesting men. Few who appeared in the dock were defendants of any real calibre.
The yardstick of a great nation, I believe, is the level of its defendants. In subsequent pages I explain how it is that American criminal talent, talent in the real sense of the term, is scarce. But my point is that the setting increased my chances with Irene. Intense situations favour love: bank vaults at half past midnight, the bucking back seat of a getaway car with Ashraf at the wheel, the second floor of a Peshawar mansion when, in the high ceiling, bullet holes appear like so many ears of corn. And, of course, this Brooklyn courtroom.
Not that Irene would be easy. The burly man in my future cell, I figured he’d be an easy catch. And Mr Atta, whose eyes were as dark as if lined with kohl, he – I promise – gazed at me with undisguised longing one Brooklyn evening.
Whereas Irene required flowers, poetry, red wine and white, long walks under the stars. Look, I know I’m ridiculous. My brother forges passports whereas I’m a romantic counterfeiter, turning tragical everythings into trivialities. Then these trivial things worry me. The leg irons which escorted me to court worried me most. I was locked into them. A grand entrance is a suitor’s great ally, but the chain’s fifteen-inch radius prevented me sauntering into the courtroom.
The bailiff released me when the hearing began.
Charlie Montague, the bailiff, was a chunk of a man who sat behind me and trained his stare between my shoulders. Montague had served in the Marines.
His friend from the service was on the Pennsylvania flight, so the unfriendliness didn’t surprise me. His military posture betokened his total identification with authority. The defendant instinctively wished to puncture such attitudes.
I tried to befriend the man while we were waiting. “You see your way to mailing this? It’s to Fazila Parker, in Pakistan.”
“Not a chance, Felix.”
I whispered, “Then would you pass Irene this note?”
“Let me tell you something. You’re proven guilty. It behooves you to behave with respect. The judge is about to read out your sentence.”
“Could you at least tell her I care for her? Tell Irene, defendant 3741 is willing . . .”
“No. Even if I wanted to, I’d lose my job. Hire a professional.”
“3741 is willing.”
“Watch your step, Peer.”
I had tried to do the reasonable thing recommended by bailiff Montague – that is, hire a private eye to find out about Fazila. We hadn’t spoken in months.
I didn’t even know if she was in London or Pakistan. The detective should take photos, snoop around, and maybe drop my name in her ear in a favourable light. If more lovers turned to private eyes the course of true love would be smoother, and obviously less blind. The Yankee portion of my soul remarks that there’d be more work for detectives.
I had no money though. The arresting officer confiscated the bills in the Mercedes glove compartment ($3940 in dollars and roubles). My life, my love letters, were now deposited in a dead letter box. So, sure it’s tough without a detective. It’s tough to be an unrequited idealist when a country confuses me and Ashraf. It’s tough loving a brother of tricks and turns who sold an expired licence to Atta. As they say every day in Brooklyn, those are the breaks. But I planned to fight back.”
Extracted from Green-eyed Thieves, out now.
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