Tangier Bank Heist

by Sean McLachlan

  They were right to be afraid it would all end. Even the walking pickles like Robert could see the Moors were going to take over someday. The whole thing here in Tangier was going to come crashing down, and I was going to help make it crash.

  When Electric Eddie let me into his house on the Mountain, sitting about halfway up the slope not far west of the Casbah, he was busy stacking up copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Fanny Hill next to the collected works of Kropotkin. The front room was full of books. So was the back room and half his bedroom. Hell, he’d stuff books in the bathroom if he wasn’t afraid of water damage.

  “How goes the book trade, Eddie?”

  “Swell,” he said, a slight sheen of sweat on his face. “I got a few newsagents here in town to distribute under the counter, both for your stuff and the smutty stuff.”

  “They’re running a risk doing that with Marx.”

  Naughty novels were easy to distribute in the International Zone. Political tracts were another thing entirely.

  “They’ll be all right. They already made their payoffs to the cops,” Electric Eddie said as he busied himself frantically stacking and boxing books. He was a whirlwind of energy and lived off of risk, amphetamines, cocaine, and daddy’s money. Yeah, rich kid. The writing was very part time and the book distribution was strictly nonprofit. He sold at cost. I used to hate rich kids but I made an exception with Electric Eddie. At least he did something useful with his inheritance.

  “The customs people say we need to pick up the crate tonight,” I told him.

  Electric Eddie bobbed his head. “I’ll bring the car down.”

  “There’s a problem. Chason is on my tail. He’s sniffed something’s up. Doesn’t know what yet.”

  Electric Eddie jerked like he’d been electrocuted. “Damn. You know how illegal your stuff is.”

  That’s right. The International Zone government allows queers to run free, lets hard drugs be sold without a prescription over the counter, and doesn’t care how many teenaged boys and girls the average tourist sleeps with, but it bans any book written by one of the greatest minds of the nineteenth century.

  That really showed capitalism’s priorities. They allowed plenty of opiates for the people (even opium itself), but let those people set aside their hash pipe, turn their back on the slim brown body by their side, and actually read a book that questions how things are run, and you can watch one of the most permissive governments in the world turn into an iron fist of censorship in two seconds flat.

  But even the strongest colonial government can’t stem the tide of history. When the independence movement began to gain ground, the authorities clamped down, banning the Istiqlal Party and the Moroccan Communist Party. Party officials got arrested or exiled from the Spanish, French, and International Zones. That just made the protests bigger. The colonial powers, realizing their mistake, decided to talk capitalist to capitalist. If the Moroccan capitalists were going to win a margin of independence, the European capitalists wanted to make damn sure it happened on their terms. The Istiqlal Party, a socially conservative group that wanted strong economic relations with Europe, was legalized and invited to the negotiating table. The Moroccan Communist Party remained illegal, and its members continued to be hunted.

  That’s because the Istiqlal Party wanted a constitutional monarchy, in other words a capitalist system where the tribal leaders in the countryside retained their rights. Europe can accept that since it will dominate the means of production in everything except agriculture. The Moroccan Communist Party wanted a workers’ state in which the Europeans didn’t get to dominate anything. The European governments took the best choice for their moneyed elite.

  “You still game?” I asked Electric Eddie. I didn’t want to put him in unnecessary danger. He was the most efficient way to get the books distributed to the three zones, but he wasn’t the only way.

  He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “Why not? The more illegal it is, the more people should read it. Oh, got some racy stuff from Paris the other day. You and the little lady interested in some bedtime reading?”

  “Not really.”

  He handed me a stack of French titles with plain green covers and excused himself, saying he needed to go to the bathroom.

  I went through the stack. One was a story about a priest who transforms into a satyr and molests parishioners in the confession booth. Another was about a group of nuns running a call service. The next was about Parisian slave dungeons during the Nazi Occupation. The last one was about a respectable lady of French society joining drug-fueled Beatnik orgies.

