Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery Read Online Free PDF Page A

’ s very nice of you. Wha t’ll you have? ’
    They had their usual Scotch, Adams ’ s with soda.
    ‘ Any news from your friend? ’ Adams asked.
    ‘ No, I ’ m sorry to say. ’
    ‘ Can ’ t you send a telegram to someone who knows him? ’
    ‘I’ ve done that. ’ Ingham meant Ina.
    The boy called Mokta, a waiter at the bungalows ’ bar- café , knocked on the open door, smiling his wide, friendly smile. ‘ Good evening, messieurs, ’ he said in French. Is there anything you have need of? ’
    ‘ I think nothing, thanks, ’ Ingham said.
    ‘ You would like breakfast at what time, sir? ’
    ‘ Oh, you serve breakfast? ’
    It is not necessary to take it .’ Mokta said with a quick gesture, ‘ but many of the people in the bungalows take it. ’ ‘ All right, at nine o ’ clock, then, ’ Ingham said. ‘ No, eight-thirty. ’ The breakfast would probably be late.
    ‘ Nice boy, Mokta, ’ Adams said when Mokta had left. ‘ And they really work them here. Have you seen the kitchen in that place? ’ He gestured towards the low, square building that was the bungalows ’ café — with-terrace. ‘ And the room where they sleep there? ’
    Ingham smiled. ‘ Yes. ’ He had had a glimpse today. The boys slept in a room that was a field often or twelve jammed-together beds. The sink in the kitchen had been full of dirty water and dishes.
    ‘ The drains are always stopped up, you know. I make my own breakfast I imagine it ’ s a little more sanitary. Mokta ’ s nice. But that sour-puss directrice works him to death. She ’ s a German, probably only hired because she can speak Arabic and French. If they ’ re out of towels, it ’ s Mokta who has to go to the main building and get them. — How ’ re you doing on your book? ’
    ‘ I ’ ve done twenty pages. Not as fast as my usual rate, but I can ’ t complain. ’ Ingham was grateful for Adams ’ s interest He had found out that Adams wasn ’ t a writer or a journalist, but he still didn ’ t know what Adams did, except study Russian in a casual way. Maybe Adams didn ’ t do anything. That was possible, of course.
    ‘ It must be hard, writing when you think each day you ’ ll have to drop it, ’ Adams said.
    ‘ That doesn ’ t bother me too much. ’ Ingham replenished Adams ’ s drink. He served Adams crackers and cheese. The bungalow began to seem more attractive. The waning sunlight shone through half-open, pale-blue shutters on to the white walls. Ingham thought that he and John might spend no more than ten days on the script John knew someone in Tunis who could help him in finding the small cast John wanted amateurs.
    He and Adams were in good spirits when they went off in Ingham ’ s car to have dinner at Melik ’ s. The terrace was half full, not noisy as yet. Someone was strumming a guitar, someone else tootling a flute hesitan tl y at a back table-Adams talked about his daughter Caroline in Tulsa, Her husband, the engineer, was about to be sent off to Vietnam, as he was in some kind of civilian army reserve. Caroline was due to have a baby within five months, and Adams was pleased and hopeful, because her first child had miscarried. Adams was pro-Vietnam War, Ingham had discovered early on. Ingham was sick of it, sick of discussing it with people like Adams, and he was glad Adams did not say anything else about the war that evening. Democracy and God, those were the things Adams believed in. It wasn ’ t Christian Science or Rosicrucianism with Adams — at least not so far — but a sort of Billy Graham, all-round God with an old-fashioned moral code thrown in. What the Vietnamese needed, Adams said in appallingly plain words, was the American kind of democracy. Besides the American kind of democracy, Ingham thought, the Americans were introducing the Vietnamese to the capitalist system in the form of a brothel industry, and to the American class system by making the Negroes pay higher for their lays. Ingham listened,