Carrie's run

CHAPTER 20

Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

It was late; the pharmacy was just about to close when she got there, the shop windows along the street glowing with neon in the night. She handed the pharmacist, a bald middle-aged Lebanese man with a fringe of white hair, her old prescription. He barely glanced at it.

“This is out of date, mademoiselle,” he said.

“Here’s my new one,” she said, putting two hundred dollars U.S. on the counter. He looked at it but didn’t pick it up. “Min fathleki,” she added. Please. She didn’t have to fake the desperation in her voice; it was already there.

He glanced the door, then swept the money into his pocket. He went in back and while she waited she thought about Virgil’s news. Rana was to meet Nightingale tomorrow in Baalbek, the town with the famous Roman ruins in the Beqaa Valley, about eighty-five kilometers northeast of Beirut. The three of them, her, Virgil and Ziad, would also be there.

The pharmacist came back. He was holding two containers of pills.

“You understand these are serious?” he said.

“I know, shokran,” she said, thanking him.

“You should be tested. The side effects can be very bad.”

“I know. But I’ve been taking them for years without any problems,” she said, thinking, Just give it to me, dammit. Her heart was beating a mile a minute; the street was already becoming a maze of moving patterns and if she didn’t get one inside her soon, she didn’t know what she would do. Murder the bastard.

“No more old prescriptions, mademoiselle. Next time, I will insist,” he said.

“I understand, assayid. Thank you so much.” She was thinking, What does he want, a blow job? Please, just give them to me.

“Good night, mademoiselle,” he said, handing them to her in a little plastic bag.

“Bye,” she said, not looking back as she headed out the door. She stopped at a neighborhood grocery bakkal a few doors down just as he was shuttering for the night, bought a bottle of water and washed a pill down. She checked her watch. Just after nine. The nighttime city was coming alive. The streets were clogged with traffic and noisy horns from drivers.

The question now was whether she could find Marielle. The third woman.

The address she had from the photographer, Abou Murad, for Marielle Hilal was on Rue Mar Yousef in Bourj Hammoud, the Armenian quarter. It was in a six-story building on a crowded street just a few blocks from the Municipality building. There was a hole-in-the-wall kebab restaurant on the ground floor with the building door right next to it. Someone had strung a red-blue-and-yellow-striped Armenian flag over the street. She used a credit card slipped between the door lock and the jamb to unlock the apartment building’s front door.

Going up the stairs-there was no elevator-she could smell the roast kebabs from the restaurant. The hallway was dark and there was no timed light. She found the apartment and lit her cell phone to see the name handwritten in Arabic on a piece of tape pasted on the doorpost of the apartment door. It wasn’t “Hilal” or anything like it. She listened at the door. Someone was watching television. It sounded like a popular show about a beautiful woman journalist in the middle of a divorce. She knocked. No answer. After a minute, she knocked again and the door opened.

A thin woman with streaked blond hair, in jeans and a red B018 Club T-shirt-she must have been in her forties-opened the door.

“Aiwa, what is it?” the woman asked in Arabic.

“I’m looking for Marielle,” Carrie said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no Marielle here,” the woman said.

“Please, madame. I’m a friend of hers and Dima Hamdan’s. I have to see her. It’s urgent.”

“I told you. There’s no such person here,” the woman said.

“Is that Kinda?” Carrie asked, talking about the TV show. “I like that show.”

The woman nodded. “It’s good,” she said, and started to close the door. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“Wait! Could you at least give her a message? Her life is in danger,” Carrie said, stepping into the doorway so the woman couldn’t close the door.

“Whoever you are, go away! I don’t know any Marielle Hilal!” the woman snapped.

Carrie looked at her. I’ve got you, she thought, thinking, thank God she’d gotten her meds or she wouldn’t have caught it.

“How did you know her family name was Hilal? I didn’t say it,” she said.

The woman stood there, her face working. She looked around as if for a weapon.

“If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police,” she said.

“Go ahead.” Carrie crossed her arms. “You’re hiding something. I think we both know the last thing you want is the police.”

The woman hesitated, stepped out into the hallway to make sure Carrie was alone, then let her in. They stood awkwardly in the foyer; after a moment the woman led her into the living room.

“How do you know Marielle?” the woman asked, turning to confront her.

“I know Rana and Dima,” Carrie said.

“How do you know Dima?”

“From Le Gray and the fashion photographer François Abou Murad-and other places.”

The woman stood there, calculating.

“You said Marielle’s life was in danger. What did you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean or you wouldn’t be trying to protect her. I have to talk to her.” She decided to take a chance. “Dima is dead, madame.”

The woman stared at her, stunned. “Dead? What are you saying?”

“I have to talk to Marielle. It is unbelievably urgent.”

“You’re American?” she asked, studying her.

“Yes. I’m Carrie. A friend.”

