Mecca for Murder

by Stephen Marlowe

  “How many wives do you have?” I asked.

  “Two. Only two. More is prohibitively expensive.”

  “Mahmoud will have four women, all law will permit,” Mahmoud said, rolling his eyes.

  “Actually, Mahmoud should be a lot of help, Mr. Drum. He will be with you all the time. He’s a shrewd trader. He knows his way around Jidda, and Mecca as well. He speaks English, Arabic and a smattering of most of the dialects you’ll hear around here. He has already been paid, and paid well. He will do whatever you say.”

  Anwar Sidki said he would contact us when the government committee cleared our way passes. He said he would contact me if he located Izzed-een Shafik or his wakil. He salaamed and disappeared through the dim, hot, evil-smelling hallway. I stretched out on my cot and watched the ceiling fan turning sluggishly. A fat fly buzzed in through the unscreened window, circling the bare electric bulb hanging beneath the fan.

  All I could do was wait and sweat while somewhere out there in the suffocating darkness Fawzia Totah rode through the night on a bouncing, clattering old bus up the road to Mecca—somewhere out there where Izzed-een Shafik was waiting.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Breakfast was thin strips of kmaj with tamia, the latter a hot spiced dish of ground chick peas, onions, garlic and pepper, fried in heavy little patties, sodden and unappetizing, like the hamburgers you find in greasy spoons outside Washington. Once or twice during the meal a wakil came in, forced his way between the packed tables of the noisy café, and announced to his charges that their way passes were ready. With wild whoops they tossed aside their kmaj and tamia and, already sweating in the early morning heat, trotted outside to hit the Mecca road.

  Anwar Sidki appeared in the restaurant doorway while we were drinking coffee. He beckoned and Mahmoud got up and pushed his way through the crowd toward the wakil. They conversed briefly, and Mahmoud returned. “Anwar Sidki has found your friend’s wakil,” he told me with a smile.

  “Shafik’s?”

  “We go quick, like you snap the fingers. Shafik. Yes.”

  I got up. Azaayim Bey looked at me questioningly, but I shrugged. Anwar Sidki smiled at me. He had broken, crooked, blackened teeth and a scarred, pockmarked face. Tendrils of gray hair clung wetly to his scalp. Sidki gave the boy the other wakil’s address and went inside the restaurant, probably for coffee.

  As we walked, Mahmoud opened a big black umbrella like the one Neville Chamberlain had carried to Munich. It helped ward off the blistering, relentless Hejaz sun, but if you looked up you could see it burning down, bronze and baleful, through the stretched black cloth of Mahmoud’s umbrella. Arrogant Arab League soldiers paraded past in their black, red and green uniforms. There were black Sudanese from the upper Nile, diminutive brown-skinned pilgrims from New Guinea; fierce, hawk-profiled burnoose-wrapped Bedouins; swart Tauregs from the Mahgreb, clad to the eyes like white and silent ghosts; welldressed Egyptians wearing the tarboosh and fellahin Egyptians in loincloths and shawls; turbaned Pakistanis in colorful robes; women of conservative sects, covered from crown to bare feet in black purdah; and an occasional fair-skinned, fair-haired Arab from Lebanon, playing with the beads of his sibha and making me feel better because I could pass for Lebanese when I replaced my western clothing with the ihram, the pilgrim’s shroud, and set out across the heat-shimmering wasteland for Mecca.

  Mahmoud and I entered a café down near the waterfront. You went in through a covered archway, but the café itself was open to the street on the far side. Naked blue bulbs, unlit at this hour, were strung on wires overhead. From one of the doorways which led off the covered archway a woman screamed, and there was the sound of flesh striking flesh and a harsh guttural laugh.

  Mahmoud shrugged when I looked at him. “A man beats his wife. Yahya! Let him live on.”

  We sat down at a table. We were the only guests, and there seemed to be no waiters around. Presently a man came through the archway. He was fat and he had an unctuous, oily smile. His head was bare, the hair matted and uncombed. His burnoose was stained with food. He waddled up to us and addressed Mahmoud briefly, contemptuously, in Arabic. Mahmoud gave him sneer for sneer and soon the unctuous smile returned. Mahmoud must have described me as the richest American since Astor.

