Flashback (8 page)

The little red taxi veered to the left, and we rattled upward through the low, arched gate that marked the southeast entrance to the medina. I had to find the American, Brian, and no doubt he'd be keeping a low profile now that he knew I was looking. As we passed by the Great Mosque, I looked up to see Joshi's Japanese flag glowing in the window of his apartment, the electric lights blazing brightly behind it.

“Left here, please,” I told the driver, directing him away from the Continental and toward Joshi's building. Maybe Joshi did know where the man lived after all. At the very least, it was worth a try. Faced with the Beretta, the little man might find his memory greatly improved.

The street to the building's front door was far too narrow for the car to pass. The driver stopped at the entrance to the little alley, turned back, and eyed me skeptically.

“It's not safe, Miss,” he said in French, shaking his head, and then in English to make sure I'd understood, “Not safe.” He was an older man with a neat nap of gray hair. A thick wool scarf was wrapped around his neck.

I paid him and opened the door. “It's okay,” I told him, but he didn't seem reassured.

He sat with his engine idling while I navigated the cobbled street, his lights casting the alley in sharp relief. I wasn't sure how I was going to get past the locked wooden door, and I waved the driver away, knowing whatever I did to get in wasn't going to look right to the old man. But the little taxi stayed stubbornly in place, the sound of its motor rattling through the medina.

I ran through my options as I approached the shallow alcove, but as the door slid into view I could see that it was sitting slightly ajar, open just barely an inch, but open. Stepping into the entryway, I grasped the handle and let myself inside, out of the glare of the alley and into the darkness of the building's foyer.

Feeling the wall, I located the light switch I'd used on my earlier visit. The overhead bulb clicked on, the light flat and garish, the walls of the stairwell mottled and scarred where the paint had peeled away. I started upward.

I found Joshi's door closed, and knocked softly. There was no answer, and no sound from inside. The building around me was quiet as a tomb. I knocked again, louder this time, and pressed my ear to the door. Nothing. There was a soft click in the stairwell, and the overhead bulb switched off, plunging me into a darkness interrupted only by the thin bright bar of light that seeped out from under Joshi's door. Sweeping downward with my palm, I found the knob and twisted. It was unlocked, and the door swung open at my touch.

I stood on the landing for a moment and peered into the little apartment. From where I stood I could see straight down the narrow front hallway to what I guessed was the living room beyond. Just a part of the room was visible, one arm of a settee, a small wooden table and two chairs, Joshi's Japanese flag in the window. And there, at the very edge of my view, lying motionless on the rug, were four pallid fingers, the hand they belonged to hidden behind the plaster doorjamb.

“Joshi?” I called quietly, not quite sure what to do. My first and fairly certain guess was that the little man was dead. But it also occurred to me that he could be sick, or hurt, and in need of help. I thought of the taxi driver's words.
It's not safe
.

Stepping into the hallway, I set my pack down, took the case from it, and pulled out the Beretta. I jammed the clip up into the stock and heard it engage; then, flattening my back against the wall, I started forward.

The apartment was neat as a pin. Several feet down the front hall a tiny galley kitchen opened off to the left, its open shelves revealing a sparse but orderly collection of dishes and pans, an English teapot, a handful of chopsticks upright in a water glass like blossomless flowers. Farther along, to the right, was the tiny bathroom, no tub or shower, just a rust-stained sink and a toilet.

Aside from these two rooms, there was just the living room, which evidently served as bedroom and dining room and office as well. In one corner was a simple sleeping mat, its pillows and blankets neatly arranged. A Macintosh PowerBook sat open on the little table by the window.

Some part of me had expected to see Joshi as he'd been that morning, in his proper pajamas and robe. But he was fully dressed, in wool pants, a knit vest, a white oxford shirt, and a tie. Except for the lack of sunglasses, he looked much the same as he had when I'd met him on the street. On his feet were the familiar orange running shoes with their glittery laces. His right hand, the hand I'd seen from the hallway, was extended above his head, as if he was doing the backstroke across the carpet. He lay face-up, his eyes staring at the ceiling, one knee bent at an unnatural angle. On his neck was a thin dark line, a crease where someone had taken a cord or a wire and pulled it hard enough to stop his breathing.

