"Hey, man-you really think so? Well, Okay. Everything's cool now."
Robin was pleased to have so easily cheered him up. Also he was amazed by Pie's mastery of jive talk. Moroccan boys were like that, he knew, instant mimics of Europeans, but what astounded Robin was how quickly Pie had abandoned the refined Latin American mannerisms he'd acquired from Inigo. It was as if that relationship had never existed. How little we really leave these boys, he thought.
"Remember my picnic, Pie?"
"Yeah, man. That was a bitch."
"There was a French boy with me. Herve Beaumont."
"Yeah. Lives on the Mountain. I know the cat you mean."
"Well, he's with me tonight, Pie, and very interested in meeting you. I think you'd like him. He's quite rich, by the way."
Pie, who'd been staring out at the room, on the lookout for some queen he could hustle for the night, suddenly turned his attention back to Robin, who congratulated himself for knowing the secret word that opened all Moroccan hearts.
"Rich, huh?"
Robin nodded.
"Sounds nice, man."
"I'll bring him over."
"He's not cherry, is he?"
"No, but he doesn't know the Moroccan scene. We know how special that is. Yes, we do-don't we, Pie?"
"Yeah." Pie grinned, held his palm out straight, and made little cutting motions at it with the edge of his other hand. It was the first reference he'd ever made to the time he'd held a knife against Robin's balls. Robin raised both his hands in mock submission, backed off a little, smiled, then both of them began to nod their heads. They were acknowledging, Robin supposed, the curious relationship that they had.
How marvelous, he thought, as he hunted Herve down, how marvelous these transactions of the flesh.
After he made the introductions, watched Pie and Herve share a pipe of hash, he wandered off to explore the party, search out material for his column. People had become wary of him ever since Townes had convinced him to write with a harder edge, but his stock had risen after a biting column on Vicar Wick, and now his sources were speaking to him again.
He circulated for a while, picking up tidbits-nothing of substance, however, nothing to rival the scandal at the church. The big story was the TP party, and Laurence Luscombe's unexpected finesse. Robin finally found Joe Kelly, drinking heavily, holding forth to Madame Fufu and the Drears.
"Know what Aunt Jemima said to Uncle Ben?"
The question was directed at Madame Fufu, who didn't understand it and shook her head.
"'You're a credit to your rice,' " said Kelly. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" He yowled, pounding at the sides of his chair, nearly unloosing the antler arms.
Robin winced. It was such an awful joke. Madame Fufu didn't get it and shook her head.
"That's a Yank joke," said Jessamyn Drear as Madame Fufu excused herself and wandered off.
"Better be careful," whispered Jessica to Kelly. "We might need her husband for Emperor Jones in the fall."
"Oh, fuck that burr head," Kelly said, "and fuck O'Neill too." He took a long sip from his drink. Robin sat beside him in Madame Fufu's place.
"So, Joe, I hear Luscombe won the game."
"Yeah," said Kelly, "him and that lousy Derik Law. I had a great plan going till those two screwed it up."
"What happened?"
"I don't know. He gave some sugary speech and turned the thing around. But I'll fix that little proud nose, wait and see. Makes me sick with all his crap about 'The Theater' and his phony arty airs. I know his type, knew 'em in New York. British character actors, phonies all of 'em, holed up in the Great Northern spewing out their Shakespeare by the hour. Want a quote? Something you can print? Just say Tangier's not big enough for the two of us, and that I'll get that old hack yet."
"Now calm yourself, Joe," said Jessamyn while Robin wrote Kelly's statement down. "You're managing director-that's the real power. Larry's just a straw man now."
Robin listened a while, then withdrew, remembering a line of Friedrich Nietzsche that Martin Townes liked to quote. How did it go? He stopped in a doorway, trying to recall the words: "It's a relatively simple matter for a weathered charlatan like myself to keep up interest in so small a carnival as this."
He gazed around. Herve and Pie were still together, still sharing a pipe. Well, he thought, at least I've done one good deed. Then he noticed Jean Tassigny, sitting by himself. He walked over to him, sat down, and listened to his tale of woe.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," Jean said after telling Robin about the telescope. "There's a ferry for Algeciras in the morning. I'll catch the train for Paris there."
"Don't be ridiculous. Why the hell are you so upset? She was cheating on Joop. How can you be surprised she's cheating on you?"
"Oh, God! That's why I have to leave. A perfectly intelligent person like yourself saying a thing like that-that's the whole damn trouble with Tangier!"
"Oh, come, Jean," said Robin, feeling a sudden need to defend the town. "You're not going to give me that old in-Tangier-they-know-everything-about-sex-and-nothing-about-love routine. You're too sophisticated to spout that crap, the swan song of every poor beggar who ever left this city hurt. Really, I'm surprised. You take things much too seriously. Your situation is so classic, you ought to be able to see the humor in it instead of feeling sorry for yourself. The handsome boy, lover to the older woman, married in turn to the ugly wealthy man. You mistook her lust for affection, Jean, and your own misguided passion for love. You participated in something that held a certain drama, considering the fact that the three of you were living in the same house, and now that it's over you want to flee the scene, if only to further dramatize your hurt. Stop it, Jean, and don't stare at me with those bedeviled eyes, as if to show me how Tangier has corrupted your otherwise pure and unblemished soul. You've traveled a mere inch down the highway of sin. What you need is a new lover. May I be so bold as to suggest-a boy?"
Jean looked up at him with astonishment, then began to laugh. "Really, Robin, you're very funny."
"And you're very handsome-no offense."
They shook hands and Robin wandered off, fairly certain that Jean Tassigny was not going to leave Tangier.
He headed toward the terrace, where Jimmy Sohario had installed a Moroccan band. Passing through the doors, he came upon an amazing sight. It was Foster Knowles dancing crazily while everyone else stood back and watched. The Moroccans were drumming away, clearly entranced with this American who shot out his feet, one after the other, and whipped around his right arm like a cowboy making ready to lasso a calf. "Whoopee," he yelled, "whoopee," as if celebrating the end of a drive down the Chisholm Trail.
Robin had never before seen Knowles behave like that. The Vice-Consul had always seemed to him a terrible stuffed shirt. His wife, Jackie, was standing facing him on the fringes of the crowd, bent over slightly, clapping in tune to the drums, letting out with little squeals from time to time. "Yippee!" and "O-yippee-hi-ho!"
Robin, fascinated, wondered what had brought this behavior on. When Foster grabbed Old Musica Codd out of the crowd and whirled her into a jig, he moved over to Jackie and shouted in her ear.
"Is he stoned?"
"Oh, Mr. Scott," she said, batting her sky-blue eyes. "I'd have thought you'd have heard our news by now, you being a gossip columnist and all."
"What news? Don't hold out on me, Jackie. I've always been sweet to you in my column."
"No, you haven't," she said smartly, showing him a petulant smile. "You could have got me into a lot of trouble if Foster wasn't so-"
"Dense?"
"Oh, you are nasty, Mr. Robin Gossip Scott."