Mecca for Murder

by Stephen Marlowe

  “Can I get a gun around here?”

  “There are no guns in Mecca,” he said in a shocked voice. “Violence is forbidden. Firearms are carried only by the soldier-slaves.”

  “I’ll go with Mahmoud,” I said. Terry caught my hand and followed me toward the door, but I turned and told Azaayim Bey, “There’s something that I wanted to ask you.”

  At first he didn’t hear me. His two wives had cornered him. They were scolding him and the bey had a look of dismay on his face. They chattered and jabbered and scolded and every time the bey tried to duck away from one of them the other drove him back with a voice as explosive as a firecracker.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Terry grinned.

  I shook my head. Finally, sweating and haggard, the bey faced us. “Dena speaks no English, but can understand a little. You are not Moslems, she says. What am I to tell her?”

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “You don’t have to tell her anything.”

  “And Dr. Maddox?”

  “She stays. That’s what I wanted to ask you. There’s no sense dragging her out there.”

  “Now just a minute!” Terry cried. “My going on the Hajj has nothing to do with you. I was going before I even knew you existed.”

  “Not with me, you weren’t. Not chasing a fanatic like Izzed-een Shafik.”

  “What about the bey’s wives? How can I stay here if they’re suspicious?”

  “I can control them, I think,” Azaayim Bey said. “They are not very devout Moslems,” he apologized for his wives. “Actually, they have nothing against you. It is their wish to avoid trouble.” He licked his lips. He sighed, cheeks puffing. “You are trouble.”

  The two wives were in conference. Outside, horns and claxons argued. Someone shouted, “Yallah!” and a new group of eager, ihram-clad pilgrims thudded up the cobbled hill of a side street and became part of the slow stream advancing on the Mosque of the Sanctuary. Grimlipped, Terry faced the window. I knew suddenly, without being able to explain or defend the knowledge, that I liked her and did not want to see her hurt.

  “Lock her up if you have to,” I said. “But keep her here.”

  Terry said something in Arabic. The bey shook his head. I closed the door behind me and went upstairs to find Mahmoud.

  Strings of colored bulbs were strung from wall to wall of the courtyard, silhouetting the many minarets of the Mosque of the Sanctuary against the black enveloping night. The Ka’bah was a square structure the size of a two-family house in Georgetown, black-draped with the cloak which is Egypt’s yearly gift to Mecca.

  “The third circle is running!” Mahmoud bawled. I barely heard him. The first two circumambulations were ritually performed at a snail’s pace. On the next two of seven, we would trot—or at least go through the motions. I blinked the sweat out of my eyes. I could see only a little distance into the crowd. Heat haze shimmered and dissolved individuals into a white-bodied, bareheaded, amoebic whole which seemed to flow sluggishly about the Ka’bah. We became a part of the crowd. We ran, mostly in place.

  After the seventh circumambulation, Mahmoud panted and clung to me. His face was livid and for several moments he could not catch his breath. He seemed to be swaying. Everything, the Ka’bah included, seemed to be swaying.

  “Water!” Mahmoud croaked, and pointed. His trembling hand indicated the well-house of Zem Zem, across the courtyard.

  “You mean they drink water there?” I asked.

  “Water,” he said again.

  We swayed and stumbled across the cobbles of the courtyard and affixed ourselves to the rear of a long double file of sweating, swaying, exhausted pilgrims.

  “Mubarakah,” Mahmoud intoned dreamily. “Come together, O Sacred Waters …” He shook his head. His teeth flashed at me. “I make one great religious teacher, yes, effendi?”

  At last we reached the well-house. The place had a smell of slime and rot. When we reached the head of the line a zemzemi brought up a pail of water. We drank from a ladle and the pail went down again, pulley creaking. The water was tepid and unpleasant. The zemzemi, an old man in a dirt-smeared ihram, brought up the second pail, held it aloft and drenched us with its contents, then showed us the palm of his hand for money. I gave him a gold sovereign and staggered from the house with Mahmoud, our ihrams dripping.

