Tangier

by William Bayer

  He moved around to his desk and shook his head. Knowles was an idiot. His blond hair curled down his neck and covered half his ears. He was exactly the same size as his wife, Jackie, who taught girls' gymnastics at the American School. They were vegetarians, smoked pot on the weekends, jogged around early in the morning in unisex sweatsuits like a matched pair of ponies parading on a course.

  "All right," he said, settling into his chair. "What sort of people go in there, and what did you see them do?"

  "Oh—people from the Mountain. The Manchesters, for instance."

  "Willard Manchester goes in there?"

  Knowles nodded. "Yesterday he went in twice."

  "And?" Why hadn't Willard told him about the Russian and his past?

  "The British. A lot of them. The Whittles. Vicar Wick. Retired people. People with big cars. They get their mail, pick up packages, buy newspapers—things like that." Knowles looked down at the rug. "I don't know—maybe I should have kept a log."

  "That's all right, Foster. I just want a feel of what goes on. Any Moroccans?"

  "Well, he gets deliveries. Ouazzani was in there last night."

  "Inspector Ouazzani?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did he buy anything?"

  "Not that I could see."

  "OK, Foster." Lake yawned. "Thanks very much. You can go back to whatever you were doing now."

  Knowles sat still. "You know, Dan, I've been thinking."

  "Yeah? What about?"

  "This whole business seems kind of crazy."

  "Forget about it then."

  "You mean forget the whole thing?"

  "Uh huh. I thought you'd like it—snooping around. I sort of thought of you as a good snoop-around type. But I guess I was wrong. Forget about it. I'll handle it myself."

  "Gee, Dan—"

  "I've got a lot of paperwork this morning, so if you'd just—"

  "Yeah. Right." Knowles nodded, unraveled himself, and started toward the door. Halfway there he paused and turned around. "There's one other thing, Dan, you ought to know. Might turn into a hassle later on. Couple of young Americans, hippies I guess, were camping out in the Rif. Seems they went hunting for psychedelic mushrooms and ate some poison ones by mistake. After a while they started feeling bad, so they hitched a ride to Tangier. They're at Al Kortobi Hospital now. According to the doctors they're really sick."

  "OK. Keep me informed."

  Knowles nodded and went out the door. When he was gone Lake made a fist and pounded it against the desk. Hassles! Psychedelic mushrooms! God, what an asshole, he thought.

  He paced around the office for a while, feeling caged, bad-tempered, worn. He hadn't slept properly in a week, and now his mind was clouded by all sorts of things he didn't understand or know how to control. The wind was still blowing, though the sealed windows of the Consulate cut the noise. Outside he could see the palms thrashing and a small surf lapping at the sides of the Consulate pool.

  He took hold of the binoculars again, trained them on the Mountain, found the Jew's River at its base and tried to move along it to La Colombe. Damn those palms! Just in the corner they blocked his view. He was about to call downstairs, order the gardener to cut them down, when he stopped himself and shook his head.

  Madness, he whispered. Mad! Mad!

  But a few seconds later he broke into a sweat. Ouazzani! There was some connection. He remembered it now. Through the winter Willard and Katie had talked of little else. Z's wife had left him for a policeman, Hamid Ouazzani, who headed the foreign section at the Sûreté. The Manchesters had been worried. Zvegintzov was despondent, and they were afraid he was going to close his shop. When he snapped out of it they'd been relieved. Now Foster said Ouazzani had visited Z. The whole setup began to stink.

  Could it be, he asked himself, that Z planted the girl with the Inspector in order to infiltrate the police? With a policeman in his pocket he would have information on all the foreigners in town. He could blackmail them, use them as couriers, employ them any way he liked. And he'd arranged his own protection too: with a link to the police his espionage operation could go on and on.

  Lake toyed with the idea for several minutes, then slumped back into his chair. He knew he was being ridiculous, that all his fantasies were absurd. Z was inactive, a man much like himself, broken, put out to pasture, mired in failure and despair. He felt a surge of sympathy for him then. He and Z were a pair of relics, aging cold warriors stagnating in Tangier.

