Just People

by Paul Usiskin

  Dov remained unconscious. The two men checked the scene and left.

  Levin called the emergency services, reported that he’d heard a gunshot from a nearby apartment, gave the address, dialed again and let the phone ring three times, before he joined Stein in the elevator. On the way down he pulled the battery from the cell phone and removed its SIM card, pocketed it and the empty phone. He and Stein removed their jackets and pants, worn over T-shirts and jeans, bagged their work clothes and the gloves, put the bag into the back of the SUV, and drove away.

  The spotter had neutralized the building’s security cameras before the SUV arrived and reset them after they left.

  They glanced at each other for a moment, high fived, and laughed. Crossing the Yarkon, Levin threw the empty cell phone out of the window and later disposed of the battery and torn-in-half SIM.

  They enjoyed the familiar grumble of the Chevrolet SUV V6 engine, as Stein powered up along the Ayalon high-way heading north.

  23

  ‘Dov, Dov, Dov Tov, Dov Tov.’ That’s how it sounded, soft, distant and funny and he laughed and couldn’t stop, the voice sounded so silly, I am a good bear of course I am, why go on about it? He didn’t hear an answer and thought how rude, and then he didn’t hear, see or feel anything.

  He came to in a white room. He knew about white rooms, with black curtains, and stations, yes that’s it, I’m on a train, that’s why there’s swaying and I’m going I don’t know where what did I do with the ticket am I in Israel or somewhere else is it the train Dad told me about the one that ran through the streets of Tel Aviv or the one in the Gutman print of the Orange Groves, on the living room wall or maybe we’re off to Beirut Dad said once upon time the train went there from here and all the way to Istanbul why doesn’t everyone love me I’m a nice person what do you want why are you sticking that in me?

  ‘Dov, come on, we need to talk to you.’

  ‘It’ll be a few more minutes and he’ll come out of it.’

  ‘I’m not so sure it’ll be that quick.’

  ‘No I’m not leaving the … where …’

  ‘You with us Dov?’

  The train rushed on passing the distant face and voice, not fast, but enough that Dov missed both, concentrating on where he was going, because he didn’t know where but wanted to so desperately, and there was a beautiful woman, her almond shaped eyes watching him and...

  ‘I’m cold.’ He shivered.

  ‘My heart’s pounding.’ He wanted it to stop.

  Later, ‘Where am I?’ He didn’t know.

  Later still, ‘Why’s the room swimming?’ He was dizzy.

  Hours past. ‘What the fuck happened to me?’ He was angry.

  A day slipped by. ‘I’m hot.’ He was sweating.

  ‘Relax Dov.’ A cool hand stroked his cheek. Another wiped his brow. The same voice said, ‘Remember me, Dov?’

  He opened his eyes fully, blinked and said, ‘Dov’s not here.’ When he opened them again he saw tantalizing Talia with the Tartar eyes. ‘You’re Natalia Savriel, the ICU nurse from the scandal investigation. Am I in the ICU?’

  ‘They’re waiting to talk to you,’ she nodded towards heads at the window in the door. ‘Bloods show you had a large dose of Valium, and we gave you Flumazenil as the antidote but you’ve had side effects and I’m sorry but you’ll probably have them for a few more hours. You really need to rest, but they must ask their questions and I can’t keep them out.’

  His heart continued to race, he was still confused, and went from hot to cold with frightening rapidity. But the room stayed still. Progress.

  ‘An hour of nothing. Then I’ll talk,’ Dov insisted, unsure if his voice was clear enough. His mind flooded with senseless images but he managed one request. ‘Amos Yerushalmi … plates for Brenner’s SUV … one at Brenner Tech too? … put out an APB … gottit?’ He made it sound easier than it was to think it.

  ‘Yes.’ She repeated it; accurate but fuzzy at the edges, like his vision.

  It faded. It was a long time before he said, ‘You’re the Khazar Princess?’

  She smiled and told him to close his eyes.

  When they opened again there were three of them in the room, complete strangers.

