“No, but the alternative is even worse. They’re not going to betray us. They have an operative of their own along.”
“They betrayed us in Spain with their incompetence and lack of cooperation,” the Reader said.
I didn’t have an answer to that.
“So when do we go?” Neat Freak asked. He hadn’t stopped polishing his buttons the whole time. I wish our boys had that much discipline in the militia. Half of them didn’t even clean their rifles regularly.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I think. I still have to confirm with the Iron Column.”
The Reader grinned. “They have to have a meeting to come up with a consensus as to which bus we take.”
I laughed. That’s how the anarchists operated. Since no one was in charge, everyone had to have a group meeting and come to an agreement. They even fought their battles that way. Officers couldn’t give orders. Instead they had to come to an agreement with their troops about how to fight the enemy.
Morons.
“Sit tight,” I told them. “We should be leaving soon.”
Too soon. Probably tomorrow night at the latest. Time was ticking for my guys and no doubt it was ticking for Silone’s man as well, otherwise he would have never paired up with me. By the time I got back from the border, Felipe Vilaró would be pleading guilty to a judge and being sentenced for a crime he hadn’t committed. I needed to get this case solved now.
So I decided to follow up on Chason’s lead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dean’s Bar is tucked away on a little side street not far from the Grand Socco. Beyond a nondescript stone exterior is a medium-sized bar with a few tables and subdued decor—whitewashed walls, an arched doorway connecting the front room to the back, and walls covered by photos of Dean with various celebrities. A record player was spinning some jazz, and a few people were dancing. Most of the crowd, however, crowded up at the bar where Dean was glad handing the customers. A great barman, Dean. Knew everyone’s name and drink of choice. Great sense of humor too.
Dean’s had become world famous in recent years. The rich and famous, making their lazy way around the ports of the Mediterranean, always visited Dean’s on their Tangier stop. Most of the English-speaking foreign community living here were regulars as well, including me and Melanie.
As I sidled up to the bar, I saw a new photo above the rack of bottles—Dean with his arm around Errol Flynn. He’d been in town a few months back. I had to do a double take to make sure it was the famous actor and not the anarchist.
“Hey, Shorty!” Dean said. “What are you having? I got some great Scotch in recently.”
“You don’t say. Hit me.”
Dean poured me a snort. I took a sniff and a sip. Heaven.
Before he could move off to another customer, I stopped him.
“Say Dean, I’m wondering if you’ve seen a couple of fellas who were in here a while back. Tall, thin Spanish guy, looking pretty poor, and a bulky blonde guy. Both speaking Spanish. Came in together, if you know what I mean.”
Dean nodded, looking uncomfortable. “A cop was in here yesterday asking the same thing. Guy named Officer Ramhani. You know him?”
“We’ve met.”
“Yeah, I already told him everything.”
“I’m on the case. Tell me.”
Dean sighed. No barman wants the cops around, and no barman wants one of their customers knifed in a back alley.
“Yeah, I noticed them, mainly because I had never seen either of them before. And the skinny one didn’t look like he could afford it, as you say. They came in twice, once about two weeks ago, and then again last week.”
“Can you remember what day?”
Dean shrugged. “I get hundreds of people in here every week.”
“Fair enough. What do you remember about them?”
“First time they came in, it was like a first date or something. They were all nervous and giving each other glances before looking away. The big blonde guy paid. One thing I noticed is that they didn’t come in together, but about thirty seconds apart, like they were pretending they weren’t together.”
“Interesting.”
Dean shrugged. “It’s pretty normal. Tangier is free and easy with that sort of stuff, but a lot of people still have hang ups, you know?”
Someone called him over. Dean moved away to serve a rich British couple a bottle of champagne.
I lit a cigarette and kept my eyes on Dean, showing him that the conversation wasn’t over. After he finished serving them, he came back.
“I didn’t take much notice of them after that,” he continued. “They had a couple of drinks and looked at all my pictures the way newcomers do. Then they left. Like before, one left first, then the other less than a minute later.”
“What about the second time?”
“Last week? Oh, that was during a rush, so I didn’t see them come in. But when I did spot them, they were all over each other.”
“New love, huh?”
“Something like that. I almost told them to get a room.”
An American woman I didn’t know interrupted us. “I remember those two. People like that don’t need a room, they need a padded cell. It ain’t natural.”
I turned to her.
“You remember anything else about them?”
“Nah. You think I’m going to watch that? There outta be a law.”
“Everywhere else, there is. That’s why they come here,” Dean said. Dean avoided politics in his banter, but queers made up a big part of his clientele.
“Yeah, well I don’t want to see them and I don’t want to drink with them,” the woman said.
Dean turned back to me, his expression still maintaining that beatific smile he always wore for everybody. I’d bet a million bucks that woman didn’t want to drink with Negroes any more than she did with queers. If Dean was in front of the bar instead of behind it, she’d probably be complaining about him too.
“Anything else I can help you with?” he asked me.
“Not unless you can remember anything else about them.”
“No. It was busy, like I said. Oh, the skinny guy paid the second time.”
Perpetually broke Juan Cardona paid for drinks at a classy bar? That was interesting. I thanked him and left.
