Picking up the phone, I got hold of the hotel operator and gave him the number of Nim’s computer in New York. He told me he’d call me back when he’d made the connection. I took off my clothes and went back to the bath, which was now about three inches deep in iron filings. With a sigh, I stepped into the dreadful mess and lowered myself down as gracefully as possible.
The phone was ringing as I was scraping the scummy soap off my body. Wrapping the threadbare towel around me, I slogged into the bedroom and picked up the receiver.
“I am desolate, madame,” the operator told me, “but your number does not respond.”
“How can they not respond?” I wanted to know. “It’s the middle of the day in New York. This is a business number we’re calling.” Besides, Nim’s computer was connected twenty-four hours a day.
“No, madame, it is the city that does not respond.”
“The city? New York City doesn’t answer?” They couldn’t have wiped it off the map in the one day since I’d left. “You can’t be serious. There are ten million people in New York!”
“Perhaps the operator has gone to bed, madame,” he replied with calm reason. “Or, as it’s so early, perhaps she has gone to dinner.”
Bienvenue en Algérie, I thought. Thanking the operator for his time, I put the phone back into its cradle and went about the room turning off the lights. Then I went to the large French windows and threw them open to fill the room with the heavy scent of the moonflower tree.
I stood looking at the stars over the sea. From here they seemed as remote and cold as stones pasted on a cloth of midnight blue. And I felt my own remoteness, how far I was from the people and things I knew. How I had slipped, without even feeling it, into another world.
At last I went back inside and crawled between the damp linen sheets and drifted off to sleep, looking at the stars hanging over the coast of the African continent.
When I heard the first sound and opened my eyes to darkness, I thought I’d been dreaming. The luminous dial of the clock beside my bed said twenty minutes past midnight. But there was no clock in my apartment in New York. Slowly I realized where I was and turned to go back to sleep when I heard the sound again, just outside my window: the slow, metallic clicking of the gears of a bicycle.
Like an idiot, I’d left the windows open facing the sea. There, hidden within the tree and backlit by the moonlight, was the outline of a man, one hand on the handlebars of a bicycle. So it had not been my imagination!
My heart was beating with slow, heavy thuds as I dropped silently from the far side of my bed and half crawled through the shadows toward the windows to slam them shut. There were two problems, I realized quickly. First, I had no idea where the window locks were located (if they existed!), and second, I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Damn. It was too late now to go prancing around the room looking for haberdashery. I reached the far wall, flattened myself against it, and tried to find the locks so I could slam the damned things shut.
Just then I heard the gravel crunch as the shadowy figure outside moved toward the window, propping his bicycle against the outer wall.
“I had no idea you slept in the nude,” he whispered. There was no mistaking the soft Slavic accent. It was Solarin. I could feel the blush all over my body, radiating heat in the darkness. Bastard.
He was throwing his leg over the windowsill. Jesus Christ, he was coming inside! With a gasp, I fled for the bed, snatched off a sheet, and threw it around me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I cried as he climbed into the room, pulled closed the windows, and locked them.
“Didn’t you get my note?” he said, drawing the shutters and moving toward me in the darkness.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” I was babbling as he came nearer. “How did you get here? Yesterday you were in New York.…”
“So were you,” said Solarin, switching on the light. He looked me up and down with a grin and sat uninvited on the edge of my bed as if he owned the place. “But now we’re both here. Alone. In this charming seaside setting. It’s very romantic, don’t you think?” His silvery green eyes glittered in the lamplight.
“Romantic!” I fumed, wrapping up my sheet with dignity. “I don’t want you near me! Every time I see you, someone gets bumped off.…”
“Be careful,” he said, “the walls may have ears. Put some clothes on. I’ll take you somewhere we can talk.”
“You must be crazy,” I told him. “I’m not setting one foot out of here, especially not with you! And another—” But he’d stood up and moved swiftly to me, grabbing the front of my sheet in one hand as if he were about to unwind me. He was looking down at me with a wry smile.
“Get dressed or I’ll dress you myself,” he said.
