The echo of spent bullets sits heavily inside the hangar, buffeted only by the sounds outside - an arriving automobile, a departing aeroplane. The telephone receiver sits ignored on the floor, the low buzz of a disconnected call bouncing off the bare concrete floor and fading in the still air; its cord hangs limply across the body of the dead German – a fitting epitaph perhaps for a life so abruptly, inevitably disconnected. On the runway the aeroplane slowly turns, its engines growling with power as it readies to take off.
Car doors slam. Running feet.
"Mon Capitaine!"
"Major Strasser has been shot." The gendarmes come to a halt around the body of the Major. Captain Renault looks from the shooter to his men, deciding, planning, reviewing matters. Louis Renault is not a man to make rash decisions. "Round up the usual suspects," he tells the gendarmes dryly – there were no witnesses, there is no proof.
The shooter remains silent while the gendarmes carry away the German’s body. The aftermath of passion and anger is draining away. Now he just feels tired. He has taken a step here today, made a stand he cannot back away from nor change. He’s not sure he wants to. A change was just what he needed and it’s been so long since he’d made a stand about anything. Outside, the plane picks up speed and begins its ascent into the early morning sky away from Morocco and Casablanca – away from him. He half-turns to the Frenchman, his friend, and smiles. Friend, he thinks, mentally chewing over the word. Who would have guessed that he and the French Captain would end up allies in a place where the only person you could count on was yourself - even then not always
Renault picks up a bottle of water from the shabby desk, ignoring the persistent buzz of the telephone. "Well, Rick, you’re not only a sentimentalist, but you’ve become a patriot."
"Maybe," Rick answers, not prepared to commit to anything just yet. It was only one dead German after all. One dead German in Morocco – and not terribly important for all that. "But it seemed like a good time to start."
"I think perhaps… you’re right." The captain pours the water into a glass and then notices the bottle’s label. Vichy water. A sneer crosses his face and he lets the bottle drop into a waste-paper basket. Vive la France!
"It might be a good idea for you to disappear from Casablanca for a while. There’s a Free French garrison over at Brazzaville. I could be induced to arrange a passage."
The French policeman waits for the American’s reaction to his suggestion, but Rick Baine’s face remains impassive – a fact that fascinates the expressive Frenchman. The American had proved by his actions that passion ran deep within his soul and yet managed to keep his face so schooled, his body so still. But the atmosphere was thick and tense and Louis knew that Monsieur Baine was anything but as passive as his hard demeanour suggested.
The fog rolls in across the airport – thick and grey and uncompromising; any later and the aeroplane would have been grounded. So close. Always so damn close. It reminds Rick, as so many things do, of Paris and Ilsa, his sweet Ilsa, on her way now to Lisbon, with her husband. Not his any longer – never his at all.
"My letter of transit?" Rick finally asks with a shrug. "I could use a trip. But it doesn’t make any difference about our bet. You still owe me ten thousand francs."
"And that ten thousand francs should pay our expenses." Renault moves away from the desk and the wastepaper basket, and steps over the bloodstain on the floor.
"Our expenses?" Rick is surprised by the apparent change in the Frenchman – perhaps not so much a change as a certain flexibility and innate sense of looking out for oneself. A survivor.
The sounds of the plane’s engine fade away to nothing as Rick Baine and Louis Renault – two survivors – stroll out of the hanger together and cross the runway. The mist envelops them until they are nothing but a silhouette in the greyed airport lights. Then nothing but fading voices in the night.
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Rick yawned widely and shook his last cigarette free from its crumpled pack. He was smoking too much, a voice said in the back of his mind. He let his tiredness clamp down on any lingering thoughts from the night’s events. Ilsa was gone, with her husband no less, and it was he that had sent them on their merry way. A disdainful smirk warped his face as he struck a match and lit the cigarette. He removed it from his mouth to blow out the match and watched the smoke curl away before flicking the dead match to the floor.
Maybe I do, he thought, dragging deeply on the cigarette. Drink too much too. The smoke escaped in wisps from between his lips and then poured forcefully from his nose as he frowned. But who the hell cares?
