Seven Lies South

20

The american’s name was Arthur Pusey. Ilse’s description of him had been apt; he was of the ferret family surely, a small and tidy man in his middle fifties, with a pale, pointed face, and quick, probing eyes. He spoke in oblique and nervous bursts, attacking the silence as if it were an enemy, his twisting, scornful lips partially obscured by a graying mustache. Pusey had told them that he was in the automobile business in Blue Island, Illinois. He was now on the last leg of a month’s vacation in Europe.

“Figured I’d take a look at it before they drop the bomb,” he said. “Not much point coming afterward, eh? My wife’s on a civilian defense team back home — she’s supposed to drive out with blankets for the survivors from Chicago.” Pusey laughed. “Lot of good that will do, I told her.” His wife had stayed home, he had explained, because she didn’t like to be away from her doctor. “But I always wanted to take a look at this place. After the taxes I’ve paid to keep ’em going, I figured I kind of deserved it. But what appreciation do they show, eh? Give ’em to the Russians, that’s what I’d do.” Pusey had arrived at Gibraltar two days ahead of the ship he was taking back to the States, and he had decided to rent a car and drive through Morocco. “Damn fool notion. Nothing but dumb Arabs in the country, and a gang of con men in the cities.” Pusey’s nose twitched constantly as he spoke, as if he were scenting the winds of danger. “Glad to give you and your wife a lift to Tangier. Some people don’t like to take a chance picking up strangers. But I like to help out, when I can. That’s my philosophy, I guess.”

Pusey didn’t fool Beecher for a minute. Pusey was brimming with resentment and suspicion, but he was afraid to do anything about it. He had expected that Ilse would be alone...

Instead Beecher had been waiting with her in front of the hotel. Pusey had stopped short at sight of him, his eyes narrowing until they were mere slits of light in his pale face.

Beecher had played it broadly. Hearty and smiling. “My wife tells me you offered us a ride up to Tangier. English isn’t her strongest suit, so I thought maybe she’d misunderstood you. But here you are, so I guess there wasn’t any misunderstanding after all.”

In the cool morning haze, Pusey’s eyes were shifting rapidly from Beecher to Ilse. “No, there wasn’t any misunderstanding. Asked her if she’d like a lift, that’s all. Glad to help you folks out. That one suitcase all the luggage you got?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmmm. Well, let’s go.”

Ilse had got into the back seat, while Beecher climbed in beside Pusey.

Now they were well on their way, with the sun high in a clear sky, and the fields spreading away from them in soft sandy colors. They were traveling north on the coastal road which would take them through Rabat to Tangier. The Atlantic was on their left, a flat gray background for vivid streaks of blue which lined the sea as regularly as the ridges in a bolt of corduroy. Ilse was sleeping in the back seat, a faint, dreaming smile on her lips.

“You know, I take people on faith,” Pusey said abruptly, and Beecher guessed that the silence was working on his nerves; there had been a tone of nervous challenge in his voice. “Maybe I’m a fool, but I like to trust people till I’m proved wrong. I had a funny experience in London a week or so back. I was out for a walk one night, and there were all sorts of women standing around the dark street corners.” Pusey smiled quickly at Beecher, his nose twitching at a remembered fragrance of excitement. “I guess I shouldn’t say they were all sorts of women. They were just one sort, if you know what I mean. Well, one of them says hello to me. She was standing in the doorway of a building, in the shadows, and she was good-looking, far as I could see, with blonde hair and kind of dark funny eyes. She kidded and laughed about me being all alone, and said would I like some fun. She was too thin for my taste, and kind of tired-looking even though she was just a kid, but I played along with her the way you will.” Pusey lowered his voice, after taking a quick and virtuous glance at Ilse in the rear-vision mirror. “This isn’t a story for mixed company, I guess. Anyway, this girl offered me a deal, five pounds for the night. Now I might not look it, but I’ve been around a pretty good deal, conventions and things like that. And I wasn’t interested too much to start with, so I decided to have a little fun. I said four pounds. Well, she thought it over and said okay. So I shook my head and said three. She argued about it for a while, but finally she was ready to go for three. And then I shook my head again and said two pounds, take it or leave it. She didn’t like it, I can tell you.” Pusey laughed and tugged at the end of his twitching nose. “She got real nasty, you know how they can be. I tell you, she was mean. But just then a funny thing happened. A policeman came around the corner and started walking toward us. And did that little blonde change her tune fast. She damn near got down on her knees begging me not to tell him she’d spoken to me. You see, it’s a law in England. Whores aren’t allowed to do any hustling. They just stand around the corners like statues. If they get caught so much as nodding or winking at a guy the bobbies run ’em in for soliciting. So do you know what I told her?”

Beecher looked at him. “What did you tell her?”

