by Lex Lander
A minibus was rattling down the road towards the village, raising a dust cloud. Nearer at hand the ice-blue prow of my two week-old Aston Martin jutted out below the edge of the terrace. Normally I garaged it but last night Simone – giggling, wriggling, strewing scraps of clothing about the place – had also needed garaging and the car wasn’t even in the contest. Beyond the Aston the water of the kidney-shaped swimming pool twinkled like tinsel in the hard sunlight. Luxury villa, luxury car, luxury pool, not to mention a forty-foot yacht berthed at Sitges, in Spain, these were only the more obvious signs of affluence. All purchased, it has to be confessed, with blood money.
My nearest neighbours, Lucien and Madeleine Bos, a retired French couple, were breakfasting on their patio. They waved. I returned the gesture.
I drained my glass and sat in the all-weather armchair that stood in a corner of the balcony, there to dwell upon Giorgy’s latest proposition. The next step was a meet, at which the minutiae would be revealed. My ruminations didn’t revolve around the job itself but around my change of heart, the prospect of an end to my retirement. Had I reached the fork in the road I had seen coming? To go back to my former trade would be not so much a road to the sunlit uplands as a descent to the dark depths from whence I had crawled. The only thing in its favour was the incentive to get me out of bed in the morning that it would provide. Giorgy’s assessment of what ailed me was right as far as that went.
The downsides to going back to my old wicked ways were many and prodigious. I had been lucky in my profession. My forty-one contracts had left me with the equivalent of close on ten million US dollars in a variety of secret bank accounts, and still relatively free to come and go in all but a handful of countries. Why go back to killing, with its attendant moral dilemmas and risk of incarceration for life or even, in many parts of the world, execution? Crazy. Yet what were the alternatives? Carrying on as now, filling the empty days and hours and minutes with screwing and drinking, and popping pills? Purpose and direction were what I lacked, and a contract would at least provide those. Even in this second decade of the new millennium, demand for my unusual skills had not diminished. People still wanted people killed, and the motives were the same as ever: jealousy, spite, revenge, rivalry, hatred, family feuds … And of course profit, the biggest killer of all.
Just this once then. One more contract, then I really would retire.
The hollow laughter was inside my head, but no less loud for that.
* * * * *
Giorgy was waiting, as arranged, at the American Bar, which looks out on Marseille’s Vieux Port. There he lounged, partly screened from the sun under a faded Coca-Cola parasol. Cool and chic in a cream lightweight suit and burgundy silk shirt, dark glasses shielding the greater part of his handsome, lantern-jawed face, deep in an Italian newspaper – Le Giornale, what else?
‘Will you take something, André?’ he asked in his fluent French, when the preliminaries were behind us, indicating his own empty beer glass.
‘Vodka with ice, thanks,’ I responded in the same language. I was at least his equal in French, thanks to my Québécoise mother (dead, these past six years), who was also to blame for my given name. My very English father had preferred Andrew, his own middle name, but my mother pooh-poohed this as vanity, and the compromise outcome was André. Anyhow, Dad had registered his protest by always calling me Andrew.
I sat down beside Giorgy, not opposite him. Conversing discreetly is easier side by side.
‘Stick to English,’ I cautioned as he took a breath to speak. The subject we were about to discuss was not for other ears and French therefore best avoided. An example of the ultra-caution I applied to all my professional doings. It had kept me out of prison and/or an early grave. So far.
Giorgy nodded assent. A bulging reinforced envelope passed from him to me.
‘One hundred thousand euros in five hundred notes, one hundred thousand US dollars in thousand bills,’ he said and couldn’t resist his customary smirk, as if he’d just that minute run them off on his own printing press.
This was the down payment, fifty per cent of the full fee, less his commission. The balance was payable immediately before execution of contract, and no balance meant no execution. Those were my terms, take ’em or leave ’em. They had not always been so favourable to me, but certainly in the last few years before my “retirement” I had been writing my own contracts.
‘Confident, aren’t you, I’m going to do it?’ I said, but stuffed the package inside my check sports jacket, which would be an answer in itself as far as Giorgy was concerned. Sure enough, his smirk broadened.