He was depressed, he decided later as he wandered from wardrobe to bed to dresser to the window and back to the bed, packing the suitcase that sat there – shabby and used. Depressed and relieved, and depressed that he could be so relieved. It was as if he’d been holding his breath since Paris – not breathing, not living, still waiting for Ilsa to show up on that wet train platform and ride away with him forever. Damn, but he was an idiot – a selfish, manipulating, vengeful, relieved, idiotic sap. But, at least, he could breathe again.
He finally stopped moving; his case packed, though only half full, on his lonely bed. Just the night before, Ilsa had been on the bed with him, wrapping her warm legs around him, clinging to him as they each made desperate love to a fading memory.
"…I don’t know what to think anymore," she’d said. "You must think for both of us…"
And he had, leading her down to the bed then to the airport and then away from him forever.
Clouded eyes cleared as his tired brain registered the rising sun and morning sounds filtering through his shuttered window. Not last night, the night before. It was two nights since he’d walked in and found Ilsa in his room. He ran his hands, free for the moment from cigarettes and booze, through his hair and forced his legs to take him to the window. Two nights and it seemed a lifetime. Two nights – no time at all.
He was cracking up and, knowing his luck, Renault would find him slobbering and sobbing like some poor demented fool in the corner. "See," he’d say. "This is the Rick I knew you were hiding. Insane, an insane sap." Then he’d click his fingers and his "Keystone" gendarmes would come running in to carry him away – like Strasser.
Rick pushed the wooden shutters apart, wincing as the bright light of a Moroccan morning came flooding into the desolate room. The street below was already filling with traders and shoppers. Strident voices haggling over prices and the welfare of someone’s twelve children and sick mother drifted up.
"And it’s not even breakfast time yet," Rick mumbled in disgust, extinguishing the used cigarette on the sill, not remembering when he was last awake at this time of day.
A small group of travellers were gathering around one of the stalls – Berbers – but Rick took little interest in the hovering men. Who the hell cares? The market place was humanity in motion, all kinds from all places. A few extra natives were hardly out of place.
A loud knock, ridiculously jaunty for this early hour, sounded on his door. Rick whipped around in shock; his nerves a jangled, electrified mess, his heart racing. Damn, I need some sleep, he thought as he shoved his trembling hands into his trouser pockets, and another cigarette.
"Who is it?" he called out, amazed that his voice wasn’t wavering with fear as wildly as the rest of him. He walked to his nightstand and pulled open the drawer. No cigarettes! Damn!
The knock came again and Rick cursed under his breath.
"Rick?" a muted voice said.
Louis!
Rick felt the fear drain away and moved to the door.
"Rick!" Renault said again as the door finally opened. His eyebrows arched at the relieved expression on his American friend’s face. The chief of police stepped into the room with a smile and removed his cap to twirl it in his hands. "Did you think I was the SS, my friend?" he asked. It was obvious the American hadn’t slept. His clothes, the same as he’d been wearing at the airport, were crumpled. His face was haggard and grey.
"Worse," Rick admitted. "Strasser’s ghost."
Louis chuckled. "I’ve come to invite you to breakfast. We have much to discuss, plans to make and unmake."
It was Rick’s turn to be surprised. "It’s a little early, even for you, Louis." He turned his back to the Frenchman and reclaimed his post by the window.
"You know what they say, Rick. The early bird catches the worm." Renault followed the American, stopping by the bed and the suitcase half-full of clothes. "You’ve packed already?"
Rick shrugged. "I don’t own the saloon anymore. Did I forget to mention that? I’m officially homeless." Rick rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. They felt like hot coals burning their way through his head and down his throat. God, I need a cigarette.
"It doesn’t matter… I knew," Renault said, stepping up to the American and offering a pack of cigarettes.
Rick looked at the packet a moment; I smoke too much, before taking it and pulling a cigarette out with his lips. "Thanks," he said, nodding and bending slightly as the Frenchman lit a match. From behind a cloud of blue-grey smoke, Rick closed his eyes and savoured the taste and smell of burning tobacco.
"Breakfast?"
Rick opened his eyes and nodded, putting one hand on the other man’s shoulder and guiding him away from the window and out of the room. "You never said, Louis. Who is this bird and how many worms is he after?"
