Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

She drove past farm fields on the coastal highway that divided Byblos’s old city from the more modern part of town, thinking maybe she should take some time off. Do a little sightseeing. See the Crusader castle or the Roman ruins or maybe stop off at one of the seaside hotels. Wouldn’t that be good? Go out on the beach, let her bare feet feel the sand. Sit in a beach lounge and have a waiter bring her a margarita and watch the seabirds fly and dip toward the water as they spotted a fish and-

Pay attention! she thought, sitting up and focusing on the road. When was the last time she’d had her pill? Was she really feeling this way or was it one of her flights coming on?

Shit!

Focus, Carrie. It’s the bipolar doing the thinking, not you, she told herself. Think. Rana, who was both Fielding’s girlfriend and Dima’s friend, had called Nightingale. It was like closing an electrical circuit. She needed to be sharp now. She couldn’t drift. That bullshit about the beach. It’s the missing clozapine that’s talking. Time to get more at the pharmacy on Rue Nakhle. She needed to get back to Beirut before they closed. She had to get her meds. And she had to pay attention. The last time she’d dealt with Nightingale he’d nearly kidnapped or killed her. He wasn’t someone she could take on without having her wits about her.

And then there was the third woman in the photograph. Another mystery. She checked her watch.

If she stepped on it, she just had time to get back to Beirut, get to the Rue Nakhle pharmacy, then meet Virgil. And find Marielle Hilal, the third woman in the photograph. She shook her head to clear it and, going around a slow-moving car, pressed her foot down on the accelerator.

Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

It was late; the pharmacy was just about to close when she got there, the shop windows along the street glowing with neon in the night. She handed the pharmacist, a bald middle-aged Lebanese man with a fringe of white hair, her old prescription. He barely glanced at it.

“This is out of date, mademoiselle,” he said.

“Here’s my new one,” she said, putting two hundred dollars U.S. on the counter. He looked at it but didn’t pick it up. “ Min fathleki ,” she added. Please. She didn’t have to fake the desperation in her voice; it was already there.

He glanced the door, then swept the money into his pocket. He went in back and while she waited she thought about Virgil’s news. Rana was to meet Nightingale tomorrow in Baalbek, the town with the famous Roman ruins in the Beqaa Valley, about eighty-five kilometers northeast of Beirut. The three of them, her, Virgil and Ziad, would also be there.

The pharmacist came back. He was holding two containers of pills.

“You understand these are serious?” he said.

“I know, shokran ,” she said, thanking him.

“You should be tested. The side effects can be very bad.”

“I know. But I’ve been taking them for years without any problems,” she said, thinking, Just give it to me, dammit. Her heart was beating a mile a minute; the street was already becoming a maze of moving patterns and if she didn’t get one inside her soon, she didn’t know what she would do. Murder the bastard.

“No more old prescriptions, mademoiselle. Next time, I will insist,” he said.

“I understand, assayid . Thank you so much.” She was thinking, What does he want, a blow job? Please, just give them to me.

“Good night, mademoiselle,” he said, handing them to her in a little plastic bag.

“Bye,” she said, not looking back as she headed out the door. She stopped at a neighborhood grocery bakkal a few doors down just as he was shuttering for the night, bought a bottle of water and washed a pill down. She checked her watch. Just after nine. The nighttime city was coming alive. The streets were clogged with traffic and noisy horns from drivers.

The question now was whether she could find Marielle. The third woman.

The address she had from the photographer, Abou Murad, for Marielle Hilal was on Rue Mar Yousef in Bourj Hammoud, the Armenian quarter. It was in a six-story building on a crowded street just a few blocks from the Municipality building. There was a hole-in-the-wall kebab restaurant on the ground floor with the building door right next to it. Someone had strung a red-blue-and-yellow-striped Armenian flag over the street. She used a credit card slipped between the door lock and the jamb to unlock the apartment building’s front door.

Going up the stairs-there was no elevator-she could smell the roast kebabs from the restaurant. The hallway was dark and there was no timed light. She found the apartment and lit her cell phone to see the name handwritten in Arabic on a piece of tape pasted on the doorpost of the apartment door. It wasn’t “Hilal” or anything like it. She listened at the door. Someone was watching television. It sounded like a popular show about a beautiful woman journalist in the middle of a divorce. She knocked. No answer. After a minute, she knocked again and the door opened.

A thin woman with streaked blond hair, in jeans and a red B018 Club T-shirt-she must have been in her forties-opened the door.

“ Aiwa, what is it?” the woman asked in Arabic.

“I’m looking for Marielle,” Carrie said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no Marielle here,” the woman said.

“Please, madame. I’m a friend of hers and Dima Hamdan’s. I have to see her. It’s urgent.”

“I told you. There’s no such person here,” the woman said.

“Is that Kinda ?” Carrie asked, talking about the TV show. “I like that show.”

The woman nodded. “It’s good,” she said, and started to close the door. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“Wait! Could you at least give her a message? Her life is in danger,” Carrie said, stepping into the doorway so the woman couldn’t close the door.

“Whoever you are, go away! I don’t know any Marielle Hilal!” the woman snapped.

Carrie looked at her. I’ve got you, she thought, thinking, thank God she’d gotten her meds or she wouldn’t have caught it.

“How did you know her family name was Hilal? I didn’t say it,” she said.

The woman stood there, her face working. She looked around as if for a weapon.

“If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police,” she said.

“Go ahead.” Carrie crossed her arms. “You’re hiding something. I think we both know the last thing you want is the police.”

The woman hesitated, stepped out into the hallway to make sure Carrie was alone, then let her in. They stood awkwardly in the foyer; after a moment the woman led her into the living room.

“How do you know Marielle?” the woman asked, turning to confront her.

“I know Rana and Dima,” Carrie said.

“How do you know Dima?”

“From Le Gray and the fashion photographer François Abou Murad-and other places.”

The woman stood there, calculating.

“You said Marielle’s life was in danger. What did you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean or you wouldn’t be trying to protect her. I have to talk to her.” She decided to take a chance. “Dima is dead, madame.”

The woman stared at her, stunned. “Dead? What are you saying?”

“I have to talk to Marielle. It is unbelievably urgent.”

“You’re American?” she asked, studying her.

“Yes. I’m Carrie. A friend.”

“Wait here,” she said, and went to a bedroom. Carrie assumed she was calling Marielle. It was puzzling. The woman-she assumed she was a relative of Marielle’s-didn’t look Armenian, and looking around, there was no sign of a cross or pictures of Mount Ararat or anything Armenian, so why did she live in Bourj Hammoud? Except, Carrie thought, everyone knew everyone here. They were aware of outsiders. Maybe Marielle lived near here for safety. On the TV, Kinda was being threatened by a man in a business suit. The woman came back.