  All these titles were tailor made to offend France’s conservative Catholic right wing, and therefore would sell like hotcakes to them.

  A loud snorting from the bathroom told me what Electric Eddie was doing in there.

  A minute later he came out, rubbing his nostrils with the back of a finger like he had a cold.

  “WANT ANY OF THOSE?” he yelled. I had gotten used to Eddie’s yelling. It took a while.

  “Could you mail the one about the Nazi love dungeon to Chason’s wife?”

  “SURE, I HAVE THEIR ADDRESS.”

  Electric Eddie had everyone’s address.

  I asked to use his phone so I could call Melanie at the cafe.

  “Hey, baby, any news?” I asked when she picked up.

  “Yes. I talked to two of the women Pieter used to go with. No one knew anything about those Egyptians, but the latest girlfriend said he had been taking an interest in Egyptian news. Pieter started reading all about it in the European press and listening to the English shortwave broadcasts from Radio Cairo to get the Egyptian side of the story.”

  “Interesting. And the cigarettes?”

  “He smokes Gauloises.”

  So those three fat Egyptians did come visit him in his bank.

  “That helps a lot. Thanks a million. Hey, do you know if Ronnie the Pusher spoke Arabic?”

  I cursed myself for putting him in the past tense. Gerald was trying to keep Ronnie’s death under wraps until he finished the investigation. If Melanie caught the slip, she didn’t let on.

  “Yeah, I heard him speaking Arabic in the cafes a few times. He’s been here for years, you know.”

  “Thanks for everything, honey. I’ll try to see you tonight.”

  I hung up.

  So both of them were interested in Egypt. That confirmed what I had already suspected. Their meetings must have been about their shared interest and the appearance of those Egyptian businessmen was no coincidence. Now if I could only track them down I could learn a lot more.

  But first I had to smuggle a heavy crate of illegal books out of the port under the noses of the police, and my only help was a strung-out kid who thought taking risks was some sort of gag.

  As soon as it was dark, we set out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tangier’s port does not sleep at night. Freighters from England and all over the Mediterranean line up to get in, so the offloading does not stop no matter what the hour Meanwhile, the fishermen are busy on their side of the port unloading the day’s catch, while the bigger boats that go out further to sea have already left for night fishing. The Strait is calmer at night, and they can get a bigger catch out there. For the little boats that hug the coast it didn’t matter so much. I wondered about Ronnie the Pusher’s need for a big boat. He wanted to get far out, but to where? And why?

  I didn’t have time to think about that as Electric Eddie drove his car around the back of the warehouse. García always piled shipping crates between the two warehouses in a stack big enough that you could hide a car behind it. That way no one in the port could see it was there. It remained visible from the water, though, so we kept a sharp eye out in that direction for patrol boats.

  As we slipped through an unlit back door, we found one of García’s men waiting for us, a grizzled old peasant from Andalucía, a veteran of the peasant uprisings of the twenties and one of the first to volunteer to fight against Fr
anco’s coup. He silently motioned for us to follow. We passed through the warren of crates and barrels to where my shipment sat. Without a word the man held out a form. Even in smuggling there’s paperwork. You can’t have a duly registered shipment simply disappear from the warehouse. That would raise questions. I filled it out with the fake information on the crate’s label, trying to mask my handwriting and coming up with a convincing signature for Herr Maxwell von Hindenburg.

  The peasant nodded, took the tip I gave him with another nod, and turned his back as Electric Eddie and I lifted the crate.

  “Oof, this is heavy. I need another line,” Electric Eddie said. Eddie was a head taller than me, so the crate was at an angle between us with me at the bottom end holding most of the weight. I didn’t see what he was complaining about.

  “After we’re home safe,” I grumbled.

  We waddled out the unlit door and barely managed to fit the crate into the trunk of Electric Eddie’s car.

  Just as Electric Eddie was about to slam the trunk shut, a light shone on us. I spun toward its source. Electric Eddie raised his hands above his head. In fact, he got into a French salute so damn quick it made me wonder if he had ever done any time.