Everybody came to Casablanca. It was the way station for the dispossessed and the stomping ground of the corrupt. Refugees from war-torn Europe sauntered through the market stalls, dined at the cosmopolitan cafes and drank at the clubs, all with desperation born of fear and regret at what they’d left behind and denial at where they now found themselves. All waiting to go somewhere, anywhere there were no bombs, tanks and death. Locals strolled through the heat of the day, swatting flies with a lazy hand, selling wares, bargaining, chatting, calling; sharing news from abroad and affairs at home. Furtive figures slid through the busy streets, sidling up to the unwary like hyenas on the prowl; befriending with wide smiles and slippery lies, stealing with easy guile and magic hands.
Knowing eyes turned to the business of the day – selling, buying, visiting the temple. The market flourished, both legal and less so, selling everything from bolts of cloth, fruit and vegetables, pots and pans to foreign dollars and pounds, jewels, artwork and the most valuable of all for the European refugees… transit papers. Humanity itself was bought and sold if the price was right.
The small group of Berbers that had gathered at the edge of the market place stood casually, apparently discussing no more than the weather. In reality they talked of the latest news out of Egypt and Syria, Moroccan independence from France and the outsider they had taken into their fold and offered their protection.
To one side of the group, a boy held the tattered end of a rope tethering a scraggy goat busy munching a pair of leather sandals hanging from a market stall table. The sandal-maker, passing comments to the Berber in between selling sandals, paid no attention to either the boy or the goat. Hopeful eyes gazed up the street into the centre of the souk. The sound and smells of breakfast cooking wafted in hot clouds through the air. The boy started as a hand gripped his shoulder and gave a small shake. When the boy looked up, it was into the half-covered face of the outsider.
To anyone else, the outsider was just another Berber. Dressed in the same coarse, homespun cloak as the other men, wearing the same shoes, similar amulets and having the same lighter-skinned complexion as his companions, he could have been a relation of any of them. To the boy, he was still the outsider who had appeared in their village over a week ago and spoken in strained words to the village headman – a long time friend to the stranger, it seemed, as the man was welcomed without hesitation.
The native people of Morocco had long since retreated to the relative safety of the Atlas Mountains and the Dandes Valley in the face of Arabian invaders. They weren’t segregated, however, and many also lived in and around the cities, mixing so well with the Arabs that original ancestry was often hard to identify by sight alone. The Berbers maintained their own language and culture through the hundreds of years of Arab domination, a language that most non-Berbers did not know. The same language the men were talking in now. The language the outsider used to whisper to the boy.
"Your goat is eating your uncle’s earnings. He will not be happy."
The boy tugged at the rope and then grabbed at the determined animal’s short horns. Huffing to it in angry curses he dragged the beast away, a strong hand reaching out to help him when the goat tried to return to its breakfast. The outsider was the only man in the group not related to the boy. The stall keeper, his uncle, was an impatient man. His father too would not be happy to see the boy couldn’t control the animal. He nodded to the stranger in thanks.
A sudden shift in atmosphere caused the man to turn away from the boy and his goat to stare into the alley that ran beside the American saloon opposite them. Two men walked out, one in the tidy uniform of the French police, the other in a plain, slightly rumpled suit. This was the man the stranger had come to Casablanca for, the man who could provide passage out of Africa and back to America. The group of Berbers, alerted by the outsider, spread out and began wandering through the market place to disguise the fact that one of them was following the American and the chief of police. The outsider slipped behind the two men like a ghost, waited while they ate – got close enough to hear what they were talking about – then followed them back to the saloon. Concern at changing circumstances and how they would affect him etched his features and for a moment he was undecided as to what he should do next. If Baine was leaving town, how much assistance would he be prepared to give a stranger on the run?
There was no choice but to confront the man and find out. He’d banked everything on reaching Rick Baine; he would not turn back now. With a careful glance around to see if he was being watched and finding nothing, the man pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and climbed the stairs to the back entrance of Café Americain.
Rick left Louis downstairs and went up to his room to change - he felt better now than he had in days. He and the police chief had made several plans, one of which they would end up using, to get themselves out of Casablanca as quietly as they could. They would be leaving in a few hours, not under the cover of darkness but during the hustle and bustle of full sunlight. About time too, he thought. Been hiding too long… his introspection was cut short as he approached the door to his room. A soft scrape of shoe leather on wood alerted him to company. He turned slowly, kept his body language calm… and raised an eyebrow to the shabbily dressed man that stood in the shadows.
