East of Suez (25 page)

“Yeah, me and Dracula stay clear of the sun. Don’t shit me, man, are you goin’ to get your white ass shot up if I pull the plug for a few hours?”

“Give me your number. I’ll try to keep in touch.” We exchanged phone numbers and got back in the car. After another ten minutes, I was imagining myself peeling off my rumpled tuxedo and climbing into bed. In fact, I did only the latter. I went directly to sleep. I didn’t pass Go. I didn’t collect two hundred dollars.

TWENTY

THE COFFEE BY MY BED
was still hot when I got to it. The croissant was fresh inside the golden crust. I reached for my Memory Book and gave the front desk the number I’d taken down from Fiona’s phone last night. Or was it two days ago? When did I arrive, anyway? Time was swimming in my head like a hard-boiled egg in chicken soup. Maybe it was the earliness of the hour, I thought, and checked my watch. I’d slept in again. While waiting for Fiona to pick up the phone, I rehearsed in my head all the things going on: my “dead” client, her dead husband, the treasure in the tea tin. It helped. So did another swallow of coffee.

“Hello?”

“Fiona, it’s Benny. Have you heard from your former roommate?”

“What time is it? I must have fallen asleep.” I glanced at my watch and worked out the time. As I was doing it, I was aware that I had just checked the time, but I had no memory of what I had found out. That was the way it was with almost everything. I was getting bored with my affliction.

“About ten after one in the afternoon. Have you heard anything?”

“Sorry, Benny. Not a word. And I’ve been home all day. I’m worried. This isn’t like her.”

“Look, I want you to be careful who you let into your apartment.” Here confusion smacked me again between the eyes. Fiona was at her own place, not at the apartment she had shared with Beverley some time ago. She was at the place by the gate. By the drum tower.

“I keep the door locked. Why are you warning me?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you. Okay? You have my number here at the hotel?” I gave it to her again. She repeated the digits after me in a child-like way. Rather appealing. Before I hung up, I asked my question in reserve. “Did the people who used to run the diving excursion place down on the harbor—”

“You mean the Granges, Vicky and Jake?”

“Yeah, I think so. I keep forgetting their names. Did they have a place back of town, up in the mountains? I ran into some people who were talking about such a place.”

“That’s right. They called it ‘Barnaby,’ for some reason. Lovely place. You can see for miles out to sea.”

“What happened to it since they died?”

“Nothing, as far as I know. Talk to their lawyer. I can’t remember his name at the moment. I’m catching it from you. German-sounding name.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Do you know how to get there?”

“You go up the mountain road, past the first leveling-out place, then you climb for another mile or so. There’s a chainlink fence. You don’t see many of those. The house is painted to look like a Swiss skiing chalet—blond wood and cuckooclock trim. Are you thinking of going up there?”

“I might,” I said. “I’ll bet it’s cooler than down here.”

“It’ll be heaven to be out of the heat.” She gave a bad reading of the line, as though she didn’t believe it.

“Would that lawyer have keys?”

“I suppose. Most likely they’re somewhere under a brick near the door. You know the way Canadians are.”

“Great! I’ll be talking to you. Keep the door locked.”

“If I sniff trouble, I’ll bang out a tattoo on the old drum. If it still works.”

I still didn’t have a clue, but there was a new direction looming, marked “hold” for the moment.

I returned to the croissant crumbs. I was thinking what a sensible idea a continental breakfast is, when the phone went again. “Yes?”

“Ah, good! I’ve caught you in.”

“Father O’Mahannay! How are you?”

“Forget the banalities, Benny. You are in trouble. I saw it from the start. No matter. You need a safe place to stay. I have room here at the school. It’s not the Ritz, mind, but most of our guests survive the night. Where you are? I don’t want to think about it. Do you know where to find us?”

“I’m afraid your place is one of the sights Billy
didn’t
show me.”

“No matter. I’ll send Father Graham around. You can talk about old movies on your way over here.”

“Thank you, Father, but I don’t think the cops are baying at my door yet. Apart from our little circle last night—was it last night?—I haven’t broken my cover all over town. I’ve got a little time here, I think.”

“Well, you know best, I suppose. I never took you for a tourist, dear boy. Not for a minute. Most people plan ahead when they come here, they wear their preparations for everybody to see. You came with no holiday kit, nothing bought for the trip.”

“You should change places with me. You’re better than Father Brown.”

“I’m not an admirer of Gilbert Keith Chesterton; the clues orchestrate the plot, instead of the other way round. He reminds me of Hemingway on a bad day.”

“Yes, of course
you’d
know that. But I didn’t tell Beverley Taylor about your alter ego, Jaime Garcia Ruiz. She’s trying to track you down. At the moment, she thinks it’s Billy Savitt.”

“She’s the least of my worries. I’m glad you know. But it’s our secret. And you have worries yourself, dear boy, far more serious than mine.”

“Father, I want to thank you for your offer, but I can’t take you up on it just yet. Some things are getting clearer. My gaffe the other night started an avalanche, but without it, I might have been here till Christmas.”

“Benny, there are people here who want to see you dead. I can’t put it more plainly than that.”

“Sorry, Father, I wish I could lie low. After the fiasco at dinner the other night, my useful days here are numbered.”

“Your
days
are numbered, whether they are useful or not. But I won’t argue with you, dear boy. You think you know best. Maybe that’s so. But being wrong won’t stop you. You’re like a bit with the horse in his teeth, dear boy. In such a case, the horseman’s only along for the ride. Good luck to you and God bless.”

