The Box (9 page)

Quinn took a deep breath and smelled the warm oiliness of something cooking. All right, I’m hungry. That’s what all this is about, and he walked through the doorway into a long, crowded room with long tables, short tables, and men sitting on benches. The men stared at him but kept eating or talking. They looked at him as if they knew who he was.

Quinn sat down next to a man who was slurping a stew. He was an old man who seemed to have only one tooth and his jaw churned wildly while he ate. When Quinn looked up, there was a boy standing next to him who said something in Arabic.

“You the waiter?” said Quinn. “Eat,” and he showed what he meant by pointing at the stew the old man was eating.

“Don’t order that stuff. It’s not any good.”

Quinn turned and saw Turk standing behind him. Turk smiled quickly, as if it were expected of him.

“Why? Is it dog?”

“Not the point, friend. That dish is very cheap. The price goes by how rotten the meat is.” Then Turk said something to the boy, and when the boy had gone Turk sat down opposite Quinn. “I ordered for you. Okay?”

“Thank you.”

“You were looking for me, huh?”

Quinn felt an unreasonable annoyance at the remark, but then he admitted, yes, he had been looking for Turk. He wanted to ask, how in hell did you know I was looking for you, but felt cramped with his anger and said nothing.

“He beats you up, he beats me up, so of course we meet,” said Turk, and his smile made it sound like a stupid joke.

“You’re talking about Remal,” said Quinn.

“Of course. He who had them beat you up.”

“You seem to know everything.”

“Almost.”

“Is that how you lost your teeth, he beat you up?”

“No. I was speaking in a manner of speaking,” said Turk. “He beats me in some other way.”

“What way?” said Quinn, but his stew came at that moment, and while the boy put the bowl down Turk did not answer.

“In what way?” Quinn asked again.

“How does a strong man beat a weak one?” said Turk. “He ignores the weak one. He beats me in that way.”

That’s got nothing to do with me, and the thought came to Quinn in a rush of anger. He took a spoonful of stew and burnt his mouth.

“I would do an errand for him here and there,” Turk was saying, “and I would see how badly run all his business really is.”

“The smuggling?”

“Yes. And I would make suggestions, try to advise him on how to do better, more money, more everything. Ek—” said Turk with a shrug and a face as if avoiding the touch of something disgusting, “and he would ignore me.”

“You’re a sensitive bastard, aren’t you?” said Quinn, but though Turk answered something or other, Quinn did not hear him. The night’s beating, the off-hand treatment by Remal—all that came back now as a clear, sharp offense, like a second beating, not of the body this time, but something worse.

Like I didn’t exist, it struck Quinn. And this time, without moving a muscle, a cold hate, which seemed very familiar, moved into Quinn, settled there and started to heat.

“He could be somebody to admire,” Turk was saying, “but, well, ek—” and he made his gesture again.

“You poor bastard,” said Quinn with a lot of feeling. “You poor bastard,” and he started to eat his stew.

“Oh?” and this time, with a smile, Turk laughed. “What about you, man from the box?”

The stew was over-spiced and had some offensive flavors in it, but Quinn didn’t taste a thing. He swallowed without chewing very much and stared at Turk.

“All I meant was,” said Turk very quickly, “here you are now, here you come innocent like a lamb…”

“Tell me something, Turk. Why do you hang around me?”

“Oh that? Well, you were new in town, I heard about you and…”

“Stop crapping me. What do you want?”

Turk shrugged and said, “Perhaps money Perhaps company. Perhaps nothing else to do.”

“Money. That’s the only thing that makes sense in your answer,” and Quinn thought, I can use this bastard. I can maybe use him—

“It is really simple and no mystery and no double-talk,” Turk explained. He felt he had better say something solid now and no more grinning and crapping around, as the American had expressed it. “I have heard, of course, about your background. Or at any rate, the talk that has been about you, that you must have been somebody with the big-business criminals in your country.

“Go on.”

“And, as you did find out this night, how Remal is perhaps worried about you…”

“Why?”

“An unusual arrival draws unusual attention.”

“I never did anything to him.”

“Ah, that is Remal. He anticipates.”