  “He says,” Mahmoud informed me, “that his memory is at its worst in morning hours from fog of last night’s arak.”

  “Is he the wakil who served Izzed-een Shafik?”

  “He remembers not even that.”

  I gave the fat wakil a coin. He looked at me insolently, and bit it. Then he grinned his oily grin. He said something, to Mahmoud and Mahmoud told me, “He is that wakil. By name, Mohassen Mahjoub.”

  “Where’s Shafik now?”

  They spoke in Arabic. Mohassen Mahjoub kept on grinning, as if his fat jaw had come unhinged. A woman with a puffed, blackened eye brought us coffee and retreated in a hurry.

  “In Jidda yet,” Mahmoud said breathlessly. Mohassen held out his plump hand. I oiled it with three more coins.

  “To depart this morning for Mecca,” Mahmoud informed me. “From the Gate of the Prophet. I will take you?”

  “You will take me,” I said.

  The Gate of the Prophet was an archway three stories high, constructed of roughhewn coral blocks lashed together with timbers. The pilgrims streamed through the dusty gateway in cars, in buses, on camel back, but mostly on foot. Men and women alike wore the white shroudlike pilgrim’s garment, although many of the women wore purdahs. They went bareheaded because it was written in the Koran that they must approach the sacred Black Stone, the Valley of Arafat and the stoning places of Mina bareheaded. They carried umbrellas like Mahmoud’s.

  Somewhere along this road, under the arch of lashed coral and timber, the roiling dust, the ihram, and the umbrella all but stealing his identity, would come Izzed-een Shafik. Destination, Mecca. Objective, murder.

  Would I know him if I spotted him in the pilgrim’s shroud? Still, Mohassen Mahjoub was his wakil. And the wakil’s unctuous smile I would recognize.

  Mahmoud grasped my shoulder and pointed. “Mohassen Mahjoub,” he said.

  It was an ancient Mercedes-Benz deisel-driven bus, laboring along the slight slope which led to the arch. It came with a clatter and a roar, punctuated by blasts on the horn. Pilgrims cleared a path for it sullenly, enviously. Camels seemed to eye it with big, contemptuous eyes.

  The bus was jammed with stinking, sweating, ihram-clad humanity. The swaying baggage rack held more of the pilgrims. To ride in the open air in the baggage rack was to ride first class. Mohassen Mahjoub was there with the biggest umbrella I had ever seen not on a beach or a sundeck.

  Sitting on his right was Izzed-een Shafik. I recognized him at once, and that surprised me. I told Mahmoud to stay where he was and trotted up the incline toward the bus.

  Trotting was a mistake. Even the camels advanced in slow motion, as if their hoofs were mired in syrup. I moved too quickly. I wore western clothing. I stood out like a full-blooded Comanche brave arguing his priority at a meeting of the D.A.R.

  The Mercedes-Benz came to a stop under the archway as I reached it. Saudi Arabian soldiers, slaves of the king, swaggered insolently toward the bus from both sides. They wore dazzling white khaffiyas and aviator-style sunglasses, and black leather straps crossed their bare bronzed chests and baggy pantaloons. They carried coiled wire flails. They were as tough-looking as any cops I had ever seen, and looked twice as mean. There were four of them. One shouted something at the bus driver in Arabic, and the door opened. Two of King Saud’s soldier-slaves went inside to check way passes; one of them yelled something to Mohassen Mahjoub on the baggage rack. The fourth stood with muscular arms folded across muscular chest.

  I got my hand on a window post of the windowless bus, looked up at the baggage rack and shouted, “Izzed-een Shafik!”

  His dark eyes widened. I wondered if he remembered his last words to me, spoken as the tear gas swirled inside the Islamic Center on Embassy
Row in Washington. I was aware of the Saudi Arabian soldier-slave watching me and of the crowd watching too, as if they expected me to sprout wings like Mohammed’s horse and flap off into the hot sky.

  Izzed-een jabbered something at Mohassen Mahjoub, who shrugged and shook his head. One of the soldier-slaves came out of the bus. Izzed-een leaned down over the side of the baggage rack and said, “What’s on your mind?” His coloquial English still surprised me.