  One spoke.

  ‘We’re from the Police Investigations Department.’

  Maybe the chemicals in his system were jangling everything.

  ‘So am I,’ he said through rubbery lips.

  ‘Justice Minister Hassid sent us. Dov, can you tell us what happened?’

  The name Hassid sounded familiar, but it took a lot to produce an answer.

  ‘No,’ was the best he could do.

  ‘I see. Pity. You were found lying next to the body of Yardena Rotem, on your bed, in your bedroom in your apartment. What can you tell us about that?’

  Again more effort.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you own an automatic weapon?’

  That was easy.

  ‘Err, Yah.’

  ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘Sorry. Should’ve given it back.’

  ‘OK. So a weapon of that description was found in your hand and though we don’t have forensics yet, we think it was the weapon that killed Yardena. You knew her?’

  ‘Err, Yah.’

  He wasn’t sure whether he’d just dribbled or urinated.

  ‘Talia,’ he said.

  ‘Who? Talia?’

  ‘Err, Yah.’

  ‘She’s the ICU nurse,’ another voice from the trio said.

  ‘Oh, right, you need the nurse Dov?’

  ‘No I need the nurse Talia,’

  ‘Fuck sake...’

  ‘It’s OK Dov,’ Talia’s voice, then her face.

  ‘I need to be dried,’ he murmured.

  She cleared the room, changed, washed and dried him, which produced a sharper memory of Talia from last time... and from that dream just now, it was a dream wasn’t it and I had an instant erection, like now... and she giggled. It sounded like tinkling water in a cool stream. She asked, ‘Shall we wait? Then I can bring them back in?’

  He looked down at himself and giggled too. ‘Dry me again? Another ten minutes?’

  They both giggled. ‘Later Dov, maybe.’

  ‘Did you reach Amos?’

  ‘Yes. He’s on his way.’

  ‘Crowded in here. Bigger room?’

  ‘You’re funny you know?’

  ‘No. Wait for Amos. No more questions, my brain’s… ‘

  She disappeared and after what felt like a month, the trio were back.

  ‘Good news and bad news, Dov.’

  He found he could cope with that and managed, ‘Nu?’

  ‘The good news is your bloods show large barbiturate residue consistent with Valium. There hasn’t been time to find the needle mark. The bad news is the gun found in your hand matched the bullet that killed Yardena. It looks like you shot her just after having sex with her.’

  ‘I did not have sex with that woman.’ Why’re those words familiar? Was that Aviel? Or Clinton? Was Aviel Clinton? No, no. Can’t be right. Maybe it was the other way round? And then he thought, I’m better, I can think sarcastically.

  The silent member of the trio spoke, ‘Someone did, or tried to.’

  The more familiar of the voices asked, ‘Did you shoot her?’

  ‘Don’t know. Why?’

  ‘Why? You tell us!’

  ‘No…’ he tried being deliberate, ‘why...would...I...shoot...her?’

  ‘OK. I have no choice. Dov Chizzik, I’m charging you with the murder of Yardena Rotem.’

  Dov tried and failed to raise his hands for the cuffs.

  ‘Not right now,’ a new voice said. ‘We need the room.’

  Through the chemical fug in his brain, came
voice recognition. ‘Amos? Get Ephraim...’

  ‘Traffic through south Tel Aviv was a bitch, but Professor Cordova’s here to examine you.’

  This time he wanted to know the secret to Amos’ mind reading tricks, he really did, it became a priority, but for some reason he was afraid to ask, and couldn’t figure why and Talia was ordering the trio out and Cordova was saying soothing things, ‘We will find where they inserted the needle’, and Amos was saying something about an Arab village, license plates, and Dov wanted to ask how long the antidote took and when he woke up again, the room was empty. He enjoyed the paradox of having been examined by a pathologist when he wasn’t dead.

  He took his arrest in his stride, dismissing it for the bureaucratic knee jerk it was.

