CHAPTER FIVE
Avenue Hassan I was a crowded little street angling off from the Rue de la Casbah. The tall, dilapidated buildings pushing in on both sides were home to Moroccan families and a few poor Spaniards. The constant yells of dozens of street merchants ricocheted off the walls. From what I heard Ronnie made good money, but he chose to live in this place. Strange.
Number 21 wasn’t any nicer than the other apartment buildings, just a blank facade with a few rickety shutters. The walls needed a coat of whitewash, and had needed it for years. There was no doorman, so I let myself up.
At the top of a creaking staircase I came to a dingy hallway filled with the sounds and cooking smells of the families living behind all those faded wooden doors. I found apartment 6 and knocked. No answer. Pulling a set of lockpicks from my coat pocket, I glanced around to make sure the coast was clear and picked the lock.
Easy, like most of the locks in Tangier. Despite all the street crime, housebreaking was rare. To break into a house in the Arab culture is the greatest affront, the crime of intrusion on the space of respectable women, one that leads to death for the culprit if caught. Even so, doors were always bolted if someone was home.
Ronnie the Pusher’s door was not bolted, and he was home.
He hung from the roof beam. A short length of rope ran from it around his neck. His face was dark purple, his tongue swollen and extended. A chair lay on its side below his feet.
I shut the door behind me. A quick survey of the living room, the adjoining bedroom, and bathroom showed I was alone. Then I took a closer look at Ronnie.
Ronnie’s knuckles were scraped like he had been in a fistfight. Through the purple hue of his face I saw darker marks on his left eye and chin. I also noticed a deep bruise running around the lower part of the neck, and scrape marks on the skin between the bruise and where the rope now dug into the flesh, as if it had been tightened on one part and cinched up.
Like he’d been punched in the face and strangled and then strung up to make it look like suicide.
His skin was cold, and rigor mortis had set in but had not worn off. When people talk about “stiffs” they don’t realize that the dead don’t stay stiff for more than about 72 hours. After that, their bodies get as loose as they were the moment after death.
I searched his pockets. No wallet. Just a matchbook for Dean’s Bar and a half-empty packet of Camels. So if the cops figured out it was a murder and not suicide then they’d think it was the cover up for a robbery. I didn’t buy it. Not if he had been talking to the owner of a disappearing bank just a couple of weeks before.
I searched the apartment. It was decently made up despite the low-rent building. Maybe he figured the building would act as camouflage. Didn’t save him in the end, though. There was no sign of a struggle. Wait, there was one sign. The coffee table was slightly off kilter and some cigarette ash dusted the floor next to it. The ashtray on the coffee table was empty. Perhaps someone banged against the coffee table, knocking off the ashtray, and then they replaced it to make the apartment look normal? They hadn’t kept their head, though, otherwise they would have noticed the ash and blown it under the sofa. An amateur, then.
Or two amateurs? Had he been punched and then strangled, or punched while being strangled?
A snub-nosed .32 sat in a drawer, all chambers full and the barrel clean. I didn’t find anything else of value or of interest until I looked on the bedside table. There I found half a dozen newspapers in Arabic. I can’t speak the language, but I know the alphabet and some important words. Enough to puzzle out the masthead. Al-Ahram, the Egyptian national newspaper. The issues dated from two weeks before to just a few days before. I folded them up, stuck them in my jacket pocket, and used Ronnie’s own phone to call the police.
While I waited, I took another, more thorough, look at Ronnie the Pusher’s apartment—peeking under carpets and behind bureaus, rummaging through his sock drawer, and examining the windows for signs of forced entry I did not find. I found no drugs in the house and was not surprised. Ronnie was smart enough to stash them elsewhere. It also showed he was smart enough not to use his own product. I wish Bill would be that smart, but that man had been dancing a tango with death for years and they were beginning to bump and grind.
