Murder in Jerusalem (19 page)

“So what usually happened?” Michael persisted. “Did one person prepare the drinks for everyone? Or what?”

“Sometimes, and sometimes not. Sometimes we have bourekas or cookies,” Zadik said irritably. “Sometimes someone asks who wants what, sometimes they make it for themselves. Come on, already, who pays attention to things like that anyway?”

“I know that people don't pay attention, it's true. When everything's fine, people don't pay attention. But in this case I'm asking that you try to remember.”

“Remember what? Who made Matty Cohen's coffee for him? That's what you want me to remember?”

Michael nodded.

“I did, okay? Are you satisfied? Don't look at me like that, I'm telling you: I made his coffee myself. What's wrong with that?”

“You made it, and you gave it to him? With your own hands?” Michael asked.

“Exactly,” Zadik said. “What's wrong with that? You think that because I'm the big boss, I can't make coffee for my friends? I haven't got a fat head. I haven't forgotten where I come from.”

“With your own hands?” Michael repeated.

“What, what about my own hands?” Zadik bellowed. “I put it on the table in front of his seat. Anything wrong with that?”

“We need to check that coffee,” Michael informed him. “It's standard procedure, just like an autopsy.”

“What? What?” Zadik said. “What autopsy? Who requested an autopsy?”

“Hmmm, just so,” Michael said, clearing his throat. “We did. We spoke with Matty Cohen's wife. At first glance it looks like a heart attack, but his doctor gave him a checkup just two or three weeks ago, and everything was fine. His wife says he felt really good these past few days, he'd even started a diet. This was quite unexpected.”

Zadik thought for a moment. “There's no need for an autopsy. I'm telling you, it was a heart attack. I'd bet a month's salary on it.”

“Maybe,” Michael said. “It's certainly possible, it stands to reason. But just to be absolutely certain—”

The door flew open, and Aviva stood there, staring at Zadik. “Excuse me,” she said, tossing off a small smile in Michael's direction, “I didn't want to disturb you, but first of all, Benizri is here—you asked him to see you the minute he arrived. I'm a wreck, Zadik, a total wreck. Everyone here—he's been waiting fifteen minutes already. And second, there's some guy on the phone, he won't give me his name, but he says—”

“Can't you see what's happening here? Right now I can't—do me a favor Aviva, take care of—”

“So what should I tell him?” Aviva demanded. “He's been waiting on the phone. Benizri's waiting, too.”

“We're almost through here—tell Benizri to wait. The guy on the phone, too, tell him to wait. What's it about, anyway? Why—” He looked at Michael and Eli Bachar. “All right, I've told you everything I know, and you can take anything you need with you. If there's going to be an autopsy, well—never mind, I'll go pay her a visit later anyway.”

“Who? Who are you going to visit?” Aviva asked from the doorway. “And what about all these people—”

“Malka, Matty's wife. What, you think I shouldn't visit her?” Zadik leaned on the table and shoved his chair out from under him. Danny Benizri appeared in the doorway.

“Come on in, Danny,” Zadik called to him. “Did you hear about Matty Cohen? Did you hear what happened to him?”

Danny Benizri nodded, his expression grave. “Yes, I heard, that's really awful.”

Zadik sighed. “I don't know how we'll manage with all this…. Butyou, you did a great job, excellent work. Come here, let me give you a hug. Did you guys see him?” Zadik asked Michael and Eli Bachar, who had already risen from their chairs and were on their way to the door. “Did you see how he handled the situation, how he saved the whole operation? Afterward, people come to complain. If we hadn't been there, who knows what might have happened.”

“About Matty Cohen,” Benizri asked, “was it his heart?”

Zadik confirmed the news by spreading his arms wide to his side.

“I don't know what to say,” Benizri said.

Zadik's face grew serious. “There's nothing
to
say.” He bent his head forward and back, rolled his eyes, and added, on a philosophical bent, “What can you possibly say? A man's days are like chaff in the wind, that's all there is to say. That, and don't smoke. Quit smoking. How did things end out there? I understand they hauled them off.”

“The minister was moved to Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem. Shimshi and the others were taken into custody and driven off in a police van.”

