Casablanca Blues (2013) (29 page)

For Omary, the den was part of his own fantasy, of being a Berber warrior, protecting the family’s homestead in the centuries before the Arabs came.

One night they all cut their forearms with a penknife and pressed the wounds together, swearing an oath of life-long fraternity, a friendship bonded by blood.

The van hit a bump and Omary’s memory was jolted fast-forward.

He was much older now – twenty-two or -three.

He had a little office in Derb Omar, not much more than a lean-to up on the roof of a disused warehouse. But to him it was the beginning of great things.

He could see himself in there as though it were yesterday.

Piles of papers from deals he had already done. There were boxes of stock – plastic toys from Hong Kong and women’s lingerie from southern Spain. And there were half a dozen tea crates packed with vials of cheap perfume.

They were minuscule, holding no more than a few drops of the precious liquid, and so were affordable to the middle class. Omary, who had dreamt up the scent himself, called it
l’Eau de Topaz
. The fragrance was a massive hit – so much so that the black market price was ten times what he sold it for.

The van took a sharp turn and the floor rattled hard.

Where were Adil and Hassan right then, he wondered? Where were his blood brothers in his time of need?

Omary frowned, then let out a slow sigh. He knew the answer but had somehow suppressed it, forcing it to the back of his mind.

Hassan had been arrested for stealing a Frenchman’s car, and gone to jail, so beginning a career of petty crime. Their paths had crossed from time to time in the early years, Hassan begging for cash or imploring him for a job. Each time he turned up he was more derelict, ravaged by the woes of drugs and drink.

And Adil
?

He had stowed away on a cargo ship to Copenhagen, and had sent a smudged postcard from Vladivostok a year or two later. He claimed to have found true love with a girl from the Ukraine, a girl with emerald green eyes. Omary had written back to the address at the bottom of the card. But he never heard anything more.

There was a rumble of thunder in the distance.

Then the rain started as a light shower, but quickly turned torrential. The clatter of it on the roof was somehow comforting, as though it was a link with nature, a reminder that there was more to life than incarceration in cell blocks conjured from concrete and steel.

The road descended a steep incline, the tyres whirring as they corkscrewed down through a series of sharp turns.

Concentrate hard and Omary could just about hear the guards up front.

They were discussing a local soccer team, their accents from the villages in the hills outside Marrakech. He struggled for a deep breath and coaxed his head down towards the sheet steel floor.

The lower down he crouched, the less strained his breathing.

For a long while the vehicle rumbled down an even stretch of road. It sounded like a highway. But, as far as Omary could tell, they hadn’t stopped at a tollbooth.

Suddenly, an alarm sounded in the distance, a high-tech electronic buzz. It was followed by a grating noise, a series of clunks, a thud, and by a whistle sounding off.

The brakes were jolted hard, and the prison van stopped.

Then the ritual of opening the doors and securing the prisoner followed.

It took an age.

And each time it was acted out, Omary laughed to himself. If the recent experience had taught him one thing, it was that prison was nothing like it was in the movies.

In reality there was none of the James Bond bravado, the death-defying stunts to win freedom, or the sarcastic one-liners spat at the guards.

Real incarceration was an agony of uncertainty and jaw-dropping boredom, tempered with zeal... the zeal to go unnoticed.

Omary was taken straight to a holding cell. It was spacious, very cold, and smelled of sulphur.

On the far wall were arranged half a dozen wooden batons. They were well-worn but good quality – imported – with nylon straps to allow them to be swung from the officer’s hand.

A guard with a wart-ridden face took the prisoner’s fingerprints. After that he made him sign five or six blank sheets of paper. Omary assumed that they were for producing false confessions, if needed at a later date.

An hour later, he was in his new cell.

It was large, fifteen feet square, with a squat toilet in the corner, and a broken wooden packing crate, a piece of furniture that could be used as a stool, or almost a bed.

Best of all though, there was a view on the outside world. It wasn’t much – not more than three or four inches across. But if he pressed his nostrils up to it, Omary could breathe pure air.

Breaking down in tears, he fell to his knees.