Renault caught sight of Rick’s change in direction and walked carefully to the foot of the stairs, his hand lingering over his holstered pistol as he started up.
Rick looked down to the Frenchman as the Moroccan stepped forward. "It appears the natives are getting restless, Louis."
"That or you’ve managed to catch yourself a worm already, Rick." Louis unclasped the holster cover and drew his gun.
"I was told you could get me out of Casablanca," the stranger said.
Rick turned back to his door and slipped the key into the lock. "You were told wrong."
"He doesn’t sound like a local, Rick."
"He’s not, unless we were in Texas."
The man took another step, pulling the wrap from his head and pushing the cloak over one shoulder. "I’m American," he confirmed. "A mutual friend gave me your name."
"I’m impressed," Rick answered, pausing in the doorway. "I don’t have many friends, let alone the mutual kind. Does this… mutual… friend have a name?"
"Pedro Filipez," the man replied, his voice low.
Rick nodded. "I remember Pedro. I heard he was dead."
"He was alive when I left him."
"I see... Do you have that effect on everyone or just the mutually friendly?"
Louis walked up the stairs, chuckling but with his gun trained at the intruder. "Everybody comes to Casablanca, my young friend, but it’s not so easy to get out once you’re here. Ask Rick. He’s been here forever."
"But not for much longer," the young man suggested, a small knowing smile lightening his face.
Louis and Rick exchanged worried glances.
"Look. I just need papers and passage out of here. I don’t care how, I don’t care where to, so long as it’s off this continent."
"Who’re you on the run from, kid?" The man was young and dangerous. Rick could see that easily. But how desperate was he and what damage could he do to plans already in motion? And if Pedro did indeed send him… well, he and Pedro had been close friends. Rick Baine owed the Spaniard many things, including his life.
"No one from around here…"
"But someone with long arms no doubt," Renault interrupted. "I could just arrest him, Rick, and throw him in jail. We still haven’t found Major Strasser’s murderer…"
"No," Rick blurted. "We’ll think of something. We’ve got time. Meanwhile, let’s have a drink… for Pedro." Rick motioned the men into his room. "You got a name, Tex?"
"Tanner. Vin Tanner."
Renault was the last to enter, sighing as he closed the door behind him and muttering under his breath. "Everybody comes to Rick’s."
It was hot. Hot outside, hot inside; hot every damn place. Chris Larabee had decided, within moments of first stepping foot on African soil, the next time he went anywhere it would be somewhere that the sun shone at a reasonable temperature, the ground didn’t burn through his shoes and the air didn’t sear his lungs every time he took a breath. Some place nice and cool, like the Arctic. That was nearly a year ago and since then he’d been to hell and back and was still searing his lungs in Africa. He sat now beneath the slow moving ceiling fans of the Blue Parrot Café. The owner, a big fat man in a white suit, hovered on the edge of his vision. Larabee had managed to keep him away so far with a few well-placed warning glares, but he doubted the man would stay back much longer. His kind rarely did and Chris Larabee had dealt with plenty of his kind in the not-too-distant and murky past. He sipped his whisky and waited.
Not for long.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Larabee. Welcome to the Blue Parrot Café."
Chris brought his cigarette to his lips, his eyes squinting from the smoke and ignored the intrusion.
"My name is Ferrari. I own this fine establishment…" Ferrari paused as the other man sniffed in derision. "I also own the Café Americain. Anything you want in Casablanca… I can get it for you." He tapped his chest proudly and gestured to a passing waiter. "Get my friend here another drink… on the house," he ordered.
"I’m not your friend," Chris said in a low voice.
The waiter paused. Ferrari, not deterred, nodded and waved him away before looking back down at Christopher Larabee. The man had garnered a dangerous reputation over the past few years as a mercenary in Crete and Egypt, most recently in Libya. Ferrari made it his business to know the who and why about everyone arriving in Casablanca. His face remained placid as he pulled out the vacant chair at the mercenary’s table. He knew the who and was determined that he’d soon know the why.
"Perhaps not friends yet, but who knows what the future may bring. May I join you?"
Chris’s smile showed bared teeth but little warmth as he shook his head. "Be my guest." He lifted his glass and emptied it in one swallow. "I’m passing through, Ferrari. I got nothing you want and you got nothing I want."