  At lunch he was distracted, glum. He hardly listened as Janet rambled on about their social life, nodded absently when she asked him if he'd like her to get them tickets for the play. Joe said his French teacher was a queer. Steven said there was a kid at school with a mustache who threatened to take him into the bushes and "spread his ass." Janet was shocked and begged him to intervene. "You ought to call the headmaster, Dan. It's the very least that you should do."

  He nodded, promised he would, but he was really concentrating on Z. What could he do about him? Or might he do better to leave him alone?

  When he crossed the garden again to his office, the wind had begun to slack off. There was a circular in his in-box, something from the Department asking how many square feet in the Consulate were devoted to offices, public areas, garage. "Foster—please take care of this" he jotted in the margin. Then he leaned back and groaned. It was asinine—a request like that, the sort of thing that could drive you mad. But he made certain that every memo received was answered by the following day. He insisted on "responsiveness" even if it meant that Foster would have to work at night.

  He went to the vault, unlocked it, and walked inside. Here only Foster and himself were allowed. The cryptographic equipment lay immaculate on the table. The machine was quiet—no messages to be cracked. He walked along the bank of green steel filing cabinets, his fingers giving an extra twist to each of the gleaming locks.

  Why had he been sent here? How could he convince the Department that he was cut out for grander things? Maybe he ought to come clean, admit to his instability, seek help, confess. But he knew the Department, knew there was no mercy there. Washington was littered with broken foreign-service officers, men like himself who'd cracked up overseas. He couldn't accept that. He had to educate his sons. On a disability pension he'd lose his self-respect—nothing to do, that's what was killing him. He needed action, crisis, work.

  Feeling claustrophobic, he left the vault then carefully locked the door. Back in his office he was about to phone the school when he received a call from Knowles.

  "Jesus, Dan—the shit's just hit the fan. One of those mushroom kids croaked, and it looks like the other may croak tonight."

  "Christ, Foster! Do you have to use that word?"

  "Sorry, Dan. What are we going to do?"

  Lake thought a moment, back through his years of experience. When an American died overseas it was up to the Consul to take charge.

  "Got a pencil, Foster? Get this down. First, find out the name of the next of kin and call him at our expense. Then get hold of the personal effects, put the consular seal on them, and store them away downstairs. Find out who handles corpses around here and get him to work. Be sure and get a death certificate from the hospital, and some documentation from the police. Have it all translated, make Photostats of the originals, and prepare a covering letter for my signature, laying out the circumstances and expressing regrets. Then get in touch with the airlines about flying out the body. That'll wrap it up."

  There was silence at the other end. Then he heard Foster gasp. "Gee, Dan," he said. "You really are a pro."

  Lake smiled and hung up. Yes, he thought, I've still got what it takes. He'd done well in Laos, that never-never land of three-headed elephants. Even in Guatemala he'd been good—especially during the affair of the left-wing Maryknoll nuns. But here there was nothing—a lousy mushroom poisoning, for Christ's sake. How could he prove himself? What could he do? The question gnawed at him through the afternoon, as the wind subsided to a breeze.
There seemed no way out of the dilemma. He was stuck in Tangier, boxed in.

  Finally, at five o'clock, impatient with himself and his despair, he ordered his car brought around to the front of the building, then dismissed the driver and took the wheel himself. His intention was to drive out to Cap Spartel, park there, somewhere on the back of the Mountain, and stare down at the Atlantic toward the setting sun. But as he emerged from Dradeb, crossed the Jew's River bridge, he pulled up suddenly in front of La Colombe. It was time, he knew, to go inside and try to read the Russian's face.

  Monday at the Sûreté

  Aziz Jaouhari had been working for an hour when Hamid walked in late. It was Monday morning and as usual there was much coming and going at the Sûreté. Civilians and police mingled on the bottom floor, and the basement was filled with people arrested over the weekend.

  "Well, Aziz, what have we got this morning?" Hamid hung up his leather jacket and sat down at his desk.

  Aziz was looking at his list. "Six tourists in the jug, Inspector—five of them members of a British ballet. They played Rabat, then came up here for fun. We caught them with little boys on Saturday night having an orgy at the Oriental Hotel."

  "Robin, of course."

