Three Passports to Trouble

by Sean McLachlan

  Right away I knew this guy was a sap for my girl.

  He bowed deeply, took Melanie’s hand and kissed it.

  Took her hand? Hell no, Melanie actually presented her hand, like some bishop when you’re supposed to kiss his ring. I got the feeling they did this routine a lot.

  “Edward, it’s so nice to see you,” she said in English. The chump was probably one of those Americans who couldn’t speak any other language.

  “And it’s always a pleasure to see you, my desert flower.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Ah yes,” Melanie said. “This is my colleague, Kent MacAllister.”

  Colleague?

  “Pleased to meet you. Melanie told me all about you.”

  Oh, I doubt that.

  We sat. Cantaloupe Head took off his hat and fanned himself with it. I tried not to look at his scalp. It was really awful. I wondered why he didn’t wear a toupee.

  Melanie leaned over to Cantaloupe Head and put a hand on his knee. He flushed.

  “Would you like the usual?” she asked. She got a nod and a bashful smile in return. Melanie turned to Guillaume and switched to French. “Guillaume, the usual for Monsieur Humboldt.”

  After a brief chit chat, Cantaloupe Head got down to business.

  “Melanie said you need some help with introductions.”

  “I do. I’m investigating the murder of Juan Cardona. He was an anarchist who got stabbed yesterday.”

  The metals supplier nodded. “I read about it in this morning’s Tangier Gazette. The article mentioned he was stabbed, but I heard a rumor that the weapon was a Spanish army dagger, is that true?”

  So Gerald had managed to keep that little detail out of the press. Good man. Nothing could stop Tangier’s rumor mill, though.

  “It is true, and it’s causing trouble in the Spanish community.”

  Cantaloupe Head made a face. “That’s bad for business. Tangier thrives because everyone keeps the peace. You have all sorts here, and lax laws. People should be grateful for what they have.”

  Easy to say when you’re wearing a $100 suit and $20 shoes, but I decided not to point that out.

  Melanie leaned in again. Cantaloupe Head looked at her like a puppy that had just been plucked out of a pet shop window. “So what Kent needs is an introduction to the CNT metalworkers syndicate. He needs to speak with them, keep them calm until he can solve the murder. He thinks, as do I, that someone used that knife deliberately to start trouble in the Spanish community.”

  He nodded that pockmarked head. “I’ll make the arrangements. As I said, trouble is bad for business. Look at Algeria.”

  I had to endure another fifteen minutes of small talk and flirting before I could extract myself with the excuse that I needed to go see Gerald. I left them chatting over a cafe a la mode, with Melanie turning up the charm.

  Sheesh!

  Police headquarters was a whitewashed, three-story building in the Moorish style, complete with battlements and an arched front door. It was a European show, however, with all the higher ups being either English or French with a few Belgians thrown into the mix. Only the lowest officers were Moroccan, the Moors not being trusted with having power over their own people.

  Gerald’s office was on the second floor and looked out on the French consulate’s sumptuous gardens. His predecessor used to have his office in the front of the building, with a grand view of the Place de France. He switched to the back of the building after a bullet came through the window one night and punched a hole through a file he was reading. When Gerald moved in and heard the story, he decided the back office was the better one.

  I found Gerald there busy with some paperwork, his head with its thinning blonde hair and prominent forehead bowed over a mass of typewritten forms. He looked up and pushed the paperwork to one side with obvious relief.

  “Hello, Shorty. Come on in and have a celebratory drink.”

  “What are we celebrating?” I asked as I sat down. Gerald pulled a bottle of single malt and couple of glasses from a drawer.

  “The arrest of the murderer of Juan Cardona.”

  “Really?”

  He poured us each a generous shot.

  “Really. Well, probably. To be honest, it’s more along the lines of hopefully.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  Gerald turned one of the forms around so I could read it. The man they had collared was named Felipe Vilaró. He was a member of the Falange, an organization of ultra-Catholic fascists who had been at the forefront of Franco’s coup. The arrest photo did not make him look terribly threatening. His face was sunken, his features gaunt, and his eyes had a glassy, feverish look.