  It was the next day. There was a déjà vue with Talia; she’d got him a change of clothes and helping him to get dressed, she was not at all inhibited. After a shower and being helped to get dressed again, haven’t I just done that, he asked if she’d given him an aphrodisiac and she said, ‘No. I’m it. It’s one way to test if the antidote’s working. Let’s meet up tomorrow?’

  He promised he’d call.

  His dream of his father and trains stayed with him as he made his way home. The sun was warm, not hot, it was late December. The sea was calm and there were even a couple of people playing matkot, racquet ball, the dick dock of the wooden paddles an echo of summer when that sound reverberated up and down the promenade punctuating the cacophony from the crowded beaches.

  He got to the building and stood at his front door, key in hand. His mind had blanked out what had happened, but he’d been told the details.

  The PID officer who’d quizzed and formally arrested him, later recited them as he reluctantly released him. How come he’d never seen him before? More of Hassid’s hunting dogs maybe? Ephraim Cordova’s examination had produced the needle mark on Dov’s neck just above his hairline at the back, some of his pubic hair around Yardena’s vulva, but no evidence that he’d had penetrative sex with her. It all suggested, guess what, that this was a set up.

  Forensic evidence of the gun showed that whilst Dov’s hand and forefinger prints were those on the gun, there were no prints at all on the slide, or the safety. Cordova reported that the intercourse and the murder had been elaborately staged. Yes the weapon was Dov’s, but there was no logic leaving his prints on part of the weapon, and not on others. How could you load a gun, pulling back the slide and not leave fingerprints?

  Lots of questions: why had he shot Yardena, why would he have wiped the safety, the slide, and the clip on his weapon? Will I call Talia? Those were far too many incongruities, though not the last one. There were minute traces of gun oil found on Dov’s cheek, which Cordova suggested came from the latex gloves the perpetrator had worn when he slid the magazine into the gun, then moved Dov’s head into position, touching his cheek. Dov remembered a faint mint smell; Cordova said there were scented latex gloves, quite well known in the USA and he would check that out, but he was certain the crime had involved at least two perpetrators. It wasn’t Chizzik instinct that produced the question Guess Who?

  Excellent work as ever, he promised to tell Ephraim, but there was just one problem, one little matter that was not resolved. How could he go to sleep in his own bed when it had been the scene of all that? He wasn’t sacrosanct; he’d been violated, and so had his home.

  At Mike’s Place he found comfort in a tall beer, a steak, fries and the best eggplant in tahina. It helped put out of his mind the state of his bedroom, his bed ... yum, said his little voice, just enjoy the steak, the fries both with smokey eggplant, nothing like it. He watched the news, full of images of Palestinian protests, settlers shooting, the aftermath of sporadic Price Tag events, IDF and Border Police charging at Palestinians attempting to tear down sections of the separation barrier and set fire to Israeli vehicles. There wasn’t anything about him or TNT2, which suggested a government media blackout. Instead the next item was about a wrangle in the coalition’s leading party on the party platform, or lack of one.

  Dov glanced at his watch. The date window said 25. That had to mean 25th December. The general election was on 22nd January.

  ‘Quiet tonight,’ he said to the barman, looking around.

  ‘Yeah, it’s only five thirty, must be the rockets from Gaza keeping customers away. Fucking Hamas kicking off again. I say that, but we’ve opened another Mike’s on Dizengoff and that’s jammed and jamming, maybe that’s why we’re quiet.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh a few weeks ago. Where were you?’

  ‘Busy, you know how it is.’

  ‘Yeah, catching crooked cops is so time consuming seeing as how there’re so many.’

  Dov grimaced. ‘Alright alright. What’ve you got music-wise to match the quiet here? And give me another beer?’

  ‘What do you want first?’

  ‘Music.’

  He sat back on his barstool listening to Richard Thompson and his wife Linda when she was still Mrs. T, the barman said. Dov had never heard of them, but the country-rock blend worked for him, though the punkish guitar solo jarred a little. The lyrics didn’t sooth but weren’t entirely irrelevant, about the fragility of relationships.

  He knew she was there.

