The Hit

by Michal Hartstein

  “Let there be no screw-ups,” Alon instructed. “I want him in the same cell with his father."

  Tom Sela was a tall, muscular guy who enjoyed plenty of success with women. The gossip columns loved to cover his numerous conquests and photograph him with young models at various events. Two years earlier, he had been discharged from military combat service and, since then, his father had not ceased bragging about him and his contribution to the country. It was important for Yaakov to create a clean image for Tom, so he was strict about involving him only in his legitimate businesses. To our regret, the information Koby had given us was not sufficient to convict Tom of material criminal offenses. It was clear to us that Tom was well aware of his father's criminal businesses, but we couldn‘t prove that he was involved with them. We hoped that Tom's arrest would have an impact on his father.

  "Two patrolmen have already been sent over to Ben Gurion."

  "I hope you didn't send the two geniuses who lost Ben Gigi two months ago," said Alon sourly. That affair had embarrassed the police a lot. Rabbi Reuven Ben Gigi had managed to slip away and board a flight to South America a few hours before the police managed to get a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of bribery and fraud.

  I smiled without showing my teeth. "Those two were exiled to a remote station in the south long ago. I sent seasoned cops this time."

  To be on the safe side, I called one of them to verify the accuracy of the flight details. Three hours later, the two accompanied the handcuffed Tom Sela into the station.

  Riki, the station secretary, ran over to my office.

  "He's here," she said, blushing.

  "Who?"

  "Tom Sela," she declared, not quite managing to hide the stupid grin on her face.

  "Watch your tongue doesn’t fall out of your mouth."

  "Wait till you see him," she laughed. "He looks a lot better in real life."

  I rolled my eyes, got up slowly from my chair and followed Riki, who almost danced all the way back to the reception area. When I arrived, the two cops I had sent got up from the bench and instructed Tom to stand up and follow them. The two cops were quite tall, but Tom managed to tower over them by at least half a head. He was, indeed, an attractive man.

  "You asked us to bring him straight to you," said one of the cops. It was true. Most of those arrested in the case had been transferred directly to the detention cells, but I wanted to interrogate Tom as soon as possible. He was young and inexperienced in interrogations, and I did not want to risk him being coached by his pals. No less importantly, I wanted his father to know that we had already interrogated him.

  "Very good," I said and asked them to follow me.

  We entered one of the interrogation rooms. I instructed them to unshackle him. I was not concerned he might try anything.

  I sat across from him and looked straight into his green eyes. It was his first time in a police interrogation room, and yet he did not show any sign of anxiety or concern. I did not know if his tranquility derived from any coaching he had previously been given, or from excessive self-confidence.

  "Tom, did they read you your rights?"

  "Yes," he said and answered immediately, "I want a lawyer." He looked at me and smiled with his lips closed. Huge dimples decorated his cheeks. The guy was charm on legs.

  Today, it's impossible to judge suspects as guilty or innocent according to their demand to have a lawyer present. Innocent people have seen American thrillers in the movies and know that, without a lawyer, they might get in trouble. It is precisely the experienced criminals who know well enough how to manage without a lawyer's instructions.

  However, Tom was not an experienced criminal, and it was clear to both of us that he needed legal instruction. I handed him a phone and he dialed the attorney Hagai Weiss, who had represented his father in most of his interrogations.

  Weiss arrived in about thirty minutes and sat with Tom for a long discussion. After an hour, I instructed the cops to return Tom to the interrogation room.

  "Hagai isn’t coming in with me?" he asked, alarmed. For the first time since Tom had been arrested, he showed the first sign of cracking.

  "No way," I said, chuckling.

  Now he looked a little less calm. Apparently, he thought that Weiss would speak in his place. Maybe Weiss had explained the severity of the situation to him, and he was concerned about incriminating himself or his father.

  "Though I imagine Attorney Weiss has already told you the chain of events, I want to update you about what we know and why you’re sitting here before me."