“Well, that was to be expected,” Zadik said. “Here, have a cigar.” He handed a large box of cigars to Danny Benizri, who selected one and eyed it with suspicion. “Cigars are not for observing,” Zadik informed him. “They don't
do
anything: smell it at least.” He waited for Benizri to stick it between his teeth and lit a match from one of the packets in a large glass bowl sitting at the edge of his desk. “Want one, too?” he asked Michael, who was standing by the door waiting for Zadik to open it.

“No, thanks,” Michael answered. “Each man to his own poison.”

Zadik grimaced, took hold of the doorknob, and waited for them to pass through.

“Can I call you after two this afternoon?” Michael asked. Zadik nodded, closing the door after them.

Outside the office Michael could hear Zadik muttering, “It's incomprehensible: a guy just falls down dead…”

Arye Rubin was standing in the secretary's office by the door to the little office next door, whispering to Natasha; Eli Bachar observed them while Michael took the package from Aviva's desk. “It's lucky they left the cups here. We're always getting annoyed when they don't come to clear up, but this time it's just lucky that everything remained here. You can never know what's best.” Aviva sighed. “I wrapped them up in a manila envelope and then in a plastic bag. I didn't touch anything. First in a manila envelope and then in a plastic bag, just like the movies. And I didn't touch a thing, only the plastic. Was that okay?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.

“Excellent,” Michael said.

“I just don't understand why you need it,” Aviva said, turning her head to the side and fluffing out her curls. “And I wanted to know if you need anything else. Zadik told me to give you anything you need—people's phone numbers, addresses—” Her voice was soft and playful, and Eli Bachar noticed the curiosity that appeared on Arye Rubin's face as he shifted his gaze to Michael Ohayon, as if suddenly something had caught his interest.

“Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon,” Rubin said, “I didn't tell you this before, but I'm an old fan of yours. Ask her,” he said, nodding toward Aviva. “I've told her so many times.” Aviva nodded vigorously.

“Really?” Michael asked, embarrassed. “I don't know that we…I thought…”

“What are you so surprised about?” Rubin asked. “I spent the civilian service portion of my army duty on Kibbutz M.,” he said, mentioning the murder that had taken place there. “While a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, and you could say that today the kibbutz as an institution is anachronistic, back then it was the first time the police had investigated a kibbutz murder, the first time in fact that they had entered the gates. I could tell you about two or three other cases that didn't make it to the police, that were solved locally. Natasha, come meet Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon. It won't be the last time.” Michael shook her dry, bony hand and introduced Eli Bachar as well.

“Can we go in?” Rubin asked Aviva. “I'm sure Benizri won't mind if we're there, and it'll speed things up a bit, don't you think? What do you say, Aviva? We made an appointment for ten o'clock, and in the meantime people are dropping like flies around here.”

Aviva shrugged. “I don't know what's so urgent, Rubin,” she said, tossing a cool look at Natasha. “People are dying, and you people are wrapped up in your own affairs. Anyway, go ahead and try.”

Rubin put his hand on the doorknob, but Zadik beat him to it and pulled open the door from inside. He was standing there, one hand on the shoulder of the correspondent for labor and social affairs, his puffy face unusually ashen. “Rubin,” he said gravely, “we have another funeral, have you heard?” Rubin nodded. “What a tragedy,” Zadik said, mopping his brow. “But what do you say about this guy, huh, our own Benizri?” he asked, trying to sound festive. “In the midst of all these tragedies, what do you say about him?”

“Well done,” Rubin said absently. “Mind you, you'll have to follow up on those workers,” he told Benizri. “Reporting during a crisis, at the height of the drama, is no big deal; the real work will be afterward. But you showed a lot of courage out there.”

“Not courage,” Benizri said modestly. “That's the job, I learned it from you. Absolutely from you. What you said about follow-up, well, I just came from police headquarters. Shimshi's wife and the other wives are already there, what a mob scene! I promised them I'd speak with the minister about dropping the charges, otherwise they'll be up on criminal charges.”

“Don't waste your time,” Rubin said. “They'll be up on criminal charges no matter what, it's not in her hands. Kidnapping and intent to kill? It's already been handed to the State Prosecutor's Office, you've got nothing—”

“I promised,” Benizri said, “I have no choice.”

“Where's the minister hospitalized? Hadassah? Matty Cohen's wife Malka is there, too, with their son,” Zadik said. “I'll go over there with you. Wait for me a minute, will you, I just have to finish up with—” The telephone on Aviva's desk rang just as Zadik pointed to Rubin and Natasha and moved aside to let them pass into his office.

