Extraordinary Rendition by Paul Batista

Bergenline Avenue, Kennedy Boulevard, and Boulevard East in Jersey City, Hoboken, North Bergen, and Edgewater—that string of towns along the Palisades—selling the spices, for cash, to the Lebanese, Syrian, and Jordanian shops that were then slowly proliferating through these old towns. Even on that first trip, he made twice as much money selling the spices as he had spent to buy them. He was amazed by the reality of capitalism—you could buy something for three dollars and sell it for six. American magic. Within a month he had paid back Nick Ferrante all the money he had borrowed,and, without being asked, he gave Nick another nine hundred dollars. He and Nick stayed friends eight more years, until Nick was arrested. Khalid, fluent in English, read that Nick was taken down with thirty-five other members of the Gambino family in 1993. Khalid missed Nick, who always embraced him and called him “buddy.” Khalid liked that word: he still called many people “buddy.”
    But not Byron Johnson. Khalid didn’t want this polite man to think he was anything other than a driven, narrow-minded Arab. And he didn’t want Byron Johnson to know that he was wealthy, that his first trip in the fragrant, heavy-laden van along the Palisades so many years ago was the start of Khalid’s assembling wealth that he never could have imagined even when, making his way out of the Middle East through Syria in the late 1970s, he glimpsed the rich men in armored Mercedes on the streets of Riyadh, surrounded by armed guards trotting along the sides of the cars.
    Five blocks from Byron Johnson’s apartment on Laight Street, Khalid pulled into a gleaming new garage in the basement of a renovated warehouse that was swiftly filling up with people who were spending at least three million dollars for each apartment. Khalid owned the garage, but he didn’t want the cleanly dressed car jockeys who worked there to know that. He took a ticket like everyone else and told the snappy, efficient Puerto Rican garage man in a white shirt and black bowtie that he would be back around midnight.
    Khalid Hussein had lived in America long enough to love American women. And he spent as much time as possible with them. There were quick-talking, sexily dressed Jerseygirls who worked in the office at his immense new warehouse near the Meadowlands; the perfectly tanned, Harvard-educated lawyer at the big firm in Roseland that handled the lawsuits that seemed to swirl around business; and the twenty-five-year-old Oklahoma woman who was the hostess at the popular restaurant he and three partners had recently opened on West Broadway. Khalid no longer had to work at the business he had established and ran for so many years; he had three nephews who operated it for him and who, he was sure, were intensely loyal to him. So Khalid had time during this stage of his life to enjoy these enthralling women whenever he liked. If his wife, Benazir, knew anything about them—and she had to—it didn’t matter, because she had absorbed the lessons of obedience.
    Khalid almost smiled when, just after Byron Johnson opened the door to his apartment, he saw the gorgeous young woman standing in the light at the end of the hallway, waiting to be introduced to him. Suddenly, putting on what he knew was his dark, brooding face, Khalid said, “And who is this?”
    “She’s helping with your brother’s case. Christina Rosario, this is Ali’s brother Khalid. This is Christina Rosario.” He made no effort to shake her hand. He even succeeded in the difficult effort of barely glancing at her.
    There was black coffee for the three of them at the dining room table. Byron wore a white shirt with his initials sewn into the pocket. He also wore chino pants but, to Khalid’s surprise, no shoes or socks. Khalid took in something else that surprised him about Byron: he was not only tall but stronglybuilt, a body constructed from a youth of playing squash, lacrosse, and tennis.
    “Khalid,” Byron