Casablanca Blues (2013) (14 page)

‘I need to speak to you,’ she said urgently.

He looked at her feet.

‘I clean those, OK?’ he said.

‘I don’t want my shoes done.’

‘
So
?’

‘So, I need some information.’

Choking into her hand, her face screwed up, Ghita took a seat at a booth. Saed sat down opposite.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ she said. ‘You want a Coke?’

The boy made a sign to the barman, and a pair of green bottles were slapped down on the table-top.

‘You’re far too young to drink that!’ Ghita said reproachfully.

‘No, no, no...’ Saed replied. Lighting a cigarette, he blew the smoke out to the side.

‘What would your mother think?’

‘I have no mother.’

‘Your father then... what would he say? I bet he’d spank you!’

‘I have no father. No one to do spanking,’ said Saed, downing the first beer in one. ‘So I am free.’

Ghita’s disapproval eased. She lowered her head subversively, her thumb feeling the curved lines of her iPhone.

‘What do you know about the Falcon?’ she asked.

The shoeshine boy froze.

‘Nothing,’ he said quickly.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Keep away from the Falcon,’ said Saed, wiping the froth off his lip.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s had my father imprisoned for a crime he’s incapable of committing. I need to know where he’s being held.’

‘Then look for the police commissioner. You need him. Not the Falcon.’

Ghita frowned.

‘
Do I
?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he knows everything.’

Ghita’s eyes widened.

‘Should I give him
baksheesh
?’

The shoeshine boy waved a hand dismissively through the air.

‘No, no, just drinks. That’s what he wants.’

‘Drinks?’

‘Scotch.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I know everything... like the commissioner,’ the boy said, reaching out for the second beer.

Ghita tapped a manicured fingernail to the table.

‘And where does the commissioner drink his Scotch?’ she asked.

Saed winked at the ground.

‘Down there.’

‘Where?’

‘In the tunnels.’

‘What tunnels?’

‘The ones under the city. There is a world down there.’

‘Is there?’

Saed nodded.

‘You don’t know that?’

‘Apparently not,’ Ghita replied curtly. ‘When can I go there, to buy him the Scotch?’

The boy shook his head.

‘You cannot go there. Only... you know...
working
women can go there.’

‘Then will you go?’

‘Too young for Club Souterrain.’

‘So what can I do?’

‘Find someone else.’ Saed took a gulp of Flag, and lit a second cigarette off the end of the first. ‘The American?’ he said.

‘That imbecile? Oh, God no!’

‘One of your friends?’

Ghita’s expression soured.

‘I don’t have any friends,’ she snapped.

All of a sudden, Yankee Doodle Dandy blasted out from the iPhone. It was Mustapha.

‘
Chéri
, I came looking for you!’ said Ghita.

‘I know you did. My father told me.’

‘When can I see you, my dearest? Will you come for me?’

There was hesitation on the other end.

‘Ghita, I must inform you that... that...’

‘What?’

‘That our engagement is off.’

Sixty-one

There was the patter of feet moving up the darkened staircase. They weren’t heavy gruesome steps, the feet of a murderer or of a policeman, but rather they were nimble ones, making almost no sound at all.

Blaine got up, and hid himself in the shadows. He had the advantage, as his eyes had had time to adjust to the lack of light.

Taking the last step, Ghita paused. She was barefoot, heels in her hand.

‘Can I talk to you?’ said Blaine, stepping from a shadow.

Ghita let out a shriek.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Something terrible has happened... at Hotel Marrakech.’

‘What?’

Blaine tapped a finger towards the door.

‘I don’t want to be a burden,’ he said, ‘but could I come in?’

Without a reply, Ghita twisted the key back and forth in the old lock.

‘There’s something you should know,’ she said. ‘A little secret.’

‘Huh?’

‘Do you promise not to tell?’

Blaine wasn’t in the mood for games, but he agreed anyway.

They went into the vestibule and the American slumped down on the blood-speckled mattress. He was exhausted, so much so that he hardly even noticed the filth.

‘The secret,’ said Ghita. ‘It’s in here.’

She pointed to the wardrobe. Stepping inside it, Ghita jerked away the hatch at the back.

