Dynamite Fishermen (34 page)

Prosser turned to leave, then as an afterthought pressed a ten-lira note in the old man’s hand. The Arab man smiled in appreciation, exposing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “If you need us, Uncle,” Prosser said, “we will be upstairs in the restaurant.”

When the elevator door opened at the fourth floor, they stepped into a remarkably authentic replica of a French country restaurant, complete with oak paneling, lace curtains, stuffed antelope heads, and a stone fireplace at the far end of the room. The proprietor, a stout, hirsute Frenchman in shirtsleeves with a colossal hooked nose, showed them to their table and called for a waiter to bring baguettes and butter and a wine list.

Prosser looked around the room. Aside from two well-dressed Lebanese couples in their sixties, the only other patrons that evening consisted of a party of Europeans readily identifiable as journalists by their overstuffed shoulder bags and rumpled safari suits. Prosser recognized the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
correspondent first through a gray cloud of cigar smoke. Then he picked out others from the
Manchester Guardian,
the
Daily Mail
, and the
New York Times
—along with Prosser’s neighbor, Simon Grandy of the
Sunday Times.

The journalists appeared to have finished their meal, but not their wine or cigars, as six empty bottles of Ksara Blanc des Blancs huddled together at the center of the table, and a fresh bottle circulated from hand to hand. The reporters were embroiled in a heated discussion of Middle Eastern politics, from which Prosser could pick out only the names of King Fahd and King Hussein and the phrase “Camp David Accords.” The Lebanese barkeep looked on with satisfaction as he stripped the foil from around the neck of another Ksara bottle.

The two American diplomats and their companions had scarcely occupied their table and ordered the wine when Prosser noticed Simon Grandy squinting intently at them from across the room. Prosser waved to him and after a few seconds drew a startled wave in reply. Grandy pushed his chair back and rose unsteadily to his feet.

Prosser crossed the distance between them before the Briton could take two steps from the table. “Simon, it’s good to see you again after so long. How have you been?”

“Actually, I would be a damned sight better if I hadn’t spent the last two weeks in Basra covering the Iran-Iraq War. But how about you, Prosser? Have the Lebs been keeping you on your toes?”

“Not as much as they might. So far we’ve had a quiet summer. I was in Cyprus last week for a little R and R, but otherwise it’s been the same old routine.”

A hint of apprehension appeared at the edges of the Englishman’s smile, and he took another step away from the table, even though there was little chance of their being overheard. “Let’s have a pint together soon, shall we?” he said, looking over his shoulder self-consciously.

“Sure, Simon. Will you be at home over the weekend?”

“Yes, but if you don’t mind terribly, could we make it a bit sooner than the weekend? I’ve learned something about Graham’s death that I believe you should hear. Could you meet me at, say, five o’clock tomorrow at the Duke of Wellington Pub?”

Prosser nodded. “I’ll look for you at the bar.”

“Wait a moment,” Simon broke in. “How rude of me. I forgot to introduce you to my colleagues. Come along, it will only take a moment.”

Simon Grandy led him back to his table. “Do you know Wolf and John and Andrew and Mary?” he asked, nodding toward each one in turn.

The journalists interrupted their discussion to salute Prosser with coolly polite smiles and muttered greetings. Despite their unimposing appearance, these foreign correspondents clearly considered themselves several degrees above any breed of civil servant.

“You might be interested to know that Andrew here has just received word from the
Guardian’s
local office that Israeli gunboats have attempted a seaborne landing of troops at Damour. He’s been trying for the past half hour to convince us to run off there with him,” Simon explained, nodding toward the youngest member of his party, a short, red-haired Scot in his early thirties with a freckled face made even more florid by an ample ration of wine.

“Radio Palestine reports such landings every second night, and not one of them is to be believed,” the German correspondent scoffed. “It would be a complete waste of time to go there, I assure you.”

“My driver is picking me up in five minutes,” the Scotsman announced, undaunted. “Sten is coming, so that leaves room for two more. Who will it be?”

“Not me,” the
Daily Mail
correspondent replied wearily. “The Palestinians probably just overreacted to one of the Israeli gunboats offshore. It happens all the time.”

“I’m game,” the
New York Times
correspondent offered. “But I left my passport at the Commodore Hotel. Can we swing by on our way out?”

“We won’t need passports. You brought your press card, didn’t you?” interjected Mary, a veteran
Time
correspondent in her mid-thirties.

“Mary’s right; the press card will be enough,” Andrew declared. “My driver can talk us through any roadblock we meet. He’s been on the staff for years and is an absolute wizard at dealing with the Syrians and Palestinians.”

“Do you have the number of the American embassy in case you need help?” Prosser inquired politely of the woman from Time.

“Of course I have it,” she answered curtly. “But I rather doubt it would be of much use. I’ve been told you embassy people never set foot outside the Beirut city limits.”

“Then you’ve been misinformed. But I suppose a rumor like that would be rather difficult for you to check out.”

The
Time
correspondent turned her back on Prosser and took another puff from her cigarette.

Prosser wrote a telephone number on his business card and handed it across the table to a slender, balding, grayish-complexioned man who was the chief New York Times correspondent for Lebanon. “The number on the back belongs to the vice consul sitting right over there,” Prosser told him, pointing at Harry. “He’ll be home by midnight. I suggest you call him if you need help. And if you can’t reach him, feel free to call me.”

As Prosser took leave of Simon and returned to his own table, he heard Andrew order two bottles of Ksara rosé for the road.

After returning to his own table, Prosser recounted the journalists’ plans for their nocturnal excursion to Damour.

“You must be joking,” Rima replied. “Surely foreign journalists could not be so stupid.”

“Never mind, Rima; the Syrians will turn them back before they go very far,” Layla replied blithely.