My vodka and another beer for Giorgy were placed before us on the table. The waiter shoved a tab under the edge of the metal ashtray. I took a big swallow of vodka, the ice tapping against my teeth. People swirled past, intent on their own affairs, only occasionally sparing an incurious glance for the people seated at the tables.
‘And the subject?’ I prompted.
‘Ah.’ Giorgy transferred another envelope from his pocket to my waiting palm. It was brown and weighed very little.
‘Seems light,’ I remarked. ‘Short of information?’
A breeze wafting in off the sea ruffled his straight, scalpel-parted hair. He smoothed it down before replying. Not a hair out of place, that was Giorgy.
‘The information is adequate, do not fear.’ He eyed a Junoesque brunette in a floral skirt as she strode past our table. His sigh was seriously heartfelt.
‘The girls in this city are extra-special, do you not agree?’
‘I do agree.’ I did too. I knew several Marseilloises intimately, in the literal sense.
We had passed the time of day. The rules of politesse had been observed. I debated whether to whistle up a refill but decided against. I didn’t want to use up my quota too early in the day. So I stood up, transferring a pair of sunspecs from shirt pocket to nose. Giorgy was smiling quizzically up at me, eyes invisible behind his own dark glasses: oval Ray-Bans, very in. Or maybe not so in nowadays. I had lost interest in keeping track of fashions some years back.
‘You know, you interest me, André. As a human being, that is.’
‘Oh yes? You mean the way a rare bug under the microscope interests a scientist?’
He snorted faintly. ‘In a way, I suppose. You obviously have an educated background, which alone is rare among contract killers. You also have compassion for your fellow man, otherwise why refuse contracts on moral grounds, as you occasionally do. You know, you have never told me how you came to enter this profession …’
Nor was I likely to. My life history was not for public consumption. Why should I explain to Giorgy how the only difference between killing for Queen and Country, as I had once done, and killing for profit, was the size of the pay cheque? Or how my gorgeous loving wife would not have died twelve years ago but for the “Department” and its contempt for the individual and devotion to the State, right or wrong. Morally speaking, I was now on at least as high a plane as in the days when I took my orders from a senior civil servant to whom the life of others was of less value than a dog turd.
So all I said was, ‘If I were to tell you, you’d know more than was good for your health.’
The smile slipped.
‘That almost sounds like a threat. You are sure you want this job?’
‘No, I’m not. But I need it.’ I was still clutching the slim envelope. I saluted him with it. ‘You’ll be hearing from me.’
‘Don’t leave it too long.’ He made a noise in this throat. ‘There are rumours … gossip, if you prefer, about you. It is said you are drinking heavily.’ He was clearly embarrassed. He signalled an apology with his hands. ‘Not that it is any of my concern. Unless it affects the quality of your work, unless you make a mistake. You understand? The Syndicate is not tolerant of mistakes.’
Giorgy was little more than a high class liaison man for Il Sindacato – the Syndicate – a likely cognoscenti euphemism for the Unione Sicilione, who for r
easons undisclosed occasionally employed sub-contract enforcers in preference to their own kith and kin. In the past I had never asked why and wasn’t about to ask now. I didn’t care. So long as the days were busy and my life had meaning, I was content to remain ignorant.
‘Mistakes, Giorgy?’ I said, and my tone was light. I reached down and with calculated condescension patted his cheek. ‘I won’t make any. Just be sure you don’t either.’
His resentment was naked but he rode it like the gentleman he professed to be, forcing a smile back into place. He even offered to shake hands.
‘I am your friend, André,’ he said reproachfully, as we clasped. ‘A true friend. Perhaps even your only true friend.’
Perhaps he was right. The professional killer treads a lonely path.
Two
A fortnight later I was in Tangier, a city, like Marseilles, infested with crime. Unlike Marseilles it is ramshackle, dusty, and smelly; stimulating, lively, vivid, and a den of intrigue. A city of kebabs and couscous, hookah and hashish, and of musicians playing Berber melodies from a long dead past. And since 9/11 gently simmering with anti-Western sentiment. As yet the jihadists were in the background. Waiting, no doubt, for a sign from Allah to commit one of their atrocities.
