Tangier Bank Heist

by Sean McLachlan

  “A few miles to the west, near that cave where the waves rush in.”

  “The Grotto of Hercules?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Melanie turned to me. “Why would he go there?”

  I shrugged. “Looking for Pieter, I suppose. But that’s a strange place and time to do that.”

  I thought for a moment. Moors often camped out in the Grotto of Hercules. Could Ronnie have been meeting someone there? The cave was on the face of a sea cliff and you got into it from behind. The area around the entrance was grassy with some bushes and a few trees. Is that where Ronnie the Pusher lay down and got that burr and grass on his suit?

  “Anything else?” I asked the room. I looked to each man in turn. All shook their head. My gut told me they weren’t lying. They wanted to get their own back on Pieter Vlamin and I was their only chance to do that.

  “Now what?” the naked one asked.

  “Now I leave you in this luxurious accommodation. Good luck in Tangier, fellas. It’s hard on people who don’t have any money.”

  I opened the door and ushered Melanie out.

  “You can’t just leave us here!” the Egyptian on the bed objected. “We’re almost out of funds. We’ll starve.”

  I gestured toward Naguib with my gun. “Ask him for help. He’s living it up at Madam Tammany’s. As a matter of fact, when I saw him getting dressed, I noticed his wallet was fat with cash.”

  I closed the door behind me. There was a cry, a thud, and a loud scuffle in the room. We walked downstairs and out into the night.

  “Well done,” Melanie said.

  I shook my head, seething with rage.

  “It’s not enough. I want to smash it all up. I want to tear the whole rotten thing down.”

  “Yes, but who gets smashed up and torn down in the process?”

  “It wouldn’t be like that,” I said quickly.

  “It is in the Soviet Union.”

  “That’s Stalin’s fault.”

  “No, it’s the Party’s fault for allowing someone like Stalin, and the repression started before Stalin anyway.”

  “So what do we do? Let wealth and poverty get together and makes scenes like that?”

  Melanie didn’t reply.

  I lit a cigarette, feeling helpless. What good would a few books of Marx do when people like those Egyptians had all the power?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “You forgot your scarf,” I realized as we made it to the Petit Socco.

  “You think I want it after it touched the floor of that place?”

  “Good point. I’ll buy you a new one. First, let me walk you home.”

  She took my arm. “No, let me walk you home.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “You never come over to my place.”

  “That’s because my place is nicer.” That was true. “And your cat ruins my nylons.” That was true as well. “But we have an early start tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to the Grotto of Hercules together.”

  “Oh no, there might be—”

  “Danger? Like throwing a bomb into Gestapo headquarters in occupied Paris? Oh, how could I ever handle such a frightening situation? I think I’ll just stay home and do needlepoint.”

  I put my arm around her waist. “Baby, I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  Once we got there I called my answering service to see if I’d gotten any messages. The gal on the other end of the line had a message from Laszlo stating the amount he’d lost in the bank. He’d heard I was on the case and he wished me luck. There was also a message from Robert to call him back.

  At that hour he wouldn’t be home, so I tried Dean’s. Sure enough, he was there.

  “Hey Robert, what’s up?”

  “Hi Shorty. Look, I just remembered something else. Vlamin asked me about Tunis just a little while ago. I was having a morning drink at the Cafe Paris when he sat down next to me. I lived in Tunis for a few months before moving here. Great nightlife. I’ve told lots of people about it so he must have heard. He wanted to hear all about it. This was after I showed him the coast west of here. I’m thinking he might have headed that way.”

  I could barely hear him for all the noise in the background. Good thing he was slurring less than usual.

  “Thanks, Robert. I’ll look into that.” I hung up.

  “What did Robert want?” Melanie asked.

  “Just trying to play detective. Thinks Vlamin might be in Tunis.”

  “It’s a quick boat ride, so he might be. I doubt he’d stay, though. The colonial government there has a lot of regulations. He wouldn’t be able to do his bank trick there.”