  “Talk to you a minute,” I said.

  “Some other time, mac. We’re pulling out in a couple of minutes.”

  “It can’t keep.”

  “Well, it got to.”

  The second soldier-slave emerged from the bus and wiped his hands on his pantaloons. He went over and said something to the sweating driver. The driver laughed halfheartedly. I called up to Izzed-een, “If you don’t come down, I’ll drag you down.”

  He leaned over the side of the baggage rack and stared at me. Then he hacked his throat and spit, the spittle hitting my cheek. I grasped the window post and hoisted myself up. I got hold of Izzed-een’s ihram and yanked. He came reluctantly over the side of the baggage rack, holding on with both hands. Mohassen Mahjoub shouted something, and one of the soldier-slaves barked an order at the bus driver, who killed his idling motor. Izzed-een swung around and came down feet first, wearing the seamless sandals prescribed for the pilgrims.

  There was a quick, faint, whistling sound and something burned across my shoulder. I whirled around and saw one of King Saud’s lads following through with his lead-tipped wire flail. It coiled magically back toward his hand and he whipped it out again with a flick of his powerful wrist, the lead tip blurring past my face and the thin wire burning my other shoulder, cleanly parting the fabric of my jacket.

  Izzed-een exulted in Arabic and struck for my throat with the edge of his palm. I whirled to face him, ducked my head and took the judo cut on my jaw. The flail stung my ear and coiled stingingly, blindingly around my face. Izzed-een dropped his arms to his sides and watched.

  “You think I forgot?” he said. “You think I forgot?”

  I blinked beads of blood from my eyes. I shouted for Mahmoud, but he didn’t come. The flail lashed out again. I grabbed it, but it seared across my hand and left a thin straight line of blood. The crowd was roaring. They didn’t know who I was, but they loved it. They wanted blood.

  I lunged at the man wielding the flail. I had probably broken more laws around here than T. E. Lawrence, without knowing what or why. I wondered if anyone would bother to tell me. I grabbed the leather-wrapped handle of the flail and tugged. The soldier let go and I staggered back against the side of the bus. I swung the flail. For a moment I had them all at bay. Mahmoud was going for help, I thought. The hell he was. Mahmoud owed me absolutely nothing.

  A new fellow with crossed leather straps on his chest appeared, carrying a rifle—an ancient German Mannlicher, I thought. I swung the flail and the wire coiled around the barrel of the rifle. The soldier jerked it up, showing me the butt plate. I lost my hold on the flail, and he tore it from my grasp. He didn’t smile. He looked like a butcher cutting meat. He used both hands to drive the butt of the Mannlicher at my face. I almost got out of the way.

  Distantly, in an echo chamber which could swallow the entire Hejaz, Chester Drum included, a muezzin called the faithful to prayer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The place smelled, but it certainly wasn’t the woman’s fault.

  She looked like an angel, and perhaps she was. Any blonde with blue eyes would have been an angel at that moment.

  She was a tall girl in khaki slacks and shirt with the sleeves cut short. The Hejaz sun had bleached her blonde hair almost white. Her exposed forearms were tanned and looked hard. Her face was pretty, but cold. Her eyes were chillingly blue. She stood with hands on hips at the foot of a cot, gazing down upon its occupant. Behind her was a bare, whitewashed wall with a small barred window hole near its juncture with the ceiling.

  I was the occupant of the cot.

  “Brother,” she said, “you sure did go and do it.”

  It was a musty underground smell. The room was in a cellar. It was a smell of damp rot and vermin. The woman came over with a basin and a rag. She dipped the rag in the basin, wrung it out and applied it to my face. I started to get up, but she put a hand against my chest and pushed me back down.

  “Just wait a minute while I clean you off,” she said. “There’s blood all over your face. You’re lucky you, didn’t lose a few teeth.”

  “We’re in jail?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not the jailer?”

  “No, Mr. Drum. I hope you don’t mind. I went through your pockets to learn what I could about you. You’re in a lot of trouble.”

  “For what—resisting an officer?”

  “For committing an act of violence. For fighting. The Moslems take very seriously the prohibitions of their Hajj. One of those prohibitions is fighting.”

