by Gore Vidal
“Exactly, and for that reason I shouldn’t like to do it again. I have the highest respect for Said Pasha. He is one of the great men of Egypt.”
Pete did not bother to ask why Said was great; instead he asked why Mohammed Ali wanted to see him.
“We wished to know if you cared to file a report concerning your—misadventure across the river. If so, I will be happy to make it out for you.”
“No report.”
“As you wish. They are a nuisance, but the law says they must be made, if the victim wishes.”
“Well, the victim doesn’t wish any more trouble than he has already.”
“You did see Said?” The look Mohammed Ali gave him was sharp as a knife.
“I thought you knew everything I did.”
“Almost everything.” The Inspector chuckled, became relaxed again. “But that is no business of mine. You are quite right.”
“When I get the necklace I’ll let you know,” said Pete.
“I hope I won’t need to be told,” said Mohammed Ali pleasantly, and Pete felt the necklace burning under is arm like hot coals. The garden became for all its green shade, as close and stifling as a Turkish bath.
“Won’t Said let you know?” Pete played innocent. “I sort of gathered that you were working close with him and Hélène.”
“I am, but that doesn’t mean that we necessarily operate in an atmosphere of—what shall I say?—mutual trust. For some reason, after all our years of doing business together, they have decided that I might trick them. Don’t deny it. I know. But Said is a suspicious man and I understand quite well why he should be suspicious. The necklace is of great value and there are at least a dozen people in Egypt at this moment who would risk anything to have it.”
“And who know that I’m going to be the one who carries it from Luxor to Cairo?”
Mohammed Ali shrugged. “How much the others suspect I do not know, though I can guess.”
“For somebody who once told me he knew everything that was going on in Egypt, you seem to be awfully uninformed.”
“Perhaps.” The Inspector was unruffled. “The others know Said has the necklace. I am not sure how many suspect your role in all this. How could they know when even you and I don’t know what you are supposed to do?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I say. I have known Said Pasha for many years. He is perhaps the cleverest man in Egypt. He never will do what you think he is going to do. I will admit to you frankly that he does many things that not even I know about until they are done. He does one thing with the right hand and, while you watch him, he accomplishes what he wants with the left hand, swiftly, secretly.”
For the first time Mohammed Ali had said something that Pete could believe. “I’m sure of that. Even so, why would be bother having me up here all this time, paying me a salary, if he intended to give the necklace to somebody else to carry?”
“Allah knows,” said the Inspector with a sigh. “One thing I am certain of: You will never be taken into his confidence, nor will I.”
“And this makes us buddies?”
Mohammed Ali smiled. “Not exactly, but we are both involved in his plans. I am his cover in the police. You are his courier. He uses us both in his own way, and there is an excellent chance that we will never know precisely how he has used us. He is afraid I will steal the necklace. Don’t deny that, Mr. Wells. I know and you know he is disturbed. As a matter of fact, between us, I am flattered. Imagine the remarkable Said Pasha considering me as dangerous to his plans! You have no idea how that pleases me.”
“I can guess,” said Pete, amused by the other’s performance.
“I am sure you can.” Pete’s irony was ignored. “But I am cautious, too. I should not care to cross Said any more than he would care to cross me. We are cellmated.”
“You mean stalemated.” Pete thought the slip significant.
“Yes, stalemated. I sometimes miss the unusual words in your language. Did I ever tell you that I was educated in the American College at Beirut?”
Pete said that this was news to him and indicated that it was about all the news he was willing to hear from the Inspector, concerning his private life, anyway.
Mohammed Ali did not pursue the subject. “There are times when I feel you dislike me,” he said, almost petulantly.
“I don’t dislike you. I just don’t trust you as far as I can see you.”
“And I have tried to be candid with you. It is very discouraging.”
“Candid about what?”
“About our situation, yours and mine. We are both being used by Said Pasha. You must admit that that is a bond.”
