The Hit

by Michal Hartstein

  He held his nerve. "I can vouch for it. This is the murderer." He resumed his confident tone. "What I heard and what I know about that person leaves no room for doubt. In any case, as you said yourself, the agreement won’t be binding if it turns out he wasn’t the murderer. I promise you – this is your man."

  I despised this deplorable character. I wanted with all my heart to find a flaw or a loophole that would prevent me from proceeding with an agreement with him. Regrettably, however, there was considerable truth in what he said. There was no risk in accepting his testimony; if he gave me the wrong name, the agreement would be void. Besides, my intuition told me that he did, indeed, know the identity of the murderer.

  "If the man you think is the murderer is in the country now, can we track him down easily?" I searched for another way out of the emerging deal.

  "To the best of my knowledge, yes. He lives in Israel. I don't know how easy it’d be to track him down. He’s not exactly an ordinary citizen."

  "Does he know you're here?"

  "How would I know?"

  "Does he know you know he's the murderer?"

  "I’d find that hard to believe."

  I also found it hard to believe, but I left the interrogation room, called Attorney Idan Margolin, and confirmed the go-ahead for the deal.

  Alon arrived at the station just as I was about to leave to fulfill my fantasy of a peaceful weekend. He signaled me to follow him to his office.

  "What wonderful news!" he said and dropped into his chair, signaling me to sit. I sighed lightly and sat down, disappointed that he could not be satisfied with a short talk in the hallway.

  "What's wonderful? Discovering that, here in this country, there are scum who lock up women they import from Eastern Europe like cattle?" I tried to chill up the celebratory air.

  "Come on, really, Levinger, soon you’ll be burning bras in the front yard of the station! You know exactly what I’m talking about." I lowered my eyes, mainly so that he would not notice the smile I was trying so hard to hide. "It’s not every day we get a state’s witness who can identify the killer within a week of the incident itself. I don't have to explain to you how uncommon it is."

  "That's true," I muttered.

  "How's our witness? Does he seem reliable to you?"

  "Surprisingly, I have to admit that he does. He is, of course, the scum of the human race, if you ask me, but I believe he really does know who the murderer is."

  "What did you settle with the D.A.?"

  "He’ll receive what he wants, but only after we prove that this was, indeed, the murderer."

  "Do you have any idea how he knows?"

  "He heard something from the murderer himself.”

  "And he’s not afraid to inform on a murderer, just like that?"

  "I really have no idea. He’s not ready to reveal too much, only that the murderer frequented his brothel and that he knows for sure it was him."

  "Interesting," he said and fell quiet. It seemed to me that he was trying to organize the information in his head. "So," he said after a long pause, just as I was starting to feel a little embarrassed by the long silence, "when can we interrogate the witness? On Sunday? Monday?"

  I stared at him incredulously. Was he serious? This was not our first State’s witness. Where did he get the fantasy that the deal could be signed within two days? And over the weekend? It didn’t work like that. It had never worked like that.

  "Margolin said it would take about two weeks," I said, making an effort to hide the tremor in my voice, knowing full well what was about to happen. And indeed, even before I had finished the sentence, Alon burst out in a rage.

  "Two weeks?" he screamed. "Two weeks?!" He clasped his head with his hands as if to prevent it from exploding, something I definitely believed might happen. "Did you tell this dummy to explain to the dummies at the D.A.’s office that this is an ongoing murder investigation and the murderer could vanish by then?"

  The truth was that I had not mentioned anything like that. I simply asked Idan to do all he could to expedite the process. I did not feel like letting a despicable felon like Itzik get too good a deal because of pressure from our side.

  "I told him we wanted to interrogate the witness as soon as possible."

  "And as far as you’re concerned, two weeks is soon!?"

  "He committed horrible crimes and –"

  "For fuck’s sake!" he interrupted me again, stuttering with impatience. "We’re not the Girl Scouts, is that clear? We’ve seen and investigated horrible crimes; we’ve seen felons leaving court with certificates of good character worthy of Mother Teresa! We’re in the business of closing cases… this is what we do! We’ve got an opportunity here to close two cases with one blow!" He turned away to find his cell phone, and I used the opportunity to roll my eyes as required. When he wanted, Alon could also deliver an hour-long speech about the fucked-up system that lets dangerous felons go free.

