Haven, page 11
Her Jonathan would have died for such a "Damn you.”
Her Jonathan would have died for such a kiss.
He did check out of the Hyatt Hotel because Elizabeth would soon call there to see if he had. He drove from the Hyatt to the island's small airport where he turned in his first car at the Avis counter and rented still another from Budget. He chose a white Camry exactly like Pratt's because similar cars can be useful sometimes. From the airport he telephoned the Players Club Hotel and booked himself a room for three nights.
He had known, he supposed, why Elizabeth had come to him. No part of it, clearly, was to catch him with a floozie. Nor was it to break her sexual fast with a man who won't question her scars. Oh, her passion and affection were genuine enough. She was certainly hungry for physical contact but the offer of her body had begun as a tactic. What gave her away, as if he'd had any doubts, was that business with his gun-hiding golf jacket. What did she think? That he'd go and shoot Pratt? On an island where slamming a door is big noise? Where a rabid raccoon becomes front page news? Where a man found shot would get almost as much press as a rationing of Chardonnay wine?
No, he won't shoot Cyril Pratt. He will merely look in and try to see what Pratt's up to. After that he might just smash his kneecaps.
NINE
Mahfouz was thrilled to have ridden in an airplane. He was even more glad to have survived it.
The plane came back down through lightning and thunder and the bouncing had brought up his wonderful lunch that came on his own little tray. And he learned to his amazement that time stands still when an airplane is crossing an ocean. The clocks in Miami said the time was much earlier than the time on his new gold watch. The Englishman said this is because the watch was cheap but he'd buy it all the same for twenty dollars. Twenty dollars seemed too little for a gold watch with diamonds. It seemed too much for a watch that didn't work. But a man on their next flight, the one to Savannah, showed him how to make the watch tell good time again.
Cyril Pratt would not let him stay in Miami. Miami, he said, was too filled with Jews and the Jews would just get him arrested. Where they're going, he said, there are plenty of beaches and the only Jews living there are no longer Jews. There is also Faisal, his man from New Jersey who is already waiting at the cabin he rented near this place known as Hilton Head Island. Faisal speaks English and can show him around and can keep him from getting into trouble.
Faisal showed him much in the next two days and Mahfouz was troubled by all of it. He had never imagined that such a place could exist without needing to die first to get there. Why, he wondered, should so much beauty be given to a people so corrupt. Why give them a place so green and so rich, a place that is so much like heaven.
“Just wait," said Faisal, the Hezbollah fighter. "It won't be so long until we make this a hell.”
But Faisal, he had learned, talks like this all the time. He is tough and he's mean and he's also a braggart. In his wallet he carried newspaper clippings that he opened and showed to Mahfouz. In one a car is blown up in New Jersey and Faisal says, "See that? That was me." A building burns down in Miami and Faisal says, "See that? That was us. A building full of Jews." God forbid that a hurricane comes. Faisal would probably say that Hezbollah seeded the clouds. What made Mahfouz doubt him more than anything else was the photo of him standing with Yassir Arafat.
There was Faisal, holding up a Kalashnikov, while he hugs a man who's definitely Arafat. But the photo, he knew, meant nothing at all. Arafat must have posed for a thousand of these. To get such a picture is easy. All you do is dress up in old army fatigues, borrow someone's Kalashnikov and have a camera ready when Arafat comes to give one of his harangues. You work your way to the front of the crown and yell out,"I am ready to die for you, Yassir. I am ready to knock on the gates of paradise with the skulls of the Jews I have killed for you, Yassir." You don't have to mean it but you'll get your picture. Also you'll get, if you don't watch out, a wet kiss on your mouth to go with it.
Mahfouz had his doubts that Faisal was Hezbollah. He would not be the first to make such a claim just to puff himself up. Every Muslim community has seen men like Faisal who always come asking for money. They tell those who are pious that it's to build mosques and those who hate Jews that it's for Hezbollah. Or Hamas, or Jihad or Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to equip more brave fighters like himself. Someone once told him that it's like the Italians. The Italians have their own Christian gang called the Mafia. He said, "It's the same. You can't find an Italian who doesn't have an uncle who he claims is a fighter for the Mafia.”
But none of this answered his question. Why should Americans have a place that looks like heaven?
He had known all his life what heaven will be like. It is described in the Book which is not to be doubted and Mahfouz had memorized every verse that spoke of it. "It is a place where there are lush green gardens watered by running streams...The faithful shall dwell in these gardens where rivers will roll at their feet...Reclining there upon soft couches, they shall be decked with bracelets of gold and arrayed in garments of fine green silk and rich brocade. They will be shaded by palm trees and by fruit trees that stay heavy with fruit no matter how much is picked.”
They will eat, the Book said, those fowls which they relish which must mean there is plenty of chicken. Never again will they work or get covered with sweat or have to break plows against rocks. Never again will they cough desert dust from their lungs or blow globs of sandy snot from their noses.