“So?”
“I wish to repeat only what I requested on the occasion of our first meeting in Luxor, in your room: Let me know when Said gives you the necklace.”
Pete laughed. “So that you can take it away from me?”
“I would hardly do that. In the first place, I am sure that you will be an intelligent and tough custodian, and in the second place, Said is already suspicious of me and I should not like to make an enemy of him.”
“Is he that powerful?”
“He is more powerful than you will ever know, my friend.”
“Then what’s to keep you from turning me over to the police when you know that I have the jewels?”
Mohammed Ali smiled. “If I did that, Said would have my head. I anticipate a long and easy life. To cross Said in Egypt would mean the end of ease and probably of life.”
Pete was about to remark that the policeman, if he stole the necklace, could probably get out of Egypt altogether and live contentedly on the loot, endangered perhaps by the international organization to which Said claimed to belong but relatively safe if he was clever. Pete pretended, however, to accept this particular line. It was a considerable advantage to have Mohammed Ali believe he was a fool and not on guard.
“I see your point,” said Pete slowly. “I don’t suppose it will do any harm if you know. I haven’t been instructed one way or the other about you. As far as I know, I’m to get the necklace tomorrow and leave for Cairo on the evening train. Then I report to the Countess. Beyond that, I know nothing.”
It worked. The Inspector was noticeably relieved, “Good. That is what I thought. Meanwhile, beware of the others.”
“What others?”
“Don’t you really know?” Mohammed Ali looked at him curiously. “Haven’t you suspected?”
“Suspected who?”
“Anna Mueller.”
Pete had a sudden inspiration. Could it be that Said and the Inspector were working together? It was too much of a coincidence that both should warn him against Anna in the same way and on the same day. “What makes you think she wants it?”
“Ask her about her friend Le Mouche.” And though Pete questioned him further he could get no more out of him.
Anna reappeared at five, flushed from her trip in the hot sun to the town. She had several small packages, which Pete took as she entered the lobby. “I’m worn out,” she said as they walked to her room, the manager pretending not to watch them.
When they got to the room, Pete told her that Mohammed Ali was hot on his trail. He didn’t explain why and she didn’t ask. “We’ve got to get out of here, baby. To Cairo. Tonight.”
“But—well, I mean are you sure it won’t be all right to stay over another day?”
He shook his head. “Not if I want to stay alive.”
She looked at him seriously for a moment; then: “In that case we must go.”
He was suddenly glad. There had been no hesitation. Whatever her plans were, she had been willing to change them for him. “What’s the best way of getting to Cairo without that policeman finding out?”
She thought a moment. “Fly, I think.”
“Is there a scheduled flight tonight?”
She shook her head. “You can charter a plane. It’s not too expensive. Many people do it all the time. It’s quick and in this coun
try many places are difficult to reach. I flew here myself. I’ll see if I can find the pilot’s name.” While she looked for it, Pete went to his own room and packed, leaving the Stanley Hotel as a forwarding address. The manager would undoubtedly be upset to have a guest depart without paying his bill, but Pete could take no chances; he didn’t want it known he was going.
Anna was talking German over the phone when he returned with his suitcase. After a quick sentence or two, she hung up. “A countryman,” she smiled. “The same who flew me here.”
“Will he take us?”
She nodded. “He’ll be ready at the airport in an hour.”
“Good girl.” He took her in his arms briefly and kissed her.
He helped her pack and then they slipped over the balcony into the garden of the hotel and, undetected, crossed a grove of trees to the street beyond, where carriages waited. It was not until they were almost to the airport that Pete asked her about Le Mouche.
But all she said was: “I’ll tell you when I can, Peter, but not now. Don’t ask me now.”
Chapter Six
Long before dawn they were circling over the golden lights of the old city, but by the time they got from the airport to the hotel, the moon had set and dawn lingered fresh in the air. To his surprise and pleasure, she agreed to go with him to the Stanley.