“Thanks again, Father. I may need that blessing.”

The line sounded very dead after O’Mahannay had hung up. After listening to hear whether there would be a second click on the line, I hung up and returned to my makeshift feast. Before I had finished mopping up the rest of the crumbs, the phone rang. I was told that a Mr Fisher was downstairs. Discovering that I was already dressed, I washed my face and hurried down to the lobby.

It was marginally cooler in the little room with its writing desk and assorted stuffed chairs and sofas, along with enough potted ferns to stock a funeral home.

“What’s happening?” Clay looked like he hadn’t been to bed.

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

“You forget, man, I’m like Dracula. I told you that already.”

“Then you should be in your tomb now. Fiona says that her former roommate hasn’t called.”

“Yeah. Figures. But that don’t mean she’s dead. She may be hiding out.”

“And she may have been detained by the police. By now they’re interested in who killed Ranken.” I thought about that for a minute, then continued out loud. “If she was there when they killed Ranken, why didn’t they off her at the same time?” Clay shook his head. “Maybe she knows something they want to know.”

“Could be.”

“Hell, this is a bad place to try to keep a secret in, especially when the heavy dudes want to know real bad. The torturers of the world cut their teeth in this neighborhood, Ben.”

“Torture Beverley? Would they? I mean, torture a
foreign woman
?”

“You promoting sexism, Ben? Some dudes would cut up Miss America for a dime.
Vive l’égalité!
You can afford to have ethics when the kids have had the braces off their teeth and have graduated from college.”

“Are you going to go into politics next? Let’s try to unravel one problem at a time. Cooperman, think! Simple things first. Are you playing tonight?”

“Yeah. Same gig you walked through. What’s on your mind?”

“I was thinking of a drive out of the heat and into the mountains.”

“You want the Morgan?”

“I’d love to drive your Morgan, but I can’t. I don’t have any papers, neither local nor foreign. I don’t want to take a chance. It can wait.”

“You want to go now, I can drive you. So long’s I’m back for the first set. You dig?”

“I’ve already imposed on you enough.”

“Please, Ma’rs Benny, put down that whip! Where you wanna go?”

“There’s a house back of town, up in the hills.”

“Hell of a time to be getting into real estate.”

“I’ll fill you in on the way. Maybe we should get something to eat first. We can talk while we’re eating.”

TWENTY-ONE

THE ROAD OUT OF TOWN
was dusty and crowded with all colors and sizes of people: single people laden with bags stuffed with produce, family groups carrying ballooning bundles or hefting an ancient stove between them. Dogs ran barking through the throng without getting more than a kick or two for their trouble. Motorbikes and scooters hooted their way into the crowd no less heavily laden than the backs of the pedestrians. They pushed their way along streets that ran steadily uphill, carving a path between battered tenements that lined the streets. Women on balconies, infants strapped to their backs, watched our progress as they stretched bed sheets out to dry.

We made slow progress inside this mob, which grudgingly parted for us like a Red Sea made of molasses. In the small car, we presented an easy target. It wouldn’t have taken much organized effort to push the little Morgan off the road. I was glad that Clay had a light touch with the horn. A sweating young girl, her earthly goods attached to a tump-line, jumped on the running board on my side of the car and we continued up the hill with the white teeth of her neighbors grinning at her audacity. She was healthy and lovely with spirit enough for ten. She clung to the side of the car for a kilometer up the slope and then jumped down to the road again, sending us a mischievous grin.

I had filled Clay in on the reason for this trip into the hills. While he made a telephone call we gassed up the Morgan. He didn’t have any immediate comment, but I could see that he had a bellyful of questions. When we had outpaced the crowd of pedestrians and most of the wheeled motor traffic, I asked him what was bothering him.

“Benny, you know I’m your man on this thing, but damn it all to hell, what do you think you’re goin’ to find up there? You don’ know that girl’s up there, do you?”

“I don’t know anything for sure, Clay. And I appreciate your coming to give me moral support.”

“Cut out the horseshit, man. You sound like a lodge meetin’ I walked out of.”

“All I meant was, I’m glad you’re around.”

“Yeah, and this ol’ bus might blow a gasket on these hills. This is a gentleman’s car, Benny. It’s not made for rock-climbing.”

“They were a great little car in their day, weren’t they?”

“You know how far we are from spare parts, man? We may have to start walkin’ round the next bend in the road.”

As we climbed higher and higher we had the road almost to ourselves. Soon we passed the occasional car, a farm cart or two—one pulled by a bullock, right out of Kipling—and a few skinny men and women with their earthly possessions in jute bags slung about them. Now there were few buildings facing the road. What places there were were set well back from the road and looked tidier than the sort of thing we’d seen lower down the hill. If there is such a thing as architecture for the high country, this was beginning to be spelled out for us: bigger windows, more screened-in areas, less of that battered and handled look.

It seemed to become cooler with every kilometer. The built-up areas began to give way to copses and brush, at first plastered with litter and old pieces of clotted cardboard. Clay took a drink of water from a canteen he’d brought and passed it to me. To an observer, we might have looked like we knew what we were doing. But I knew that I hadn’t a clue. And what was a clue anyway? Something missing from its place, something there that shouldn’t be, something out of scale for the owner of the place? All of the above, but it was more than that. It was the place you forgot to look: an unopened drawer.