Oasis of Night

by J. S. Cook

  I motioned to Tex and hammered on the door. Nobody answered. I waited a few more minutes and knocked again, but there was no response. There were no lights showing in any of the windows, so I decided to chance it. I reached for the doorknob and turned it, and the door swung open, bumping back gently against the inside wall.

  Somebody was in there all right, sitting in a chair in front of the fireplace—there was just enough ambient light from the full moon to make him out—but whether he minded us being there, I didn’t know. He was dead, his head bashed in, and whoever had given him the business had taken the time to make sure it was right. His face had been battered to a pulp, but the features were still recognizable, and seeing him, I got real cold and sick inside.

  The dead man was my best friend, Frankie Missalo.

  One of the shadows at the rear of the room detached itself and moved toward us. I brought my gun up, level with the spot between his eyes, but I knew as soon as I saw him that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—shoot.

  Sam raised his hands in surrender. “I am so very sorry you have had to find me like this, Jack.” He glanced at the dead man lolling in the chair. “I did not want to come here.” His voice was slow and solemn, and very sad. “I simply had no other choice.”

  Chapter 6

  “WHAT’D HE ever do to you?” My voice trembled and I hated myself for it. “He was nothing to you; he was nobody. Goddammit, Sam—” I went weak in the knees as it all fell in on me, the whole filthy mess. “Why’d you kill him? Why?”

  “I did not kill this man. Errki Aaltonen brought me here, at Jonah Octavian’s request.” Sam looked haggard and worn, much like the day I’d seen him at the bank. But other than that, he was basically okay. “This poor soul was already here—already dead—when I arrived.” He saw Tex standing behind me. “I see you two have found each other. That is well.”

  “Where’s Aaltonen?” I crouched beside the chair and checked Frankie for a pulse, even though I knew it was pointless. What the hell. It gave me something to do and kept my mind from sliding away into darker places than this. “Is he here?”

  “No, Aaltonen has gone into Cairo on business. Jack, you must get out of here at once.”

  I straightened. “And leave you here to fend for yourself? Nothing doing.”

  “Jack….” Sam reached toward me. “My dear friend.”

  Tex cleared his throat. “I’m just gonna post myself as guard, Jack. Just in case somebody comes sniffing around.” He disappeared down a side corridor silently.

  “I’m not leaving you.” I grabbed hold of Sam’s shoulders and pulled him into my arms, and it was just like this nasty house and poor Frankie and the whole sorry mess no longer existed. He felt so good, so strong and whole and real. “Goddammit, Sam, I came halfway around the world looking for you, and if you think I’m gonna—” His mouth was hot, a blissful, wet caress, and I returned the kiss gladly.

  “Jack, you must go.” He cupped my face between his palms and gazed at me as if memorizing my features. “We will be together again very soon, but you must leave now. You must let me do this my own way. Do you hear me?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” I held him tightly against me. “If I leave you here, I might never see you again.”

  “Of course you will see me again.” He drew back. “If not in this world, in the next one.” His strong, lean hands kneaded my shoulders. “I must be free to act without restraint.” His face softened. “Jack, it is so very good to see you. I am so glad you came.”

  “What… uh, what happened to Frankie?” I couldn’t look at Frankie’s body; it hurt too much, and reminded me of when we were kids together back in Philly, going to school and playing ball and serving at mass, doing all the normal kid things. It was Frankie who’d suggested I go to Newfoundland in the first place and start over. I had him to thank for my new lease on life. I could never repay him for the thousand kindnesses, large and small, that he had done for me.

  “I do not know. He was… like that when I arrived. I take it you did not know he was in Cairo?”

  “No. I had no idea. He set up this whole thing for me, even got me a ride on a military transport. I don’t know how the hell he came to be here, of all places.”

  “Jack.” Sam led me away from the body. “You must leave here at once. Aaltonen is due back at any moment, and I cannot take the risk.”

  “But surely this place is being watched! Sam, they had to have seen me coming here with Tex.”

