Tangier (22 page)

"Ah—it's you, Inspector." Peter was in a jovial mood. "Just like old times. Now we see each other every day."

The Russian was busy straightening up his cigars. Hamid wondered how many hours he wasted arranging and rearranging things, how often he clicked the keys of his old French cash register to ring up a purchase or just to hear the little bell.

"If you're back about that matter we discussed the other morning, I told you everything I know."

"No, Peter, I'm not back about that. I'm here about something else. I want to know what you think you're doing, following Kalinka on the street."

Peter stopped fidgeting with the cigars. For a moment he seemed to freeze. Then he picked up a feather duster and began to move rapidly around the shop, flicking dust off the book racks and the counters covered with games and imported jams and cheese. Hamid stood in the center watching him, waiting for his reply.

"Well," he said finally, "have I embarrassed you? Are you going to answer my question or not?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Your question doesn't make any sense."

"All right, Peter. Forget I asked. But don't let me hear you've followed her again. I'm warning you. Every policeman in this country will stand beside a colleague when his honor is at stake."

Peter was still waving his duster, even more frantically than before.

"Why did you lie, Peter?" Hamid asked. "Why did you pretend Kalinka was your wife?"

Peter suddenly stood still. Then he lowered his head. "Please," he said, "I so want your respect."

He raised his head again, showed his face, so that Hamid could see the moisture glistening in his eyes. For a moment Hamid felt ashamed that he'd been so harsh, but then he wondered if these tears were only another one of Peter's tricks. Kalinka said he liked to play with people, keep secrets from them, then laugh at them and call them fools behind their backs.

"Who is Stephen Zhukovsky?" he asked, as gently as he could.

"Oh, my God! Don't ask me questions. You have her now. Isn't that enough?"

Hamid moved close, grasped his shoulders, forced him to look into his eyes. "I'm not trying to hurt you, Peter. I don't wish you harm in any way. But I must know. I have to know what this is all about. These pretended marriages. These secrets. You must tell me everything now."

Peter's eyes were squeezed shut, tight behind the lenses that magnified his tired lines. Hamid let go of him and stepped back. Just then he heard the bell that rang whenever a person entered the shop. He turned. The American Consul, Daniel Lake, was there, staring at them from the door.

"Excuse me," said Lake. "I didn't mean to—"

Peter rushed to him, shook his hand, then took hold of his arm and faced Hamid. "You know Inspector Ouazzani, Dan."

"Yes. Of course."

Hamid nodded. The three of them stood awkwardly, staring at one another with simulated smiles.

"Actually, Peter, I saw the light and—"

"Yes, yes, Dan. The Inspector was about to leave."

Hamid started toward the door. Lake mumbled something, then followed him into the street. "Nice night," he said. "Warmer now. Good for the gardens, I understand."

Hamid nodded. He wanted to get into his car, but the American, edging in front of it, had blocked his way.

"Thank you, Inspector, for being so kind this morning with the couple Foster brought around. He told me you were very patient with them. It's so sad about these runaways."

"We rarely find them. They go south, to the desert, or the beaches west of Marrakech."

"Well, we're appreciative just the same. I want you to know that. Foster's impressed with the way you handle things, even though you had him in a sweat a few weeks ago."

Hamid felt the American's hand slap down upon his shoulder. The gesture annoyed him. He moved back a step.

"Come on, Inspector. Surely you recall." Lake was grinning. "You told him you'd been watching him. You asked him what he was doing around a certain shop. He was pretty upset, I can tell you. He came to me. Asked me what to do."

"Oh? What did you tell him?"

"I reminded him of his diplomatic status here. I told him he wasn't under the control of the local police, that he didn't have to account for his actions to anyone but me."

"Very good advice, Mr. Lake."

"Yes, I think it was. But what I'm getting at is the remarkable way you do your job. Foster and I are both impressed by that. You'd observed him. You knew what he was doing. I'm told nothing happens in Tangier that you don't find out about pretty quick."

Hamid looked at Lake closely. He wasn't sure whether the Consul General was trying to fence with him or whether this curious turn in their conversation had been contrived to make some point. Perhaps Lake suspected he was being watched. Perhaps Zvegintzov had told him that he was.

"And Kalinka?" asked Lake suddenly. "Tell me—how is she?"

"I didn't know you knew her."

"We've never been introduced, actually, but she's been pointed out to me as one of the beauties of the town."

Suddenly Hamid was angry. "Perhaps, Mr. Lake," he said in a fierce whisper, "perhaps you've been gossiping too much with your Russian friend."

"Ah—you see!" Lake grinned. "Just as I told you. You do know everything, just as people say."

Lake turned away then, flushed with bravado. Hamid watched him chuckle to himself, then slip into his car. He was puzzled. The man had baited him. But why? What had he meant by it? Lake was not stupid, despite the odd way he babbled on, but there was something off center about him, something strange.

H
amid worked late that night shuffling through a stack of dossiers. He sorted out his cases, searching for coherence, but he could find nothing, no pattern, no sense of order in the town. A Nazi couple on the Mountain—Farid said they owned a Renoir. An American Consul General who leered at him like a fox. A Russian shopkeeper who begged him for respect. The streets were full of confusion. The summer was dry and hot. He was living with a woman, a foreigner, a cipher, whom he loved but could not understand.

Driving home very late, he noticed a car parked outside Heidi's Bar. Passing it, he had a quick look at a man inside, Inigo, the painter, shaking with laughter or perhaps in tears. As he drove farther, his headlights caught a pack of wild dogs running the deserted alleys near his street. In the flat he found Kalinka in bed, breathing gently, eyelids fluttering, safe in dreams and sleep. He stepped out onto his terrace and surveyed Tangier, listening to the clash of radios, each set to a different station, rebounding from the rooming houses all around. Dogs barked. The wind blew. Nothing was clear. The city was a labyrinth, a maze of pain and rage. He thought of people rotting away in decaying buildings, foreigners filled with violent passions, Moroccan children beating animals to death.