  He nodded.

  "On Monday at noon, an anonymous hitman shot dead Koby Ozri, a criminal known to the police, and a bystander named Shirley Navon, at the Zelda snack bar in Tel-Aviv. Did you hear about the case?"

  He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Yes, Hagai just told me about it." It was important to him to make it clear with his first answer that he had not been involved in the hit.

  "Did you know Koby Ozri?"

  He was silent.

  "Tom, I repeat - did you know Koby Ozri?"

  He continued to be silent.

  "Tom, I don't know what Attorney Weiss told you, but let’s be clear here: it’s better for you to refrain from silence as much as possible. The longer you keep silent, the longer the interrogation will be. I’ll help you a little with this question and tell you that we already know that you knew Koby Ozri. Therefore, I’ll ask you again - did you know Koby Ozri?"

  "Yes," he whispered.

  "A little louder. You know we’re being recorded."

  "Yes," he repeated aloud.

  "Did you have business relations with Koby Ozri?"

  He stared at me wretchedly. In spite of his impressive size, he suddenly looked like a small, frightened child. I understood. He was concerned that each unnecessary word he said would get him or his father in trouble. I smiled at him and nodded my head slowly, as if to encourage him to open his mouth and talk. It worked.

  "Yes, I had the opportunity to work with him sometime."

  "Doing what?"

  "I help my father manage his supermarket chain." One of Yaakov Sela's legitimate businesses was a chain of five supermarkets in Holon and Bat-Yam. "Koby was one of my suppliers."

  "What did he supply?"

  "All kinds of things."

  "What does that mean? Don't you have a different supplier for each product?"

  "Usually."

  "But Koby Ozri was a supplier of 'all kinds of things' according to what you’re saying?"

  "Yes. Mostly vegetables, fruits and textile products."

  "Doesn’t it seem strange to you, this combination of textiles and vegetables and fruits? Things not related to each other…?"

  "I’m not responsible for my suppliers' businesses."

  "Why did you work with him specifically?"

  "I entered the business a little over a year ago; Koby was already a supplier when I began working in the chain."

  "And do you know how he became a supplier?"

  "I know he’d worked with my father for years."

  "Were you aware of the fact that much of the merchandise Koby was supplying to your supermarket branches had been stolen, or taken from the producers under threat?"

  "Absolutely not!" Tom pretended to look shocked. "Everything was legal as far as I was concerned; there were tax receipts for everything."

  I chuckled. "Tom, you may be young, but you’re not an idiot. A tax receipt doesn’t make merchandise kosher. Didn't it seem strange to you that you were getting merchandise from Koby for very low prices?"

  "I never checked the prices charged by others."

  "Really?" I wondered. "You bought from suppliers without checking if there were cheaper suppliers?"

  "Sometimes. But not in Koby's case, because he was a good friend of my father."

  "So Koby was a good friend of your father?"

  "Yes." Tom lowered his eyes. He realized he had said a little too much.

  "Did you ha
ppen to meet Koby Ozri outside of work?"

  "Yes," he said in an impatient tone. "I told you - he was a friend of my father."

  "Where, for instance, did you meet him?"

  "I got to see him at family functions, and he also came over sometimes for dinner at the weekend.”

  "Did you know that he was a criminal?"

  "I knew he’d done time."

  "What other business did he have with your father?"

  "I’ve no idea." I did not know if he had any idea or not. What I did know was that there was no chance he would tell me about it.

  "How did the relationship between your father and Koby appear to you from the outside?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Were they close? Did they care about each other?"

  "I don't know… I think they were."

  "Were what?"

  "Yes, they were close; my father cared about him because he didn’t have any close family."

  "Did you know that Koby Ozri was a police agent?"

  "I heard about it on the news."

  "And before it was on the news, did you hear anything about it?"

  "Absolutely not!" He was resolute.

  "Do you know Haim Aloni?"