When I had first arrived at the convent, one of the older sisters, a nun named Ruth, had died in her sleep. As far as I could remember, this had been my only experience with death. Sister Ruth had been old and frail, in the twilight of her nineties, and she had been heard in the chapel sometimes, praying for the end. When she finally did go, there was an earnest peacefulness to her corpse, an illusion, almost, of joy in passing.

There was nothing peaceful about Joshi. My first full glimpse of him repulsed me; I could smell the violence of his death. But I was fascinated as well, momentarily rooted in place by the grim sight, caught between my own curiosity and the urge to flee. Run, I told myself. It took a moment for me to obey my own command, but I finally turned and started back down the hall.

I had left the apartment's door ajar when I entered, and as I passed the kitchen I saw the light in the stairwell come on. I stopped short and strained my ears. Down at the bottom of the stairs a body shifted, clothes rustling as it started upward, the sound of feet on the steps magnified by the stairwell's hard walls and tall ceiling.

I took a breath and caught it, then ducked into the little kitchen. A European woman stood out in this part of Tangier, and the last thing I wanted was to be seen leaving the apartment of a dead man. Placing myself just inside the kitchen's doorway, I counted the person's steps. If whoever it was stopped on the second floor, I'd be okay.

But the steps kept coming, leather soles shuffling across the gritty tiles of the floor. The safety, I thought instinctively, fumbling with the gun, my thumb finding the little lever. I heard the person reach the third-floor landing and stop, then continue cautiously forward. A hand brushed the open door, and it swung inward, its hinges sighing.

It wasn't warm in the apartment; December reached Tangier with an almost autumnal chill, and the temperature inside the building was the same as the temperature outside, but I was sweating. You can do this, I told myself, pressing my back to the wall, steadying my breath. There was no doubt in my mind I had fired the gun before. Just like riding a bike, Dr. Delpay had said, and he'd been right. Skills had come back to me, and so would this, just like the delicate and miraculously unforgettable feat of balancing on two narrow tires.

The intruder stepped into the hallway, moving so quietly that my knowledge of his presence was almost purely intuition. No doubt he saw what I had seen by now, the pale fingers on the rug.

Steady, I told myself, steady. The person took a step closer, and I whirled around the jamb, Beretta at eye level, wrists straight, forearms tensed.

“Don't move,” I said, slamming the barrel of my gun against the man's left temple.

EIGHT

The American stopped, frozen except for one muscle in his jaw that flexed and released like a misplaced heartbeat.

Keeping the Beretta steady with his head, I stepped behind him, caught the edge of the open door with my toe, and nudged it closed. “You ran out on me earlier,” I said. “Very impolite.”

He was wearing the raincoat in which I'd first seen him and, beneath it, a sweatshirt and jeans. I ran my free hand up inside the coat, then down along his legs.

“You won't find anything,” he said, and he was right.

“It's Brian, isn't it?” I asked, standing. “I'm not sure I caught your name at the Pub.”

He nodded carefully.

“Well, Brian,” I told him, helping him forward with the barrel of the Beretta. “Why don't we chat in the living room?”

“Is he dead?” the American asked as we started forward.

“I'm afraid so.”

We crossed into the living room, and I directed him toward the settee. He sat down and looked over at Joshi. “Did you kill him?”

I didn't answer. If Brian hadn't killed the little man, I figured any allusion to my own violent tendencies might give me some leverage.

“What were you doing in my room?” I asked.

“It
is
you, isn't it?” he said, ignoring my question. “When I first saw you at the terminal, I wasn't sure, and then in your room that night I thought I was wrong, but I wasn't.”

I took a step toward him with the Beretta. “Cut the bullshit,” I said, “or you'll join our little friend here.”

