Yale didn't answer.
"You know it is so," Bronson continued. "Without knowing how you plan to do it, I know the only possible way is through a U.S. Army Finance office. There are no other sources for dollars in Casablanca at the moment. You will cash your francs in at the official rate of twenty-five for a dollar. A magic multiplication that will make you a rich man. Did you ever stop to wonder who will pay for your wealth?"
Yale poured a drink from Bronson's bottle, carefully, wondering as he did it, if he should have another. He lifted it in a mock toast. "I consider it an honor to discuss philosophy at four in the morning in a dive in Casablanca with a German named Max Bronson." He swallowed the whiskey. "Number one, Maxie, if I manage to convert the francs at the official rate, Uncle Sam isn't hurt. He has the exact number of francs that some of his monetary advisors have agreed is the official rate. Number two. Whoever is selling francs has previously bought them with marks or lire which are no damned good to him or to me. He expects that the franc will depreciate further, so he'd rather have dollars. Number three, my friend Max, what the hell business is it of yours?"
Max leaned on his elbows and fixed Yale with an intent stare. It was a long time before he answered. "None really. I'm just interested in human nature." He smiled, "You see, my principal is a well known German industrialist. This man backed Hitler from the beginning. One of those indefatigable men who would build a new factory to make bread, or an extermination camp to cook Jews so long as it proved profitable. There are men like him in every country. The leaders think they lead, but it is really these men, relatively unkown, who are responsible for the economic strength and direction of a country. I have studied this kind of man carefully. No narrow nationalism binds them. They are truly citizens of the world . . . guided by its financial tides. While your bombers are destroying this man's factories, and those of others like him, he is guided not by moral considerations, or worry over the immediate damage, but by the larger ebb and flow in the affairs of men. Having stolen with Hitler's help at least a billion francs, he now finds it expedient to sell Hitler short. When Hitler has disappeared, my principal will take your dollars and the millions of them he will have accumulated by devious means and help rebuild the new Germany to his own ultimate profit. Don't you find this repugnant, somehow?" Max hissed the words across the table at Yale.
"No, I don't," Yale said, amused. "I'm not so naive as to believe in the holy aspects of this war, or any war. Of necessity we must wipe out Hitler, or any concept that denies the uniqueness of the individual. In this process, which must be done coldly and judiciously, your 'principal' will disappear because he tends to deny anything that interferes with his own individuality."
Bronson spat vigorously and looked at Yale with ill-concealed disgust. "And you, too, will disappear, my friend. You, too! Your friend the Major and me . . . we are the little people who will swallow up the cold bastards like you."
Yale wanted to protest that he didn't understand Bronson's sudden turnabout, or what had made him so angry, but Max stood up. "Would you like to see something of Casablanca, before we talk business? Come with me. I have an old Austin, and a good American gas ration."
Yale followed him into the streets, thinking as he did that he had little choice. It was obvious that tonight he wasn't going to sleep; particularly in the company of Bronson.
The car was parked in a narrow alley. Yale got in, feeling odd to be sitting on the right hand side of the wheel. Bronson drove rapidly out of the city. "You are not worried about your friend the Major, I see. I thought Americans were so very thick . . buddies . . . is not that the word?" Max sneered. "This is no city to wander around in. But why should you worry about the Major?"
"What the hell is eating you?" Yale demanded. "For a moment I thought we understood each other."
"I thought so, too," Max said. "I don't know why it should disturb me . . . when I first sat down and you were mumbling Wordsworth to yourself, I felt a momentary kindred feeling for you. But now I think you are simply an opportunist."
Yale noticed they were driving along a shore road. He felt immensely tired and irked with Max Bronson. The man had unerringly touched a feeling of guilt. He awakened Yale to a resentment with his own shallow maneuverings. Why was he bothering so much with this money? Could he explain to anyone, even a stranger like this German, the importance, not of the money itself, but the sense of purpose and identity that it gave him to play his speculative hunches . . . to create a purpose for living where no purpose seemed to exist? Or was Max correct in his estimate? Had he come so far in the years since Midhaven College that he existed in the same vacuum as Max Bronson's "principal"?