  "Don't think I didn’t see that eye rolling, Levinger," he said as he turned toward me again.

  "You could be a teacher. You have eyes in the back of your head," I chuckled. He smiled.

  I saw his finger stab urgently at his cell phone screen, searching out a certain phone number. He reached for the phone on his desk, picked it up and dialed.

  "Who are you calling?" I asked him.

  "Edna Kahana, the Deputy D.A."

  "You know her?"

  "I’ve had the opportunity to speak to her several times," he smiled. I already knew she was a woman he had somehow managed to charm with his macho personality and defective sense of humor, which only those devoid of a sense of humor would find funny.

  Alon turned on the speaker.

  After several rings, a sleepy female voice said, "Hello?"

  "Edna!" Alon said in a confident, smiley voice.

  "Who is this?" asked Edna, yawning, as was appropriate for the day (Friday) and for the hour (6:30 in the morning).

  "This is Superintendent Alon Dor of the Tel-Aviv Central Unit."

  "Who?"

  "Alon Dor… we’ve met several times. The last time was at the D.A.’s fundraiser for police orphans. We sat at the same table."

  "Alon!" The tone of her voice had changed at once and became cheerful, even a little coquettish. "How can I assist you?"

  "First of all, I want to make it clear that you’re on speaker, and that Inspector Hadas Levinger is present."

  "Shalom," I said almost in a whisper.

  "Shalom, Hadas." The excitement in Lady Edna's voice diminished a little.

  "Edna, I don't want to disturb you too much on a Friday morning, so I’ll make it brief." I did not think for a moment that Alon even knew how to talk at length. "We have a state’s witness who’s willing to give us the murderer in the case of Koby Ozri and that girl…"

  "Shirley Navon," I added immediately.

  "Yes… and Shirley."

  "Wow," she exclaimed in surprise, "how come I didn’t hear about this?"

  "It's really new," I joined in the conversation again. "He was just arrested last night."

  "What for?"

  "Trafficking women," I answered right away.

  "More like running a brothel." Alon found it necessary to soften the felony a little. He gave me a menacing look to prevent me from adding any further description of that brothel and the imprisonment of the women inside.

  "I imagine I’ll hear about it from my staff on Sunday. What's so urgent?"

  "The guy who's handling the case… Levinger, what's his name?"

  "Attorney Idan Margolin," I answered.

  "A bright guy, very thorough," she put in.

  "Too thorough," he added immediately. "Which is exactly why I’m calling you at such an hour. I don't disregard, God forbid, the importance of the judicial process and of the agreement you’ll sign with the witness -"

  "May I please have his name?" she interrupted him. Except for Alon's ex-wife, I did not know many women who dared to interrupt him.

  "Itzi
k Levayev."

  "I haven't heard of him," she said right away.

  "He has a criminal record, but he’s not exactly a big fish," explained Alon.

  "This is because he knows how to sign the right agreements with the D.A.," I added immediately.

  "He’s already been a state’s witness in two or three previous cases," added Alon, having no other choice, and looked at me in a manner that made it clear I should keep quiet. "None of them was on this scale."

  "Alright," she said. "So what’s the problem with Attorney Margolin?"

  "There’s no problem," Alon tried fawning. "He made a great impression on me as well. It's just that he thinks that it’ll take him two weeks to close a deal with Levayev, while I think your office can do it a lot faster."

  "Listen, it doesn’t depend just on us… He has a lawyer, for sure, who’ll make demands – "

  "Edna." It was Alon's turn to interrupt her. "We're in this business together, and we both know that such deals can be closed in a lot less than two weeks, if you really want to. This is not a state’s witness who can close a twenty-year-old murder case; it's an open murder case, a case under ongoing investigation. The murderer’s at large, and to the best of my knowledge, at this point he doesn’t even know that Levayev’s under arrest and is considering testifying against him. There’s a certain urgency here you don’t find in any old case."

