Tangier (46 page)

"Come quick," he said. "It's finally happening. Wax and Barclay are having it out."

Robin grabbed hold of Vanessa, dragged her with him as he followed Kranker to another room. When they arrived they found a quiet little crowd in a circle around Barclay and Wax, who were standing apart facing each other like gunslingers in a Western town.

Wax was still in his costume, holding his "beanstalk" like a staff. Barclay, legs apart, arms folded confidently across his chest, wore a somewhat frayed and dated smoking jacket and clutched a silver-headed cane.

"What's going on?" someone whispered.

"Shush," said Robin, craning forward so as not to miss a precious word.

"Just the sort of comment we'd expect," he heard Barclay say, "from the son of a chimney sweep."

"Ha!" said Wax. "Everyone in Tangier knows about you, how you tried to force Camilla Weltonwhist to buy that worthless property below your house so you could plant trees on it and pretty up your view."

"That's a damn lie," said Barclay, beginning, Robin thought, to look unnerved. "But then we all know your history, that you're nothing but a liar and a thief."

"You're right. I've never pretended to be anything else. The trouble with you, Mother Barclay, is that you don't know what you are. But I do. I see right through you. For all your fancy lineage you're just like an Arab boy who spreads his ass for half a crown."

It was a terrible insult, terribly unfair, Robin thought, and Barclay didn't take it well. Ho grew red in the face, and the veins in his forehead began to throb. Suddenly he pursed his lips and let fly with a glob of spit. It landed on the carpet, a little short of Wax.

"Oh, you
are
angry,
dear
," said Wax, regarding Barclay with utter scorn. He raised his "beanstalk" and started toward him, would have bashed him on the head with it, Robin thought, if Barclay hadn't managed to deflect it with his cane.

Immediately their friends dragged them apart, and into separate rooms. There were huddles then, cliques and factions formed, while the whole party turned into a debate about which one had bested the other and what had started the argument off. Robin, uninterested in either of these things, was busy writing their dialogue down. He'd have to ask his editor for double his usual amount of space. He had enough now for a delicious column.

H
amid was relieved. He'd done his duty well, protected the princes and princesses who were finally all safely bedded down. He was relaxing with his men in the kitchen of "Castlemaine," dining on leftover food which Henderson Perry had graciously offered, when Aziz Jaouhari suddenly burst in.

"Something terrible, Hamid," he said. "There's been a murder at Villa Chapultepec."

Hamid jumped up from the table, and together they ran out to his jeep. As they drove down the Mountain toward the Beaumonts' house, he shot questions at Aziz.

"The victim?"

"All I have is that it's a European. The body's been disfigured. Supposedly it's a mess."

"Who reported it?"

"The resident caretaker down there. He heard some noises, then saw someone running across the grounds. He couldn't make out who it was, but decided to check the villa. He found the body in the salon."

"How could this happen, Aziz? We've had patrols on the Mountain all night."

Aziz shrugged. "There're no lights on the road. If someone knows the estates up here, he can cross the walls at will."

 
When they arrived at Chapultepec a truckload of police were already there. Hamid nodded to the cringing caretaker and walked straight through the house. It was a gruesome sight he found, the walls of the salon covered with blood, the nude body of a young European male lying on the marble floor. He'd been castrated, his stomach, chest, and face punctured numerous times. There was a trail of bloody footprints leading out through the glass French doors.

Aziz raised his hand to cover his mouth. "Do you know who he is, Hamid?"

"R
eally, you look terrible," said Hamid. "Worse than I've ever seen you."

It was eleven o'clock in the morning, two days after the murder of Hervé
 
Beaumont. They were sitting in Haifa Café , Robin with his back to the Straits of Gibraltar, Hamid facing the coast of Spain, cut off from sight by haze. A pregnant cat under the little iron table licked softly at Hamid's moccasins. Ramadan was due to end in one more day; then the new moon would come, and the feast of Aid es Seghir.

"Actually," said Hamid, still appalled by Robin's bloodshot eyes and the drained pallor of his face, "he was passive when we caught him. He made no attempt to struggle, and within five minutes he confessed. He took us to the place where he'd hidden the knife, under a rock in a cliff on the way to Cap Spartel. He was going to hide out in the mountains and then try to slip over the frontier. Inigo came around last night and asked to visit him in his cell. I refused, with mixed feelings I admit. There's something likable about the boy, though of course he's dangerous and mad."

Robin nodded. "I knew he was both those things. Inigo called him 'schizophrenic.' Last year he nearly cut off my balls. "

"You're still blaming yourself—"

"Of course, Hamid. I introduced them, encouraged Hervé . Told him it would be good for him, would clear up his confusion and straighten out his head."

"Well, Robin, you couldn't have known—"

"I did know. If I'd thought about it, just taken a minute and thought, I might have predicted the whole thing. I certainly knew that Hervé was in trouble, and that Pumpkin Pie was violent. I'm responsible, Hamid. I feel that I am. I knew what I was doing. Subconsciously I knew."

Robin thrust his head down on the table and began silently to sob. His body quivered and made the table shake. Hamid watched for a moment, then reached out and placed his hand on Robin's hair.

"Really, Robin, there's no point in assigning blame. I had this boy in my office on a vice charge last month. I could have locked him up. But I didn't. I was tired and let him go. Does that make me an accomplice? I really don't think it does."

Hamid wanted very much to comfort Robin, relieve his terrible distress. He didn't think he was responsible for the Beaumont murder—he put the blame on something else.

"It's not you, Robin," he said. "You're judging yourself too harshly now. This comes from something a lot deeper than your little immoralities, something sick, even evil, that exists in the expatriate milieu. People using people. Europeans and Moroccans competing for advantage. That sort of thing breeds rage, and when unstable personalities are involved we get violence just like this."

