The Casbah Killers

Chapter 1

The damned rubber raft wouldn’t paddle. It was like sitting on a roller coaster in Coney Island in the middle of the night. Only the roller coaster was wet, it wasn’t Coney Island but the coastline of Morocco and the pre-dawn, inky blackness of a moonless night, some five or so miles above the port of Casablanca.

I’d been told that not so very long ago, before the Delure jetty was built, steamers stopping at Casablanca always anchored far offshore. Passengers were lowered in wicker baskets to bobbing, overcrowded bumboats for the trip to shore. Capsizings were frequent, shattered nerves a certainty and I was getting an idea what they went through. Long underwater sandbars and heavy seas made most of the Moroccan coastline on the Atlantic a constant succession of towering swells and rolling breakers.

My little rubber raft rose up on the crest of every swell and then came down into the trough with a roar of wind and foam, only to be lifted up again instantly on the rise of the next one. I’d been lowered — raft, equipment and me — from one of the big Marine ’copters from the carrier Saratoga. I wore a tight, one-piece oilskin, not unlike a frogman’s suit, over my clothes. In the raft was a small knapsack and a bundle, both wrapped in the waterproof covering.

The tide and the sea were conspiring to carry me in and paddling was mostly an empty gesture. I was grateful that the coastline was sandy and not rock-bound. When I waved off the huge ’copter and watched it disappear into the blackness, its running lights turned off, it had seemed like such a simple ride into shore. And then I passed over the first of the underwater sandbars and the raft rose up and seemed to skitter out from under me. The rest had been a constant battle to stay upright. But now I could make out the dark outline of the coast, the slow rise of the sandy areas back from the shore.

Unlike the spread-out cities of the American coastline, the sprawling, overlapping areas sociologists have termed “megalopolis,” the cities of Morocco and the other north and west African lands are enclaves unto themselves. Once past the city boundaries one was in primitive land, desert or shore, where only small villages and solitary settlements dotted the land. It was such a lone and solitary stretch of coastline we had picked to set me ashore. I say “we,” but what I mean is the super-efficient planning operations staff of AXE headquarters.

I was keeping a sharp eye out for lights of any sort. Casablanca, and the adjacent area, of course, was a mecca of its own, a crossroads port where every kind of contraband found its way, where every type of smuggling flourished, where every imaginable illicit traffic found an avenue for itself. Consequently, the authorities kept two-way coastal patrols, the one onshore using jeeps and horses, the one offshore using World War II PT boats, reconditioned and refurbished. But it stayed dark and, I found out the hard way, I was too busy watching for the wrong things.

I was coining close inshore now and the raft was lifted again, swept in on a strong swell until a sandbar rose up to catch the bottom and I was pitched forward and halfway out. I managed to hang on, spit out a mouthful of salt water, and flipped over the side, pulling the raft onto the stretch of sand.

I found a ridge topped by a growth of eelgrass and sea scrub which made a convenient hedge. I sat down, pulled off the one-piece oilskin coverall, took the material from the bundle and the knapsack, piled it all into the raft and then used my lighter to set it afire. It burned quickly without flaring, a specially treated material that oxydized with amazing speed so that in minutes there was nothing left, not a burnt scrap nor a charred ash. Nothing. The stuff would self-destruct in minutes I’d been told by Special Effects, and I gave a slight nod to the efficiency as I watched the subdued flame.

It took only that, a few minutes and in that short space of time, Nick Carter, AXE Agent N3, had vanished and in his place stood Glen Travis, artist, painter, replete with paint box, brushes, palette, corduroy trousers and open-necked beige shirt. Inside the paint box was a full array of colors, tubes of the newer acrylic-based paints and each tube, in its own way, a masterpiece.

Of course, not many artists carried Wilhelmina, my 9mm Luger in a special shoulder holster, nor Hugo, the pencil-thin stiletto strapped in its sheath to my forearm. In a small knapsack I had a few changes of clothing and an American passport impeccably doctored to make it read that I’d just crossed through Algeria.

