Ripley Under Water (13 page)

“Let’s try the first place you mentioned. The view place.”

“Perhaps Janice would like to come?” Tom stopped on the pavement.

“She’s taking a nap just now,” said Pritchard.

They got a taxi after a few minutes’ effort on the boulevard. Tom asked the driver please to go to La Haffa.

“Isn’t the breeze lovely,” said Tom, letting the air rush through an inch of open window. “Do you know any Arabic? Or the Berber dialect?”

“Very little,” said Pritchard.

Tom was prepared to fake that a bit too. Pritchard wore white shoes with a basket-weave structure that let the air in, the kind of shoes Tom couldn’t abide. Funny how everything about Pritchard irked him, even the wristwatch, the stretchable gold-bracelet variety, expensive and flashy, with gold case for the watch, gold-colored face even, suitable for a pimp, Tom thought. Tom preferred infinitely his conservative Patek Philippe on a brown leather strap, which looked like an antique.

“Look! I think we’re already here.” As usual, the second time to the destination seemed to be shorter than the first. Tom paid over Pritchard’s protest, twenty dirhams, and dismissed the driver. “It’s a tea place,” Tom said. “Mint tea. Maybe other things.” Tom gave a chuckle. Kif, cannabis, might be obtainable on request, he supposed.

They entered via the stone doorway and descended the path, remarked by one of the white-shirted waiters, Tom noticed.

“Now look at that view!” Tom said.

The sun still floated above the blue Strait. Looking out to sea, one might think no dust particle existed, yet underfoot and to right and left the dust and sand lay thinly, bits of man-made straw mats were visible on the stone path, plants looked thirsty in the dry soil. One cubicle, or whatever the partitioned spaces were called, was rather full, with six men sitting and reclining, talking animatedly.

“Here?” Tom asked, pointing. “Just so we can order, if the waiter comes. Mint tea?”

Pritchard shrugged, and turned some dials on his camera.

“Why not?” Tom said, beating Pritchard to it, he thought, but Pritchard said it at the same time.

Stony-faced, Pritchard lifted his camera to his eyes and aimed it at the water.

The waiter came, with empty tray hanging in one hand. This waiter was barefoot.

“Two mint teas, please?” asked Tom in French.

An affirmative response, and the boy went away.

Pritchard took three more pictures, slowly, his back mostly toward Tom, who stood in the shade of the cubicle’s sagging roof. Then Pritchard turned and said with a faint smile, “One of you?”

“No, thank you,” Tom replied genially.

“Are we supposed to sit here?” asked Pritchard, strolling farther into the sun-speckled cubicle.

Tom gave a short laugh. He was in no mood for sitting. He took the folded djellaba from under his left arm and dropped it gently to the floor. His left hand returned to his trouser pocket, where his thumb moved over his folded knife. There were a couple of cloth-covered pillows on the floor also, Tom noticed, no doubt comforting for the elbow, if one was reclining.

Tom ventured, “Why’d you say your wife was here with you, when she isn’t?”

“Oh—” Despite his faint smile, Pritchard’s brain was busy. “Just joking, I suppose.”

“Why?”

“Fun.” Pritchard lifted and pointed his camera at Tom, as if to pay Tom back for his insolence.

Tom made a violent gesture toward the camera, as if to swat it to the ground, though he didn’t touch it. “You can stop that right now. I’m camera-shy.”

“Worse’n that, you seem to hate cameras.” But Pritchard had lowered his camera.

What a good place to kill the bastard, Tom thought, since nobody knew they had a date, nobody knew they had a date here. Knock him out, wound him enough with the knife so that he’d bleed to death, drag him into another cubicle (or not), and depart.

“Not really,” said Tom. “I have two or three at home. I also don’t like people taking pictures of my house with the look of making a survey—as if for future use.”

David Pritchard held his camera in his hands, at the level of his waist, and smiled benignly. “You are worried, Mr. Ripley.”

“Not at all.”

“Maybe you’re worried about Cynthia Gradnor—and the Murchison story.”

“Not at all. You’ve never met Cynthia Gradnor, for one thing. Why did you imply you had? Just to have fun? What kind of fun?”

“You know what kind.” Pritchard was warming, but ever so cautiously, to the fray. He obviously preferred the cynical, cool-looking front. “The pleasure of seeing a snob crook like yourself go belly up.”

“Oh. Best of British luck, Mr. Pritchard.” Tom was balanced on his feet, both hands in his trouser pockets now and itching to strike. He realized that he was waiting for the tea, and here it came.