This much about Paradise is certain. "They shall be served with silver dishes and with beakers as large as goblets...They will drink from cups always filled to the brim with water that is flavored by ginger...They shall be attended by boys who are graced with eternal youth and who, to the eyes of their beholders, will seem as sprinkled pearls...They will drink a delicious wine that will neither dull the senses or befuddle them...They will sit with bashful dark-eyed virgins as chaste as the sheltered eggs of ostriches...And each man will be wed to a dark-eyed houri more beautiful than an angel and the houri will give him endless pleasure." This, too, is in the Book which is not to be doubted. All this and more has been promised.
Mahfouz, for one, could hardly wait. He was curious, also, to see what awaits women. Surely good Muslim women will end up in heaven but the Book says nothing about them. Their husbands on earth all get houris in heaven but what becomes of their wives and daughters? If dogs go to heaven - and the Books says they do - God surely has made some arrangement for women. Mahfouz would find out when his time comes.
But meanwhile, here he is, still on earth, in a place that is very much like heaven. There are palm trees and fruit trees and fountains of water and shops that sell nothing but chicken that is fried. Here the men never work. They do sweat here but only at play. And the houris are every place you look. They float by on skates that are like tiny bicycles and are otherwise practically naked. Only little short pants that don't cover their navels and a top that barely holds up their bosoms. They lie on the beach where they wear even less and a man can look at them as long as he likes. And there's no sin for looking. In sins of the flesh, as the old sheik has taught, the blame is not on you but on the temptress.
But how can all this exist, Mahfouz wondered? These people will surely go to hell when they die but why should they first have heaven? He could only have faith that God knows what he's doing. Maybe it's just to make hell all the worse by comparison. In hell, says the Book, garments of fire await their arrival. Scalding water shall be poured on their heads, melting their skin and that which is in their bellies, and they shall be lashed with rods of iron. Even this, thought Mahfouz, is too good for these people. It is surely too good for that woman who hides here, the one who Pratt wants even more than the girl. But the girl is young and she still might be saved if her virtue, God willing, has survived.
“We move soon," the Englishman, Pratt, said at last. "Tarrant's men and their seaplane will be here in two days. Faisal has my map. Your route to the cabin is marked on it. You and Faisal will take the jitney and he will practice driving that route. Drive it until both of you know all the landmarks. Make sure you can find that cabin at night.”
“I, too, may drive? In Egypt I have driven a tractor.”
“Don't even put your hand on the wheel," said Pratt.
“Then I may have a gun? Faisal has a gun.”
“Ah, but you have that lovely new watch from Bandari. You will use it to record how long each trip takes. In the meantime, you will kindly stay out of sight and stop leering at teenagers' tits. You will also stay the hell off that beach.”
Mahfouz did not like this request. It was rude in its form. It was also unfair because this Hilton Head beach was for everyone. Faisal, who reads English, translated a sign that said this was so. "But," Faisal told him, "this time of year this beach is mostly for prostitutes. It's too cold for swimming - See? Not one of them swims - but warm enough for them to show off their wares. That's why only prostitutes would lie upon blankets when the sun's arc is still so far South.”
This was a good thing to know, thought Mahfouz. Tomorrow, perhaps, when there is nothing to do except drive back and forth, he and Faisal will strike a bargain with one.
“You won't like them," Faisal had told him already. He touched his hand to his crotch. "Too much hair down below. Down below they look almost like men.”
That may be, thought Mahfouz. But hair or no hair he is twenty-five years old and he's never once been with a woman. He has never even touched the bare skin of a woman who was not of his family. Here men and women touch all the time. He has watched them and it isn't just the shaking of hands. On the beach one young boy spread some sort of ointment all over the shoulders of two different girls and the girls made no effort to resist him. At a store where they stopped to buy food for the cabin a woman touched cheeks with a man she encountered just because she had not seen him for some time.
Mahfouz knew that he himself should wait until he's married and there's one in Abu Shatt he has his eye on. But her father and brothers have not yet said yes so he is not bound by a betrothal. Tomorrow, therefore, he will choose one of these so that he'll know what to do on his wedding night. Her price should be low because it won't take her long. She will only have to walk from the beach to the jitney where a mattress from their cabin will be waiting inside.
Tomorrow, thought Mahfouz, will be a good day. He will get a little taste of what awaits him in Paradise.
TEN
Cyril Pratt's white Toyota was still in the lot when Kessler drove its clone to the Players Club. Pratt himself was nowhere in sight.
He had determined that Pratt's room was in Building 100. It was up on the second floor facing some tennis courts. Kessler had asked for a room there as well. Building 100 and Building 200 flanked a large swimming pool which was crowded with guests. Elsewhere were Buildings 300 and so on. No poetry was wasted in naming these units.
He found them, however, not at all unattractive. Each of the units was prettily landscaped and each room had a terrace of comfortable size. Kessler registered and took his bag to his room.
His room, unlike Pratt's, looked out over the pool. From its terrace he could see almost all of the parking lot and also the outdoor bar. The clerk had told him he was lucky to get it because a guest of long standing had moved out that morning and had rented a time-share instead. The room, when he reached it was still being cleaned by two maids who he noticed were dressed more like nurses. They wore long-sleeved white smocks, white stockings and shoes and their hair was tucked under starched caps. He said, "Don't mind me. I'll just leave my bag.”