  "You're right," she said in a conciliatory tone. "Let me see what I can do."

  "I'm counting on you, Edna," he replied in a tone I never heard from him before. "I must question this witness next week."

  "Fine," she concluded in an utterly softened tone, almost seductively.

  What the hell goes on at the D.A.’s fundraisers? I wondered.

  "Edna." Once again, he switched to a tone that was completely new to me. This time he rolled her name in his mouth at a provocatively slow pace. "I’m going to be daring…" he fell dramatically silent. Edna started giggling. I felt embarrassed down to my toes; I had never witnessed such an odd flirtation. "I need it by Sunday… Monday at the latest," concluded Alon, his tone sweeter than honey.

  She stopped giggling at once. "What are you on?" she asked, and he responded with boisterous laughter.

  "Believe me, considering what I see here every day, it wouldn’t hurt me to take a little something to escape from reality."

  "I believe you." She was fawning again now.

  "Then, really - make it happen. We’re under insane pressure with this case. Imagine what’ll happen if a snooping reporter discovers we had a State’s witness, but failed to catch the murderer just because we held back on the agreement."

  "Alright, alright," she sighed. "I can’t promise you Sunday, but I’ll do everything I can to push it through by Monday or Tuesday."

  CHAPTER 10

  By Sunday, almost all our detainees had been released. We had no evidence to tie them to the murder, and in any case, we did not try to convince the court to extend their detention. It didn’t bother Alon. He was walking around as if the case was already closed and he just needed the phone call from the D.A.'s office. The more the hours passed and the phone call did not arrive, the more edgy he became. I tried to remind him that Edna had made it clear it would be impossible to close the deal on Sunday, but I knew that Alon was incapable of hearing a reasonable statement when he was edgy.

  When the longed-for phone call did not arrive on Monday either, Alon reached a new level of agitation. He forced me to call Idan Margolin three times, in his presence, knowing that I would not call unless he was standing right next to me. He forced me to dictate my phone number to Idan, and extricate from him an oath that, the moment there was an agreement, he would call to let me know, even if the agreement was signed at an unsociable hour. Margolin said that the agreement was on the verge of being signed, and that we need only have a little patience. The problem was that Alon didn’t have even one ounce of patience.

  Eventually he called Edna Kahana himself. She screened his call.

  Tuesday, June 21, 2011

  I arrived at my office at a reasonable time in the morning. No phone call from Idan, no message from the D.A.'s office. However, another message was waiting on my desk. I was asked to call Dr. Amrani from the ICU at the Ichilov Hospital.

  After a short trail of being transferred from one extension to another, I heard a man's voice: "Dr. Amrani."

  "Shalom, Doctor. This is Inspector Hadas Levinger from the Central District. You left me a message to get back to you."

  "You’re investigating the murder last week at the Café Zelda?"

  "Right."

  "I was asked to let you know when Yoav Gottlieb regained consciousness."

  Yoav was a barman at the Zelda snack bar. He had been standing near Shirley and was badly hit, but fortunately for him, not fatally.

  "How is he?"

  "Not great, but he’s out of danger."

  "Great."

  "Yes, he was very lucky."

  "Did he sustain any brain damage?"

  "Are you asking if his memory was damaged? Well, it’s still hard to know, but the tests we’ve conducted so far don’t indicate any memory problems. With regard to the emotional difficulty, it’s clear he’s suffered severe trauma."

  "I understand your sensitivity, but we must collect any piece of information he may have about that incident. In your opinion, is he up to answering a few questions?"

  The doctor was silent for several seconds, and then said, "I assume he’ll be able to handle a few brief questions."

  He gave me the details of Yoav's room, and I got organized for the trip to the hospital.

  When I was on my out, Alon caught me. He was glowing with happiness, but frowned suddenly when he noticed the bag on my shoulder.

  "Where do you think you're going?"

  "To Ichilov. Yoav Gottlieb woke up."

  "Who?"

