Pounding and calling out seemed fairly useless. Dyar continued to do both, until a very thin Arab with a broom in his hand appeared from a corner of the courtyard, and stood looking between the bars.
«Ili firmi!» he said indignantly.
«Mr. Benzekri! I’ve got to see him!»
«Ili firmi, m’sio». And to Thami: «Qoullou rhadda f’s sbah». But Thami did not deign to notice the sweeper; he went back down the steps into the zoco and shouted up to Dyar: «Come on!» Seeing that the latter remained at the gate trying to argue with the man, he sat down in a chair nearby on the sidewalk to wait until he had finished. Presently Dyar came down to join him, muttering under his breath.
«The son of a bitch wouldn’t even go and call Mr. Benzekri for me».
Thami laughed. «Sit down. Have a drink. Be my guest». A waiter had approached. Dyar threw himself into a chair. «Give me a White Horse. No water,» he said.
Thami ordered. Then he looked at Dyar and laughed again. He reached over and slapped Dyar’s knee. «Don’t be so serious. No one is going to die because you can’t get in the bank today instead of tomorrow. You can go tomorrow».
«Yes,» said Dyar. Even as he said it he was thinking: Legally the money belongs to whoever has it. And I’ve got it.
«You need money?» said Thami suddenly. «How much? I’ll give you some money. How much?»
«No thanks, Thami. I appreciate it. You’re a good guy. Just let me think. I just want to think a minute».
Thami was silent until the whiskey was brought. Then he began to talk again, about an Englishman he had once known. The Englishman had invited him to go to Xauen with him, but for some reason there had been difficulties at the frontier. Never very perceptive, he did not notice that Dyar was still sunk inside himself, formulating, rejecting possibilities.
«A votre santé, monsieur,» said Thami, raising his glass expectantly.
«Yeah,» said Dyar. «Yeah». And looking up suddenly: «Right. Prosit». He drained his glass. He was thinking: if only Ramlal had gotten the money yesterday morning instead of last night I’d be in the clear. No Legation wondering when I’m going to phone. No Madame Jouvenon. Damn Madame Jouvenon. He did not realize how illogical his reasoning was at this point, how inextricably bound up with his present decision was his involvement with that lady.
«Let’s get out of here». He rose to his feet. The suddenness of the remark and the tone in which it was said made Thami look up at him wonderingly.
In the street, going down toward the port, he began to speak confidentially, holding his mouth close to Thami’s ear. «Can you run that boat?»
«Well» —
«You can’t run it. All right. Do you know anyone who can? How about the guy you bought it from? He can run it, can’t he? Where is he now?»
«Where is he now?»
«Yes. Right now».
«He lives in Dradeb».
«Where’s that?»
«You know,» said Thami obligingly. «You go from the Zoco de Fuera into Bou Arakía. You go past the Moorish cemetery and you come to Cuatro Caminos» —
«Can we go there in a taxi?»
«Taxi? We don’t need a taxi. We can walk. The taxi charges fifteen pesetas».
«We can get there in a taxi, though?»
Thami, looking increasingly surprised, said that they could.
«Come on!» Dyar rushed ahead, toward the cab-stand at the foot of the ramparts. Laughing and protesting, Thami followed. At last the American was behaving like an American. They got to the foot of the hill. Dyar looked at his watch. Ten after four. I’m glad I thought of that, he said to himself. «Hotel de la Playa,» he told the driver. If Wilcox just happened to be at the hotel waiting for him, he could still have an alibi. Chocron had kept him so long that the Crédit Foncier was closed when he got there, so he had come back immediately to lock up the money until tomorrow. Wilcox could either take it with him, or leave it, as he liked. But if he returned to the hotel any later than this and happened to find Wilcox, there would be no way of explaining the time that had elapsed between four and whatever time he got there. «If you just do each thing as it comes along and keep calm you can get away with this. Get rattled and you’re screwed for good,» he told himself.
The sun had gone behind the high buildings on the hill, but it still shone on the freighters at anchor in the harbor; all their white paint was turning faintly orange in its light. Beyond them on its cliff stood the whitewashed tower of the lighthouse at Malabata.
At the hotel he had Thami wait in the cab. With his parcel he jumped out and went into the lobby. There was no sign of Wilcox. That was all right, but the more dangerous moment would be when he came back downstairs. Even then he could still say he had thought of locking it in one of his valises, then had decided to give it to the management to put into the hotel safe. The boy gave him his key and a telephone message, which he put into his pocket without reading. He ran upstairs. The air in his room was dead, colder by several degrees than the air outdoors. He laid his brief case on the bed, quickly put into it his razor, shaving cream, blades, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb and four handkerchiefs. Then he unwrapped the box and laid the bundles of bills in among the toilet articles. There was still room for a pair of shorts. The door was locked; if Wilcox rapped on it at this moment he would have time to take out the money and throw the brief case into the closet. He felt in his pocket to see if his passport, wallet and express checks were all there. He stuffed a woolen scarf and a pair of gloves into the pocket of his overcoat and slung it over his arm, closed the brief case, spun its Sesamee lock to triple zero, and looked once more around the room. Then, with a caution which he felt was absurd even as he used it, he unlocked the door and opened it. The corridor was empty. Through the window at the end he saw the distant dunes behind the beach; their shadows reached out along the flat sand toward the harbor. A radio upstairs was playing Flamenco music, but there was no sound in the halls or stairway.
«Let’s go,» he whispered, and he went quietly downstairs. Wilcox was not in the lobby. The taxi outside had not moved. He handed his key to the boy and walked out. «Good bye, Playa,» he said under his breath.
«Now give that address to the driver».
«The Jilali?» Thami was mystified, but knowing something was in the air he had every intention of playing along until he satisfied his curiosity, both as to what Dyar was doing and as to whether there might be some money in it for him. He leaned forward and began to give the man complicated instructions.
«Come on! Let’s get started!» Dyar cried, glancing anxiously down the Avenida de España. «You can do that on the way».
The cab backed and turned up the road that went over the hill. Now the setting sun shone directly into their faces; Dyar put on a pair of dark glasses, turned to Thami. «What did you pay for your boat?»
Thami gulped and floundered, saying: «Who, me?» which is what any Arab would have said under similar circumstances; then, remembering that such an answer was calculated to infuriate any American, he quickly told him the only price he could think of, which was the true one.
«How’s this?» said Dyar. «You rent the boat to me tonight for twenty-five hundred pesetas, and I’ll give you another twenty-five hundred to come along and see that I get where I want to go. You’ll have your boat and your five thousand».
The emotions engendered in Thami by the unfamiliar situation caused him further to abandon his European habits of thought. Good luck, like bad luck, comes directly from Allah to the recipient; the intermediary is of little importance save as a lever to help assure the extraction of the maximum blessing. «I have no money for gasolina». objected Thami.