The sky was beginning to lighten ever so slightly and with paint box in hand, I walked up a sandy ridge to turn and look back at the darkness of the sea and the fading night stars. I guess Glen Travis, the artist, had taken over a little too much because all I heard, at the last moment, was the faint, whistling sound.

I whirled and got the rock smack against the temple. I glimpsed the end of a string and then all went into blazing yellows and purples. I remember thinking that this was impossible, that no one could have known of my coming.

The second blow did away with what little consciousness I had left. I went down into the sand and lay there. It was daylight when I woke, and my head hurt with a throbbing pain. I forced my eyes open, and even that slight effort hurt.

My mouth was gritty and tasted of sand, and I used my tongue to wipe some of it from my lips and gums. I spit it out and shook my head to clear it. Slowly, a room came into focus, if you could call it a room. I was alone and my wrists hurt, and I realized they were tied behind my back. A door, half off its hinges and open, was directly across from where I sat on the floor. Through it, I could glimpse the sea beyond. Obviously, I wasn’t far from where I’d arrived. I let my eyes roam around the room.

A broken-down table, two equally broken-down chairs and some worn, sheepskin hassocks accounted for most of the furnishings. Another, smaller room led from the one where I was and I saw what seemed to be rolled-up bedding on the floor.

I tried to remember what had happened but all I could recollect was a glimpse of the rock and a dim realization that it was at the end of a length of string. It was a primitive but highly effective weapon, and I suddenly saw Hawk’s face across the desk from me in his office at AXE Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“It’s a funny place, Morocco,” he had said. “I was stationed there for a while, during the last war. I was in Casablanca when Roosevelt and Churchill met there and tried to get de Gaulle and Giraud to work together. It’s a real crossroads of the world, Morocco, where the past lives in the present and the present never forgets the past.

There are some places, some ports, that through geography or local characteristics, seem to attract everything and everyone. They’re real wastebaskets of the world’s scroungy characters. Hong Kong is one, Marseille is another, New Orleans used to be one and Casablanca is certainly one. It’s very tourist-conscious in some spots and very ninth-century in others.”

“Obviously you expect trouble,” I had said. “This cover you’ve dreamed up and Special Effects.”

“We don’t know what you might run into. All we know is that Karminian has been a top contact, always with good stuff, always reliable. Like the others of his kind, we had to pay for what he brought to us, but he was damned helpful.”

I was recalling how Hawk’s steel-blue eyes had clouded and the small furrow traced its way across the weathered, New England farmer’s countenance. “Watch yourself,” he had said. “It’s a funny place full of unexpected things.”

I winced and his face swam away and I was gazing out the empty doorway again. I yanked at the ropes holding my hands behind my back. They gave, slightly, and at once I knew that I could be free in seconds if I could get them against something halfway sharp. The rusted, broken hinge on the door would do it.

I was about to get on my feet when I saw the two figures appear in the doorway, the first one carrying in a goatskin water bag. He was dressed in the traditional serwal, the loose, baggy trousers that tapered to hug the calves and a cotton shirt.

His companion wore the loose and more common one piece coverall garment called the djellaba. Each wore a tattered fez. They were a scroungy, seedy pair and the first one had only one eye, the other eye being a shriveled and closed hole in his head.

“Ah, our pigeon has awakened,” he said with relish as he put down the goatskin bag. The second one, taller and thinner, munched on a handful of grapes and spit the seeds out through clenched teeth. He was carrying my paint box, and he dropped it on the floor with the obvious distaste of a thief who’d found something utterly useless to him.

The one-eyed one came to stand in front of me, his face a leathery, wizened piece of parchment.

“You have little money,” he said. “That we have discovered already.” He spoke in poor French but good enough to understand. As my French was a lot better than my Arabic, I went along with him.

“Why do you want to rob a poor painter?” I asked. “An artist on his way to Casablanca to find work.”

He smiled, a ragged, evil smile. His one good eye held more than enough craftiness for two.

“You are not a poor artist,” he said. “Someone will pay a lot of money for you. You will tell us who and we shall sell you to them.”