“Of course, I had two ways to handle it. I could have her run in for soliciting, for one thing. Or I use this law of theirs to make her yell uncle. So I said to her, while the bobby’s just a couple dozen yards away, I says, ‘One pound, sweetie, or I’ll tell this cop you’re making a play for me.’” Pusey shifted his body and scratched the inside of his thigh. “I was interested to see how she’d react. I’m always interested to see how a person stands up under pressure. You take a fellow going along nice and quiet in his regular job, and there’s not much you can judge about him. But you get him in a spot, and you tighten the screws a bit, and pretty soon you’ll know what he’s made of.” Pusey glanced at Beecher. “Like you and me right now. I mean, we’re just a pair of ordinary Americans taking a little trip together. Not much we can tell about each other. But if one of us was worried bad about something, well that would show up under a little pressure. Get what I mean?”

Beecher nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I see. But what happened to the girl?”

Pusey laughed. “She says, ‘Bugger you, you cheap Yank bastard!’ and turns and shouts for the bobby. He runs up saluting and saying, ‘Here now, here now, what’s all this?’ and I pull out my passport and travelers checks, and I say to him, kind of dignified, ‘Officer, I’m an American citizen, and I was out for a stroll when this girl asked me if I’d like to spend the night with her for five pounds. I told her no thank you, because I’m a married man and I’m not interested in that sort of thing, and then she began to screech and curse at me. It’s too bad if a man can’t take a walk in London without being embarrassed this way.’” Pusey winked at Beecher. “The old soft-soap, get it? So the bobby says to her, ‘Sally, you know better than this,’ and she started to cry and sniffle then. She told him I’d made her lose her temper, and that she was sorry and everything. But he shakes his head and says to her, ‘It’s a free ride you’ve bought, Sally,’ and at that she bursts out crying about her kid sister with nobody to look after her, and begging both of us to let her go.” The story seemed to have a calming effect on Pusey’s nerves; his body was comfortably slack behind the wheel, and a small, contented smile brushed his lips. “She changed her tune when I put the blocks to her,” he said, and laughed softly. “That’s the time to find out what kind of stuff people are made of. When they’re hurting.”

“Yes, indeed,” Beecher said. “When they’re worried and frightened. Then lay it on.”

“Exactly. She was stiff as starch when she was just facing up to me. But that policeman put water in her knees, I can tell you.”

“What did he do?”

“He called for a wagon, and they hauled that little bitch right off to jail. Served her right too. Anybody who treats me all right don’t have nothing to worry about. But I don’t like being tricked, or made a fool of.” Pusey smiled at the sun-splashed road. “This girl in back. She’s your wife, eh?”

“Yes.”

“She German?”

“No, Austrian.”

“I see.” Pusey smiled indulgently. “Pretty near the same thing, I guess. Last night I got the idea she was upset about something. Kind of worried maybe, or scared. But I guess it’s just because she’s a long way from home. With an American husband, these girls don’t have anything to be afraid of, do they?”

“I suppose not.”

“I mean, it’s a good deal for them. Where were you last night, by the way?”

“I hit the sack pretty early.”

“You know, it’s kind of strange seeing an American man with a girl like that. What I mean is, you see an American and you expect to see him with an American girl, and some cute well-dressed kids, and lots of expensive luggage. They have a kind of permanent look. Know what I mean?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I figure these European girls don’t have the same slant on things as our women. They’ve got a healthier attitude in some ways, it looks to me. I mean, they’ll try anything if their husband — or whoever’s looking after them — gives them the green light.”

Beecher pretended to miss Pusey’s insinuation; every moment was bringing them closer to Tangier, and he hoped to get there without sharpening Pusey’s suspicions. “Yes, they’ve got a lot of spirit,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.” Pusey grinned. “They’ll try anything.” He glanced at Beecher. “There’s some nice hotels between here and Tangier. I noticed ’em yesterday.”

“Yes,” Beecher said quietly. The land stretching out beside them was flat and dry, scattered with vineyards and orange groves. The highway was shaded by tall lines of willow trees, and the sun fell in dappled pattern on the smooth gray highway. There was more traffic as they drew closer to Tangier. The roadsides streamed with people, most of them burdened with loads of straw and firewood. In the fields men were threshing by hand. The Berber women wore hats like tasseled cartwheels, and blouses of coarse fabric decorated with red and white stripes.

Beecher almost felt sorry for Pusey. He could see Pusey’s guilty and fearful needs as clearly as if he were looking at them under a microscope; betrayal seemed to have sharpened his vision to a merciless efficiency. This was part of the maturity Don Julio had talked about; an effortless, instinctive ability to sense decay behind masks of seemingly sweet and healthy flesh. It would be more pleasant in some ways to be dumb and blind; it would be far easier to live with the Puseys of the world, Beecher thought, if you didn’t see them so clearly.

Now he decided it was time to put a chisel against one of Pusey’s numerous cracks, and swing a sledge at it.

He settled himself comfortably and lit a cigarette. “You’re from Blue Island, Illinois, you say?”

Pusey looked at him sharply. “You know the town?”