  Aziz nodded. "He turned them in. They demanded to see the British Consul, but Mrs. Whittle told me he was out of town. Actually I think he was here but didn't want to be disturbed."

  "Doesn't surprise me. He hates the queers." Hamid lit a cigarette.

  "Then there's an American, brought in late last night. He picked up a whore at Heidi's Bar. They were walking back to her place when she began to scream. That's his version, of course. She says he was going to break her arm. Anyway, a cop named Mustapha Barrada came along and found a kilo of hash in his jeans. There was a scuffle, and Mustapha beat him up. Doctor saw him early this morning, and I've been in touch with Knowles."

  "Good, Aziz. Very good."

  "There's more. The hustler they call 'Pumpkin Pie' wracked up Inigo's Mercedes on the Tetuan Road. In the process he hit an old man and crushed his legs. What concerns us is that Inigo reported the car stolen a couple of hours before, so we're holding the boy, whose name is Mohammed Seraj, until he comes in here and swears out a complaint."

  "How's the old man?"

  Aziz shrugged. "In pain. This Seraj is a wild one. Maybe he didn't even blow the horn."

  "Right. Anything else?" Hamid felt weary already and wished he was back home in bed.

  "The Prefect wants to see you this afternoon. And Vicar Wick, the one who runs St. Thomas Church, has an urgent matter that he will only discuss with you."

  "Tell him to come in."

  "You want the Vicar to come in here?"

  "He's not a diplomat. I don't have to call on him."

  Aziz beamed. "You interested in the ballet dancers?"

  "Depends on who they are. If they're nobody special we'll expel them all tonight."

  When Aziz finally left, Hamid turned to the window and groaned. It was like this on a Monday—people in jail, incidents from the weekend, trivial details that took up his time. Now he was concerned about Kalinka and found it difficult to concentrate on work. She'd always been strange—that was the secret of her attractiveness—but lately, it seemed to him, her strangeness had increased. She'd smoked the whole weekend, disappearing into a haze of incomplete sentences, utterances in Vietnamese he couldn't understand. It was as if she was trying to tell him something. So many times he had asked her, "Who are you, Kalinka?", and now, it seemed, she wanted to answer but couldn't find the words. She was such a puzzle. Often Hamid would pause to wrestle with her mystery. So far with no result, but still he hoped to find the key.

  Aziz came back into the office. "Vicar Wick's on his way over now. The Prefect will see you at six. Inigo is here to make his complaint, and Knowles is with the American downstairs."

  "Good. I'll start with Inigo. Then Knowles. Keep the Vicar waiting—half an hour at least."

  Aziz gave him an admiring glance, then showed Inigo in. The Paraguayan painter was an extremely handsome young man, with the face of a Mexican saint.

  "So, Inspector, you've got my little Pumpkin Pie. He's been a naughty boy. Good thing you locked him up."

  Hamid smiled. He liked the artist, was a great admirer of his work. His paintings, all highly realistic, glowed with a translucent sheen. There'd been a time, when Hamid was a boy, when he'd thought a painter was someone who whitewashed a house.

  "Yes, we have him, and since you're the owner of the car, the responsibility would normally fall on you. You reported it stolen so you seem to be absolved, but since Pumpkin Pie is your houseboy, it puts the affair in a curious light."

  "Ha!" said Inigo, smoothing his long black hair. "I don't know where you get your information. Pumpkin Pie is my lover and does absolutely nothing around the house."

  Hamid smiled again. "Yes. Of course. But to us, you see, houseboy and lover come to the same thing. What happened? Did you have a quarrel? How did he get hold of the keys?"

  "Stole them, of course. As he's stolen nearly everything else. The boy's a kleptomaniac. There was a time when you would have cut off his hand."

  "Yes. The old Koranic justice. Harsh, merciless, and irrevocable punishments. Sometimes we wish we could still mete them out. But we're trying to be civilized now."

  "A big mistake, if you don't mind my saying so. When this country becomes civilized, it'll be time for me to leave. I came here for the barbarism. I like the feeling of being in a violent land. And the faces—gaunt, strong, primitive—they're the faces I dreamed of in Paraguay. Like yours, Inspector—a classic. Perhaps someday you'll be kind and model for me."

