As Time Goes By (3 page)

That was all. She hoped Rick would understand what
it meant, because she didn't.

She smiled at the clerk as she handed him the note.
He looked back at her with the same mixture of awe,
admiration, and desire that she had seen in the faces of
men since she was fourteen years old.

"For Mr. Blaine only," she said, gazing into his eyes
to make sure he wouldn't forget. "You understand?"

"You have my word on it, madam," said the clerk,
impressed.

Then she heard her husband's voice in her ear, felt his hand on her arm—"Hurry, Ilsa, hurry"—and she
was whisked away.

The waiting taxi sped them to their destination. They
boarded the London-bound plane and took their seats.
A pair of young, tough men, Slavs by the look of them,
got on with them. They said nothing to Victor, but Ilsa knew they were watching them.

As the plane took off, she brought her mouth to her
husband's ear: "Victor," she said, "let me help you
this time. Please." Laszlo, however, stared straight
ahead, his mind not on the present, but on the future.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

Rick reached across the seat and shoved Renault
hard. "Get down, Louie," he barked. "I've seen a man
get his head blown off, and believe me, it isn't a pretty sight."

Renault ducked. "I happily defer to your obviously greater experience in these matters," he said.

From the backseat, Rick could see that the two cars were about three hundred yards apart. As the Buick
roared along, the Mercedes no longer seemed to be
closing on them, but neither was it receding.

"What have they got, Sam? Tommies?" asked Rick
as their pursuers' bullets whizzed by.

"Prob'ly some new Krupp thing," demurred Sam,
two hands on the wheel. "Tommies is old now, boss,
or ain't you noticed?"

"Yeah, well, I wish we had one."

"You and me both," said Sam, eyes straight ahead.

"What've we got?"

"Your forty-five, Sacha's thirty-eight, my twenty-
two ... what you got, Mr. Louis?"

Renault unholstered his sidearm and looked at it, as if for the first time. "A thirty-eight," he said. "Not that
I've ever had to use it."

"Except to impress the girls," said Rick.

Sacha leaned out the window and squeezed off a
couple of shots.

"Cut it out, you idiot!" yelled Rick. "Never let 'em
know what you've got until you have to. If they know
all we have is pistols, they'll cut us to pieces."

"Sorry, boss," Sacha said.

The road to Rabat was pitch dark. The coastal fog
made the moon irrelevant. The only problem was that
the Buick was in the Mercedes' headlights and not the
other way around.

"Gimme a little distance, will ya, Sam?" ordered
Rick. "I'd like to see if I'm getting the horsepower I
paid for."

"You got it, boss."

Under Sam's urging, slowly but inexorably the
Buick pulled away. Three hundred and fifty yards, four
hundred yards ... Rick decided it was safe to stick his
head out the window.

"Is there a tumoff anyplace soon?" he shouted over
the roar of the slipstream. They might be able to outrun
the Mercedes, but then again they might not: a flat, an
accident. . . better to get the drop on the Germans if
they could and get it over with.

"There's always a turnoff, if you don't mind jungle," said Sam.

"Then turn off, damn it"
        

Sam spun the car so hard to the left that Renault
thought he would fly out the window. He was amazed
to see Rick sitting bolt upright and leaning out of the car as calmly as if he were at the track on a Sunday
afternoon, studying a racing form. Except that he had
a gun in his hand instead of a pencil.

"Gimme a count, Sam," said Rick as the car began
to rotate.

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi
..."

Steered and braked expertly by Sam, the Buick re
volved a full 360 degrees in a controlled skid, returning
to its original direction at the exact moment the Mer
cedes caught up with them.

"...three!"
  

The Mercedes was right beside them. Rick caught a glimpse of the amazed face of the driver.

"Laissez le bon temps rouler,"
said Sam.
   
^:

"Now, Sach'," shouted Rick.

The Russian and the American opened up on the
Germans. Sacha's shot put out the window on the driv
er's side. Rick's shot put out the driver's left eye.

Rick caught a glimpse of the gunman in the backseat
as the crippled Mercedes veered sharply to the right
and headed for the trees. The Nazi managed to get off
a couple of wild shots before they smashed into a grove
of mangoes.

The explosion sent an orange ball of flame into the
sky, scorching the fronds as it billowed. Sam slammed
on the brakes so they could survey their handiwork.

"Piece of cake, boss," he said as he backed up the
Buick.

The fireball was consuming most of the big Mer
cedes by the time they got there. Over each headlight
was a small flag bearing the emblem of the swastika,
now burning merrily. Rick could see that the car had
three occupants, but it was too late to help any of them.

"Nice shooting, boss," complimented Sacha.

"Fish in a barrel," said Rick.

"I never see fish in a barrel, boss." Sacha threw his
arms around Rick's neck. "Can I kiss you?"

"Get away from me, you crazy Russian," said Rick.

The fire burned for what seemed like an eternity. Pri
vately Renault wondered why they didn't drive on, but
Rick seemed disinclined to leave. He sat, head bowed, lips moving, but no sound emerging. Was he praying?
Rick Blaine was full of surprises this evening.

"Come on, let's go," Rick said abruptly. "We've got a plane to catch."

The Buick pulled back onto the road.

