by Gavin Lyall
I felt a smile crawling on to my face and tried to frown it down.
‘Did they?’ said Ken innocently.
‘They suggested I should stand over it, kind of; it was supposed to be…well, aromatic.’
Ken grinned wickedly. ‘And which one of us’ll you have first?’
She blushed, really blushed.
‘And modern science,’ I said, ‘proves there’s no such thing as an aphrodisiac’
She stared firmly at the lift doors while her blush faded. Mitzi came back with her key to say goodnight.
Ken said: ‘For God’s sake be careful with that piece of paper. Why not the hotel safe now?’
I said: ‘No,’ without quite knowing why except that it was an obvious place and I didn’t think Aziz needed any help in thinking of obvious places.
‘I will keep it okay,’ Mitzi promised. Then she smiled, rather demurely. ‘Thank you for being so brave, like knights.’ She turned away into the lift.
Ken looked at me and raised his eyebrows. ‘Gadzooks and forsooth.’
‘Just show me the nearest dragon and stand aside.’
‘Oh come on,’ said Eleanor impatiently. ‘She was just trying to say you smell like horses. Who’s buying me a drink after dragging me away from all those lovely sexy men?’
As we headed towards the bar at the end of the lobby, Ken murmured: ‘I can tell you of one quote maiden unquote who’d better not get immured in any foul dungeons if she wants to get rescued by Christmas.’ We sat down and he thumped the table. ‘Ho, varlet: two foaming goblets and a gin-and-moat for the damsel.’
‘For goodness’ sake,’ said Eleanor, a bit embarrassed. ‘What really happened up at the house, there? I didn’t know you two had guns.’
‘We didn’t,’ Ken said. ‘We borrowed them off Aziz’s bodyguards.’
‘He got a bit simplistic about wanting the authentication of the sword,’ I explained.
‘And he searched Mitzi?’ She frowned. ‘Well, I suppose there was nothing else you could do.’
It hadn’t seemed quite that easy at the time, but Ken just said gravely: ‘Not without turning in our keys to Camelot’s executive washroom.’
The waiter appeared and we ordered; I switched to vodka, lime juice and soda, which doesn’t taste of much but hasn’t wiped its boots on your tongue the next morning.
‘Aziz said one thing,’ Ken said. ‘That he’d financed Bruno’s digging in Israel. D’you think that’s true?’
‘It’s likely,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘I’d wondered if that was the connection. It isn’t just the money, it’s that governments don’t give permission to one-man-bands. An archaeologist needs some sort of endorsement. What did Aziz do – set up some phoney foundation?’
Ken nodded. ‘In the-States.’
‘That figures. So now he wants his cut, does he?’
‘That or the whole cake.’
I said: ‘Mitzi’s still convinced Aziz has the sword. Question: is she right?’
They thought about this while I looked around the bar. About half the seats were occupied, mostly with Beirut residents in standard dark suits (but not Lebanese, who don’t use even the best bars much; these were Europeans and Americans) plus a few tourists in brighter gear. None actually looked like Aziz’s boys, though he could well have planted one. He might want to know where Ken and I were staying.
The waiter brought our drinks and, when he’d gone, Eleanor said: ‘Now we know Aziz is really involved, that he wasn’t just looking after the sword while Spohr was in jail – then I’d say No, he doesn’t have it. It’s a guess, but I just think we’d have heard something before this.’ She glanced from Ken to me and back, her blue eyes very serious.
Ken nodded slowly. ‘If he has got it, then Bruno didn’t know he had. There’d be no point in involving me and an aeroplane. Aziz is big enough to get the sword out of this country a hundred ways without my help. I say he hasn’t got it … Buggerit,’ he added.
That made it fairly unanimous. I said: ‘So the poor bastard was being honest, in his own way.’
Ken looked up sharply. ‘It’s that way of his that I didn’t take to.’
‘Quite so, quite so. And I think he’s going to spend the night thinking up his next move rather than fasting and praying to change for the better. And if he hasn’t got the sword, is there any reason to think it’s in the Lebanon at all?’
‘If it is,’ Ken said gloomily, ‘we stand damn-all chance of finding it compared with him. I see what you mean; fingers out and wheels up.’