The waiter placed a fresh glass of pure malt whisky down on the table. Chris laughed once and picked it up. "Well, maybe one thing," he said.
Vin Tanner was standing behind the sandal maker’s stall making his goodbyes. Tarak and his family had saved his life by getting him to Casablanca.
"May Allah give you calm, " Tarak farewelled his friend. "Lots of it, but stay on your guard. Neither the American or the Frenchman is completely trustworthy."
"And you, Tarak. Don’t worry, old friend, I’ll be careful. Once I have those papers I’ll be on the next flight out of here and on my way home before you go to evening prayers."
The two men shook hands and hugged briefly before Tanner pulled away and slipped around the side of the stall.
"If Allah wills it, my young friend. Only if Allah wills it," Tarak said with foreboding. He believed Allah had a plan for the young American and whether that included safe passage home or not, he was not too sure. As a sudden upsurge in noise and a chorus of shouts lifted in the air, Tarak whispered, "Allah is great," and then he grabbed the ear of his youngest son and dragged the boy from behind a curtain of sandals waiting to be sold, staring darkly into the child’s face. "Allah will provide, but not if you continue to shirk your duties and skulk in places you have no business being."
The boy shrank before the angry face of his father, but was saved from further retribution by continued yelling from the other side of the stall.
"Go find your uncles, quickly boy. There may be more trouble for our friend after all."
The boy rubbed his sore ear and ran off to do his father’s bidding, relieved that whatever had happened had saved him from further punishment.
Vin Tanner stood and watched as first a black man in western clothing ran past followed by three German soldiers and two Italian. Minutes later a small detachment of Germans rushed up the street. Tanner stopped one of the Moroccans hurrying after the Germans and asked what was happening.
"A German officer was killed last night. The police have been rounding up suspects all morning. The Germans believe the murderer was an American."
"The man they’re chasing…?"
"Is an American. He probably didn’t do it, but he is American and that is enough."
The man disappeared into the growing crowd before Vin could ask any more questions, but he’d heard enough. He glanced up at the sun. It was getting late, time to leave. Baine and Renault were waiting on the opposite side of town. They would not wait long.
Vin slung his pack over one shoulder and, slipping around the edges of the crowd followed the path of the Germans and their quarry. He was already gone when Tarak came around the side of the stall. The stocky Berber looked both ways up the street – toward the crowd and then back the way his friend was meant to travel. He stopped someone to hear the news, shook his head in despair, and retrieved an old rifle from behind the display of sandals then followed after the young American he knew too well.
Chris Larabee was gazing out the window, not really seeing anything, when the first shouts filtered through from outside. He stood and went to the door, remaining in the shadows as he looked out. He saw the black man running past – saw his face full of fear and desperation – and knew the man was running for his life. The soldiers that followed were angry and determined. Not good, Chris thought. Man’s as good as dead. He stepped out into the street to watch what would happen next. The man had run into the only part of the market square with no easy way out.
"I didn’t do it!" the man yelled loudly, his back to a pockmarked wall. He’d run through twisted alleyways and narrow streets, over walls and up steep stairwells, with the Germans hot on his heels the whole way. His dark face was smeared with dirt and sweat; his light-coloured shirt stained where the thin cloth touched his heaving chest. "I didn’t kill him, I swear!" he puffed. He was exhausted and even if he weren’t trapped he doubted he could run another step. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and watched without hope as the soldiers lined up in front of him and drew their weapons. Surely they weren’t just going to shoot him down in the street? Oh, God! He prayed. Not this way, please… The man sank to his knees, his legs too weak and quivering from the long run to hold him up any longer.
Chris’s head jerked up when he heard the man speak. An American? He pushed his way through the crowd to get a closer look, listening to the whispers of the onlookers as he made his way to the edge of the square. A wide open space was left clear behind the soldiers, as if getting any closer might bring the wrath of the revenge-driven men down on one or all of the bystanders. Chris reached this invisible barrier and stopped. On the other side of the square he saw two Moroccans, dressed differently than most of the Arabs milling around, and apparently arguing in fierce whispers. The younger of the two shot an angry look at the Germans and the American they had baled up, said a few final words and pulled his arms back sharply. Chris saw then that both men had hold of a rifle and with the younger’s firm movement the older let go and dropped his hands.