  I read through the report. Age: 52, address in a nice part of Tangerville, worked in an accounting office. Then I got to the kicker. Known medical conditions: “consumption, advanced.”

  “The guy’s got TB and you want me to believe he chased Juan Cardona through the medina before stabbing him to death?”

  “He admitted as much. We pulled him in because he had been boasting of it in public.”

  I read through the confession. Felipe Vilaró claimed that the two of them had gotten into an argument at Elisa Bar. It’s a little Spanish place just around the corner from the Cafe Mirador. It’s a spot for Spaniards in the professions. Not the kind of place Juan Cardona could have afforded, or would have gone to if he could. In the statement, Felipe said the anarchist came in drunk and started insulting all the good respectable Spanish doctors and bankers. Felipe claimed to have tried to escort him out when Juan spat in his face.

  Juan then ran off before Felipe could avenge this insult to his honor. He swore revenge and took to prowling the medina at night, where he knew Juan had a room somewhere. When he finally bumped into him after three nights of searching, Felipe chased him to the dead end alley and stabbed him through the heart.

  End of story.

  Or was it?

  “You buying this tripe?” I asked.

  “He confessed. Witnesses at the Elisa Bar back up his testimony about the altercation, although they didn’t see the spitting because the two had gone into the street by then. Felipe was also known to have owned a knife of that type left over from his war days. It is now missing from his apartment.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Gerald took a sip of his Scotch and smiled. “Oh, about believing his testimony? Not for an instant. A latter-stage consumptive wandering those dank alleys all night and then chasing down Juan Cardona? It’s a bit much. He’s sticking to his story, though.”

  “So what do you think? Why’s he taking the fall? A last patriotic gesture to protect one of his fascist buddies?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps he thinks that if he’s going to shuffle off this mortal coil he might as well strike a final blow for Christ, Franco, and la madre patria. Or perhaps something else is going on. What, I’m sure I can’t say. Oh, the coroner rang me to say Juan Cardona had a large bruise on his left side. It was partially healed and wasn’t from the night he was murdered.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Felipe is the man to have given that to him. Can I see him?”

  “He’s at the prison wing of the Spanish hospital. Our cells are too dank for someone in his condition. It would be a death sentence. As for seeing him, he has refused to talk to anyone other than to make that statement.”

  “Does he have a lawyer?”

  “He’s refused legal counsel.”

  “Really wants to get nailed to the cross, eh? I guess there’s no one to stop me from going over there and chatting with him then.”

  “Be my guest. I daresay it won’t do much good.”

  The Spanish hospital was next to the Spanish cathedral, up the hill inland from the port. The cathedral’s high steeple made it the second tallest building in Tangier other than the royal mosque. It couldn’t, of course, be taller than that. The Sultan wouldn’t have stood for it and the International Zone government did sometimes pretend he had a say
in things.

  The hospital next door was a clean, modern building with a shady garden where a few patients sat in wheelchairs watching the palm fronds wave in the wind. A nurse in a nun’s habit objected to me seeing the sick prisoner, saying he had left strict instructions about not wanting any visitors, but a quick call to Gerald fixed that. With a shrug she handed me off to another nurse, also a nun, who led me upstairs and down a long, cool hallway. Her clean white shoes squeaked on the tile.

  We turned a corner and came to a dead end with a door. A Moorish policeman stood guard. He gave the nun a respectful nod. Moorish guys are funny about nuns. Mostly they think that Western women are all loose because they speak their mind and wear clothing that shows off their bodies, but nuns are a different story. There’s no equivalent job in the Islamic religion, but the Moors see these women dressed as conservatively as any Moroccan village girl, never speaking out of turn, and going about their work quietly and industriously, and they think they’re the best women the Western world ever produced. Once a Moor at the Cafe Tingis, recently arrived from some village in the hills, asked me how much it cost to marry a nun. When I explained about the whole vow of celibacy thing, he nearly fell off his chair. Said it was a waste of good womanhood.

