Frank looked in the window of the ancient cab, even as he sharply slapped the hand of an urchin who was trying to pick his pocket. He said, "Do you speak English?"
The cabby's shifty eyes took him in, evidently deciding his potential fare was American, rather than British. He said, "I talk everything, Jack."
Frank put his bags in the back of the small cab and sat up front next to the driver. The cabby evidently wasn't accustomed to bathing. Frank rolled down the window and said, "Take me to the cheapest hotel in Tangier."
The other grinned at him, displaying teeth like a broken-down picket fence. "The cheapest European type hotel, eh, Jack?"
"The cheapest hotel, period," Frank said definitely.
"You ever slept in a caravansary, Jack? Very cheap. One dirham a night. You sleep on a pile of straw, eh? Twenty other people in the same room, eh? Donkeys and goats, sometimes maybe even a camel. Other people are Rifs, down from the mountains to bring their things to the souk to sell, eh? Very bad people, some of these Rifs. Stick a knife in you if they figure you got ten, maybe twenty dirhams in your pockets."
Frank sighed. "All right, take me to the cheapest European hotel," he said in surrender.
The cabby dropped the lift lever of the prehistoric cab and, when they were aircushion borne, tromped on the accelerator, at first without result. He kicked it viciously and they started up. The American realized that the vehicle must be battery powered, rather than using power packs or picking up juice from the highway. Obviously, the gravel road wasn't automated. However, from what he had read, Morocco wasn't energy-poor. At least a third of the southern stretches of the country were in the Sahara and, in common with neighboring Algeria, the Sherifian Empire of Morocco had been among the first to use major solar power stations with Reunited Nations assistance. Endless square miles of them had been built before the satellite solar power stations began microwaving energy down from orbit.
He had thought himself prepared for poverty of the North African variety, but he wasn't. He couldn't imagine any American being so prepared. The thought came to him: could parts of Latin America have been like this, before joining the United States of the Americas?
From time to time, they passed small communities consisting of single-room dwellings made of wood scraps, cardboard, tin cans beaten flat, small boulders, and mud. There was no pretense of streets, or even alleys, obviously no running water, and garbage and refuse lay heaped in filthy piles, often with naked children playing on their summits. Flies and other insects droned in such swarms that Frank rolled up the window again, despite the stench of his driver.
The cabby grinned evilly over at him. "Not so good, eh, Jack?"
Frank didn't answer.
After suburbs of such appalling filth, Tangier itself came as a surprise. The part of it they entered was European in appearance, rather than Moslem. That figured. The French had once owned this town on the Straits of Hercules, even before the International Zone. And the French might have loony logic, but they didn't live in midden heaps.
The driver assumed the role of travel guide. "This is Route de Tetouan, eh, Jack? And this here we come into is Place d'Europe."
They proceeded to the right and merged into what street signs proclaimed to be the Avenue de Madrid. At least, that's what the French proclaimed. Frank couldn't decipher the Arabic scrawl.
They turned left on the Boulevard Mohammed Fifth. The city continued to improve, and now there was considerably more traffic. Tangier had no restrictions on surface traffic. From time to time they were even held up by minor traffic jams. Most of the cars and trucks seemed as elderly as the hovercab.
"Pasteur Boulevard, she the center of European town, eh? She just two streets up. You like, I think. Cheap hotel."
They turned down Rue Moussai Ben Moussair, barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass, and two blocks later pulled up before a sadly decrepit four-story structure.
"Hotel Rome," the driver said expansively. "Very cheap. Almost clean. Not much bugs, eh, Jack?"
Frank looked out blankly. "Where?" he said.
"She's on second floor, third floor, fourth floor. You don't pay more than ten dirhams, eh? Luigi, he's a crook. He try to charge you more, eh? You can't trust Italianos. Okay, Jack. That'll be fifteen dirhams, Jack. Cheap. All the way from the airport."
Frank got out of his side of the cab, brought forth his Moroccan coins, and handed six dirhams through the window. "The rate's five dirhams and here's one more for a tip," he said.
The other was furious. "Fifteen, you cheap Yankee," he yelled.
"Five," Frank said flatly and reached for the door to the back of the hovercab to recover his bags.
Before he could get it open, the vehicle surged ahead, wrenching his hand from the doorknob and nearly knocking him sprawling.
His eyes bulging, Frank stared aghast at the hovercab careening up the street with his luggage. He searched desperately for its license plate, and could see none. His eyes darted around to other vehicles parked in the street. None of them had license plates. Evidently, there was no such thing in the International Zone of Tangier.
He groaned audibly. He knew nothing about the layout of this town. He didn't know where he could find the police. He didn't know the cabby's name. And the taxi looked like every other one he had seen in this—this ripoff Mecca.
He stood there, staring after it, until the vehicle swerved around a corner and was gone from sight.
Less than two hundred pseudo-dollars to his name and his every belonging stolen.
He finally took a deep breath and turned. Now he could make out the faded sign for the Hotel Rome. It was over a drab wooden stairway. The ground floor of the building was taken up by two stores which seemed almost identical. They resembled, in their window contents, the general stores in American small towns of long ago, selling everything from groceries to textiles, and toys, liquor, non-prescription drugs, shaving supplies, and what not.
The lobby of the Hotel Rome was on the second floor. Only one window overlooked the street. It was furnished with an aged reception desk, keys openly displayed on a rack behind it, and several thoroughly defeated chairs, their upholstery looking as though wild animals had savaged it. In one of the chairs snored an obese man, as disreputable as the furniture.
"Hey!"
The other opened first one eye, then the other. He brushed a fly from the top of his almost bald head and looked accusingly at the man who had awakened him. What do bald, fat Italians dream of, Frank wondered.
"Who do I see about getting a room here?"
"Me," the other grunted, somehow getting his bulk erect. "I'm Luigi. This place, it's mine."
Frank said, "I want the cheapest room you've got."
Luigi took him in, his plump face expressionless. "You got no luggage? You pay right now. Twenty dirhams."
"Ten," Frank said wearily, fishing in his pocket for two five-dirham coins.
"This way," Luigi said, shrugging.
The room was on the same floor as the lobby. It had one primitive electric bulb hanging from the ceiling, one sagging bed, one straight chair, one chipped dresser with a drawer missing. No bath, nor running water. Not even a window. There was a toilet down the hall, but no bath there, either. Seemingly, the tenants of the Hotel Rome didn't bathe, unless they managed a sponge bath out of the filthy lavatory, crammed next to the toilet bowl.
When Luigi was gone, Frank Pinell looked about his room.
"Home at last," he said acidly, running a hand down over his long face.