Whitefly

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  “Yeah, you asked me to let her off,” said Laafrit, cutting her short impatiently.

  “She emigrated to Italy last month on a fake passport.”

  “You said you’d heard something about a gun,” said Laa-frit, quickly pulling her back to what he was interested in.

  “She’s the one who told me about it—just came out with it while we were talking, before she took off. But I don’t remember exactly where she said she saw it.”

  Laafrit put his arm around Fifi again, and instead of fondling her tender forearm, he furtively pressed down hard on it as if he were trying to make her remember. Fifi didn’t like it but she stopped herself from objecting. A look of fear appeared in her eyes as she remembered how Laafrit had interrogated her three years ago.

  “If you can’t remember,” he said, “we’ll have to go down to the station to talk it over in peace and quiet.”

  “I don’t have anything more to tell you,” she insisted, pleading with him.

  Laafrit took a deep breath and looked around the place. No one was paying them any attention. He checked the scene again and went back to business.

  “Sit back and calm down,” he said. “I’ll make it easy for you. Where’d your friend tell you about the gun?”

  Fifi was smoking nervously as if she’d fallen into a trap.

  “At La Lambada, I think. She was drunk. We ran into each other in the bathroom. I remember she stood in front of the mirror and pointed at it with her hands together like a gun, saying: ‘Bang . . . bang . . . bang . . . !’ She asked me if I’d ever touched a real gun. I said no, and she told me she had. She said it was heavy.”

  “Where was she when she saw it?” demanded Laafrit. He was trying to control his nerves.

  “In Martil. It was last August, I think, but I don’t know if she really saw a gun there or if she was just kidding around.”

  Laafrit felt he still hadn’t gotten anything really useful from Fifi.

  “Who was she staying with in Martil?”

  “I didn’t ask her,” Fifi replied, coughing.

  She took out a tissue and put it on the counter in front of her.

  “There’s this guy,” she continued. “When I find him, he’ll save us all this trouble.”

  Laafrit looked at her hopefully.

  “Who?”

  “His name’s Fouad. Faouzia was madly in love with him. If you give me a little time, I’ll find him and ask about it.”

  “He’s the one she was with in Martil?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s his full name?”

  “I don’t know. She was always telling me about Fouad but I only saw him with her a couple times.”

  “Where?”

  “Always at the same spot. Probably La Lambada.”

  “What about his address? The places he goes? His friends?”

  She shook her head with a hint of regret.

  “If you give me some time, I’ll ask around for you. He goes out every night.”

  “Has Faouzia called you from Italy yet?”

  “No.”

  Laafrit stopped a second to think.

  “Who’ll you ask?”

  “I have my ways,” she said, dodging his question.

  “I want to know.”

  She put out her cigarette and twisted the tissue between her fingers.

  “You want to know everything,” she said, trying to hide the aggravation in her voice. “Fine. I’ve got my own informants, the guys who wander through all the Tangier bars and nightclubs selling food and cigarettes. When I want to know how things are in other places or where one of my customers is hiding from me, I pay these guys to find out. They know Faouzia and her lover Fouad, too. I’ll have them look in all the bars and clubs. When they see him, they’ll tell me and I’ll let you know.”

  “But you’re dancing at Scheherazade tonight,” Laafrit countered, pleased with her idea.

  “Don’t worry. Trust me.”

  As if asking for sympathy, she squeezed his hand affectionately and indicated that she wanted to go. Laafrit hesitated, as if he was afraid he was letting her escape.

  “I’ll call you,” she insisted.

  “Wait,” said Laafrit, grabbing her by the arm. “I don’t want him to know the cops are behind it.”

  He looked down at his watch.

  “If you don’t find him,” he added, “I’ll have to take you downtown to give us a description of him. Call any time. You’ve got my cell number.”

  Fifi nodded and asked for her coat. She left quickly, as if she’d just made a stupid mistake.