  If he says so. I’ve never thought of some dour Spanish nun who’s shorter than I am as a good catch, but I’m picky that way.

  The Moorish cop opened the door and we entered. The door closed behind us. There was no doorknob on our side. A window reinforced with mesh in the door allowed the cop to know when he should open it.

  The hallway was shorter than I expected, with only four rooms on each side. All the doors were open. A low moan echoed down the hall, ending in a loud, anguished cry. Then the moaning came again.

  At the first door I saw a Spaniard lying on a bed asleep. He must have had a dozen bandages on him plus a black eye to boot. I wonder how the other guy looked. Worse, probably, which is why this guy was in here.

  Across the hall lay a man handcuffed to the heavy brass bedframe. He had torn his clothes off and lay there naked. As soon as we passed into view he screamed “BITCH!” at the top of his voice.

  I stopped.

  “That’s no way to talk to a lady,” I told him.

  “I’ve heard it all before,” said the nun, shoes still squeaking. “Many, many times.”

  I caught up to her and we stopped at the next door, where, sitting on a chair next to the bed, sat Felipe Vilaró.

  He looked every bit as bad as his mug shot. His face was drawn and pale, eyes sunken. In one waxy hand he held a handkerchief spotted with blood. The other was handcuffed to a metal bar bolted to the wall. The bar ran, like a handrail, to the edge of the bed. I realized that gave him movement between the chair and the bed, and presumably a bedpan under the bed.

  Felipe wore a loose sweater and a pair of heavy woolen pants. Socks and thick slippers kept his feet warm. He looked at me the instant I appeared, but didn’t say a word. His eyes told me he was studying me as much as I was studying him.

  I addressed him in Spanish “How are you feeling, Señor Vilaró?”

  In the Republic we all called each other “camarada”. “Señor”, “señorita”, and “señora” were too bourgeois for us. I really felt like addressing Felipe as comrade just to see how he’d take it, but I had a job to do.

  “Who are you?” he asked. He used the formal. Usted, not tú. Another bit of the language the republicanos had tossed aside. I replied in kind.

  “I’m a private investigator. I was working on the Juan Cardona case. I came to tell you that we caught the murderer. You’ll be released in the morning, although you will be on parole until we clear this matter up. You’ll have to give up your passport. A temporary measure. I hope you understand.”

  As I told him that we’d caught the real killer, his eyes widened for a moment before he put on a halfway decent poker face.

  “Then you have the wrong man,” he said. “I am the murderer.”

  He broke off in a spasm of coughing, his handkerchief pressed against his face.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

  He waved me away and shook his head, still coughing. After a minute he composed himself.

  “I am all right. It passes.”

  “You seeing anybody about that?” I was trying to act sympathetic even though I didn’t give a damn if this goosestepper keeled over right in front of me. Actually I did, because that would mean the real killer would get away. Felipe would have to wait until after I cracked this case. Then he could keel over all he wanted.

  “What do you want with me?” he asked. Then he looked over my shoulder at the nurse. “Sister, I asked not to have any visitors.”

  “Orders of the police commandant, Señor Vilaró.” She sounded apologetic. A lot of Catholics thought of the fascists as the saviors of the Church, and they’re right. We nationalized the churches. Turned them into hospitals. Schools. The lands the Church owned got divided among the peasants. We ended state funding to all religious institutions, a load that had been on the workingman’s back for centuries, and wrested education from their grip. All that work was gone now, thanks to people like him.

  Yeah, he had plenty of friends here.

  The patient in the next room let out another long moan.

  “So Juan gave you a merry chase through the medina, eh?” I asked once the moaning stopped.

  “It’s all in my statement.”

  “I read your statement. It says you stalked him for three nights in the medina, staying out for hours until you finally spotted him. And then you chased him through the back alleys at two o’clock in the morning until he got trapped in a cul-de-sac and you stabbed him. Have I got that right?”