I was just about to open the shutters and look to see if the cops had arrived yet when a little bit of green caught my eye. It lay on the floor just behind the body, caught in the carpet. The carpet was a Moorish pattern of green and white so I had not noticed at first.
Bending over, I saw it was a blade of grass. Ronnie the Pusher never struck me as the kind to go on country walks. There was a grassy area not far off, on the slope beneath the promenade where a row of old colonial cannons rusted. He could have gotten it from there, but the only people who went there were Moorish children playing and some old men who sat and smoked their kif while looking out to sea. Certain places in town were exclusively Moorish, like some were exclusively French. The Moroccans had claimed that grassy slope and I had never seen a European sitting there. I’d been here for a couple of years and it had never even occurred to me to go there, just as it had never occurred to me to go to Cafe Liberté and drink coffee amid all the well-to-do French. I would have been equally unwelcome.
I examined Ronnie’s jacket, and sure enough found a small blade of grass and a little green burr stuck to the back. So not only had he been walking in some overgrown area, but he had lain down for a time. I dismissed the possibility that he had been killed in the countryside and deposited here. The jacket had no big wrinkles and no stains, not like it would have if he had been writhing in his death throes on the ground. Besides, if he had been out he would have carried his gun, and the murderers probably would not have placed it back in the drawer after stringing him up here. There was also the question of how they could have gotten a dead body down this busy street and up into Ronnie’s apartment without being seen. Even in the small hours of the morning that would have been risky.
No, he had gone to some overgrown place, lain down of his own volition, then come back home. He had put away his gun, his business done for the day. Then someone or a group of someones had come to visit. Ronnie the Pusher had let them in, feeling secure enough not to retrieve his gun. Then there had been a struggle. Obviously not a big one since the apartment showed so few signs. Most likely one of his visitors had moved up behind him and put the rope around his neck. Ronnie had lashed out, connecting a few times judging by the state of his knuckles, while the partner of the rope man gave Ronnie a few punches to subdue him.
And that was that.
Problem was, it didn’t tell me much of anything.
The police came, led by Chason Michel. Chason was Gerald’s second in command. Just as the Treaty of Algeciras dictated the chief of police be British, the treaty dictated that his assistant be French. All the jobs in the city were divvied up in this way, and the court was made up of equal numbers of judges from each ruling country.
While I liked Gerald, I couldn’t stand Chason. A fairly capable cop, to be sure, but a snobbish, sneering Parisian who had never gotten over the fact that he had been a colonial officer in Senegal during the war and saw no combat. When even the humblest man could produce at least a service medal, this man’s pride could only be compensated through his position.
He proceeded to compensate with me.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded as soon as I let him in.
“Calling you.”
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“I’ve been hired by some of the investors in the South Continental Bank to find out what happened. I’m sure your boss has already told you that.”
Chason clucked his tongue and took a long look at Ronnie the Pusher.
“Despite what you think, this isn’t a suicide,” he stated.
“I never said it was.”
“See?” He pointed to the bottom bruise on the neck. “He was strangled from behind, and then hanged. Ju
dging from the body I say he was killed sometime last night.”
“I agree. He was lying down outside shortly before then,” I said, pointing to the burr and blade of grass on the back of his jacket. I was about to point out the grass on the floor but one of Chason’s men was standing on it.
“That was where he was killed, obviously,” Chason said. “See how there is no sign of a struggle? He was killed outside and his body moved here by the murderers.”
“There was a struggle. Look at his face and knuckles. And look at the ash on the floor.” I had to push aside one of the cops to show him. Yes, a foreigner can push a cop in Tangier as long as that cop is Moroccan. We can get away with anything here. That appeals to certain kinds of people.
Chason made a dismissive wave with his hand. “His injuries took place when he fought at the murder scene. As for the ash, it is nothing. He was a dealer in narcotics. No doubt he was an addict himself. They all are. They live slovenly lives. Worse than working class Americans.”
