Three Passports to Trouble

by Sean McLachlan

  “I daresay you’re right. We worked on him some more but he didn’t reveal anything else. There’s only so much you can do with someone who isn’t under arrest.”

  “Only so much you can do. What’s his address?”

  “Number 29 Rue Foucauld Apartment 6, same as Felipe’s.”

  “Live-in help, huh?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Any other jobs?”

  “Not that we know of. Why, have you found out anything?”

  “Not yet. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  “Oh, there were a couple of fights between the reds and the blacks last night.”

  “Who won?” I asked.

  “Nobody wins drunken brawls. Everyone just ends up looking foolish.”

  “Anyone seriously hurt?”

  “No, but the incidents have the International Council after me again. We’re moving the court date up. They think sending Felipe Vilaró to prison will mend the wound.”

  “Somehow I don’t think so. Any other big news?”

  Like two Spanish Communist operatives getting hauled off to jail?

  “None. We’ll work on it from our end.”

  I said goodbye and hung up.

  Those operatives made me nervous. I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t being watched, so I wouldn’t be able to visit them for a while. It was all right. They were pros and would realize some sort of heat was on. They’d just sit tight and wait. What else could they do?

  But the forger couldn’t sit tight. I’d have to go to him sooner or later. I needed to shake my tail.

  My first stop for the day was Tangerville so I could get another hat. Since it was on expenses, I splurged for a brand-new Fedora, gray of course, with a silk hatband. Feeling better now that I had a lid again, I took a stroll. I needed to feel out the medina a bit, find out what was going on at street level.

  But Tangier is the sort of town that throws up surprises. There I was, walking past the old Colonial cannons on the lookout point on Boulevard Pasteur when I glance over at the Cafe Mirador and my whole case goes sideways.

  For sitting there was a man I recognized from El Restaurante Buenaventura Durruti. He was a grizzled, older anarchist, with salt and pepper hair and pointed eyebrows that almost met in the middle. Very distinctive, those eyebrows. I’d spot them anywhere.

  And I was spotting them sitting at the table next to Einhardt Ritter.

  The German forger was just handing him a business card. Both wore fake, polite smiles like any two business associates might make when happening upon each other in public.

  Just like Einhardt and I had not so long before.

  I saw all this in two seconds. Then I faced front and kept going, hoping they hadn’t spotted me. More important, I hoped they hadn’t spotted me spotting them. I didn’t think so, but it can be hard to tell when dealing with characters in the game.

  So an anarchist was trying to get a fake passport? That was interesting. Somebody needed to get out of the zone without their movements being traced.

  I shouldered through the crowd in front of the Hotel Minzah—an aging heiress and some male companion half her age were making a fuss with a taxi driver and a bunch of people had stopped to gape—and continued toward the Grand Socco.

  What could the anarchists want with a fake passport? They were as safe here as anywhere in Europe, and a lot safer than in some countries. I hadn’t heard they were doing much cloak and dagger stuff like the Party was. They didn’t have the organization or funds. Besides, the Party played the long game, preparing the ground for revolution through propaganda and subtle pressure on local power centers. The anarchists were showier. Liked to make a big song and dance to prove how radical they were.

  So more likely they had a member who was on the run from the law. I hadn’t heard of anyone in that predicament, and through Gerald I keep pretty good tabs on the mugs who are wanted in this town, so I guessed the person who wanted the passport was afraid of the law finding out about something he or she had done.

  Like murder Juan Cardona?

  No, that was a bit of a stretch. Why would a fascist go to bat for an anarchist? But it couldn’t be a coincidence that just after an anarchist gets stabbed, another one wants to flee the Interzone under an assumed name.

  I passed into the Grand Socco and its frontal assault on the senses. The money changers called out to me in half a dozen languages offering fifty different currencies. Beyond them spread the farmer’s market where the hill people came down to sell their produce. Squat Riffi women with their straw hats decorated with red, white, and green pompoms sold herbs, vegetables, and wheels of homemade white cheese wrapped in palm fronds. Beyond that rose a haze of smoke from half a hundred meat grills and beyond that the gritty cloud shrouding the charcoal sellers market.