  I stretched out on the bed and rubbed my eyes. “We’ll check the cave first. It’s our only solid lead. If he went to Tunis, he could be anywhere by now.”

  Melanie and I were both too tired to have any fun that night, which was a crying shame, but at least that meant we were able to get up bright and early and hail a cab that could take us to the Grotto of Hercules.

  Actually it could only get us to within half a mile. The seaside road passed it by. I’d heard the government had plans to build an access road and encourage shopkeepers to set up stalls. Make it a tourist attraction.

  Perhaps in the future, but that day we ended up on the side of the road with nothing but a dirt path leading over a hill toward the sea. The only buildings in sight were a couple of squat stone farmhouses in the distance. A Moor was out ploughing his field. The snap of his whip as he goaded his donkey along the furrows carried to us on the crisp morning air.

  I was in my second suit while my other one, as wrinkled as a used tissue, lay on the back of a chair at home. Melanie was still ribbing me about jumping into that pool. I decided not to tell her that with all those naked lovelies swimming around, I would have jumped in even if Naguib hadn’t been there.

  We walked along the path, seeing no one. It went over a ridge and the Strait came into view. Fishing boats bobbed out in the azure water. The brown hills of Spain lay beyond, the houses little white specks in the sunlight. Several freighters were passing through the Strait, heading into the Mediterranean or out into the Atlantic.

  We passed through an open field dotted with the occasional bush, dipped into a little valley and then up a smaller ridge before making a long descent to the shore. The beach was a white ribbon at the bottom of a low cliff, abandoned to the seagulls. I’d been here before, and knew that a narrow path that I could just make out through a few trees led down to the shore. Another path forked from it and turned left. We took this and approached cautiously as the path led to a rocky hill on the side of which was a fissure taller than a man and about three times as wide. I pulled out my gun. Melanie did likewise.

  About fifty yards in front of the cave mouth stands a low plateau about twenty feet high and covered with bushes. It overlooked the entrance to the cave and all approaches to it, providing anyone up there with an excellent view, and an excellent line of fire.

  We cut around behind it, trying to move silently. I kept glancing around, feeling exposed. I was a tanker in two wars, so I’m not bragging when I say I got plenty of courage, but I always felt more comfortable with my finger on the trigger of a cannon and surrounded by a steel turret. Infantrymen told me they felt exposed any time they rode in a vehicle, and were far more comfortable sneaking around the terrain like we were doing now. Maybe they’re right, but going up to that plateau I would have felt a whole lot more comfortable riding a T-26, like I did in Spain, or a Firefly, like I did in France.

  We crept through the bushes, crawling for the last bit, and came out on top of the plateau. We saw no one.

  But that didn’t mean no one had been there.

  On a flat area of grass screened from view from the cave entrance by a cluster of bushes, I found the ends of several cigarettes. I picked a couple up. Camels. The brand of cigarette Ronnie smoked.

  I felt around the grass and came up with some
burrs identical to the one that had been on Ronnie the Pusher’s jacket.

  So that was it. Ronnie had lain up here waiting to catch Pieter Vlamin entering the cave. Had he come to confront him? Kill him for a deal gone sour? If Pieter had ripped off a few hundred clients, he wouldn’t have any moral problems ripping off a heroin dealer who had given him connections to a smuggler like Demitrios.

  Ronnie must have lain there for a long time, at some point rolling onto his back to take a nap or look up at the sky. The burr had been on the back of his jacket. No doubt he had gotten some on the front too, but he had seen those and wiped them off.

  After a time, he had left. Pieter had not shown up.

  One thing bothered me about that theory. If Ronnie the Pusher had sworn to kill Pieter like the Egyptian said, then he wouldn’t have opened the door to him, leaving his gun in a drawer. I had no reason to doubt the Egyptian’s word, so that meant someone else had come to Ronnie’s apartment, more likely two people considering the wounds on his body.