‘Follow me,’ she said.

Blaine did so, and found himself in the secret apartment. It was made all the more impressive by the low expectations.

‘I don’t believe this!’ he exclaimed, blinking.

‘I made a few adjustments, had the place spruced up.’

Lowering himself onto the couch, Blaine put his head in his hands.

‘I’m beginning to wish for a life with fewer surprises,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, this afternoon I met a Chinese backpacker. He was staying in the hotel, in the room across from mine. I was going to invite him out for a coffee at Baba Cool. So I went to his room. But...’

‘But what?’

‘But he was dead – throat slashed.’

‘
What
?!’

Blaine touched a thumb to his Adam’s apple and swallowed hard.

‘Just like in the movies.’

‘That’s terrible. What did the police say?’

‘I don’t know...’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I ran away.’

Ghita crossed the sitting-room to where the American was seated. She looked at him with disbelief.

‘You can’t run away. I mean... you mustn’t!’

‘I didn’t know what to do.’ Blaine paused, staring into space. ‘I feel so alone,’ he said.

Ghita held up a finger, a finger ending in a manicured nail.

‘I know what to do,’ she replied.

‘What?’

‘You must go straight to the police commissioner, and explain it all.’

‘But I can’t go to the police station. They’ll arrest me.’

The fingernail waved left, right, left.

‘I didn’t say go to the station,’ she said. ‘This is Morocco. You never go through the front door when you can go in the back.’

Lighting a scented candle, the wick flickering in the draught, Ghita lowered her head meekly.

‘I’m alone as well,’ she said. ‘My father’s been arrested, framed for an invented crime. I need to find out where he’s being held.’

‘What did he do?’

Pacing over to the fridge, Ghita took a bottle of chilled Pouilly-Fumé. She opened it, and poured a pair of large glasses.

‘Drugs,’ she said at length. ‘At least that’s what they’ve accused him for. They planted them.’

‘
They
?’

‘The Underworld. The gangsters... the ones who control Casablanca.’

‘What are you gonna do?’

Ghita took a gulp of wine.

‘Save my father. Then get revenge... I mean, justice.’

‘What’s your plan?’

Ghita looked sheepish. She topped up Blaine’s glass.

‘To get to the commissioner.’

‘The same guy who you’re saying I should go talk to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Isn’t that a coincidence... that he can help us both?’

‘Morocco’s like that,’ she replied. ‘Many roads lead to the same place.’

Sixty-two

At dawn the next day Hicham Omary was fingerprinted. Then, handcuffed and shackled, he was led out from the holding cells to a waiting prison van. It was raining, light drizzle, the sound of a distant ambulance siren breaking the silence.

Thirty armed officers had formed a circle around the van. They braced themselves as Omary shuffled towards them, as if he posed a serious danger to honest society. Struggling to walk in the chains, he was heaved up into the back, his head striking the top of the steel door-frame.

The morning’s copy of
Assabah
, the most popular daily, was folded on the bench seat. Omary saw the Arabic headline as he clambered onto the bench. It read:

GLOBALCOM PUBLISHES SECRET DOSSIER!

The doors slammed, and the vehicle moved away, rumbling out from an entrance at the rear. Threading its way through the backstreets, it was soon on Route El Jadida, heading south on the open road to Marrakech.

‘Where am I being taken?’ he asked the police officer opposite.

‘To a secure place.’

‘I need to contact my daughter.’

The officer chuckled.

‘Good luck with that!’ he said.

Sixty-three

The evening at Ghita’s secret apartment had been long, and loosened with much Pouilly-Fumé. Blaine found that chilled white wine was the best way of dealing with the fear, the fear of being hunted in a foreign land.

He and Ghita sat on either end of the long ivory-white couch, inching a little closer as the cool wine warmed them. Blaine suggested fleeing back to New York, but Ghita reminded him of the uncertainty likely to face him at the airport.

‘Only the police commissioner can help you,’ she urged.

‘But what if he arrests me right there and then?’

‘In an illegal drinking den?’ Ghita wagged a finger left and right. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because here in Morocco there’s such a thing as hospitality. If you are hosting someone, you have to protect them. It’s a duty, not a choice.’