“Wait here,” she said, and went to a bedroom. Carrie assumed she was calling Marielle. It was puzzling. The woman-she assumed she was a relative of Marielle’s-didn’t look Armenian, and looking around, there was no sign of a cross or pictures of Mount Ararat or anything Armenian, so why did she live in Bourj Hammoud? Except, Carrie thought, everyone knew everyone here. They were aware of outsiders. Maybe Marielle lived near here for safety. On the TV, Kinda was being threatened by a man in a business suit. The woman came back.

“She’ll meet you tonight after midnight at B Dix-Huit. Come alone or you won’t get to talk to her.” The woman frowned. “I’m sorry for all the precaution.”

“No, she’s right. She may be in great danger,” Carrie said.

B018 was in the Karantina district, sandwiched between the Beirut River in its narrow concrete channel and the harbor. In times past, the area was called La Quarantaine and had been a refugee camp for survivors of the Armenian massacre in Turkey during World War I. Later, during the Lebanese civil war, it was a camp for Palestinians. Now it was a working-class industrial area that, as an oddity, housed the most exclusive club in town.

From the outside, the B018 Club looked like a concrete spaceship, and going down the narrow inclined ramp to the underground entrance, Carrie, who’d gone home and changed into her Terani and highest heels, wondered if her midthigh minidress was short enough. It was that kind of place. Coming down to the front-door area, she could hear the music throbbing loud enough to make the walls vibrate.

Even before she got past the six-foot bouncers at the door, a man in a Hugo Boss jacket put his arm around her waist and asked her if she wanted a Johnnie Walker Blue. At club prices, a drink like that could go for five hundred dollars.

“Maybe later,” she said, disentangling herself. After the bouncers gave her a once-over that lasted only a few seconds but felt as probing as a gynecological exam and waved her through-thanks to the Terani and her Jimmy Choos, she thought-she went inside. The main club, with its hangarlike space and endlessly long bar, was jammed with people, many of them dancing for all they were worth to Chris Brown’s “Run It.” A half dozen beautiful women in ultratight miniskirts were writhing to the music on top of the bar to raucous cheers.

Someone shoved a cocktail into her hand, nearly spilling it, while a drop-dead gorgeous girl with gold eye shadow and purple lipstick stared at her and said, “What a pretty face, cherie. Can I kiss you?” Without waiting for an answer, she kissed Carrie full on the lips, her tongue darting in like a little fish. So different than kissing a man, Carrie thought. Softer, the sensation oddly disconcerting and interesting.

“Come with me,” the girl said, putting her hand on Carrie’s breast.

“Maybe later,” Carrie said-it was fast becoming her new mantra-and moved quickly away.

She weaved her way around the dance floor and along the walls, looking for Marielle. All she had to go on was the photograph; she hoped the woman hadn’t changed her hairstyle too much. A man grabbed her free hand and kissed it.

“Have a drink, habibi,” he said. She freed her hand and moved on. The music was deafening and someone shouted in Arabic that things were just getting started, you kahleteen! Laserlike lights flashed and someone said they were going to open the retractable roof to the stars, but nothing happened. The music had changed and everyone was going wild to the Finnish heavy metal band Nightwish.

Carrie spotted someone who could have been Marielle seated near the far end of the bar. Crossing the dance floor, she was groped twice and barely escaped getting pulled into a group of three girls dancing so hard their bouncing breasts threatened to escape their décolletage.

When she got closer, she saw that it was Marielle. She’d dyed her hair red, wore a low-cut al-Ansar Sporting Club tank top that showed her cleavage and Escada jeans so tight they could’ve been spray-painted on. She wasn’t as pretty as her photo, but her face was more interesting, Carrie thought, squeezing in next to her.

“Where can we talk?” Carrie asked in Arabic.

“You Carrie?” Marielle said, leaning closer.

“It’s too loud. Let’s go somewhere.”

“I’m not moving till I know you are who you say you are. Where was Dima from? Really from?” the redhead said into her ear.

“The Akkar. Halba.”

“Come,” Marielle said, getting off her stool and marching away. Carrie followed. After a long walk out of the main club to a hallway, they found a line snaking out of the women’s bathroom. Marielle walked past it and, taking out a key, unlocked a side door at the end of the corridor. It opened to an empty storage space. Looking behind them to make sure no one was paying attention, they stepped inside. Except for a single lightbulb, the room was dark, with cartons stacked at the back. They could hear the music throbbing through the walls.

“Is Dima dead?” Marielle asked.

Carrie nodded.

“I knew it. These people. .,” Marielle said, shaking her head bitterly.

“Which people?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know them. I don’t know you. All I know is that it’s dangerous. I knew she was in trouble.”

“How’d you know?”

“Dima and Rana were always playing with fire. Rana is with some guy we think is CIA.”

“Fielding?” Carrie put in.

“American.” She nodded. “Like you. Did you come from him?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’m scared, that’s what I think. If they killed Dima, they can kill me. Look at me. My hand is shaking.” She held out her hand in the dim light.