  I told all this to Melanie, whispering just in case anyone else might be lurking about. She thought for a moment and whispered back,

  “What if he didn’t come here to kill Pieter?”

  “But Ronnie told the Egyptian he wanted to.”

  “Only after Pieter didn’t show up. Maybe that was the betrayal. Maybe they were supposed to meet at the cave and Pieter didn’t show.”

  “If they were supposed to meet, why hide up here?”

  Melanie shrugged. “Maybe Ronnie decided to ambush him to take the money for himself. Maybe he feared being spotted and decided to remain hidden until Pieter showed up.”

  “We have too many maybes.”

  Melanie nodded. I went on.

  “And we still don’t know why Ronnie let Pieter into his place without even picking up his gun.”

  “Maybe someone else came to his apartment,” she suggested.

  “Another maybe,” I groaned.

  Melanie smiled and kissed me. “Maybe we should check out the cave.”

  “I’ll take that maybe.”

  We cut down the edge of the plateau, trying to stay out of sight of the entrance as much as we could. When we got to the opening, I went in first.

  The fissure grew wider past the entrance, the rough walls angling out before reaching the ceiling about twenty feet above. A few platforms and niches had been carved into the walls, but whether they had been cut by the Moors or the Romans or the Phoenicians nobody could say. Morocco was an ancient land and there were a lot of ruins along the coast. Nobody had really investigated them. The colonial governments hadn’t shown much interest and everyone else in Tangier was too busy trying to make a quick buck.

  Daylight filtered in from the entrance and also from around the corner, where the cave turned toward its sea entrance. The sound of surf crashing against rocks filled our ears.

  We saw some evidence that people had been camping out here—blackened areas from campfires, a worn old blanket, some chicken bones. None of it hinted at a European staying here, though. Most likely those things had been left by Moors.

  We turned the corner and came to a magnificent view. The cave sloped down and opened up into the sea, creating a long tunnel into which the waves smashed onto the rocks, sending up white spray as high as the ceiling. Beyond we could see the blue horizon, and the white triangle of a distant sailboat out on the Strait of Gibraltar. The whole scene was framed by the outline of the cave opening shaped like a keyhole and dark against the brilliant sunlight. No wonder the government wanted to turn this into a tourist attraction. It made a perfect picture.

  So perfect, in fact, it took us a moment before we noticed the dead body.

  It was jammed between a couple of rocks to the right of the sea entrance. The main rush of water came through the left-hand side of the entrance, where there were no barriers. To the right was a collection of jagged rocks, covered in sea spray, the water boiling between each narrow gap between them, rushing into the cave with each wave like trembling white fingers before receding, then pushing forward with the next wave. The body was stuck in one of these gaps, covered by each successive wave and only partially above the surface when the water ebbed.

  “Do you think that’s Pieter Vlamin?” Melanie asked. There wasn’t enough of the body in sight to tell the person’s race, let alone their identity.

  “Only one way to find out,” I said, stripping off my clothing.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going in there to get it.”

  “You’re crazy. Look at that water!”

  “I’ve seen Moorish boys swimming in here,” I replied.

  “You’re not a Moorish boy. Moorish boys learn to swim as soon as they learn to walk.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Melanie grabbed me. Not the way I had grabbed Naguib, unfortunately.

  “Don’t go. Let’s call Gerald. He can handle this.”

  I pulled away. “There isn’t a phone for at least a couple of miles. The body might get sucked out to sea before the cops get here.”

  Picking my way over the rocks, which jabbed at my bare feet, I moved out into the water. For about halfway out to the body were large rocks I could climb on, reaching out to the next one with my legs to get a good foothold before shifting my weight.

  Did I say “good foothold”? The rocks were wet and slick. I moved slowly, picking each handhold and foothold with care. At least the rocks kept above the waves. The water sloshed and splashed inches below me. Every now and then a bigger wave would send up its spray into my face.