The man now in possession of the rifle looked up and across the square, directly into the eyes of Chris Larabee. Chris smiled knowingly and shifted his jacket back slightly to show his holstered pistol. The Moroccan nodded and returned the smile. The two men crossed the open space, meeting in the middle and then strolling, almost casually, closer to the soldiers.
Chris pulled his gun free of its holster and used it to tap one of the soldiers on the shoulder. When the German turned, Chris pushed the pistol barrel into the man’s face. "He said he didn’t do it."
The German was indignant at the interruption and made to pull back. His fellow soldiers half-turned to investigate the threat from behind, but the resounding click of a rifle being loaded and readied stopped all movement. When he spoke again Larabee’s quiet voice sounded loud in the sudden silence of the market square. "Let him go."
"This man is implicated in the murder of Major Strasser. He is under arrest and you…"
Chris’s gun pushed harder under the man’s cheekbone and the German grunted in pain, any further words cut off.
"You’re not listening. He didn’t do it. He wasn’t there. Now, let him loose." Chris’s demand was punctuated by the hammer of the pistol being slowly pulled back. The German looked once into this new American’s face and seeing only his own death if he didn’t comply, nodded painfully and commanded his men to stand down.
One of the Germans refused and ran toward the black man, a pistol drawn and aimed at the man’s head. The exhausted man could do nothing but stare as the gun barrel loomed in front of him. A rifle barked once. The gun barrel disappeared and the German was stumbling away holding his hand. The American sagged in shocked relief and held his head in his hands. That was too close. Too damn close! Thank you, God.
Vin’s rifle covered the rest of the men while Chris snarled a warning to get out of the square. The Germans backed away and escaped into the crowd of jeering locals. Morocco was still part of France and the Germans had no particular power in this section of Africa. There was nothing else they could do – yet.
"Name’s Chris," the American mercenary said to the scruffy looking local who could shoot like the devil himself.
"Vin Tanner," the man answered, allowing a small grin to appear on his face at the other man’s surprise.
"You’re American?" Chris questioned. "The other guy?" Chris looked around for Tanner’s friend.
"No, he’s the real thing… you new in town?" Vin was pretty sure he knew all of the Americans in Casablanca at the moment, if not by face then at least by name, but he hadn’t known about this one. Or about the black guy. He looked over to the man they’d just rescued and started walking across to him.
"This morning. Just passing through. You?" Chris followed the surprising young man to the other now seated and leaning against the wall that had trapped him.
"Two days ago. On my way out." Vin glanced skyward. "Damn." He was late.
Maybe too late.
Rick Baine and Louis Renault waited, as arranged, on the edge of town. Renault pulled out a silver fob watch and eyed it with a mocking expression. "Your new friend is late, Rickie, and we really cannot wait any longer."
Rick’s gaze was fixed back up the alley where the Texan should have appeared over ten minutes ago. There was no time for this, no time to be late. They would have to leave him. He turned sharply on his heel and walked around to the driver’s side of the car the two men planned to drive to the Free French garrison. Renault had stripped it of any marks that identified it as belonging to the French police before stealing it from the police station, amused that he was in fact, stealing the vehicle from himself. The Frenchman shrugged at his ousting as designated driver and opened the passenger door for himself.
Before Rick could start the engine though, a man in a coarse cloak, his face half-covered came running down the alley.
"He made it after all," Rick started to say, pausing when he realised that this man might be dressed the same, but was much bigger and too heavy of build to be their expected travelling companion.
"Wait!" Tarak called out, waving one hand in the air. He ran in front of the car and rested his hands on the hood as if he would prevent it from leaving with his own body if needed. "He’ll be here. Something happened in town. He is only delayed," the man said, speaking in Berber then switching to French at the blank expressions of the two men.
"What happened? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. What happens in Casablanca doesn’t concern me anymore," Rick said.
Renault placed a restraining hand on the American’s arm. "Perhaps it was the Senator come for his wife?" he suggested sardonically. Rick gave him a sideways glance and shrugged. "Tell us what happened?" Renault said to the Berber now making his way around the side of the car.
"The Germans are looking for the man who murdered their officer. They chased the suspect into the souk and cornered him. My friend went to stop them. It is already over. He will be here soon."
Renault raised his eyebrows and smiled. "A man who sticks his neck out?"
Rick turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. He put it into gear and started forward.