The maids smiled politely but they kept their eyes down. Neither spoke as one finished making his bed and the other began dusting furniture. Both were women in their forties, dark eyes, olive skin. He suspected that they spoke little English. The one who was dusting paused to peel a decal from the surface of a table near the window. The decal was in the shape of an arrow and it seemed to be pointed at nothing in particular, just a spot on the unit's East wall. The maid saw him looking at it. She shifted slightly to block his view. In moving she revealed a sheet of Players Club stationery that had been taped to the table near the arrow. He got only a glimpse before she snatched that up as well but he saw, written in long hand, yesterday's date followed by a series of four-digit numbers. The numbers, he felt sure, listed five times of day written out in the military fashion.
Kessler had seen such a sheet and such an arrow decal before but only in hotels of the Middle-East countries. There, the arrow would point in the direction of Mecca and the sheet of five numbers would be the five times for prayer depending on what time was sunrise. The previous occupant, Kessler concluded, can only have been a Muslim.
Muslims, he marveled, everywhere you turn. He stayed just long enough to wash his hands and to make sure that he'd left his bag locked. He had more exploring to do.
Kessler walked down the hall where he paused at Pratt's room. He heard no sound but did not try the lock. That would come later when he knew where Pratt was. The room Pratt had chosen, away from the pool, faced only the courts of the Van Der Meer school where dozens of students seemed to practice all day. It seemed, to Kessler, the least desirable of rooms. All one hears all day long is the whopping of tennis balls and the slapping of sneakers on clay. What it's good for, however, is watching these students. Pratt's interest in the students was already clear. Kessler found Pratt himself at the Players Club bar,not the one on the outside but inside. The Englishman was alone, he was drinking his lunch. Kessler waited and watched to see what he'd do next but Pratt drank there for more than two hours.
Kessler was puzzled. He was also disappointed. Even a drunk does not drink on a mission. Therefore, he reasoned, there is either no mission or else Pratt is simply killing time. Once again, Pratt was dressed to play tennis and again he showed no sign of actually playing. This in itself seemed to argue for a mission. If one stays at a tennis resort, there is no better way to become almost invisible than to dress all the time for tennis.
“Sauce for the goose," muttered Kessler to himself.
He walked from the bar to the Van Der Meer Pro Shop where the salesperson helped him to select a new wardrobe. He purchased a blue warm-up suit by Adidas and a racquet plus two cans of balls. He bought shoes that were endorsed by a player named Sampras and a bag for his racquet that was similar to Pratt's. Elizabeth, he thought, should have one of these. On the outside it had a pocket of canvas that could completely encase two racquets. That pocket could easily encase her Ingram, fully loaded with a thirty round clip. She could even keep the silencer attached because it would go in the part that zips over the handle. Cyril Pratt, no doubt, had been attracted by this feature as well.
Kessler carried his purchases to his now readied room where he changed into the warm-up suit and shoes. The pants of the suit had elastic cuffs and above them the fit was baggy. Perfect, he decided, for an ankle holster and better than a golf jacket even. He strapped on his Walther P88 and pulled the elastic cuff over it. Next he stripped all the tags from his new tennis racket. He would carry it with him to complete the illusion. The final touch was a pair of dark glasses, aviator style, and a Velcro sun visor on his brow. Now, all but invisible, he would go and check up on the Englishman again. If Pratt showed no sign that he'd be leaving the bar soon, Kessler would test his lock-picking skills and see what he could find in Pratt's room.
But the Englishman was not in the bar anymore and not at the one outside either. Kessler went to see if his car was gone but he saw him before he reached the lot. Pratt was standing up by the main lobby entrance, near the spot where he'd stood on the day before when he was holding his video camera. No camera today but again he was watching the parking lot. Kessler chose a shaded spot and waited. Twice in ten minutes he saw the Englishman look at his watch. Kessler guessed that he was waiting for those jitneys filled with children and with blacks who seemed somehow out of place.
At last one such jitney came into view but it didn't look quite like the others. It was white like the others with the same darkened windows but no Van Der Meer logo on its door. He saw two men in front or rather their outlines; they might or might not have been black. Kessler could not tell more precisely because the sun made a glare on the windshield. This van did not stop. It entered the parking lot, turned, and went out again. He looked up at Pratt who once more was checking his watch. Kessler checked his own. The time was twenty minutes after three.
Whatever this meant, Pratt was finished. He turned from the entrance and walked in the direction of his room, his key already in his hand. So much for trying his lock, thought Kessler. But now, at least, he could take another look in Pratt's car. His own was parked two spaces away. He took his own keys from his pocket and held them in his hand as he walked.
There was really no confusing Pratt's car with his own because Pratt's was so awash in debris. Candy wrappers had been added. Milky Ways, Mars Bars and a package of M&M Peanuts, now empty. The map that he'd seen, folded open to Sea Pines, was still in the rear well more covered than ever. It had the look of a thing that was no longer needed once Pratt had found his way to the Players Club. But now he noticed that there were new maps since yesterday. They were on the console between the two front seats. The top one was a map of Beaufort County, which included this island, and it had been opened and used. The two beneath it seemed identical to the first except they were in pristine condition.
