Casablanca Blues

by Tahir Shah

  http://www.tahirshah.com/casablancablues/

  Casablanca Blues

  TAHIR SHAH

  Secretum Mundi Publishing

  MMXIII

  3rd Floor, 36 Langham Street London, W1W 7AP, United Kingdom

  http://www.secretum-mundi.com/

  info@secretum-mundi.com

  © TAHIR SHAH 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-78301-298-5

  Tahir Shah asserts the right to be identified as the Author of the Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Visit the author’s website at: http://www.tahirshah.com/

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  eBook Conversion by eBookPartnership.com

  Also by Tahir Shah:

  Paris Syndrome

  Eye Spy

  Scorpion Soup

  Timbuctoo

  Travels With Myself

  In Arabian Nights

  The Caliph’s House

  House of the Tiger King

  In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

  Trail of Feathers

  Sorcerer’s Apprentice

  Beyond the Devil’s Teeth

  This book is dedicated to the

  Kingdom of Morocco –

  A realm touched by magic,

  whose landscape and whose

  people never cease to amaze.

  Contents

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16 – 17 – 18 – 19 – 20 – 21 – 22 – 23 – 24 – 25 – 26 – 27 – 28 – 29 – 30 – 31 – 32 – 33 – 34 – 35 – 36 – 37 – 38 – 39 – 40 – 41 – 42 – 43 – 44 – 45 – 46 – 47 – 48 – 49 – 50 – 51 – 52 – 53 – 54 – 55 – 56 – 57 – 58 – 59 – 60 – 61 – 62 – 63 – 64 – 65 – 66 – 67 – 68 – 69 – 70 – 71 – 72 – 73 – 74 – 75 – 76 – 77 – 78 – 79 – 80 – 81 – 82 – 83 – 84 – 85 – 86 – 87 – 88 – 89 – 90 – 91 – 92 – 93 – 94 – 95 – 96 – 97 – 98 – 99 – 100 – 101 – 102 – 103 – 104 – 105 – 106 – 107 – 108 – 109 – 110 – 111 – 112 – 113 – 114 – 115 – 116 – 117 – 118 – 119 – 120 – 121 – 122 – 123 – 124 – 125 – 126 – 127 – 128 – 129 – 130 – 131 – 132 – 133

  One

  The windowless walls at Acme Telesales were painted slate grey.

  A sea of uniform desks filled the central hall, each one the same drab shade. The chairs were grey as well, and the telephonic headsets, and the complexions of the sales staff who wore them, and even the plastic plants.

  The only splash of colour in the entire place was the baseball cap pulled down tight over Blaine Williams’ blond mop of hair.

  It was fire engine red, and had the word ‘CASABLANCA’ written in large letters across the front.

  ‘Good morning to you, ma’am,’ said Blaine into the headset microphone. ‘No, no, I didn’t call last week. No, not even the week before. Why am I calling? Well, ma’am, I’ve got an offer... an offer for the silver generation...’

  Click.

  Blaine dialled again.

  ‘Hello, ma’am. Let me be blunt: Do you have trouble with your drains?’

  Click.

  ‘Good morning to you, sir! Could I interest you in a case of Drain-O-Sure?’

  Click.

  A miniature buzzer mounted on the left of Blaine’s desk, number 52, emitted a muffled warning sound. Beside it was a black and white studio shot of Humphrey Bogart – with signature cigarette, fedora, and sullen stare. And next to it was an empty mug, Bogart and Bergman’s cheeks pressed together on the side.

  In a well-practised movement, Blaine slipped off his headset, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  ‘For Christ’s sake! Beam me up to the mothership!’ he bellowed.

  Two

  On the dot of seven a.m., an automatic sprinkler system turned itself on, and began watering the manicured lawn in front of the Omary Mansion. There was not a blade of grass over an inch and a half, nor a weed in sight.