  “I know. Jack, let me err on the side of caution.” He caught sight of the gold cartouche on its chain around my neck. “You are wearing it… the gift I gave you.”

  “Yeah.” I smoothed the gold until it warmed between my fingers. “I never take it off. Sam, what is this? Why won’t you come back to Cairo with me? Now. Tonight?”

  “I cannot. Please, go now.” He smiled. “I am so grateful to have seen you, but it isn’t safe for you here.”

  There were so many things I wanted to ask him, so much more I needed to tell him. “Okay, Sam, if that’s the way you want it.” I caught him to me and kissed him, just as Tex came running up and said he’d seen headlights far out on the desert and maybe we should go. I took hold of Sam’s hands and hung on as long as I could. “Promise me you will come back. I’m staying at the Acacia Court, room—”

  “I know where you are, Jack.” He turned my right hand and kissed the palm. “I always know where you are. Ma salaama. Go now.”

  It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, leaving him in that place, standing there alone in the dark with Frankie Missalo’s body. Tex and I hurried back to the truck and hopped aboard, spinning sand until we finally hit the road, burning rubber all the way back to Cairo.

  AFTER TEX dropped me back at the hotel, I tried to get some sleep, but I couldn’t rest. More than once, I picked up the phone, thinking I’d call Philly and let Frankie’s mother know what had happened to her son. But I knew I couldn’t do that. One word spoken out of turn would put Sam in serious jeopardy, and anyway, they couldn’t hurt Frankie anymore. I had to let things be, let Sam work whatever plan he had in his mind, and hope it would come out all right in the end. When all this was over, I’d call Mrs. Missalo and tell her how her son had died bravely in the service of his country. I didn’t know if that were strictly true, but it’s what I intended to tell her.

  At dawn, I heard the muezzin’s call echoing over the rooftops, and I knelt down by my bed. I don’t know what possessed me to do it—I hadn’t prayed in years—and I doubted I had any faith left, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I blessed myself and said the decades of the rosary and the Lord’s Prayer and after that, I sat there in the silence while the sun rose over the city. At seven thirty, I called room service to order breakfast. The waiter brought me a tray and a telegram from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Alphonsus Picco had come through. The gist of it was that Octavian had gone to Cairo to meet with some unnamed contact, an American who was well-placed in the North Atlantic command. Picco didn’t know why Octavian was meeting this guy, but given Octavian’s record, it probably had to do with a crooked construction scheme or three. The Constabulary’s special wartime division had been investigating Octavian ever since he first turned up in St. John’s, about six months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Mostly, he kept his nose clean and didn’t interfere with anybody who didn’t interfere with him, but that whole business with Julie Fayre—his partner in crime and erstwhile lady love—hadn’t done him any good, so these days he was being more careful. Picco didn’t know who Octavian’s Cairo contact was, but he’d wire me with further details if he had any.

  Well, that left me about where I’d been all along. No matter how I looked at this, it all came back to Octavian. I’d come to Cairo looking for Sam, and I’d found him, but I’d found a lot of other things as well. Pasha Nubar had been ready to tell me about Shiva’s murder, except he never got the chance. Samir had said they had Nubar’s killer in custody, so maybe the best way for me
to get a little insight was to go down to the police station and take a look. I didn’t know what time Samir went on duty, so I put in a call to the station and was told that no, Sergeant Samir wasn’t on duty until later that evening. “You guys brought in the scum who killed Pasha Nubar, right? Do you think your chief would mind if I had a word with him?”

  He wasn’t sure; he said he’d have to find out and ring me back, so I gave him my room number. I’d barely hung up the phone when it rang again. This time it was Tareenah Halim. She was pretty upset. “Mr. Stoyles, please. You must…. It is…. Please come.” I was left holding a dead phone.

  I showered, dressed, and shaved, and caught a cab to the Halim residence, but when I got there, the house was deserted. It looked like they’d shut the place up and gone away. I rapped on the door but nobody answered, so I knocked a little bit harder, and more people didn’t answer. I peered in one of the windows, but couldn’t see much besides the dim shapes of the Halims’ furniture.

