Flashback (15 page)

Charlie grabbed a Budweiser and popped the top. “I guess this blows my theory out of the water.”

“What theory is that?” I asked, stepping toward the two men.

“That he ran off with you.” He winked at me, then threw his full weight onto the sagging couch.

“Any other theories?”

Charlie looked philosophically at his beer. “None that make any sense.”

“Did you see him when he came through here on his way to Ourzazate?”

“We had a drink that night, at the Mamounia.”

“What did you talk about?”

He shrugged. “The date plantations. You.”

“What about me?”

“That boy had it bad,” he said. “Head over heels.” He took a long pull off his beer, then motioned to the shelf of foodstuffs behind him. “You sure you don't want anything?”

“No, thanks,” I told him. In truth, I wanted to try everything—the strangely unfoodlike food, the shelf-stable pastries and corn chips, the box of neon macaroni and cheese—but I shook my head. I had the odd feeling that if I stayed too much longer, or ate what was offered, I'd be trapped, like some unfortunate fairy-tale princess.

“What about this project with the date plantations?” I asked. “What did he say about that?”

“Just the same Pat Haverman bullshit. Save the world and all.” Charlie waved his beer toward me as if it was an important visual aid. “He wasn't like the rest of us fucks, come down here to get laid. It's summer camp for most of us, you know, but not Pat. He was going to go down there and convince those farmers they needed his help.”

I glanced over at Brian and saw him looking back at me, both of us thinking the same thing. Whatever All Join Hands did have to offer, today wasn't the day to find it. Charlie's drunk had taken a turn for the maudlin, and if we didn't leave soon we'd be here for the long haul.

“I should get going,” Brian said. “Got some things to take care of.”

Charlie winced, a quick, bitter smile. Drunk, but not stupid, he knew when he was being pushed off.

“I guess it's just you and me,” he said, slightly sarcastic, his tone saying he knew full well I was on my way out, too.

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

*   *   *

“I don't like being followed,” I said, as we emerged from the dim stairwell into the bright daylight.

“Well, I don't like being lied to.” Brian closed the door behind us and started for the Place du 16 Novembre.

“I told you,” I said, keeping pace with him. “You're not safe with me.”

“Thanks for the warning, but like I told you, I'll take my chances.”

I put my hand on his arm and stopped walking, pulling him up short alongside me. “Someone wants me dead.”

“Then you need my help.”

“I don't need anyone's help,” I told him, but in truth I wasn't so sure. I was tired of being alone and afraid.

We walked in silence for a while, down the Avenue Mohammed V and in through the red walls of the Old City. The familiar late-afternoon torpor had settled on the town. Most shops were closed already, and the few people on the streets walked slowly, dragging themselves along.

If you've never lived by the cycles of prayer, it might be difficult to imagine the effect of such a schedule. The sisters at the abbey, like Muslims, prayed five times a day. Though I rarely even made three services, and was not expected to, still there was the quintuple ringing of bells to remind me of the divine. Because it's nearly impossible to forget God in the three or four hours between devotions, you live almost constantly with some sense of His presence. That's not to say all people who pray like this are particularly holy; some are more afflicted than blessed, while others, misconstruing God's intentions from the beginning, become even more deeply confused.

To live in the convent had been powerful enough, but even I had difficulty understanding what it would mean to live in a larger society governed by the rhythm of prayer. It would be, I thought, a kind of profound surrender. Wasn't that the meaning of
Islam
? Surrender. Submission.

“You want to go get something to eat?” Brian asked, as we passed the Koutoubia Mosque.

I nodded, realizing just how hungry and tired I was.

“There's a place I like near the Djemaa el-Fna,” he said. “Local food.”

“Sounds fine,” I told him.

*   *   *

It was just before sunset when we arrived at the Restaurant El Bahja, a clean, simple place just south of the square. Save for a Senegalese waiter and a German couple, the little café was deserted.

“It might be quite a wait,” Brian warned. “I think everyone's gone to pray.”

“It's okay,” I said.

