Tangier

by William Bayer

  Still there were things to do, distractions from his thirst. He'd just received orders to put aside his outstanding cases. Members of the royal family were due in Tangier at eight o'clock, and their security had to be arranged. Aziz had made up a special duty roster and was out now fetching a map of the Mountain Road. Soon the two of them would sit down, mark it up, decide where to post the men. The problem, as always, would be to protect the corridor through Dradeb.

  Laurence Luscombe made his way down Rue Marco Polo, tilting back his body as he walked. The narrow little street was steep and treacherous; he was careful not to trip. The bright lights of Avenue d'Espagne lay ahead. It wasn't night yet, but it was Ramadan and someone had forgotten to turn them off.

  He whistled "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" to keep his courage up. Across the tracks, lining the beach, were the little bathing clubs, the bars and restaurants, and the Shepherd's Pie. It was a few minutes past seven. The others, he knew, were already there. They were prompt at least—that was one thing he could say. God knew he'd trained them long enough, taught them how important it was to be on stage on time.

  It was a deliberate choice on his part to show up five minutes late. He'd planned things, practiced his speech before his mirror, refined every gesture, timed each gulp and pause. He was going to give a performance tonight, perhaps the greatest of his career. He was confident, well rehearsed, but a little nervous too. There was, as always, the dread of rejection, the thought that the audience might hiss or boo.

  Ah—there was Derik Law's little Humber by the curb, the Calloways' cream-colored Buick, Joe Kelly's Renault 16. Yes, they were there all right, probably wondering where he was. The Drears, and Jack Whyte, Jill and David Packwood, of course. Well—let them wait a minute longer. Let them just simmer in there. Let them stew.

  He started to cross Avenue d'Espagne but leaped back to avoid a bus. Lord, it was terrible the way these famished Moroccans drove. They aimed right at you, as if they wanted to run you down. Well, maybe they did, he thought.

  He walked a few more paces down the sidewalk, then attempted to cross again. This time he made it, over to the railroad side. He crossed the tracks, stepped onto the beach, trudged his way across the sand to the door of the Shepherd's Pie.

  What a dump it was, the Packwoods' place. "English Spoken Here" a big sign said. There was another one below: "Private Party. Closed Tonight." He recognized David Packwood's sloppy lettering, the same dribbling style he used on TP sets. It was a dump. Imagine calling a restaurant the Shepherd's Pie. So coarse. So non-U. It could be worse, he thought. They could have called it the Fish and Chips.

  What could one expect anyway? The Packwoods were trash, like the Drears and the Calloways. They had their little summer business, their little bar and restaurant on the beach. Four thousand, five thousand quid—they claimed they cleared that much catering to Cockney British tourists, the aftershave perfumed set, the Piccadilly queers. Well, they made a living at it, enough to see them through the winter months, though Jill always looked a fright when the summer was over—David kept her cooped up in that closet of a kitchen turning out those disgusting greasy pies.

  He checked his watch. Too late to turn back now. He made his way to the door, paused a moment, screwed up his courage, pushed it open, and stepped inside.

  There they were, the lot of them, looking at him just the way he knew they would. Guilt! Shame! It was written all over them. The shame of it, to call a meeting when they knew perfectly well his supporters couldn't come. Well, let them stare, damn them. It didn't make any difference now. He took them in, one by one, met each set of eyes straight on. They lowered theirs, of course—except for Kelly. That scarred-up little bastard had no shame.

  To hell with them! To hell with Kelly too! They'd beaten him; the game was over now. Derik would have stood by him if he'd decided to fight it out. Barclay had said the Vicar would too, but then the Vicar had killed himself.

  "Evening," he said in a gentle, fatherly voice which had nothing to do with the way he felt. "Sorry to be late. Don't want to delay the routine. Sunset years, you know. Can hardly keep up with you youngsters anymore."

  He smiled then, as broad and charming as he could. They were staring at him quite curiously now. They'd been expecting something else. He knew what that was: a broken man, whining, pathetic, enraged. They'd come for blood, to see the old bull slain. Torment him, kill him, haul him away. Well, he'd not give them the pleasure of seeing that; he'd give them a lesson in class.