  Mahmoud lurched back toward the Ka’bah, but I grabbed his arm and said, “Stay here. If they’re still in the mosque, they’ll want water.”

  Obediently, Mahmoud joined the end of the line and advanced slowly toward the well-house a second time. I stood near the head of the line and watched the tired, sweating pilgrims enter the house. After about twenty minutes, a voice called, “Chet! Chet!”

  I blinked and rubbed the sweat from my eyes. It was Terry Maddox.

  I went in with her while she had her drink. I didn’t say anything. I watched the zemzemi douse her with water; then we walked outside together. “All right,” I said. “Now tell me what you think you’re doing?”

  “I’ll tell you anything you want,” she said, “if you promise not to look at me.” She had a point. Her short blonde hair was matted to her head. The dousing had glued the ihram to her body. It is ritually forbidden to wear garments under the ihram and with the wet gray cloth clinging to her body, you could tell Terry was breaking no laws.

  “I got together with Azaayim Bey’s wives,” Terry said. “I couldn’t stay there. They were starting on their rounds of the sacred places tomorrow, anyway. They had to if they wanted to reach Arafat in time for the climax of the pilgrimage.”

  “I might have been on my way back by then. I could have picked you up.”

  “I was going anyhow,” Terry said. “Can’t you get it through your head it had nothing to do with you?”

  “And can’t you get it through yours that chasing Shafik makes your Hajj more dangerous?”

  “And can’t you get it through yours I feel safer with you no matter what you say?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Besides, the brazen hussy actually likes the guy.”

  I looked at Terry. She was blushing, but that was all right because the guy liked her too. “You can stay,” I growled. “You’re out here already, aren’t you? Maybe I’d better look after you.”

  Just then Mahmoud came by on his second trip to the Zem Zem well. He showed us his teeth and Terry said, “You should have seen what happened to Azaayim Bey. You know, I think polygamy has its advantages for the women, if they stick together. The bey’s wives didn’t want me around. They were sure I was Nosrani, which meant I was trouble. I told them I wanted to leave and they were all for it. I just headed for the door and the bey said don’t. The wives ganged up on him. Last I saw, they were sitting on him.”

  Mahmoud emerged dripping from the well-house. I didn’t think it was Mahmoud until he smiled. Everybody, Mahmoud included, wore a shroud. The faces ran together. The pilgrims became one entity and that entity wore a shroud, too. I was dizzy with the heat. The hasheesh had not worn off yet, and I was enormously hungry. Every now and then I got that detached feeling the hasheesh gives you. It was a little like dying, I thought. If I didn’t reach up somehow with an effort of will and pluck my soaring spirit down to earth, it would wander off too far and something would go snap and that would be the end of Chester Drum. For this the hasheesh addict surrendered himself, body and soul.

  “I’m dreaming,” the voice said, from a long way off. “I have to be dreaming. It—it’s Chester Drum.” It was a voice that went with a small brunette with violet eyes and a way of walking that could deposit your breath in the next county.

  I hadn’t found Fawzia Totah. Fawzia had found me.

  “Chet, it is you!” She had come out of the well-house. Somehow, I had missed her going in. Her ihram was drenched; she looked firm and tightly constructed beneath it. She walked over to me, lifting her arms. She was going to hug me.

  I warded her off and she said, “Don’t tell me you’re still angry?”

  �
�Are you crazy?” I asked her. “On the Hajj? Clinching on the Hajj? You want to get us discovered and killed?”

  Limerock was right behind her. He had grown a beard. At least, he hadn’t shaved for several days. “Bulldog Drum,” he said. “You never give up, do you?”

  That didn’t call for an answer. I introduced Terry without mentioning that she was, like myself, an unbeliever. We waited for Mahmoud to return from another well-trip. He joined us dripping wet. The first American party was beyond the Gate of Departure, Fawzia said. We all trudged to the gate and went through it. If the Americans were there, we failed to spot them.

  Heat lightning danced over the hills and ruined medieval fortifications that surrounded the valley of Mecca. Torches lit the cobbled street. Shouts and backfires echoed.

