by James Lepore
“But we are only meeting now for the second time:”
“I know no one here, Abdel. I am hoping you can help me. You said you have influence. I would like you to introduce me to someone who knows the security situation in Morocco. A scholar, perhaps, or someone with ties to the military or the police:”
“But why? Morocco is a liberal country by Muslim standards. There have been no terrorist attacks here. You will find nothing:”
“Then that will be the story.”
This time Lahani’s smile was one that Megan at first thought was meant to humor her. But her new friend had a way at times of smiling only with his mouth, as he did now, of keeping his eyes flat and emotionless, a trait much more attractive to her than mere expressiveness. In her experience, it took very little in the way of either time or prompting for most men to express their feelings, which usually centered around what they thought was love but was usually lust or the need for mothering.
“I have a friend at the university,” Lahani said, his smile gone, his eyes meeting hers without a hint of humor or condescension. “An Islamic scholar. If I speak to him first, he may be willing to speak to you. I am going there tomorrow. I’ll ask him.”
“Thank you:”
They were sitting at a wrought iron table in the tiled courtyard of Lahani’s walled house in the heart of Marrakech’s old city. A woman in a floor-length hooded djellaba, her veil down, her eyes averted and impassive, had served them a late afternoon dinner of couscous steamed with lamb and vegetables and a bottle of Bordeaux that Megan knew from her many adventures with rich Frenchmen was worth about two hundred dollars American. Afterward came dates, cheese, nuts, thick coffee, and conversation. Close at hand were tile-bordered gardens bearing lemon and acaccia trees and a small, gently splashing fountain whose pedestal and bowl bore mosaic images of Moorish Spain. Megan wore comfortable white linen pants and a white silk tunic with a diamond pattern embroidered at the cuffs and waist. At her neck was a thick eighteen-carat-gold chain given to her by Alain Tillinac in one of his futile efforts to win her back. Its burnished surface captured the late day sunlight to form a ring of fire against the finely spun red wool at her neck. On the Zagora trip she had pinned her hair up and worn a baseball cap, layered tee, and sweatshirts, but tonight she had on decent clothes and light makeup.
Lahani, who had been away himself in Europe, seemed delighted to receive Megan’s call, and even more delighted to see her as she exited her taxi at the massive front gate of his house. She had used his first name and asked him for a favor, chips in a game of arousal and anticipation that she had played many times before. This one promised to be very exciting. There was, in Megan’s experience of them, a feral look to the faces of many, if not most, Middle Eastern men, a facade painfully appropriate to their seemingly universal inner desire to subjugate their women. There was an elemental wildness, to be sure, about Lahani, with his chiseled face, thick black mustache, even thicker black hair, and burning, deep-set black eyes. And there was an undertone of power, even menace in his deep baritone voice. But there was also a refinement about him, what might almost be called a learned effeteness in his movements, as if in a deliberate attempt to conceal or suppress the rawness beneath the surface. This combination of power and grace had been rare in Megan’s men, nonexistent actually until now. It was a heady combination, one that required her, in turn, to play her part carefully so that she could stay in control. In truth it was this very tension, the thrill of losing control-which to her amounted to subjugation—that so attracted her to Lahani, that made the game dangerous and worth playing.
Before either of them could speak again, the serving woman arrived and, still passive and withdrawn to the point of nonexistence, bent and whispered something in Lahani’s ear. He nodded and the woman left.
“I have to take a phone call;” Lahani said, rising and placing his linen napkin on the table. “It may be a while. The library is through the arcade just behind you. There are some paintings and sculptures there that may interest you.“ Before turning to go inside, he stepped toward Megan and, reaching quietly to her, stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, which he then ran through her hair, sifting strands of it through his fingers like the spun gold it was. “Where did you get this hair?” he asked.
“From my mother,” Megan said.
“Is she beautiful like you?”
“She was. She died giving birth to me in a jungle hospital. I am a citizen of Uruguay as well as the United States:”
“And your father?”
“He lived and raised me in Connecticut:”
“You must tell me about all this:”
“I will.”