That line had been aimed directly at me. Chason knew my background. I’d grown up amid the Scranton steel mills. My dad had been a labor union representative and one of our town’s first members of the Industrial Workers of the World. That got him blacklisted and meant plenty of skipped dinners for all of us. I had proudly walked in the old man’s footsteps.
Which, of course, got me blacklisted all through Pennsylvania too. As far as Chason was concerned, a union supporter was almost as bad as a Moorish rebel, and therefore he would have loved to get me kicked out of the International Zone. As long as he didn’t learn about those copies of the Communist Manifesto, he wouldn’t have any cause.
“There are no drugs in the apartment,” I told him. “You’ll find his pistol in that drawer over there.”
“Searching a crime scene is interfering with police business!” Chason fumed.
“I’ll be sure to apologize to Gerald the next time we share some Scotch.”
That shut him up. Gerald did not like his assistant any more than I did, and Chason knew it. The Frog never got invited to a glass of Scotch in Gerald’s office, that was for sure.
Chason and his men searched the place, finding nothing that I hadn’t. I did not tell them about the newspapers I had put in my pocket. I would tell Gerald later if they turned out to be significant.
Feeling like a fifth wheel, I left. Chason did not try to stop me.
Now I not only had a bank heist to investigate, but a murder. And there was no doubt in my mind that the two crimes were linked. I’d discovered that the photographer-turned-banker was not only clever, but dangerous.
CHAPTER SIX
I figured the best place to get a line on Pieter Vlamin would be where he first broke in with Tangier’s popular set and landed at least some of his investors—Dean’s Bar. I’d already heard he was a regular, and the matchbook in Ronnie’s pocket added to my interest.
Dean was, like so many people in Tangier, a man of mystery. Tangier was like a French Foreign Legion for degenerates and grifters—a place where no one knew your past and you could reinvent yourself. Divorcees from Schenectady living off alimony from their accountant ex-husbands could pretend to be heiresses to oil fortunes. Former Hungarian collaborators could pretend to be counts. London streetwalkers could pretend to be music hall stars.
Dean pretended to be the friend and confidante of the rich and powerful.
Who among the rich and powerful? Anyone you happened to mention. If you brought up a politician or millionaire or movie star who had been alive anytime after Napoleon, Dean had poured them a drink.
Dean was a Negro from England. The English had told me that he had a Home Counties accent, and not a terribly refined one at that. Being great judges of the social niceties, the bluenoses also said his manners were a bit rough around the edges, hinting that he had worked in the drinking dens of some of England’s lesser people. That’s the phrase they used. Lesser people.
And people wonder why I’m a Communist.
Dean claimed to have worked in all the great bars and casinos from Monte Carlo to Beirut. He’d poured brandy for Winston Churchill, played poker with Clark Cable, and delivered love letters for Mata Hari. He would have had to deliver them while he was still a school kid, but Dean never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Dean would tell these stories with a straight face and utter conviction, and only a cynical detective like yours truly would notice that over time these stories changed, the details varying with each telling in order to best suit the listener. When “Winston”, as Dean called him, was one of his regular customers back when Dean ran an exclusive pub in Chelsea during the war, he always had a boon companion, a man of humbler origins who acted as a surrogate for whoever made up Dean’s audience at the time. To a group of Polish resistance fighters, now fled the Soviet occupation and making a living running a cannery at the port, he told how Winston always drank with Witold Urbanowicz, one of the many Polish fighters who joined the RAF after Hitler and Stalin divided up his country. A great ace fighter, Witold was, having knocked more than a dozen Messerschmidts and Fokkers out of the English sky. Winston would put a beefy arm around Witold and boom out in his sonorous voice, “If not for the brave Poles, our dark days would have been ever darker.”
To the Americans—and Dean loved to talk to Americans because they lapped up his every word he said—Witold would be replaced by General Patton. Yes, Patton and Churchill had enough spare time to drink brandy and chat with Dean. Winston would put a beefy arm around “George” and boom out in his sonorous voice, “If not for the brave Americans, our dark days would have been ever darker.”
