Stamping Butterflies

CHAPTER 44 Marrakech, Summer 1977 [Then]

The deal offered to Jake was simple.

Exile.

Jake would leave Marrakech, taking Celia with him. Riad al-Razor would be sold, within the month if possible and certainly by the end of that summer. As it turned out, Major Abbas was able to recommend a discreet and trustworthy agent who could be relied on both to find a suitable buyer and handle any legal matters that might arise.

And it would be best if their Peugeot was included in the price of the sale. Did Jake have any problems with the suggestions so far?

De Greuze said nothing during all of this. The revelation about Jake's family had shifted his priorities and he wasn't about to mess with the grandson of a known philanthropist with the direct ear of the American President. All the same, he'd already palmed one of the nude photographs of that boy which Jake had dealt so casually from the pile with his thumb, leaving a really rather beautiful fingerprint.

Jake and Celia were sitting on the pink-painted wicker sofa, de Greuze had pulled up the largest chair without being asked and Major Abbas had announced that he preferred to stand. Moz had been sent to the kitchen to make mint tea.

"Here," he said, banging his tray onto the table.

Celia smiled. "I'll have mine unsweetened. You'd better check with the others." When the tea was poured into glasses, she made him go back for a plate of pastries, mostly chopped pistachio mixed with honey and variations on baklava.

Moz was preparing himself to be furious when he noticed that de Greuze and Major Abbas were more furious still. It was like a card game in which everyone but him knew the rules.

"Give me your bank details," said the Major to Jake. "I'll have the money sent on." They were still discussing the finer points of the deal.

"No." Celia shook her head. "Arrange a dollar bank draft and have it sent to these people." The card she pulled from her leather satchel gave the address of a New York attorney who specialized in handling the more difficult kind of celebrity client. "I'll tell them to expect the money."

Jake only made the grade with that firm because of his family, his musical career to date not being enough to rate him client status. A fact both the attorney and Celia had been careful never to point out.

When Major Abbas made the mistake of looking doubtful Celia told him in painstaking and patronising detail which Marrakchi bank could act as go-between, what kind of commission they would expect and how long it would take to organize. "I'm sure the agent you have in mind can handle it."

If Jake were going to lose the riad and be banished from Marrakech, which effectively was what had just happened, then Celia wasn't about to retire without leaving a few scars.

"So we just leave?" Jake said. He didn't seem to be asking the question of anyone in particular. "And take Moz with us."

"That wasn't what I said," the Major replied, dipping his hand into a pocket and removing a packet of small cigars. Smoke spiralled towards the sky as he looked from Jake to Moz, noticing the similarity of their haircuts, jeans and general slouch. He should have seen it before.

"This boy is under-age," Major Abbas told Jake. "He also lacks a passport. Anyone attempting to take him out of Morocco would be breaking the law. You understand me?"

Jake nodded.

"Good. Were such a thing to happen... It would be very inadvisable for that person to come back to Marrakech again."

Jake assumed that the land agent was in the Major's pay and would organize matters so that Riad al-Razor was sold cheaply to a member of the Major's immediate family. This assumption was untrue. Being unmarried and an only son, the Major had no family.

The agent Major Abbas had in mind was actually a brother of his deputy who would probably sell the house to a cousin of his own. The money would then be split into three sums, with the first and largest going to the American bank mentioned by Celia, a second and smaller amount going into the agent's own account and a third and equivalent sum going to the Major.

Had Celia been Moroccan or even au fait with the etiquette of buying houses in North Africa, there would have been a fourth sum, made by splitting the largest sum two thirds -- one third. The second of those sums would have been declared to the authorities as the price of the riad, becoming liable to any taxes that might be appropriate, and the first would have gone straight into Jake's pocket.

Nobody shook hands when the Major and de Greuze left. Instead Jake stood under the arch of the front door and watched the petite taxi pull away from where it had been parked against the wall of a mosque.

"I reckon we've got till the end of the week," he told Celia. "I'll go buy a VW. You find the kid some new clothes..." And that was when Moz finally realized a deal had been struck and that, at no point, had anyone let him have the slightest say in the matter.

He would be leaving Marrakech with the others. Jake and Celia had known from the beginning that Malika was beyond saving.

"No," said Moz, tears in his eyes. "I won't."

"Won't what?" Celia sounded puzzled.

"I'm not leaving," Moz said. "You can't make me. And it was a lie. I wasn't here. I was with--"

Malika's name was lost in the sound of Jake backhanding the boy across his face, swearing loudly and stamping inside, slamming the front door behind him.

"Fuckwit," said Moz.

Celia sighed. "That wasn't clever," she said. Moz thought she was talking about Jake but he might have been wrong. She might well have been talking about him.