the Hunted (1977) (10 page)

"Why don't you bring it?" Rosen said. "Then w
e can talk."

"That's exactly what I can't do at the presen
t time," Mel said. "They're on my ass. I go down t o the lobby, Valenzeula's sitting there reading th e paper."

"What do you want to do, send Tali?"

"Rosie, where are you? You in Tel Aviv?"

"I don't want Tali to deliver it," Rosen said.

"You understand? She's not in this."

"Christ, I'm not either," Mel said. "I'm trying t
o help you on something that doesn't concern me a t all, but it's entirely up to you. You tell me wher e you are or where you're gonna be and I'll get th e money to you, somehow, without sending Tali."

"I'll call you back," Rosen said.

"Wait a minute--when?"

"Sometime tomorrow." Rosen hung up.

He lit another cigarette and sat in the evenin
g quiet by the window that faced the Old City. H
e could still picture in detail the hall in the Detroi t Federal Building, could still see Gene Valenzuel a and Harry Manza coming along with their attorneys. Valenzuela with his heavy, no-shit look, from the time he had been with the Teamsters and th e time he was Harry Manza's construction supervisor: showing the T-shirt beneath the open collar, hair skinned close like a cap over the hard muscle i n his head that narrowed his thinking. No style, n o imagination. He remembered the time the Teamsters had walked out and the independent hauler had been trying to talk to Valenzuela, explai n things, and Valenzuela listening before beating th e shit out of the guy and burning his rig. That wa s business, his job. The situation now was personal.

All right, how did you get through to somebod
y like that? Rosen smoked cigarettes and though t about it quietly, trying to keep fear out of it. Ho w did you go about stopping somebody like that?

You didn't; you stayed out of his way. Ther
e were no alternatives. Get the money and the passport and run.

LEAVING THE BLACK MUSLIM ASLEEP at Norman'
s hadn't been a bad thing to do. He was a big boy, an d if he wanted to drink that much it was up to him.

Waking up with the hangover and the Israeli gir
l who snored wasn't so bad either. Hangovers wer e made to be cured with cold beer and hot lamb an d peppers stuffed inside pita bread. The girl woul d still be sleeping when he left. At times, though, h e wished he could wake up and remember everythin g from start to finish. The details came gradually an d sometimes, long after, unexpectedly.

He had gone to the Singing Bamboo with Raymond Garcia to meet Raymond's girlfriend Rivka, who was the receptionist at the Australian Embassy. Rivka was depressed. She had fixed up her good friend Sadrin with a date, an American, an d the sonofabitch had stood her up. Like it wa s Davis' or Raymond's fault because the guy wa s American. Poor Sadrin was sitting home, dressed , alone, playing her piano. Davis said why didn't sh e go to bed; it was eleven o'clock. Rivka made pouting sounds in Hebrew and Davis said okay, call her.

He went to pick the girl up in Raymond's Z-28
, which he'd have for the next two weeks, rumblin g along the dark street, feeling the car under him: '72

Z-28 Camaro, the hot setup from here t
o Jerusalem, a screamer with its 302 V-8, Pirelli radials on American racing mags, lime green with a white stripe that came up over the hood and dow n the trunk lid to the spoiler.

The next part was weird.

The Israeli girl, Sadrin, wore a yellow dress an
d pearls and played Chopin on the piano softly. H
e remembered that. He remembered drinking brand y with lemon and soda. She drank more than he ha d ever seen an Israeli girl drink as they talked, and sh e started to laugh at things Davis said. They finishe d the brandy and got into a bottle of white wine tha t was starting to turn, the girl laughing and tellin g him how funny he was. He felt good, he felt attractive to her. She said to him, "You give pleasure to my eyes." She put him in the mood with her cris p yellow dress and pearls--that was one of th e strange parts--and her round full lips that he tol d her looked like a basket of fruit. He didn't kno w where he'd gotten that, but she liked it and laughe d some more and when they started kissing it felt lik e she was sucking his mouth, trying to get him all in.