  "The injured barman from Café Zelda."

  "Ah," he said indifferently. "Go later or send someone else."

  "What is it now, Alon?"

  "You really have to ask?! I just got a call from Edna Kahana! Itzik Levayev is all yours."

  "Really?!" I, too, did not really stop to think twice. I did not think for a moment that Alon would pull one over on me about this. In my heart, I cursed Idan Margolin, who had not bothered to inform me about the developments.

  "What? You think I’m joking here?" Another rhetorical question was thrown into the air. "Why didn't your friend at the D.A.'s office update you like he promised?"

  "I’ve no idea," I said angrily and pulled my cell phone out of my bag. On the display, I saw a notification about a missed call from Attorney Margolin. "Oh. He did call me - ten minutes ago."

  "Then why the hell didn't you return his call?"

  "Enough, Alon!" I burst out. "You surely don't expect me to go to the bathroom with my cell phone, right? You only just received the news yourself."

  Alon was not used to me getting angry. He was not used to anyone answering him back at all, but, apparently, he realized that he was not the only one on edge.

  "Fine, fine," he said in a conciliatory tone. "The main thing is that you don’t burn a few good hours in Ichilov, now that you can finally talk to our dear Mr. Levayev."

  "Shall I send someone else to the hospital?"

  "I’ll check if anyone’s free. If not, you can go over there later, or even tomorrow. The most important thing is to interrogate our witness. Now."

  "Certainly," I said and almost saluted him.

  A little while later, I was again sitting in the interrogation room across from Itzik Levayev. The four days he had spent in the detention center had definitely left their mark on him. He was unshaven, his hair was disheveled, he was pale, and black circles decorated his eyes. His arrogant, self-satisfied attitude was gone as well. I placed a bottle of mineral water on the table in front of him wordlessly. A sealed one.

  He smiled silently and pulled the bottle toward him.

  "Mr. Levayev," I
broke the silence. "Do you know why we’re sitting here?"

  "Yes."

  "Very well. I’m going to say it for the protocol. This morning you signed a State’s witness agreement in which you undertook to provide us with the identity of the murderer in the double murder that took place on Monday June 13, 2011 at Café Zelda in Tel-Aviv. Are these facts clear and agreed upon?"

  "Yes," he almost whispered.

  "A little louder, please. You know our conversation’s being recorded."

  He cleared his throat. "Sorry. Yes, everything’s clear and acknowledged."

  I smiled. "So, if everything’s clear to all parties, let’s get straight to the point. Who’s the man we’re looking for?"

  "His name is Nagusto."

  "Nagusto what?"

  "Nagusto," he repeated.

  "What sort of a name is that? A nickname?"

  "No, that’s his name."

  "Is he Israeli?"

  "No. He’s a refugee from Eritrea."

  "Okay. What’s his last name?"

  "I’ve no idea."

  "You must be joking. Soon you’ll be telling me you don't know where he lives, either."

  "Nobody knows where he lives," he said.

  I chuckled aloud.

  "I’m giving you the name of a hired hitman, not a bank clerk," he said angrily. "I may not know his passport number - if he has a passport at all, but I know for certain that it's him. And I also know more or less where he hangs out. So I am sure." He paused for a moment and then corrected himself. "That is, I hope you’ll manage to track him down."

  His unconcealed criticism was not at all pleasing to my ears.

  "Alright," I said. "Let's assume we'll be able to track him down. Now tell me how you know him exactly and why you think he’s the killer."

  "Nagusto’s the type everybody’s heard about - that is, everybody in the vicinity of the old Central Station - but nobody really knows who he is. If you ask me, I’m not even sure that’s his real name, and I don't know if there’s anyone who knows his last name. I met him in the club. He used to come at least once a week and take at least one girl. He had needs, as people say." Itzik winked at me and I shuddered. "There are quite a few whores from Eritrea and Sudan. The girls who come from there need every penny they can earn and are a lot cheaper than my girls, but he loved white meat." I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. The thought that the judicial system would not persecute this pimp according to the letter of the law drove me crazy.