The server hustled over to greet us, arms outstretched, his face one wide smile. He and Brian exchanged pleasantries. It was the first time I'd heard Brian speak French, and his accent was nearly flawless.

“This is Eve,” he said, motioning in my direction, and then to me, “Eve, meet Michel.”

The man reached out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mademoiselle.”

“And you,” I said, returning the handshake.

“The cooks are gone,” Michel explained as he led us to a table, “but they'll be back shortly. I'll bring you something to snack on.”

“Thanks,” Brian said. “And could you bring a bottle of Valpierre, if you have it?”

“Of course.” Michel beamed.

“Your French is good,” I said when the man had gone.

“I took it in college,” Brian explained, shrugging off my compliment. “You should have heard me when I first got here.”

“Where did you go to school?” I asked.

“Brown,” he said.

“That's in Rhode Island, right?” Another piece of knowledge I hadn't realized was tucked away in my brain.

Brian nodded. “Providence.”

“No graduate school?”

“It's a wonder I finished my undergrad. I moved out to California when I graduated and started my own company. I was one of the lucky few who got in on the ground floor and got out before the tech market took a nosedive.”

“Retired at thirty,” I commented.

“Thirty-two,” he corrected me.

Michel reappeared with a bowl of olives, a chunk of bread, some pistachios, and a bottle of white wine.

“Thank you,” Brian said, as the waiter opened the bottle and poured out two glasses. Taking a sip of his wine, Brian picked up our two unopened menus from the table and handed them to Michel. “Tell Jamal to make whatever he thinks is best today.”

Michel nodded, then left.

I watched Brian crack open a pistachio. He wasn't a pretty man, but he was handsome in the best kind of way, his face softened by its imperfections. There was a scar on his chin, a single cut that was almost hidden by the crease below his lip.

Sliding an olive into my mouth, I separated the flesh from the pit. The meat was perfectly rich and briny, flecked with bits of fiery
harissa
. Eight months, I thought, of dead ends and cold leads, and nothing was getting any warmer. It seemed to me his sojourn here had long outlasted any hope of finding his brother.

“It's not just Pat that keeps you here, is it?” I asked, watching him dismantle another nut. He seemed to have mastered this strange place and all its nuances. He was one of those people who were profoundly at home in their voluntary exile.

He looked up at me but said nothing.

“Would you go back if you found him?”

Pausing a moment, he shook his head. “I don't know.” There was nothing false about his statement, not a single hint of trickery, just the uncomfortable truth.

“So,” I said, changing the subject, “you don't think this thing with the date plantations had anything to do with Pat's disappearing?”

“No. I mean, I don't know. It wasn't even really a project yet. As far as I can tell, that was his first trip down there. He was just scouting things out.”

“And the other projects he was working on? Can you think of any reason why he might have pissed someone off?”

“All Join Hands helps a lot of people down here. And I'm sure they step on some toes in the process, but there's nothing that really jumps out at me.”

“You ever run across the name Werner?” I asked.

Brian took one of the olives, spitting the pit discreetly into his hand, then depositing it on a little white plate that had been put on the table for exactly that purpose. “Not that I can remember. Why?”

“It's probably nothing,” I told him, taking a sip of my wine, watching his face through the glass. “Just a name I thought I remembered.”

I wanted to tell him everything, but something inside me wouldn't let me do it. I told myself it was out of concern, that he'd be better off not knowing, but the truth was that there was something about him I didn't trust. Maybe it was just the effortless grace of American privilege, or the ease with which he slipped into the colonial culture. Maybe it was my memory of him in my dark room at the Continental, or the fact that he'd followed me to Marrakech. Whatever the reason, I discarded the subject of Werner as quickly as Brian had set aside the scoured olive pit. Maybe tomorrow, I told myself, setting the wine glass down, watching him crack another pistachio.