When Lahani disappeared into his house, Megan rose and wandered the courtyard for a moment, remembering the touch of his hand on her face, feeling the slight pressure of it as if it were still there. The sun was low, setting behind the house. Birds were beginning their evening singing in the lemon trees. Standing behind a stand of these trees, searching for a sight of the singing birds, Megan heard a noise and turned to see the serving woman clearing away the last of the dinner dishes. A man was helping her, and Megan was surprised to see that it was the same man who had driven her to Zagora and translated for her there and in the tiny unnamed kasbah a few miles away, where the blind family lived. The man—his name was Mohammed—was perhaps fifty and taciturn to the point of rudeness. But his English was good, as was his driving, and he had acquitted himself well, finding her clean and comfortable lodging, good meals, and putting the skittish natives at ease whenever they approached. Over two full days he had compliantly put Megan’s questions concerning the blind family’s sighted son to numerous people, until she grew tired of their uniform shoulder shrug and decided to head back to Marrakech. Stepping out from behind the trees, Megan waved to Mohammed, who, seeing her, stood motionless for a second before nodding solemnly in her direction. Then, lifting a tray of coffee and dessert plates, he turned and went into the house, followed by the woman.
Megan was good at withholding information and telling lies, big and small. She knew the protective value of secretiveness, of pretending to be surprised, or not surprised, upon hearing certain things. Mohammed knew that the focus of her visit to Zagora was not the blind family but their sighted son. Had he told Lahani? If he had then Lahani’s reaction when she told him earlier of the true reason for her trip south was not candid. This thought did not bother Megan. She had lied to Lahani, after all, and she had no interest in having a moralist or a fool for a lover. Soon she would be in a position to ask Lahani why he had spied on her—if he had—and to use his answer, whatever it turned out to be, to gain an advantage in the game of hide-and-seek they had started playing almost the moment they met. Until then it would pay to be more careful, more observant.
This is what she was thinking when Lahani surprised her from behind, putting his hands gently on her hips and pulling her to him. She caught the scent of him—a blend of citrus and smoke and what she imagined was the coolness of the desert at night—as he lifted her hair and brushed her right ear with his lips. Megan stiffened at first, but then relaxed, welcoming his embrace and light kiss.
“You surprised me,” she murmured.
“Something not so easy to do, I fear.”
“I am more innocent than you think:”
“And less, but a man wants both:”
Megan turned and placed her hands palm down on Lahani’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat, which was steady and strong. He wrapped his arms around her and again drew her to him, but she gently resisted so that she could face him, looking up, as at six feet or so he was taller than her by at least a head. Her last lover had been a boy of twenty-four. Here was a man in full, still only in his early forties, but with a hardness in his eyes that spoke of a disdain for life, for the mere years that are given men. No man, except for her father, had ever had or acquired the slightest power over Megan Nolan. The thought of ceding it to Lahani was suddenly quite erotic, causing
her to involuntarily press against him, confused at first and then made slightly dizzy by the wave of desire that swept over her as she felt his very large erection against her abdomen. Pulling away, she smiled, regaining her composure, holding Lahani’s hand but keeping him at arm’s length.
“How long will you be in Marrakech?” she asked.
“Three or four days:”
“Will you show me the sights?”
“The sights? You mean tourist attractions?”
“Whatever you think might be of interest:”
“Leave it to me, Megan Nolan. You will not be disappointed:”
~8~
PARIS, JANUARY 3, 2004
“What were you doing in the tobacconist’s shop?”
“I went to see the gypsy fortune-teller next door:”
“I see. Why?”
“She was a friend of Megan’s.”
Nolan and Catherine were in the living room of Catherine’s apartment on Rue St. Paul in Paris” upscale Marais District. On a plush sofa, Pat sat naked from the waist up, his left arm wrapped at the bicep in gauze pads and hospital tape. Catherine had just finished washing and bandaging his superficial but very bloody wound. On the elegant coffee table between them sat a snifter of cognac and two codeine-based pain pills she had left over from her previous life when her husband was alive and she was struck blind every couple of months by migraine headaches.
Two oversized armchairs faced the sofa. Catherine sat in one and Pat’s flannel shirt and dark blue sweater—both with clean-as-a-whistle bullet holes surrounded by coagulated blood—lay on the other. These he reached over and plucked up, and then slowly fumbled into while Catherine watched. The beauty and obvious strength of his arms and chest, and even his abdomen, was enhanced rather than diminished by the awkwardness of his movements, evoking in the policewoman a strange feeling of despair. She studied the large American’s chiseled face, his eyes giving away nothing, as he finished off his cognac in one long sip and returned the empty glass to the table. His hands, she realized—burnished like loved and well-used tools—were more revealing of his character. Though she did not have the legend, she was sure they were the road map to his soul. At one time she had believed that the quest to access the soul was the journey that all human beings were on. But that was before she had killed her husband by wishing him dead. How odd that a pair of human hands, hands possibly belonging to a man who was acting in aid of a terrorist cell, would remind her that her despair was turning to self-pity.
“What are those pills?” Pat asked.
“Codeine, for your pain:”
“I won’t need them:”
“What did the gypsy tell you, Monsieur Nolan?”