  Felipe didn’t reply.

  “The only problem with that, Señor Vilaró, is that you wouldn’t be able to take the medina for all those nights. Even in this summer heat it’s a dank, cool place in the early hours. Lots of Moors have chest complaints. It’s even worse for the Westerners who have washed up there. And then there’s that part where you chase him down through all those alleys. You ran the whole way? Looks to me like you couldn’t run to the outhouse. I checked on Juan Cardona. He was a beanpole, all right, and probably hadn’t had a decent meal in a day or two, but he twenty years younger than you and worked part time as a manual laborer. No way he couldn’t outrun you.”

  Felipe looked away. “I made my statement.”

  “A false statement. You’re letting a murderer go free. That’s a sin, isn’t it? Bearing false witness?”

  The nun gave me a sidelong glance. Yes, she was still there, and yes, she was hanging on every word. I wonder if nuns gossip?

  Felipe sat a little straighter. “A blow against filth like that is a blow for Spain, and for God and His Holy Church. Juan insulted the generalisimo, he insulted the flag, and he insulted the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

  The nun took in a sharp breath and crossed herself, mumbling something in Latin.

  “This was at the Elisa Bar, right?”

  “Yes, there were witnesses.”

  “So what happened, he came in and started shouting, just like that?”

  “The door was open because it was a hot night. He passed by in the street and gave the raised fist salute of the Reds. One of the heavy drinkers in the bar told him, ‘Try doing that in Barcelona these days.’ Everybody laughed. These republicanos are so pathetic with their little revolutions and fairy dreams. That’s when he rushed in. He was practically foaming at the mouth he was so angry. Insulted all that is great and good about Spain. So I pushed him out.”

  “Must have been tough, given your condition.”

  Felipe gave an acquiescent nod. “He did not put up much fight. I think he wanted to leave. He realized he was outnumbered. And as soon as I got him out on the street and it was just the two of us, he spat in my face.”

  “And that’s when you decided to kill him.”

  “That is correct.”

&nbs
p; “No witnesses to the spitting?”

  His face darkened. “Some Moors saw.”

  Oh, so that’s what made it a killing offense. Nothing these guys hated worse than getting insulted in front of what they considered the lower races.

  A long moan came from down the hallway, followed by a sharp scream.

  The nun left the room, clapping her hands.

  “Now, now, Señor Burroughs, what have I told you about making such a fuss, eh? Other patients have their own troubles. They need to heal.”

  Burroughs? I went next door.

  Sure enough it was him, Bill Burroughs twisting in sweat-soaked sheets, grinding his teeth so loud I could hear them from the hall. The nurse stood by his bed. She filled a glass from a pitcher of water on a bedside table set far enough away from the bed that Bill couldn’t hit it with all his flailing, and held out the glass to him.

  “Drink much fluid, Señor Burroughs. It will help clean your system.”

  “Makes me sick,” he gasped. His voice sounded like the last puff of steam from an emptied teapot.

  “It is the heroin that makes you sick, Señor Burroughs. Good food, much water, and much rest will make you better.”

  I came to the side of the bed. “Bill, what are you doing here?”

  His feverish eyes fixed on me and he let out a shudder the convulsed his entire body.

  “Hey, Shorty. Good to s-see you. I’m taking the c-cure. I g-got to get off it for good this t-time.”

  “I think that’s a smart move.” Bill was an American in his thirties, living in Tangier on a small remittance while pretending to write some incoherent novel. Really all he did was chase adolescent boys and the horrors of his own addiction.

  “Gotta…gotta get off the junk.”

  “Sure, but why in a prison ward?”

  “Keeps me from jumping out a w-window. Doing c-cold turkey is t-tough,” he said, suddenly shivering. The nun placed another blanket on him and finally got him to take a sip of water. “I’m on the third day. That’s always the worst. If I c-can get through today and t-tomorrow, I should be clear. Get my h-head clean and finish my book.”