"No. You must wait," Tarak tried again, but the car did not stop.
"I stick my neck out for nobody," Rick said as he turned the corner and left the man standing in the street.
Tarak looked after them angrily before turning away to go tell Tanner he was stuck in Casablanca a little longer. His foot kicked at something on the ground and he bent down to pick it up.
It was a leather billfold containing a wad of American dollars and transit papers for one.
JD Dunne’s train had arrived in Casablanca from Oran in Algeria the same afternoon Rick Baine had driven away from the busy port with Louis Renault. Though he didn’t know it yet, he was left at a loss, having letters of introduction in his possession that were to assure him of work, or at least a few contacts in his trip across the continent; letters that were all but useless. A freelance photographer, the young man had lugged his heavy equipment across half that continent already and still managed to retain a certain enthusiastic naiveté that often led others to underestimate both his determination and abilities.
His timing wasn’t completely off; he and his cameras had been caught up in the crowd moving through the market place and neatly deposited just a few feet from where two men had faced down the Germans and saved the life of another man. Dunne had been fiddling with cameras and taking pictures for most of his life. His favourite camera, slung over his shoulder and practically a permanent appendage, was in his hands and focussing on the action without any thought on JD’s part. The camera clicked and moved and clicked again, capturing the fear and exhaustion on the hunted man’s face, the anger and sheer cussedness on his saviours’.
As the lens focussed on the tall blonde threatening the head German, the photographer couldn’t help but feel the German had only to breathe wrong and the blonde would blow his head off. JD had jumped when the rifle had gone off, his ears ringing as the sound echoed along the wall he now shared with the black American.
JD half-crawled on one knee, closer and closer until he could smell the sweat on the saved man and hear the muttered words from the third man, who until now, the photographer had taken for a local. There was no denying the accent, even though the words were low, and JD automatically swung the camera around to capture the face of the disguised American.
"Get that camera the hell away!" Vin hissed. The dark-haired photographer was only inches from the three men, not caring that at least two of those men were armed and still in the mood to shoot.
Larabee reached out and pulled the camera from JD’s hands. Snapping the back open and still with his pistol in his hand, he drew out the film in one long, winding ribbon of useless celluloid.
"No!" JD protested, trying to grab the camera back.
Tanner snapped his rifle up and aimed it at the young man. "No photographs."
The man on the ground took that moment to stand and, with one hand restraining the angry photographer pushed the other one out, palm up in a gesture of friendship and gratitude.
"Thanks for your help. Must be my lucky day," he said. "My name’s Nathan Jackson."
Chris grinned. "You call this lucky?" He holstered his gun, but kept hold of the camera, and shook the other man’s hand.
Nathan shrugged. "Could have been worse. If you two hadn’t shown up I’d be dead." He turned to Vin, hand extended.
The rifle barrel dropped to point harmlessly at the ground as Vin took Nathan’s hand in a firm grip. "Vin Tanner."
"I’m JD Dunne," the photographer said, sticking his hand out. "And that’s my camera."
Chris shook the young man’s hand and gave him back his camera. "Name’s Larabee."
"Why did you do that to the film? You’ve just ruined every shot."
"He’s camera shy," Vin answered for him, refraining from extending his own hand, but nodding instead. "Look," he then said, "this has been swell, but I’m late for an appointment. Nice to meet ya, Nate." He patted Nathan on the shoulder and turned to Larabee. He touched his index finger to his forehead in a casual salute, "Cowboy," and left.
"Did he just call me a cowboy?" Chris asked, slightly nonplussed at the casualness of the other man’s farewell – as if they’d known each other for years instead of only minutes.
"Yes, he did, Mr. Larabee," JD said, still frowning at the roll of exposed film overflowing from his hand.
Chris had started to move away when Nathan grabbed his arm. "I mean it, thanks. I was a goner for sure."
"Did you kill that German?" Chris asked.
"I’m a healer down in Bidonville with the missionaries, not a murderer…"
"Wrong place at the wrong time?" JD interrupted. He’d shoved the film into his pocket and hooked the camera back over his shoulder. "Where we going now?"
"We?" Chris asked, giving Jackson an amused look at the youth’s forwardness.
Jackson shrugged. He was suddenly very thirsty. "Saloon?"
JD looked hopeful.
"Saloon," Chris agreed.
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