  "Listen," he said, stepping to the center of the room, using the space between the tables as if it were a stage, "there're a few words I want to say before we get on with business." They were all ears then, craned forward in their seats. He smiled at them kindly and looked around again. His timing had been good—he'd thrown them off their guard.

  "I was seventy-five this year, you know." A little grin then, just as he'd rehearsed. "There comes a time when a man has to face the fact that he's, well, past his prime. Then it's time to step aside, for someone younger, with a steadier hand. I've been giving that a lot of thought of late, and I've decided it's time now to retire."

  He heard a murmur, looked around, saw that Jessica Drear had raised her brows.

  "I know this comes unexpectedly. We're meeting here to decide about next year's plays. But I thought I owed it to you to say this first, so that the new man, whoever he may be, will have a chance to put his stamp on the season that lies ahead. Now I don't want to be sentimental, lay on the syrup and all that. I just want to say how much I love you and how much working with you these last years has meant. Jill and David. Rick and Anne. Derik. Jack. Jessica and Jessamyn. Joe. We've failed at times—all of us have made mistakes. But, by Jove, we've tried, tried hard to put on good plays. They can't take that away from us. No one can. So—I just want to thank you for your loyalty to me, and for just being the great people that you are."

  He paused, choked with rehearsed emotion, looked around, sensed his speech was having its effect. That line about loyalty—that had hit them where they hurt. He could feel them softening, knew he had them won—an actor's power, and he savored it a while before he continued on.

  "Finally, a personal note. It isn't easy for an old actor to leave the stage, make his final bow. For almost sixty years I've trooped the boards—that seems now a long, long time. They say old soldiers never die, that they just fade away. Old actors—well, I don't know what they say about them. But this old actor will always be there in the hall to clap for all of you.”

  Another pause, this time a long one. He knew his final words must sound most deeply felt.

  "We've had our quarrels. We've shouted and screamed. We've laughed a lot, and wept a little too. But that's the theater. That's what it's about. A clash of intellects. Temperaments aflame. Before I open our meeting to business—and the business tonight will be to select a new leader for our club—let me just quote a few lines from the Tempest, old Prospero's farewell. It says what's in my heart:

  But this rough magic

  I here abjure; and when I have required

  Some heavenly music, which even now I do,

  To work mine end upon their senses that

  This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,

  Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

  And deeper than did ever plummet sound

  I'll drown my book.

  He sat down then, to their utterly stupefied silence. All of them were pulsing with sentiment—except for Kelly, who glared at him and scowled. Luscombe couldn't blame him; his evening had been stolen by design. But Jill Packwood was weeping, and she was hard as nails. Jack Whyte's eyes were glistening. Jessica Drear held her face in sweating palms.

  Derik Law stood up then, just as the two of them had planned. He began the song, and of course the others followed, eyes upon him, big and red, weeping and smiling and nodding all at the same time:

  For he's a jolly good fellow!

  For he's a jolly good fellow!

&nb
sp; For he's a jolly good fellow!

  That nobody can deny!

  Lake had been circulating at the Manchesters' for an hour, waiting for Z to show up.

  "Oh, he'll come. He promised," said Willard, snapping the shutter of his Instamatic, filling the room with a blinding flash.

  "He'll be here eventually, Dan," Katie said. "Now go try some of my tuna spread."

  Her tuna spread! It was sickening, tasted as though it were made of fur. The whole damn party was an outrage. Lake couldn't believe he was really there. He'd come only because Z was supposed to come, and he had to confront the Russian face to face. Otherwise he would have stayed home. It was a humiliation to be at the Manchesters' while the Ambassador was up at Henderson Perry's, mixing with the royals and tout Tanger.

  The Manchesters! Christ! They'd invited him to "drink the dregs"! They'd served up the dregs, all right—Spanish "scotch," Argentine "vodka," all those undrinkable blended whiskeys they'd gotten for Christmas through the years. The potato chips were soggy. The canapés were a disgrace. The hall was filled with packing cases. The servants were sullen, worried about their tips.