Quinn felt suddenly dangerous and important. He felt like an embarrassed boy about this, but the sense of drama remained.

“I felt,” Turk went on, “that if you are pushed, you push back.”

“You haven’t told me yet what you want.”

“Ek—” said Turk. “I would like to see how a man like you deals with a person like Remal. That’s all.”

You left out the money, thought Quinn. And for that matter, so have I, so have I—A month or more in this burg with really nothing to do, and there’s some kind of set-up here, no mistake about it, and maybe a thing to be made. But the thought did not really interest him.

Quinn touched the side of his face where he had been cut in the beating, and he touched there to feel the burn and the sting. He touched there to feel just how much he had been hurt.

And then, eating stew as if nothing else mattered, he got back more of the old habits. It happened that smoothly. The old habits of grab and kick, of anticipate, the sharp, quick decisions to be ahead of the game, any game, or somebody else would be playing it his own way which means, Quinn, you’re out!

“The strangest thing,” said Turk from across the table. “You look like a new man,” and of course he grinned.

For a brief moment Quinn felt confused, and then lost and sad. But it was too fast and he knew nothing clearly. And of course neither he nor Turk understood that there was nothing new about Quinn now, that he was no longer new at all.

They left the place because Quinn couldn’t stand the smell any more, after he was done eating.

“The hotel?” asked Turk, because he would have liked to go there.

“No. Some place here is fine. But I don’t want to have to sit on the same bench with everybody.”

“Ah. You have secrets.”

“No. But I want to ask some.”

They walked down the street, deeper into the quarter.

“I don’t get this,” said Quinn, “how a smart man like Remal will pull such a primitive stunt. He gets me beaten up right there where he doesn’t want me to look around, and then when I wake up he’s standing over me with a lantern.”

“Why do more?” said Turk and shrugged. “He just wanted you beaten. If you should want to know about Remal and his business, you can always find out. He did not try to hide things from you, but he tried to tell you what happens if you interfere with him.”

“He’ll have to do better than that,” said Quinn.

“He can,” and Turk laughed. “However, at first, he is polite. We go in here.”

They walked into a cafe, a small room with small tables, and this time there was no grease smell and food smell but heavy clouds of blue smoke and coffee odor. Through an arch they went into a second room which was much like a basement, with one slit of a window high up, and the walls bare stone. Not many people sat here. Each round table had only two chairs, which looked intimate.

“To keep their secrets just a little bit longer,” said Turk, “merchants come here, and the traders from across this or that border.”

They sat down and leaned their elbows on the table. The waiter appeared and nodded to Turk.

“You know,” said Turk, “they have good little cakes here. Would you like some with a glass of liqueur?”

Quinn thought that sounded revolting and asked for a pot of tea.

“I’ll have the liqueur, with permission,” said Turk.

They ordered and then they sat, looking at each other. Obviously, thought Quinn, he and I want different things and we don’t know how to get together. He wants to import a Made in USA gang-organizer, which is ridiculous, and I want to be left alone by the likes of this Remal, and that sounds ridiculous too. I want more.

Quinn stopped there, feeling sick of thinking. He sipped his tea and looked at the other tables. The faces were shut, the gestures were fast. The heads were close to one another over the tables so that the talk would not go very far. They hiss like snakes, thought Quinn.

“Does Remal come here?” he asked.

“Sometimes. But not tonight. Tonight he is elsewhere.”

“And naturally you know where.”

“It’s no secret. He sleeps with the foreign woman sometimes. How is your tea?”

“Like hot perfume.”

“
Salut
,” said Turk, and tilted his little glass.

The liqueur was red and smelled like sugar and the tea was yellow and smelled like flowers. And I belong here, thought Quinn, like I belong in a box. Both don’t fit. But he didn’t think any of that through and asked something else.

“About Whitfield,” he said. “Is he very important? I mean, when it comes to Remal and his business.”

“I like Whitfield,” said Turk, “but I don’t like the other one.”

“I didn’t ask that.”

“
Salut
,” said Turk and finished his liqueur. “I admire Whitfield because he knows how to live with limitations. Remal does not, nor do I.”

“I asked you if he is important.”

