Tangier

the road. Tessa and David Hawkins rode by on their magnificent matching Arabian geldings, cantering lightly up the Mountain, their blond hair gleaming in the failing sun.

He turned and followed the Jew's River to the base of the Mountain Road. Then he parked, a few doors above La Colombe, snapped off the Egyptian music, and scanned the front of the shop. It was past six then, but still he could make out the silhouette of Peter Zvegintzov bustling inside. From time to time Zvegintzov's head was obscured by a poster affixed to the glass. It announced the Tangier Players' latest production, due to open in two weeks at the auditorium of the Spanish Polytechnical School.

It was impossible to see who else was in the shop, but Hamid could recognize most of the cars parked in front: the white Buick of the Manchesters; the black Fiat of Francoise de Lauzon; and the silver Mercedes that belonged to the retired French general Gilbert Bresson.

Patiently he waited for them to leave. It had been five months since he'd been inside the store. He was not at all sure why he'd chosen this day for a confrontation that he knew would be difficult, and that he'd been dreading the entire afternoon. It had simply seemed to him that his relationship with Zvegintzov should be resumed, that five months was long enough to dull the sharpness of their break.

And, too, he was curious to see how the Russian would react. Zvegintzov was unpredictable, a man of many moods. The scapegoat of foreigners to whom he offered his elaborate service-handling their mail, taking care of their villas, providing them with luxuries few Moroccans could afford-he knew more about what happened on the Mountain than any man except Hamid. He talked to everyone, steamed open letters, offered himself as a confidant. Though most of his customers abused him terribly, they told him things they would not dream of telling anybody else.

Hamid had discovered him years before, then carefully developed him as a source. In the old days he had stopped by the shop every day, but then there came a time when he could enter it no more. Aziz took over, while Hamid waited in the car outside. For five months it had been like that.

When he finally walked in, triggering the little bell that clasped the door, Zvegintzov was at the counter with Countess de Lauzon demonstrating some expensive preparations for cleaning rugs.

'This one's quite good,' he said, looking up. For a moment he stared, searched Hamid's face. 'Makes a good foamy lather, then dries out in the sun. Afterward you vacuum the foam away.'

'But that's so complicated. Why not soap and water?'

'Of course,' said Zvegintzov, 'I can sell you soap if you wish. But even the dullest servants, I assure you-'

'Some good mild soap will do very nicely. And I'll take this Connaissance des Arts.'

Zvegintzov shrugged, rang the charges up. General Bresson was next-he had come with a bitter complaint.

'Three days ago I told you my telephone didn't work, but still you haven't set it right.'

Zvegintzov screwed up his canny Russian face and stared across at the old warrior's chest. He was used to humiliations, even seemed to welcome them, as if by his patience he could shame his tormentors into acknowledging his infinite good will.

'Excuse me, General. My man's been sick. I'll have it fixed tomorrow night.'

'I don't like to think about little things — that's why I subscribe to your service. But I insist on promptness and that you keep your word. Otherwise there isn't any point.'

The General stalked out of the shop, grasping a Le Figaro on his way. For a moment there was silence, then Hamid shook his head.

'What a difficult man. And so abrasive.'

'The General needs his phone. I understand.'

'But he's very rude.'

'No, no, Inspector. My clients are wonderful people. A little hard at times, but underneath they have good hearts. They're human, after all. We all have our moods. Really I think they appreciate what I do. I make their lives here easy, give them peace of mind. I'm a cushion for their difficulties, and always they're grateful in the end. They know that if I weren't here, their lives would be too complex. I have no doubt that some of them would leave.'

As he spoke Zvegintov danced behind the counter, straightening his display of cigars, arranging and rearranging his jars of English jams and marmelades. Hamid watched him, pitying his tension, but Zvegintov's platitudes made him want to wince.

'Tell me,' he said. 'How do you manage to fix their phones?'

Zvegintzov smiled. 'I know a man who works at the PTT. I slip him a little something and he works for me at night.'

'Yes,' Hamid nodded. 'Clever-I admire that.'

'It's the only way to get them repaired. Morale is bad at the company. It takes them weeks to process a complaint. There are, at this moment, over six hundred lines out of order in Tangier. Did you know that? Extraordinary! So you see, if we were to go through channels, the proper way, half the lines on the Mountain would be out right now. And that would be a tragedy for my clients, of course, but not only for them. If you think about it a moment you'll see what I mean. I'm speaking, of course, from your point of view.' He winked. 'If there were no phones, after all, then there wouldn't be anything to tap-'

He stopped then and let out a little gasp. He realized he'd been babbling and had dangerously overstepped.

'Kalinka,' he said suddenly, in a whisper. 'How is she?

Hamid stared at him.

'Yes, yes, I know,' said Zvegintzov. 'Your life together is good. I know that. I've heard. I hear everything, you see. They tell me she was sick last month. I wanted-but still I care for her. It's foolish. I know it's foolish.'

Hamid wanted to say something, to put this conversation to an end. But Zvegintzov continued, at a new, more frantic pitch. 'I wish she'd come by the shop sometime, early in the morning, before my customers come in. I so long for that-to see her face, feel her hand, her cheek-'

The telephone rang. Zvegintzov turned abruptly and fled to the rear of his shop. Hamid looked after him for a moment, then backed out into the street. It was dark then, still windy. The air was cool, but his face was flushed. He'd seen tears behind the thick lenses that shielded Peter Zvegintzov's eyes, and this glimpse of pain, so sudden and acute, filled him with alarm.

As he slid into his car, he noticed a Volkswagen with diplomatic license plates parked farther up the street. The American Vice-Consul, Foster Knowles, sat behind the wheel. As Hamid passed, he had the impression that Knowles was watching the shop.

He began to drive about the Mountain aimlessly, wandering up and down the little lanes. The Manchesters' Buick was parked in the gateway of their pink stucco monstrosity, and at General Bresson's sumptuous villa he could see light behind the grills. He wandered past the homes of numerous foreigners, Camilla Weltonwhist's gray fortress, the Cotswold cottage of the Australian inventor Percy Bainbridge, and the home of Peter Barclay hidden behind a privet hedge.

The thought, the very thought of Zvegintzov's wrinkled hand on Kalinka's cheek.

He drove then to the region of walled estates, the homes of Tangier's rich. He passed the great old manor of Rachid El Fassi, built a century before by his ancestors from Fez; the beige extravaganza of the Paraguayan painter Inigo; the black-floored palace of Patrick Wax. He passed Jimmy Sohario's 'Excalibur,' built on a fortune's worth of Chinese laundries; and at the end, at the Mountain's highest point, he paused before the great gates of 'Castlemaine,' where the American millionaire Henderson Perry was in residence a few weeks a year.

From here it seemed to Hamid that he had a commanding view of his terrain. He knew them all, these rich Americans and Europeans, knew their houses, their cars, their habits, and roughly how much each of them was worth. He knew who they saw and what they did, their cliques, their vices, their complicated whims. And there were many others he knew as well-hundreds more, diplomats and commercial people who lived in apartments in the town, hippies and dope peddlers who lived in the medina, the eccentrics of the Casbah, the doctors, barons, retired naval officers, and desperate divorcees who lived on the Marshan or on the Charf. From here he could see everything, from the Mountain to the foothills of the Rif, the whole raging town and, between Peter Zvegintzov's