The modern-traditional Atlas Rif Hotel was to be my centre of operations. Although less Europeanised than the Intercontinental and the newer Moevenpick along the bay (held to be the best in town), I preferred it for the combination of proximity to town centre and beach, its private balconies, and its superbly-equipped gym. On the seaward side all rooms enjoyed a magnificent panorama clear across the Strait of Gibraltar.
The hotel staff were a predictably mongrel bunch. The door of my taxi was opened by a very black African decked out in braid and brass, and keen to maximise his tip. My bags were snatched from the taxi-driver’s grasp by a youngster in traditional Moroccan dress, equally motivated by monetary advantage. The girl at the reception desk was blonde, probably Nordic in origin: cool, brisk, wearing severe glasses and speaking flawless French, and wouldn’t have touched a tip with a sterilised fishing rod.
‘Monsieur Melville,’ she said, in a voice that made you feel she cared, all warm and cosseting. ‘Welcome to the Rif Hotel. May I have your passport, please?’
André Warner as an individual was in cold storage. For the next few weeks I was Alan Melville, complete with credentials to that effect. The central and most vital component of this collection of IDs and credit cards was a passport created by a different process from that approved by Her Majesty’s Passport Office. In my case you took the genuine thirty-two page article in its virgin state (2000 euros apiece from a corrupt clerk at a British Embassy, the location of which shall be nameless to protect the guilty), added a genuine unflattering photo from one of those automatic booths, and mixed well with the talents of an Irishman known to me only as ‘Freddie’. Freddie was a failed currency forger, with seven years in Dublin’s Kilmainham jail to prove it didn’t pay, who had now discovered his true vocation. At the end of forty-eight hours of his ministrations, in exchange for five thousand US greenbacks, you had a passport that was good for crossing any frontier, anyplace in the world. It even passed the electronic scanning process.
I obtained all my bogus passports in this fashion.
All my details having been entered into the computer, plus some tedious form filling ‘for the authorities’, I was led to the lift by the bellboy in Arab attire, for a creaky ride to the top floor and Suite 604.
‘Anything else, sir?’ the bellboy enquired in French that was anything but flawless, as I paid him off with a twenty-dirham coin.
‘Yes, bring me a bottle of vodka and a bucket of ice, will you?’
He certainly would. It meant a second tip.
It was around four in the afternoon, the outside temperature in the middle thirties Celsius, and the immediate priority was a cold shower. Subsequent to this, naked but for a towel, I explored my quarters, comprising bathroom, bedroom and sitting room, all plush and spacious by modern hotel standards. The furniture, which included a fancy chaise-longue, was solid-looking, the woodwork Moorish filigree, and the bed big enough for two to romp on, should opportunity knock. Sliding doors led from both rooms onto an enclosed balcony. I opened the one in the sitting room. Sea breeze, heavily perfumed with ozone, stirred the full-length net curtains and an indistinct skirl of Moroccan music dribbled in.
I took my Swarovski binoculars out onto the balcony, there to sweep the Bay of Tangier with its shifting shades of blue and its frieze of surf that sparkled like a diamond necklace. The shoreline to the east was wreathed in haze, land and sea blending with no delineation between. To the west, rising grandly above the general concrete sprawl, was the medina, the old town, with its fortified kasbah, overlooking the port, where a crane was lowering a wooden crate into the hold of a rusty freighter.
The binoculars were powerful: 10 X 40, with a zoom facility. I zoomed in on the packed beach, passed over the ranks of sun worshipping European bottoms, a ripe invitation to the beheading brigade. From the beach I traversed eastward past the suburb of Plage and on to where the buildings petered out. But the grandiose villa at the very tip of a promontory that I was seeking lay beyond Cap Malabata, the other horn of the bay, and was lost in the haze.
From behind me came a diffident cough.