  I was about to give up and go away when a woman came out of a neighboring house. “Why are you looking in the Halims’ windows, Engleezhi?”

  “Oh, I’m looking for Mrs. Halim. Have you seen her?”

  She shrugged. “I cannot say for certain whether I have seen her or not.”

  “Okay.” I held up an Egyptian pound note. “Does that loosen your tongue any?”

  She tucked the money away in her robes. “Mrs. Halim and the children were there until late last night, when they suddenly left.”

  “Uh-huh.” This was sounding more and more fishy all the time. “What about Mr. Halim?”

  “Captain Halim?” She smiled. “Such a noble gentleman, and so very kind to all who know him. I cannot say whether he is gone or not.” She held out her hand, and I put another pound note in it. “He is gone as well. He has been gone for many days.”

  “You know where Mrs. Halim and the children might have gone?” Where had Tareenah been when she’d called me? Was she in hiding or was this some kind of a ruse?

  “I am sorry. I do not.”

  I waited till she left, then let myself in the back door. The inside of the house was cool and dark, and most of the blinds had been drawn over the windows to keep out the fierce heat of the day. Yeah, we used to do the same thing back in Philly when I was a kid: close all the curtains and keep the worst of the heat out, although it made the inside of the house pretty stuffy come the end of the day, but that never mattered to me. I was never inside long enough to care. Either I was playing ball with Frankie, or riding my bike, swimming in the public pool a few blocks over, or getting into trouble with Susie Fitch and her sister, Edith, under the bleachers at the high school football field. Frankie was always up for that sort of thing, always ready to do whatever I wanted to do without complaining. Yeah, Frankie was….

  I had to stop thinking about him; I’d grieve for him later when there was time. I couldn’t think about him now, propped up in that chair in Jonah Octavian’s fancy desert house. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d looked more natural… if maybe he looked like he was sleeping. You know, people say that sort of thing all the time at funerals and wakes: he looks real good. Yeah, he looks just like himself. Because death had the power to change a person’s features, make them into someone else entirely.

  I went down the hall and found a series of rooms opening off the main corridor: a couple of kids’ bedrooms with books and toys, and Sam’s study. At the end of the hall there were two matching bedrooms, side by side, joined by a connecting door. The left side of the suite was distinctly feminine, and I found women’s clothing in the closet. The right side must have been where Sam slept. This room was decorated in blue and gold, there were books in huge piles on every available surface, and Sam’s uniforms hung in the closet. I pulled back the bedspread, exposing the pillows and sheets. It was a ridiculous risk I was taking, but there was nobody around, and nobody knew I was in here. I bent low and pressed my face into each of the pillows in turn. The one on the left smelled mostly of laundry soap and some commercial bluing preparation; the pillow on the right smelled like Sam. I took it into my arms and held it, hugging it like it really was Sam, like he was close enough to touch. I know where you are, Jack. I always know where you are.

  “How very appropriate.” The voice came from behind and above me, and I tensed, but then I heard the click of a gun being cocked. “Do not, I beg you, make any sudden movements, Mr. Stoyles. I should very much hate to splatter your brains over Captain Halim’s bed linens.”

  I turned my head slowly. Yeah, it was Jonah Octavian all right. I’d recognize those cold, dead eyes anywhere. “I wondered when you were going to show up.”

  His thin lips curved into a smile. “How nice that the suspense has now been broken. Get up, Mr. Stoyles, and don’t give me an excuse to shoot you.”

  I did as I was told. Octavian was a slippery character, duplicitous as hell, and I wasn’t about to try and second-guess him. “Been watching me, Octavian?”

  “Shut up, Mr. Stoyles. There will be plenty of time for small talk later.” The barrel of the gun was jammed into my back, just above my kidneys. “Start walking toward the front door. I have a car waiting to take you to my country home.”

  “We can skip the guided tour, Octavian. I’ve been there already. You should hire an interior decorator. That dead guy in the living room doesn’t go with the drapes.”

