Casablanca Blues (2013) (2 page)

Every inch was filled with memorabilia.

There were cabinets packed with
Casablanca
knick-knacks – mugs, albums, and snow-globes, miniature figurines of the leading cast, medallions and cheap plastic giveaways. There was Humphrey Bogart soap – still boxed, a stack of
Casablanca
playing cards, and a large-scale model of Rick’s Café.

The walls were covered in framed posters, each one emblazoned with the movie’s title and its cast. And, on the far side of the room, to the left of the couch, was an enormous neon sign in vivid scarlet. Every few seconds the cursive script came alive, bathing the dim room in a warm comforting glow.

Without thinking, Blaine clicked a fingertip to the remote, took a swig of his beer, and sat back as he did each night to munch his way through the Hungry Hombre meal for one.

The neon flickered on and then off, as the movie’s title sequence rolled in black and white.

And, with Blaine moving on to the Hungry Hombre dessert, there came the title of that inimitable destination –
CASABLANCA
.

Four

An army of liveried caddies was lined up and ready at the Royal Casablanca Golf Club, each one more neatly turned out than the last.

There was a sense of utopia, as if the pristine buildings, the caddies, and the course, were somehow set apart from the urban sprawl that lay just beyond the club’s boundary wall. It was a mystery how the management achieved it, but the noise and pollution from the churning, seething Casablanca gridlock never managed to disturb the serenity of it all.

Three men were standing in conversation at the tee.

The first, Hicham Omary, was a media mogul and the father of Ghita, society’s most demanding débutante. The second was Walter Schwarzkopf, American ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco. And the third, Driss Senbel, was a leading lawyer, and the kind of man who had made a career from ensuring that A-list oligarchs remained firmly above the law.

Stepping forward, Senbel glanced at his Patek Philippe.

‘Let’s get going. Shall we toss?’

‘Better wait five more minutes, until it’s eight o’clock,’ said Omary. ‘You know how the club is with its rules.’

Senbel waved a hand easily through the air.

‘It’s all taken care of,’ he said. ‘I tipped the greenskeeper. We can tee off whenever we like.’

Omary frowned for the second time that morning.

‘But surely bribery
is
against club rules,’ he said curtly.

‘Nonsense. It’s just oiling the wheels of the economy.’

‘You mean you were helping to rot the foundations of society.’

Slipping on his glove, the ambassador swivelled to face Senbel.

‘I’m with Hicham on this one,’ he said. ‘Every payoff you give cripples this country a little more, turning good people into bad. You’re scorching the roots of honest society.’

Driss Senbel tossed a shiny new ten-dirham coin, and waited for it to fall onto the perfectly clipped grass. Squinting at the King’s head, he smiled smugly, stepped up to the tee.

His caddie passed him a driver.

‘Are you crazy?’ he said as an afterthought. ‘If people like us stop oiling the wheels, the country would grind to a halt. I’d give it a week, possibly two. Then...’

‘Then what?’

‘Then there’d be anarchy.’

When the lawyer had swung, Hicham Omary stepped forward. His mind wasn’t on golf. It had been on curbing the extravagances of his wayward daughter, but now it had shifted to the subject of corruption. Despite his strong feelings against it, he knew full well there was nothing even he could do to alter the age-old order of things.

‘I have to admit it, but I reluctantly agree with Driss on this,’ he said apologetically. ‘It’s the system, and the system’s not going to change whatever we say or do.’

The ambassador nodded to his caddie, who passed him a wood.

‘What if you were both to refuse to pay any more bribes?’ he asked. ‘No more
baksheesh
for the cops, or for the government officials, or any of the other social detritus who demand it?’

Senbel took in the crystal dial of his wristwatch again. He sighed.

‘I’m telling you,’ he said, ‘there’d be a revolution within a matter of days!’

Five

Humphrey Bogart was carousing with his clientele, the smoke-filled Rick’s Café Américain in full swing, when Bergman strolled in. His head nestled into the beige fur of the couch, Blaine mumbled each line just before it was delivered.

He knew every one.

All of a sudden his cell phone bleeped. Taking in the display, he moved it in an arc to his ear.