  She had a deep, contralto voice. The words were cool and the pretty face was cold, but the voice had warmth.

  “What about the other, guy?” I said. “They have him too?” If the police had Izzed-een everything would be all right. I hoped the police would hold on to us long enough for Fawzia to complete her Hajj.

  “No. He’s in Mecca by now.”

  “But he was fighting, too.”

  “To defend himself. Don’t you know that America is in a touch-and-go ideological conflict here, Mr. Drum? Don’t you realize that what you’ve done could hurt our position terribly? Doesn’t it bother you that the Umma and perhaps the Reds will make capital of it?” Spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “Do you know what the punishment is for the crime you committed?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “They take you out in one of the public squares of Jidda and put you in a stock and lop off your hands with an axe.”

  I sat up. This time she didn’t try to stop me. I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and put my weight down on them. I stood up. The room tilted. She came over and thrust her hands under my arms and supported me while I took a few deep breaths.

  “Sit down,” she said. “Are you in a hurry to lose your hands?”

  I sat down on the cot. She sat down next to me and lit two cigarettes, giving me one. “Who are you?” I said.

  “Mahmoud got me. I’m a teacher at the Aramco American school in Jidda, until next week. Mahmoud’s a good boy.”

  “A very good boy. I still don’t know who you are.”

  “Theresa Maddox. There’s a Ph.D. after my name, but I’ll forgive you if you don’t use it.”

  “You don’t do it permanently? Teach, I mean.”

  “Only for a year. I’m going back to the States in a few days. What’s the difference, Mr. Drum? You’re in trouble.”

  “Where’s Mahmoud?”

  “I sent him to the American consul for help. They know me there, and they know me here. I told the police you were ignorant of Moslem law and new in Jidda. I told them you didn’t know. I would have told them you had been drinking, but that’s a crime, too, during the Hajj. I hope you’re new in Jidda. I hope I said the right thing.”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “Can I talk?”

  “Of course you can talk.”

  I looked at the door in the whitewashed wall. It was solid hardwood. “I’m new here,” I said. “I’m going on the Hajj, though.”

  “That’s what Mahmoud told me, but I thought he was mistaken. I hoped he was mistaken.”

  “I’m supposed to be a converted Moslem.”

  She stood up suddenly. She turned away from me, her blonde pony-tail whipping behind her. She said coldly, “You’re a thrill seeker, aren’t you? Just a thrill seeker?”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Like Halliburton. If it can’t be done, you’ve got to do it. Without scruples. Without caring what taboos or laws you trample on.”

  “For crying ou
t loud,” I said.

  “I ought to leave you here and forget about you. But you’re an American. Damn you, do you think I care what happens to you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You care. You probably hope all of it’s bad.”

  “Mahmoud said you were an American and you were in trouble. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

  “What’s the other reason?”

  “Mr. Drum,” she said quickly, avoiding my eyes, “if I can help keep them from chopping off your hands will you take me on the Hajj with you?”

  “Did you say will I take you on the Hajj?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what I thought you said.”

  “Well, will you?”

  “You’re quite a standard bearer,” I said. “A double standard.”

  “This is different, Mr. Drum. But I didn’t think you would understand. Shall we forget all about it if I agree to do what I can for you anyway?”

  “I’m not sure I get it,” I said, “but when you were yelling at me before you were really raking yourself over the coals, weren’t you?”

  “I told you this is different. When I’m not teaching at the Aramco school, I’m an assistant professor of comparative religion at a college in Virginia. Don’t you think anyone in my position would like to see the Hajj first-hand? To see Mecca and the meteorite they call the Black Stone, which they say Abraham worshipped? To see the faithful massed half a million strong in the Valley of Arafat? To see the stonings at Mina? Don’t you think it would help me in my work? Don’t you think it makes a difference?”

  “But think of all the taboos and laws you’ll trample.”

  “A teacher of comparative religion is like an anthropologist. You can only go so far using text books and ivory-tower theories. Ultimately, if you are to be any good, you have to see for yourself. If I go on the Hajj, Mr. Drum, I sincerely believe I can be of some help in fostering an understanding of the Near East and its problems back home. In a small way, of course, but—”

  “Where do I fit in? Why do you want me to take you?”