So a couple of weeks back, Juan came in with Octavio on a first date. Maybe the first date for either of them? None of my contacts had mentioned that Juan Cardona was gay. Not so uncommon here in Tangier, but still something significant enough to mention. I had even asked a couple of people if he had a girlfriend and they had said no without bringing up the other possibility. So I figured he had kept it under wraps.
The left is split on the queer issue. Some see it as part and parcel of the decadence produced by the capitalist system, which undermines the family to create a society of atomized workers with no support base other than the bosses on whom they become dependent. In my early days I had felt that way. If there were any queers in Scranton, they kept to themselves.
My opinion changed during the war. In the Republic, there were a lot of people who felt that queers were yet another group being ground down by the capitalist system in its quest to create a society of atomized workers who had no support base other than the bosses on whom they were dependent. As you can see, it wasn’t much of a leap from one idea to the other, and after having met a few queers and realizing that other than doing some weird stuff in the sack, they were normal people, I figured not to worry about other people’s sex lives.
Easier for me to say that than for the queers to. Most of the ones I’d met were unhappy. They’d been ostracized by their families, their friends, their communities, and had come to the one place where they could live a little without being hunted in the streets. Even the ones who said they were proud of what they were always said that a little too insistently, and usually through a fog of drugs and alcohol.
Like Bill Burroughs.
And he was one of the lucky ones, a remittance
man here on his own who could reinvent himself. Others were connected to a community here, with all the baggage that came with.
Like Juan Cardona and Octavio Prieta.
Octavio especially, if he was hanging out with the Falange.
But what about what Bill had said about Felipe being all affectionate toward him when Octavio came to visit at the prison wing of the hospital?
The easy explanation was that, assuming Bill was right, Felipe killed Juan in a fit of jealous rage, except that he didn’t have the strength. Could Octavio have done it? It didn’t look like a crime of passion, though. As Gerald had noted, there was only a single stab wound, direct and efficient with no emotion behind it. Besides, if Octavio and Juan were all kissy kissy, Octavio could have gotten Juan into a more private location to kill him. He wouldn’t have needed to chase him around the medina. And who gave Juan that big bruise to his ribs?
So was Felipe protecting another member of the Falange? From the little I overheard at the officer’s house, at least some people in that crowd thought that Octavio had killed Juan after it was discovered that Juan was an anarchist. No mention had been made of Octavio being queer.
But maybe someone else had killed Juan, getting rid of what they assumed was an anarchist spy. Then Felipe was covering up for that guy, and maybe didn’t even know about Octavio and Juan doing more than driving those deliveries up to the officer’s house.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. I had too many maybes.
What I really needed to do was to find out what was in that house on the Mountain. But after me and Eddie’s little escapade, they’d be on their guard. No way I was going to be able to sneak in there. I couldn’t even ask Gerald to get a search warrant for the place, because we had broken in there illegally and I couldn’t tell him what I knew.
I used the bar’s phone to call Electric Eddie. With all the racket going on at Dean’s I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hear him.
I should have known better.
“HEY SHORTY, WANT TO GO VISIT THE NEIGHBORS AGAIN? HAHAHAHA.”
“Hey Eddie. I don’t need to ask what you’re doing tonight.”
“JUST SORTING THROUGH SOME STUFF. BUSY BUSY BUSY.”
“The neighbors get up to anything?”
“NOPE. IT’S REAL QUIET OVER THERE. NOBODY HAS VISITED. AN EXTRA CAR IS PARKED OUT FRONT, THOUGH. I THINK THEY GOT SOME GUARDS UP THERE NOW.”
“That’s what I thought. Thanks, Eddie.”
I left Dean’s with more knowledge and less understanding. Since I couldn’t drop in on the Falange without getting shot, I wasn’t sure of my next move. Melanie had asked me to come over, so I figured I’d take a breather and try to sort it all out.
I arrived at Melanie’s a bit earlier than I said I would, and found her still working.
A delivery truck was parked at the end of the alley, and a couple of guys were unloading crates of Scotch. I recognized them from the Iron Column boat. Even if I hadn’t, I would have pegged them for professional criminals. They had that dead look to their eyes. Both had scars on their faces and forearms. One had a flattened nose and a cauliflower ear. Melanie and Guillaume were overseeing the work.
She came up to me and put those lovely smooth arms around me. The two anarchists looked at me with obvious jealousy. I kissed her. Then kissed her again for longer just to prove my point.
“Get a good price on that Scotch?”
“Oh, yes. They say they’re going to get a shipment of French wine next.”
We walked into the cafe, arm in arm. The anarchists moved the crates into the cafe as Guillaume kept an eye on them. Guillaume never spoke about politics, but he was an orderly man with a strict sense of hierarchy. One of the old school. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to guess what he thought of these anarchist rumrunners.
The pair put the crates in the back room, Guillaume hovering close. Melanie counted out the money while I stood to one side. I don’t know why, call it a sixth sense, but I unbuttoned my coat as unobtrusively as I could so that I could get to my gun quicker.