Brian crossed his legs and stretched his arms out along the back of the sofa. He had the body of a swimmer, tall and fluid. “You won't kill me,” he said, leaning back into the pillows.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “Joshi told me you paid him to keep tabs on me.”

“Who are
you
?” he retorted. “Marie Lenoir? Hannah Boyle?”

I leaned over him, laying the tip of the Beretta's barrel just behind his ear. “Who's Hannah Boyle?”

He moved his head to look up at me. His eyes were as blue as mine, clear and flawless, cold with contempt. “I was hoping you could tell me that,” he said. He made a movement with his right hand as if reaching for something in his coat.

Shaking my head, I nudged him with the Beretta's barrel.

“My wallet,” he said, glancing toward his chest. “It's in the left breast pocket.”

“I'll get it,” I told him. Reaching into his coat with my left hand, I pulled out a worn leather billfold.

“Open it,” he said.

Keeping my eyes and the gun on Brian, I stepped back, pulled one of the wooden chairs out from the little table, and sat down. If he had wanted to kill me, I thought, he could have done it that night in my room at the Continental. And yet, it struck me, death was not the only danger to be aware of.

“Open it,” he repeated.

I laid the wallet on the table and opened it. A handful of dirham notes peered out from the top of the billfold. A half dozen plastic cards were tucked neatly in the leather slots. In the centermost panel, secured behind a piece of clear plastic, was a California driver's license with Brian's face on it. Brian Haverman, the license said; 1010 Bridgeway, Sausalito, California.

“There's a picture,” he told me. “In the fold behind the license.”

I reached in with my left index finger, slid the photograph out, and unfolded it. The print was color, the edges of the paper worn from being handled too much, the image creased where it had been folded to fit into the wallet. It was not risqué, but it was an intimate picture, meant to be tucked away as it was, meant for the person who had taken it. It had been taken on a train; that much was clear. The woman in the photograph had a travel-weary tiredness to her. Her hair was mussed; her eyes were still sleep-swollen. She had her hand out as if to ward off the photographer, but she was smiling nonetheless, a smile I could not remember smiling, though I must have, on a train somewhere, on a trip I could not remember taking.

She was me, and she was not. She was my face, my body, my clothes even. The same North Face jacket I'd been found in was draped over her like a blanket. And yet, whatever had happened to this woman had not happened to me; whatever experiences had shaped that drowsy smile were hers alone.

“I found it in my brother's apartment,” Brian said. “He wrote me about you, before he disappeared.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that you were the girl of his dreams.”

“What else?”

“Not much. Only that you were an American, that he met you at the pool at the Hotel Ziryab. He used to go there sometimes for a cheap swim.”

“How long had we known each other?”

He hesitated, puzzling over the question, over why I would have to ask.

“How long?” I repeated.

“A month or so.”

I looked down at the picture again, at this ghost of myself. Was this the same woman who'd drunk vodka martinis at Caid's, who'd left a Beretta and a wad of cash in the safe at the El Minzah? The girl of someone's dreams?

“And your brother?” I asked. “Do you have a picture of him?”

Brian nodded, and this time I handed him the wallet. He pulled a second photo from the billfold and gave it to me. It showed two men in ties and dress shirts, arms hooked over each other's shoulders, smiling widely. Their affection for each other was obvious.

“It was taken two years ago. At our sister's wedding,” Brian explained.

Stifling a shudder, I looked down at the worn photograph, at the darker of the two brothers. Here was a face I knew and knew well. Here were the same pale lids I'd seen closing over and over on themselves, the one bloodstained relic my shattered mind had preserved. The man on the rooftop. The man of my dreams.

“Why did you run from me at the Pub?” I asked.

“I'm not sure. I was scared, I guess.” He nodded toward my gun. “Not without reason, it seems.”

I glanced down at Joshi's body sprawled out on the carpet. I didn't think Brian had killed him. If he had, it made little sense for him to come back to the apartment. Standing, I backed across the room, pulled the coverlet off the bed, and laid it over Joshi.

“Thank you,” Brian said.

“I didn't kill him,” I told him.

Brian smiled. “I know.”