I felt the blood creeping up into my neck. I extricated myself and marched to the closet with as much dignity as possible, grabbing some clothes. Then I beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom to change. I was really fizzing as I slammed the door. That bastard thought he could appear out of nowhere, scare me out of sleep, and intimidate me into … If only he weren’t so damned good-looking.
But what did he want? Why was he following me around like this—halfway around the world? And what, I wondered, was he doing with that bicycle?
I put on jeans and a floppy red cashmere sweater with my old frayed espadrilles. When I came out Solarin was sitting in the rumpled bedsheets playing chess with Lily’s pegboard set, which he’d found, no doubt, by rifling through my belongings. He looked up and smiled.
“Who’s winning?” I asked.
“I am,” he said seriously. “I always win.” He stood up, glancing once more at his position on the board, then went over to my closet and pulled out a jacket, holding it for me to slip on.
“You look very nice,” he told me. “Not as attractive as your first outfit, but better suited for a midnight stroll along the beach.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m taking a hike on a deserted beach with you.”
“It’s not far,” he said, ignoring me. “I am taking you down the beach to a cabaret. They have mint tea and belly dancing. You’ll love it, my dear. In Algeria, the women may be veiled, but the belly dancers are men!”
I shook my head and followed him out the door, which he locked with my confiscated key. He pocketed the key.
The moonlight was very bright, tipping Solarin’s hair in silver and turning his eyes translucent. We walked out along the narrow sliver of beach and saw the glittering curve of coastline running down to Algiers. The waves lapped gently on the dark sand.
“Did you read the newspaper I sent you?” he asked.
“You sent it? But why?”
“I wanted you to know they’d discovered Fiske was murdered. Just as I told you.”
“Fiske’s death has nothing to do with me,” I said, kicking the sand out of my shoes.
“It has everything to do with you, as I keep telling you. Did you think I came six thousand miles just to peek in your bedroom window?” he said a little impatiently. “I’ve told you you’re in danger. My English isn’t perfect, but I seem to speak it better than you understand.”
“The only person I seem to be in danger of is you,” I snapped. “How do I know you didn’t kill Fiske? The last time I saw you, if you’ll recall, you stole my briefcase and left me with the body of my friend’s chauffeur. How do I know you didn’t kill Saul, too, and leave me holding the bag?”
“I did kill Saul,” Solarin said quietly. When I stopped dead in the sand, he looked at my face with curiosity. “Who else could have done it?”
I seemed to be speechless. My feet were rooted to the ground, and my blood had turned to Jell-O. I was strolling down a deserted beach with a murderer.
“You ought to thank me,” Solarin was saying, “for taking your briefcase away with me. It could have implicated you in his death. I had bloody hell trying to get it back to you.”
His attitude infuriated me. I kept seeing Saul’s white face on
that stone slab, and now I knew Solarin had put him there.
“Gee, thanks a lot,” I said in fury. “What the hell do you mean, you killed Saul? How can you bring me out here and tell me you murdered an innocent man?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Solarin, looking at me with steely eyes and grasping me by the arm. “Would you have preferred he kill me instead?”
“Saul?” I said with what I hoped was a snort of disdain. I shrugged his hand off my arm and started back up the beach, but Solarin grabbed me again and spun me around.
“Protecting you, as you Americans would say, is starting to be a genuine pain in the ass,” he told me.
“I don’t need any protection, thank you,” I snapped back. “Least of all from murderers. So go back and tell whoever sent you—”
“Look,” Solarin said fiercely. Then he had his hands on my shoulders. He was rubbing my shoulders with a motion like gnashing teeth, gazing up at the moon and taking a deep breath. Counting to ten, no doubt.
“Look,” he said more calmly. “What if I told you that it was Saul who killed Fiske? That I was the only one who was in a position to know this, and that’s why Saul came after me? Then would you hear me out?”
His pale green eyes searched mine, but I couldn’t think. My mind was a muddle. Saul, a murderer? I closed my eyes and tried to think, but still nothing was coming out.
