don’t know anything, do you?” said Turk. He folded his arms, looked at the doorway Whitfield had taken, then back at Quinn. “You are a stranger,” said Turk, “and have upset him. Him, Remal.”
Quinn frowned and looked at the doorway again, wishing that Whitfield would show up.
“Leave me alone,” he said to the Arab. Quinn was almost mumbling.
Then Whitfield appeared, stepping through the doorway like a crane toe-testing the water. Quinn suddenly thought, What’s keeping me from asking what in hell Turk is talking about?
Whitfield waved at Quinn to come along, and when he saw Turk he nodded at him and Turk smiled back.
“What’s this about Remal?” said Quinn. “What’s he got here that he’s worried I might upset it?”
“What’s he got here? Almost everything.”
“Quee-hinn!” called Whitfield.
“Like everything what?” Quinn asked again, feeling rushed.
“He’s coming back,” said Turk and nodded towards Whitfield. “See you again, eh, Quinn?” And Turk moved away, smiling with his young face and the old gums where the teeth were missing. “You’ll be here a while, anyway.” Then Turk left.
Whitfield held a moist jug of wine by the neck, and when Quinn reached him he turned and walked back to the car.
“Fine friends you have,” he said to Quinn. “Did he ask you for a cigarette?”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“Did you give him one?”
“No.”
“Ah, saved,” Whitfield said. “Will you drive, please?” And he stopped at the car.
“You don’t think I followed any of this, do you?” said Quinn.
“You didn’t? That’s only because you don’t know Turk.” Whitfield opened the car door. “ If you had given him the cigarette,” and Whitfield interrupted himself to sniff at his jug, “then I would now ask you to look up your empty sleeve to determine if something at least were left in it. In short, he is not trustworthy.” And Whitfield got into the back of the car.
Quinn got behind the wheel, slammed the door, and when he had the motor going he let it idle for a minute.
“How come he doesn’t like Remal, that Turk?”
“What gave you that idea, Quinn? He loves Remal.”
“Look, Whitfield, I just talked…”
“We all love Remal, dear Quinn, but some of us more, some less. But Turk loves him most of all, would love to be Remal altogether. He would steal Remal’s teeth out of his head to have a smile like the mayor’s; he would cut his heart out, I mean Remal’s, to have a big heart like that. But — Swig of wine, Quinn?”
“No, thank you.”
“But Remal does not like him. And I’m sure that’s what Turk told you and no more. Drive, Quinn. We U-turn and go straight out of town.”
Quinn shifted and drove back down the main street.
“Do we pass the place where you keep my cans?”
There was no answer from the back-just the hissing and gurgling which came from the jug.
“Did you hear me, Whitfield?”
A deep breath sounded from the back, as if Whitfield were surfacing, and when he talked he sounded exhausted.
“Quinn, baby, I realize you don’t have any money, and if I can be of any assistance while you…”
“Are you stalling me for any reason?”
“Turn right, the next street,” said Whitfield. “This wine gives me a headache. While you look at your bleeding cans I’ll just dash into my office for a headache potion I keep there.”
The side street ended on a cobblestone square of which one side was open to the long quay. There was just one warehouse and Quinn pulled up next to it. The two men got out, and on the water side of the building they walked along the white pier.
Quinn saw the place for the first time but it did not interest him. The cement threw the heat back as if the sun was below them. There was a small tramper tied up where the warehouse doors stood open, and a barge lay at anchor a little way out. It had a single lanteen sail furled in some messy fashion which made the yardarm look like a badly bandaged finger.
The box had been moved. It lay on its side at the far end of the pier and the splintered edge of the top gave a ruined impression. A mouth with no teeth, thought Whitfield. It gapes, after spitting out.
And somebody had cleaned the inside. There was not much smell, which was also because of the sun. And all the cans were gone.
“Where are they?” said Quinn.
“Ah yes,” said Whitfield. “Obviously gone. Quinn, look here. My company and I will reimburse you, all right? Theft is common around here, you know, but in view of, ah, yes.” He petered out that way and squinted with the sun in his face. This is new, thought Whitfield. That look on his face is no longer simple. Maybe this is how he used to be.
“All right, just a minute,” said Whitfield, and then he turned around and yelled something in Arabic.
Two Arabs were carting boxes from the tramper into the warehouse and one of them put down his load and looked over at Whitfield. They yelled at each other across the distance, Whitfield and the Arab, and since the language was meaningless to Quinn, and since they had to yell at each other because of the length of the pier, Quinn could not tell if there was anger in all this, or even excitement. They stopped yelling and Whitfield turned to Quinn.
“I have good news for you,” Whitfield said, looking as if good news were no news at all. “Your bleeding cans have not been stolen, he knows where they are…”
“What’s that?”
“Quinn, there’s a storage hut which we own on the trackless wastes of the North African coast. We can’t drive there in this car, I won’t buy the cans from you till evening when we get back, and in the meantime they will bring your cans to the warehouse, so you can count them, so we can bicker about them, and so you can make your profit. Please, Quinn, doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot,” said Quinn and put his hands into his pockets.
But for the first time Whitfield thought that perhaps Quinn was an idiot, in some ways.
Chapter 7
The bottle which Whitfield got from his office turned out to be gin. He sat in the back of the car while Quinn drove, holding the jug on one knee and the bottle on the other. Now and then Whitfield sighed, which was always at the end of having held his breath while drinking from one or the other of his two bottles. A practiced drinker, he was proud and content with his skill in handling the situation, and he neither sank into drunken befuddlement nor rose into painful clarity. I am a man of proportion. And highly adaptable. I don’t even miss my bathtub.
“How long will all this take?” Quinn asked.
Whitfield, having been elsewhere, gave a small start. He didn’t mind conversation, but he was in no mood for questions.
“What, for heaven’s sake?”
“Till I can get out of here, with papers and all.”
“I don’t know, Quinn. Your State Department does move in mysterious ways, you know. Want a drink?”
“No. I’m driving.”
“Your answer shows you don’t know how to drink, Quinn. Done well, drinking can open your eyes or, if need be, close them. An advantage only available to the fearless, or the tippler.”
Quinn hardly listened. Every so often he could see the Mediterranean when the gray rocks or the gray humps