  Everyone was shouting, haggling, arguing, or calling out to one another. At night it was even wilder, with wandering holy men whipping themselves or dancing around in a frenzy to drums and flutes.

  To one side, a flower market gave a welcome spray of color, along with delicate aromas that struggled to work their way through the overwhelming funk. I noticed a crew of Moors whitewashing several of the buildings facing the square. They had needed it for years. On the other side of the plaza, another group worked on an old medieval fountain. Curious, I walked over.

  “Trying to get water from that? I’ve been here for years and never seen it work,” I told the Moorish workers in Arabic. My Arabic is good enough for simple conversations. I wish it was better.

  “We will make it give water, God willing,” said a wiry man fiddling with some pipes.

  “You with the same crew as those guys painting the houses?”

  “Oh yes, the city is fixing up the Grand Socco. They want to bring in more tourist boats like the one in the harbor now.”

  “Get them spending money in the shops, eh?” Typical capitalist thinking—leave the historic monuments to fall apart until you can figure out a way to get the tourists in.

  One of the other workers, a squat Moor with a prominent nose who was hauling a basket of dirt from the area they had excavated around the fountain, said, “My cousin has a shop in the medina. Those boat tourists buy nothing. They touch everything and take pictures, but only buy the smallest amount of junk.”

  Maybe your cousin should sell better stuff. Not even boat tourists are going to buy the tripe in most of those shops, I thought. Out loud I said, “Well at least you’re making some money from all this.”

  He gave me a blank look.

  “How?” he asked.

  “You got hired to fix this fountain.”

  “Bah! When this job is over I will be jobless again.”

  I could have given him a lecture on why the economic system would always keep him down, but Islamic fatalism made it difficult to create a true class consciousness among these people. Some of the intellectuals in the universities had embraced communism, and there was an (illegal) Moroccan Communist Party, but your average Moor accepted his lot with the simple phrase, mektoub. “It is written.” Fomenting revolution among the Moors was almost as hard as fomenting revolution among the American working class. Both had their religions—Islam and the free market—to keep them dreaming of a better world that they might just get to if they obeyed all the rules.

  I passed out of the Grand Socco to head on over to Melanie’s. I wanted to show off my new hat, tell her how I lost the old one, and get a bit of sympathy. She could be very sympathetic, that girl. Sympathetic in ways that it would not be decent to write about.

  When I got to Melanie’s I found it almost as loud and crazy as the Grand Socco.

  It was absolutely packed with Americans. I mean it was heaving. Every table was filled with middle-aged Yanks yakking their jaws off. Between the tables stood more of them, drinks in hand, all effusing about their grand adventure.

  “And did you see that beggar boy I stood next to for the photograph? He was FILTHY!”

  “Should get these wo
men some washing machines. Could pop the kids right in. Har har.”

  “I don’t think that man was telling the truth that this bracelet is pure gold. It’s rubbing off on my skin.”

  “Let’s see, honey.”

  “It’s SO good to know the right places. This is quite the hidden gem.”

  I tried to get through the press to where Guillaume was serving some drinks, his face imperturbable and slightly contemptuous as usual.

  Melanie rushed out with a tray. I let her serve and then caught her as she rushed back.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “I came to have a little tête-à-tête and got stuck in a dentists’ convention in Jersey City.”

  Melanie looked at me like I had suddenly switched to Swahili. “I do not know what that means but yes this is terrible. Someone put my cafe in the travel section of the New York Times.”

  “Here it is right here, dearie.” A woman in fake pearls, an orange print dress, and a poodlecut hairdo said, pushing a newspaper clipping in Melanie’s face.