  “Where the devil are they?” Limerock said. “It’s almost two A.M.”

  “Arab driver,” Fawzia said. “He can’t tell time.”

  Close by, an overheated motor ground and growled and caught. A station wagon clattered across the cobblestones toward us. It was an ancient American model with rotten and broken wood side-panels. It trailed a cloud of sickening exhaust smoke. It went by and came to a stop five yards beyond us, the tailgate flapping down. Two figures, ihrams trailing, alit on the run.

  One of them pointed a Luger at us. I had never seen him before. The other one said, like Abe Kid Twist Reles in an ihram, “Climb into the bus—and make it snappy.”

  It was Izzed-een Shafik.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “In Ramadan,” Fawzia said, “a Moslem knows when day has come by holding up two threads, a black and a white. If he can tell them apart it is day.…”

  The sun had not yet climbed over the Hejaz hills, but dawn was already seeping in through the walls of the goat-hair tent. Here Izzed-een had taken us in the battered station wagon. It had been a bumpy ride on a poorly surfaced road, most of it downhill. We stretched out on the sand inside the tent and sweated. Soon we heard Izzed-een’s station wagon driving away. I staggered to my feet, the heat hammering my temples, and lifted the tent flap.

  I bumped into a Bedouin with a rifle at port arms. He shoved me sprawling back into the tent and Limerock said: “Indefatigable Drum. You give me a pain in the neck, you know it? Haven’t you learned yet the world is full of officers and enlisted men and you’re a professional private? When it’s time to get out of here I’ll figure a way, so don’t get yourself in an uproar.”

  “What’s the matter, Limerock?” Fawzia asked.

  “Aw, your pal Drum has a hero complex. Maybe I feel sorry for him. I don’t want to see him get himself killed, I guess. Nobody asked him to come after you. Where does he get off appointing himself your watchdog? Doesn’t he think you can take care of yourself? Doesn’t he think I can take care of you?”

  “Stop needling him,” Fawzia said.

  “He isn’t even two-bit. Look what happened when a two-bit shamus got after him. The whole thing took about five minutes.”

  I crawled over to him across the sand and grabbed his ihram and said, “If you don’t shut that hole in your face I’ll shut it for you.”

  “Get your hands off me, you overgrown slob.”

  I hit him, both of us sitting down on the sand. When his head came forward he called me a name which neither Fawzia nor Terry should have heard. I rabbit-punched the back of his neck and he got a mouthful of sand. He came up choking and spitting. I got between them before Fawzia could nurse him with words and caresses.

  “That’s enough,” I said. “I want you to know this: Izzed-een Shafik wants to kill Fawzia, and if we’re going to stop him we’d better all play on the same side.”

  “You’re crazy,” Limerock said, still spitting sand. “Why should Izzed-een want to kill Fawzia?”

  “Ask Fawzia.”

  “He just wants to, that’s all,” Fawzia said quickly, ridiculously.

  “Say, what the hell’s going on?” Limerock shouted. “If you have some damn thing to tell me, say it.”

  “If I thought you would believe me, I’d tell you. If I thought … Limerock, listen to me. Chet overhead a long-distance phone conversation between your mother and someone in Jordan. It was Izzed-een, wasn’t it, Chet?”

  “Yeah, it was Izzed-een.”

  “Who are you trying to kid?” Limerock asked. “How could she get in touch with Izzed-een just like that?”

  “No trouble at all,” I said. “Izzed-een Shafik was news. The papers and wire services were interviewing him after what happened at the Islamic Center in Washington. The papers carried the name of Izzed-een’s hotel in ’Amman.”

  “And your mother,” Fawzia said, “knew exactly what kind of a fanatic Shafik was. She knew he’d jump at any wild-eyed scheme to advance his cause.” Fawzia went over to Limerock and squatted in front of him and took his hands in hers. She gave him both barrels with the violet eyes and he just sat there. She said, “I guess I should have told you sooner. I didn’t think you would believe me. You’ve got to believe me now. Your mother asked Izzed-een to kill me.”