  A pair of imposing wrought iron gates threw long arabesque shadows over the lawn. They rose thirty feet high into the pale blue sky, armoured CCTV cameras mounted above each one.

  Behind the grass and the gates, the mansion rose up like a magnificent frosted wedding cake. Gleaming ivory white, it was adorned with Doric columns and Classical mouldings, and reeked of immense affluence: the kind of wealth that only a business empire, corruption – or both – can provide.

  Inside, a handsome, well-groomed man of fifty-six was taking breakfast, squinting with half his attention at a pie chart on a laptop screen. His left hand was stirring a porcelain cup of English breakfast tea clockwise when his daughter, Ghita, hurried in.

  ‘Baba, oh, Baba... What catastrophe! What misery!’

  Hicham Omary glanced up, and smiled absently, surprised that his only daughter was awake at such a reasonable hour. He didn’t say a word, because he knew an explanation would be forthcoming: one that would begin in condemnation and end in a solicitation for funds.

  ‘How can a girl expect to get married with such imbeciles on the payroll?’ Ghita moaned, as a cluster of servants fussed around her. ‘I have had no choice but to fire the lot of them, every last one. We’ll have to start again from scratch. It will cost a little more, but I know you’ll agree to that, won’t you, dearest Baba?’

  Her lips stretched wide in a taut smile, Ghita blew a kiss across the table in her father’s direction.

  Mr. Omary’s gaze moved back to the graph and, in one continuous movement, out to the landscaped garden that extended far behind the house. The sprinklers were throwing rainbows over the lawns. He was about to ask for a figure, when his daughter held up a finger, and exclaimed:

  ‘I blame the working class! Damn them! And damn them again!’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Ghita’s father, in disbelief.

  ‘Well, it’s they who are driving up prices! Do you have any idea how much it costs to put on a wedding?’

  ‘I daren’t ask,’ Omary replied coldly. ‘But, after all, Ghita, it’s only an engagement. How over the top does it need to be?’

  Three

  Blaine wrestled with the key to the front door of his building and, after an eternity, managed to get inside. The stairwell was gloomy and damp. It smelled of rotten eggs, and led up many flights through a dark dingy twilight zone of urban squalor.

  The sordidness and the stench increased with altitude.

  By the fifth floor, where Blaine’s poky apartment was found, the filth was especially vile, as if painted on thick, like a theatrical backdrop.

  Dressed in a grubby mackintosh, the belt tied in a knot at the waist, Blaine began the ascent in a slow trudge. In one hand he held an old fedora and, in the other, a TV-dinner furled up in a crumpled paper bag.

  As he approached the narrow landing of the third floor, the door to 3A jerked open. The mousy hunched figure of a woman could almost be seen in the shadows and the grime.

  ‘What you got up there, Williams? A herd of rhinos?!’

  ‘Hello Mrs. Cohen.’

  ‘All that banging and crashing. Every day i
t’s getting worse. Any more of it, and I’ll get the Super up there!’

  ‘I’ve been at work all day, Mrs. Cohen.’

  ‘Sure you have. And I’m Mata Hari!’

  ‘In any case your apartment is two floors above you.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, goodnight to you, Mrs. Cohen,’ said Blaine, as he lumbered upwards.

  On the fourth floor landing, he came across a young clean-cut couple standing outside a particularly battered door. They seemed uneasy, as if instinct were telling them to flee. Both turning at once, they smiled anxiously at Blaine.

  Such was their fear they might have screamed.

  ‘Are you here to rent 4D?’

  The couple nodded in unison.

  ‘Oh,’ Blaine replied. ‘I see.’

  ‘Whhhhhat’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing much at all... except...’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘Except for the rats, and the roaches... and...’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, surely Mr. Rogers told you...’

  ‘Told us what?’

  ‘About what happened to Mr. Wilson... you know... the business with the shotgun.’ Blaine paused, leaned back on his heels. ‘Made a helluva mess and...’