“Less than two months ago, Dima disappeared out of sight. What happened?”

“It was him,” Marielle said.

“Who?”

“Her new boyfriend. Mohammed. Mohammed Siddiqi. She was with him.”

“The one from Dubai?”

“Where’d you hear Dubai?”

“The photographer, François.”

“He’s such a khara liar. Mohammed’s Iraqi. From Baghdad. He claimed to be from Qatar, but I knew he lied, the dog.” She made a face. “At first, she was in love. It was all about how wonderful he was. He had all this money. How good-looking he was. What an incredible lover. They walked on the beach at Saint Georges and watched the sun come up. All that khara.”

“What happened?”

“It was an act. Once he had her, he changed. She was afraid of him. She showed me the bruises. Cigarette burns on the inside of her thighs where no one would see. One time he shoved her face into a toilet and held her under the water till she promised she would do anything he said. I told her to run. Or talk to Rana’s CIA guy, but she was too terrified. All he had to do was look at her and she would go white. She told me there was a woman, someone she thought she could trust. American.” Her eyes searched Carrie’s face, shadowed by the lightbulb in the darkness. “Was that you?”

Carrie nodded. “I failed her,” she said. “I’m sorry. I might’ve helped her, but she disappeared. I couldn’t find her.”

“She was in Doha. In Qatar. With him,” she said, spitting the words out. “I don’t know what they were doing, but before she left, she warned me to stay away. He said I’d be next.”

“So you went to ground in Bourj Hammoud? Is that why? For safety? You’re not Armenian,” Carrie said.

“The people there notice outsiders. They protect us. You won’t tell anyone?”

Carrie shook her head. “This Mohammed Siddiqi. You say he’s Iraqi?” she asked.

Marielle nodded, a grim smile on her face. “He claimed to be Qatari, but he lied.”

“How do you know?”

“My mother’s family spent time in Qatar. I asked him where he went to school. The Doha Academy on B Ring Road? Everyone who’s anyone goes there. He said yes. Liar! Everyone in Qatar knows Doha Academy is in al-Khalifa al-Jadeeda, nowhere near the B Ring. And his slang was Iraqi Arabic, not Qatari or Lebanese.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

She shook her head.

It’s a dead end. We don’t have enough, Carrie thought, casting around desperately for something else. This Mohammed was part of the attack on New York. She was sure of it.

“Were you ever together with them? Did anybody ever take any photos?” she asked.

“He didn’t want pictures. One time Dima asked me to take a snapshot of the two of them on the Corniche and before I could do anything, he took the camera out of my hand and smashed it.”

“So there are no photos at all?”

Marielle hesitated, then shook her head no. She’s lying, Carrie thought.

“There is a photo, isn’t there?” she asked, her heart beating wildly. It was as if her hearing was ultra-acute. She could hear the beating of her heart and Marielle’s heart and the music and conversations outside and thought, Oh God, it’s the meds. Please, not now. Everything is hanging by a thread.

Marielle didn’t answer. She looked away.

“Min fathleki.” Please. “Don’t let Dima’s death be for nothing. It matters more than you can imagine,” Carrie pleaded. Some instinct-she prayed it wasn’t her damned bipolar-told her what Marielle said now would change everything. Like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus-kicking back to her Catholic childhood-his world trembling, waiting for what his night visitor would say next.

Marielle’s eyes searched hers as if she could see into her soul, then she opened her purse, took out her cell phone and, after a minute, found what she was looking for.

“I took this when he wasn’t looking. I don’t know why,” she said, then bit her lip. “No, that’s not true. I thought he might kill her and I might need it for the police.”

She showed Carrie the photo on her cell phone. It was a snapshot of Dima, in tight shorts and a tee, on the Corniche, looking tense, her arm around a lean coppery-skinned man with curly hair and a three-day stubble squinting slightly in the sun, facing three-quarters to the camera. Carrie could hardly believe it, a sensation close to orgasm thrilling through her. I’ve got you, you bastard! she thought wildly.

“I need that picture,” she said. “If you need money, help. .” She left it open.

Neither of them spoke. They could hear the beat of the music and the sounds of the crowd from outside the room like the sound of the ocean in a seashell.

“Give me an e-mail address and I’ll send it,” Marielle said, suddenly nervous. “Anything else? I risked coming here to meet you in a public place. I have to go.”

Carrie touched her arm. “What about Rana? Did she know him?”

Marielle stepped back, her face hard to see in the dim light coming from behind her. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I don’t want to know.”

“But she knows the Syrian, Taha al-Douni?”

“Rana’s famous. Either she knows everybody or they know her or pretend they do. Ask her,” she said with a shrug.

“It’s dangerous for her too, isn’t it?” Carrie asked.

“It’s Beirut,” she said. “We live on a bridge over an abyss made of explosives and lies.”