  "Great to meet you," he heard Willard say to a bunch of newcomers to Tangier. "Come visit us in Florida. We're moving there, you know." This was supposed to be a going-away party for the Manchesters' closest friends, but those friends were out on the terrace, talking among themselves, while the Manchesters stood alone in the living room saying tearful farewells to people they didn't know, snapping their pictures, even inviting them to visit them in the States.

  It was insane. Madness. And still Z hadn't come. Lake was worried about that, that ever since he'd shown him the code machine the Russian had avoided seeing him alone. When he came into the shop Peter behaved as if nothing had happened, as if they'd never had that conversation in his office the Sunday past. Lake couldn't figure it out. He thought everything had been arranged. Z had as much as said he'd be willing to defect. What the hell had happened? Tonight he was going to find out.

  The Manchesters were such boobs. How could he ever have thought of them as friends? They'd brought out every bit of junk they didn't want as offerings to their guests. There was a pile of stuff on the dining room table which Katie kept loading into people's arms. Wrinkled old maps of Morocco from the glove compartment of their car. A swollen can without a label (botulism for sure, he thought). A bottle of home-pickled watermelon rinds. Coat hangers and bent curtain rods. A fondue pot with an enormous crack. They must be nuts, he thought, trying to flog off stuff like that. Why didn't they just heave it in the trash? As it was they'd tried to sell everything they didn't want: potted plants, an ironing board, some inner tubes, a rusted lawn mower. But this other stuff—they had to be kidding, though there was Katie trying to stick Rick Calloway with a dozen lifeless tennis balls.

  He stared around the room for a while, then tried to attract the attention of Jackie Knowles. But she and Foster were snuggling in the dining room like a couple of dodo birds in heat. Ever since Foster had come back from the north, all the gas seemed to have gone out of their affair. Why? He still wasn't sure, except that Foster had returned weathered and tanned, sporting a little Vandyke beard. It made him look all the more ridiculous, what with his blond hair curling down his neck. But that little beard seemed to be working wonders on Jackie. She called it "neat," said it felt good when Foster gave her head.

  That was enough for Lake. He wasn't about to share Jackie with her husband or be satisfied with sloppy seconds. If the Knowles' had solved their sexual problems, that was fine with him. He and Jackie had had their fling. He told her to cool it for a while.

  Suddenly he turned around—there was something buzzing in his ear. It was Anne Calloway talking away. Evidently she'd been speaking to him for quite a time.

  "—There we were," she said, "sitting there at the Shepherd's Pie, all set to give Larry the old heave-ho from the club. You won't believe what happened an hour or so ago. God almighty, what a scene!"

  "What did happen, Anne?" he asked, watching the door in case Zvegintzov came in.

  "Like I said, Dan, we were waiting there when Larry showed up and flat resigned. Gave a brilliant farewell speech too. Broke us up, I'll tell you. Absolutely broke our hearts. Anyway, next thing you know we've all forgotten we called the meeting to bounce him out. Reelected him president of TP for life. Then created a new job, managing director, so Kelly wouldn't feel put down. You should have seen Kelly's face! He was furious. Stormed right out. But what could we do? Couldn't throw out Larry after all he'd said. They're still down there, the rest of them, eating sausage and guzzling beer—"

  Anne Calloway was still chattering, though he'd nearly turned his back. He could see Fufu out on the terrace, spittle shooting from his mouth, holding forth on his favorite scenario, the one that ended with South Africa in a sheet of flames.

  "Things are smelling bad here, Dan." It was Willard who'd sidled up. "We've loved Tangier, really have. We've had some terrific years. But now we're glad to be getting out. Whole country's rotten to the core."

  Jesus Christ!

  Lake couldn't believe his eyes. Old Ashton Codd was swiping the hors d'oeuvres, stuffing a great batch of those foul tuna canapés into his pockets, then looking around to be sure he wasn't seen. Lake turned away, sick to his stomach. It was horrible, just imagining all that furry tunafish sticking to the insides of Ashton's pants. What a nuthouse! Baldeschi was feeling up the new secretary at the British Consulate. Philippa Whittle, making her first appearance since she'd been attacked, glared around with the crisp and wary look of a woman who'd suffered an awful fright.

