“He had much business everywhere. Even in France. But he didn’t like France. He said the waiters were rude, and people stared at him because his accent in French was bad.” She was pacing as she talked, following a path like an animal in a cage. “But I loved it in Paris. The city is so beautiful it made my heart ache. You can truly see the air. That’s what Cezanne painted, isn’t it? It’s the air he saw that makes his pictures so light. Not just the colors.” Beecher looked at his watch. Ilse continued pacing, with her hands locked around her elbows, and an intense little frown gathering between her eyes. The soles of her pumps made a whispering sound on the thick carpeting, and the muscles in her smooth bare calves flexed to the rhythm of her restless footsteps.
“Look, how about going down and getting me some cigarettes,” Beecher said. In the heavy silence, with the telephone black and mute and indifferent, the twist of her slippers on the carpet had become a monotonous, maddening sound; it was like a creak of ropes stretching his nerves to the breaking point.
“Yes, of course,” she said quickly, and he realized that she was glad to go, was relieved to be getting away from him. Her nerves were no better than his.
When the door closed after her, Beecher shaved and took a quick shower. He was putting on his shirt when the phone began to ring. The operator told him that his call to Spain was ready.
There was an interval of crackling noises, and distant Spanish voices. He heard querulous identifications from Málaga, Seville, Ronda. In the background then, faintly and despairingly, the Irishman’s voice sounded like the cry of a lost spirit, a weird Celtic note in the fugue of Spanish confusion. Beecher wondered if the communications system of Spain would choose this moment to function efficiently or hysterically. It was always a toss-up; once he had called Málaga from ten miles away, and a bit later had found himself talking to a clear but puzzled voice in San Sebastian, a long, two-day drive to the north.
Then, clear as a bell on a frosty morning, the Irishman came through. “Yes, hello. Hello?”
Beecher raised his voice and said: “How’s your stock of Bushmills these days?”
“What’s this? Hello, hello.”
Beecher couldn’t risk using his name. Sometimes long-distance calls to and from Spain were censored; sometimes they weren’t. But it would be pressing his luck to assume he was talking on a private line.
“I wish I’d taken that job you offered me,” he said. There was an instant of dead silence, and then he heard the Irishman gasp sharply. “Good God, Mi—”
“Hold it,” Beecher said. “Please.”
“Yes, of course. Stupid.”
“I’ve got to get to Spain.”
“I see.” There was a thread of caution in the Irishman’s tone. “But I wonder if you’ve given a thought to the weather here. It’s terribly hot just now. Very bad, actually. You might be uncomfortable.”
“This isn’t a pleasure trip. It’s business.”
“Ah, I see. Business, hey? That’s a life or death matter, isn’t it?”
“Very much so.”
“When do you plan to arrive?”
“It depends. My pretty green book won’t be much help.”
The Irishman was silent. The line hummed distantly in Beecher’s ear. “I see,” the Irishman said at last. “It’s more of a hindrance than a help, I should say.”
Beecher drew a deep relieved breath; the Irishman had understood the reference to his passport.
“Yes, that’s the situation,” he said.
“Well, well. Are you coming up to Tangier?”
“Tomorrow, if possible.”
“Let me see.” There was a long silence. Then the Irishman said crisply: “At the Velasquez Hotel you’ll find an Arab guide who calls himself Pinky. Ask him to take you to see Rosy. I’ll do what I can on this end.”
“Rosy” was the Rosaleen, the Irishman’s ship. “Thanks,” Beecher said. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “Don’t let me down, for God’s sake.”
“Unless you have an extremely strong line of goods, I’d suggest you forget coming over,” the Irishman said. “No one’s in a mood to buy anything from you — they won’t even listen to a good story, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve got to try.”
“Then God help you, my lad,” the Irishman said. “And good luck.” The connection broke with a dry click of finality.
Beecher sat on the edge of the bed and moistened his dry lips. He realized that Ilse had been gone more than half an hour. What the hell was keeping her? he wondered, and got up to search pointlessly through his pockets for a cigarette. It hadn’t been wise to send her out. They had a chance now, but they still wanted miracles of luck to make it pay off. Her nerves wouldn’t stand much more strain. She needed kindness and strength, he knew. But so do I, he thought wearily. And there weren’t any around. He’d have to settle for a drink, a bed with covers to pull over his head, and a night’s sleep he could only hope would be as black and dreamless as death. He was too tired to examine his resentment of Ilse. It was just there, tied up in some way with his other anxieties and fears.
There was a soft knock a few minutes later. Beecher opened the door, and Ilse slipped past him into the room.
“Here,” she said, and gave him two packages of Camels. “I didn’t know what kind you smoked. Are these all right?”
“What kept you?”
“I couldn’t buy them in the lobby. I had to go to the bar.” There were points of color high in her cheeks. “A man talked to me there. A nasty little American. He knew I was frightened, I think. I don’t know how. He was like one of those small animals, I forget what you call them, they have tiny bright eyes and a twitching nose. They hunt in the ground for rats. Ferrets, I think.” She was pacing the floor as she talked, eyes cold with anger. “He wanted to buy me a drink. He asked me to sit with him at his table. I said no at first, but he could tell that I was afraid. That something was wrong.”
“Why didn’t you simply walk out?”
“Oh, that is easy to say sitting up here in a nice warm room. But it was different with his little eyes watching me. It was like he was peering through the windows of a bedroom late at night. To make him think nothing was wrong, I let him buy me a drink. He wanted to know where I was going, what I was doing, everything.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I was going to Tangier. I didn’t know what to say. So I told the truth. And he offered to drive me. He is leaving early tomorrow morning. At five o’clock.” She rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand, as if the words were dirt that had soiled her lips. “He would be nice to me on the way. He made that very clear. He even offered to buy me stockings.” She smiled bitterly. “That is a usual American approach, isn’t it?”
“How did he know you needed them?”
“Because he felt my leg under the table.”
“Was he serious about the ride?”
“Of course he was serious. He made it plain how we would amuse ourselves on the way.”
Beecher lit a cigarette. “Did you tell him you were alone?”
“I let him think so. I tried to pretend I didn’t understand him very well. I was the friendly stupid little fraulein — letting him ask me questions and rub my leg. That way he wasn’t suspicious any more. Because he’s an American, and he knows all about the women of other countries. They just want free drinks and to have their legs rubbed under the table. When he proved he was right about me, he was so happy and pleased with himself. He said he would expect me to join him in the morning.”
Beecher put out his cigarette. “Ilse, I’m sorry you had an unpleasant time. I think you might have slapped his face and walked out. But that’s not important now. The important thing is we’ve got our ride to Tangier. That’s all that counts.”