Ransom for a prisoner, one of the most ancient and time-honored devices in the Moslem lands. Chiefs ransomed their important prisoners. Kings ransomed opposing princes. Thieves held rich men for ransom. I hadn’t figured anybody was expecting me, and now I was certain my assumptions were right. These two were nothing but crafty opportunists who had seen me arrive and were going to make the most of it.

I tossed out another denial to reconfirm my cover.

“I’m just an artist,” I said. “An American painter.”

“A poor artist does not arrive by the dark of the night in stealth on a raft from the sea and then erase his footsteps by fire,” the one-eyed one answered craftily.

I met his cunning stare grimly. There was no doubt in my mind any longer. These two were nothing but the Moroccan version of a couple of muggers who happened to be at the right spot at the right time.

“It was unfortunate for you that you chose to come ashore right across from this little place where we happen to be staying,” the one-eyed one said. He smiled, pleased with himself.

I had some bad news for him. Maybe it had been a bit of rotten luck for me, but it would turn out to be fatal for him and his cohort. I couldn’t afford to leave anyone around to tell stories of the man they’d seen arriving by sea in a raft.

These two miserable creatures, in their own scurrilous desire for the fast buck, had just committed a form of suicide. They had sealed their own fate. Wilhelmina still nestled in the shoulder holster and Hugo was still securely strapped to my arm. Like most third-class thieves, they weren’t even good at their own profession. The one with the grapes came over to stand in front of me.

I watched him draw back his foot, take careful aim and kick out, the blow catching me in the pit of the stomach. Waves of nauseous pain swept over me and I doubled forward. I stayed that way, letting the waves of pain slowly recede. The bastard. The stupid bastard. If I’d had any qualms about what I had to do they’d just disappeared. I felt his hands pulling me back upright.

“Who is expecting you, son of a sow?” he asked.

I reminded myself that both hands were still firmly behind my back. Taking on both of them from this position would be a little much.

“In the sand at the beach,” I gasped out. “Where I landed. There is a tube pressed down there, a small tube. Get it. It will tell you what you want to know.”

The one-eyed one spoke quickly to the other in Arabic. The taller one dashed out, the djellaba flying behind him, his thin legs churning.

I watched till he disappeared behind the sand ridge beyond the doorway. As soon as he was out of sight, I spoke to the other one, putting urgency and stealth in my voice.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you where I’ve money hidden,” I said. “You can say I surprised you and got away.”

“Tell me where you have this money and I’ll let you go,” he answered at once. I could see the cunning smugness creep into his eyes as I seemed to innocently grab at his offer.

“Here, inside my shirt,” I said. “A special pouch strapped under my left armpit.” As I’d figured, he grabbed at the chance.

Falling to one knee, he leaned forward to reach inside my shirt, his breath stinking of fish and garlic. As his arm reached inside my shirt, I kicked out with my foot. The kick caught him right in the groin. His mouth flew open in a gasp of pain, and as he fell backwards he clutched at himself with both hands.

I was on my feet, bringing one shoe down hard on the side of his neck. His body stiffened, jerked twice and lay still. I saw the burst veins of his neck already coloring the skin of his jaw. I rolled him against the far wall with my foot and started for the door and the rusted hinge. Pressing the wrist bonds against it, I rubbed them along the jagged edge and felt them give in moments. My hands came apart, and I dived out of the doorway just as the other one came racing up from the beach.

I waited at the side of the doorway as he came bursting in, yelling in combined Arabic and French. I caught him with a fist to the stomach which doubled him up. A hard right uppercut deposited him across the room. I picked up one of the broken-down chairs and smashed it to pieces on his head. He lay crumpled, his skull bashed in, waiting for death to take over.

I picked up my paint box and checked the contents. Everything was there. I walked into the sunshine and down the road toward Casablanca. Glen Travis, painter of pictures, was on his way again but the momentary interruption had had its educational side. He had learned that it was wise, in this land, never to get too far away from Nick Carter, Killmaster, Agent N3.