“What? Who?” Aviva was asking into the phone. “I can barely hear you. Who is this?”

She listened for a moment in silence, a disconcerted look on her face. “Zadik,” she called out, “Zadik, hang on a minute, it's—”

“Don't bother me now, Aviva,” Zadik said, his hand on the doorknob. “Take care of it yourself. Make decisions, for once be a self-starter, okay?” Without looking at her, he entered his office and closed the door.

Aviva looked at the telephone and said into the mouthpiece, “Hello? Hello?” But the line had gone dead. She laid the receiver gently in its cradle, sat down, and looked around her. “I haven't eaten a crumb today, haven't gotten a single thing into my mouth yet,” she said aloud to the silent room, which was momentarily empty. Listlessly, she removed a plastic container from her large purse, placed it in front of herself on the desk, opened it, and peered inside as if she did not know what was there. After a moment she sighed, pulled out one carrot stick and then another along with two thin stalks of celery, gave them a piteous look, stared straight ahead, and began, slowly, to chew.

N
o one seemed to notice the mobile unit as it made its way to the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Schreiber examined the signature he had scribbled on a request form—for equipment, a cameraman, a soundman, and a lighting technician for an interview by Arye Rubin with Dr. Landau, the physician on whom Rubin was focusing his report about doctors who cooperated with and abetted the Shin Bet—then shoved it into the glove compartment. The interview had actually taken place—there was documentation to prove it—but Schreiber had stolen time from a second interview, with the hospital spokesman. When the spokesman had caught sight of Arye Rubin and the camera behind him at the entrance to his office, he had listened to a single question before slamming the door shut. That was why there was extra time, unaccounted for, that enabled Schreiber to commandeer the mobile unit.

“Over there,” Natasha told him excitedly. “It's the second building over, see it? The one with the stone fence and the sign about charitable contributions.” The whole way there a lump of apprehension had clogged her throat. What if Schreiber suddenly had a change of heart? What if they paged him? True, he had shut off his cell phone, but they could reach him on the beeper. Schreiber, for his part, had tried to calm her fears, had told her he had left explicit instructions that he was going to sleep and would be turning his beeper off, but not for a single minute did her misgivings let up, misgivings that he would have had enough, that he would suddenly say, That's it, I'm sick of this, and take off, dropping her at her house and disappearing. After all, what did he have to gain from all this? Just thinking about the possibility gave her a sour feeling of anxiety in her stomach. How was it that nobody believed she could bring in something important, that her work was truly serious? How was it that only by asking favors could she…why did they think she had nothing worthwhile to say?