  Before he could finish, there was the sound of city shoes and cheap pumps taking the stairs two at a time. After much scurrying, it was followed by the distant echo of the front door slamming shut.

  A minute later, Blaine was sitting on the expansive furry couch that dominated his living-room. A Coors Light in one hand, a remote in the other, the Hungry Hombre platter balanced between his knees.

  A few feet away stood a large screen TV, the centrepiece of an apartment that was a shrine to Casablanca.

  Every inch was filled with memorabilia.

  There were cabinets packed with Casablanca knick-knacks – mugs, albums, and snow-globes, miniature figurines of the leading cast, medallions and cheap plastic giveaways. There was Humphrey Bogart soap – still boxed, a stack of Casablanca playing cards, and a large-scale model of Rick’s Café.

  The walls were covered in framed posters, each one emblazoned with the movie’s title and its cast. And, on the far side of the room, to the left of the couch, was an enormous neon sign in vivid scarlet. Every few seconds the cursive script came alive, bathing the dim room in a warm comforting glow.

  Without thinking, Blaine clicked a fingertip to the remote, took a swig of his beer, and sat back as he did each night to munch his way through the Hungry Hombre meal for one.

  The neon flickered on and then off, as the movie’s title sequence rolled in black and white.

  And, with Blaine moving on to the Hungry Hombre dessert, there came the title of that inimitable destination – CASABLANCA.

  Four

  An army of liveried caddies was lined up and ready at the Royal Casablanca Golf Club, each one more neatly turned out than the last.

  There was a sense of utopia, as if the pristine buildings, the caddies, and the course, were somehow set apart from the urban sprawl that lay just beyond the club’s boundary wall. It was a mystery how the management achieved it, but the noise and pollution from the churning, seething Casablanca gridlock never managed to disturb the serenity of it all.

  Three men were standing in conversation at the tee.

  The first, Hicham Omary, was a media mogul and the father of Ghita, society’s most demanding débutante. The second was Walter Schwarzkopf, American ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco. And the third, Driss Senbel, was a leading lawyer, and the kind of man who had made a career from ensuring that A-list oligarchs remained firmly above the law.

  Stepping forward, Senbel glanced at his Patek Philippe.

  ‘Let’s get going. Shall we toss?’

  ‘Better wait five more minutes, until it’s eight o’clock,’ said Omary. ‘You know how the club is with its rules.’

  Senbel waved a hand easily through the air.

  ‘It’s all taken care of,’ he said. ‘I tipped the greenskeeper. We can tee off whenever we like.’

  Omary frowned for the second time that morning.

  ‘But surely bribery is against club rules,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Nonsense. It’s just oiling the wheels of the economy.’

  ‘You mean you were helping to rot the foundations of society.’

  Slipping on his glove, the ambassador swivelled to face Senbel.

  ‘I’m with Hicham on this one,’ he said. ‘Every payoff you give cripples this country a little more, turning good people into bad. You’re scorching the roots of honest society.’

  Driss Senbel tossed a shiny new ten-dirham coin, and waited for it to fall onto the perfectly clipped grass. Squinting at the King’s head, he smiled smugly, stepped up to the tee.

  His caddie passed him a driver.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he said as an afterthought. ‘If people like us stop oiling the wheels, the country would grind to a halt. I’d give it a week, possibly two. Then...’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then there’d be anarchy.’

  When the lawyer had swung, Hicham Omary stepped forward. His mind wasn’t on golf. It had been on curbing the extravagances of his wayward daughter, but now it had shifted to the subject of corruption. Despite his strong feelings against it, he knew full well there was nothing even he could do to alter the age-old order of things.

  ‘I have to admit it, but I reluctantly agree with Driss on this,’ he said apologetically. ‘It’s the system, and the system’s not going to change whatever we say or do.’

  The ambassador nodded to his caddie, who passed him a wood.

  ‘What if you were both to refuse to pay any more bribes?’ he asked. ‘No more baksheesh for the cops, or for the government officials, or any of the other social detritus who demand it?’