  "I heard about him."

  "What did you hear?"

  "He once worked in my father's supermarkets."

  "He wasn’t just an employee, according to what I know. He was the chain manager. In fact, you were his replacement, weren't you?"

  "Right."

  "Was your father angry when he left?"

  "I’ve no idea; I was in the army then. I imagine he wasn’t happy."

  "Let me make it easier for you. We had the opportunity to record your father yelling at Haim that he would, one day, regret leaving him."

  Tom shrugged, as if to emphasize he had no connection to the story.

  "Do you know what's going on with him today?"

  "No. I think he moved to the US."

  "That's right. Do you know the reason he left the country?"

  "I think he hadn’t been all that successful in his business."

  I chuckled again. "'Not very successful' is an interesting way to present it. He’d left your father's business in order to open a supermarket on his own. Do you know the story?"

  "Not really. I told you, I was still in the army at that time."

  "So let me refresh your memory: Haim's supermarket had been already prepared for the opening, completely stocked with merchandise, when an anonymous arsonist burned down the supermarket and its contents just a day before the grand opening."

  "Could be. But how’s that related to me?"

  "It may not be related to you, but it's greatly related to your father."

  "As far as I know, my father wasn’t charged with anything."

  "That's true, too. To our regret, we didn’t manage to catch the anonymous arsonist. However, it's impossible not to think that it was an astonishing coincidence that Haim Aloni's store specifically was torched after your father had warned him that he’d regret leaving him, and that the same Haim Aloni fled in a panic to the US as a result."

  "I’ve no idea."

  "Tom,” I took a long breath, "if your father could be that angry with an employee who just left him to open a rival business, can you imagine how angry he’d be with someone who might have informed on him to the police?"

  Tom rolled his eyes. "I’ve no idea!" he said impatiently. "As far as I know, my father never did anything bad to Haim Aloni or to Koby Ozri."

  The questioning was complete and I marked a small victory for myself – not that I thought I could extract any real information from him, but I had succeeded in shaking his confidence and making him doubt himself.

  I called in the escort cops and they led Tom down to the detention cell where his father, amongst others, was being held.

  I ran to Alon's office and together we watched the meeting between Tom and his father. Yaakov Sela was napping on one of the benches. He had spent quite a few years in various prisons during his life, and being held in a detention cell caused him no discomfort. On a different bench, in the farther corner of the cell, a cab driver who had been caught that day with half a kilo of marijuana in his possession lay shaking and terrified. According to him, he had no idea he was transporting a package of drugs. Except for a considerable number of traffic tickets, he had a clean record, and, for him, spending time in the detention cell was a traumatic experience. For Tom, entering the detention cell was not such a simple experience, either. He was hunched over. He had no idea whom he was going to meet in the cell. When the cop accompanying Tom selected the key to the cell from his batch of keys, the cab driver and Yaakov turned to look at the cell door. Tom was led in, and Yaakov rose to a sitting position and stared at his son, shocked.

  "Dad…" said Tom in a choked voice, and approached Yaakov. The cab driver looked at them and the look of agony on his face changed to a look of surprise. He had not expected to witness a family reunion right in front of him during an exhausting day of detention.

  "Tom." Yaakov extended his arms toward his son and embraced him warmly. Tom had to bend and shrink in order to squeeze into the extended arms. Within seconds, the robust, muscular man turned into a small, frightened boy trying to find consolation in his father's loving and protective embrace. After long minutes, Tom broke away from his father, and the two sat down. Tom's back was to the camera, but his tone of speech made it clear he was crying.

  "Dad," he said and snuffled, "I didn't know what to say." Yaakov immediately hushed him and pointed at the camera high up, out of reach, behind his son. Tom turned around quickly and looked up at the camera.

  "Are they allowed to do that?" he asked, shocked. "Surely it’s an invasion of priv-" Yaakov again did not let his son finish the sentence. He signaled him with his finger to keep quiet. Tom inhaled deeply and rearranged himself on the bench with his back resting against the wall.