“Whitfield is a dock, a very good company name, and he has a shortwave radio, all of which is important. Whitfield, however, is not. I like him,” and Turk put down his glass.

Bad Mohammedan, thought Quinn. He drinks.

Bad Westerner, thought Turk. He sits and does nothing, like me, but he feels badly about it.

It was then Quinn got up. “All right,” he said. “Show me the way out of here, Turk.”

“You are going home?”

Quinn paid the old man who waited on tables, slapped Turk on the arm, and said, “I want you to show me the quarter.”

“In Paris,” said Turk, “that type of remark used to mean only one thing.”

“I’ve never been in Paris. Come on.”

There was a second door which led from the room and Turk went that way. After the door came a passage which smelled dry and spicy.

“They belong to Remal,” said Turk, “some of these bundles.”

The passage had hemp-wrapped bales all along one side and the bales were tied with fiber.

“Contraband?” said Quinn. “I didn’t know spices were still smuggled.”

“It isn’t all spices. He smuggles everything.”

“Everything what? Tobacco, silk, alcohol, drugs, what?”

“Everything. These things here go tonight. Come.”

A wide-open set-up, thought Quinn. Remal, not being stupid, must he very powerful—

The passage led to the outside, but Turk stopped at a door between stacks of bundles. He opened it and went inside.

The room was for storage, Quinn thought, because of the barrels which were stacked by the walls. There was an oil lamp on top of a barrel and all the men standing around seemed to shift and move, though they stood quite still. The light dipped and bubbled and constantly changed the shadows. The men did not talk and only their clothes made small sounds. They were waiting.

Quinn sucked in his breath, trying not to feel shocked.

There was a small, low table and a very young girl lay on top of it. Quinn could tell that she was very young because her long robe was pushed all the way up. It was bunched up under her arms and under her chin where she held it with her hands. She had small, brown hands, like raccoon paws. One man stood at the end of the table where he held the girl by her hips.

“All of them?” said Quinn, and he heard himself whisper.

“It’s all right,” said Turk. “She goes on the boat.”

“The what?”

“Tonight’s boat. I told you that Remal trades in everything.”

The man at the table wore a wide burnoose which covered all of him. When he leaned more and gripped the girl hard, his shadow suddenly flapped up the wall like a bat, up the wall and over the ceiling. Then it collapsed again and went away. The man stepped away and there was shifting and murmuring. The girl stayed on the table.

“You are a guest,” said Turk. “They say if you would like to he next then you don’t have to wait.”

“No. Thank you,” said Quinn.

He didn’t say anything else but felt pressure inside from the sight he saw there—the girl on the table who acted as if she were not there, the men in the room, and things like ropes and wires, perhaps the most delicate parts of which they were made.

And Remal trades in this. I drop out of a box, thin-skinned like a maggot, and a cold bastard like Remal, moving the ropes and wires inside his anatomy, steps on me.

“Let’s go,” said Quinn, and looked for the door.

There was a door to the outside and Turk pushed it open. The girl looked up at Quinn when he walked past and then closed her eyes. There was sweat on her forehead and one of the men, with the end of his burnoose, gave a dab to her face.

And that doesn’t change anything either, thought Quinn. It looks almost human, that gesture, but it changes nothing.

He stood outside in the alley, wishing he could smell the desert which was not far away There probably is no smell to the desert, he thought. He shivered with a sensitivity which was painful. Like a goat, that’s what she looked like. Even after she closed her eyes. That’s how he treats everybody, like Quinn the goat, like a piece of meat hanging down from a nail—

“Perhaps you would like…” Turk started, but he didn’t get any further.

“When are they done in there, with the girl?”

“Done? I don’t know. The boat, I think, doesn’t leave until after midnight. If you would like…”

“I want her.”

“Alone? All right. But I could get you…”

“Shut up. Get that one. Borrow her. Pay the captain for the loan of the cargo he’s got on the table there.”

“That won’t be necessary, I don’t think. Just a little token, perhaps, but there is no real price.”

“But there will be,” Quinn said to no one in particular. “There most certainly will be,” and he wiped his face because he was sweating again, feeling a sharp, sudden anger.