‘Huh?’ said Eleanor.
I said: ‘You seem fairly fireproof so you can make up your own mind, but Cavitt and Case announce their departure for Cyprus as soon as possible tomorrow. And I think Mitzi’d be a fool to stay, so if you can persuade her the sword isn’t here …’
‘If I can’t,’ she said dryly, ‘I’m sure I can convince her that her parfit gentil knights have suddenly gotten dragon-shy.’
‘It’s quite a nice face,’ said Ken, ‘but she ought to get the mind broken and re-set.’
Eleanor just grinned. Then: ‘But if the sword isn’t here, where is it?’
That brought down the glooms like a cloudburst. Ken’s face shut tight, then he finished his Scotch with a quick jerk of his head and stood up. ‘That was today. Coming, Roy?’
He walked out.
Eleanor stared after him. ‘What did I say?’
‘Israel – or almost.’ I swallowed my own drink. ‘That’s the one place he can’t go back to. When they let him out of jail they deported him.’ I stood up. ‘We’ll be round here about eight. Be packed if you’re coming.’
It was a five-minute walk to our hotel, but we did it in ten to make sure nobody was following. The night clerk stopped picking his teeth long enough to hand over our key and, as an afterthought, a message: Ring Uthman Jehangir not after 2 am. It gave the number.
‘Who in hell’s he?’ Ken asked.
‘Met him in Nicosia. He wanted to buy some champagne off me.’
‘Ah. D’you think …?’
I shrugged, looked at my watch: only half past midnight. ‘I suppose I’d better ring him, since he knows we’re in town.’ Probably he’d asked for me in Nicosia and then followed on the evening flight. He could have found out our hotel from the control tower: you always let them know where you’re staying.
But now I certainly hadn’t got the twenty-four hours’ grace I was hoping for.
Ken said: ‘I’ll go on up and kill a few spiders,’ and went. There weren’t any room phones so I made the call from the desk, with the clerk no more than a yard away and his breath a lot closer.
Jehangir himself answered.
I said: ‘It’s Roy Case: you left a message …’
‘Of course! Delighted to hear from you. Very glad you could get to Beirut.’
‘It was a last-minute decision. I got a sort of charter …’
‘Fine. But now we can get down to business. Why don’t we meet at the races tomorrow afternoon? You know the track?’
‘Yes, sure …’ I didn’t want to meet Jehangir, not in his own town, but we’d made enough enemies for one night. ‘Okay, then. About two-thirty?’
‘Just fine. Until then.’
I rang off and the clerk carefully wrote the item down on our bill.
I was careful to say ‘It’s me,’ before I went into the room; sure enough Ken had the gun half pointed. He was stripped to his shorts – once gaudy red-and-yellow stripes, now faded and torn – and his body looked bony and pale.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked.
‘Business. I said we’d meet him at the races tomorrow afternoon.’ I locked the door behind me.
‘What?’
‘Just keeping him happy. I can forget.’ I began to undress.
It was a small room, maybe ten by eight, but even then the two beds weren’t big enough to crowd it. The Castle rooms had been old-fashioned and worn; this place had started cheap and nasty and worked it
s way down. Ken climbed in between the patched grey sheets that felt like damp sandpaper and sighted the Smith at the ceiling light.
I said: ‘There’s less noisy ways. Are you going to sleep with that bloody thing?’
‘Probably.’
‘Couldn’t you borrow the clerk’s teddy-bear? – at least it wouldn’t blow my head off when you have a bad dream.’ I climbed into my own bed. ‘Are you going to hang on to it?’
‘I don’t take off my coat in the rain. Aren’t you keeping the Colt?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve got enough problems in this town without getting caught with a gun, too. Anyway, nobody wants us dead.’
He propped himself up on one elbow. ‘Your funeral. But I tell you what, give me those three-eight rounds.’
So I fished the Colt out of my jacket and shook out the cartridges. A .38 will fit a magnum 357 – it’s identical calibre, really – but not vice versa: they make the magnum rounds too long to fit into, and probably blow up, an ordinary .38.I passed them over and he stuffed them into the big Smith.
Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea. Now, with a heavy gun and a – relatively – light cartridge he’d be a lot more accurate for not much loss of power and far less kick.
I lay back again. ‘Happy now? Glass of water? Bedtime story?’
‘Stuff it.’
I turned off the light. ‘If you dream anything good, ask if she’s got a sister.’
He dreamed, all right, but not that. I woke as his feet thumped on the floor, and snapped on the lamp. He was sitting on the bed, head down almost on his knees and his whole body covered in sweat as if it had rained on him. His right hand was locked, white-knuckled, around the gun.
He was swearing to himself, just a long rhythmic mumbling curse.
I said gently: ‘You were back inside?’
He lifted his head slightly, wiped the hair back off his forehead. ‘I was back. Shit. I’m not going back. I’m just not going to go.’
‘Was it bad in there?’
‘Ahhh … not like some you hear about. They didn’t treat us like animals, just like things. We just had to be there, to be counted at the stock-taking. You knew you could never decide anything; you’d wake up in the night and think “Tomorrow I’ll—” and then remember you couldn’t. It was the nights – and the walls. I’m not going back to that.’
He waved the pistol in a gentle, meaningless gesture. But it was something he could control, could use to control events. Maybe sleeping with it made a sort of sense, after all.
Then he asked: ‘We don’t have a bottle, do we?’
‘Sorry.’ I wished I’d thought of it, even at Beirut prices for Scotch.
‘I’ll be all right.’ He stood up shakily, found a rag of hotel towel and wiped the sweat off. Then lay down, looking at the ceiling.
When he spoke, his voice was normal again. ‘It’s funny – when you come out you want to shack up in some place like the Ledra or a Hilton. But you know something? – even this bed’s too soft for me. Bloody silly.’
After a pause, he added: ‘Mind, in every other way I’ve had enough of crummy joints like this.’
‘We’ve stayed in worse as often as better.’
‘We were younger. There was still time for the good times to come.’
‘Stop feeling your age; you’ll make it fall off. That’s just three-in-the-morning talk.’
‘Maybe.’ He rolled over and shoved the gun back under the pillow. ‘Sorry, Roy. I’m okay.’
Perhaps. Anyway, he didn’t wake me again.
Chapter 16
The morning was clear, blue and calm, though that meant a sea breeze later if it stayed sunny. It’s the best time of day in the Middle East, before the dust and smells and tempers have begun to rise. You feel even a taxi would only run you down by accident.
We checked out and, with only hand baggage, walked around to the St George, losing my Colt in a dustbin on the way. The doorman gave us a friendly salute and we went straight on up to the third floor. The girls had rooms looking inland, back over the front door, and in shade at that hour, so they were breakfasting on Eleanor’s balcony.
She’d thought to order four cups and an extra pot of coffee, which did a lot for Ken’s mood. I’d matched him drink for drink the day before and it had been well spread out, but I think he’d woken with a touch of the little green men. But at least the 3 a.m. mood had passed.
‘That’s real New World hospitality,’ he said cheerfully, pouring us both cups. ‘Who but an American would have thought of it?’
‘A Viennese,’ Mitzi said coolly. She was slumped in a wicker chair wearing a frilly nylon house-coat that wasn’t quite transparent but gave me the idea she was fairly well dressed underneath it.
Which was fine; I didn’t want to hang around longer than we had to.
‘Have you two ever visited the States?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Sure,’ Ken said. ‘We did the whole works, when we were in the RAF. We saw Offutt Air Force Base, and Scott Air Force Base, and Edwards Air Force Base, and Maxwell Air Force Base, and what was that place in Alaska? and the Lockheed plant in Georgia …’
‘And the Body Shop on Sunset Boulevard,’ I added.
‘That’s right, they left the cage door open that night and we were off before they could rouse the National Guard. We’ve been around, kid, we’ve seen the whole deal.’
Eleanor grinned. ‘You should write a book, like everybody else.’
‘See volume four of my memoirs.’
Mitzi gave a little sideways smile and said: ‘I did not see a man get drunk on coffee before.’
I held up my wrist and stared obviously at the watch. ‘The countdown has started. Who’s coming?’