“I heard you tell them to call me,” Harry interjected. “Thanks a bundle.”

“A couple of them are American citizens, Harry. Helping Americans in distress is part of your job, isn’t it?”

“So is repatriating their remains. You should have dissuaded them from going.”

“They’re big boys and girls. Screw them,” Prosser declared, reaching for a baguette.

At that moment the wine steward brought their bottle of Pouilly-Fumé to the table. In his wake arrived the headwaiter with individual terrines ofpâté.

“Anyway,” Prosser continued with a benevolent smile, “I told them you wouldn’t be home until after midnight. That means we still have time for a nightcap downtown before you have to be on hand to receive their S.O.S.”

“All I can say is if I’m up all night because of these jokers, you owe me big.”

“And if they write you up as a hero for bailing them out, remember who brokered the introduction.”

* * *

Hamra Street was deserted for its entire garbage-strewn length, its few functioning streetlamps casting a dim yellow glow down narrow alleys choked with the parked cars of apartment dwellers. Deep in these alleys, scattered neon lights showed the way to some of West Beirut’s trendier bars.

If the Hamra Cellar was such a
trés chic
destination among Beirut’s fashionable people, Prosser asked himself, why had he never heard of it? And where were the other patrons? He saw no signs of movement anywhere, and he wondered if the Hamra Cellar, like the Stork Club, was one of those ghost institutions so far in decline since 1975 that they did little more than remind one of how far the city had deteriorated since its prewar heyday.

Rima signaled for him to turn off rue Hamra at rue Jeanne d’Arc and park wherever he could find a spot. Once the car was parked, she led him another two blocks on foot into a brightly lit passage where, over the door to a one-story, windowless cinder-block building, a red neon sign advertised the single word “Cellar.”

Two bearded young men in olive drab fatigues and web pistol belts leaned against the wall to the left of the entrance, M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders. They paid no attention to Prosser as he escorted Rima through the door. These were Beirut-style doormen, hired from whatever militia happened to control the neighborhood for the purpose of keeping the other troublemakers away.

“I guess we pass inspection,” Prosser observed as he and Rima stepped past them into near-total darkness. His attention was immediately drawn to a smoky glow at the foot of a long descending staircase. From below he could hear the muffled voice of Julio Iglésiàs singing “J’ai besoin de toi.”

Prosser followed Rima down the stairs and emerged onto a densely packed dance floor, behind which loomed a vast mirrored bar and on either side of it a handful of tables with stools. The decor was chrome, glass, and lacquer and was indistinguishable from that of the latest discotheques in Paris or Rome.

Prosser looked into the faces of the comely and expensively dressed young Lebanese women and men on the dance floor without recognizing a single one. Few foreigners were among them, only a trio of blondes whom he guessed to be Middle East Airlines air hostesses. Rima squeezed his hand and smiled, pleased that she had shown him a nightspot that he had not already found for himself.

Suddenly she tugged at his arm and pointed toward the left end of the bar, where a slender young man in white trousers and a loose-fitting black linen jacket sat on a bar stool with his back to them, one foot encased in a neon-green plaster cast up to the knee.

Husayn al Fayyad noticed his sister in the mirror long before she reached him and climbed down from his stool to meet her at the edge of the dance floor.

“Something told me I might find you here,” Rima said as she embraced her brother and kissed him on both cheeks.

“Something or someone?” he replied, still smiling but looking now at Prosser.

The two men shook hands.

“
Masaa’ al khair,
Husayn. “How have you been?”

“
Maashi al haal
,” he replied indifferently. “And you?” The coolness in Husayn’s response caught Prosser off guard.

“Oh, I’ve been fine, Husayn. Not much has changed since I saw you last. But it’s been far too long. I’m sorry you couldn’t join us for dinner. Harry Landers was with us, you know.”

“Yes, Rima passed along your kind invitation. Unfortunately, I was already under an obligation. Which restaurant did you choose?”

“Chez Jean-Paul. His shellfish are beyond compare.”

Husayn raised an eyebrow. “Jean-Paul? Is he still in business after all these years? Then you must have eaten very well indeed. I should like to dine there once myself before I leave Beirut.”

“You make it sound as if you’re ready to take the next plane out.”

“I have already stayed too long. If I delay any longer, there may be no position for me at the factory when I return.”

Prosser glanced at Rima, who stood at her brother’s side attempting to hide her uneasiness. “Husayn is leaving Monday,” she announced. “It is settled.”

“That is our goal, of course,” her brother corrected her. “We shall see if everything can be arranged by then.”

She looked away from him as if to stifle an angry rejoinder.

At that moment Prosser caught sight of Harry and Layla across the dance floor and waved to attract Harry’s attention. “The stragglers have arrived. You two stay here, and I’ll bring them over,” Prosser volunteered.

“No, I will get them,” Rima insisted, casting a disapproving look at her brother. “It will keep us from quarreling again.” Then she set off across the dance floor.

Prosser put his hand on Husayn’s shoulder and insisted on buying the first round of drinks. Husayn climbed back on his bar stool and took a long pull on his scotch and water.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other better over the past couple months,” Prosser began after giving the bartender his order. “I had hoped we might have more opportunities to talk.”

“You were generous to invite me so many times to join you and my sister. Please excuse my many absences, but I think you understand how much time and effort it has required of me to settle my father’s affairs.”

“Of course, Husayn. I’m just happy for you and Rima that you finally seem to have finished. Does that mean you were able to collect the debts that Zuhayri and the others owed you?”

Husayn took another sip of whiskey before answering. “Zuhayri still refuses to pay. I have tried nearly everything in my power to bring him to account. Tomorrow I will play my last card. If it fails, I return to Germany on Monday.”