The young waiter set the tray smack on the floor, poured out two glasses from a metal pot, and wished the gentlemen pleasure in the imbibing.

The tea did smell lovely, fresh, almost enchanting, everything that Pritchard wasn’t. There was also a saucer of mint sprigs. Tom pulled his wallet out and insisted on paying, over Pritchard’s protests. Tom added a tip. “Shall we?” said Tom, and stooped for his glass, taking care to remain facing Pritchard. He wasn’t going to hand Pritchard his glass. The glasses were in metal holders. Tom dropped a mint sprig into his tea.

Pritchard bent and picked his glass up. “Ouch!”

Maybe he’d spilt some drops on himself, Tom didn’t know or care. Was Pritchard, in his sick way, enjoying this tea hour with him, Tom wondered, even when nothing happened except that the relationship between them became more hateful on both sides? Did Pritchard like it the more hateful it became? Probably. Tom thought of Murchison again, but in a different way: oddly, Pritchard was now in Murchison’s position, acting like someone who could betray him, and possibly the Derwatt forgeries, and the Derwatt Art Supply business, now owned in name by Jeff Constant and Ed Banbury. Was Pritchard going to stick to his guns, like Murchison? Had Pritchard any guns, or only vague threats?

Tom sipped his tea, standing up. The similarity, Tom realized, was that he had to ask both men whether they preferred to stop their inquiries or be killed. He’d pleaded with Murchison to let the forgeries be, let them alone. He hadn’t threatened Murchison. But then when Murchison had been adamant -

“Mr. Pritchard, I’d like to ask what is perhaps the impossible for you. Just get out of my life, quit your snooping and why not get out of Villeperce? What’re you doing there besides heckling me? You’re not even at insead.” Tom laughed in an indifferent way, as if Pritchard’s tales about himself were puerile.

“Mr. Ripley, I have a right to live where I want to. The same as you.”

“Yes, if you behave like the rest of us. I’ve a mind to put the police on to you, ask them to keep an eye on you in Villeperce—where I’ve been living for several years.”

“You calling on the police!” Pritchard tried to laugh.

“I could tell them about your photographing my house. I’ve three witnesses for that, besides myself, of course.” Tom might have mentioned a fourth, Janice Pritchard.

Tom put his tea down on the floor. Pritchard had also set his down after burning himself, and had not picked it up.

The sun dropped ever closer to the blue water on Tom’s right, and beyond Pritchard. For the moment Pritchard was trying his cool act. Tom remembered that Pritchard knew judo, or so he’d said. Maybe he’d been lying? Tom suddenly lost his temper, exploded, and swung his right leg to give Pritchard a kick in the abdomen—ju-jitsu style, maybe—but the kick was low and got Pritchard in the crotch.

As Pritchard doubled over, holding himself in pain, Tom delivered a neat right to the jaw with his fist. Pritchard hit the mat over the stone floor with a thud that sounded utterly limp and unconscious, but perhaps wasn’t.

Never kick a man when he’s down, Tom thought, and gave Pritchard another kick, hard, in the midriff. Tom was furious enough to have pulled out his new knife and got in a few stabs, but the time might be short here. Still, Tom yanked Pritchard by the shirtfront and delivered another right-handed blow under his jaw.

This little fracas he had decidedly won, Tom thought as he pulled the djellaba over his head. No tea spilt. No blood, Tom thought. A waiter coming in might think from Pritchard’s recumbent position on his left side, his back to anyone entering the cubicle, that he was snoozing.

Tom departed, took the stone steps upward and climbed, effortlessly it seemed, up to the kitchen level, walked out, and nodded to the young man in limp shirt who stood outside.

“Un taxi? C’est possible?” Tom asked.

“Si—peut etre cinque minutes?” He waggled his head, and looked as if he didn’t believe the five minutes.

“Merci. J’attendrai.” Tom didn’t see any other means of transportation, such as a bus; no bus stop in sight. Still bursting with energy, he walked with deliberate slowness along the edge of the road—there was no pavement—relishing the breeze that blew against his damp forehead. Clump, clump, clump. Tom walked like a pensive philosopher, looked at his watch, 7:27, then turned and idled back toward La Haffa.

Tom was thinking, imagining Pritchard lodging a complaint against him for assault and battery with the Tangier police. Imagine that? Tom couldn’t really. Unspeakable difficulties. Pritchard would never do it, Tom thought.