  He pushed me outside and into a big Mercedes outfitted with a uniformed chauffeur. We pulled away from the curb. The morning sun was now up over the broad, smooth expanse of the Nile, and under any other circumstances it would have been real pretty. “So you’re going to take me into the desert and kill me?”

  Octavian lit a long Egyptian cigarette and took a drag. “You disappoint me, Mr. Stoyles.”

  “Brother, you have no idea how often I’ve heard that.”

  “I had hoped you would have found me out long before now, but no, instead of following the most obvious of clues, I find you sniffing pillows in your paramour’s bedroom.”

  “Maybe I was looking for the laundry mark. You know how some of these places are, you send in your linens and get back some other guy’s dirty socks.”

  Octavian rolled down the window and tossed out the spent match. His technique was flawless, not once did the gun barrel stray even a millimeter from my side. “I hate to do this to someone like you, Mr. Stoyles. You’re a relatively harmless creature, even if you are annoyingly obstinate. If it were up to me, I’d put you on the next plane back to Newfoundland and have done with it.”

  “But you can’t do that.”

  “No, I’m afraid I really can’t. You see, you’re one of those people who are simply too much trouble. You attract it like iron filings to a magnet.”

  “Right. So which one are you, the filings or the magnet?”

  He smiled thinly. “You are an inquisitive man, Mr. Stoyles, one who is far too curious for his own good and who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. I’d kill you myself, except….”

  “You don’t want to get your hands dirty.”

  He ignored the dig. “Mr. Missalo was a good friend of yours, wasn’t he? What a shame you killed him. I expect the authorities aren’t going to take such a brutal murder lying down.”

  “I killed Frankie.” This guy was something else. “I did.”

  “Of course you did, Mr. Stoyles. Frank Missalo had a good scheme worked out with the war contractors back in Newfoundland, one which allowed him to pocket lots and lots of cash, with minimal effort. It couldn’t last forever—nothing ever does—and when Sam Halim started sniffing around, your friend Missalo got nervous.”

  “Like you’re nervous now, Octavian?”

  The gun jabbed hard into my ribs. “Don’t interrupt, Mr. Stoyles. It’s bad manners. Missalo got nervous, so he decided the best way to deal with Halim was to remove him. He hadn’t counted on you and Halim getting… cozy. That’s to my benefit, of course. The authorities will think you came all the way
to Cairo to find Frankie Missalo and pay him back for interfering in your perverted little love affair. You killed him in a rage, you know. Beat his head in with a hammer.”

  “I get it. I’m the fall guy.”

  “Yes, Mr. Stoyles.” Octavian picked an imaginary piece of lint off his shirt. “You are, sad to say, the fall guy.”

  “Hey, you.” I spoke to the chauffeur. From the back he was easily one of the biggest men I’d ever seen. “You okay with this? It’s cold-blooded murder, is what it is.”

  The driver turned his head and said something I didn’t understand. “Constantine speaks only Greek,” Octavian said. “Appealing to him is rather pointless, I’m afraid.”

  “Yeah, you got it all fixed.” Something about the chauffeur bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. There was something not right with his eyebrows or maybe it was his hair. His face looked like he’d suffered a bad burn at some time in the recent past, for it had the smooth, shiny look of too-new skin. I remembered a crack Frankie made once, about a guy we used to knock around with back in Philly: He looks like he borrowed somebody else’s face for the weekend. Maybe that was it….

  Octavian didn’t talk much after that; he mostly concentrated on keeping the gun in my ribs and smoking one cigarette after another. He was nervous about something, but I couldn’t readily place what that might be. He had no qualms about having his gorillas smack me around, just as he’d had no qualms about getting his little girlfriend, Julie Fayre, to poison me with quinine. In the end, it was Julie who went to the gallows while Octavian slipped quietly away. He probably planned to do the same thing now, once this business was over. He’d make sure I took the rap for Frankie’s death, and he’d fix it so I’d never bother him again. Yeah, where I was going, I’d be hard-pressed to interfere with anybody.