The road ran along the shore and, though hot, was scenic and direct. I saw turbaned men and veiled women, farmers herding their small herds of goats and sheep. At a village I passed through it was obviously souk, market day.

Small clusters of merchants and farmers had set up shop and were busily buying, selling and trading. I paused to purchase some kesrah, the nourishing Moroccan bread, from a veiled woman. It was warm and I bit off pieces as I walked along. I saw clothing that bore the influences of both Arab and western styles.

As I saw the modem buildings of Casablanca rising on the horizon, and as I drew nearer to them I noticed many more girls in blouses and slacks and a few miniskirts, walking beside other women in the traditional haik and I came to realize this was symbolic of the city itself, the old and the new intermingled, living side-by-side, often totally ignoring each other.

I found the paint box to be almost a badge, and I found myself receiving lingering glances, particularly from the younger girls. I could see that the life of an artist had certain very appealing characteristics, and I had to remind myself that the role was a cover not a golden opportunity. I had other things to pursue, namely one Anton Karminian, Exporter and Importer.

Hawk’s steel-blue eyes flashed in front of me, and I could hear his voice as I trudged along the dusty road.

“Karminian’s last message was that he’d gotten hold of something big,” he had told me across the desk. “He wanted someone to make special contact with him for further information. Of course, that meant he wanted to bargain for some real money. But it also meant he was onto something. He’d never given us any phony leads.”

“And that was the last you heard from him?” I had added.

“Right, Nick,” Hawk went on. “He never made the next usual contact with us. He just vanished. Our tries at contacting him have all failed. I smell something has gone wrong. These old bones are creaking and that means trouble.”

I had passed over the old bones bit. Hawk was one of the ageless ones. The “old bones” was a euphemism for one of the canniest noses for trouble on the planet Earth. Over and over I’d been involved in that personal sonar system he operated for AXE.

“That part of the world has been amazingly quiet for us,” he had said. “Oh, the Israelis and the Arabs have been erupting on the other side of Africa and we know the Russians are all over, trying to stir up things, but Northwest Africa has been quiet. Morocco has almost been a Moslem Switzerland, a meeting place, a neutral area. In fact, the entire Mediterranean basin has been kept relatively quiet. And now, this. I don’t like the feel of it.”

Hawk’s face faded away, and I thought of the task before me. Find the man Karminian, if he could be found. Maybe he was in hiding. Maybe he was dead. If I couldn’t find him, try to find out what it was he had come onto and contacted Hawk about. A series of closed doors in a vacuum. A pursuit of questions wrapped up in a man known only by name.

I had reached the outskirts of the city, sauntering with a certain nonchalance. I walked down the Boulevard Moulay Abderhaman, past the port, the waterfront with its rows and rows of ships nudging each other in careless profusion. Tankers, freighters, passenger liners, ships from every land in the world, the spanking clean, newly painted ones and the rusted old veterans of a million pounding waves.

The waterfront, like all waterfronts everywhere, was a mountainous series of boxes, crates, barrels and bales. Casablanca, Dar-el Beida in Arabic. It was the Portuguese who had originally given the city its name of the White House in the 16th century, and I noted that the medina, the Arab quarter, that crowded, teeming, swarming mass of humanity, edged the harbor itself. I smiled inwardly as I wagered that a helluva lot of cargo quietly found its way into the bustling souks of the medina.

I turned from the waterfront to cross over the boulevard, down the Place Mohammed V to the Rue Quedj where, I’d been briefed, Karminian had his store. I found the place quickly enough, shuttered and locked. Going to the back, in a small areaway, I found a side doorway. Putting down my paint box, I tried the door. It held but moved slightly. The lock was a simple one and I had it open in minutes.

The store itself was cluttered with the vases, statuary, paintings and bric-a-brac of an importer of objets d’art. The place had the musty odor of a small area that has been closed for at least a week. It revealed nothing and I left the same way I’d entered, locking the door behind me.

We knew he had an apartment not far away, and it was my next stop. The building was a second-floor walk-up, an old, narrow place with the usual arched doorway.

