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Two of the men went for Liam. The squat, bulky man took one arm, and the oldest one, a middle-aged man with a grizzled chin and a shirt studded with epaulets, took the other. The man who grabbed Aidan was small and wiry, with a gold front tooth that glinted in the sunlight. The crowd made a space around them, and out of the corner of Aidan’s eye he saw two police officers rushing toward them.
Liam kicked the younger of the men holding him in the chest, which knocked his left arm free, and then he used that arm to punch the older one, who ducked and twisted, maintaining his vise grip.
Aidan leaned in close to Gold Tooth and kissed him, hard on the lips. The man reacted as Aidan expected, backing away with an expression of disgust on his face. Then with his free right hand Aidan reached to the Arab’s groin. He found the man’s dick, grabbed hold, and squeezed. Gold Tooth shouted a curse in Arabic, and relaxed his iron grip on Aidan’s left arm for a moment.
That was all Aidan needed. He twisted free and ran, picking up the bottom of the djellaba. As soon as he’d turned into a crowded street, he stepped close to a building and pulled the djellaba off over his head. It wasn’t as good a disguise as he’d expected.
Across from him, a souk sold tourist crap—t-shirts, ball caps, postcards, and other souvenirs from a happy trip to Tunisia. He darted in there, and bought an oversized t-shirt with “Bienvenue a Tunis” scrolled across it, a cap with a deep brim, and a pair of big, cheap sunglasses.
He dumped the djellaba into a plastic bag, pulled the t-shirt over his own, and slapped on the cap and the glasses. Checking his reflection, he looked like a different person. He hoped whoever was chasing him would agree.
As he walked back into the medina, Aidan heard the rise of angry voices behind him, but he spotted a group of American and European tourists, mostly middle-aged, overweight, wearing t-shirts and sun visors, and slid his way into their midst. For several blocks, he kept his head down, surrounded by what he figured out was a tour group from a cruise ship. He half-listened to the French-accented guide’s descriptions of the various souks and the history of the area, keeping his eye out for Liam or for anyone who might be chasing him.
After about fifteen minutes, Aidan ditched the tour group and walked from street to street and souk to souk. He had no idea where he was, but he’d walked so much over the past few days that he felt confident he could find his way back to his apartment. He hoped Liam could do the same.
There seemed to be a lot more police in the medina than there had been on the way to the goldsmith’s shop, but no one stopped him. His heart raced each time he passed a pair of officers, though, and when he finally exited the medina he found himself in a part of the city he didn’t recognize.
He hailed a louage, a kind of shared inner-city taxi, and sat among a mixture of locals and European tourists, scanning the streets they passed, looking for a familiar landmark. A police car passed, sirens blaring, heading back toward the medina, and Aidan worried that the soldiers at the Bab el Bahr had picked up Liam. What would happen to him in a Tunisian jail or prison? Would he crack, and reveal Aidan’s name and address? Was it even safe for Aidan to go home?
Hours had passed since Aidan and Liam had set out for the medina, and Aidan was starving. When he finally got out of the louage, a half-dozen blocks from his apartment, he bought a sandwich from a street vendor, a pita spread with olive paste, and gobbled it in a couple of bites.
Liam was nowhere in sight when Aidan approached his building, and there were no cops or unsavory characters lurking around. He acted as he thought Liam would, looking around, trying to identify places where someone might hide, evaluating the purposes of all those around.
When he thought it was safe, he walked up to the door of the apartment building, his heart pounding. No one followed him, and he went inside, where he found the dog once again sprawled in front of his apartment door.
He paused and rubbed her behind the ears. If Liam had already been here, he’d have let the dog in, wouldn’t he? Even so, Aidan hesitated before putting his key in the lock. He took a deep breath, slotted the key, and turned the handle. The door squeaked as he opened it, and the dog pushed ahead and went to the kitchen. Aidan sighed, walked inside and locked the door behind him. He gave the dog some fresh water, and drank a full bottle of orange soda.
By the time evening fell, with no sign of Liam, Aidan was sure the bodyguard had been arrested. He had a feeling that Liam would hold up under questioning, at least for a while. But Aidan kept worrying. Should he leave the apartment? Where could he go? What if Liam were killed? What should Aidan do with the eye charm? What if the police showed up at his door?
He tried to remember the name of the man at the embassy Liam had told him to take Carlucci’s luggage to, but he couldn’t. He supposed he could go to the embassy and demand that they find Liam, an American citizen, a former Navy SEAL. But what if Liam had escaped from the attackers and was hiding in the city? Would Aidan put him in more danger by reporting him?
Aidan made dinner, then let the dog out to do her business, and still Liam did not appear. It was as if there were two voices in Aidan’s head. One voice said that he was lucky to be rid of Liam, that the bodyguard had only used Aidan for his own purposes, and that Aidan would be a fool to put himself in harm’s way to find out what happened to the ex-SEAL.
The other voice remembered Liam’s kiss, the feel of his body. That voice reminded him of Carlucci’s murder outside the bar. If Liam was in danger, Aidan owed it to him, and to Carlucci’s memory, to do something—anything.
Aidan decided to go back to the Bar Mamounia, to see if Liam had returned to his little house, or if the police were still there. He dressed in his most touristy clothes, with the ball cap he’d bought at the medina clamped on his head.
At the door downstairs, Aidan looked from right to left before he stepped outside, but the few people on the street moved purposefully in their own directions, and he thought it was safe to step out.