  It got trickier the further I went out. Water lapped over the tops of the rocks, and I began to time myself, waiting for the water to recede before moving to the next one. But the rocks were uneven and I almost lost my balance a couple of times.

  The body was stuck between two larger stones. Now that I got a closer look, I figured it had gotten thrown by the waves into the cave, then sucked back out and got stuck between the two rocks. I wondered how I was going to get it free if the waves couldn’t do it.

  A wave splashed me in the face, nearly bowling me over. I scraped my hand as I tried to get a better grip.

  Melanie was shouting something at me that I couldn’t hear. Probably something about me being an idiot. I was beginning to think she was right.

  Almost there. Unfortunately, it got trickier from here on in. Between me and the body was an open pool wider than I could reach. It seethed and whirled with every wave.

  I edged my way to the right, where a fairly flat stone would get me within reach of one of the stones between which the body was wedged. I got a few feet when an especially big wave shot into the cave and between the two stones. The water was concentrated like a fire hose and hit me full in the face.

  I fell over, water covering me. Fumbling around blindly, I managed to grab the lip of the rock on which I lay.

  Then the water pulled back, and plucked me right off it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I slammed into the two rocks, my back hitting stone and my legs hitting flesh.

  Choking, gasping, I grabbed the first thing I could.

  It turned out to be the body.

  The wave receded, and I managed to get my head above water. I reached up, trying to get a handhold.

  There was nothing. The next wave shot me back and I hit another stone, then the water pulled me the other direction and I hit the body again. I grabbed onto it, fingers bunching clothing, legs wrapping around the guy’s waist.

  That prepared me for the next wave, which jolted me back and forth. The body bucked up and down in the water. I felt like some rodeo rider, except my bronco was a corpse.

  I managed to get a great gulp of air before the next wave shot me back. I still had my legs around the guy. The water had finally broken him free.

  We hit the rocks together, the force of the impact making me let go of the body. As the waves rushed back, the dead guy padded my impact on the other rocks. Very considerate
of him.

  In the brief lull I managed to push off and grab onto a stone to my right, hugging it with both arms tight enough to resist the next wave. As the water pulled back, I clambered up, held tight for the next wave, and then got on a higher stone.

  Wiping my eyes, I looked around. I had a clear path back to shore, where Melanie was shouting and waving her hands in the air. Looked like I was in for a lecture. The body was slumped over a high rock not far off, lapped by each wave. I had to get it before it was pulled free.

  I picked my way over the rocks, taking more care than I had previously. I had scrapes and bruises all over. Melanie kicked off her shoes and waded into the water. Being smarter than me, she didn’t get in too deep.

  “Push him this way!” she cried. “The next wave will take him right to me.”

  Sounded like a good idea. I gave the body a shove and it splashed into the water. A wave came in a second later and the corpse rode it all the way to Melanie.

  She grabbed it by the shoulders, making a face when she discovered an arm was missing, and began to haul it back to the water’s edge.

  A loud rushing sound made me turn. The largest wave yet broke through the cave mouth, a wall of unstoppable water. Shouting a warning to Melanie, I hugged the rock I was on and braced my legs against a rock further in.

  The wave hit me like a sledgehammer. My legs buckled, my vision went black, but somehow I managed to hold on.

  The water receded and I sputtered and took a breath. Wiping my eyes, I anxiously looked for Melanie.

  The wave had washed her and the corpse right onto the beach. She lay flat on her back, the body between her legs with its head up her dress.

  Melanie sat up, wiped her eyes, and then saw what that randy dead guy was up to.

  She screamed and leaped up, and actually slapped the body, slapped him like he was some creep pinching her bum on the bus.

  My cackling laughter didn’t help her mood.

  “He sure is a stiff now!” I called to her.

  “Shut up!” she shouted, pacing back and forth and hugging herself. “It’s your fault. I told you we should have waited for Gerald.”