  Laafrit finished his drink in a single gulp. When Nadia appeared in front of him, he motioned with his hand to stop her from taking the glass but she ignored him and brought him a double.

  “Want to get me drunk tonight?” Laafrit joked.

  She leaned forward, her full breasts pressed together in front of him.

  “If only I could . . .” she said, smiling sweetly.

  Nadia put a cigarette between her lips and Laafrit lit it. She touched his hand gently and then slyly brought her glass over.

  “You’re not going to drink alone,” she said. “Cheers!”

  Laafrit was planning on taking off so he could have a chance to think but he looked at his glass and swayed a little. He convinced himself these rounds of whiskey would lighten his work, push him to think in more productive directions, and free his mind. He looked at Nadia’s chest shamelessly, burped, and decided he had the right to take advantage of a little R and R since he wasn’t on duty. What he was doing now was conducting investigations on his own initiative, unassigned. That wasn’t anything to regret. He told himself that, if it hadn’t been for his interest in the case, sitting here would have been cold and boring. For a while now, the only things that still excited him had been solving crimes and using others while he was working a case. If you’re a cop for a day, that means you’re a cop forever, everywhere you go. But, he told himself (not for the first time), as you use others, they’re using you.

  Nadia put out her cigarette, looked at her red fingernails, and swayed her head with the music, pulling Laafrit out of his distraction. At the sight of her flirtatious motions, Laafrit thought it’d be hard to get away from her to enjoy some time alone. He made up his mind to finish his drink and take off but Nadia suddenly livened up. She sang a saucy part of the song along with the music. This got on Laafrit’s nerves. He thought it was just a veil and he felt Nadia was watching him. In fact, he was convinced she’d been watching him since he got there.

  At this point, he decided to give her that calculating look he used to veil his true intentions. It was the look of a cop searching for clues. This was a useful deception: Nadia took a few steps back and came to a stop. The look nailed her down and made her anxious. She turned her eyes to the side. Laafrit let out a laugh and pointed at her with his index finger as if accusing her of something.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked.

  Suddenly, her face filled with an imploring look and confusion weighed heavily on her movements. She blushed.

  “I got divorced, sir, five years ago, as soon as I got pregnant,” she said to him, her eyes on the ground. “My son Karim’s now four and my ex-husband lives in Tetouan, working as a smuggler. He makes a ton of money and wastes it all on whores in nightclubs. I put my son Karim in the most expensive school because I want him to get the best education from early on. But it’s very expensive and his father hasn’t given him even a carton of milk since the divorce. On my own, sir, I support a family of seven. My father’s old and my mother’s sick with kidney failure. I have five brothers. One’s a teacher but the rest are unemployed.

  “My ex plays with his money. Since the day we got divorced, he hasn’t given me a penny of support. The courts say: ‘Give us his address and we’ll go arrest him.’ But all I know is he’s in Tetouan. Sir, you must have friends there . . .”

  Laafrit signaled he’d heard enough. He
took out his small notebook.

  “What’s his name?” he asked, refusing to hear any more pleading.

  “Mohamed Benhammad, sir.”

  “You sure he’s in Tetouan?” added the detective, taking down the name.

  Nadia’s voice rattled as she indicated yes. Tears took her by surprise, so she hid her face in her palms and hurried into the back room. Only then did Laafrit notice the lit cigarette between his fingers. He took a long drag and put it out in the ashtray.

  The detective’s mood was ruined, so he gulped down what was left in his glass and got ready to go. A customer walked up to the bar next to Laafrit and hit his hand on the counter, calling out for Nadia. She returned from the back room, moving to the music, repeating the same saucy lines like nothing had happened. She didn’t even look in Laafrit’s direction. It seemed she’d dropped her veil—it had done its job.

  5

  IT WAS TWO THIRTY IN the morning when the cell phone next to his pillow rang. Laafrit had been asleep for only two hours. He got home a bit before midnight and spent about fifteen minutes coming on to his wife, who fended off his advances because she refused to have sex with him when his breath reeked of wine. Laafrit didn’t insist and turned to the other side where Reem was sleeping in her toddler bed.