  "Tell me, how was Los Angeles?" Yaakov tried to encourage his son, and the two engaged in small talk.

  Alon was disappointed. While he did not expect Yaakov to let Tom talk while the cameras and listening devices in the cell were on, he hoped that Tom's arrest would make Yaakov crack. But Yaakov showed no sign of cracking.

  CHAPTER 4

  Wednesday, June 15, 2011

  A trail of edgy, honking drivers who had gotten stuck behind a slow garbage truck woke me up early. I had only returned home at three a.m., after a night of interrogations, and had not planned to get up early. I decided to use the fact that I was awake anyway in order to treat myself to a pampering breakfast. I had hardly eaten anything for two days, and knew that the rest of the day would not present too many opportunities for sitting down and eating. I remembered a nice café, not far from the beach, which Koby had recommended to me and I had not yet had a chance to try. To be honest, I had not visited most of the restaurants he had recommended to me. Those restaurants were too expensive for me, and I was not enough of a connoisseur to enjoy them, anyway. But breakfast, even if it was a little more expensive than the average, was something I could definitely afford.

  About an hour later, I was sitting and staring at the menu. I wondered how many patrons around me were trying to calculate the profit margins on each dish. In my estimate, it was a hundred percent overpriced. I was too hungry to get up and leave, and I also decided that the breakfast would be a sort of goodbye to a friend. Koby had had nothing but praise for this café and once hoped out loud that one day he could invite me for a good breakfast there. I ordered and went to the restroom. When I returned, I passed by the cake refrigerator. I recalled the cheesecake that Koby had bought me only a week before, a Shavuot holiday gift. I tried to remember if the cake had come from that café. I could not see any in the display cabinet.

  "Do you have a baked cheesecake with a vanilla cream layer?" I asked the passing waitress.

  "Yes, of course," she smiled broadly. "It's our most popular cake, certainly during Shavuot."

&nb
sp; "I don't see any here," I said and pointed at the refrigerator.

  The girl surveyed the refrigerator and called the guy standing behind the counter. "Is the cheesecake with vanilla finished?"

  "No, no. I just took it out to cut a piece for a guest," he said and put the cake back in the refrigerator.

  I had no doubt. It was the definitely the cake Koby had brought me as a present. I decided I would have a piece for dessert, in memory of a friend who would never come back.

  "Hadas!" A familiar voice woke me up from my musing. I looked up, and in front of me stood Revital, an old friend of Yinon’s and mine, who, as a part of the divorce process, had become mainly Yinon's friend.

  "Revital," I said with a false smile. "How are you?"

  "I'm doing great! What about you?"

  "I'm fine," I answered. "How are Ronen and the kids?"

  "Excellent!"

  "You have three, right?" I had not spoken to her for over two years; perhaps I was out-of-date by now.

  "Yes," she giggled. "That's it! I’ve completed my mission. I don't have the energy for another kid, though Ronen drives me crazy, saying we only have a short window to have another one...."

  I remembered Ronen advising Yinon to dump me since I did not want children, and hoped that three were enough for him; otherwise Revital herself would be under threat of divorce.

  "What are you doing here?" I inquired.

  "I took the day off… it's my birthday." She smiled.

  "Congratulations! How old are you?"

  "I’m celebrating my third Bat-Mitzvah today." I reacted with a frozen smile and she hurried to explain. "I'm thirty-six."

  “Yes, I see." I quickly switched to a warmer smile. I was still stuck in the horrible memory of Ronen advising Yinon to dump me, advice that had been followed after only a few months.

  "And what are you doing here?" she asked with interest.

  "I had an exhausting night of interrogations, so I decided to treat myself."

  "Nice," she said and I had a feeling that she was a little disappointed. Since I had become a cop, anyone who ran into me seemed to fantasize that he was encountering me in the midst of a stakeout.