The door to his apartment swung open gently as I knocked. I entered, carefully, and immediately saw the place had been ransacked. Clothes were pulled out all over, personal items scattered around, furniture overturned, dresser drawers emptied onto the floor.

I roamed through the three small rooms that made up the apartment. From the living room, one window looked down on the street. It seemed that I was not the only one looking for Karminian. But then, I had to remind myself, this mess could have been the result of an ordinary garden-variety robbery. It just could have been but I didn’t buy it.

My own sixth sense told me differently and what I saw told me something else. If Karminian had left to go into hiding he had done so very quickly and taken almost none of his clothes.

Examining the lock, I saw that it hadn’t been broken but only slipped. I closed the door and sat down, pushing aside a bundle of sheets, and thought about my next move. My decision was made for me by two items I found. One, lying on the floor beside an overturned dresser drawer, was a small address book. Inside there were only a few names, most of them other importers or buyers. But there was one name, “Athena,” and a phone number alongside it. I made a mental note of both.

Then, beside an ash tray a book of matches leaped out at me. “The Club Bedouin,” they announced. “25 Rue du Kassim.” I opened the matches and read the announcement on the inside cover. “Athena the Exotic,” it read. “The Belle of Athens.”

I left my paint box in the apartment, slipping two tubes of paint into my pocket, and headed for the Club Bedouin. I was much too early for the evening’s festivities but I did get to talk with the bartender. He was helpful, confirming that Karminian was a frequent visitor at the club and a constant escort of Athena, the exotic dancer. Karminian, he said, was an extrovert, a gregarious sort. I told him I’d be back to see Athena and I wandered back to Karminian’s apartment.

A thought was forming in my mind and I was warming to the idea fast. Instead of holing up in some hotel, why not stay at Karminian’s apartment, I asked myself. With time to really go over the place, I might turn up some even better leads. And, even more intriguing, something could turn up of its own.

Making a fast decision, I spent the rest of the afternoon straightening up the place. By the time I was ready to return to the Club Bedouin, I had the place looking quite neat and presentable.

While the Club Bedouin wasn’t exactly a dive, it wasn’t very far from it. But I slipped on a necktie as a concession to their desire for dignity. I got a spot at the head of the bar with a good view of the small stage. I waited through two singers and a miserable magician whose best trick was to make himself disappear at the end of his act.

Then Athena came on in the usual swirl of veils that only partly hid a jeweled bra and sequinned panties. In the changing lights it was hard to really get a good look at her, and the heavy makeup didn’t help much. But, as she started to shed veils it was plain that she had a firm, youthful body, a little too short-waisted to be really graceful, but with beautiful, round, high breasts.

I’d seen exotic dancers all over the world. The good belly dancers, when they weren’t using their fancy name, had a natural sinuousness, a native grace. The rest all worked at it and never did more than that.

Athena, I quickly decided, was one of the latter. She did everything they all do, the sensuous posturings, the hip-shaking, the belly thrusting, the slidings, the simulated orgasms, all of it. But in my book she got A for effort and that was it. The natural ones established their claim within minutes. The others only established that they were imitators, some better than others, but still imitators.

But the crowd at the Club Bedouin were far from connoisseurs, and they drank in Athena’s performance. Finally, sweating hard, and down to only bra and panties, she ended her dance and disappeared through a small door at the back of the stage. I left my drink, followed along the walls of the club and arrived backstage.

Backstage was a dingy, dreary hallway with an open door leading out into a back alley and a closed door off to the right. I knocked politely at the closed door and waited. In a few moments it was opened and Athena peered through the crack, suspiciously, cautiously. She was still in costume, but she had doffed the false eyelashes. Without them, and close up, she looked much younger and less the femme fatale, her eyes a soft blue.

“Yes?” she asked. “What you want?” She spoke in a heavy Greek accent.

“I want to talk with you for a few moments, if I may,” I said for openers.

“About what?” she replied, suspicion instantly in her voice.

“About someone you know,” I smiled, trying to put her at ease, “Anton Karminian.”