FOURTEEN

Dinner was slow in coming, and by the time we'd finished the four courses the cook at the El Bahja had fashioned for us, we'd gone through half of a second bottle of Valpierre. I was tipsy from the wine, not drunk, but more fearless than I'd been in a long time, loosened up enough to say yes to Brian's suggestion that we head over to the casino at the Mamounia Hotel. It had been one of Pat's favorite haunts, Brian explained, and I told myself there was a chance I might have been a patron as well, that someone might recognize me, just as the waiter at the El Minzah had.

The hotel was a short walk from the restaurant, just inside the Bab el-Jedid, on the southwestern edge of the Old City. It was an imposing French colonial structure, with costumed doormen to keep out the rabble, and a towering triple-arched entryway. I followed Brian up the outside steps and into the sumptuous lobby.

To compare the Mamounia to the El Minzah would be to do the old Marrakech hotel a great disservice. There was nothing grade B about the clientele or the surroundings. Hand-polished surfaces lined the interior, marble and mirrors, brass and wood. Here everything, from the money to the acres of hand-knotted rugs, was old but not tired. Easy wealth circulated through the public rooms. And on the periphery of it all, darting down back passageways, whispering so as not to disturb the masters of privilege, was a discreet army of servants.

“Your brother had an expensive habit,” I remarked as I followed Brian through the art deco maze of the hotel. I had a hunch the Mamounia's casino didn't offer quarter slots.

“There's not much else to spend your money on down here,” he answered.

Could that have been the problem? I wondered. Could an unpaid debt have gotten the American killed? Or maybe he just owed enough that he needed to skip town. Still, neither of these theories made much sense. If he had left, why not just head back to the States? Surely a local shylock would stop at the border. And if he'd been killed, I doubted it would have been done in secret. There's nothing to be gained by murdering someone who owes you money, except that it serves as a warning to others. Pat's death, if he was dead, was hardly public enough to have been a statement. And where did I fit into all of this? For I was certain I fit into it somewhere.

A tuxedoed bouncer stopped us at the door to the casino, his eyes ranging across my body, no doubt taking in the shabbiness of my attire. Brian grabbed my hand, pulling me toward him.

“Wait over there, will you?” he said, nodding to indicate a nearby sitting area.

I did as I was told, keeping one eye on Brian and the man as I walked away. A couple came out of the door of the casino. The man was Asian, fat and fiftyish, in a dark suit. The woman, though making a valiant attempt to look twenty years his junior, showed the hard-edged wear of an aging film star, too much makeup on too brittle a palette. She had squeezed herself into a floor-length pink gown and sequined shoes. Her breasts were a good three cup sizes too big for her frame, some plastic surgeon's over-the-top idea of beauty. Her hair formed a stiff blond halo around her head. They turned and headed past me, moving down the hall together like a bad impersonation of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

Brian said something to the bouncer, and the man pulled a tiny cell phone from his pocket and made a call. He had a brief conversation with whoever was on the other end; then he looked at Brian and at me. I saw Brian reach into his pocket, pull out a neatly folded dollar note, and slip it into the man's tuxedo. Then he looked in my direction, motioning for me to join him.

“Enjoy your evening, sir,” the bouncer said as I approached.

“Thank you.” Taking my hand, pulling me after him, Brian stepped in through the doors of the casino.

“How did you do that?” I asked as we navigated our way to the cashier.

“Let's just say it's guest privileges,” he answered.

“You're staying here?”

Nodding, he pulled out his wallet and laid down a thick wad of cash for chips. “What do you want to play? Roulette? Craps? Baccarat?”

“I think I'll just watch, thanks.”

Brian smiled. “What are you worried about? It's not your money. Besides, haven't you ever heard of beginner's luck?”

I eyed him skeptically.

“C'mon,” he urged, starting across the room.

It was still early in the evening, and there was only a smattering of guests in the casino. All the patrons were non-Arabs, and with one or two exceptions, all the players were men. The women who were there mostly just sat and watched.

“It's dead this time of year,” Brian said, as if reading my thoughts. “Ramadan keeps most of the Muslim clientele away. It's a shame, too, because it's the Saudis who've got the real money to throw around.”