There were footsteps in the corridor. Wilcox stepped to the door and tried it; it was locked, but a vestige of alarm flickered again across his face. Dyar said nothing.
«Look,» he went on, «I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m stalling or anything. You’re working for me. It may just be a crazy idea of mine, but I think things are going to open up very soon, and I want you to be broken in and ready for the big day when it comes».
«I didn’t say you were stalling. I just said I needed money. But if you haven’t got one week’s pay now, how the hell do you expect to have twice as much next week?»
«That’s a chance we both have to take».
«Both!» He looked derisively at Wilcox.
«Unless you’re a bigger God-damned fool than I think you are you’ve still got a few express checks left that’ll last you at least till next week».
«That’s got nothing to do with it. I’m trying to save those for an emergency».
«Well, this is your emergency».
«That’s what you think». Dyar moved toward the door, opened it and stepped out into the corridor.
«Come here,» said Wilcox, following him quickly. He stood in the doorway and held out a five-hundred peseta note. «You’ve got me all wrong. Jesus! They don’t make ’em stubborner! You really think I’m trying to gyp you, don’t you?» He glanced nervously up and down the corridor.
«I don’t think anything,» Dyar said. He was trying to decide whether or not to take the money; his first impulse had been to refuse it, but then that seemed like a gesture of childish petulance. He reached for it, and said: «Thanks». Immediately afterward he was furious with himself. This anger was not assuaged by Wilcox’s next words.
«And now, for God’s sake, keep out of here until I call you, will you? Please!» The last word was more a shout of relief than of entreaty.
Again he cast a worried glance along the hall, and stepping inside the office, shut the door.
Slowly Dyar went down the stairs, still raging against himself for his blundering behavior. The money had been handed him as though he were a blackmailer come to exact more than the usual figure. Now it would be more difficult than ever to put the affair on a normal business basis.
As he stepped out into the street he realized that the rain was pouring down now. The sidewalks were empty; everyone had taken shelter under awnings, in doorways and arcades. Only an occasional Arab splashed along, seemingly oblivious of the storm. The pastry shop was crowded with people peering out into the street, most of them standing near the door so that if they were approached by a waitress they could move outside. He pushed through their ranks, sat down again and ordered another coffee. It was only then that he began to consider the aspect of Wilcox’s behavior which was not concerned with him — the much more interesting fact that he seemed to be expecting an imminent unwelcome arrival. «Daisy’s probably right,» he thought. Jack had incurred the displeasure of some local hooligan and was awaiting reprisal. Either that or he was trying to avoid a creditor or two. Yet neither supposition quite explained his reluctance to have Dyar visit the office.
«No money!» he thought savagely. «Then why does he stay at the Atlantide?» But he knew the answer. Even if it were true that Wilcox was broke, which seemed unlikely, he would have felt obliged, and would have managed, to go on staying at the best hotel, because the town had agreed with his decision that he was one of the big shots, one of those who automatically get the best whether or not they can pay for it. But why? Every day in Tangier several new companies were formed, most of them with the intention of evading the laws of one country or another, and every day approximately the same number failed. And the reasons for their failure or success had very little to do with the business acumen of those connected with them. If you were really a winner you found ways of intercepting your competitors’ correspondence, even his telegrams; you persuaded the employees at the French Post Office to let you have the first look at letters you were interested in seeing, which was how you got your mailing lists; you hired Arabs to break into other companies’ offices and steal their stationery and examples of their directors’ signatures for you; and when you sent your forged replies regretting your inability to supply the merchandise you prudently went all the way to Tetuan in the Spanish Zone to post them — only no customs official at the frontier got them away from you because somehow you were not stripped naked like the others, and the seams of your clothing were not ripped open. Not that you paid bribes in order to escape being molested — but everyone knew a winner on sight; he was the respected citizen of the International Zone. If one was not a winner one was a victim, and there seemed to be no way to change that. No pretense was of any avail. It was not a question of looking or acting like a winner — that could always be managed, although no one was taken in by it — it was a matter of conviction, of feeling like one, of knowing you belonged to the caste, of recognizing and being sure of your genius. For a long time he reflected confusedly upon these things; then he paid, got up, and went out into the rain, which now fell less heavily.
«I knew you would come,» said Mme. Jouvenon. This was her way of saying that she had not been at all sure of it.
Dyar was more truthful. «I didn’t,» he said with a wry smile. And as he said it, he wondered why indeed he had come. Partly out of courtesy, perhaps, although he would not have wanted to admit that. He had found himself outside the restaurant three times during the late morning, but it had been too early for the rendezvous. However, he had seen the bright displays of hors d’oeuvre through the window, and probably it was they more than anything else that had induced him finally to keep the appointment. It was the sort of place he never would have thought of eating in alone.
Mme. Jouvenon was much calmer today — even rather pleasant, he thought — and certainly she was nobody’s fool. She held the reins of the conversation firmly, but directed it with gentleness so that there was no feeling of strain. When they had reached the salad course, with all the naturalness in the world she began to discuss the subject that interested her, and he found it difficult to see anything offensive in what she said or in the way she said it. He understood, she supposed, that most people in Tangier had to live as best they could, doing one thing and another, and precisely because there were so many governments represented in the Administration, there was a great need for a practical system of checking and counter-checking between each power and the others. This ought to have been worked out beforehand officially, but it had not been, and the old formula of private tallying had still to be adhered to. He nodded gravely, smiling to himself, wondering just how long it would take her to make her offer, and under what guise it would come.
He was aware, she said, that practically every Englishman in the Zone, even with a title, was constrained by his government to furnish whatever information he could gather, and that far from being a shameful pursuit, on the contrary this was considered to be a completely honorable activity.
«More than most others you could find here, I guess,» Dyar laughed.
She did not know about the English, she said, but many people she knew managed to make the thing lucrative by supplying data to two or more offices simultaneously. At the moment her government (she did not specify which it was) had no representation on the Board of Administrators, which made adequate reports an even greater necessity. Inasmuch as it was common knowledge that the unseen power behind the Administration was the United States, it was particularly with regard to American activities that her government wished to be documented. The difficulty was that the American milieu in Tangier was peculiarly hermetic, not inclined to mix with the other diplomatic groups. And then of course Americans were especially unsusceptible to financial offers, simply because it was difficult to put the price high enough to make it worth the trouble to most of them.