“I don’t know anything about heem,” she shot back but I caught the flash of fear that had leaped into her eyes. She started to slam the door shut but I got a foot on the threshhold and held it open.

“Please,” I said calmly. “I’m looking for him, and I thought you might help me.”

“No, no,” she said angrily. “I know nothing.” She tried slamming the door again but my foot was still there. She tried pushing my foot with hers, but it wouldn’t push. Suddenly she yanked the door open and leaned out.

“JIMMEEEE!” she yelled at the top of her voice. I turned and saw “Jimmeeee” emerge from the rear of the club, a big, beefy form with the rolling gait of an ex pug.

I’d met the type many times over. Every sleazy little joint had one as a bouncer. He didn’t ask questions either, which was also typical of his kind. He just took in the scene, made his one-tracked conclusions and moved in.

I knew that even to attempt explanations would be a pure waste of time and breath. But I also knew that Athena was far too reluctant to talk about her friend, Karminian. I was going to find out why. I let Jimmy grab me by the collar and start to rush me out into the alleyway. I offered only token resistance.

“Cut it out,” I said. “I only wanted to talk to her.”

“Shut up, bum,” he growled. I sighed silently. Everybody had to do their bit, including me. As we reached the alleyway, I braced my feet on the ground, tightened up and with a quick twist, had one thick arm in a judo hold. I twisted and he went sailing into the alleyway to land on both knees.

I saw the look of astonishment on his battered face as he started to get up. He was big and there was no doubt a fair amount of muscle still under the layer of lard he carried, but he was shamefully out of condition. In addition, I could see that he’d never had the reflexes to be anything but a third-rate pug. He moved at me, more carefully now, shot out a jab which I easily slipped. He tried another and I ducked away. He made little motions with his hands, did a small shuffle as a matter of habit, and tried two hard blows, a left and a right cross.

I blocked them and backed away. Then I feinted, starting off as though I were going to try and run past him. He lunged at me but I wasn’t there. I’d ducked backwards and as his lunge carried him past me, I came up behind him, put my shoulder into his back and drove forward hard. He slammed into the wall and I heard the crack of his forehead against the bricks. I stepped back and he slumped slowly to the ground, like a burlap sack emptying out its contents.

I turned back to the club just in time to see the door to Athena’s dressing room open and a flash of green disappearing down the corridor in the opposite direction. I ran and found another exit leading to another alleyway. I glimpsed the green coat racing around the corner and took after it.

She was heading for the park behind the Boulevard Rachidi when I caught up to her. I grabbed her wrist and spun her around. I was going to be soothing again, when I saw her hand come out of her purse and the glint on the blade of the pocket-knife. Athena slashed at my hand holding her wrist and I let go quickly. She stood with the little knife held in front of her, her eyes mixed with fear and anger.

“Get away from me,” she said in her strangely accented voice.

I shrugged, started to back off and for a moment I saw her relax. All I needed was that moment. I dived forward, grabbed her wrist and twisted, and the knife fell from her hand. She gasped in pain.

“Ow! Goddamn you,” she cried out in pure Americanese. “Sonofabitch. Let me go.”

“Well, well,” I said, keeping my hold on her wrist. I had turned her around so that her back was against my chest and I held her arm pulled up behind her back. I looked down into her grimacing face. “What happened to Athena, the Belle of Athens?” I grinned.

“Let go of me, you bastard,” she hissed. She brought her heel down hard along my ankle, raking my flesh with it.

I yelped, spun her around and grabbed her by the throat. There was a sudden terror in her eyes.

“You behave or I’ll break you in little pieces,” I growled. Athena had been around and she read the message in my eyes. “All I want is some answers,” I added. “And I’m going to get them, sister.”

“No rough stuff?” she asked fearfully.

“Not unless you force it,” I answered. I let go of her and she stepped back, her eyes combining resentment with respect.

She had, I noted, slipped on a silk minidress, a deep pink, and, I wagered, not taken the time for anything else. The small points of her nipples stood out deliciously beneath the silk, forming tiny, sharp mounds. Even without a bra she was high-busted and full.

“You’re American,” she said, interest creeping into her voice. “What do you want?”