  Laafrit tried to organize his thoughts about the case, doing his best not to overlook anything. He rejected the Sebta hypothesis because it would have been impossible for the bodies to stay so close to each other over such a long distance that they washed up in the same general area.

  He found himself thinking about Fifi, putting her at the center of things. He knew she’d bought her family a luxurious apartment in the heart of Tangier and that she lived under the watchful eye of her mother, who’d once been a prostitute. After Fifi’s father died, the only thing he left Fifi’s mother were four children to take care of. As sleep played with his eyes, Laafrit remembered the day he had interrogated Fifi and her mother. With all that whiskey in him, he couldn’t dismiss Nadia, who entered the picture too. When the phone rang, the three women were moving back and forth in Laafrit’s dream.

  Naeema had to prod Laafrit several times to get him to pick up the phone. She was afraid the ringing would wake up Reem.

  “Hello,” he answered quickly, waking up.

  “It’s Fifi,” she said, letting out a loud laugh in his ear. “You sleeping?”

  He forced himself to open his eyes and lifted his head off the pillow.

  “No,” he said, fighting back a yawn. “I was waiting for you to call.”

  “Listen, your man’s at the Cave.”

  Laafrit pushed back the blankets and stood up.

  “Leave the room or you’ll wake the girl,” his wife whispered, chiding him.

  Laafrit felt the coldness of the ground as he made his way in the dark with the phone pressed to his ear.

  “You said the Cave, but how’ll I recognize him?”

  “You can’t miss him,” Fifi said, sounding a bit drunk. “He’s got a baseball cap on. They call him ‘the guy who’s got no problem with his hair.’”

  “He has long hair?” asked Laafrit.

  “It goes past his shoulders. He wears it in a ponytail.”

  Laafrit couldn’t stop himself from asking the obvious question: “Who gave you the information?”

  “Limpy, a street peddler. He charged me fifty dirhams for it.”

  Laafrit immediately got off the phone with her. As he was calling the station, he heard a woman outside yelling for help, as well as a man who sounded as if he was barking. He finished dialing.

  “Hello, who’s this?” asked the detective.

  “Who’s this? Laafrit?” a thick, sleepy voice responded.

  “Inspector Lamalki?”

  “Yes,” the inspector said, coming to life.

  “Send two squad cars together with backup to the Cave nightclub. Lock the doors and don’t let anyone out until I get there. Understood?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Laafrit went out to the balcony overlooking the narrow street to see where all the yelling was coming from. The street was empty and all the houses were dark except for the last one. He then remembered the teacher.

  “That woman deserves protection,” he told himself.

  The club was in the center of town, near the train station and on a street that had a big sign for tourists and lovers of outdoor cafés under the shadow of tall palm trees. There was a grassy passageway leading up to the street and ending in an open-air café. It continued on to the port, the train station, the beach, and finally to the sea opening onto the Iberian borders.

  The Cave was crammed between travel agencies marked by bright outdoor signs and neon lights left on inside. Laafrit found the street blocked off, with cop cars forming barriers to prevent bystanders from getting too close. This street never slept, and most of the cafés here stayed open until dawn, as did the surrounding bocadillo joints and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, sausage-cart vendors, and guys exchanging money and selling smuggled cigarettes and hash. Add to that mix the locals, most of them vagabonds, glue sniffers, and the destitute.

  Laafrit used his high beams to clear the road. He pulled up directly in front of the club, where there were two uniformed cops standing guard. Behind them a bunch of women crowded around the peephole of the club’s iron gate, haggling with the cops and trying to get in.

  “A hundred dirhams to let us in!” said one.

  “Two hundred!” said another.

  “Three hundred and a kiss!” yelled a third.

  The two young cops stopped laughing when they saw the detective’s car pull up.