Both girls stood up in chorus. Mitzi said: ‘I will finish in a minute,’ and zipped out.
I said: ‘Any word from the old man of the mountain?’
Eleanor shook her head. ‘Nothing. I’ll just close up my case and call a porter.’ She went back into the room.
Ken poured the last of the coffee. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘You mean it’s quiet out there?’
‘Yes. Too quiet.’
In fact, the Rue Minet Hosn below was anything but: just now it was a whirlpool of whining, squawking traffic. But there was so much of it and it was all so ordinary and self-centred that Aziz’s finanglings seemed pale and feeble, a ghost in daylight.
I said: ‘Perhaps he just ran out of nasty ideas.’
But he hadn’t.
‘What exactly does that say?’ Eleanor asked.
She can’t really have meant that since the document was written in both Arabic and French and a lot of legal pomposities besides, so I gave her the quick-lunch version: ‘It’s a sort of court order – a saisie-conservatoire – attaching the aeroplane. Freezing it here.’
‘So we don’t fly?’
‘Not in this aircraft.’ I looked at the deputy airport manager – we were sitting in his office – and asked: ‘Does this affect any of us personally?’
‘Not that I know of.’ He was a thin, good-looking man with a sharp widow’s peak of black hair, and a half-apologetic, half-intrigued attitude to our troubles.
I looked back at the document. ‘It’s bloody silly. He claims Miss Braunhof owes him money so he gets an order seizing somebody else’s aeroplane.’
The deputy manager spread his hands in mock surrender. ‘Please, it does not help to tell me. You must tell the court.’
‘On Saturday?’ Ken said.
I said: ‘Aziz obviously wasn’t keeping court-room hours. He got hold of some judge at home—’
‘There was one at the party,’ Eleanor chipped in.
‘Easier yet. And he convinces him he’s got a claim and he gets an ex parte order.’
‘What is that?’ Mitzi asked.
‘Without the other side needing to be there,’ Ken said. ‘But hell, a court won’t give an injunction or order unless there’s a proper case being brought.’ He loo
ked at Mitzi. ‘You haven’t been served a summons or something like that?’
She shook her head.
I said: ‘It seems that doesn’t work in French law. This saisie-conservatoire lapses in five days unless he’s started an action de recouvrement de dette by then. Is that right?’
The deputy manager nodded gently. ‘Our civil code is still mostly the French pattern.’
‘But is it going to stick?’ Eleanor demanded.
He smiled sadly at her chest. ‘I am afraid I have to enforce it.’
Ken said: ‘It’s a plain bloody swindle.’
I stood up. ‘Come on. Let the man get on deputy managing. We’ve got time for coffee now.’
So at takeoff time we were sitting in the airport café finishing a second breakfast, Eleanor frowning over a xeroxed copy of the order. ‘As I see it, we just get hold of some lawyer to represent us—’
‘On Saturday?’ Ken said again.
‘—and then get hold of this judge. I guess that’s his signature at the bottom—’
‘And he’ll have gone fishing.’
‘—and get the order lifted.’ She gave Ken a stiff look.
I nodded and began lighting a pipe. ‘That’s how it would go in London or New York, and Aziz would get his balls in solitary confinement for making a fool of the court – forgive the legal language. But this is Beirut. Aziz knows what he’s doing: he wants us stuck here. We can run around until we turn blue and I bet we get no action for five days.’
‘What will he have done by then?’ Mitzi asked. She looked a little pale, and I wasn’t blaming her. She was the one Aziz was after; Ken and I were just obstacles and, on the morning’s showing, not much of that.
I shrugged. ‘I dunno. He must already have tried to get you arrested—’ she went positively white; — but even a Beirut judge probably wouldn’t wear that.’
Eleanor was back studying the order. ‘At least it shows how much he lent your father.’
‘How much?’ Mitzi asked shakily.
‘Twelve thousand dollars, US.’
It didn’t sound much, not in one way. In another, it sounded like the cost of space flight. ‘Even if we’d got it, it isn’t really what he wants. It’s that document. Except if we could pay twelve thousand into the court they’d free the aeroplane.’