  Senbel took in the crystal dial of his wristwatch again. He sighed.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ he said, ‘there’d be a revolution within a matter of days!’

  Five

  Humphrey Bogart was carousing with his clientele, the smoke-filled Rick’s Café Américain in full swing, when Bergman strolled in. His head nestled into the beige fur of the couch, Blaine mumbled each line just before it was delivered.

  He knew every one.

  All of a sudden his cell phone bleeped. Taking in the display, he moved it in an arc to his ear.

  ‘Hey sweetie, how was your day? Got some painting done? Oh, that’s great. Mine? No thrills. Just a thousand calls to geriatric serial killers, psychopaths and the suicidal. Long live Drain-O-Sure!’ Blaine paused, grinned, his attention fading. ‘OK. Great,’ he murmured, ‘see you in a bit.’

  Fifteen minutes later there was a faint knock at the door.

  A pretty redhead kissed Blaine on the lips as she moved through the doorway and into the sitting-room. She was panting lightly, not from lust but from the climb. Behind her back was a square object the size of a bathmat. It was covered in a paint-spattered cloth.

  ‘I’ve got something special for you, sweetheart,’ Laurie said. ‘A surprise!’

  ‘A surprise? You know how I have trouble with surprises.’

  ‘Go on... guess.’

  ‘I give up.’

  Blaine grinned his trademark grin, his cheeks pink and full. As he did so, Laurie whipped away the cloth, smudging the monstrous purple canvas beneath. Blaine didn’t react. Not for a long time.

  ‘D’you like it, hon?’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘You hate it, don’t you?’

  ‘Er.’

  ‘Tell me... tell me the truth...’

  Blaine took the artwork and laid it against the far wall. He glanced at his hands, which were purple.

  ‘I thought you could move Bogey and put it up there – you know, in pride of place.’

  Blaine froze.

  ‘Move Bogey?’ he mouthed incredulously.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sweetie...’

  ‘Yeah?�
��

  ‘Bogey’s not going anywhere.’

  Straightening her short slender body to seem taller than she was, Laurie glowered.

  ‘It’s damn well time you got over this whole Casablanca baloney!’ she spat. ‘It was just a B-grade Hollywood flick for God’s sake!’

  Blaine felt his bloodstream fortify with adrenalin. His cheeks flushing, he paused the movie, as if not wanting to subject the cast to a domestic squabble. Then, holding his purple hands into the light, he scowled towards the far wall.

  ‘And that... that thing... that swirly purple gunk... You’re meaning to tell me that you’re passing it off as art?!’

  In a flood of tears, Laurie snatched her creation to her chest. Unsure of whether to attack or retreat, she chose the first option.

  ‘At least it’s alive and it’s... it’s... it’s spontaneous!’ she snarled. ‘Two things you could never be accused of being! I wouldn’t let you keep it if you were the last man on earth! You don’t know how to appreciate art... you don’t know how to appreciate a woman!’

  Six

  Hicham Omary fed the beige calfskin steering wheel of his limited edition Jaguar through his fingers in a turn.

  His concentration was not on the road, but on the conversation that had dominated the morning’s game, the subject of endemic corruption.

  Halfway between the golf club and his home, a distance of a mile, he was flagged down by a uniformed police officer. Rolling his eyes, Omary eased the car to a halt, and lowered the window.

  ‘Good morning sir, you made an infraction back there,’ said the officer, his accent from the Mediterranean shores of the north.

  Hicham Omary groped in his pocket for a hundred-dirham note. Expertly, he used his left hand to fold it once and then again. And, in a much-practised movement, he leaned sideways so as to insert the square of paper into the policeman’s cuff – thereby avoiding his hand.

  But, just before the bribe was delivered, he froze. The officer winced. He hadn’t yet received the money.

  ‘Look at me,’ said Omary out loud. ‘I’m as guilty as all the rest.’