The glare from the burning Mercedes receded rap
idly in Sam's rearview mirror, which made him happy.
Sam disliked violence, even when it was necessary.
He'd seen enough of it.

"Very impressive, Ricky," said Renault. "And here
all this time I thought you were a simple saloon keeper.
Still waters indeed."

"That's just what I plan to be again someday," said
Rick, popping open his flask and taking another drink.
"As soon as this war is over."

"Somehow, my friend," said Renault, "I don't think
fate is going to let you. You are destined for greater
things."

"Don't count on it," said Rick.

Renault settled back into his seat. Now that the ex
citement was over, his mind was free to concentrate on
more important tilings. America attacked! He knew
that Rick was stunned. He had long suspected that
Rick's
c'est la vie
attitude was only a pose, a carapace
that covered a soft heart. Rick might have left his coun
try years before—why, he still had no idea—and
seemed loath to return, but he remembered the way
Rick had stared down the boastful Major Strasser and
the fawning consul Heinze when he'd advised them not
to try to invade certain sections of New York. As one
whose country had already fallen to the Nazis, Renault
sympathized, and his heart went out to his friend.

What did this mean for him? Since his first trip to
the gaming tables in Deauville—which, as luck would
have it, coincided with his discovery of
la difference
at age twelve—Louis Renault had believed that gambling
was a profession, not a pastime, and he regarded his
police duties as the unfortunately necessary surety that
enabled him to pursue a higher calling. Still, he much
preferred a fixed roulette wheel to actual games of honest chance. He had spent most of his adult life calculat
ing odds and acting on them, and up until a few hours
ago he'd been quite happy leaving his chips on the
Nazis' number and watching his winnings add up.
Now, though, he wasn't so sure. Which, he supposed,
was one of the reasons he was in this car instead of
back in Casablanca, enjoying the favors of some delec
table young lady whose lust for freedom coincided
with his lust for her body. A fair exchange, Renault
had always thought, and he'd made the pursuit of it his
life.

On the outskirts of Rabat, Sam swung around the
city. It would not do for them to be stopped by an offi
cious cop. Not in an American car with a Russian in the front seat, a Vichy police official in the back,
alongside the soon-to-be persona non grata Rick
Blaine. But the capital city of wartime French Morocco
was shrouded in darkness, and if anyone noticed their
passing, he wisely kept it to himself.

From Rabat to Port Lyautey was only about fifty
miles, and they made it in just over an hour.

They found Jean-Claude Chausson waiting for them
at daybreak at the tiny airfield a few miles outside the
city. He was standing beside a Fokker 500, which could carry several passengers, one pilot, and any sort of con
traband a smuggler's heart could wish for—and had,
many times.

"Allo, Monsieur Rick,"
said Chausson.

"How are you, Jean-Claude?" said Rick, shaking the
pilot's hand.

"Bored," came the reply.

"Let's see if we can do something about that," said
Rick.

Chausson was a Free Frenchman of decidedly anti-
Nazi sympathies. Rick had first met him in Spain, when
Jean-Claude was running arms to the Loyalists. Since
that defeat he had made a far more lucrative living run
ning unstamped liquor into French Morocco, much of
it destined for Rick's cafe, and guns wherever they
were most profitably needed. In Africa that was nearly everywhere.

"Give Sacha the keys to the car, Sam," ordered Rick
as they boarded the plane. "Take good care of her, Sacha."

"You mean the Buick or Yvonne, boss?" asked
Sacha with a leer.

"Take your pick," said Rick, as the plane's door closed. "They're both expensive."

The flight to Lisbon was uneventful. Portugal had
learned early in the conflict that not being interested in
the comings and goings of the people passing through was far more remunerative than worrying about either
their pasts or their futures. Some place had to be a port
of exit from Europe, and Lisbon was only too happy to
oblige. With Franco's neutral Spain as its buffer zone,
business was very good.

They headed straight for the Aviz, where Rick in
quired first about Mr. and Mrs. Victor Laszlo. Away
from the Nazis, he thought, they might finally be travel
ing together as husband and wife.

He was wrong. The head clerk, who bore a nametag that proclaimed his surname to be Medeiros, shook his
head sadly. "I am sorry to say we have no record of
them," he told Rick.

"Are you sure?" Rick asked as politely as he could.

"Very sure," replied Medeiros. He was not about to betray a lady's confidence so easily. "It is my job, after
all, to know who comes and who goes here."

Well, there was a Ferrari in every crowd, thought
Rick. "Try under a different name, Miss Ilsa Lund. Try
to remember the most beautiful woman you have—"

Madeiros didn't let Rick get any further. "Oh yes,
Miss Lund," he exclaimed with delight, and Rick could
see the memory of Ilsa in his eyes. A man didn't forget
a face or a figure like hers. "You are Mr. Richard
Blaine?" asked the clerk.

"The only one who'll admit to it," replied Rick.

"Then this is for you." Medeiros proudly handed
him Ilsa's note. "She left it for you not two hours ago."

Rick scanned it rapidly, then stuffed it in his pocket.
Following her trail, he was beginning to feel like one of the children in "Hansel and Gretel." He just hoped
the Wicked Witch wouldn't be waiting for them both,
somewhere in the dark German woods.