“I’m in Chicago quite a lot. I’m with the Air Force, and we do a good deal of procurement work out there.”

“The Air Force, eh?” Pusey grinned slightly. “I wouldn’t have guessed it, mister.”

“No?”

They drove on for moments in silence, but Beecher noticed that the knuckles of Pusey’s small hairy hands were standing out sharply on the wheel. “You in some kind of secret job?” Pusey asked him at last.

“No, I’m in procurement.”

“Well, what are you doing in Morocco?”

“We’re closing out our bases. Nouasseur, Sidi Slimane, the works. It’s all going. A billion dollars down the drain. I guess you know what that means.”

“Well, I don’t follow out that stuff too carefully.”

“You don’t!” Beecher looked at him sharply and disapprovingly. “Goddamn it, I can’t understand you civilians.” Here would be an area of sensitivity and fear, he knew; Pusey was the sort to cringe before badges and uniforms. He undoubtedly belonged to a police athletic league, and carried an honorary sheriff’s or constable’s card in his wallet: a toady to the symbols of his fears. “Do you realize what this withdrawal means?” Beecher went on, in the same stem and shocked voice. “Don’t you understand we’re losing our first line of defense against the Russians? You civilians gripe about taxes, but do you think about the officers who’ll have to fly their jets an additional thousand miles because of this snafu in Morocco?”

“I guess I should keep up on these things,” Pusey said. His cheeks were turning pink.

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Beecher said. “What line did you say you’re in?”

“The car business. I have an agency in Blue Island.”

“That’s odd.”

“How do you mean odd?”

“My wife had a notion you were in the stocking business. But sometimes her English plays tricks on her.” Beecher smiled at Pusey. “She thought you wanted to sell her some nylons.”

Pusey laughed shrilly. “Gosh, no!”

Here was the dark fearsome jungle in his soul, Beecher thought; the threatening and poisonous mystery of women. Pusey’s wife wouldn’t leave her doctor; oh, no! Those migraines and gas attacks were probably a chastity belt she buckled on every time she thought of Pusey’s hairy little hands.

Pusey cleared his throat with obvious difficulty. “We might have mentioned something about stockings. We were just kind of chatting along. I asked her if she’d like a cup of coffee because she seemed kind of upset or something―like she wanted directions maybe. You know how you’ll offer to help a woman out?”

“I guess there’s a touch of the Boy Scout in all of us,” Beecher said.

“That’s it.” Pusey nodded vigorously. “Lot of these foreigners don’t give a damn. Never offer a lady a seat, push through doors in front of them, it’s terrible.”

“It’s all a matter of breeding,” Beecher said.

“Exactly what I say.” Pusey held the tip of his nose between thumb and forefinger, as if to control its rhythmic twitchings. “I know just what you mean.”

“I thought you would,” Beecher said, smiling.

They drove on in silence. It wasn’t victory, he knew; it was a stalemate. He had humiliated and frightened Pusey by probing at his fears. And this would make him dangerous. Whether he believed Beecher’s story or not, Pusey would strike back at him for lifting the damp rock from his soul, for exposing his wriggling little guilts and inadequacies. Beecher felt a moment of kinship with the young prostitute Pusey had turned over to the police in London. He was grateful to her in an oblique fashion; the little blonde chippie, in her tears and bitterness, had shouted the warning to him about Pusey. But it was Pusey himself who had hung the leper’s bell around his scrawny neck. This need for self-exposure must reflect the Creator’s tidy and amusing law of compensation, Beecher thought; He was responsible for Pusey, but He was also responsible for the unhappy people who must come in contact with him. So to protect the innocent, the Puseys were sent into the world equipped with an automatic and fool-proof warning system; the things they relished, and the things they were compelled to boast about were guaranteed to alert people as instantly as a snake’s rattle. The poor little bastard didn’t have a chance, Beecher thought, with some honest pity.

Soon they came to the outskirts of Tangier. The street signs were still printed in three languages, Arabic, French, and Spanish, a reminder of the days when the city had been operated as a free port. Now that was all over, Tangier had become respectable in Beecher’s time. The smuggling was under some control, and the fragile tendrils of tax and money laws had been stiffened by lashings of sticky Moroccan red tape.

The Soco Chico had turned into a rendezvous for tourists slung with cameras, and indifferent Arab peddlers in nylon shirts and sunglasses, whose merchandise consisted almost exclusively of fountain pens, watches, American cigarettes, and guitars made of turtle shells. Hashish was about as mysterious as aspirin; it could be bought in most drugstores.

They drove past beautiful beaches with sand that was as fine and soft as cake flour, and ahead of them stood the white clustered skyscrapers of Tangier. The wind was off the sea, and swimming wouldn’t be any good today, Beecher knew; the sand would blow against bare bodies like a million tiny flails, swept along with stinging force by the steady rush of the levanter. He was pleased by the calm irrelevance of his thoughts. His heartbeat was about a steady seventy, he guessed.

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.