  "I'm flattered, but I don't have the time—"

  "A minute! Let me look closely!" Inigo stood up, leaned over the desk, and carefully inspected Hamid's face. "I swear I've seen this physiognomy before. Perhaps in one of the drawings by Delacroix." He sat down again. "It constantly amazes me—this sense I have that Morocco is still the same. Did you know that when Delacroix came here he spent days in the Socco sketching everyone who passed by? Hundreds of faces. Sometimes fifteen or twenty on a page. I'd swear yours was one of them. Has your family always lived in Tangier?"

  "We're from Ouazzane. But enough about my face. The keys—did Mohammed have access to them? Was he normally allowed to drive your car?"

  Inigo brought his fist up hard against his forehead, then squeezed shut his eyes. "Ah, Inspector, if you only knew—if you only knew the trouble I've had with that boy. He's a sadist, positively a sadist. Every day he tortures me to death. He steals my drawings, takes them to Madrid, and sells them on the street. Then he comes back penniless, makes sweet apologies, and I take him in again. He's not only a thief; he's a liar too. Constantly he lies about where he's been. With friends, he says, at some obscure café , and I nod, though I know perfectly well nothing he says is true. He's been in some shabby hotel with some disgusting British queer, acting the part of the rough street whore, probably beating the faggot up. I've bought him beautiful shirts, silk scarves, a motorcycle, the best perfume. My God, he was dressed in rags when I found him guarding cars in Asilah after a certain countess dismissed him from her staff. But the more I give him the more he takes. We've fought, actually come to blows. He once threw one of my paintings, still wet and unvarnished—threw it down a stairs! I bought a swan for my swimming pool. He captured it, strangled it with his bare hands! The boy's completely schizophrenic, but I need him, so what am I to do? Suffer, I suppose. Suffer! As people say an artist should. But why? Why should I suffer? My paintings have made me rich. I have the finest, absolutely the finest house in Tangier. I live on the Mountain. Museums collect my work. Everything I paint gets snapped up. My prices climb. I get richer. And still my suffering goes on."

  He removed his fist, settled back exhausted in his chair. "I must accept it, I suppose. My destiny. God's will, as you people say. It's written. Mektoub. But why? Why? Here I am, a great painter, perhaps the greatest te
chnician since Velasquez, living with a nasty little street whore who uses me terribly and is way beneath my style."

  Hamid listened, amused at Inigo's antics and the melodrama of his life. The artist, he knew, was fond of monologues, whose effects he always tried to gauge as he went along.

  "I gather," he said finally, "that you're not particularly impressed."

  "Oh," said Hamid. "I am. But forgive me if I keep my feelings to myself. In this office I've heard every sort of confession. I listen, I observe, but I refuse to judge."

  "Ah. Then you're a student of human nature, a man much like myself. Still I'm glad I've told you this. Better for you to understand me than to think me mad for what I'm going to do. I want Pumpkin Pie released. I won't press charges, and I withdraw everything I've said. He didn't steal my car—I handed him the keys."

  Hamid studied him a moment. "You realize, of course, that you'll have to pay damages, settle with the injured man? A Moroccan judge, knowing that you're rich, will want to teach you a lesson. It'll be extremely expensive—you can be sure of that."

  "Yes, yes." Inigo waved his hands. "I understand. And I'm resigned. Money means nothing in the end. I simply want to return to my house, face my easel, and paint." He was quiet for a moment, then lowered his voice. "Tell me, Inspector. When will you let him go?"

  "An hour or so. Aziz will show you where to post the bond."

  "I brought my checkbook just in case."

  "No guarantee, of course, that he'll return to your house."

  "Oh, I know that. But he will. Sooner or later he will. He needs me, in his way, as much as I need him."

  They both rose then, and Hamid shook his hand.

  "I accept your decision, though I think you're making a mistake."

  "Of course," said Inigo. "I'll pay for it later. I know that. But there's nothing I can do. It's my flaw—the flaw in my character, you see."

  When Aziz came back Hamid asked him what he thought. "The Nasranis are all mad," he said.

  "Perhaps, Aziz. Perhaps. Now give me a few minutes to smoke a cigarette. Then bring in Vice-Consul Knowles."