  “Drum told you that?” Limerock asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Why should he lie to me?”

  “You little fool, because somebody gave him five or ten bucks. Ask him how a private eye makes a living. Go ahead and ask him, why don’t you?”

  “Save it for the trip home,” I said, removing the top of my ihram. It was so hot and moist it was like peeling the skin off a peach.

  “Why should anyone want to lie about a thing like that?” Fawzia asked.

  “I said save it,” I shouted.

  “Heat got you down?” Limerock said. There was hate in his voice. “All right, I’ll shut up. But I owe you for the sock you gave me and I owe you for that lie about my mother.”

  “I know,” I said. “And you’re the little man all the finance companies love. You pay your debts promptly.”

  “With interest,” Limerock said.

  After that I crawled over to Terry, who was sitting as still as the graven images the Moslems do not permit in their holy places. “Any ideas, teacher?” I asked.

  “Just one, I’m afraid. If I sit still long enough, I may stop sweating. And I’ve got a secret. I hope you can’t see so good in the dark.”

  “Not so good. You’re just a shadow.”

  “Swell, because I’m a shadow who took the top of her ihram off. I was suffocating.”

  “I can’t wait for sunrise.”

  “Chet?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m afraid, Chet. I didn’t think I would be, but I’m afraid. What’s your friend Shafik going to do?”

  “I’ll take care of my friend Shafik,” I said. I didn’t have the slightest idea how I would take care of my friend Shafik.

  “Chet, forget what I told you about my ihram?”

  “Why should I forget it? I told you I can’t wait for sunrise.”

  “Because I want you to kiss me. Only that’s not right because I’m not wearing as much as I ought to be wearing when you kiss me, for the first time, anyway.”

  “For the first time, anyway,” I said.

  “You’re laughing at me. I can’t help it, Chet. I always talk confused when I’m enthusiastic about something.”

  “I’m not laughing at you, Terry.”

  “Are you going to kiss me or aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to kiss you,” I whispered.…

  And then Fawzia said that business about the black thread and the white thread and Terry looked at me quickly as if waking from a dream and leaned over to scoop up the top half of her ihram and toss it over her shoulders like a cloak.

  I could tell she didn’t want to kiss me after that. I let it ride and I went along for the ride and I had no answers. That’s all you’d need, I thought. You were married once and it didn’t work out. Which was the understatement of this or any year. That’s all you’d need.

  When the sun was f
ully up, a Bedouin parted the tent flap and came in with tepid water in a large distended bladder slung across his shoulder. With the tent flap parted like that, I squinted against the sun and looked out. There were people out there, shroud-clad ghosts in the shimmering heat haze—thousands of them, and flocks of small, scrawny, undernourished sheep. And there were tents, thousands of them, too. The tents grew like weeds on the floor of the desert valley, but last night when we had arrived the headlights of the station wagon had cut a yellow tunnel through parched emptiness to the surrounding bluffs of jagged sandstone.

  Mahmoud did most of the drinking and gave the bladder to the Bedouin. As he opened the tent flap wider, a second Bedouin with a Mannlicher strapped across his back walked by slowly. The first Bedouin got out of the tent and the flap flapped shut.

  Mahmoud said: “We Arafat!” He had been out through the tent flap too, and it had surprised him.

  “You mean where the Hajj reaches its climax?” I asked.

  It was Fawzia who nodded. “The Koran tells how Adam and Eve, wandering through the wilderness in search of one another, finally met on the highest hill above the valley of Arafat. So every year on the climactic day of the Hajj, the faithful assemble here in Arafat, building a tent city and sacrificing sheep and praying together, their prayers flowing up to Allah through the sacred mount where Adam and Eve met, then striking the city at sundown and all rushing madly to Mina where in the ritual stoning they actually stone the Devil.” She got it out in a rush, as if she were thinking of something else and wanted to get to it. Then she said: “But Chet, if Izzed-een wants to kill me, why should he pick the noisiest, most crowded part of the Hejaz, when half a million of the faithful are assembled here at Arafat? Maybe you’re mistaken.”