‘Hey sweetie, how was your day? Got some painting done? Oh, that’s great.
Mine
? No thrills. Just a thousand calls to geriatric serial killers, psychopaths and the suicidal. Long live Drain-O-Sure!’ Blaine paused, grinned, his attention fading. ‘OK. Great,’ he murmured, ‘see you in a bit.’

Fifteen minutes later there was a faint knock at the door.

A pretty redhead kissed Blaine on the lips as she moved through the doorway and into the sitting-room. She was panting lightly, not from lust but from the climb. Behind her back was a square object the size of a bathmat. It was covered in a paint-spattered cloth.

‘I’ve got something special for you, sweetheart,’ Laurie said. ‘A surprise!’

‘A surprise? You know how I have trouble with surprises.’

‘Go on... guess.’

‘I give up.’

Blaine grinned his trademark grin, his cheeks pink and full. As he did so, Laurie whipped away the cloth, smudging the monstrous purple canvas beneath. Blaine didn’t react. Not for a long time.

‘D’you like it, hon?’

‘Um.’

‘You hate it, don’t you?’

‘Er.’

‘Tell me... tell me the truth...’

Blaine took the artwork and laid it against the far wall. He glanced at his hands, which were purple.

‘I thought you could move Bogey and put it up there – you know, in pride of place.’

Blaine froze.

‘
Move Bogey
?’ he mouthed incredulously.

‘Yeah.’

‘Sweetie...’

‘Yeah?’

‘Bogey’s not going anywhere.’

Straightening her short slender body to seem taller than she was, Laurie glowered.

‘It’s damn well time you got over this whole
Casablanca
baloney!’ she spat. ‘It was just a B-grade Hollywood flick for God’s sake!’

Blaine felt his bloodstream fortify with adrenalin. His cheeks flushing, he paused the movie, as if not wanting to subject the cast to a domestic squabble. Then, holding his purple hands into the light, he scowled towards the far wall.

‘And that... that
thing
... that swirly purple gunk... You’re meaning to tell me that you’re passing it off as
art
?!’

In a flood of tears, Laurie snatched her creation to her chest. Unsure of whether to attack or retreat, she chose the first option.

‘At least it’s alive and it’s... it’s... it’s spontaneous!’ she snarled. ‘Two things you could never be accused of being! I wouldn’t let you keep it if you were the last man on earth! You don’t know how to appreciate art... you don’t know how to appreciate a woman!’

Six

Hicham Omary fed the beige calfskin steering wheel of his limited edition Jaguar through his fingers in a turn.

His concentration was not on the road, but on the conversation that had dominated the morning’s game, the subject of endemic corruption.

Halfway between the golf club and his home, a distance of a mile, he was flagged down by a uniformed police officer. Rolling his eyes, Omary eased the car to a halt, and lowered the window.

‘Good morning sir, you made an infraction back there,’ said the officer, his accent from the Mediterranean shores of the north.

Hicham Omary groped in his pocket for a hundred-dirham note. Expertly, he used his left hand to fold it once and then again. And, in a much-practised movement, he leaned sideways so as to insert the square of paper into the policeman’s cuff – thereby avoiding his hand.

But, just before the bribe was delivered, he froze. The officer winced. He hadn’t yet received the money.

‘Look at me,’ said Omary out loud. ‘I’m as guilty as all the rest.’

‘You made an infraction, sir,’ the officer repeated.

‘So give me a ticket.’

‘But...’

‘But, what?’

‘But, sir, there’s another way to sort out the situation.’

‘And how would that be?’

The official frowned, fumbling for his pen. No one ever agreed to pay the fine. After all, the standard bribe was a quarter of the price and executed in a fraction of the time. The last thing any policeman wanted to do was paperwork. In the time it took to fill out a single form for an infraction he could bring in ten times as much in bribes – cold hard cash he got to keep.

Omary held out his wrists.

‘Let’s go to the police station,’ he said. ‘I’m all yours!’

Seven

Another bright Brooklyn morning, the blue sky masked by the slate grey walls of Acme Telesales. Seated at desk 52, Blaine slipped on his headset and got down to coaxing random New Yorkers into bulk-buying Drain-O-Sure.

‘Good morning, sir. I’m calling about your drains.’

Click
.

‘Hello, ma’am... do you have a smell in the kitchen that won’t go away?’

Click
.

