Beehive Page 10

  “Wonderful city. I’ve never been in a war zone before.”

  Her bleached eyes wafted over to the bartender. When he looked her way she raised her glass again. “Today was a quiet day. No shelling at all, almost no shooting. Usually the smoke from the ordnance makes downtown dirtier than Los Angeles.”

  “I can’t believe the people who go to the beach. I met someone there who said unexploded shells just litter the whole thing.”

  “Someone? Someone who?”

  I thought: Whoa! is this girl jealous? But then I realized her honest concern about people I met by chance. It looks bad in Washington when an American civilian dies. That’s why Elizabeth’s capture provoked more sympathy than the General’s supposed death. “Brian Bowman. He said he was a native, spoke with an English accent.”

  “A fag?” I nodded, but then shrugged. “He’s harmless. At least to anyone but himself.”

  “He seemed to like taking risks.”

  A waiter in a starched but stained white vest brought a tray with three tall thin glasses filled with sparkle and a whole slice of lime. “Et pour monsieur?”

  “Do you want one?” I tipped my head OK. “Rien pour monsieur,” she said. “C’est tout.”

  “You speak French.”

  “One of the requirements for the job here. Even most of the people carrying guns speak French. They used to own this place.” She drank. “What kinds of risks did he take?”

  “Who?”

  “Bowman.”

  I told her about sitting beside the man Brian thought tailed me. He ignored us completely, but I saw him later, on my way to meet Andrea. I supposed Brian was right.

  “His family has deep ties on both sides of the line. His mother’s father was a powerful Arab, his father’s mother a Gamayel. He’s immune so long as he doesn’t interfere. He can tweak all the noses he wants to.”

  “Did I tweak the wrong nose, sitting with him?”

  She shrugged, finished the first other two drinks. When she put the glass down she held the slice of lime in her teeth. “Party trick,” she said. “It depends. I think he was offering his protection. It might just be a seduction ploy. Did you find out anything today?”

  “I found out the name of the neighborhood where she’s being held.”

  “Dahya?”

  “How did you know?”

  “They’re all held there. Well, not all, but most of them. It’s a rabbit warren of rubble and tiny streets. The place is better watched than East Beirut, and they don’t like Americans.”

  “If you know where Elizabeth is, why don’t you go in and get her?”

  “And get a dozen people killed? And cause an international incident? And jeopardize our other interests in the Middle East?” Andrea swallowed her other drink and waved the glass at the bartender again. Her eyes began to dribble out of focus. “It’s not a simple problem, Ron. And there aren’t any simple answers.”

  “Not for the government. I don’t have the same goals, I guess.”

  “That’s your right, when you’re back home. Here you don’t have that right. You should be careful who you tell what.”

  I wanted to say, What? will you assassinate me? I stopped myself, because I realized even before I spoke that she would. We fell silent. The head honcho brought us our drinks this time, my second, Andrea’s sixth and seventh. He spoke with her in quiet French. I only understood one word, Hezbollah, which he said with a native’s inflection. When he left, Andrea said, “Look at the bartender.”

  I wheeled in my seat. He was putting the bottles from the mirrorless backbar into crates and replacing them with others. “What is he doing?”

  “What does it look like?” I knew the belligerent drinker’s tone too well to answer her. She said, “The Muslim nationalists don’t believe in alcohol, so every now and again they come and shoot up a bar.”

  “So?”

  “Would you leave your expensive liquor out if you knew it was about to by shot to pieces?”

  “They know?”

  “Sure they know. They get a call from someone in Hezbollah who tells them. They’re only trying to make a point, not escalate the war. They want to make some rules for a night: no drinking! So they call, tell the bar when, the bar tells us, and we leave right before they come. They shoot up the old bottles and then leave and then the bar closes for the night.”

  “You drink a lot, don’t you?”

  “Here, you bet. Have you ever cleaned up after a car bomb? You don’t have to see two kids with a gearshift sticking out their bellies to want to drink a lot. Let’s finish these up. We’ve only got ten more minutes. Less, if we want a good seat for the raid.”

  49.

  “You are the man looking for the American girl?”

  It was him, the man Brian and I had sat beside at the café by the beach. He wore an old American-cut suit and a bright red tie. His pudgy face almost swallowed his thin lips. I looked around for Andrea, but I couldn’t spot her in the crowd trying not to mill too close to the entrance to the Paris Hotel bar.

  “Elizabeth?” I asked, “You know where she is?”

  “You cannot speed,” he said. “I will negotiate with you, but you must bring one thousand dollars good-faith money.”

  “Where? When?”

  “At the Café Corniche, at eleven in the morning. You will come alone?” he asked, but he did not wait for a reply.

  50.

  I think all the tutoring began to sink in, because I told neither Andrea nor Amir about the next day’s meeting. For someone like me, who finds it so easy to doubt the value of my existence, it was easy to accept that the people who most often warned you to be discreet were the ones you most needed to be discreet around. If trust goes out the window, then the people trying the hardest to earn your trust must be the ones to trust least. I understood Hussein and his well-paid thugs — they found the best deal in town, a way to live well and stay safely behind those casually slung automatics. And I thought I understood the mysterious man, who not only tailed me but also presented himself as an emissary — they want money for Elizabeth.