To stop herself thinking so much, she glanced at her watch. She had another two hours until she had to report to police headquarters in the Russian Compound. The green-eyed cop had told her it was an interrogation, but the other one, the tall guy with the dark, narrow face and the thick eyebrows, the one who always had an unlit cigarette in his hand and who hid it behind his back each time someone tried to light it—“Not now,” he would tell them pleasantly, “I'm trying to cut back”—that one had apologized, changing “interrogation” to “a chat.” And when Natasha had asked him whether it was absolutely necessary for her to come in, he had smiled at her as though she were a little girl and told her she had watched too many police shows on television. Of course she did not
have
to, he had said, emphasizing his words and causing her to feel slightly embarrassed, but why wouldn't she be willing to help them shed light on the circumstances of Tirzah's death? He was certain that she would be eager to help in the matter of Matty Cohen's death as well. He had inclined his head to one side, studied her with interest, and reminded her that they had summoned everyone who had been in the String Building or the main building, and that everyone had agreed willingly. Why would she be unwilling to come, he had asked, staring into her eyes with that look she had already noticed earlier, a dark, sad, look, very wise but sad. It was the downward slope of his eyelids that made him look sad, she realized now as she caught sight of Schreiber glancing in the side-view mirror. When you looked into the guy's eyes, you could see he was intelligent, and powerful too—maybe it wasn't power, but strength. He had looked into her eyes as though he was learning her, like she'd seen once in a science fiction movie where this character is just walking along looking at people when all of a sudden everyone's inner thoughts flash really, really fast in front of his eyes. She didn't understand what he wanted her for anyway, why he had asked to speak with her and what he hoped to get out of her. Maybe it was all because of Hefetz, who had given her an imploring look from the corner of the room when she was talking to the two police officers. Everyone noticed how he stared at her. On the other hand, Hefetz always stared at her like that, or at least had been for the past two days, since she'd told him it was over between them. For her, the breakup with Hefetz had been easy, she really was sick and tired of the whole complicated affair, sick of his shiftiness and his fear of his wife. “It's about time,” Schreiber had said when he'd started the van and asked what was happening with Hefetz and she had replied, frigidly, “Who's Hefetz?” Schreiber had laughed. “Thank God,” he said. “It's about time you started acting like a human being and thinking that you're worth something, that you deserve better.” To the policeman she had explained that she would be busy the entire morning and that she would only be available later in the day. Gnawing on the toothpick that had replaced the unlit cigarette he had thrown into the trash, the policeman had said, “All right, later,” and had added that when she came to headquarters she should ask to speak with Michael Ohayon. For some reason her eyes had fixed on his neck; it was long and narrow, a blue vein winding its way above the clavicle, and it seemed to her that she could see the vein throbbing; she had noticed his hands, too, the fingers tapered, dark and graceful, exactly the way she liked them: they gave her gooseflesh, those fingers. She had to shake herself free of them and turn her face away. What would have happened had he known what she was thinking? But just at that moment he had not been looking at her, focusing instead on the toothpick he had just removed from between his lips; “I can't manage with substitutes,” she'd heard him say to the other policeman, the one with the green eyes, who had slapped him on the arm and said, “You made an agreement? So stick to it. You wanted Yuval to stop smoking, right? Well, you've got to sacrifice something. You're the one who's always telling me that being a parent means having to make sacrifices, that parenting
is
sacrifice.” And from this exchange she had understood that he was married and father to at least one kid, who was already old enough to smoke. Married. Everyone was married. All the good ones, anyway. Even the not-so-good ones. How was it that men, even if they were ugly or stupid, always had someone? They were never alone. Plenty of times she'd seen them with beautiful, intelligent women, women with everything going for them, even if they themselves weren't worth shit. What about her? How was it that she…Schreiber was interested, she knew he was interested; a few days earlier Aviva had whispered to her, over the sink in the second-floor bathroom, “Hey, Natasha, haven't you noticed that Schreiber is crazy about you?” She had looked at her and chuckled. But Schreiber hadn't said anything to her, in fact he was really shy. He tried to come off austere, abrasive…maybe it was because of Hefetz. Maybe because of Hefetz he didn't dare to approach her in that way. But he'd known her first, before Hefetz. And if Hefetz needed something from her, never mind what, she planned to take advantage of it—she didn't know how exactly, but…

Schreiber parked the van at the corner, at a spot from which they could see the four-story building, whose barred, curtainless windows overlooked the street. All the buildings on the street were semidetached and built of Jerusalem stone gone gray and dingy; all were four stories high with one arched window on each floor. No shrub or flower added even a spot of color to the uninterrupted stone landscape, the black shadows cast by the window grilles and the fences, or the wet pavement on the street.

“They don't even have any trees around here,” she said to Schreiber.

“Naturally. Everybody knows the ultra-Orthodox don't like greenery, that nobody plants anything in their neighborhoods,” he muttered, as if he knew what she was thinking. He pulled the curtain on the rear window so that it parted slightly. The moment he looked up to the third-floor window the blinds snapped shut, as though someone had caught him spying.

“Check this out,” he said as he backed away from the parted curtains, wiping his bare and shaven head, which was already glistening with moisture. “I just get near them, and I break out in a sweat.” Fishing around in his shirt pocket, he added, “It's Hanukkah, mid-December, freezing cold, and I'm sweating.”

“Take a picture of the entrance,” Natasha requested. “Do me a favor, film it quickly.”

“Okay, okay,” he assured her, rooting about in the pockets of his safari vest.

“What are you looking for
now
?” she asked him impatiently. “What's so urgent in those pockets?”

“Found it,” Schreiber said as he pulled a small, light blue tin from one of the side pockets of his vest. “
That's
what's so urgent—”

“Not now,” she pleaded. “Later, when we're finished. Come on, Schreiber.”