  The headline read: “Tangier’s Hidden Gem, Paris in the Orient”. We read the byline and neither of us recognized the name.

  “Orient? We’re further west than Paris,” I said in French. Mrs. Fake Pearls stared, uncomprehending.

  “We’re well east of New York,” Melanie replied.

  We read the article. Typical puff piece about the feisty and alluring Frenchwoman organizing the savages to carve out a bit of civilization in the Sahara. Yes, the article actually said Sahara. The Sahara doesn’t start until 500 miles south of here. I’m surprised the author didn’t write that his cafe au lait was delivered by camel. Melanie tut-tutted when she read several quotes about how much she loved Americans and wanted more to come to her place.

  “Love Americans?” she muttered in French. “This man never spoke to me. I would have told him some things about Americans.”

  “Hey, you love some Americans.”

  Melanie turned to me, gave me a warm smile, and was about to say something to melt my heart when Mrs. Fake Pearls cut in.

  “Isn’t it FABULOUS? I’m going to tell all my friends to come here. You know my neighbors, the Wilsons, they’ve been talking about taking this cruise for AGES but were afraid of the Tangier stop. They say it’s uncivilized. Well, it is uncivilized, but places like this—”

  “Thank you so much for coming,” Melanie said. “Will you excuse me?”

  We fled indoors, which was just as packed and even noisier, and hurried upstairs to her room. She paced. I sat on her bed, hopeful.

  “I cannot stay long,” Melanie said, dashing my hopes. “Guillaume would never forgive me for leaving him alone.”

  “What about Ahmed and Mohammed?”

  “Ahmed is in Meknes seeing his sick mother. I sent a message to Mohammed two hours ago telling him to come at once.”

  “Then he should be along any minute.”

  She pulled out a cigarette and I lit it for her, forgetting our little fast draw game I was so rattled by the scene downstairs. I lit one for myself too.

  “That was one hell of an article,” I said. “Looks like I’ll be dining elsewhere when a cruise ship is in town.”

  “They scared away all my regulars.” She took a puff and let out a mischievous smile. “It is ironic. The paper calls me an entrepreneur but I am taking you to a party hosted by anarchists.”

  “What? Why?”

  She eased over and put a hand on my cheek. “To help you with your case, you silly darling.”

  “How do you know anarchists well enough to get invited to parties?”

  “They are business partners. They get me most of my alcohol.”

  “They’re rumrunners?”

  She moved to the vanity, sat down, and placed her cigarette in an ashtray decorated with green arabesques. She picked up a compact and started powdering her nose. Another hot day. The ladies would be going through a lot of powder today.

  “They run anything you want to buy,” she said, checking her reflection. The only thing better than one of her was two of her. “But only alcohol. They think drugs are a plot by the wealthy to demoralize proletariat intellectuals.”

  “I should have them go preach to Bill. He’s taking the cure again.”

  Melanie tut-tutted. “I hope he does it this time. How many times has he tried?”

  “Come on, baby, he’s a good guy. Let’s get back to this anarchist shindig. What’s the deal?”

  “They just got in a shipment of rare Scotch whiskey, and they are throwing a sampling party for many of the barmen and restaurateurs in town.”

  “Wait. Anarchists are marketing to a bunch of petit bourgeois small business owners?”

  Melanie paused, looked at me sidelong, her powder puff and case held poised before her.

  “Not you, honey, but you can see how they see you.”

  “My staff is paid better than those at the Minzah.”

  “Sure, baby, you do them right. You’re not exploiting anybody. But most of these guys are purists. I’m surprised they’d do this sort of business at all.”

  Melanie put away her powder puff, took a drag from her cigarette and through a puff of grey smoke said, “They lost a war. That does things to some men. Most men. I think they have lost some of their principles. Today their anarchism is asserting the right to do whatever they want.”

  “That’s half of Tangier. The other half is helping them do it. But hey, I lost a war too but I didn’t give up on my principles.”

  “It is easier for you, because you also won a war.”