Robin calmed down after a while, stopped his weeping and raised his head. "I hate myself, Hamid. I detest what I've become. Ridiculous hustler. Phony poet. Trashy gossip. Despicable queer. The only thing I don't regret is that I've been your snitch all these years."

"Yes, that's something to be proud of—"

"I've been helpful to you, haven't I, Hamid? Devoted? I even helped you crack this case. I fingered Pie the moment that I heard."

"Oh, yes, you've been helpful from time to time. Certainly you're my favorite informer, though perhaps not the most reliable one I've ever had."

"Have you felt grateful toward me at times? Happy you let me stay?"

Hamid laughed. "I'm not sure grateful is the word. But yes—I'm happy I didn't throw you out years ago when I had the chance."

"Good. I'm glad." Robin looked into his eyes. "Will you do me a favor, Hamid? Something for old time's sake?"

"That depends. Tell me what you want."

"I want you to expel me from Tangier."

Hamid smiled. "Don't be ridiculous. You're not a prisoner here. If you really want to go, all you have to do is leave."

"That's the problem, damn it, Hamid. It's not so easy just 'to go.' "

"I don't see any difficulty about it. In fact, I think it's a fine idea."

"You don't understand. I've tried. For years I've tried. I've wanted to go for a long time. But I can't. My life here is too easy and set. If I go somewhere else I'm sure to have difficulties. The only way I'm ever going to leave is if you kick my ass."

Robin fixed Hamid with his most sincere and anguished gaze. Hamid searched his eyes for irony, and finding none looked closely at him and raised his brows.

"Let's be serious, Robin. I understand you, but you're not saying what you mean. You're perfectly capable of leaving Tangier on your own. What you want from me is something else. Not an order of expulsion. You want punishment. You want me to expel you as a punishment, to help relieve a little of your guilt."

"That's it, of course." Robin smiled. "You're so sensitive, Hamid, such a remarkable cop. I'm your Raskolnikov, and you're my Inspector Porfiry. You've read Dostoyevsky, of course."

Hamid shook his head. "I can't even get through our local authors. My reading is confined to dossiers."

"This one's worth the trouble. Crime and Punishment. It deals with subjects you know so well."

"Thank you. I'll try to find a copy. But getting back to your departure, where do you think you'd like to go?"

"Canada. Montreal. I have some friends there. I could probably find a job."

"Any family?"

Robin laughed. "They all disowned me years ago."

"What sort of job then?"

"Oh—journalism. I'd be a good police reporter, don't you think?"

"If you worked at it—maybe. Have you money for the trip?"

"Not now. No. But it wouldn't cost too much. I could catch a freighter out of Lisbon or Algeciras. One-way passage. I could raise it, I suppose."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. I don't know whether it's too late for me, but at least I'd like to try to start again."

"Then do it, Robin."

"Expel me and I will."

Hamid was disgusted. "So, we're back to that—the old Tangier tricks. You'll never have another sort of life, Robin, if you don't start right now and change."

"What?"

"Listen to me! Stop these stupid charades, these little Tangier deals you've been making all these years. 'I'll do this for you, Hamid, if you do this for me.' 'Let me stay and I'll be your snitch.' 'I'll save myself and leave, but you have to expel me first.' Such nonsense! Why don't you just do the thing straight out? I'll help you. I'll drive you to the frontier at Ceuta. I'll even lend you the money for your passage to Montreal. Tell me when and I'll escort you where you like. But I won't issue an order of expulsion or deal with you as a police inspector. Only as Hamid, your friend. How about trying that?"

Robin was startled. "You'd really do that for me, Hamid? I'm grateful. Really I am. That's good. Very very good."

They sat in silence for a while, smiling at each other, pleased.

"Do you want to leave this afternoon?"

"The sooner the better. Why not?"

"What about your stuff? Will you have time to pack it up?"

"I'll leave it. It's worthless anyway. Won't do me any good in Montreal. But there is one chore I have to do. I owe the
Dêpéche
a final column."

Hamid nodded. "Three o'clock then? In front of the Poste. But be sure and call me if you change your mind."

H
amid drove to his bank, picked up some money, then went on to his office to complete some work on the Hervé
 
Beaumont case. He signed a document that released the body to the sisters, who wanted to take it up to Paris on the evening plane. Then he phoned the prosecutor about Pumpkin Pie. He suggested the boy be taken to the asylum at Beni Makada so that the psychiatrists there could observe him for a week and report on their observations at his trial.

There were a few other small matters that claimed his attention—a velvet and silver-threaded cape stolen during the costume party at Countess de Lauzon's, and the beating of the estate agent Max Durand by a gang on the Mountain Road. Unruly gangs had been terrorizing foreigners for a month, but until now the Mountain had remained secure. Now, it seemed, even that enclave had become fair ground.

He ate no lunch, since the fast was still in effect. The thought that it was nearly finished made the deprivation less intense. At three o'clock he drove over to the main post office on Boulevard Mohammed V. Robin was waiting there with a small leather suitcase, his typewriter, and a tattered musette bag slung across his back.

"Is that all you're taking?"

Robin nodded. "Everything worthwhile," he said, sliding into the car.

Hamid took the coast road at Robin's request, through orchards of olive trees, then along the cliffs that lined the African side of the Straits.

"Write your column?" he asked as they passed Malabata point.

"Oh, yes, and I turned it in. Be sure to read it Saturday. In some ways it may be my best." Robin turned in his seat for a last look at Tangier. "You know," he said after the city disappeared from sight, "I've been away only a quarter of an hour, but already I want to reminisce."