‘Thank you, thank you!’ he whispered over and over. ‘Thank you for this luxury!’

One hundred and fifteen

The nurse was doing her rounds, passing out little green pills to everyone on the fifth floor of Clinique Mogador.

Propped up with three pillows, the bandage on his head now gone, Monsieur Raffi took his ration and gulped them down. He was about to close his eyes for a snooze, when he heard a voice. A voice in English.

‘I might have been killed!’

The shopkeeper looked up, rummaged for his spectacles.

‘
Ah
,
bonjour Monsieur Américain
,’ he said.

Blaine’s expression was uncharacteristically stern.

‘I know it was you who hid it!’ he shouted.

‘Excuse me?’ replied Raffi.

‘I could be lying in a morgue right now!’

Monsieur Raffi took off his glasses, wiped them on the sheet, and slipped them on again.

‘I do not follow,’ he said, blinking.

Blaine moved closer, his shadow inching up over the bed.

‘You hid the UN passport in my satchel,’ he said indignantly. ‘That time I brought it in and put it on your chair.’

The shopkeeper blinked again. He moistened his lips.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘How ever did you guess?’

‘That it was you?

‘Yes.’

‘Because of a little receipt that I found in the back.’

‘
A receipt
?’

‘For a silver cigarette box. It bore your signature.’

‘Ah,’ Raffi said once again. ‘I wonder how that got in there.’

He took a sip of water, rinsing it around his mouth.

‘I should never have accepted the passport as payment,’ he said. ‘I knew it would lead to nothing but danger.’

Blaine sat down beside the nightstand.

‘If you knew, then why did you give it to me?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Don’t you see?’ the old man asked.

‘
No
, I don’t!’

Monsieur Raffi shifted in the bed.

‘Because that passport is of such value to so many people that it raised... how can I say...? It raised the stakes.’

‘What stakes?’

Raffi took in Bogart’s face on the nightstand, the strand of cigarette smoke curling up from his hand.

‘You came to Casablanca in search of adventure,’ he said. ‘And that document was nothing more than a catalyst, a cast iron guarantee.’

‘That I found instant death?’

‘That you found adventure!’ Raffi exclaimed. He began to choke, then wiped a hand to his mouth, clearing his throat. ‘After all, the worst crime is to live a wasted life – a life of mediocrity, one untouched by uproar.’

‘But I could have been killed!’ Blaine exclaimed, repeating himself.

‘Surely it was a trifling insignificance, for it opened a door to a memorable experience.’ Monsieur Raffi coughed and then swallowed. ‘As for your reward, it’s the passport itself,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a use for it – I certainly shan’t.’

Blaine frowned.

‘But what of the murdered student?’ he replied.

The shopkeeper shrugged.

‘These things happen.’

‘
Murder
?’

Raffi shrugged again.

‘Oh yes,’ he said with nonchalance, ‘it happens all the time.’

‘But why did they kill him – if he didn’t have the passport?’

‘I dare say he had something else.’

‘Something worth killing for?’

‘Of course.’

His gaze moving fitfully from the bed to the nightstand, Blaine found himself looking hard at his idol, Humphrey Bogart. There was something so confident about him. It was as though every trial and tribulation he had ever endured was marked on his face. Yet despite all the scars of life, he was calm, aloof.

Blaine blew into his hands.

‘I’ll never understand this city,’ he said.

One hundred and sixteen

Ghita may not have known the Falcon’s identity, but she did know the ways of men.

Given an opportunity, the male gender always resorted to the same predictable pattern. They craved stimulants, attention and adrenalin thrills. And, they hankered for the gentle comfort of the female form. But, of course, for a man with power and wealth, one woman is never quite enough.

It was for this reason, Ghita felt sure, that the Falcon would have at least one mistress in tow. As she pondered it, the lover was likely to be a woman with a raw sense of self-preservation, and looks that were on the wane. Such a woman could, she mused, be the key to dismantling the gangster’s realm.

And who better to track her down than Casablanca’s greatest expert on the fairer sex – Laurent Louche? Having been a regular client since she was a child, Ghita knew that she could rely entirely on both his discretion and consummate skill.