  Z! Where was the little bastard anyway? Pinning him down was like trying to nail a glob of jello to the floor. Ah there he was, the Commie punk. He'd finally shown up, was standing by the door. Now was the time to move in, trap him against the wall.

  "Who you supposed to be, lad?" asked Patrick Wax, crossing the crowded salon at Françoise de Lauzon's. He looked sharply at Robin, up and down.

  "Robin Hood, of course," Robin replied. "Who the hell did you think?"

  "Yes," said Wax, stepping back a pace, squinting at Robin again. "I see that now. You're all dressed in green. I presume that silly little stick is supposed to be your bow. Well, Robin, very nice indeed. Just think of the rest of us as your very merry men." He laughed, then smacked Robin on the back. "Good try, lad. We're all aware of your impecunious state. Françoise will forgive you. At least I think she will."

  Wax crossed the room to embrace someone else. He'd come as "Jack and the Beanstalk," dressed as a swishy yokel, carrying a huge green phallus in his hand.

  Robin didn't know if Françoise would forgive him, and he didn't give a good goddamn. He'd done the best he could with his costume, taking a metaphorical approach. He'd improvised a hood out of an old scarf he'd found beneath his bed, then scratched up a bent piece of driftwood from the beach and strung it with a bit of string.

  He loathed costume parties, refused to take them seriously. It was particularly awful, he felt, to be at Françoise's "fantasy evening" tonight. Nothing was worse than to be at the second best. Far better, he thought, to be at the bottom, at the Manchesters' thing, or with the TP scum at the Shepherd's Pie. He knew that Henderson Perry's party would almost certainly be a bore, but to be seen tonight at Françoise de Lauzon's was to have it proclaimed that one hadn't made the grade.

  Still there were a lot of people there, seventy or eighty at least. The room was a sea of costumes, and there were people skinny-dipping in the pool. Robin pulled out a wad of paper and began to jot down notes. He'd get back at Perry when he wrote his column—he'd stretch the truth, make Françoise's party sound like better fun.

  Florence Beaumont, he noted, made a nice Cinderella; Inigo was her Prince Charming in tow. Percy Bainbridge played an aging Mary Poppins. (Barclay had helped him with the nanny's outfit, Percy'd claimed.) Darryl Kranker was a lisping Sinbad the Sailor, and Hervé Beaumont looked cute as the Lone Ranger, with a couple of
silver-painted water pistols and an effeminate horn-rimmed mask.

  Some people were so elaborately made up that Robin had difficulty discovering who they were. Heidi Steigmüller, the proprietress of Heidi's Bar, wore a rubber mask modeled on the features of Charles De Gaulle. Countess de Lauzon, the quintessential faghag, was Count Dracula, her appearance rivaling Bela Lugosi, while Inge Frey had come as Little Red Riding Hood and Kurt Frey as the Big Bad Wolf. There was, Robin realized, an air of savagery in the room, and all sorts of wicked things going on around the pool. Everyone knew the better party was up at "Castlemaine," but they were all trying to ignore that fact.

  Patrick Wax, he thought, put it best when, at one point during the evening, he came up and shook his head. "For a bash like this," he said to Robin, "it's even too much trouble to bathe."

  Monsieur de Hoag was driving. Claude, very quiet, sat in the back of the Mercedes with General Bresson. Jean Tassigny, beside Monsieur de Hoag, peered ahead into the night. He watched the Mountain Road narrow and steepen as they climbed through darkness toward the crest.

  They were stopped at one point by security police, who swept the car with flashlights, then politely waved them on. Jean turned to look at Claude as the beam passed across her face. She sat still, like a sculpture, staring straight ahead, as cold and pale as marble, he thought, except for her turquoise eyes and the diamond necklace that glowed against her throat.

  A little later he looked back again, saw the lights of Tangier glittering far below. Then they were stopped at great iron gates. They gave their names and were waved through to the grounds. They followed a road that ran parallel to the cliffs, past terraces, gardens, pools cut into rock. Finally the road curved and "Castlemaine" came into sight. Jean gasped as they approached it, a huge Moorish palace lit from within by thousands of flickering candles, its great tower looming in the night.