"The moonlit water you are staring at is the Mediterranean," Bronson said. He turned off the road into a concrete driveway. In the moonlight Yale could see they were at the back door of a modern pink coral-and-cement home that overlooked the sea. "This is my home, temporarily. Like your American businessmen, I commute between my leather factory and this estate . . . which incidentally I do not support selling souvenirs to the Americans." He laughed and showed Yale into the house which was furnished with modern Swedish style furniture, and bright splashes of cubist water colors. Through a huge window they watched the pounding of the surf on the beach below them. Whatever Bronson's thoughts might be, he had lost all interest in conversation. Fighting a desire to fall asleep sitting up, Yale wondered uneasily about Trafford. An Arab servant finally appeared and placed coffee, tiny cakes, and tangerines on a table near them.
Yale drank his coffee. He noticed suddenly that Bronson was calmly holding a gun in his hand. "It's your Major's forty-five. I had him relieved of it. He appears to be a nervous type." Bronson tossed it at Yale, who was forced to catch it. "It occurred to me that it would be poetic justice to take your money by using the Major's revolver." Bronson sighed. "Unfortunately an Arthurian sense of chivalry interferes with my German practicality."
"What makes you so sure I'm carrying the money?" Yale asked.
"I'm no superman," Bronson said, getting up from his chair. "But it seems like a good hunch that you've got it in a money belt strapped around your stomach. The question is do you want to do business or not? I won't go along with better than fifty for a dollar."
Yale unbuttoned his shirt, and unstrapped his money belt. He tossed it on the table. "Twenty thousand in hundreds. Match it with one thousand, thousand franc notes." He watched Bronson open the doors on what appeared to be a liquor cabinet, but actually turned out to be a substantial safe encased in blonde mahogany. Bronson tossed bundles of francs on the table. "Mint," he said, "right from the Banque de France. You don't have to count them," he said as Yale spot counted five of the one hundred banded piles of thousand franc notes. Bronson carefully counted every one of the hundred dollar bills.
He finally looked at Yale with a satisfied smile. "You seem to be very trusting. How do you know these franc notes aren't counterfeit?"
"If they were counterfeit, why would you waste the time counting my money. You wouldn't give a damn if a few were missing if yours were valueless. For that matter how do you know the dollars you've bought aren't phony?" Yale picked up Trafford's revolver.
Bronson looked at him gloomily. "I hope there is some honor among thieves. Anyway the clip is empty. You are a remarkably cool young man; considering you are a good ten miles out of the city and no one knows where you are. In essence, you are not back yet. For a million francs, I could make you disappear as easily as the dust on this table." Bronson blew on the dustless table dramatically.
"I've been gambling on several things," Yale said, looking carefully at Bronson's hard jaw line. "One, you have a sentimental streak. We have sat here for nearly an hour without conversation . . . that's not only unusual, but it's un-Germanic. Two, you were probably thinking about Wordsworth's poem; surprised at yourself that you could remember it. Three, I don't think you represent anyone except yourself . . . that your name probably isn't Bronson, and that you may well be the German ind
ustrialist you characterized so well." Yale stood up, wondering from the expression on Bronson's face whether he was going to get away with it. He picked up the money. "If you have a sample briefcase from your leather factory I could use it to carry this stuff."
Driving back to the city, Bronson told him that he would leave him where Trafford had probably gone with the two whores. Bronson's car rattled through the deserted streets. They passed the newer section of the city into the alleys of Arab quarters. Yale noticed the Atlantic Hotel as they passed and decided that no matter what Trafford planned, he would spend the rest of the night in the lobby. It was quarter past two. Bronson had made several turns, driving deeper into narrow alleys that in the daytime would have been filled with Arabs. He stopped his car in front of what seemed to be a black sandstone wall.
"This is Rue du Pini," Bronson said. "Your Major should be on the third floor. Room nine. Do you want me to wait?"
Yale shook his head. Bronson had been silent all the way into the city. Yale wondered if he were regretting his decision. Yale didn't doubt that it would be so very simple for Bronson to take back the million francs.
