Three Passports to Trouble

by Sean McLachlan

She had on black shoes and carried a black purse. No jewelry except for her cheapest watch. Anarchists didn’t like displays of wealth.

  I led her out of the garden and down a side alley.

  “I might be followed. Let’s beat it.”

  We took a cab up to Marshan, got out, and took another cab down to the port.

  “Feel better?” she asked me in a low voice as we sat in back.

  “Not really. Are you sure this isn’t a setup? I mean, I get jumped and the same night you get special permission to bring me along.”

  “You’re getting paranoid.”

  “This place can do that to you.”

  She studied me with those big blue eyes. “Is this in relation to your other work?”

  “No. Yes. Well, kinda.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You bring your little friend?” I asked.

  Melanie is one of the only people I know who wouldn’t turn the “little friend” remark into some joke at my expense. She was good to me that way.

  She opened her purse to let me see the little pearl-handled .25 automatic inside. I had my own gun in the usual shoulder holster, of course.

  “You sure this is safe?” I asked again.

  “No, Kent. Now just relax.”

  The cab took us through the crowded streets past braying donkeys loaded with firewood. Moors in hooded cloaks strolled on either side, showing no interest in the taxi and its cargo of two nervous foreigners. The muezzin was making the call for night prayer as the cab broke free from the crowd and turned into a large parking lot at one end of the corniche. Melanie had him park far from the boat so we could check out the area before arriving.

  The corniche is Tangier’s waterfront, with a row of hotels all whitewashed with yellow trim. They made a fine sight in the daytime, gleaming with enough light to rival the water, but at night they looked gloomy and ominous. Few lights shone from their windows, the residents all off for their nocturnal activity. At one, however, the lights were on and the curtains open. A man stood there, a plump figure in silhouette. I could see him very clearly as he opened a medicine bottle, put some pills in his hand, and popped them into his mouth. Then he repeated the movement.

  We walked down the broad esplanade, the port to our left and the hotels to our right, and a stretch of tamped earth in between. It was quiet tonight, not many pedestrians. All we heard was the slap of waves against the hulls of the little fishing boats, low conversation from a few Moors sitting by the water, and the distant horn of the ferry from Tarifa as it announced its approach. Above I could see stars and the faint white crosses of seagulls turning slowly in the night.

  The anarchists’ boat was a large fishing vessel of the kind used for deep sea work. That type of vessel had the range to make it to the Spanish or Portuguese coasts, or down into the Spanish Zone. The large hull would be perfect for smuggling.

  It was moored at the end of a pier, dimly lit by a few lamps on the cabin and gunwale. A line of men and women was stepping on board one by one. All wore subdued middle class clothing, obviously having the same idea about tonight’s attire as Melanie.

  “Looks like we’re fashionably late,” I said.

  Melanie didn’t reply. I saw her clutch her purse a little tighter.

  We walked out onto the pier, which felt like walking the plank, and took our place in the back of the line. Melanie said hello to a couple of cafe owners she knew, and I recognized Dean from Dean’s Bar and a few head waiters from some of the classier joints around town.

  A pair of swarthy fishermen who looked like they belonged in a pirate movie helped each person on. They took special care of Melanie, greeting her by name and holding her arms like she was a Ming vase. I hopped on right behind her. One of the guys looked me in the eye and gave a barely perceptible nod.

  The deck had been provided with several chairs, but they were already taken and most people sat on the gunwale. Sailors went around with various bottles offering drinks. The one who came up to us had a choice of two different high-end Scotches. I picked one and Melanie picked the other. We were also handed a price list for different brands, available only by the case.

  “These are good prices,” Melanie said, examining the list.

  “And this is damn good Scotch,” I said, taking a sip. “Being stolen adds something to the bouquet, don’t you think?”

  She giggled and nudged me.

  I glanced around. I’d been in a lot of situations where I had to size people up, and I could tell these rumrunners had done everything they could to put us at ease. Guests had been allowed to sit by the gangplank and next to all the bollards that had ropes securing the boat to the pier. Another boat was having a party not far off. Loud laughter and crude jokes in Portuguese filtered over to us in the night. None of the crew on our boat were obviously armed, and they never grouped in numbers greater than two.

  Melanie was still looking at the price list. Actually she was only pretending. I could see her gaze flick this way and that. She’s been in the French Resistance and knew how to suss out a situation as well as I did.

  I glanced at her and she gave me a little smile in return. Well, she knew these people better than I did, and if she said it was OK…

  We stood up and started mingling. Melanie got into a conversation with the owner of the Ali Baba Restaurant, one of Tangier’s more expensive restaurants.

  “What insanity we had today!” he said. He was a stout, expansive man, half Turkish and half Italian, who gestured with his hands incessantly. “Suddenly we have this invasion. That cruise ship is a sign of things to come.”

  “I hope not,” Melanie said. “I was invaded today too.”

  “So was I,” said Dean, stepping into our circle. Dean was a Negro from England whose past was as mysterious as his cocktails were strong. He owned Dean’s Bar. “It’s been great for business.”