Shortly before noon they awakened, ordered coffee in the room, and then, while Anna sat at a dressing table arranging her long hair in the glass, they talked for the first time of why Pete had gone to Luxor, of his criminal mission.
“I think I knew from the beginning,” she said thoughtfully. He sat on the bed opposite her, wearing only his trousers, his bare toes making designs on the cool tile floor.
“Well, I thought since we’ve come this far together, you ought to know the whole thing.” He was a little surprised at himself; he had not intended to tell her anything. He had been warned and, as a cautious man, he should have told her no more than he had to. It was to her credit that she had never asked him, even when it had been more than obvious that he was involved in some elaborate game.
“You have it now, this necklace?”
He nodded, but he did not tell her where it was.
“Then turn it over to that woman, Peter.” She spoke urgently, looking at his reflection in the mirror.
“What do you mean?”
“Get rid of it. Tell her you won’t go through with this insane business. Tell her that.” She turned and faced him, her face serious. “Peter, you will be killed for that necklace. I know it. I feel it. They are clever and cold, cold as death. They won’t give you a chance in the world to live, if only because you know too much about them all. Say you’ll refuse to go on with this, please…for my sake.” There was no mistaking the sincerity of her appeal; he was glad he had told her at last.
“But I can’t, baby. As you say, I already know too much, and on top of that, having gone through so much already for the damned thing, I don’t want to lose out on the final sale.”
“You will lose out anyway, Peter,” she said emptily. “It may be too late already.”
“Well, if it is, then there’s nothing to be done anyway.”
She shook her head fiercely. “No, don’t say that! We must try to survive. Sometimes it looks hopeless, like a terrible web, but if we are strong enough we can get loose. I am so tired of being helpless, Peter. I am so tired of being pushed this way and that by the killers. And that’s what they are, the whole vicious lot of them.” And she began to sob. He took her in his arms and they sat side by side for several minutes while she recovered.
When at last she was herself again, she smiled wanly, brushing the tears from her face. “I am very silly,” she said. “But there is so much that is so awful, at times I don’t think I can stand it another minute. First, Dachau and my father, and then the world after the war, and then this country where I…where I’m trapped, too, worse even than you. At times I feel as though I were being slowly strangled to death.”
“We’ll leave, Anna. I can get the rest of the money they owe me, I think, and then we’ll have enough to get a ship from Alexandria to Naples. It’ll be easy. Then we’ll go home and you’ll forget all about everything.”
But she only sighed. “I was weak. Forget what I said. I have a job to do and so have you. When they are done we can think about leaving. Not until then.”
Pete was puzzled. “I thought you said—”
“I wanted you to quit? Yes, I do. I wish for your sake that you would give the necklace to the Rastignac woman, but I am afraid that if you did you would still be as marked as you are now, perhaps more so, because then Said would suspect you of treachery and long before you left Egypt he would have you killed. I know their kind so well. They are the same in every country. I first knew such people in Hamburg after the war, when I went there to sing. I found out soon enough what the world was like—our world in this awful time, at least. They are in control, everywhere. Worse men than Hitler, for he at least had an ideal, terrible as it was. Worse because they have no pity, only hate for the world they mean to own, to steal from the rest of us. And that’s why, if I had to lose my life for anything, I should give it gladly if I thought I could kill even one of these monsters as a warning to all the others.” She stopped, her face flushed; then she laughed with embarrassment. “I am now making speeches like a politician. Forgive me, Peter.”
“I know what you mean.” And he did; what she had said with such passion moved him. It was a rare thing, this abstract love for justice that she had, but chilling, too; she was no longer the Anna he had known when she talked like this.
She finished her dressing. They talked more quietly, more practically of his problem. “You must be on your guard every minute, my darling. Especially with the Rastignac woman.”
“Jealous?”