He hadn’t walked around much after dark; the guide books had cautioned against it, and after walking all day, he’d been too tired to venture out. Tunis was a different place once the sun had set. There weren’t many street lights, and every door slam, shout, or car horn seemed more ominous. He hurried toward the bright lights of the Avenue Bourguiba, and once there felt less conspicuous.
He walked past the Bar Mamounia twice before daring to venture in. It reminded him of his first desperate attempts to visit a gay bar, in Philadelphia so many years before. Then, too, he’d been eager yet nervous, his body racing with adrenaline.
Pausing before the beaded curtain, he heard two voices in his head. One advised caution; the bar, so innocuous in the daylight, could be perilous. Men there might be more dangerous than those boys who’d chased him with the knife.
The other voice, the one that won out, told him that he was a big wimp for being afraid of walking into a bar. That he’d never move forward with his life until he took charge and faced up to his fears.
The inside the of the Bar Mamounia was a big disappointment—just as those first few gay bars had been. Five or six men stood around drinking, fast Arabic music playing too loud, with a back beat that reverberated against Aidan’s spine. A few eyes swiveled toward him as he entered, but then went back to their conversations.
He ordered a glass of the Vieux Magon, the red wine Liam had ordered for him. The man behind the bar wasn’t the one who was there during the day, and Aidan hesitated to ask about Liam. What if he’d been alerted by the police that Liam was wanted? Aidan could be putting himself in grave danger.
He looked around the bar, which seemed even darker and more disreputable than it had during the day. Liam wasn’t there, and though he’d had no reason to expect he would be, Aidan was disappointed. But was he in his house, across the courtyard? Aidan took his glass and strolled over to the opening in the wall, through which he’d first witnessed Liam showering.
The courtyard was dark, a single square of light falling on the dirt floor through the window. The shadowy bulk of Liam’s building loomed across from him.
He felt a hand on his back. “Bonsoir, monsieur,” said a man in heavily accented French. Aidan turned. He didn’t recognize the man—but did the man recognize him?
“Bonsoir,” Aidan said.
The man rattled off something fast that Aidan couldn’t follow with his schoolboy French. He stepped in close, and whispered in Aidan’s ear. He was Tunisian, with sunbaked skin and close-cropped dark hair. He wore a plain gray t-shirt and a pair of black pants with Nike sneakers. “Liam?” Aidan whispered back to him. “L’americain?”
“Ah, vous êtes Americain,” the man said. “J’aime les Americains.”
The man leaned forward and stuck his tongue in Aidan’s ear.
Well, that was easy to understand. The man didn’t know Liam. He didn’t have anything to do with Charles Carlucci, eye charms or Tuaregs in the desert. He simply wanted to have sex.
Aidan was so relieved he laughed. Gently he put his hand against the man’s chest and pushed. “Non, merci.”
The man said something else in French, something low and urgent, and for a moment Aidan worried that he’d mistaken the message. But the man’s hand on Aidan’s crotch was an unmistakable gesture.
“Non,” Aidan said more firmly. He finished his wine, and stepped away from the Tunisian to leave the empty glass on the bar. Then he walked outside.
Ever hopeful, the Tunisian man followed him to the door. Aidan looked back at the man and shook his head. The man accepted the decision and stepped back inside.
Aidan walked around the block, passing the front of Liam’s house. The front door was in splinters, as if someone had broken in. He remembered Liam saying he’d escaped just as someone broke through his door.
A policeman stood at the corner, and Aidan nodded to him, the way any tourist might. The officer ignored him, lighting a cigarette.
So the police were still watching Liam’s house, he thought, which meant that they didn’t have him in custody—or that they were hoping his accomplice might show up. If they were waiting for Aidan, they were doing a lousy job of it.
It was late by then, and Aidan was worn out. On the way back to his apartment, a couple of drunken Arabs turned onto the street in front of him, laughing and shouting and banging into each other.
Aidan crossed the street to avoid passing them, tripped on a stone, and fell against a building. The men seemed to think he was drunk as well, and shouted something across to him. He ignored them and walked faster.
It was amazing how different the streets were at night. During the day, they were crowded, bright and noisy. At night, the darkness lay on the pavement, footsteps echoed, and everyone who passed was a potential assailant. When a lizard skittered in front of him his heart jumped.
When he reached his apartment, he checked once again before he stepped up to the door. No one appeared to care about him, so he went in. The dog was in her customary place outside his door.
His apartment was still empty. He took a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator, turned off the light, and sat by the French door, looking out at the dark city. The spotlit spire of the Zitouna mosque glowed in the distance, and Aidan wondered once again where Liam was. He might still be free, somewhere in the city, which would explain the police guard at his apartment.
But as well, he might have been captured by the police, might at that moment be undergoing interrogation, or languishing in some dank cell. What if they tortured him, and he implicated Aidan? What if the police showed up at his door during the night?
And what would happen to the account number and password that Carlucci had for the Tuareg? Aidan turned on the lights and searched Liam’s duffle bag. The passport wasn’t there, which meant Liam must have been carrying it. The police might use that passport as evidence to charge Liam with Carlucci’s murder.
Aidan knew he needed to sleep. He had to meet Mme. Habiba Abboud the next morning at the École International and begin teaching. But even after he stripped down and got into bed, sleep eluded him.
