“You jump too quickly. You show your hand too fast. Haven’t I taught you anything? Should I have left you in the Middle East?”
“Maybe. Apparently, I am of no use here. I don’t know why they agreed to your taking me along.”
“You will be of use,” Nessim said.
Yusuf turned quickly and studied his brother’s face. “I’m to be in on it?”
“Yes.”
“Nessim, I …”
“But you won’t be brought to the hotel until I need you. You’ll help me plant the plastique.”
Yusuf nodded quickly, great joy in his face. “Whatever you say.”
“This will be the biggest action the organization has ever taken in the United States and we will be doing it,” Nessim said, revealing deep emotion. Yusuf was touched. He grew very serious.
“I won’t let you down, Nessim.”
“You’ll have to stay with this man Tandem for a few days. Don’t spend too much time with him and tell him little. He’s … He’s not really one of us. The organization is using him. When this is finished, it is my guess that …”
“What?”
“He’ll be taken out,” Nessim said, remembering the look in the Claw’s eyes.
“I understand.”
“Get some sleep. I’ll want you to help me tomorrow, making up the detonators and arranging the packets.”
“Okay, Nessim.”
“Good night.”
“Good night,” Yusuf said.
Nessim looked at his brother for a moment. He remembered the way their mother would curl his hair with her finger and pet his head when he was a baby. She had dreamed of him as a tall, beautiful Arab man. It saddened him to think of what he and his brother had become. He knew his mother would cry if she were alive. This sadness quickly turned to anger. Others were responsible for what they had become, not they. These others would suffer. In a few days, he would do a deed his mother would never have understood.
But she was dead.
And so was their father.
And, in a real sense, so were they.
He left quickly to return to Clea’s arms, to feel her breath on his face. She was a beacon in the darkness, a respite on the journey to hell.
14
“You didn’t call your mother, did you?” Barry practically screamed as he came charging through the door. Shirley put the milk back in the refrigerator slowly and closed the door. Then she turned and faced him. He stood there, panting. Apparently he had run up the stairs, impatient with the elevator.
“I did,” she said.
“Oh no. You gotta call her back. You gotta call her back.” He turned and raised his arms. “Shirl, you gotta.”
“Why, Barry?”
“I was talking to David Oberman,” Barry began, with exaggerated patience and slow tempo. “He’s the owner of the New Prospect Hotel in the Catskills.”
“The New Prospect again?”
“Listen, will ya. I told him about this case.”
“Which case? The Wallace Avenue killer case?”
“Will you stop calling it that. It’s a lot more than that. I just know it.”
“So what else is it?”
“Listen for Christ sakes. I followed some leads that took me to the New Prospect.”
“You went to the Catskills today?”
“Jesus, Shirl.”
“Okay, talk.”
“There’s a possibility that something might be happening up there. Remember that article I read in the paper you almost threw out?”
“So I threw it out. Look, if I left all the papers around that you didn’t read …”
“Forget that. I don’t care. Throw everything out. Just listen. That gave me the clue, see. I talked to this David Oberman and he was quite concerned with the possibilities.”
“What possibilities?”
“I don’t want to get into every detail, Shirl. Anyway, to make a long story short, he asked me what I was doing for the Passover holidays. He knew I was Jewish, see.”
“You told him you almost became a rabbi?”
“No, Shirl. I didn’t discuss my life story. So then he says would I consider spending the holidays up there, as his guest.”
“Just you?”
“No, all of us.”
“As his guest?”
“That’s right. Although he has security, he’d still like me around since I’ve been working on this case.” Barry held up his hand to stop her from speaking. “For now, just call it a case. No special names.”
“The New Prospect? For the holidays?”
“That’s right. Free. You know what that’s worth?”
“That is something. I’ll have to get a new outfit. At least one new outfit.”
“Get two.”
“Two? You mean it?”
“I mean it,” Barry said, sitting down. “So you see, that’s why you’ve got to call your mother back.”
“No, I don’t.”
“But you said you called her and asked her to Passover.”
“I did, but she turned me down.”
“She turned you down?”
“My brother asked them first.”
“Morris? But he’s a bachelor. He always tags along. He …”
“Apparently he’s got a girlfriend now and he wants to show her off to Mom and Dad. She’s going to cook. I’m expecting him to call and ask us any moment. I’ve been sitting by the phone.”
“At forty, a dedicated bachelor, your brother’s thinking of getting married?”
“Don’t you think it’s time, Barry?”
“It’s time; it’s time. What are you going to tell him when he calls?”
“The truth. We’re going to the Catskills for the holidays. You know what my mother’s going to think?”
“No, what?”
“That your job’s finally paying off.”