He sighed and returned the tin to his pocket. “How do you expect me to pass the time, and in this neighborhood no less? You know what it does to me to be here!” he scolded.

His father had died a few years earlier, and he had thought he would have an easier time of it then, that he would no longer have to masquerade as a religious man. (“I had no doubts at all,” Schreiber would tell people who asked what kind of doubts about religion he had had that had caused him to stop wearing a skullcap and become secular. “No doubts whatsoever, I simply became a heretic.”) Still, he wore the skullcap on visits to his aging mother in Bnei Brak; even his oldest brother, who lived with his family in their parents' house, had no idea.

“Schreiber,” Natasha said, gazing into his hazel eyes, “I am so…I owe you so much, not just for this but—”

“Oh, come off it, Natasha,” he said, embarrassed.

He had never been capable of accepting her gratitude, even when he had picked her up from the doctor's office on Palmach Street and brought her to his place in Gan Rehavia. She recalled the odor of mold and dampness in his basement apartment, only half a barred window rising up above street level, the neon light that stayed lit in one room all the time, the underpants and socks left hanging to dry on the building's hot-water pipes, which ran through his flat.

He said, “If only you would tell me who it was that gave you this information—”

“I've already told you you're not going to get it out of me, so don't ask me a lot of questions,” she warned him. “I don't reveal my sources.”

Schreiber inclined his head to the side and regarded her with amusement. “Don't I have rights as a partner?” he teased her. While speaking, he moved to the backseat of the van and positioned the camera lens in the parted curtain. Then he returned to the front seat and removed the tin again, this time extracting from it a pinch of reddish grass and a piece of rolling paper.

“Now?” Natasha protested. “Right now? Do you really have to?”

“What are you so worried about?” he asked dismissively. “Do you really think anyone's going to show up? You've been had! Nobody's around, nobody's on his way here, all the blinds are shut, nothing. What do you expect me to do with myself? I'm not even allowed to listen to the radio, for crying out loud.” He leaned forward and wet the paper with saliva.

“Of course things are dead right now,” she argued, “because everyone's at school or at work, but—”

“At their yeshivas,” he said irritably, correcting her. “They're all in yeshiva while their wives are working. You don't know what you're talking about, you don't have a clue how they live. Not a clue,” he said, and went to lie down on the backseat.

“My sources told me,” she began, with elaborate seriousness, imagining the woman she had spoken with by phone, who had a hoarse, unaccented voice; a child had been crying in the background. For some reason she was sorry her informant hadn't been a man. In her mind's eye she replaced her with a man with a French accent. Truth be told, she would have preferred it be a man, they were more reliable: it's like they acted on some principle, not because of some personal vendetta. That's just the way it was. She pictured a bearded man in a dark suit and hat, his head turned to the side whenever he spoke with her, because suddenly they were no longer conversing by phone—as had happened with the hoarse-voiced woman who had called her “my dear”—but rather in the hallway of the television station, on the stairs leading to the canteen. “My sources told me,” she said, imagining now the Frenchman, “specifically, that we're talking early afternoon. They said not in the evening, because then everyone's around—”

“Ah, your sources,” Schreiber said, exaggerating each word. He yawned. “What more can I say? There's nothing I can say where sources are concerned.” He lit the thin cigarette, took a deep drag from it, coughed, and offered it to Natasha.

“Leave me alone,” she said angrily. “Just leave me alone.”

“Natasha,” he pleaded, “I'm so damned tired from last night, and you know how it is, I don't feel so great when I get near them. I just, it's something physical, medical, I don't know, they…I just don't feel well,” he tried explaining, waving the smoke away with his hand. “Anyway, this joint is really weak. But without a little help, I wouldn't be able—”

“Shhh. Shut up!” she hissed urgently under her breath, alarmed. “Look over there and start filming. Fast, from the end of the street—”

Schreiber sat up and looked through the part in the curtains.

“You see,” Natasha said. “Take a look and stop telling me I'm making things up.”

The windows of the large black car were also covered by curtains. They could just barely make out the thickly bearded man in the black cap driving the car. No one sat in the passenger's seat, but when the car came to a stop, two men emerged from the backseat. They looked around and hurried into the building.

“Schreiber,” Natasha shouted, her voice choked with emotion. “Film them walking into the building. Did you, did you get them?”