“Just some information,” I answered.

“That’s what they said,” she answered bitterly.

“They?” I questioned and she looked around nervously.

“Look, my place is only two blocks from here,” she said. “If you want to talk let’s go there. I’m not standing around here at this hour.”

“Start walking,” I said. I fell into step beside her and glanced down at her small, pretty face. Without the heavy makeup she had a face that once, I was sure, was sweetly pretty. It was still pretty enough, but a hardness had come into it. She wasn’t much more than twenty-five, I guessed.

“Sure you can trust me enough to take me to your place?” I asked, somewhat maliciously.

She glanced up at me.

“No, I’m not sure,” she said. “But I’ll chance it. I figure maybe as an American you might take it easy. Besides, there’s something different about you. You’re not the usual bum around here, and you’re not one of the tourists out for a cheap feel either.”

“I’m an artist,” I said. “A traveling painter. Since you’re not from exotic Athens, where are you from?”

“I’m from exotic Akron, Ohio,” she grunted. “I know the next question by heart, mister. What am I doing here?”

“Good enough guess,” I said. “What’s the answer?”

“Nothing glamorous, I can tell you that,” she said. “I was with a small troupe on tour. I met a guy here and got hooked on him. I stayed on with him when the troupe left. A little later, I found out that he never had any long-range plans for us. I found that out the morning after he cleared out, taking every cent I had with him.”

“And you’ve never heard from him since,” I supplied.

“How’d you guess?” she said bitterly. “I got a job at the Club Bedouin. It was the only place that would hire me without a permanent visa or a resident entertainer’s license. They’re not too fussy at the Club Bedouin, and it was a job and I was grateful. The old Turk that runs the place is all hands, but he’s harmless. I’ve been trying to save enough to get out of here.”

We had reached her place and she led me into a first-floor apartment, three rooms, but smaller than Karminian’s flat and considerably more run-down.

Athena flung off her coat and I saw the nice, firm shape of her body. Her legs, a little short in the calf, were shapely and youthful and attractive. The pink dress clung to her and there was no faint line of even a pair of bikini panties. I was certain now about the bra by the way her full breasts moved beneath the silk, swinging freely and tantalizingly.

“What’s your real name?” I asked.

“Aggie,” she said quickly. “Aggie Foster. God, I haven’t said it in so long it sounds funny to me.”

“All right, Aggie,” I said. “Where is your friend Karminian?”

I saw the suspicion leap into her eyes at once.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you want to know about Anton for? Who are you? I don’t even know your name.”

“I told you I’m an artist,” I said. “My name’s Glen, Glen Travis. Your friend Karminian bought a number of paintings from me through the mail, but he never paid me so I came down here to collect and found him gone. I want my money.”

She studied me, her gutter-perception working overtime to decide about me.

“You can believe me,” I said casually.

“I guess so,” she finally said. “I’ve never known an artist before but you ain’t exactly my idea of one. And you were handling Jimmy like a pro.”

“I used to box,” I said blandly. “I made money that way for my art lessons.”

She sat down in a deep chair and her dress rose up to mid-thigh as she crossed her legs.

I was thinking that she was a hell of a lot sexier and really better looking offstage than on. But whether she completely believed my story was unimportant. I didn’t swallow hers, yet.

“Where is Karminian?” I asked again. “I think you know.”

The sudden concern in her eyes was very real as she answered.

“No, I don’t, honest I don’t,” she said. “He just up and left. He told me he had to go unexpectedly, business, and that was the last I heard from him. I’m worried about him. Anton was the only nice thing that happened to me during the last year.”

I decided that perhaps she was telling the truth. She wasn’t clever enough to be that good a liar.

“You implied someone else was around asking for him,” I said. “Who?”

“Four men,” she said with a shiver. “Big bruisers with accents of some kind. They didn’t believe me, and they said they’d be back for me unless I started remembering. They scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t make them believe I didn’t know anything.”

I sat back and my mind was racing. It proved what I’d suspected. Karminian’s apartment hadn’t been ransacked by ordinary thieves. I had company in my search for him. But if I were going to track him down I’d need to know more about him.