And now, if a waiter came dashing out (as a waiter might in England or France) saying, “M’sieur, your friend is injured!” Tom would profess not to know a thing about the mishap. But the tea hour (when wasn’t it the tea hour here?) being so leisurely, and the waiter having been already paid, Tom doubted that any excited figure was going to dash through the stone doorway of La Haffa, in quest of him.

After some ten minutes, a taxi approached from the Tangier direction, stopped and disgorged three men. Tom hastened to secure it, and also had time to hand the boy at the door the loose change that was in one pocket.

“Hotel El Minzah, s’il vous plait!” said Tom, and settled back to enjoy the ride. He pulled out his rather bent packet of Gitanes and lit one.

He was beginning to like Morocco. The lovely whitish cluster of little houses in the Casbah area came ever nearer; then Tom felt that the taxi was swallowed by the city, became unnoticeable in a long boulevard. A left turn and there was his hotel. Tom pulled out his wallet.

On the pavement in front of the Minzah’s entrance, he calmly reached for his hem, pulled the djellaba over his head, and folded it as before. A nick on the second finger of his right hand had caused a couple of spots on the djellaba, Tom had noticed in the taxi, but it was hardly bleeding now. Truly minor compared to what might have happened, a real cut from one of Pritchard’s teeth, for example, or from his belt buckle.

Tom went into the high-ceilinged lobby. It was nearly nine. Heloise was surely back from the airport with Noelle.

“The key is not here, m’sieur,” said the man at the desk.

No message either. “And Madame Hassler?” asked Tom.

Her key was also absent, so Tom asked the man to ring Mme Hassler’s room, please.

Noelle answered. “Allo, Tome! We are talking—and I am dressing.” She laughed. “Nearly finished. ‘Ow do you like Tangier?” For some reason Noelle was speaking English, and sounded in a merry mood.

“Most interesting!” Tom said. “Fascinating! I think I could almost rave about it!” He realized that he sounded excited, overenthusiastic, perhaps, but he was thinking of Pritchard lying on that mat, more than likely not discovered yet. Pritchard was not going to feel so well tomorrow. Tom listened to Noelle explaining that she and Heloise could be ready to join him in less than half an hour downstairs, if that was agreeable to Tom. Then she passed Heloise to him.

“Hello, Tome. We are talking.”

“I know. See you downstairs—in twenty minutes or so?”

“I come to our room now. I want to freshen.”

That displeased Tom, but he bad no idea how to stop it. And also, Heloise had the key.

Tom took the lift to their floor, and got to their room door seconds before Heloise, who had used the stairs.

“Noelle sounds in top form,” Tom said.

“Yes. Oh, she loves Tangier! She wants to invite us to a restaurant on the sea front tonight.”

Tom was opening the door. Heloise went in.

“Velly good,” said Tom, putting on his Chinese accent, which sometimes amused Heloise. He quickly sucked at his nicked finger. “Possible use bathroom first? Velly shot time. Chop-chop.”

“Oh, yes, Tome, go ahead. But if you shower, I use the basin.” Heloise made her way to the air-conditioner which was beneath the wide windows.

Tom opened the bathroom door. There were two basins, side by side, as in many hotels aiming to give their guests comfort, Tom supposed, but he inevitably thought of a wedded pair, scrubbing away at their teeth, or the wife plucking eyebrows while the husband scraped at his beard, and the unaesthetic picture depressed him. He got the plastic bag of washing powder which he and Heloise always traveled with from his own toilet kit. But first, cold water, Tom reminded himself. There was a minimum of blood, but Tom wanted it all out. He rubbed at the couple of spots, which looked paler now, then let the water out. A second wash now with warm water and some soap of the kind that made no suds, but was still effective.

He went into the big bedroom—two king-size beds, no less, also side by side and pushed together—and to a front closet for a plastic hanger.

“What did you do this afternoon?” Heloise asked. “Did you buy anything?”

“No, sweet.” Tom smiled. “Walked around—and had tea.”

“Tea,” Heloise repeated. “Where?”

“Oh—little cafe—looking like all the others. I just wanted to watch the people go by for a while.” Tom returned to the bathroom and hung up his djellaba behind the shower curtain, so it would drip into the tub. Then he stripped and hung his clothes over a towel rack, and had a quick, cool shower. Heloise came in and used the basin. In a bathrobe and barefoot, Tom went in quest of fresh underwear.

Heloise had changed, and now wore white slacks and a green and white striped blouse.