Casablanca Blues (2013) Read Free

also the most senseless, wagged a finger towards Ghita.
    ‘We’re just following orders, Miss,’ he said.
    The next thing he knew, he was lying on the grass, his thigh having been pierced with a size six Jimmy Choo in black crocodile.
    In one slick movement, Ghita withdrew her bloodied weapon, slipped it back on her foot, and turned to greet her father, whose Jaguar was purring into the drive.
    ‘Baba! Sorry, but you can’t park there,’ she called loudly. ‘The champagne delivery is about to arrive.’
    Hicham Omary might have protested, but he was used to being dealt orders by his daughter.
    Parking beside the kitchen door, he closed his eyes and found himself in a simple bare-walled apartment in an old Art Deco walk-up somewhere far downtown. For a moment there was silence, and simplicity.
    Ghita opened the car door, and her father’s memory vanished.
    ‘I’m working with idiots, Baba!’ she exclaimed, dabbing a lace handkerchief melodramatically to her eye. ‘I don’t know what to do. One tiny mistake and tongues will wag. You know how they are – like vipers.’
    ‘Dearest Ghita, it’s only an engagement,’ Omary said as he climbed out of the car, touched with a sense of déjà vu.
    ‘
Only an engagement
? And we are
just
ordinary people, are we?’
    Before her father could reply, Ghita clapped her hands, the soft skin of her palms anointed twice daily with a moisturizer from the Savoy Alps.
    ‘I shall need some cheques, Baba,’ she said, a tone of sternness in her voice.
    ‘
Some
?’
    Ghita calculated. Maths was never her strong point. She quickly lost count, and then frowned.
    ‘Just sign me the entire book, and leave them blank... I have lots of people to pay.’
    Standing on tiptoes in her Jimmy Choos, she pecked her father on the cheek, her lips leaving a smudge of Chanel Rouge Allure.
    ‘Baba, what would I ever do without you?’ she said.

Nine
    A short stout man with a waxy face and a week’s growth of beard was standing in the shadows outside apartment 5B. The kind of figure you would never pick out in a police line-up, there was nothing at all memorable about him.
    Blaine knew his landlord was waiting there in the darkness before he reached the landing. He could smell him, even against the stench of rotting eggs – he reeked of Turkish cigarettes.
    ‘Good evening to you, Mr. Rogers,’ he said, taking the last pair of steps in one. ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?’
    ‘I’ve had enough!’ the landlord growled. He limped backwards a pace until resting a shoulder on the wall.
    ‘Enough of what?’
    ‘Of your chasing away my potential tenants! You make this place sound like it’s out of
Silence of the Lambs
!’
    Blaine untied the belt of his raincoat and got out his key. Without thinking, his thumb ran down the notches and he turned it the right way up for the lock.
    ‘Was it wrong of me to point out the highlights?’ he asked.
    ‘What highlights?’
    ‘Let me think,’ Blaine said, stepping forward until his face was half a foot from the landlord’s. ‘The abundance of free vermin, the rising damp, and the curious case of Mr. Wilson in 4D.’
    The fingers of Mr. Rogers’ right hand formed into a fist. He might have thrown a punch, but he was too close and far too feeble. So he yelled instead:
    ‘I want you out of here tomorrow, Williams!’
    ‘But...’
    ‘No buts! Just get the hell out!’

Ten
    A line of black limousines stretched down the street, high society streaming out of them and in through the wrought iron gates of the Omary Mansion.
    The ladies were coutured in woven silk jelabas, jewels glittering in their ears and around their necks. Their husbands were impeccable in tuxedos, solid gold watches on their wrists.
    On either side of the entrance, a pair of giant flambeaux was burning, their flames licking the night air. The ground beneath them was sprinkled with scarlet rose petals, picked at dawn that morning in the foothills of the