R
obin ran his hands over his stomach and chest. His whole body was bathed in sweat. He sniffed around—there was a pungent odor in the room. Old cat piss, he thought, brought to life out of his soiled rug by the terrific Tangier heat.

He stumbled to his sink, grabbed a towel, flopped back onto his bed, and mopped off. The heat was terrible, had closed Tangier in. He couldn't see Spain anymore from the roof of the Oriental, and the Rif mountains were lost in haze. All the rogue cats of the medina seemed to be in heat. At night their cries echoed in the alleyways, reminding him of sex and love and pain.

He'd been miserable for two weeks because of the heat, and bored too with the town. There'd been nothing, not a glimmer of a scandal, no material for his column at all. This was a recurring problem, and Robin knew what he had to do: stir up Tangier, force the city to act itself.

A
picnic
. He'd give a picnic and see what material developed out of that. He owed everybody anyway. A picnic would be a good, cheap way to pay them back.

He snatched up a pencil and began to make a list. Barclay, of course—he put down his name first. He didn't like Barclay but felt he had no choice—the man, for all his faults, would give his picnic cachet. But to make some trouble he listed Patrick Wax and Inigo, whom Barclay despised, then added Darryl Kranker because he was devious and sly, and Larry Luscombe, who'd been in a deep depression since his humiliation in May. He could have Joe Kelly too, he thought—that would annoy everybody, because Kelly was so awful and low—but he rejected that idea and crossed off Luscombe's name as well, afraid that when the others saw these two they'd make excuses and leave. He put down Bainbridge, so that Barclay would have an ally, and Sven Lundgren because the dentist was close to St. Carlton, and he wanted to be remembered when the couturier came to town. He thought a while longer, dabbing at his pencil with his tongue, then added the writer Vincent Doyle and Hervé
 
Beaumont, who'd recently confided that he was thinking of turning queer.

The next thing was to draw the invitation—something Barclay and Wax couldn't resist. He set to work, revising to achieve the proper effect. When he was finished he read his draft aloud:

Robin Scott most cordially invites you to a picnic to celebrate the summer solstice. Date: June 21. Time: 1:00 P.M. Place: By the rocks near Robinson Plage. Bring a salad and a Moroccan "friend." Everything will be shared!

That
, he decided, was irresistible. It was a stroke of genius to ask them to bring their bumboys. Before he went out to breakfast he scrounged up paper and envelopes and in an elaborate script wrote the invitations out.

He spent the morning delivering them, trudging up the Mountain in the heat. His last stop was Villa Chapultepec, where he also delivered a kilo of kif and persuaded Hervé
 
Beaumont to loan him glasses, skewers, and a tent.

That evening Patrick Wax stopped by his table at the Centrale.

"All chickenhawks, Robin?"

"With chickens too."

Patrick was delighted and blew him a kiss. Kranker came by a few minutes later and said he'd be there with his latest, Nordeen.

Over the next few days the others accepted—everyone except Barclay, but that, Robin knew, was his game. Barclay liked to create anxiety by being unpredictable, accepting and then not showing up, or not accepting and then arriving by surprise. He was the only man in town who could get away with that—the fault of the rest of us, Robin thought. Still, as much as he disliked him he desperately needed him to come, so he rang him up determined to get him and quite prepared to kiss his ass.

"Are you coming to my picnic, Peter?" he asked in an appropriately humble voice.

"Who's going to be there, darling? I know it's rude, but—"

"Everyone, Peter."

"
Everyone
?"

"Friends and enemies. That's the fun."

"With Mustapha too, you mean?"

"Of course, Peter. Of course."

"I'll think about it, dear, but forgive me if I don't turn up. I get headaches on the beach."

Robin thought then that he'd hooked him, but just to make sure he threw him another bone. "I really hope you bring Mustapha, Peter. It's so amusing the way Wax turns envious when he sees that boy with you."

Peter muttered something and rang off. Robin felt he'd escaped with his dignity intact, and without the gouged scar that was Barclay's usual price.

He was thinking hard then about saving money on the food. He considered buying horsemeat for the kebabs, but he knew the Moroccan boys would recognize it no matter how much salt and cumin he packed on. He decided against it, since one of them would surely tell, and then his more fastidious guests would retch.

He only wished he could invite his real friends—Jean Tassigny, the Beaumont girls, the Hawkins', Vanessa Bolton, Martin Townes. But his picnic was strictly confined to queens. The Moroccan boys would be prancing around in their skimpy shorts, and he expected biting insults and nasty repartee from his European guests. A mean and nasty social life was indispensable to his profession—a flaw, he knew, in his hugely flawed character, part of the aura of corruption he was trying to cultivate about his name.

On the morning of the solstice Hervé Beaumont came by to pick him up. They stopped at a cheap butcher shop, picked up wine and bottled water, then drove out to Robinson's beach. It was such a searing day that they immediately took a swim, then worked to set up the tent. Robin was clumsy with the pegs and stakes, and finally, after everything collapsed, Hervé
 
erected it himself. Robin lay in the sun for an hour in a pair of cutoff jeans. He knew his guests would be late, vying to make spectacular entrances, so he waited patiently and with a hopeful heart.

Percy Bainbridge was first. The Australian inventor brought an English boy, an ordinary tourist he'd picked up at a bar. This boy, he said, ran a poodle-clipping service in Liverpool, which fascinated Percy, who had the notion of turning dog's fleece into yarn. "That way, you see," he explained, "a master could have a sweater knitted from the hair of his very own dog. Think of it—master and dog in matching coats. It's just the sort of thing that could catch on."