"It's been a pleasant evening, Lieutenant. Personally, I think Wordsworth stinks."
Yale watched the taillight of the Austin disappear.
5
The only light in the narrow street came from a flickering bulb screwed into a socket just above the doorway marked number eleven. Yale shivered, suddenly aware that he was in more danger walking around the Arab section of the city with a million francs in his possession than he had been with Bronson. He cursed himself for feeling any responsibility to find Trafford.
Opening the door he was forced to light a match to see. He was in a narrow corridor! A door with a painted number three was directly in front. To the right, stone stairs led into the building. The match burned out. Yale stood still, listening to the silence, and smelling the heavy dung smell that permeated the place. He tried to adjust his eyes to the blackness. Was Trafford really in the building or was this some kind of trap that Bronson had prepared? He fingered his way along the damp stone wall. On the next landing he lighted another match. There was a number six on this door. He walked cautiously up the next flight of stairs. His bladder was full and he could feel the pressure in his scrotum. He shivered, and continued to shiver, wondering if he dared go right on up the stairway. Lighting another match, he crept toward the top floor, until he finally found a door with the number nine.
He stood in front of it, debating what to do. He was going to have to leak or die of agony, and yet the fear of being suddenly jumped on while he was in such a helpless position restrained him. Get the hell out of here, he kept telling himself. Get the hell out of here.
He knocked on the door, hearing his pounding reverberate eerily on the stairwell. There was no response. He tried the latch, then pushed the door open. A candle flickered; monstrous shadows danced on the walls of the room.
"Qu'est-ce cela?" It was a feminine voice.
Unable to see clearly, Yale felt his way into the room. He heard the creak of a bed. The girl who had come to their table in the cellar-dive stood beside him. She was naked.
"Where's Trafford?" Yale looked into her black eyes. She laughed and shook her head uncomprehendingly. "Où est le majeur?" Yale asked.
"Oh," she grinned at him, "le majeur, il est malade." She pointed across the room, and Yale saw Trafford on his back hanging drunkenly over the edge of a low iron cot. Another naked girl sat near him, stroking him.
"Trop d'accoupler. Comme dites-vous? Forking!" The girl laughed raucously. "Ma copine le suce! Vous le veuillez? Très bonne." She opened her mouth in a wide O. Yale shoved her aside.
"Vous n'avez pas fichu de faire ce travail." She screamed at him.
Yale pulled Trafford onto the bed and shook him angrily. "Come on, let's get out of here, you crazy bastard!"
"Beat it, Marratt," Trafford said. His voice was thick. He grabbed the girl standing near him by her crotch. "Here, this is Marie Louise. Sink yourself into that." Trafford flopped back onto the bed and started to snore.
"C'est ton blot," the girl who had met them in the cellar said disgustedly. "Vous boucanez."
Yale slumped into a chair, wondering what to do. Every foul name he could think of to call Trafford went through his mind. He suddenly doubled over in pain and knew he must urinate immediately.
"Où est le pistolet?" he demanded, hoping that was the right word.
The girl sitting on the bed with Trafford got up and placed a white chamber pot in front of him. Yale opened his pants hurriedly. Both girls watched him, excitedly commenting in French on the size of him. The girl called Marie Louise suddenly grabbed him, and held him in a hard grasp. Yelling at her to let go, Yale tried to pull away. The other girl tripped him and he fell to the floor. "C'est un saloperie," one of the girls hissed at him, and tried to hold him down. Marie Louise picked up Yale's trench knife and slashed in the direction of his penis. Yale lurched away. She missed. He could feel the tip of the knife sink into the side of his belly and he yelled with pain.
Of what happened after that he was never certain. The room was suddenly filled with swirling shapes. The candle clattered to the floor. In the almost unrelieved darkness, on his hand and knees, Yale listened and slowly tried to find his way to the door. Evidently the girl's pimp was in the room, too. Yale suddenly saw the shape of Marie Louise. He lunged, grabbed her and snapped the trench knife out of her hand. She screamed and they rolled in a heap on the floor. He had dropped the briefcase and was amazed at his luck when, twisting away from Marie's clawing hands, he felt the briefcase beneath his hands.