Less than a day after whispering into his ear, she was provided with a name and address.

The details of Mademoiselle Mimi.

Unsure how best to make first contact, Ghita decided to write a letter. Handwritten on heavy-grade writing paper, the script was confident and neat.

Mimi was cooing over her Chow Chow when it arrived, brought by a young private messenger – none other than Saed. She signed for it, took it inside, and held the envelope to the light.

Intrigued, she ripped it open, lit an Egyptian cigarette, lounged back in her chair, and read:

My dear Mimi, I believe that all women have a duty to one another – a duty to defend ourselves from the venomous and ill-intentioned desires of men. Part of this duty is to look out for each other, and it is in this spirit that I am writing to you now.

I have it on the very best authority that the gentleman with whom you are amorously engaged has taken a new and much younger companion. She intends to usurp your coveted position.

And, I understand that the gentleman in question intends to relieve you of your lodgings and the gifts he has showered upon you, and bestow them instead on his new love... Mademoiselle Fifi.

For now, it is imperative that you do nothing, not until I contact you again with instructions.

Yours sincerely,

G. O.

Feeling faint, Mimi allowed the letter to fall to the floor, where it was sniffed eagerly by the Chow Chow, his nose picking up the scent of Chanel No. 5. Then, pressing her small delicate hands to her face, Mimi wept like she had never wept before.

After that, drying her eyes on a square of printed Thai silk, she began to brood.

Half a dozen times in the next hour she reached for her iPhone and began to make the call. But each time something cautioned her to stop – the need for the perfect revenge.

One hundred and seventeen

The next morning, Blaine and Ghita were sitting in Baba Cool trying to come up with a plan, when Saed hurried in. Putting down his shoeshine box, he drew up a chair.

‘I have got good news,’ he said softly. ‘News about the Falcon.’

‘What is it?’ asked Ghita.

‘Every month the money is collected... all of it... the money from the Falcon’s business. And it is counted. Then they take it away, from Club Souterrain.’

‘Is that the good news?’ Blaine asked.

Saed signalled to the waiter for a
café noir
.

‘No.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘The handover... it is tonight.’

‘At what time?’

‘Twelve o’clock... midnight.’

‘That doesn’t give us much time,’ Blaine said. ‘I don’t know what we can do. It’s not as if the police are going to be interested in arresting them all.’

Saed added four sugar lumps to his coffee. He took a hesitant sip, and added two more.

‘The police are paid to look away,’ he said.

‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ broke in Ghita.

‘What?’

‘Film a full confession.’

‘And give it to the police?’ Blaine asked.

‘No, better than that – we’ll put it out on the news.’

‘Sounds easy,’ Saed grinned sarcastically.

‘He’s right,’ Blaine sighed. ‘The odds are stacked wildly against us.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Ghita.

Saed drained his coffee and waited for the sugary sludge at the bottom to slide into his mouth.

‘The red book...’ he said. ‘Get the red book.’

‘Which red book?’

‘The red book with the numbers. It has all the secrets... the Falcon’s secrets.’

‘What does it look like?’ Ghita asked.

‘It is just a little red book.’

‘And where do we get it?’

‘At the handover. It travels with the money.’ Saed tapped the table with his thumb. ‘Something else,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘From the nightclub you cannot enter the money counting room.’

‘Why not?’

‘Too many guards.’

‘So then?’

‘Must go the long way,’ he said.

‘Which is?’

The shoeshine boy smiled a Cheshire Cat smile.

Foraging in his underwear, he brought out a crumpled scrap of paper.

‘I made a map,’ he said.

‘A map of...?’

‘Of the tunnels.’ The shoeshine boy paused, tracing a finger in a roundabout way from one side of the paper to the other. ‘To get to the money counting room you go like this... under the club and along.’

‘Where did you get that from?’ Ghita asked.

‘I cannot tell you,’ Saed said. ‘Big secret.’

‘There’s a lower network, under the Club Souterrain?’ Blaine mumbled.

Saed nodded.