She smiled. “Well, yes, now that you mention it. I have seen her once or twice, though we’ve never met. She is lovely but bad. You know she was the Nazi Raedermann’s mistress. Now she is the mistress of Said.”
This was news. “How do you know that?”
“I thought everyone knew it. I travel in high circles.” She smiled wryly. Pete remembered what he had said to Said about Hélène. What a fool Said must have thought him! He writhed in memory. He was also alarmed. If Said thought he was interested in Hélène and that Hélène might return that interest, it could complicate a tangled situation even more, might tangle it fatally.
“I wish you’d told me that earlier.”
Anna was amused. “You mean that she was my—predecessor in your affections?”
“Not even close,” he said grimly. “But I made a crack or two to Said about her. I hope he didn’t resent it.”
“He won’t if he needs you. They put their personal affairs second. I am quite sure that she conducts any number of seductions at his suggestion. But watch out for her. Mohammed Ali is far less likely to be dangerous.”
“But what about you?”
“Me?” She looked startled.
“The business you’re involved in—what about that? Can’t you tell me now what it is? Why you can’t leave Egypt?”
She shook her head. “If it was only for my own sake I would tell you, I would trust you. But others are involved. I can’t betray them.”
“When will you be able to tell me?”
“Soon, I hope, very soon. Then we can go.” But there was a deadness in her voice that bothered him, as though she knew there would be no life for them together in the future. He started to say something, to try to jolt the truth from her before it was too late, but the misery in her dark blue eyes stopped him. He did not speak.
They left the hotel together. Outside in the street, with still too many things unsaid, they parted. “I’ll see you tonight,” said Anna, getting into a taxi. “After dinner, late. Don’t wait up.” She waved to him as she drove off. Disaster was in the air. He turned toward Shepheard’s.
Hastings was in the bar when he arrive
d, as though by prearrangement. His surprise, however, seemed genuine.
“Wells! Good to see you, boy! By God, it is!” He pumped his hand energetically and pulled him over to the bar. “Seen Hélène yet?”
“No, I just got here. I thought I’d look in the bar first, before I called her.”
“Spot of gin? Perfect for breakfast, cauterizes the stomach.” He ordered two gins and tonic. Then Hastings looked curiously at Pete, his hard pale eyes interested, his lips set in a genial smile. “Didn’t expect you till tonight, you know. How’d you get here, by the way?”
“Some people I knew chartered a plane last night. Thought I’d go along, since there was no reason to stay on in Luxor.”
“Said know you were leaving?”
“Certainly. He gave me the—”
“Did he know you were leaving last night instead of today?”
The point seemed a little too fine to Pete. “Well, no, I don’t suppose he did. Does it matter? He’d already given me the—stuff.”
“Doesn’t matter at all. Ah, the libation!” They toasted one another solemnly. “By the way,” said Hastings, smacking his lips over the gin, “word comes that you are now the Don Juan of Upper Egypt.”
Pete chuckled. “There didn’t seem any competition,” he said.
“Think not?” Hastings was bland. “No competition there, perhaps. But here, ah, watch out.”
“Why?”
“When competition wears a crown, it’s not easy for us ordinary fellows.”
“I don’t think it’s true about Anna and him.”
“That what she told you? Well, it’s none of my affair except where it involves us, and it will involve us if you’re suddenly marched out of Egypt by the police. That’s happened a couple of times before to eager youths, at least to those with foreign passports. Local swains disappear or else become eunuchs.”
That was it, at last. “You know?”
Hastings looked at him curiously. “Know what?”
“About what happened to me the other night, on the west side of the river.” Pete told the story quickly, aware that Hastings already knew the details.
“We heard,” said Hastings, when he finished. “Not all, though. Shocked, too. Mainly by your bad judgment, if you’ll excuse my saying so. You, and we, are in a tough situation. Delicacy is all-important. So what do you do? Get tangled up with a girl who is guarded by the police and the main interest of the King. You’re damned lucky to be here at all.”