He had just about made the door when a man lunged at him, shouting gutturally in Arabic. Swinging his trench knife in an upward arc, Yale felt it cut through the loose cloth in the Arab's dress. It crunched against the man's ribs, sounding like the crumpling of a paper bag. The man went down with a grunt.
Yale ran down the stairs. To hell with Trafford. The dirty drunken bastard. He reached the street. In the foreboding silence of the night he could hear his G.I. boots as they struck the cobblestones. He ran in panic, feeling hot blood trickling from his side. Behind him he heard the whisper of soft shod feet pattering insistently after him. Suddenly his trench coat was grabbed from behind. It's useless, he thought, I'm too winded to struggle. He flayed the air with his knife, catching a robed figure who yelled in pain. Then another Arab leaped toward him. Yale could see the flash of a curved knife. The knife caught his leg as he kicked the charging figure in the stomach. The man went down in a heap.
Somehow, he got to the Atlantic Hotel. Except for an elderly man, evidently a night clerk, the dimly lighted lobby was empty. Feeling faint, wondering how seriously he was wounded, how much blood he had lost, Yale sought inspiration. Unless he found someone to help him, he was going to be in serious trouble. He didn't want to report to the Army. God knew, if he got involved, where that would end for him or for Trafford. He was certain that he had killed the Arab pimp. If I'm not too seriously wounded, he thought, maybe I can prevail upon that Red Cross girl to help me. Mrs. Wilson. Anne Wilson. That was her name. It was a long chance; a wild idea. She might be a very moralistic type. She might resent it . . . she hadn't been very cordial with Trafford.
But he knew he had to try. With a tremendous effort, he straightened himself up, and walked toward the desk. He tried not to limp, worrying whether the blood had soaked through his trousers. The old man behind the desk looked at him sleepily.
"U.S. Army. An important package for Mrs. Anne Wilson." Yale patted the briefcase he was carrying. "What room number, please?"
The old man shook his head. "Non. Les hommes ne sont pas admittés. Les filles Américaines sont sur le deuxiéme étage."
"Quel est le numéro de la salle de Mademoiselle Wilson?" Yale muttered, wondering if his French was understandable.
The man shuffled through his cards. Yale watched him impatiently. He was tempted to snatch them out of his h
ands. If he doesn't hurry, he thought, I'll never make it.
"Madame Wilson a le numéro quarante-huit. Non visiteurs!"
Yale ignored him. He dashed up the flight of stairs opposite the desk. Loud protests in French followed him. He prayed the damned old fool wouldn't arouse the hotel. When he reached the top of the first flight he wondered if his old French lessons were correct. The second floor should be the first. The dim light in the halls told him that he would have to go another flight to reach Anne Wilson's room. Somehow, he half walked, half crawled up the stairs, then wearily down a long hall, panting with the exertion as he searched for number forty-eight. He knocked softly, praying that she was alone in the room. What if she were bunked in with some other girl? Or some other man? Anything was possible. He didn't know Mrs. Wilson after all. God, why didn't she answer? He knocked again. Gasping with the pain in his side and leg, he leaned against the door. As he did, it opened. He staggered, and almost fell into the arms of a girl.
Anne Wilson recognized him. She told him to get out of her room at once.
"Please! I know it is a hell of an imposition. But please! Would you help me? I'm wounded." He saw her look of surprise change to instant sympathy. He saw that she had wrapped her trench coat around herself. No nightgown protruded beneath it. Her legs were bare. She must sleep naked. He grinned at her, and then fainted at her feet.
When he regained consciousness he was on her bed. "How did you ever get me off the floor?" he asked weakly, noticing that she had stripped off his pants.
"Oh, I'm a husky one, Lieutenant. I've learned how to wrestle all kinds of stiffs in the past few years. Who has been using you for a pin cushion?"
"How long have I been out?" Yale asked, ignoring her question. "Funny, I never had that happen to me before."
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 30