  I looked at the floor and took a long drag. Held it. Let it go. “Yeah. When the international volunteers were ordered out and we could all see it was over, I was already lapping up news about the rest of Europe, just itching to get into the Big One. Well, it didn’t take long to start. It was a relief, I tell you. I couldn’t end it with me just taking the ship home from Barcelona and hearing about the final defeat on the radio. I had to do it right the next time.”

  “And you did. It’s not your fault that it didn’t end in the best way.”

  “At least half of Europe is free, and the sad thing is that it isn’t the half that calls itself Communist.”

  “They have stolen that word from us.”

  “Us?”

  I looked at her. She crushed the end of her cigarette and stood. “I need to help Guillaume.”

  I moved to her and put my hands around her slender waist.

  “Us?” I repeated.

  She gave me a kiss. A tender, affectionate, dismissive kiss. A kiss that said, “I love you but I have a business to run and if you want to have some fun later I’m up for it but right now I’ve got to go.” She could say a lot in a kiss. Very expressive, those kisses.

  “I am no longer in it.” This was her speaking, not her kiss. “But I will help you with your case because I don’t want to see the peace we have achieved here disturbed. So tonight I will take you to a boat in the harbor and fill you with fine Scotch. The anarchists are expecting you. The invitation came days ago, and was only for me. Last night they sent word that I may bring a guest.”

  “Baby, I just got drunk with anarchists and then got beat up. I’m not sure I’m up for another party.”

  Melanie put a hand on my cheek and started looking me all over. “You got beat up? Your face is fine.” She started feeling my body, which was great until she got to the tender spots. “Oh, they hit you in the ribs. And the stomach too! The beasts! Who were they?”

  “Yesterday’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way to the boat.”

  “So you will go?”

  “Anything to take you out of here.”

  “I’ll go help downstairs now. See what else you can discover today.”

  Detective work is a slow process, and I wasted the rest of the day on bum connections. Once or twice walking through the medina I thought I caught sight of my tail but I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t the officer who had saved me, at any rate. Must have been
one of Chason’s other professionals. Usually I can sniff out a tail within a couple of blocks, but if I really was being followed, they were doing a damn good job of it.

  I didn’t dare see the operatives all day, and what I learned from the various Spaniards I spoke to wasn’t reassuring. The identity checks were continuing, and a few marginally illegal businesses like the casinos down by the port had been raided. Big gamblers, the Spanish. A great way to put the squeeze on them was to close their gambling dens. Chason didn’t dare close all the bars and cafes, though. The Spanish of all factions would have been up in arms. More disturbing was that the cops were making detailed identity checks at the border. Those passports would have to be extra good to pass muster. Plus I’d have to prompt the operatives with a good cover story. I wished they’d been circulating in Tangier for a while to make them look a bit more wholesome.

  I hoped those two were smart enough to stay indoors and let that boy I hired fetch them anything. Maybe the brothel down the street did deliveries.

  At last it was time to meet up with Melanie. I took a circuitous route through Tangerville, heading away from her place, until I jumped in a cab that was just letting someone out and ordered it to go to the Grand Socco. Once there I paid, jumped out without waiting for my change, and hurried to Melanie’s.

  I hoped that was enough to shake my tail, because if Chason caught wind that I was at a party with a group of rumrunners, I was done for, and so was Melanie.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I glanced around as I got to Melanie’s, waiting at the gate outside the garden for a minute to see if anyone else would come around the corner. It looked like I had shaken them. Inside sat only a couple of the evening regulars, both of whom I recognized. The cruise ship must have sailed off to invade some other port.

  Melanie came out, wearing the plainest red dress I had ever seen on her. Not that she couldn’t make any dress look stunning, but she was usually a swank dresser.

  “Dressing down for the radicals?” I said as I kissed her.

  “One mustn’t be overdressed at a party, especially a party like this.”

  “You’ve gone for the right color combination.”