Tangier

'No, but he doesn't know the Moroccan scene. We know how special that is. Yes, we do-don't we, Pie?'

'Yeah.' Pie grinned, held his palm out straight, and made little cutting motions at it with the edge of his other hand. It was the first reference he'd ever made to the time he'd held a knife against Robin's balls. Robin raised both his hands in mock submission, backed off a little, smiled, then both of them began to nod their heads. They were acknowledging, Robin supposed, the curious relationship that they had.

How marvelous, he thought, as he hunted Herve down, how marvelous these transactions of the flesh.

After he made the introductions, watched Pie and Herve share a pipe of hash, he wandered off to explore the party, search out material for his column. People had become wary of him ever since Townes had convinced him to write with a harder edge, but his stock had risen after a biting column on Vicar Wick, and now his sources were speaking to him again.

He circulated for a while, picking up tidbits-nothing of substance, however, nothing to rival the scandal at the church. The big story was the TP party, and Laurence Luscombe's unexpected finesse. Robin finally found Joe Kelly, drinking heavily, holding forth to Madame Fufu and the Drears.

'Know what Aunt Jemima said to Uncle Ben?'

The question was directed at Madame Fufu, who didn't understand it and shook her head.

''You're a credit to your rice,' ' said Kelly. 'Ha! Ha! Ha!' He yowled, pounding at the sides of his chair, nearly unloosing the antler arms.

Robin winced. It was such an awful joke. Madame Fufu didn't get it and shook her head.

'That's a Yank joke,' said Jessamyn Drear as Madame Fufu excused herself and wandered off.

'Better be careful,' whispered Jessica to Kelly. 'We might need her husband for Emperor Jones in the fall.'

'Oh, fuck that burr head,' Kelly said, 'and fuck O'Neill too.' He took a long sip from his drink. Robin sat beside him in Madame Fufu's place.

'So, Joe, I hear Luscombe won the game.'

'Yeah,' said Kelly, 'him and that lousy Derik Law. I had a great plan going till those two screwed it up.'

'What happened?'

'I don't know. He gave some sugary speech and turned the thing around. But I'll fix that little proud nose, wait and see. Makes me sick with all his crap about 'The Theater' and his phony arty airs. I know his type, knew 'em in New York. British character actors, phonies all of 'em, holed up in the Great Northern spewing out their Shakespeare by the hour. Want a quote? Something you can print? Just say Tangier's not big enough for the two of us, and that I'll get that old hack yet.'

'Now calm yourself, Joe,' said Jessamyn while Robin wrote Kelly's statement down. 'You're managing director-that's the real power. Larry's just a straw man now.'

Robin listened a while, then withdrew, remembering a line of Friedrich Nietzsche that Martin Townes liked to quote. How did it go? He stopped in a doorway, trying to recall the words: 'It's a relatively simple matter for a weathered charlatan like myself to keep up interest in so small a carnival as this.'

He gazed around. Herve and Pie were still together, still sharing a pipe. Well, he thought, at least I've done one good deed. Then he noticed Jean Tassigny, sitting by himself. He walked over to him, sat down, and listened to his tale of woe.

'I'm leaving tomorrow,' Jean said after telling Robin about the telescope. 'There's a ferry for Algeciras in the morning. I'll catch the train for Paris there.'

'Don't be ridiculous. Why the hell are you so upset? She was cheating on Joop. How can you be surprised she's cheating on you?'

'Oh, God! That's why I have to leave. A perfectly intelligent person like yourself saying a thing like that-that's the whole damn trouble with Tangier!'

'Oh, come, Jean,' said Robin, feeling a sudden need to defend the town. 'You're not going to give me that old in-Tangier-they-know-everything-about-sex-and-nothing-about-love routine. You're too sophisticated to spout that crap, the swan song of every poor beggar who ever left this city hurt. Really, I'm surprised. You take things much too seriously. Your situation is so classic, you ought to be able to see the humor in it instead of feeling sorry for yourself. The handsome boy, lover to the older woman, married in turn to the ugly wealthy man. You mistook her lust for affection, Jean, and your own misguided passion for love. You participated in something that held a certain drama, considering the fact that the three of you were living in the same house, and now that it's over you want to flee the scene, if only to further dramatize your hurt. Stop it, Jean, and don't stare at me with those bedeviled eyes, as if to show me how Tangier has corrupted your otherwise pure and unblemished soul. You've traveled a mere inch down the highway of sin. What you need is a new lover. May I be so bold as to suggest-a boy?'

Jean looked up at him with astonishment, then began to laugh. 'Really, Robin, you're very funny.'

'And you're very handsome-no offense.'

They shook hands and Robin wandered off, fairly certain that Jean Tassigny was not going to leave Tangier.

He headed toward the terrace, where Jimmy Sohario had installed a Moroccan band. Passing through the doors, he came upon an amazing sight. It was Foster Knowles dancing crazily while everyone else stood back and watched. The Moroccans were drumming away, clearly entranced with this American who shot out his feet, one after the other, and whipped around his right arm like a cowboy making ready to lasso a calf. 'Whoopee,' he yelled, 'whoopee,' as if celebrating the end of a drive down the Chisholm Trail.

Robin had never before seen Knowles behave like that. The Vice-Consul had always seemed to him a terrible stuffed shirt. His wife, Jackie, was standing facing him on the fringes of the crowd, bent over slightly, clapping in tune to the drums, letting out with little squeals from time to time. 'Yippee!' and 'O-yippee-hi-ho!'

Robin, fascinated, wondered what had brought this behavior on. When Foster grabbed Old Musica Codd out of the crowd and whirled her into a jig, he moved over to Jackie and shouted in her ear.

'Is he stoned?'

'Oh, Mr. Scott,' she said, batting her sky-blue eyes. 'I'd have thought you'd have heard our news by now, you being a gossip columnist and all.'

'What news? Don't hold out on me, Jackie. I've always been sweet to you in my column.'

'No, you haven't,' she said smartly, showing him a petulant smile. 'You could have got me into a lot of trouble if Foster wasn't so-'

'Dense?'

'Oh, you are nasty, Mr. Robin Gossip Scott.'

'Yes, I am,' he said. 'Now tell me what's going on.'

'Well, my 'dense' husband, as you call him, has just been named Acting Consul General of the United States. That makes me equal to Mrs. Whittle, so you can start by showing me some respect.'

'Acting Consul? What happened to Lake?'

'Oh-Dan. Well, I think he's on his way out of the country, to Frankfurt or someplace, some hospital, I guess. Poor Dan. Anyway, it's really exciting for us. Happened just a couple hours ago. We were down at the Manchesters' when suddenly the Ambassador's limousine pulled up. He took us up to this fantastic house where we met Mr. Perry and the Crown Prince!'

'But why? What happened?'

'Gee, I don't know exactly. Seems Dan resigned over some fracas or other, so the Ambassador's put Foster in charge. We're really excited. They're going to change all the locks on the Consulate doors, and as soon as the Lakes' stuff is moved out we get to live in the residence too.'

Their conversation was broken off then by a mob of people who'd heard the news and had come around to congratulate the Knowles' on their precipitous rise to power. Rick and Anne Calloway, from Voice of America, were dutifully kissing ass, and Peter Barclay was already busy organizing a congratulatory lunch. So incredible, thought Robin, these rapid changes due to fate. The last time he'd seen the Knowles', Jackie was Dan Lake's mistress. Now her husband had Lake's job, and she couldn't wait to take possession of his house.

He spent the next hour shuttling back and forth between the rooms, watching the party turn rowdy. He saw Herve sneak off with Pumpkin Pie and congratulated himself again for that. He had a little conversation with