  But Andrea? Amir? What were they after? She’s just an American doing her job, securing lives behind enemy lines. What, in a gin-and-tonic haze? I offered her a ride back home via Amir, but she said she had her own transportation and pointed at a coterie of LAP — Lebanese Armed Forces — jeeps called in to clean up the aftermath of the Hezbollah attack.

  The attack itself? Like a movie set. Hotel people hastened patrons out of the bar and far from the entrance. A van with no lights on and gun-slots chiseled out of the panels skidded to a halt in the middle of the full street which ran in front of the hotel. One older man wearing a black kaftan and a turban stepped from somewhere, the crowd I think, and began to direct the half a dozen gunmen. In a gunpowder fury, they shouted many things about Allah, funnelled into the bar and let off a quick round of ammunition. I never knew guns could make such a racket.

  Then, two bearded men in what I took to be traditional garb came out and posted themselves on either side of the door. The mullah gave them a command, and these guys scared the skivvies off of the crowd by firing a quick burst not far enough above our heads. A number of people crumbled to the pavement, certain they were hit; I crouched myself The remainder of the hit squad charged out of the bar and into the van. It took off with the two guards who fired at the sky hanging on to the open doors in the back.

  I found Andrea leaning against the hotel awning support. “Are they all like this?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Every now and again they get sloppy, go to the wrong bar, destroy some real liquor. Sometimes the LAF or the Syrians decide they won’t put up with the disorder and a gunfight cames down. Sometimes bystanders buy it, but not often. Bad word-of-mouth from that. It’s all show.”

  As she was talking I watched the mullah walk away across the s
treet, a handful of faithful in tow. “What about him? Isn’t someone going to stop him?”

  “For what? Blessing his flock?”

  I could see where I would get with Andrea. She was numb. She had no outrage to give. “Does this close the bar?” was all I could ask.

  “For tonight. They have to clean up, get the alcohol out from the back.”

  “Are they really so determined to be dry? The Muslims, I mean.”

  “I grew up in the south,” Andrea told me, “and our religious fervor is like a popgun to their whole arsenal. One on one? Maybe some of them drink. Get them in power you won’t live fifteen minutes smelling of alcohol.”

  “So you’ll be back here tomorrow?”

  “Should be safe for a few months now,” she nodded. “Call me during the day just to check in.”

  Amir met me as promised and we set the terms for him driving me. I asked him about Brian Bowman, and he offered to get me a list of all the people he’d slept with in the past two years. I figured that was proof enough of his knowledge of the town. “Where does Bowman live?” I asked.

  “At the top of your hill.” Surprise crept into his voice, surprise at my innocence is my only guess. “Hussein’s their man. Bowman gets a slice of the money you pay for protection.”

  51.

  Getting money from the bank proved easier than I could have hoped. Ignoring the guards and guns, the bank felt remarkably like the main branch of any bank, with grey-haired, grey-suited men seated behind a swarm of desks, defending the bastions of cash. Once I made my business clear, my grey man ushered me into the company of another more important one. He had a bigger desk and, I gathered, more cash to defend. I asked for $5,000, still enough money for me to gasp and choke on, and my banker asked, “American? In what denominations?”

  I eyed the street outside the bank like a secret service agent, those men who announce their secret missions with every glance at the crowd around them. Encouraged by the peace the day before, people thronged to the street, shops opened wide. The city roused itself in respite from fear.

  The sun cooperated with the celebratory ambience. The Eastern hills keep Beirut cool later in the morning than you might think. By ten, Amir dismissed until noon and the bank errand handled, the sun rose to meet a shade of fleecy clouds. Temperature wouldn’t hit ninety until afternoon, if at all. People smiled everywhere; good weather always produces good tempers, even in intemperate places.

  I found my man at the Café Corniche with no hesitation. He seemed as alone as I did, but I could guess that at least one of the other tables hosted a gun-toting companion. “Welcome and good morning, Mr. Stutzer!” My man gestured me to the only other chair at his table. “I am very glad you have come to talk with me.”

  He did not offer his hand for a shake. I suspect he regarded me as Christian vermin and preferred not to touch me. “You have an advantage over me. I don’t know your name.”

  “Call me Ahmet Avai. It is not the only advantage I have over you.”

  “You have my friend.”

  He held up his hand. “Please, we must drink before we talk. Some coffee? I must have a sweet. My teeth are very sweet.”

  Avai arranged for some coffee, thick sweet stuff you can drink only the smallest taste of. If you sip too deep into the cup the grounds will gag you. His honey cake smelled less overwhelming than the coffee.

  Avai had seated me with my back to the sea, so I turned in my chair to get a glimpse of the morning sun on the water. Near where I had met him yesterday, Brian stepped out of a small Mercedes limousine. He saw me immediately, and I had to shake him off to prevent his coming over.

  Avai noticed. “It can pay to have powerful friends, but only if they are friends first and powerful after.”