It was good, but it was hard work and she wor
e him out in bed, working away, her mouth clampe d to his, Davis thinking she was never going to come , thinking what the fuck am I doing here? But he sa w her in her yellow dress and pearls sitting alone. H
e remembered how glad she had been to see him, t o see somebody, anybody, and he let her work at it a s long as she wanted, finally getting his mouth fre e and telling her she was pretty--she wasn't bad--
a nd that he loved her mouth and her eyes and he r body--much bigger and heavier out of the yello w dress--telling her nice things as he held on and sh e bucked against him. She went into the bathroo m after and got sick in the washbasin. She moane d and told him she didn't feel good and wanted to di e and didn't have an aspirin. She went to sleep, tha t big girl, calling for her mother in Hebrew.

Out at the Marine House--he didn't see anyon
e around--Davis got cleaned up: put on a shirt an d jeans and a white snap-peak civilian cap he like d that was broken in, well shaped. He liked to wear i t low over his eyes when he was hung over . . . taking time now to eat a couple of egg-and-onion sandwiches with two ice-cold Maccabees. Jesus, h e was reborn.

He threw extra clothes into a valpac and gathered up a pile of Louisville Courier-Journal s his aunt had sent him. What else? Stop by Norman'
s apartment in Ramat Aviv for the shotgun. Wha t else? See Tali and pick up his travel bag full of dirt y clothes. Something else. Shit yes, first he was supposed to meet her friend, Mati Harari. At eleven o'clock.

It was twenty to eleven when he drove away fro
m the Marine House and passed gungy Willard Mim s jogging back from Afeka in his flak jacket and combat boots. A beer with Norman, in his underwear, took a few minutes. Still, it was only eleven-fiftee n when he pulled up in front of the M&A Club o n Hayarkon, half a block from the Pal.

He remembered something else he hadn'
t thought of in the past twelve hours or more and i t gave him a sinking feeling. Twenty-six days to g o and he'd be on his own.

The M&A--Miguel and Ali's, where Argentin
a met the Middle East--was a place with a courtyar d in front, hidden from the street; it had white stucc o walls with dark beams, and impressionist paintings. Not a drinking bar like Norman's, a conversation bar where young Israelis who were making it came in to talk and play backgammon and sip coffee or one glass of wine for an hour. Each time Davis came to the M&A he liked it, the atmosphere, and promised himself to come back and learn how to play backgammon. But he usuall y ended up at Norman's.

He asked Mati if he wanted something to drink.

Mati shook his head. There was no one in the plac
e except Mati Harari, Tali's friend, and Miguel'
s wife, Orah, behind the small bar. Davis got himsel f an ice-cold Gold Star from her before he sat dow n with Mati and saw his Marine travel bag on th e bench.

"You brought it. Good."

"Man, she's anxious to see you. But you got t
o not go in through the front."

"I've got to not go in through the front, uh?"

"I'm suppose to show you a way, how you tak
e the lift from the lower level."

"What're you nervous for?"

"You talking about? I'm not nervous. Listen
, they watching them, man. Tali don't know what'
s going on."

"I don't either," Davis said. "I don't even kno
w what you're telling me."

"I'm not going to tell you nothing, so don't as
k me." Like, try and make me. The street kid, th e dark Sephardim with his bandit mustache and hi s bushy Israeli 'fro. He could look mean, all right , and Tali had said he'd served time in Haifa. Davi s accepted that. The guy was still about a Grade C
h otshot. He'd last about two minutes on the line.

"I don't think we're getting anywhere," Davi
s said. "Is there anything else?"

"Follow me," Mati said. "That's all you got t
o do."

Rashad was across the street from the Pal at Kope
l "Drive Your Self" Ltd., seeing the man about getting a Mercedes before he dumped the BMW.

Rashad wasn't watching for anything. He ha
d moved away from the counter and was standing i n the open doorway while the Kopel agent shuffle d through his papers. Rashad was in the right plac e to see them coming along Hayarkon, walking i n the street. When the Kopel man said, "Here it is,"
a nd began to quote rates, Rashad turned to hi m and said, "Hold it, my man. Before we get int o that, let me use your phone. Got to call my father."

