The Money That Money Can't Buy

'A lot of people seem to be drinking it,' said Boris.

'They like it,' said Craig. 'So just for tonight they pretend they're Christians.'

Boris said: 'This is crazy. And we should not be here.'

'Why not?' Craig asked. 'Suppose this man Brodski were to see you— and us?'

'Brodski hasn't left his villa since he got here,' said Craig. 'He's waiting for Simmons.'

'You seem very well informed,' said Boris.

'I didn't know about your controller being a woman,' said Craig.

Then Boris sulked. If it had been a peace conference he would have walked out. Craig had never worked with an ally before and never wanted to again. He sighed and bought Boris a brandy. It was like a sweet for a naughty child.

Boris had almost finished his drink when Hornsey appeared. He wore a white lightweight suit and a panama hat, and when he sat down at the table next to theirs was at once besieged by bootblacks. He tried to repulse them in painstaking French and had no success at all. It was Craig who drove them off, in a machine-gun burst of Arabic. When they had gone he looked across at Craig.

'That was awfully kind of you,' he said.

'Not at all,' said Craig.

'You must let me buy you a drink.'

'Some other time,' Craig said. 'We have an appointment.'

'Ah,' said Hornsey. 'Well, thanks anyway.'

He ordered mint tea, and when they left, merely nodded.

The three men strolled on up the Boulevard Pasteur to where a little formal garden looked across at Europe. Below them the Casbah was teaching tourists that every experience must be paid for. Just across the road was the Credit Labonne.

'You were indiscreet,' said Boris. 'You made that man curious about you.'

'He looked so helpless,' said Craig.

Boris began to lecture, and Craig thought about Hornsey. It had been nice to help him, to spare him embarrassment, and nice to know that they need not recognize each other. It had seemed also as if Boris and Istvan did not know him. It was difficult to be sure about these things, but Craig was prepared to bet on it at reasonable odds. He didn't want Hornsey to know Boris, but if he didn't, how had he arrived in Tangier so opportunely? Perhaps Simmons had told him to be there, before he had messed up his chances by killing Zelko. Or perhaps,

thought Craig, / told him myself about the raid on the bank, after he rescued me. The thought saddened him. He didn't want to have to cope with Hornsey.

Boris went on talking, and Istvan filled in time by staring at the bank. It will not be easy, he thought. The door is lit by streetlamps, and there are too many people. But stealing a million is never easy. He switched the problem off his mind, like a radio changing stations. After all, finding a way in was Craig's problem. No doubt he had it in hand. It was better to concentrate one's mind on what to do when one had taken the million. Boris, for example, might prove an obstacle. So might his controller. Istvan's secret fear was that they would kill him when the deal was concluded. On the other hand, another Siberian winter would have killed him anyway.

Boris continued to lecture as they walked down the steps to the Casbah. The place was packed with conducted parties, independent parties, guides official and unofficial, pushing their way into tiny streets where the shops that lined them were the size of cupboards, and one could buy yataghans, camel saddles, brass-bound muskets or silver-filagree coffeepots, eat kebabs on skewers, drink mint tea, and watch the haggling. The haggling, Craig remembered, was half the fun, even when the stuff was good. They came to a tiny square, dominated by a pink-washed building that had once been an attractive cube. Now it was a mess of domes, turrets, and minarets, from one of which an endless tape broadcasted Arab music through a loudspeaker. A wooden board nailed between two turrets had painted on it: 'OASIS NITE CLUB. FLOOR SHOW. FOOD. DRINK.' Istvan looked at it.

'I should like to go there,' he said.

Boris said: 'What will they do there?'

'Dancing,' said Craig. 'And a bloke doing a balancing act. They always do.'

'Is this dancing sexual?' Boris asked.

'That's perhaps a little crude,' said Craig. 'I think erotic would be a better word.'

'Then I think we should go,' said Boris. 'We're tourists after all. It would seem strange if we showed no interest in sexuality.'

Istvan risked looking pleased, and this time Boris didn't look angry.

The interior of the club was of the standard pattern that Craig remembered: a marble floor and walls of plaster and tile, fretted and carved into graceful abstractions that at first were very beautiful. It was only their sameness that cloyed at last. They sat on a padded banquette that was like a divan and an Arab in a djibbah placed drinks in front of them. All around European men and women chattered and drank, and danced to taped music—and Arabs in Western clothes sipped Scotch and told each other they didn't like it, but what could one do? When the dance ended, the crowd settled down, and one by one musicians in djibbah and fez squatted on the floor. Their instruments for the most part were European—violin, clarinet, and flute—but the Negro drummer carried hand drums like bongos, and the music they played was pure Arab. The crowd sighed its content; this was what they had paid for.

First it was just the music, then, as Craig had predicted, a man came on and balanced impossible quantities of glasses, jugs, vases of flowers on a tray on his head, finishing up with a series of candles in glass shades, making them spin in a circle of flame as the houselights dimmed. Then it was a singer in an exquisite caftan of blue and silver thread, eyes sparkling with belladonna, face and hands delicately rouged, little feet hung with silver bells. The song was of love, as always, and gazelles and roses and moonlight: the dance that followed, demure, almost shy, yet with the erotic overtones that Boris considered so essential as the hips swayed softly and silver disks tinkled in the slender olive fingers. At the end the singer sank to the floor to a rather bewildered round of applause, though the Arabs shouted their tributes to beauty.

'I enjoyed that,' said Boris. 'It is not precisely what I expected, but I enjoyed it. The girl was very sexual, but she had a certain modesty also.' He looked at Craig, who was smiling. 'Don't you agree?'

'I do indeed,' said Craig. 'Except that it wasn't a girl. It was a boy.'

Istvan found it necessary to take a drink.

Thereafter it was girls all the way, one after the other, small, shapely girls, tenderly fleshed, their skins every shade from walnut brown to palest olive. They each had a circlet to hold back their hair, a jeweled bra, and below it were naked to the hips, where a skirt cut to reveal their legs was held in place by a rhinestoned belt. Each one of them did a belly dance that was very erotic indeed, hips writhing, breasts shaking in a frenzy of sexuality. Kamar had danced like that, he remembered, and she had been good to sleep with. As a teacher of Arabic she had been unsurpassed. An American he had worked with had described her beautifully. 'Look at that kid go,' he had said. 'Forty thousand moving parts.' But all that was over. Done with. Dead. He looked at Istvan's unwavering stare as the golden bodies swayed, then at Boris's brick-red blush: an even greater tribute to their beauty and promise. And for him it meant nothing. Boris had wanted to go in so they'd gone. He looked at the girl dancing now. She was the third, taller than the others, more rounded, with a pretty and mischievous face. It was all very boring. Then she advanced into the audience, still swaying to the music, but looking round her, searching. Oh God— he'd forgotten about this nonsense. The comedy-sex routine. She came up to their banquette, and stood there, and the drum beats marked the curving movement of her hips. She held out her hand to Boris, who shrank away, then to Istvan, who sweated hot and cold—lust and terror. At last she grabbed at Craig, and tried to draw him on to the floor, and all the time the drums beat, her belly writhed to their rhythm. Somewhere in Craig's mind a neat, angry man moved a pointer across a dial. He looked into the girl's face, and spoke to her, the guttural words snapping like whips. For the only time she missed a beat, then her head came up once more and she went to find another victim.

'I'm very grateful to you,' said Boris. 'That girl is embarrassing.'

'You're very welcome,' said Craig.

The girl had found an American, had taken off his coat and tie, and was now removing his shirt.

Then she tied the tie across his chest as a bra. The man was pelted like a monkey. She began to coax him