To an outsider, check-in at the New Prospect for Passover would seem like massive confusion. People, eager to begin their festivities and take advantage of their first day at the hotel, arrived early and in large numbers at once. Cars were lined up in rows outside the front entrance, and bellhops were working as fast as they could to unload the luggage and put it on the carts. Guests were shouting orders and greeting one another. The parking lot attendants waited on the sidelines. The moment a car was unloaded and the guests ushered into the hotel, they slid in behind the steering wheel and spun away to park the car in the large lots built away from the hotel proper. For all the service personnel, speed meant money. As soon as they finished with one guest, they could go on to another. All this added to the air of excitement, creating a hectic rhythm. People spoke quickly and moved in jerky motions.
The guests followed their luggage into the lobby, almost as if they were tied to the handles of suitcases by invisible cords. Children were everywhere, clinging to their parents or holding on to the luggage carts. The main desk was overwhelmed. Mrs. Aldelman and her assistants moved continuously around the little area, pulling out confirmations and assigning room keys. Miraculously, they kept out of one another’s paths. Guests, impatient before they even began their wait, whined and barked out their names, trying to catch someone’s attention. There was an endless “Just a minute, sir. I’ll be right with you, sir. He’s first, sir. We’ll be right with you.”
Lillian Rothberg, dressed in a baggy pants suit with a half-moon collar, stood by the entrance of the dining room that was just off the lobby and greeted people she knew personally. A large photograph of Chaim Eban was encased in a glass frame by the door. She stood near it as if his image could give her some extra official sanction. She was all smiles. Her fingers moved in and out of hands. She kissed cheeks, laughed, and moved from couple to couple as if she floated on some invisible cushion of air. Her hair, plastered into
place by the hotel beautician, bounced in one piece as she walked from side to side. Some of her friends sounded envious when they approached her.
“Have you met him?”
“Did you see him?”
“Is he here?”
“No, darling,” she said. “I’ve only talked to his attaché at the Israeli embassy. He’ll be flying in from Washington, you know. Landing by helicopter out here in two days.”
“I can’t wait to meet him.”
“I can’t wait to hear him speak.”
As soon as the Marcuses arrived, Toby joined Lillian as an official greeter. The two of them stood by like mothers at a wedding. Lillian had ordered a few thousand buttons that read we are all zionists at heart. They were placed in open boxes on the reservations desk. Children grabbed them in handfuls and put five or six on themselves.
With the weather good, the atmosphere hectic but exciting, and the prospect of a week to ten days of vacation ahead of them, the crowd got into a festive mood rather quickly. Some guests, calmer and more resigned to the wait and the procedures of hotel bureaucracy, gathered in small groups and talked. Most were dressed for a stay at the hotel and already wore brightly colored shirts, slack outfits, and casual pants. Children were draped in showcase attire, but quickly forgot they were to behave like mannequins. Childless couples and singles were less frantic. They had no one to settle in but themselves. Many took to the direction of the lounge and left the bellhops with sizable tips in advance, telling them to take care of their things and deliver their room keys to them in the bar.
The music had already started. A small combo, consisting of a piano player, a saxophone player, a drummer, and a trumpet player, wailed rhythm and blues in the dimly, but colorfully lit lounge—an enormously long bar consisting of an elegant marble top and cushioned chairs with backs, a rich red shag rug, and glittering mirrors and chandeliers. A dozen bartenders worked frantically, but quietly, up and down the bar. On entering the lounge, a guest immediately got the feeling he had moved into the late, late hours of night, when indeed it was early afternoon. Laughter traveled in waves. There was a New Year’s Eve atmosphere.
Toby Marcus looked longingly at the entrance to the lounge. She wanted to bathe herself in the erotic shadows and sexy lighting that made eyes speak, lips look wet and inviting, naked shoulders and necks stimulating. Bill was already helplessly lost with a group of loud, cigar-smoking buddies, arguing issues and theories. They would organize their poker game as soon as possible and spend the remainder of the afternoon in the midst of smoke and talk. Her daughter, Dorothy, found a few of her friends and drifted off to the teen rooms. Bill joined Toby as soon as he had gotten their keys, but he was anxious to get back to his friends as soon as he could.
“You wanna go up to the room and freshen up?”
“I’ll stay with Lil for a while.”
“Okay. I’ll settle us in and see you later,” he said.
She nodded and deliberately stretched out her hand to greet someone.
“I simply must get myself a drink,” she said as soon as Lillian turned her way. “My nerves are screaming.”
“All right, but we’ve got to get together before dinner tonight and meet with the Obermans. I want to do this thing right. We want Chaim Eban’s schedule worked out to the minute.”
“Certainly,” Toby said. “I’ll call your room,” she added, then she kissed Lillian on the cheek and backed herself toward the lounge.
When she passed through the entrance, she breathed relief. The cool air and the subdued lighting triggered a quicker heartbeat. She searched quickly for Bruno. Sometimes he was in the lounge, mixing with guests. But she didn’t see him. She smoothed down her dress, patted her stomach gently, and walked toward an empty stool. After she sat down, ordered her drink, and brought it to her lips, she turned around, crossing her legs so that the bottom of her dress moved up around her knees, and waited for someone to approach her and make her feel eighteen again.