‘This is your lucky day, Miss – a Drain-O-Sure day!’

Click
.

Just as Blaine was about to make the next call, the supervisor strode up, clipboard in hand.

‘I want to see you in my office right away, Williams!’

‘I’ve got five more calls to make before my break. That OK?’

‘No, not OK!’

‘Huh?’

‘You’ve been suspended!’

‘
Suspended
? What for?’

‘You know what for... for that email to the shareholders... for damn well claiming that Drain-O-Sure’s a con!’

Tugging off his headset, Blaine wiped a hand down hard over his face.

‘But Mr. Seldon, we’re preying on the elderly and the vulnerable. We’re touting a product that’s nothing but watered-down bleach... It’s shameful and it’s probably illegal as well.’

The superintendent whispered into a miniature microphone on his lapel.

‘What’s going on?’

‘You’re being terminated. Right now. That’s what’s going on.’

‘What?!’

‘Clear out your stuff, Williams. Security’s on their way up. I want you out of the building in ten minutes!’

Eight

A pair of size six Jimmy Choo black crocodile stilettos crossed the lawn, the heels sinking down into the grass as they went. Strapped tightly into them, Ghita Omary struggled to stay upright. She reeled towards a group of caterers who were huddling at the far end of the garden.

‘No, no, no! You imbeciles!’ she cried, her arms flailing for balance. ‘What are you doing with those lights? They’re not supposed to be there! And change those tablecloths at once! Where did you get them – from a prison?! I don’t want cotton. I want the finest silk!’

The caterers jerked to attention. They were surrounded by toppled stacks of chairs, piles of trestle tables yet to be assembled, and by miles of crumpled fabrics. One of the men, the bravest and also the most senseless, wagged a finger towards Ghita.

‘We’re just following orders, Miss,’ he said.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on the grass, his thigh having been pierced with a size six Jimmy Choo in black crocodile.

In one slick movement, Ghita withdrew her bloodied weapon, slipped it back on her foot, and turned to greet her father, whose Jaguar was purring into the drive.

‘Baba! Sorry, but you can’t park there,’ she called loudly. ‘The champagne delivery is about to arrive.’

Hicham Omary might have protested, but he was used to being dealt orders by his daughter.

Parking beside the kitchen door, he closed his eyes and found himself in a simple bare-walled apartment in an old Art Deco walk-up somewhere far downtown. For a moment there was silence, and simplicity.

Ghita opened the car door, and her father’s memory vanished.

‘I’m working with idiots, Baba!’ she exclaimed, dabbing a lace handkerchief melodramatically to her eye. ‘I don’t know what to do. One tiny mistake and tongues will wag. You know how they are – like vipers.’

‘Dearest Ghita, it’s only an engagement,’ Omary said as he climbed out of the car, touched with a sense of déjà vu.

‘
Only an engagement
? And we are
just
ordinary people, are we?’

Before her father could reply, Ghita clapped her hands, the soft skin of her palms anointed twice daily with a moisturizer from the Savoy Alps.

‘I shall need some cheques, Baba,’ she said, a tone of sternness in her voice.

‘
Some
?’

Ghita calculated. Maths was never her strong point. She quickly lost count, and then frowned.

‘Just sign me the entire book, and leave them blank... I have lots of people to pay.’

Standing on tiptoes in her Jimmy Choos, she pecked her father on the cheek, her lips leaving a smudge of Chanel Rouge Allure.

‘Baba, what would I ever do without you?’ she said.

Nine

A short stout man with a waxy face and a week’s growth of beard was standing in the shadows outside apartment 5B. The kind of figure you would never pick out in a police line-up, there was nothing at all memorable about him.

Blaine knew his landlord was waiting there in the darkness before he reached the landing. He could smell him, even against the stench of rotting eggs – he reeked of Turkish cigarettes.

‘Good evening to you, Mr. Rogers,’ he said, taking the last pair of steps in one. ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?’

‘I’ve had enough!’ the landlord growled. He limped backwards a pace until resting a shoulder on the wall.

‘Enough of what?’

‘Of your chasing away my potential tenants! You make this place sound like it’s out of
Silence of the Lambs
!’

Blaine untied the belt of his raincoat and got out his key. Without thinking, his thumb ran down the notches and he turned it the right way up for the lock.