I kicked at the grate again, and this time it popped loose. Dropping to the floor, I scrambled up onto the sink and pulled myself through the narrow opening. It was a thankfully short drop to the roof below, but I landed on my side, jarring the shoulder I’d hurt in my tussle with Salim that night outside the Mamounia.
Wincing at the pain, I rolled up and drew the Beretta. I could hear Salim above me, his voice through the open window, and then the distinct crack of an unsilenced gunshot. The bullet erupted at my feet, sending up a spray of gravel and tar.
I sprang forward and sprinted, dropping down onto the neighboring dwelling. A second shot sounded, this one just missing my heels. I crouched in the shelter of the roof’s edge and fired back, the action coming easily. Steady, aim, shoot, I told myself. The plaster wall shattered, and the head in the window dropped from view.
Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself and waited for Salim to reappear, but the window went dark instead. Yes, I thought, I knew how to do this kind of thing. I had been this person, and she lived inside me still, this woman I’d denied, this woman I’d feared. Now my very survival rested with her. I glanced behind me and saw the path I would take, the roofs of the medina forming an unbroken pathway. A way out, I told myself, as I scrambled forward and leaped down onto the next house. Everything would be fine.
It was early daylight when I finally made my way down the Rue Dar el-Baroud. The morning was gray, the bay dark as oil, the chop etched in froth. The Continental glowed against the ashen sky and filth-streaked medina like a rose at dusk. I passed the old hotel without stopping and headed east through the medina. Stopping at a shop on the Rue as-Siaghin, I bought a plain brown burnoose and a cheap leather shoulder bag, then wandered down the Rue des Almohades till I found a grimy and nondescript pension.
Twenty dirhams got me an unplumbed room on the second floor. Another outrageous fifty, and the manager reluctantly produced a bowl of greasy broth, a wedge of stale bread, a handful of dates, and a hard-boiled egg. Hardly a feast, but it was enough to take the edge off my hunger. I ate in my room, then slipped the burnoose on, put the Beretta, my money, and my passports in the leather bag, and headed out again.
It was just midmorning, but already the Ramadan hush had settled over the Petit Socco. A few old diehards played chess over ghosts of mint tea or sat alone in the cafés with imagined cigarettes and coffee. But save for them and the occasional tourist trying to recapture the Tangier of William Burroughs or Paul Bowles, the square was nearly empty.
I found the Café Becerra easily. The tiny establishment sat on the northeast corner of the plaza, its handful of outdoor tables clustered beneath a grime-streaked awning, its only clientele three scrawny stray cats asleep on the patio. Stopping several yards from the café, I pulled the burnoose down low over my face and slid Helen’s card from my pocket. There was neither name nor address on the plain white rectangle, just a simple representation of the Hand of Fatima, the Moroccan good-luck talisman, a woman’s palm facing outward.
Keep us safe, Lord, I whispered, the old compline prayer. Reaching into my bag for reassurance, I touched the barrel of the Beretta, then crossed the last few yards to the café’s open front door.
It was dark inside the restaurant, the air rich with the smell of the evening’s harira already on the stove. A shriveled old man in a brown burnoose had either died or fallen asleep at one of the inside tables. His hood was pulled down over his eyes, his mouth open slightly, his hands clasped on his chest. A cane rested against the table. A dark young man who looked as if he was fresh from the king’s prisons sat behind the bar thumbing through a dog-eared girlie magazine. It was a cheap publication, the women all fat and amateurish, with greasy hair and bad makeup.
His eyes shifted slightly, taking in the burnoose, and he grunted something in Arabic. When I didn’t move, he looked up at me. “Closed,” he said in French, sneering at the Western face behind the hood.
“I’m not here for tea,” I told him.
He shrugged, then slowly turned the page. “We are closed,” he tried again in English.
“I’m looking for Ishaq,” I explained.
The man scanned the page in front of him, the glossy picture of a fleshy woman in black leather underpants and a merry widow. “Sorry,” he spat. “No one here by that name.”
“A friend sent me,” I said, setting the card on the woman’s crotch.
He looked down at the Hand of Fatima for a moment, then pushed the card off the magazine and across the bar toward me. “Where’s Helen?” he asked.
“Dead,” I told him, returning the card to my pocket.
He considered me for a moment, his eyes hard and black as coal. Part of a tattoo was visible above the collar of his shirt, the top of some intricate decoration. “There,” he said finally, nodding toward the motionless old man.
He called out in Arabic, and the wizened figure opened his eyes and stared out at me from beneath his burnoose. The two had a brief exchange of words; then the old man beckoned me to his table.
“You must excuse Kahlil,” he said, motioning to the barman as I took a seat opposite him. “He is a little rough around the edges.” He spoke perfect French, cultured and easy, each word delicately formed.
“Of course.”
“And you,” Ishaq said, resting his knotted hands on the table. “You have come for transportation, no?”
I nodded. “Yes. Can you get me to Spain.”
“Anything is possible,” he conceded, with fake modesty. His eyes were bright beneath the shadow of the burnoose.
“How much?” I asked.
“May I assume time is of the essence?”
“You may.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “I could arrange for something tonight, but for a white woman, on such short notice, I would need at least four thousand, American.”
“Two thousand,” I said. “I’ll give you the cash right now.”
“You are trying to insult me?” he protested. “I couldn’t possibly do this for less than thirty-five hundred.”
“Three thousand,” I told him.
The old man shook his head and flashed me a look of reluctant disgust. “Three thousand,” he conceded.
I opened my bag and counted out half the money, then slid the bills onto the table in front of him. “Half now, half on delivery,” I told him.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not how we do business, Mademoiselle. This is a dirty affair, I know, but you’ll just have to trust me. It’s three thousand now, or the deal’s off.”
Reluctantly, I counted out the remaining fifteen hundred and passed it to him.
He smiled at the sight of the currency. “Take the number fifteen bus tonight from the Grand Socco toward Cap Malabata,” he said, secreting the money into the folds of his burnoose. “The last one leaves at around eight. Get off at Ghandouri and walk toward the cliffs at the eastern end of the beach. There will be a boat sometime after midnight.”
He looked right at me. “Don’t worry, my dear. There will be a boat. Now, if you will excuse me, it seems I have other business to attend to.”
I stood and turned. Three men had come in while I was with Ishaq, West Africans, Senegalese or Ivory Coasters from the looks of them, no doubt shopping for the same thing I’d come for.
“It has been a pleasure, Mademoiselle,” I heard the old man say as I headed for the door.
TWENTY-TWO
I slept like a corpse in my narrow bed at the pension and awoke to darkness outside my window. It was close to seven by my watch. Down in the street voices clamored and hummed, crowds driven by newly full stomachs and nicotine. I got up, went down the hall and relieved myself, then came back to the room and washed my face and hands in the cold-water sink.