15
Lieutenant Barry Wintraub stopped at the security booth at the front of the hotel driveway and rolled down his window. Shirley was sitting in the back with Jason because Keith just could not ride in the car for a period longer than twenty minutes without fighting with his brother. Barry and Shirley conceded that fact and agreed that she would sit in the back and one of the kids would sit in the front. Naturally the boys fought over who would sit there, so Barry timed it, sharing the front seat between them. Once they were separated and unable to make each other unhappy, they hated the car ride more.
“Yes, sir,” the security policeman said. He had his clipboard in hand. All the names of the guests with reservations were there. “First letter of your last name, please.”
“W. I’m Lieutenant Wintraub. Mr. Oberman told me …”
“Oh, yes, sir. We’ve been expecting you. One moment, please,” he said, turning. “Hey, Mike, Lieutenant Wintraub’s here.”
“Be right there.”
“Everybody knows Daddy,” Keith said with great satisfaction.
“Just other cops,” Jason said.
“Not just other cops. Everybody.”
“Just other cops.”
“Shut up you two, will ya,” Barry said. “I’m sorry. My kids. You were saying?”
“Yeah. My partner here will drive you in. Mr. Oberman wants you taken to a special entrance so you don’t have to get caught up in the check-in rush. It’s pretty hairy right now.”
“Special entrance?” Shirley said. “Not a back entrance?”
“No, ma’am. A side entrance that leads right into Mr. Oberman’s office.”
“That’s great,” Barry said, trying to ease Shirley’s concern right away. “Great.”
The other security guard came around, and Barry pushed over to let him take the wheel. Right off, Keith opened his mouth.
“Where’s your gun?”
“I don’t have one, son. We all don’t really need a gun for this job.”
“My father has one. What kinda cop doesn’t have a gun, Dad?”
“A cop in the Catskills,” Barry said. The security policeman laughed. They started down the driveway. The kids pressed their faces against the windows and gaped.
“A lotta people up?” Shirley asked.
“Oh, yes, ma’am. We’re overbooked.”
“Overbooked? You mean there’ll be people without rooms?”
“No, ma’am. Everyone’s got a room, but some people are to be housed in the old house.”
“Old house?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your family will be going there. After I take your husband in to Mr. Oberman’s office, I’ll get you and the kids settled.”
“Old house?” Shirley said. “No wonder it’s free.”
After they came to the main building, Barry and the security guard got out and walked through the side entrance to follow a short corridor up to the back door of David Oberman’s office. The security guard knocked and then opened it. David stood up behind his desk as they entered.
“This is Lieutenant Wintraub, Mr. Oberman.”
“Good,” David said, extending his hand. Barry walked over to shake it.
“I’ll settle in his family in the meantime,” the security guard said. David nodded.
“Sit down, Lieutenant. It’s personally a great relief to see you here. I’m glad you could arrange it.”
“Well, I had the days …” Barry looked around as he sat down. The office was big and lush. Thick peach-colored carpet covered the floor. There were bookcases to the right of Oberman’s desk and paintings on the far wall and left wall. He noted the portrait of a rugged-looking elderly man directly in front of the desk. The desk itself was a hardwood, probably oak, he thought. It was covered with papers and office supplies.
He was surprised at how young looking David Oberman was. In Barry’s mind, anyo
ne who ran a hotel as big and as famous as the New Prospect would have to be well along in his years. David looked to be in his mid-thirties, and his well-tanned skin and baby blue eyes, combined with thick wavy hair, gave him a rich, George Hamilton Jr. look—although he had a much larger frame and a sturdier-looking set of shoulders.
“Now then,” David began. “Have you learned anything new since we spoke?”
“No, not really. We know these suspects are illegal aliens, apparently from the Middle East. They’ve left the city, as far as we can tell.”
“And you think they’ve come here?”
“Possibly.”
“To kill Chaim Eban?”
“That’s my theory, although I hafta tell you, no one but Rabbi Kaufman sees it as clearly as I do. My partner thinks I’m paranoid and the chief in my precinct thinks I’m blowin’ up the whole thing.”
“Let’s hope you are,” David said. “But just in case, it’s good to have you around. Do you think you might recognize these people if you saw them?”
“I have a general description of one. Other than that, I’m just going to hafta start doing a little police work around here.”
“I’ll get the word out to my people to cooperate with you in every way, but I’d appreciate us keeping the details totally to ourselves. We don’t want to unduly frighten hundreds of people.”
“I understand.”
“My chief of security is not really a policeman in the sense that he’s had any police training. We keep outsiders off the grounds and try to give the guests a feeling of protection. That’s all. His name is Tom Boggs.”
“Tom Boggs?”
“That’s right,” David said, smiling. “The football player. He used to come up here frequently. When he found himself struggling with the team, we offered him the position. We can have a meeting later tonight. Now, from what I understand of the preliminary arrangements, one agent from the Office of Security in the State Department is accompanying Chaim Eban. It’s token, but everyone would expect him to be relatively safe up here, I suppose.”
“I know. That’s more reason why they would do it here, though.”
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