“Okay, shoot,” I said—briefly regretting my choice of words. Solarin smiled down at me. Even by moonlight his smile was radiant.
“Then we’ll have to walk,” he said, keeping one hand on my shoulder and steering me back along the beach. “I can’t think, speak, play chess—unless I’m able to move.” We walked along in silence a few moments while he collected his thoughts.
“I think I’d better start back at the beginning,” Solarin said at last. I merely nodded for him to continue.
“First, you should understand that I had no interest in that chess tournament where you saw me play. It was arranged by my government, as a sort of cover so I could come to New York where I had urgent business to conduct.”
“What sort of business?” I asked.
“We’ll get to that.” We were strolling along the sand, kicking at the waves, when Solarin suddenly bent down and picked up a small, dark seashell that had lain half-buried in the sand. It glowed opalescent in the moonlight.
“Life exists everywhere,” he mused, handing me the delicate shell. “Even at the very bottom of the sea. And everywhere it is extinguished through the stupidity of man.”
“That clam didn’t die by having its neck broken,” I pointed out. “Are you some kind of professional killer? How can you be in a room with a man for five minutes and snuff him out?” I tossed the shell as far as I could out into the waves. Solarin sighed, and we went on walking.
“When I realized Fiske was cheating at the tournament,” he went on at last, with some strain in his voice, “I wanted to know who’d put him up to it, and why.”
So Lily had been right about that, I thought. But I said nothing.
“I guessed there were others behind it, so I stopped the game and followed him to the lavatory. He confessed this, and more. He told me who was behind it. And why.”
“Who was it?”
“He didn’t say it directly. He didn’t know himself. But he told me the men who’d threatened him had known that I would be at the tournament. There was only one man who knew I was coming: the man my government had made these arrangements with. The tournament sponsor …”
“Hermanold!” I cried.
Solarin nodded and continued. “Fiske also told me that Hermanold, or his contacts, were after a formula I’d jokingly wagered against a game in Spain. I’d said if anyone beat me, I would give him a secret formula—and these fools, thinking the offer would still be open, decided to pit Fiske against me in a way where he couldn’t lose. If anything went wrong with Fiske’s play against me, I believe Hermanold had arranged to meet with him at the men’s room of the Canadian Club, where they wouldn’t be seen.…”
“But Hermanold didn’t plan to meet him there at all,” I guessed. The pieces were coming together now, but I still couldn’t see the whole picture. “He’d arranged for someone else to meet Fiske, that’s what you’re saying. Someone whose presence wouldn’t be missed among the people at the game?”
“Exactly,” Solarin agreed. “But they didn’t expect me to follow Fiske over there. I was just on his heels as he went inside. His murderer, lurking in the corridor outside, must have heard every word we said. By then it was too late merely to threaten Fiske. The game was up. He had to be dispatched, immediately.”
“Termination with extreme prejudice,” I said. I looked out at the dark sea and thought about it. It was possible, at least tactically. And I had a few pieces of my own that Solarin couldn’t have known. For example, Hermanold had not expected Lily to come to the match, as she never attended them. But when Lily and I arrived at the club, Hermanold had pressed her to stay, becoming alarmed when she’d threatened to leave (with her car and chauffeur). His actions could have more than one explanation, if he was counting on Saul to carry out some job. But why Saul?… Maybe Saul knew more about chess than I’d thought. Maybe he had been sitting outside in the limousine, playing Fiske’s moves for him via transmitter! When it came right down to it, how well had I really known Harry’s chauffeur?
Now Solarin was filling me in on all the moves—how he’d first noticed the ring Fiske was wearing, how he’d followed him to the men’s room across the way, how he’d learned of Fiske’s contacts in England and what they were after. How he’d fled from the room when Fiske pulled the ring off, thinking it contained an explosive. Though he knew Hermanold was behind Fiske’s arrival at the tournament, it could not have been Hermanold himself who’d murdered Fiske and removed the ring from the sink. He hadn’t left the Metropolitan Club, as I was a witness.