  “If anyone knows one place in Tangier, it’s yours,” I told him. I was there most nights myself. Like the Cafe Tingis, Dean’s Bar was one of those places where you could find out a lot of good bits of information. “But doesn’t it ruin it for the regulars? All of Melanie’s got scared off this morning.”

  Dean laughed. “Ah, the cruise ships will never be too numerous. Maybe one a week to give our economy a shot in the arm. How many people can afford cruises, anyway? It’s not like it’s going to catch on.”

  “Maybe we should push the council to expand the airport,” Mr. Ali Baba said. I couldn’t remember his real name, already lost to the pleasant warmth of that excellent Scotch. A waiter (sorry, comrade and equal) refilled my glass without me having to ask.

  “Too sensitive of a strategic issue,” I replied.

  “International air travel is the new thing,” Dean said. “No one wants to come by boat anymore. These cruises are just a fad.”

  One of the crew came to take orders and Melanie went through the list with him, ticking off what she wanted. I looked around for the man in charge. But of course there wouldn’t be a man in charge. That was the point of anarchism, at least in theory. In reality, there’s always someone more capable or determined than the rest who rises to the top.

  I spotted him sitting alone at the stern, a debonair young man with an air of authority. He held a bottle and two glasses and looked at me through the crowd. Story of my life—a guy offers me drinks and makes my life more complicated.

  Might as well face the music. I strolled along the length of the ship to him. As I passed the open hatch to the hold, I looked in and saw a big heap of fish.

  “Hope all those fish don’t ruin the Scotch you’re hiding under them,” I told him when I got to the stern.

  “Let’s find out.” He poured us each a couple of fingers worth. He looked of good stock, surprising for the CNT, with refined features and light skin. In fact, he looked like a Spanish Errol Flynn. He had a demeanor of quiet confidence as he raised his glass for a toast. Had Errol Flynn’s impish smile too. His workingman’s clothes looked like a costume.

 
; “To the international workers’ revolution,” he said.

  “Whatever form it may take,” I replied.

  He smiled and we tried the Scotch. Heaven.

  “You like it?” he asked.

  “Oh yes.”

  “I will give you a bottle.”

  “That’s real nice of you. I know just the man to share it with.”

  The anarchist glanced over my shoulder, making me look. Melanie was in a conversation with a couple of cafe owners, but she had moved closer to us and faced in our direction.

  “Does she need to be here?” he asked.

  “She was my ticket. But no, I don’t think she needs to be at this little powwow.”

  “Then we will let the lady enjoy her soiree.”

  Unlike most anarchists, he said “lady” without any trace of venom.

  “You and your crew don’t have Catalan accents. Most CNT people I’ve met are from Catalonia.”

  “They are not my crew. We are all equal here. Most of us are from Valencia.”

  And a nice home in Valencia from the sound of his speech. I pictured a well-educated rich kid who decided to rebel against his parents. Pretty typical story except he had it taken way further than most.

  Suddenly I had a horrible thought.

  “Valencia, you say? Were you folks in the Iron Column?”

  His smile confirmed my worst fears. The Iron Column had out-radicaled the radicals. While calling themselves anarchists, they hated the CNT for cooperating with the Republican government and thought all Communists were agents of Stalin.

  I was at the wrong party.

  Now this smuggling operation make sense. Right at the beginning of the civil war, the Iron Column opened up the prisons in Valencia, and some of the worst of the criminals joined their ranks.

  I revised my estimation of my drinking partner. Maybe his rebellion against his respectable upbringing had started earlier, landed him in jail, and then he took the best way out.

  “This is lovely Scotch, but why am I here?” I asked.

  “Comrade Kent,” he said, showing he knew my name and background although I still didn’t know his. “We share the same problem. We both want to see justice done for Juan Cardona. Real justice.”

  I decided to test him. “They already arrested the murderer.”

  The anarchist shook his head. “Do not shit me, Comrade Kent. You are still making enquiries. Why would you do that if you thought the prisoner was guilty? And we have heard the prisoner is a sick man and unlikely to have overpowered a younger and healthier opponent.”

  They wouldn’t have heard that from any of the CNT people I talked to. The CNT wouldn’t have shared anything with these jokers. So what was their source of information?

  “What you say is true,” I admitted. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  He cocked his head and gave me a little smile. “You can call me Silone.”

  “Silone is an Italian name.”

  “Italian names are just as good as any other.”

  “Fair enough, Silone. You called me comrade, so you must know my background.”

  He gave me what was supposed to be a winning smile. I was not won over.

  “Yes, you were in the Communist militia, fighting to overthrow capitalist dictatorship to install a dictatorship of the Party.”

  “I’m no Stalinist.”

  “I never said you were, Comrade Kent,” he replied in a soothing voice. “But all Communist revolutions get betrayed by the Party. Surely you must know that by now.”

  “We never had a chance in Catalonia. The anarchists kept shooting us.”

  “We were always fair. Regressive elements were always given a chance to change. We always gave a warning.”

  What a bunch of baloney. Time to cut to the chase.

  “What can you do for me?” I asked.

  The anarchist poured me some more Scotch. My head was getting woozy.

  “It is not what I can do for you, it’s what we can do for each other.”