When they were done and had put the money away, one inclined his head to signal I should follow. They led me out to the alley leading from Melanie’s to the Grand Socco. Throbbing drums and the ululations of Moorish women echoed crazily along the angled walls of the alley.
“We will be ready tomorrow afternoon,” Broken Nose said. “We will take a car. Have your men be at Boulevard Pasteur at the corner with Rue de Goya at noon.”
“I’m going too.”
If they were surprised or upset by this, they didn’t show it.
“The car will be crowded but we can fit. Think of a story to explain your presence.”
“All right,” I said. Suddenly I broke out in a cold sweat. These two were a little too big, and stood a little too close.
And I knew they were a little too dangerous.
They left without another word.
Turned out Melanie got spooked by the Iron Column guys too. We managed to comfort each other upstairs in her room.
I hate to admit it with such a swell dame as Melanie, but it didn’t get my mind off of tomorrow’s business.
Afterwards, we lay side by side smoking. I watched the trail of smoke rise from each of our cigarettes, only to be whisked aside and dispersed by the ceiling fan.
“They talked to you about business?” Melanie asked.
What? She was still thinking of those mugs after me being so nice to her? Wasn’t I good enough?
“Yeah,” I said. “I got to leave town tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be back by evening.”
Melanie was smart enough not to ask me where I was going, or on whose orders. She didn’t know a thing and didn’t want to know, but I’m sure she figured out plenty.
“Get out of it, Kent.”
“It’s what I believe in.”
For a minute she didn’t say anything. I was just beginning to think that she had drifted off when she said softly.
“I have a bad feeling about tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking another drag. “So do I.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I got up at the crack of dawn. Time was ticking. Felipe’s trial would start the next day and I would lose the entire afternoon and most of the evening getting the operatives over the border. I needed to crack this case now or never.
The only person I hadn’t talked to was Octavio. I had treated him with kid gloves because I didn’t think I could get much out of him. He’d clammed up when Gerald tried, and he was as good at questioning people as I was.
But I didn’t have any other leads. Even worse, I didn’t know how to go about questioning him. He was holed up in his apartment. What should I do, put on a mask, go barging in there and demand the truth at gunpoint?
Tempting, but masks don’t work too good when you’re 5’5”. People figure out it’s you.
No, I’d have to soft sell him. I didn’t have the goods to do that before.
Now I did.
I already had his address from Gerald, so I strolled on over there. I spotted Officer Ramhani sitting at a cafe across the street. I nodded at him. He pretended not to notice but of course he did.
Octavio’s and Felipe’s apartment was in a fine modern building in Tangerville, a new construction by some snazzy French architect. The building was all white with curved porches and balustrades in a style they call art nouveau. It made me think of the curves on an expensive car. Very stylish. Far better than ugly concrete rectangles the Soviet Union was packing the workers into. People shouldn’t live in boxes. A lot of the folks moved to Tangier to break out of boxes. I had a feeling Octavio was one of them.
I went upstairs and knocked on Felipe’s and Octavio’s door. Silence. I knocked again, longer this time. I heard soft steps on the other side. The light in the peephole went dark.
“Octavio, I know you’re in there. We need to talk,” I called out in Spanish.
“Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Go away. I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
The footsteps receded.
“Octavio, wait! The Falange think you killed Juan Cardona, but I know you didn’t. You didn’t kill your boyfriend.”
Silence.
The footsteps returned and the door opened, stopping after a few inches when the chain went taut. The narrow portion of his face that I could see was tight with suspicion.
“Colonel Fernández de Tomelloso thinks you did it,” I told him. “They all do. But they don’t know what he meant to you.”
He unhooked the chain, opened the door, and pulled me in. Strong guy for a poof.
Now that I was inside I took a good look at him. Medium height, broad shoulders, blond hair, and blue eyes. No more than 25 years old. Just the kind of German I shot at during the war.
He shut the door behind me, locked it, and rounded on me.
“Announce it to the whole floor, why don’t you?”
“Sorry. But we need to talk. Felipe might spend the rest of his life in jail for a murder someone else committed.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend, like I said. I’m Kent MacAllister, a private detective hired to find out who killed Juan Cardona.”
“Hired by who?”
“The police.”
I wasn’t sure how he’d react to that. Kick me out? Scream and shout? Instead he just studied me for a second and then moved into the living room, shoulders slumped. I followed.
The living room was typical Spanish upper class. A marble-topped table of heavy wood, a big crucifix on the wall, an oil painting of some saint that looked eighteenth century, and a big photo of Franco in military uniform.
He sat in an overstuffed chair and motioned for me to sit in another one. At least he didn’t offer me a drink. My liver needed a break.
“How do you know what the Falange think of me?”
“I know a lot of things. I know about the delivery to the colonel’s house. You drove forty of them from the farmhouse to the colonel’s place, but they didn’t know you hired an anarchist for the job. They sure got sore when they found out, didn’t they? They’re glad you killed him and think you’re going to leave the International Zone. They’re wrong about you killing him. If they’re right about you trying to bolt, let me tell you the authorities are planning to stop you at the border, and it won’t look too good for you. The only reason you’re not on trial is because they’re too busy putting Felipe on trial.”
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