“Saul wasn’t in the limousine when Lily and I came back,” I admitted reluctantly. “He did have the opportunity, though I’ve no idea what his motive might have been.… In fact, based upon your description of events, he’d have had no opportunity to get out of the Canadian Club and back to the car, since you and the judges blocked his only avenue of escape. That would explain his absence when Lily and I were looking for him.” It would explain a little more than that, I thought. It would explain the bullets fired into our car!
If Solarin’s story held water, and Hermanold had hired Saul to dispatch Fiske, he couldn’t afford to have Lily and me return to the club hunting down our chauffeur! If he’d gone upstairs to the gaming room and seen us hesitating by the car, he’d have to do something to frighten us away!
“So it was Hermanold who went upstairs to the gaming room while it was empty, pulled out a gun, and shot at our car!” I cried, grasping Solarin by the arm. He was staring at me in amazement, wondering how I’d arrived at that conclusion.
“That would also explain why Hermanold told the press that Fiske was a drug addict,” I added. “It would divert attention from himself and place it on some nameless drug dealer!” Solarin started to laugh.
“I know a fellow named Brodski who’d love to hire you,” he said. “You’ve a mind designed for espionage. Now that you know everything I know, let’s go have a drink.”
At the far end of the long curve of beach, I could now make out a large tent set up in the sand, its shape outlined in strings of twinkling lights.
“Not so fast,” I said, still holding him by the arm. “Assuming Saul did dispatch Fiske, that still leaves a few questions unanswered. What was that formula you had in Spain that you claim they wanted so much? What sort of business were you coming to New York for? And how did Saul wind up at the United Nations?”
The red-and-white-striped tent loomed large on the beach, maybe thirty feet high at midpole. Two big palm trees sat in brass pots at the entrance, and a long carpet of blue-and-gold scrolls ran out into the sand, covered by a floppy canvas marquee, facing the
sea. We walked toward the entrance.
“I had a business meeting with a contact at the United Nations,” Solarin said. “I hadn’t realized Saul was tailing me—until you got between us.”
“Then you were the man on the bicycle!” I cried. “But your clothes were—”
“I met with my contact,” he interrupted. “She saw you were following me and Saul was just behind you.…” (So that old woman with the pigeons was his “business” contact!) “We stirred up those birds as camouflage,” Solarin went on, “and I ducked down the steps behind the UN until you’d passed by me. Then I doubled back to go after Saul. He’d gone inside the building, I wasn’t certain where. I pulled off my sweatsuit in the elevator going downstairs, for I had my other clothes on underneath. When I came back upstairs, I saw you going into the Meditation Room. I had no idea that Saul was already there—listening to every word we said.”
“In the Meditation Room?” I cried. We were only yards from the tent now, dressed in jeans and sweaters and looking pretty tacky. But we strolled up to the front as if arriving by limousine at El Morocco.
“My dear,” said Solarin, stroking my hair as Nim sometimes would do, “you are very naïve. Though you might not have understood the warnings I gave you, Saul most surely did. When you left, and he came out from behind that stone slab and attacked me, I knew he’d heard enough that your life would be in danger as well. I removed your briefcase so his cohorts would not know you’d been there. Later my business contact passed me a note at my hotel, telling me how to return it.”
“But how did she know …” I began.
Solarin smiled and ruffled my hair again as the majordomo came forward to greet us. Solarin tipped him a hundred-dinar note. The majordomo and I both stared. In a country where fifty cents was a good tip, we’d obviously get the best table in the house.
“I’m a capitalist at heart,” Solarin whispered in my ear as we followed the man through the tent flap and into the enormous cabaret.
The entire floor, as far as you could see, was covered in straw matting laid directly on the sand. Over these were large Persian carpets in rich colors scattered with fat mirrored pillows embroidered in brilliant designs. Separating the tables were clustered oases of thick palm trees in pots, mixed with fat clumps of peacock and ostrich plumes that shimmered in the soft light. Brass lanterns peppered with punched-out designs swung from the tent poles here and there, sprinkling odd light patterns across the twinkling mirrored pillows. It was like walking into a kaleidoscope.
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