Man, it was discovered long ago, is a creature of habit. Even in hiding, his basic behavioral pattern will emerge. He can change his hair, his name, his appearance and his friends but not his basic self. It was a truth known to every police force in the world.

“Your friend, Karminian,” I asked casually. “What was he really like? A lot of people seem to want him very much.”

I watched her eyes suddenly turn soft and sentimental and the hard edge of her face dissolved. In pensiveness, her youthful prettiness made a temporary comeback.

“What was Anton really like?” she mused aloud. “That’s not hard. He was fun. He was fun when I needed fun and he was good to me. He liked to drink and he drank a lot, but he was never a sloppy drunk. We’d go out a couple of times a week after I’d finish at the club. We’d hit most of the all-night spots.

“Anton loved what he called le jazz hot. He’d listen for hours to it and he taught me a lot. I remember how he’d listen to old records and point out little things to me, the importance of how Benny Goodman played a run, the way Louis Armstrong took a certain phrase. He taught me a lot. He even taught me enough French to get around here in Casablanca. He liked people and good times. I wish he’d get back.”

I filed what she had told me in my mind. They were important bits of information. He was gregarious, a jazz buff and a big drinker, all habits which were bound to assert themselves.

“Who else might know more about him?” I asked. “He must have had other friends.”

Athena leaned back in the chair, and her nipples pushed hard against the silk, forming twin pink points, unmistakably unconfined. She was seemingly unaware of the thrusting provocativeness of her breasts.

I forced my mind back to the subject we were discussing, Karminian, the disappearing importer.

“Look, honey,” I said soothingly, “maybe he’s in trouble. Maybe he needs help and that’s why he disappeared. If I can track him down I’ll let you know.”

It was an unsubtle ploy but it hit home. She really felt for the guy, and her face reflected unconcealed anxiety.

“I know,” she said. “That’s what I keep thinking about. All right, go see Yussif ben Kashan, the rug dealer, in the Arab quarter. Anton used to talk about him often. And the bartender at the Chez Caliph on the Boulevard Zerktouni.”

“Thanks, Athena,” I said. “Or should I call you Aggie?”

She thought about it for a moment and then smiled. It was the first time she’d smiled since I met her, and there was a great sadness in it. “You use Aggie,” she said. “Because you’re American and because I haven’t been called Aggie in a long time.”

I stood up and drank in her compact little body, my eyes lingering on the sharp, upturned points of her breasts.

“I thought artists looked at girls differently,” she said quietly.

“How do you mean ‘differently?’ ” I asked grinning. I knew damned well what she meant.

“Differently,” she repeated. “More like it didn’t mean anything.”

“Only when they’re painting them, honey,” I grinned. “And sometimes not even then. It always means something. We artists appreciate beauty. Beauty excites us even more than most people.”

“Do I excite you?” she asked, the female conceit immediately leaping to the fore, the eternal female built-in need to be desirable.

“What do you think?” I countered. I felt like telling her I wanted very much to slam that firm little body down on the bed and explore its curves and hills, to see if that exotic dance act of hers could be translated into reality. But I held back as I saw the growing interest in her eyes. I wanted to keep it growing, for a while anyway.

Maybe she had told me all she knew about Karminian and maybe she hadn’t. I wanted to find out. I was mildly surprised by her answer to my question, but then it was merely another facet of that same female need.

“Would you like to paint me?” she asked slyly, casting a sideways glance.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s talk more about it tomorrow.”

She nodded and her eyes were no longer suspicious and defensive. I was making fast headway with Aggie Foster. I hoped I could do as well in finding her boyfriend.

More and more I was becoming convinced that it wasn’t going to be merely a question of finding him but a race as to who would find him first. Whatever Karminian had gotten hold of, that “something big” he’d contacted Hawk about, involved more people than I realized.

Aggie Foster watched me walk down the stairway and I knew she was already anticipating my next visit. That was always the best way to leave them, waiting, anticipating, intrigued.