A second time, Blaine suggested absconding home to New York, and Ghita switched on her charm. She stroked a hand down over his arm, looked him in the eye, and managed to coax a single tear to roll south over her cheek.

‘I need you,’ she whispered, as a second tear tumbled down in the wake of the first. ‘I need you more than I have ever needed anyone in my life.’

Sixty-four

Seven concentric walls separated the fortress prison from the natural mountain theatre that lay beyond. Topped with concertina razor wire, and with watchtowers at every corner, the camp was regarded as the most secure in the kingdom.

Its forty cells were located far underground, and were arranged in such a way that the prisoners had almost no contact with anyone at all. The solitary confinement was so absolute that most of the convicts went insane long before they roasted from the summer heat or froze from the winter chill.

Cell No. 3 was no larger than any other. It was eight feet square, floored in reinforced concrete, with an iron door leading out onto a slim corridor. The only source of light was a lamp recessed high on the wall, turned on and off depending on the whims of the duty guard. Most of the time it was left off, forcing Hicham Omary to endure the darkness.

Once each day a guard would arrive, open the inspection hatch, and push through a plate of second-rate food. Twice a week he would take out the slop, and shine a light into the inmate’s eyes – gauging whether lunacy had set in.

A man of steely resolution, Omary had learned when in life to act, and when to bide one’s time. He knew the moment of redemption would come, and that day-to-day survival was the challenge of the moment.

When the food came, he forced himself to choke it all down, even maggots. They were protein and protein provided strength – the currency of survival.

And through the frozen winter mornings the owner of Globalcom did push-ups on his knuckles to keep warm. From time to time he worried that Ghita may have been taken into custody as well. But, as he reasoned it, anyone foolish enough to mess with his daughter would get what they deserved.

Much of the time, Omary paced up and down, revisiting his life from the very start, as though it were a matinée show.

He thought back to the tenement block downtown where his mother had brought him up alone. And he recalled the playground fights and the split lips, the early hardship that had made him the man he was. Without the beatings and the bruises back then he would have been soft as mush like everyone else.

‘I am Hicham Omary,’ he said getting down onto his knuckles for the third time in a day, ‘the same Hicham Omary who rose from nothing – the Hicham Omary who can endure anything!’

Sixty-five

The next morning, Blaine woke up on the couch with a dry mouth and a throbbing head. He thought of Wu, the sight of his slashed neck and of all that fresh blood.

Then he remembered the postcard.

Riffling through his pockets, he found it, squinted at the writing and the scrawled map. The idea of holding an object that had belonged to Bogart would, in more normal circumstances, have filled him with wonder.

But the murder at Hotel Marrakech had left him unable to appreciate normality.

He sat on the couch, his bare feet pressed onto the antique Turkish kelim, and he took a deep breath.

Just then, Ghita came through from the bedroom, her hair damp from the shower. She smiled, said something kindly, but Blaine didn’t hear. He was staring into space.

‘Can I make you some coffee?’ she said, repeating herself.

‘Huh? What? Oh, yeah, thanks.’

‘How do you take it?’

Blaine turned, but his eyes didn’t change focus.

‘I have to get home to America,’ he said, all of a sudden. ‘I’m not safe here. I don’t know what I was thinking. Casablanca,
the
Casablanca isn’t
my
Casablanca. It’s not the movie. It’s nothing like it – there’s no Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, or Paul Henreid. There’s no Vichy Regime or refugee crisis, no German soldiers, or spies, or Rick’s Café.’

Ghita passed Blaine his coffee.

‘But there’s danger,’ she said.

‘That’s the understatement of the decade.’

‘I’m just thinking of protecting you,’ said Ghita. ‘In Morocco protection comes from people with power, and that’s why we need to find the police commissioner.’

The American hunched forward gloomily.

‘I know you’re in a tight spot, with your father,’ he said, ‘but I could be implicated for murder. This is a foreign country, and I’m out of my depth.’ He paused, lifted his face, his eyes swollen with fatigue and with fear. ‘Hell, haven’t you seen
Midnight Express
?’ he asked.