The Casbah Killers полностью

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.