“Pat:”
“Pat:”
“Why did you leave that dead guy in the park? You’re an officer of the law.”
“I saw the one speak to you. What did he say?”
“Who were you following, them or me?”
Catherine watched as Pat rose abruptly, pulled off his sweater, threw it onto the sofa, and walked over to one of the three tall windows that took up most of the nearest living room wall. Opening it halfway, he stood still for a second or two, breathing, seeming to look at his reflection in the darkened window. Catherine felt the cool winter air as it wafted into the room in her direction. Did it bring Nolan’s scent with it, his American scent—leather and aftershave bought at the corner drugstore—or was it her imagination? She watched in silence as Pat then loosened his belt and, working mostly with his good arm and hand, tucked his loose shirttails into his jeans. When he was done, he faced Catherine, who had kicked off her shoes and curled her long stockinged legs under her.
“You are now presentable;” she said, unable to suppress a brief, wry smile. He returned her quasi-smile, shaking his head slowly. Was he blushing slightly? Or was it just the cold night air that had brought the color to his face? Catherine could not tell. But the smile and quizzical head shake were genuine. A man in his position would be wondering what in the world he had gotten himself into and what was going to happen next. He sat down in the armchair facing her. Catherine could feel the tension between them ease a bit. He poured himself another cognac and drank half of it down. The traditionally oversized glass looked small as he rested it in his grip on the chair’s wide arm.
“One of us has to start telling the truth,” he said.
“You have just made a start:”
“As have you:”
“Was that your daughter in the morgue?”
“No.”
“Why did you say it was?”
“It wasn’t something I thought through at the time:”
“Yes, but afterward you continued the deception:”
Pat finished his cognac, then looked down into the empty glass. The light from a nearby lamp cast a soft glow on his face, a somber face that, as it tilted downward in reflection, Catherine admitted was quite beautiful, with its thickly lashed, soft eyes and strong masculine features. Looking up, he said, “It was her note. She wanted to be dead to the world, but not to me:”
“Why dead to the world?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you guess?”
“She must be in danger.”
“Perhaps she committed a crime:”
Pat did not respond immediately. He tilted his snifter, seeming to concentrate on a last drop of cognac edging slowly toward the rim.
“I doubt it,” he said finally.
“Why?”
“Do you know that Megan’s mother died giving birth to her?”
“Yes. I read it in Inspector LeGrand’s report:”
Pat nodded and looked away for a second and then directly at Catherine. “I’ll tell you something, Detective Laurence.”
“Catherine.”
“Catherine. It’s something I”ve never told anybody. Megan’s life these past twelve years has been one long act of revenge against me. I was twenty-one when she was born, left with a four-pound baby and no wife. It took me five years to start being a father to her, but I never fully got there. She doesn’t need to commit a crime to hurt me anymore:”
“She hates you?”
“She tolerates me, which is worse:”
Catherine saw no anguish on Pat’s face, no sign of emotion at all. Only the same quiet countenance with which he took all things in, assessed them, and stored them away in a heart that seemed remote and lonely.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to pry.”
“You’re trying to help. I can see that:”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about those Arabs. What are you going to do with those prints?”
“I am going to see if they match anyone in our data bank. When I get an answer, I will tell you more. In the meantime, you must trust me. What did the first man say to you?”
“He wanted me to go me with him. He stuck a gun in my ribs:”
“Exactly what did he say?”
“‘Be silent, Mr. Patrick Nolan, and come with me or I will shoot you through the heart.’”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. Then I hit him with the wrench and you showed up:”
“He knew who you were:”
“Yes.”
“Who knows you are in France?”
“My brother. I suppose he told his wife. That’s it. I got a phone call and the next day I was on a plane:”
“Have you met anyone here? Anyone who knows where you’re staying, that is?”
“Just Inspector LeGrand and you:”
“Your brother?”
“No. I told him I call him but I haven’t gotten around to it:”
“You are quite sure?”
“Yes. Only you and LeGrand know my hotel:”
“Bien. You should stay here tonight. You are a large man, but that sofa is large as well:”
“You mean there might be more Saudi Secret Police out there looking for me?”
“Yes, if they were Saudi Secret Police:�
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Catherine uncurled her legs, reached down to pick up her shoes, and rested them on her lap. “One last thing,” she said.
“Yes.”
“What did the gypsy have to say?”
“She told me Megan was pregnant. She delivered a baby boy in December:”
“A child!”
“Yes.”
“Who is the father?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask:”
“We will ask tomorrow. Now you will sleep and I will work. There is bedding in that chest in the corner. Bonne nuit, Monsieur Nolan:”