‘M’sieu …’
My vodka and ice were served. To the bellboy went the honour of loading the ice into the glass, stripping the seal off the bottle and pouring. More dirhams changed hands and he left me to my dubious pleasures. The liquor slid down my gullet, so cold it burned. The second was better still, injecting frozen fire into my bloodstream. Showing restraint, the third I merely sipped, topping up the ice and returning to the balcony, blinking at the transition from shady interior to white glare.
Unaided by the binoculars I contemplated the street directly below – the Avenue d’Espagne, teaming with vehicles and humanity. The traffic was inclined to be Gallic in character, plenty of hooting and squealing tyres and exchanges of insults. A movement on the next balcony to the left caught my eye, and I glanced casually over the waist-high wall that separated all the suites. Stretched out on a sun-bed, her nose in an electronic book reader, was a woman in bikini top and shorts: European or North America at a guess. Slim figure, dark brown hair, lightly-waved and cut fairly short. Speaking as a well-rounded roué, the overall package wasn’t bad at all.
Even as I scrutinised her, she raised her head from her gadget and shaded her eyes to return the scrutiny.
‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘or should it be bonjour.’
‘Good morning is fine.’ American with a dash of Antipodes. Unusual combination. No warmth in it though.
‘Just arrived,’ I informed her, hoisting a chummy grin. It wasn’t returned. No matter, perseverance was my middle name. ‘Terrific view. That’s Spain over there, I guess.’ I gestured northwards with my glass, ice clinking. ‘Pity the Rock’s out of sight though.’
‘Which rock would that be?’
Was she pulling my leg? Her expression said not.
‘Well … Gibraltar, of course.’
‘Oh. Sorry, geography’s not my strong point.’
‘You’ve never been there then? To Gib, I mean.’
From her discouraging frown you’d have thought I was about to suggest an immediate elopement to the place.
A flat ‘No.’
So far, it was uphill work. But at least we were communicating. As I was about to extol the attractions of that disputed piece of real estate she stood up abruptly and went indoors. My half-open mouth shut with a click of teeth and my shoulders mentally shrugged.
My glass was somehow empty. I re-entered the sitting room to replenish it and crashed down on the chaise-longue, which sighed but otherwise held firm. Supine, I think more clearly, and I wanted to knock my plans into a semblance of shape. Tomorrow was to be a working day. I would rent a car, drive the twenty or so kilometres along the co
ast to the rich man’s settlement of Petite Europa for a casual look-see. Then I would decide if the hit was to take place there, at his villa, and if not, begin the surveillance process, the recording of his comings and goings, locating his soft spot, and so on, a process that had been known to take up to a month. Giorgy had assured me that our man was in residence, and Giorgy’s assurances were almost always good as gold.
‘According to his private secretary he will be at the villa from 18 June to the end of the month at least,’ was precisely how he put it. Today was 20 June.
After a while, under alcohol’s deadening influence, plotting became a strain and I dozed off.
My sister Julie (christened Juliette), who had recently moved with husband and two daughters from Toronto, Canada, to London, England, expected a postcard whenever I travelled abroad. Her elder daughter, my niece Cathy, collected them and mounted them on the walls of her bedroom. In some places the wallpaper was no longer apparent.
I chose a card depicting part of the kasbah, scrawled some trite message on the back, and signed off with a security-conscious ‘A’, as was my wont. For the sake of exercise I strolled into town to pop it into the box at the main post office in Rue el Msallah. Duty done. I had no other obligations, no commitments, no ties. I used to prefer it like that. Nowadays though, travelling alone was becoming last year’s fashion. Same as living alone.
From the post office I taxied to the three-rosette Damascus Restaurant in the quieter, southern precinct of the city. It was renowned for its haute cuisine marocaine, but I discovered that gastronomically speaking it wasn’t what it had been on my only previous visit. Either that or else my palate had grown fussier.
After lunch, a leisurely return stroll to the Rif, there to catch up on some homework. It was cooler today and overcast, though still warm enough for sitting on the balcony, accompanied by a bottle, a glass, and a bucketful of ice. And a slim brown envelope.