Dean would never relate the Churchill story to the British. He was too smart for that. Instead he talked about Clark Cable and Rita Hayworth. Big fans of Hollywood, the British. Even the greatest English snobs set aside their distaste for his humble accent and listened. Dean always had an audience.
Dean’s Bar is nothing remarkable on the inside, just your usual drinking den with booths, an open area for drunken dancing to the phonograph, a long marble bar, an impressive display of bottles behind, and Dean’s smiling face. There was no real reason for it to be famous except that everyone decided somehow that this was the place to be, because in the legend they were creating for themselves about the International Zone there needed to be a the place. And so everyone passed through here. I was here most nights myself.
Just as I came through the door, Dean’s loud English voice got to the punchline of some story, “And then the Duchess of Bedford said, ‘Very well, Jeeves, put it in the soup!’”
The bar area erupted into a roar of laughter.
It was early evening, but the place was already lively with the pre-dinner drinks crowd. Some of the booths were filled with small groups, but the main gang was, as usual, crowded against the bar, splitting their sides over whatever the Duchess of Bedford put in the soup. The crowd was nearly all foreign, with only one or two wealthy Moorish businessmen mingling for the connections.
“Kent!” someone shrieked from the crowd. A small, pretty woman of about forty with short brown hair done up in a perm pushed her way through.
“Hello there, Jane.” Jane Bowles and her husband Paul were both writers and longtime residents. Jane seemed to do more drinking than writing, and Paul did more hashish smoking than writing. Charming couple, though.
She gave me a peck on each cheek, very European, and pulled me into the crowd.
“Everyone, this is my good friend Kent. Wonderful man. Kent, this is everyone.”
I recognized a couple of people who I greeted by name and gave a wave to the rest. Jane hadn’t introduced them properly because she probably didn’t know their names either. For Jane, having faces smiling in her direction was enough.
Dean leaned a bit over the counter, looking sharp in a dark gray suit he claimed he had custom made in London. “What will you have, Kent?”
“Guy’s so short he looks like he should have a sodee pop, har
har.”
That was from Doug Thompson, a loudmouth bully from Kansas. Big guy with a big belly and arms like a gorilla. Ugly too. Worked here selling insurance. He liked to get drunk and pick fights. He sat on the fringes of Jane’s crowd where he was obviously not welcome. I ignored him.
“I’ll have a beer,” I said.
“Want to try a Carlsberg?” Dean asked. “It’s a Danish beer they’re just starting to import.”
“Danish beer, eh? You can get everything in Tangier these days. I’ll have one.”
“You can’t get an extra few inches though, can you Kent? Har har.”
Doug was sore because I won fifty bucks off him in a poker game a few weeks back. This after he had told everyone at Dean’s he used to be a card shark back in Vegas. Beating him in front of the crowd had been a fine night’s entertainment for everyone except him. The main rule of Tangier was that if you made up a story about yourself, you had to follow it through.
Dean slid over a green bottle and I drained half in the first swig. Nothing better than a cold beer at the end of a hot day, and it sure had been hot. If Doug kept it up, it was going to get a lot hotter. For him.
“So what’s news, Jane?” I said, turning to her.
“I’m busy on a play,” she said, then rubbed her temples. “It’s got my nerves all in a tangle. I just can’t seem to get the words to flow like Paul does.”
“Just keep at it. Paul says you’re a better writer than him.”
My reassurance slid right off her. She was always doubting her talent. “I just don’t want it to bomb like my last play. Everyone panned In the Summer House.”
“Come on, Tennessee Williams said it was great.”
“Him and nobody else,” she grumbled, then brightened. “Paul just got his author’s copies of The Spider’s House. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“I’m sure it will be a great success. I liked Let It Come Down.”
“Kent is a private detective,” she told her circle of admirers, “so of course he’s going to like a novel about Tangier’s shady goings-on.”
Tangier Bank Heist Page 4