  Laafrit met them and wondered if he should drag everyone inside to the station, take just a few, or make a beeline for his man. He ordered the front door opened and asked the two bouncers, who looked like retired weightlifting champions, to come outside. The detective gave them a description of Fouad and mentioned Faouzia, who had emigrated to Italy on a fake passport. Laafrit asked them for more information, and the larger of the two said they should avoid causing any panic inside. They didn’t want the women to get hysterical, especially since it’d hurt business for the next few days. He suggested bringing Fouad out raised up in the air like a butterfly.

  After the two bouncers carried Fouad out, Laafrit told them to put him down on the ground. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand up on his own. Fouad wasn’t older than thirty. He was wearing a jacket and had a gold chain without a pendant around his neck. He also had on a cap with the words “World Golf Club.” As soon as the detective pulled off the cap, he was struck by the man’s feminine beauty, especially when he saw Fouad’s soft fine hair dangling down, covering his drowsy eyes.

  The detective exchanged glances with the bouncers, who immediately knew what Laafrit had in mind. The two quickly tossed Fouad into the back of the police van, where he collapsed in a heap, as if this was what he had been longing to do.

  At the station, Laafrit couldn’t wake Fouad up, despite a few light slaps and tugs on his hair. He went through Fouad’s pockets and found a small sheet of hash wrapped in tinfoil, a box of Marlboros, a wad of more than a thousand dirhams, his ID, and a photo of a beautiful girl about twenty years old who had to be Faouzia. When Laafrit patted down Fouad’s legs, he found a knife in a leather sheath tucked into one of his socks. Laafrit gave the ID to the inspector, who was busy at the computer, and told him to keep Fouad in the holding cell until morning.

  Laafrit had breakfast in the café opposite the station. It was seven thirty. He put the first menthol lozenge of the day in his mouth and tried to guess what would happen with Fouad. Before he could collect his thoughts, however, Inspector Lamalki came into the café, his eyes bloodshot from being up all night. Lamalki had just finished the graveyard shift and was surprised to see Laafrit. He asked for a café au lait and a cheese croissant.

  “You’ve been waiting for this guy,” said Lamalki. “What’d you want out of him?”

  “Does he have
any priors?” asked Laafrit.

  “A year in jail for smuggling and resisting arrest.”

  “The bouncer at the Cave told me he’s a second-rate cigarette smuggler.”

  “He’s pretty like a woman,” the inspector said, smiling. “God protect him. There’s a guy in his cell who’s a real pervert.”

  Laafrit immediately stood up with an alarmed look. He remembered the last time they brought someone in passed out drunk and threw him in the holding cell for the night. The next morning, they found him dead. The detective on duty that day was put under investigation. The DA said standard procedures weren’t followed. In that situation, they should have taken the drunk to the hospital first, not to jail.

  Laafrit rushed to the station, imagining the disaster that’d happen to him if he found Fouad dead, or worse.

  When the detective got to the holding area, he found Fouad squatting with his head between his knees. The other guy in the cell was fast asleep and didn’t stop snoring, despite all the noise when Laafrit unlocked the iron gate and swung it open. Laafrit walked into the cell and grabbed his man by the arm.

  “Good morning,” he said sarcastically. “Sleep well?”

  Fouad didn’t answer. His face was creased and his eyes were blood red. Fouad limped out of the cell slowly, as if he had a problem with his foot. Laafrit walked ahead of him in the corridor. The detective opened his office door and pushed him inside. Fouad staggered and reeled, almost colliding with the metal filing cabinet. Laafrit slapped the desk and told him to sit down with a threatening look.

  “I don’t have time to waste on you,” he said as if he were getting ready to break his neck. “I want to know where the gun is.”

  Fouad pursed his lips as if he just heard a joke.

  “Why am I here? What’d I do?” he asked in a rough voice, after a moment of silence.

  Laafrit stared at him briefly and realized Fouad really didn’t get what was going on. The detective took off his jacket and put it on the hook. He rolled up his sleeves slowly and then waved his fist in front of Fouad’s face.

  “I asked you, where’s the gun?”