Valenzuela answered. Rashad said, "He's back
, coming down the street this way . . . the Marine , man. I'm across the street at the car rental. The Marine's with the Arab kid again. Same one as last night . . . Wait a minute. No, they're going dow n the side street next to the hotel. The Marine's go t his overnight bag again . . . going down there lik e they heading for the beach. . . . I don't know , maybe he's got something going with the cute Ara b kid." Rashad listened, nodding--"Yeah, al l right"--and he hung up.

He said to the Kopel agent, "Sorry. My fathe
r say I got to come right home."

Through a gray basement hallway and up a servic
e elevator to eight. Tali was waiting for them, th e door to 824 open.

"You're very good to come, David. I hope thi
s isn't bothering your trip."

"No bother," Davis said. Entering, he picked u
p his travel bag from the bed. "I thought you jus t wanted to give me my dirty laundry."

"Mr. Bandy would like to speak to you," Tal
i said. "Sit down, please."

The room was like a living room now. Davi
s glanced around as he walked over to the windows.

Now wait for the important lawyer. He looked ou
t at Tel Aviv, at the scattering of highrises that ros e out of the tan five-story skyline, the easter n Mediterranean going to glass walls. Somebody ha d said to him, "Tel Aviv used to be an ugly town.

Now they're building all these Hiltons and Sheratons to hide the view of the sea and it's uglier than it was before." Davis liked Tel Aviv. He wasn't sur e why. He liked the people, the younger ones. He'
d like to get to know some of their troopers, talk t o them. He wouldn't have minded having some o f them along in Vietnam. Shit yes, pros; hard fuckers.

"There he is. How you doing, Sergeant? Wha
t can I get you?"

Davis turned to see Mel Bandy coming throug
h the connecting doors. He looked different, his fac e pink, flushed--the guy coming all the way over t o shake hands this time, trying to give Davis a goo d firm one with his fat hand, smelling good of something, all slicked up in a light blue outfit--light blue print shirt with a movie-star collar, light blu e slacks, white belt, white loafers with little gol d chains on them.

"We're set up, finally," Mel said. "What woul
d you like?"

"Beer'd be fine," Davis said.

"Shit. You name the one thing--Tali, call roo
m service. Get the sergeant some beer."

"No, I don't care. Anything'll be fine."

Mel went to the bar that was set up on the des
k and began fooling with bottles, bending over , showing his big can as he got ice and mix from th e refrigerator wedged into the desk opening.

"Where you from, Sergeant? I detect an accent."

Davis said, well, he'd been born in Harla
n County, Kentucky, but had moved from there whe n he was six years old. His dad had been killed in a coal-mine accident. They'd moved--he and hi s mom and sister--they'd gone to live with his aunt , who had a farm in Shelby County. That was abou t halfway between Lexington and Louisville--Tal i and the street kid, Mati, watching him, not havin g any idea what he was talking about. He'd gone t o school one year in Cincinnati, but it was i n Louisville that he'd enlisted in the Marines. Boring , Christ, hearing himself. He felt like a straight ma n when Mel came over and handed him a frost y drink.

"Hundred-proof pure Kentucky bourbon. Ho
w about that."

Like it was a treat and all Davis drank was som
e kind of piss-poor shine. The guy wanted to d o more than talk. He wanted something. The drin k was all right, something like a bourbon collins. Th e guy didn't offer Tali or the street kid a drink. H
e made a Scotch for himself and sank down on th e couch with one short leg stretched out. He wor e light blue socks, too. Davis sat in a chair by th e windows. He wasn't in a hurry, but if the guy farte d around too long he'd tell him he was. Eleven-thirt y Friday morning sitting around having a two-ma n party. Tali sat quietly, a little expectantly; the stree t kid hunched over in a straight chair, his darkskinned left hand holding his right fist.