  Then he made me an offer that was so out there, so ridiculous, that I couldn’t say no.

  I was too afraid to.

  At least he gave me a nice bottle of Scotch to take home.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next day, nursing another hangover, I went back to see Einhardt Ritter.

  After playing the switching-cab trick on any possible tails, I strolled into the German print shop like any other customer. Einhardt was busy setting type when I came in. He gave me an inky handshake.

  “I came for my business cards, plus I have another project for you. May we speak in your office?”

  Einhardt gestured for me to come behind the counter. “The business cards are ready and look quite good, if I do say. Come.”

  We sat in his office with the door closed. He opened a safe set behind his desk and pulled out two Spanish passports.

  There were my boys, looking all official and legal with two brand new names. I studied the passports for a time and didn’t find any flaws.

  “There’s been a change of plan,” I told him. “I need two different passports for the same people. I gave you extra photos so that won’t be a problem. Here’s the information I want put on them.”

  I handed him a slip of paper. He looked at it, and then looked at me, confused.

  “Can you make a rush delivery for tomorrow? I’ll pay extra and I’ll pay in advance.”

  He rubbed his jaw for a moment, then nodded.

  “I will have to work through the night but it is possible. Come back tomorrow afternoon. It will cost 2,000 francs each.”

  “I’ll pay in pounds sterling.”

  That’s what the rumrunning Errol Flynn lookalike had given me. I guess “Silone” had gotten his bootleg crates in Gibraltar, or made a shipment there.

  We shook on it, and Einhardt gave me a small box filled with business cards to carry away with me. When so much of your life is an act for one person or another, you need the right props.

  I left the print shop in a cold sweat. This was risky, but it might be worth it. It solved one of my problems and yet created a few others.

  Typical.

  It turned out the Iron Column had some operatives in town of their own. Well, “comrades on business.” They had come in together, stating their purpose was to set up a clothing shop in Tangerville. This they did, but now one of them needed to get to the Spanish Zone. The Spanish Errol Flynn had a contact in the police department who had told them about the two Communist operatives. He correctly assumed I knew how to get in touch with the people who had brought them here. How he had come to that assumption I don’t know. Maybe his contact relayed Chason’s suspicions about me. Maybe he had some other insider information. He wouldn’t say and it made me nervous. At least he didn’t directly say that I was the one who had brought them in.

  Anyway, he was going to have his three businessmen, who were already respectable residents of Tangier with a thriving clothing shop, go down to Spanish Morocco to look into setting up a branch of their business there. Only one of their operatives needed to go and the other two were needed here. I figured they had to do something in Tangier while ostensibly being out of town and thus free from suspicion. So the Spanish Errol Flynn had hit on the idea of having his operative go down with the two Communist ones.

  “It will be just like in Spain, Marxists and anarchists fighting side by side,” he had told me.

  I hoped it wouldn’t be like in Barcelona in 1937, where the two sides got to shooting one another.

  As chancy as this was, it was a stroke of luck too. With all the papers being checked and rechecked both here and at the border, having my two operatives go down with established names already known and cleared by the authorities gave them a much better chance of getting through.

  But it meant doing business with the Iron Column. I’d have to see the guys to the border myself, just to make sure they got there in one piece.

  From the print shop I again took a series of cabs to
head up to the Mountain. I had a friend up there who might just have a line on who got the delivery from Juan Cardona and Octavio Prieta, the mysterious German-Spaniard.

  I had already called several people on the Mountain asking if they had seen the truck or anything else unusual, but they had all said no. Most of them were regular folk with regular jobs, and that kind didn’t see the world in the same way that people like me did. They didn’t notice things.

  Electric Eddie did.

  Electric Eddie was an American speed freak who was supposedly in Tangier as a stringer for various American newspapers and magazines. In fact, he did little writing. His true avocation was distributing banned literature. He didn’t discriminate between literatures. If it was banned in a certain place, Electric Eddie would ship it there. Racy novels to Gibraltar, communist tracts to the Spanish Zone, Algerian independence pamphlets to the French Zone, he did it all.

  He was also paranoid, so there was a good chance he would have noticed a truck making deliveries.

  Electric Eddie had a nice little cottage surrounded by a wall and a poorly tended garden. You could see Electric Eddie’s paranoia in the state of the garden. He had bought the cottage off some female American painter and when he first moved in the garden had been an oasis of flowers and bushes. I guess the painter would sit in her lush garden and paint all those lovely colors.

  After Electric Eddie moved in, the garden went to seed. The flowers shriveled for lack of care, and weeds grew up in their place. The only plants he remembered to water were the bushes in front of the windows. He watered them, put fertilizer on them, and tended them like a professional gardener until they had grown up to cover all the windows. Now even if someone climbed the wall and snuck into the garden they wouldn’t be able to see what was going on inside.

  The garden gate was locked as usual. Before I could ring the bell that hung next to the gate, the front door burst open. Electric Eddie rushed out, thick glasses flashing in the sun, skinny arms waving every which way, his oversized hands a blur. He hauled open the gate, grabbed me, and dragged me inside the house.

  After the door slammed behind us, I yanked my arm free from his grip.