  There was no reason for knowing it. They’d never socialized. They’d had nothing in common except the murder investigation in which she was foisted on him, the one Aviel had to run while he was still in his pit of despair over Rabin. She’d been hungry to prove herself and got a witness to give evidence under hypnosis and Dov had found out, but she’d been given a second chance and came up smelling of roses. Despite time and life changes, and the complete illogicality in his certainty, Chizzik instinct triumphed, and he didn’t turn round because he knew Irit Sasson was standing behind him. It sent a little shiver through him that he knew.

  He took another sip and looking straight ahead, said, ‘Hi Irit. How long has it been?’

  ‘You do the math. How did you know it was me?’

  He gave an atypical macho shrug. It surprised him but he carried on, gesturing to the stool next to him, drinking his beer, not looking at her. ‘Drink?’

  ‘Do they do a good bourbon?’

  Now he glanced. That’s a big coincidence. How would she know about his Cure Bar bourbon session? And why did short hair transform a woman’s appearance? She’d had shoulder length hair and big earrings when he’d last seen her. Now her pixie cut gave her a longer neck and accentuated her sensuality. She wore diamond studs, they looked real, glinting in the bar lights as she sat next to him.

  ‘What do you call good?’

  ‘Woodford?’

  Aviel? Yardena? Daniel Freund? That bar man? Only one of them would know…nuts to this!

  ‘How long have you been working for Justice?’

  ‘The Minister told you?’

  ‘No, intuition. Well?’

  ‘Since the Biderman case. I’m on contract from the private sector with the Ministry, but I’ve done training work with other government agencies. I interviewed the Bidermans.’

  Dov hadn’t known.

  ‘We need to talk. The Minister wants us at his office asap. The TNT2 case.’

  She nodded her head to the entrance where two clones of the Washington Embassy android stood patiently.

  ‘They’ve fought very hard to keep the media under control but it can’t last,’ she said almost to his face.

  ‘Do you really want a Woodford?’

  ‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’ There was little to show for the passage of time; she looked good.

  They sipped the bourbon slowly knowing they were in the countdown to a launch; the calm was only as long as the seconds ticked away and the mellow liquid slid down, then there’d be no time for much else but the operation to track down TNT2 and the seven missing young Palestinian
s.

  The only answer to why she’d been sent to bring him to Hassid, was that the Minister had done that with Aviel, and now he was using Irit as his eyes and ears on Dov instead. Hassid had told him he trusted him. Bullshit. But then in his shoes with such a high stakes investigation, Dov would probably have done the same. He waited another beat before calling Amos.

  ‘Anything on the license plates?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re one of Brenner Tech. vehicles. No trace of the vehicles or Stein and Levin. Brenner’s abroad. His office says they can’t say where.’

  Dov mentally crawled through the chaos that the drugs had made of his memory. He didn’t know why, but he asked, ‘Any cooperation with our friend in Ramallah?’

  Amos said, ‘Yes, Hisham Nabulsi called. Call him back, but not right now.’

  Irit watched as he said, ‘I’m on my way in. Irit Sasson’s picked me up.’ She looked amused.

  After a long pause Amos said, ‘Oh?’ and Dov said, ‘Later.’

  He pocketed his cell and told her, ‘The Avi Mazal murder is part of this and linked to someone in that police HQ. And to the Biderman case.’

  ‘Amos hasn’t said anything about that,’ Irit said.

  Dov mused. ‘He likes certainty, not conjecture.’

  ‘You mean he’s unnerved by your Chizzik instinct.’

  Dov produced a shadowy smile. ‘Many people are.’

  They watched the rear lights of the Route 1 traffic move out of the way of the SUV’s flashing blues. ‘We’re doing this with Situational Awareness scenarios. You know about SA?’

  ‘Yeah. But isn’t it a little 80s?’ Her eyelids didn’t even flicker. ‘It’s a process designed for top-of-hierarchies individuals to stay detached and see the whole picture instead of being fixated on one issue. It has one major deficiency.’