  “What’s going on here?” a voice rang out from the shadow lurking behind the flashlight shining on us. I recognized the voice. Chason.

  I couldn’t think of a good answer to that. Neither could Electric Eddie. He kept his hands up. I acted casual. Hard to do when your buddy is surrendering right next to you.

  Chason stepped forward, keeping the light on our faces as if we were already sitting in the interrogation room.

  “What do you have in that trunk?” he demanded.

  García burst out of the warehouse, calling out to us in a French I didn’t know he spoke.

  “Oh, Señor MacAllister! I am terribly sorry. I have given you the wrong crate! Oh, hello Monsieur Inspector.” He gave Chason an absentminded nod before turning back to me. “I am terribly sorry. I am surprised that you thought such a heavy crate contained your clothing.”

  “Oh yes, my clothing.”

  “Let me help you take the crate back to the warehouse and I will give you the correct one.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  “Wait one moment,” Chason said, shining his flashlight on the crate’s label. “Who is this Maxwell von Hindenburg?”

  García shrugged. “I don’t know. So many people in Tangier these days. In any case he had not yet come to pick up his crate. Good thing I noticed my silly mistake or he would have ended up with Señor MacAllister’s suits!”

  García gave a convincing laugh and helped me pull the crate out of the trunk and carry it back to the warehouse. Chason followed. Electric Eddie came too, looking like he would rather be anywhere else.

  After we put the crate back in its place, García led us to another row in the warehouse and pointed to a cardboard package that, to my delight, had my name and address on it. The return address was for a department store in Gibraltar. I glanced at García and saw his eyes sparkling.

  “Open this,” Chason ordered.

  I rounded on him. “Now listen, pal, you don’t have the right to look in another man’s packages.”

  Chason’s eyes narrowed. “This has a bad smell. Would you like me to make a report of your suspicious behavior?”

  I was about to object again when García cut in.

  “Oh, why not show it to him, Señor MacAllister? That would put his mind at rest.”

  García’s tone told me that he was giving me advice I should pay attention to.

  “All right.” Pulling out a pen knife, I cut the tape securing the box and opened it up.

  A pressed and folded suit wrapped in brown paper lay on the top of a stack of material. It felt like Christmas.

  Without so much as a by-your-leave, Chason rummaged through the clothing, finding another suit, two pairs of trousers, and at the bottom, some brassieres and nylons. He looked at them for a long moment, his face registering a mix of desire and anger. Desire at touching something that would one day touch Melanie’s delightful body. Anger that a Yank had access to that body and he didn’t.

  “Don’t touch those, you pervert,” I snapped. Chason pulled away quick, looking like a guilty schoolboy. Perhaps I should send more than one dirty book to his wife.

  García handed me a form for the box. I started to fill it out.

  Chason picked up one of the suits and held it up next to me. It was a good two sizes too big.

  “This suit is for you?” he picked up the second suit. It was the same size as the first. “And this one?”

  They could have worked as nightshirts. I made a face. “God damn limey tailors never get my size right.”

  Chason didn’t buy it for a second, but what could he do? There was my name right on the label, and a receipt from a real store in Gibraltar with my name on it too.

  He turned on his heel and stalked off.

  “Wait, ain’t you even going to say goodbye?”

  I said that in English just to rib him. Like a lot of educated Frenchmen, he knew English but pretended not to. He kept pretending as he walked out the door.

  Although Chason had left the warehouse, I knew he’d be lurking about, so with a sigh I picked up my clothing shipment, gave García a grateful nod, and went with Electric Eddie back to his car. The poor kid was drenched in sweat. His hands trembled.

  “Damn, that was close. That was close,” he kept whispering under his breath.

  “We’ll come back another night. Whoever really bought these clothes is going to want them back.”

  Electric Eddie revved up the engine, ground the gears and made the car jerk forward. We sped out of the port.

  “You all right to drive?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he whispered, fumbling in his pocket. “Sure.”

