"Yes, sir," he laughed. "Yes, sir. We fly low and slow!"
"Just slow," I grumbled.
"Yes, sir!" he repeated, chuckling.
We catapulted out of the airport at top speed, tires squealing, and made the turn onto the Beirut road on two wheels. I sighed, sat back on the seat and forced my shoulder muscles to relax. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else. It had been that kind of a day.
Beirut is an ancient Phoenician city dating back before 1500 B.C. According to legend it was the spot on which St. George slew the dragon. Later, the city had been captured by the Crusaders under Baldwin, and still later by Ibrahim Pasha, but it had withstood the siege guns of Saladin and defied the British and French. Bouncing around in the back seat of the hurtling Fiat as we plummeted down the Beirut road, I wondered what it held for me.
The St. Georges Hotel rises tall and elegant on the palm-fringed shore of the Mediterranean, oblivious to the filth and incredible poverty of the Thieves' Quarter, only a few blocks away.
I requested a southwest corner room above the sixth floor, got it, and registered, surrendering my passport to the unctious room clerk as is demanded by law in Beirut. He assured me it would be returned within a few hours. What he meant was, within a few hours after Beirut Security had checked it out. But that didn't bother me; I wasn't an Israeli spy out to blow up a bunch of Arabs.
Actually, I was an American spy out to blow up a bunch of Americans.
Once I had unpacked and checked the view of the moonlit Mediterranean from my balcony, I called Charlie Harkins and told him what I wanted.
He was hesitant "Well, you know I'd like to help you, Nick." There was a high nervous whine to his voice. There always had been. Charlie was a nervous, whining man. He went on: "It's just that… well… I'm sort of out of that business now and…"
"Bull!"
"Well, yeah, I mean, no. I mean, well, you see…"
I didn't care what his problem was. I let the volume of my voice drop several decibels, "You owe me one, Charlie."
"Yeah, Nick, yeah." He paused. I could almost hear him looking nervously over his shoulder to see if anyone else were listening. "It's just that I'm supposed to be working exclusively for one outfit now and not for anyone else and…"
"Charlie!" I let my impatience and irritation show.
"Okay, Nick, okay. Just this one time, just for you. You know where I live?"
"Could I have called you up if I didn't know where you lived?"
"Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. How about eleven o'clock then…and bring a picture of yourself with you."
I nodded into the phone. "Eleven o'clock." Hanging up, I lay back in the luxury of the white-slipped giant bed. Only hours before I had been worming my way up that giant sand dune on a death hunt for Hamid Raschid and the Dutchman. I liked this kind of assignment better, even if there wasn't a Betty Emers around.
I looked at my watch. Ten-thirty. Time to see Charlie. I rolled off the bed, made an instant decision that the lightweight tan suit I was wearing would do for the likes of Charlie Harkins, and was on my way. Once I finished with Charlie, I thought I might stop by the Black Cat Café or the Illustrious Arab. It had been a long time since I had had a taste of Beirut nightlife. But today had been a very long day. I hunched my shoulders forward, stretching the muscles. I just might go right to bed instead.
Charlie lived on Almendares Street, about six blocks from the hotel and just on the eastern edge of the Thieves Quarter. Number 173. I climbed three flights of the filthy, dimly lit staircase. It was dank, in the airless heat, with the stench of urine and rotting garbage.
At each landing, four once-green doors opened off a short hallway opposite a sagging wooden railing that jutted precariously over the stairwell. From behind the closed doors came muted shrieks, shouts, gales of laughter, furious obscenities in a dozen languages, blaring radios. On the second floor, a great crash splintered a faceless door just as I was passing by and four inches of axe blade protruded through the wooden paneling. Inside, a woman screamed, long and warbling, like an alley cat on the prowl.
I took the next flight of steps without pausing. I was in one of the biggest red-light districts in the world. Behind similar faceless doors in a thousand faceless tenements in the garbage-strewn streets of the Quarter, thousands upon thousands of whores vied with each other for the monetary rewards of satisfying the sexual needs of the dregs of humanity who had washed into the teeming slums of Beirut.
Beirut is at once the gem of the Mediterranean and the cesspool of the Mideast. Ahead of me a door flew open and a greasy fat man staggered out. He was stark naked except for a ludicrous tarboosh sitting tightly on his head. His face was twisted into an agony-ecstasy grimace, his eyes glazed with either pain or pleasure, I couldn't tell which. Behind him came a lithe jet-black girl, dressed only in hip-high leather boots, her heavy-lipped countenance a phlegmatic mask as she stalked relentlessly after the fat Arab. Twice she flicked her wrist and twice a three-lashed whip, tiny, dainty and excruciating, slicked out and around the Arab's larded thighs. A gasp of pain escaped him and six tiny rivulets of blood etched his shaking flesh.
The Arab staggered past me, oblivious to anything but his own torturous joy. The girl stalked behind him, poker-faced. She couldn't have been over 15 years old.
I told my stomach to forget it and went up the last flight of stairs. Here a single doorway blocked the staircase. I pushed the buzzer. Charlie Harkins had occupied the entire third floor for as long as I had known him. In the few seconds before he answered, a picture of the sprawling squalor of his loft-like apartment flashed through my mind: His brightly-lit bench, with its cameras, brushes, pens, and engraving equipment were always there like an island of calm among the dirty socks and underwear, some of which, I remembered, looked as if they had been used to wipe clean the exquisitely tooled little platen press in the corner.
This time, it took me a moment to recognize the little man who opened the door. Charlie had changed. Gone were the sunken cheeks, the three-day stubble of gray beard he had always seemed to maintain. Even the dead, hopeless look in his eyes was gone. Charlie Harkins now looked bright, wary perhaps, but no longer as terrified of life as he had been over the years I had known him.
He wore a lightweight plaid sports jacket, neatly pressed grey flannel trousers and brightly shined black shoes. This was not the Charlie Harkins I had known. I was impressed.
He ushered me in with a tentative handshake. At least that hadn't changed.
The apartment had, however. What had been a littered mess was now neat and clean. A fresh green rug covered the old scarred floorboards and the walls were painted a neat off-white. Inexpensive but obviously new furniture was placed strategically to break up the barnlike lines of the big room… a coffee table, several chairs, two couches, a long, low, rectangular platform bed in one corner.
What had once served haphazardly as Charlie's work corner was now partitioned off with louvered panels and, from the evidence escaping through the openings of the partitions, vividly lit.
I raised my eyebrows, looking around. "Looks like you've been doing pretty well, Charlie."
He smiled nervously. "Well… uh… business has been pretty good, Nick." His eyes brightened. "I've got a new assistant now and things have really been going all right…" His voice trailed off.
I grinned at him. "It would take more than a new assistant to do this to you, Charlie." I waved my hand at the new decor. "Off hand, I'd say that for once in your life you've found something steady."