  “We’re neighbors. Neighbors often have more common interests than friends.”

  “Mr. Bowman is a foolish young man, and not always the best of friends.”

  “I have your thousand dollars. I see this as a retainer. It entitles me to your good faith, just as my bringing it proves mine.”

  “Perhaps. Do not present it to me now. Leave it on the table when you go.” I nodded. “We must proceed in small steps. I do not know you. You do not know me. Each step we will need to prove faith. I work with many people. You demonstrate faith to me. This does not demonstrate faith to them.”

  “You have my friend?”

  “You want to gallop. We must crawl.”

  “I see no point in crawling with you if you do not have what I want.”

  “Then you must gallop without me. Remember that it makes no difference how fast you go if you only travel in a circle.”

  “Then what is the next step?”

  “You must meet with my friends.”

  “I will meet with your friends if they bring proof that they have my friend and that she’s fine.”

  “Will a videotape satisfy you?”

  “Yes. Sure.”

  “Such videotapes are very expensive in Beirut. Your thousand dollars has bought only today’s meeting.”

  “How much for the videotape?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  I thought, Yikes! and then, They could sell me a blank tape. “That’s a fair price only after I have seen the video.”

  “That is something you will have to negotiate with my friends. I have only this to bring you: you must meet us in Dahya. Do you know where is the southern checkpoint to Dahya?”

  “My driver does.”

  “Your driver, Amir, is a snake. But the only dangerous snakes are the ones who hide. He will bring you.”

  “I cannot meet you in Dahya. I have no way of knowing I will get out.”

  “Very true.”

  “I have shown myself willing to meet with you. I will bring the money, I will meet you any time you want, but I can’t offer myself as your hostage. That gets me nothing.”

  He looked ready to argue, but then thought better of it. “If you will allow me, I will speak now to my friends to grant this point.” He nearly bolted from the table and into the darkness of the café kitchen. I searched the walk across the way for Brian, but I could not see him. Before I was certain Avai could find a phone he was back. “We will meet you outside the northern checkpoint of Dahya. There is a petrol pump a hundred meters before, on the right. Behind the building there you will find a small field. There we will meet.”

  “When?”

  “Why tonight, of course. No later than ten. We cannot guarantee your safety past eleven.”

  I pulled the envelope with the $1,000 from my pocket. “I hope this will cover the tab, Mr. Avai.”

  “Yes, yes.” He smiled and put his hand on the envelope. I crossed over to the beach.

  52.

  “They won’t kill you,” Brian told me, kicking his heels into the rocky sand. “That’s not a promise that they will deal honestly with you.”

  “Is this stupid? Should I just bag it?”

  “Your American slip is showing!” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m thinking of dyeing it jet-black, with some bleached white at the temples. What do you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Americans have always made the mistake in the Middle East — maybe it’s just as true elsewhere — of equating civilized with American. If the enemy does not deal on American terms, you go in with guns. But now the Islamic Jihad has the guns and they want to deal on their terms.”

  “So it’s hopeless.”

  “Maybe. But the Arab way is to acknowledge it may be hopeless — and keep negotiating until it is. They may regard the whole thing as hopeless, but they don’t want to tell you that yet. They may not know what they want. They may want to make you crawl before they negotiate.”

  “It’s hopeless.” I worried about the $1,000 I left for Avai. I asked Brian if he knew the man.<
br />
  He laughed.

  “When the Israelis came in 1982, they kicked out the PLO but left the Syrians to take over. The Iranian Ambassador to Damascus hired a man named Avai to co-ordinate attacks here. No one knows who the man really was, but even before he disappeared terrorists went by that name in negotiations. Avai is the spirit of Allah; he is everywhere.”

  I watched the Mediterranean lap a thousand miles from the Atlantic. “Do I go through with this?”

  “What choice do you have?”

  “I can wait for another break, something with a little more promise. These people might not even have Elizabeth. I give them twenty-five thousand dollars to prove nothing?”

  “You give them the money to prove you want your friend back. They know her father is rich. They don’t know how deep he will allow their hands in his pockets. You agreed to twenty-five thousand dollars without blanching. They will think the money has no end.”

  “I misplayed it?”

  “Maybe. They might not have shown themselves willing to negotiate at all if you asked to cut them off at ten thousand dollars. They know there is a balance between time in captivity and money, but they don’t know where your balance point is. You know — or maybe you don’t — that there’s a balance between the value she has as a hostage and the value the dollars have in their pockets, but you don’t know how many dollars it will take to tip the scale. So you go, lose twenty-five thousand dollars if you are wrong, invest it if you are right.”

  “How did you learn this?”

  “I grew up here. Just remember, my protection will stop them from killing you, and most likely from taking you hostage. It will not stop them from crossing you.”

  53.

  Amir drove south in the waning light. The daytime youths at the checkpoints looked older and more hostile in the dusk. I had gotten used to being asked for my passport at gunpoint, now; I had not gotten used to how small the bore of an automatic weapon really was, or how big it looked, or how small a hole it took for life to escape a human body: bigger than a bee sting, but not much.