They turned into a broad avenue which twisted into the center of the city. Here there were sidewalk cafés, pharmacies, curio shops, and knots of tourists being towed through the streams of pedestrians by native guides who wore flowing jellabahs over neat dark business suits.
Pusey blinked his eyes. “I’m going to stop and get my sunglasses out of my suitcase,” he said. “This is some strain.” He slowed down and pulled over to the curb. “I won’t be a minute.”
Beecher lit a cigarette and rubbed the sleeve of his jacket over his damp forehead. A row of slender willows shaded the street, but the wind off the sea was heavy and hot against his face. He leaned forward and looked up at the sky. The sun was splintered by the soft feathery limbs of the trees, and the light fell in blurred and shifting patterns into the street.
Beecher felt a sudden cold stir of suspicion. Pusey didn’t need sunglasses now. So here it comes, he thought; the cry for the bobby...
He glanced quickly to his right, and saw himself and the car reflected in the wide shining windows of a photographer’s shop. Pusey was also in his view; he had raised the lid of the trunk, and was now mopping his face with a handkerchief. Without taking his eyes from Pusey, Beecher reached back and found Ilse’s knee. He shook it vigorously. “Time to wake up,” he said loudly. In the photographer’s window, he saw Pusey stiffen, then turn an ear to the sound of his voice.
Ilse said drowsily, “Are we in Tangier so soon?”
“Yes, honey,” Beecher said. “You’ve been sleeping like a log. Mr. Pusey is getting sunglasses from his luggage, and then we’ll be on our way to the hotel. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Beecher spoke in a clear, carrying voice, and he saw that Pusey was listening to him with a smug little smile. Yea and verily, Beecher thought, the moment is at hand. He watched Pusey pull Ilse’s suitcase toward him, and unsnap the latches. Pusey took something from the inner pocket of his jacket, flipped it into her suitcase, then snapped the latches back into place.
“It’s great to be in Tangier,” Beecher said heartily. “We’ll get freshened up at the hotel, then go to the Parade Bar for something tall and cool to drink. And afterward we’ll go up into the mountains to the Italians for ravioli with garlic. How does that sound?” Beecher heard the door of the trunk close with a solid bang. He turned and looked steadily at Ilse. “Be ready to do exactly what I tell you,” he said.
Pusey opened the car door and slipped in behind the wheel. “I couldn’t find ’em,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that maid in Casablanca copped ’em while I was showering.”
“You can’t be too careful,” Beecher said. “You should have taken them right into the bathroom with you. Well, we were making dinner plans. It would be a pleasure if you’d join us.”
“No, I can’t,” Pusey said. “I got to get back to Gib. I’m meeting the Bland Line ferry in just an hour or so. And I’m supposed to confirm my car reservations before then. But thanks anyway.”
“It’s our loss,” Beecher said. “We’d like to do something to show you how much we appreciate this lift. Do you have a business card on you? We could at least drop you a note.”
Pusey’s hand moved toward his breast pocket, instinctively and involuntarily, but half way there it changed direction, moved up to his throat. He fingered his tie casually. “Well, I don’t have one with me,” he said. “But General Delivery, Blue Island, Illinois, will do the trick.”
Beecher knew then that Pusey had planted his wallet in Ilse’s suitcase, and he made an effort to understand the devious resentment behind this frame-up; if he could understand Pusey he might forgive him. Beecher realized that his unwanted flair for sin would probably impose this kind of responsibility on him for the rest of his life. His talent was an accidental endowment, like perfect pitch; he couldn’t censure people just because he saw through them. He would have to make a business of charity. Work hard at it...
Pusey had been cheated: that’s how he would look at it. The exciting, dark-haired girl had belonged to him, and he put his mark on her, trailing his fingers along her smooth bare legs. She had been frightened, nervous, submissive; these reactions must have sent an almost agonizing thrill of anticipation through him. And then it had all gone wrong; he had been thwarted, humiliated, shamed. Beecher had raised the phantoms of Authority and Sex to terrify him. Somehow, Pusey would have to readjust the balance, clean the dry and bitter taste of defeat from his mouth. He must have his revenge. But to whom would he boast about it? His wife, perhaps? While she lay in the darkness with her back to him, clutching gratefully at the pain in her stomach?
You had to pity him, he thought. Forgive him while he came at your back with a knife...
The car was slowing down, as Pusey angled carefully toward the curb. He was stopping in front of a small hotel. “I’d better confirm my reservation on the ferry,” he said, cutting the ignition. “I’ll do it right here, not take any chances. If I miss that connection, I wouldn’t get back to Gibraltar in time for my ship home.”
“Would you like me to call for you?” Beecher said. “I speak Spanish.”
“No, no,” Pusey said quickly. “I can make out. I’ll get the desk clerk to handle it. You just wait here. Then I’ll run you over to your hotel. Plenty of time for that, after I confirm this reservation.”
What would Pusey tell the police? Beecher wondered. That he’d missed his wallet, was suspicious of the strange couple he had been good enough to drive up from Casablanca. The car would be searched, then the trunk, then the luggage... “Let’s go!” he said sharply, when Pusey disappeared into the hotel. “Get out.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just get out!”
Beecher took the keys from the ignition, opened his door and walked to the rear of the car. He unlocked the trunk and picked up Ilse’s suitcase. By then she was standing on the sidewalk, watching with puzzled, frightened eyes.
“He’s gone for the police,” Beecher said, and took her arm in a firm grip. “Don’t look back, and don’t act like you’re in a hurry. We’ll cross the street and find a cab.”
They walked a block on the opposite side of the wide avenue, moving casually along the crowded sidewalk. A cab was waiting at the intersection. Beecher put Ilse in the back, and got into the front seat with the driver, a plump and drowsy Arab with a red silk scarf knotted under the collar of his damp nylon shirt.
“The Hotel Velasquez,” Beecher said.
The driver pushed down his flag and swung into the traffic flowing smoothly down the boulevard.
Beecher swiveled about and looked through the rear window. Their margin of safety had been only a matter of seconds, he saw, for Pusey was back at the car now, gesturing frantically to a pair of tall Moroccan policemen. From this distance he looked like a mechanical toy which had been wound up too tightly; his head was jerking and twisting about erratically, and his arms flailed at the air with a suggestion of mechanical frenzy. Beecher smiled at Ilse, then straightened himself and lit a cigarette.
It would take Pusey a long time to get his story across in sign language, he knew. And then it would all boil down to the fact that something had been stolen. This wouldn’t startle the police. Many things were stolen in Morocco, and they knew this to be a logical consequence of the fact that there were many thieves in Morocco. One must fill out the forms, affix the appropriate stamps and seals, and hope for the best. They would mollify Pusey by reminding him that everything belonged to Allah, in any case. Beecher smiled faintly. That would mollify Pusey just fine, he thought.
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