  He pulled out a small bottle. Letting go of the steering wheel just as we got on the road into town, he unscrewed the cap and poured a little pile of white powder onto the back of his hand between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Now wait a minute, Eddie.”

  One big snort and it was gone.

  “WOW! That was a close one, eh?” he let out a maniacal laugh and slammed on the gas. We swerved to avoid an oncoming truck, then served again to miss a donkey led by a hooded Moor.

  “Take it easy there, Eddie.”

  “DID YOU SEE THE LOOK ON HIS FACE WHEN HE FONDLED THOSE UNDIES? WHAT A PERV!”

  We screeched around a corner, nearly hitting a prostitute out on her nightly walk, then shot up the road leading to the Mountain.

  “Slow down a bit, pal.”

  “WHAT A KICK! HE ACTUALLY PUT HIS HAND ON THE CRATE FILLED WITH MARX. PUT HIS HAND ON IT! SO CLOSE, AND YET SO FAR. WHAT A MORON! HAHAHAHAHA.”

  “OK there, Eddie. Yeah, it was a laugh. Now we need to talk to García about when’s the best time to get the real crate. We owe him one.”

  “GARCÍA IS THE GREATEST!” He punched the roof of the car three times and then poured another pile of powder on his hand, cursed a blue streak when it ran out, snorted what little he got, and tossed the bottle out the window.

  We drove right by his house.

  “Um, Eddie? You missed your house back there.”

  “WE’RE GOING SHOPPING.”

  “What?”

  “I SAID WE’RE GOING SHOPPING.”

  “Yeah, I heard you. Shopping for what?”

  “PARTY FAVORS.”

  “Now wait a minute. I got a murder to solve.”

  “TOO LATE TO BAIL OUT NOW. CHAAARGE!”

  We sped through the night, palm trees and isolated houses flicking past almost too quick to make out.

  Electric Eddie was hunched so far forward that his chin almost touched the top of the steering wheel. His eyes bugged out, his knuckles white. We were past the last houses now, heading along a narrow road that ran near the top of the sea cliffs.

  “You got a dealer who lives in a village?”
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  He nodded eagerly, banging his chin against the steering wheel, grinning like a crescent moon.

  “Why would he live all the way out here?”

  “HE HAS A PHARMACY IN TOWN. HE DOES HOUSE CALLS FOR SPECIAL CLIENTS, BUT YOU HAVE TO GO TO HIS HOUSE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.”

  We hit a straightaway and Electric Eddie picked up speed.

  “Could you slow down a bit? You’re liable to give me high blood pressure.”

  Electric Eddie didn’t have time to respond before a cat darted across the road, a brown streak in the headlights.

  Electric Eddie jerked the steering wheel and hit the brakes. The car screeched on the dirt road and fishtailed. Eddie hauled on the wheel, trying to get it straight, but we ended up swerving in the other direction.

  Right in the direction of the sea cliff.

  There was no guardrail. The black open space beyond the cliff edge yawned before us.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Electric Eddie swerved the car again, pumping the breaks. The tires spat gravel. The cliff edge hurtled toward us. We skidded, and for a moment it looked like we would go over the cliff sideways, but then the car ground to a halt. I banged my shoulder against the door with a loud thump. At least my head didn’t slam into the window.

  Silence. Eddie and I glanced at each other.

  A smile spread across the speed freak’s face.

  It died as we heard a sickening crunch of earth beneath us. The cliff edge under the front right tire gave way and I lurched forward and down.

  I don’t mind telling you that I screamed. And quite a girly little scream it was too. I’ve always had a fear of falling. That’s why I never joined the Air Force.

  “Oh damn,” Eddie said. His voice sounded normal, even with a note of apologetic responsibility. Incredible how quickly you can sober up when you’re looking death in the face. “I’ll back up.”

  “Hell no you won’t!” I cried, yanking on the handbrake. I leaned over and opened his door and clambered out over him onto what I hoped was safe earth. I retreated from the cliff a good ten feet to be sure.