Doha 12

by Lance Charnes

  Now an alarm blasted inside her. She’d dealt with so many freaks and idiots after the list came out. What kind of gibberish would this one come up with? Aliens had chosen them to mate? They were tools of the Antichrist? The Masons were behind that terrorist’s death? “Really, I don’t want to get involved in whatever—”

  “Someone’s trying to kill us.”

  Miriam shook her head hard to confirm she was awake. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Look. Go over the twelve names on the list. All the Europeans are dead except for Krosner, who’s missing. Demetrio, Brown and Nussberger are dead, too. All between the 23rd of September and this past Wednesday. And yesterday…yesterday, someone killed my wife.”

  She couldn’t stop the gasp that jumped from her mouth. This, she hadn’t expected. But it couldn’t be true, could it? “Um, excuse me, but wouldn’t this be all over the news? I haven’t heard anything about this, not at all, and I keep up with the news.”

  “Nobody’s put it together yet. All the killings were done differently. My uncle’s an inspector in the NYPD, he’s going to talk to the terrorism people about it, but I think you and Kaminsky need to know so you can be careful. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “Who’s Kaminsky?”

  “Another one of us. He lives in Paramus, works in Midtown.”

  While this Eldar person gabbled on, Miriam searched for the name “Oren Nussberger.” A brief news article; he’d hung himself on Thanksgiving. “Nussberger committed suicide,” she said, more confident this supposed Eldar person was just another crazy.

  “Uh-huh, sure. Demetrio, Brown, Schoonhaven and Dujardin were murdered. The rest had accidents. Look it up, please, I know it’s hard to—”

  “Could you give me a moment?” she asked just before she punched the “hold” button.

  Think. Is he serious? Another kook? Eldar sounded frazzled, but if his wife had been killed the day before, he had a right to be. She searched for “Eldar +Brooklyn +murder” and clicked through to a New York TV station website. A pretty dark-haired woman in a sundress smiled out from a photo. Rinnah Eldar, 34, shot in the head by a burglar yesterday morning. God, and pregnant, too.

  Her finger took a long time to reach the “hold” button again. “How did you get my number, Mr. Eldar?”

  “The story in the Inquirer from a few weeks back said where you work. That’s kinda the point—if I can find you, so can they.”

  “They who?”

  “If I had to bet, I’d say Hezbollah. It’s their guy we supposedly killed.”

  Now she knew this guy was a kook. “You’re wrong, Mr. Eldar. I have some experience with those—” she almost said bastards, but remembered herself “—people, and they couldn’t do anything like what you’re suggesting. I don’t know what you want, but I’m not—”

  “All I want is for you to be careful, that’s all, I—”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Eldar—”

  “Look, please, I know it sounds crazy, just look it up—”

  “Goodbye. Please don’t call me again.” She hung up with more force than she needed but not enough to get her point across.

  Hezbollah. Really! Those cockroaches who’d attacked her home, killed her father? Eldar’s story sounded like a spy movie, and that just wasn’t something the damned Arabs were capable of. She’d gotten a lot of crank phone calls after the Qataris released her name—that’s why she’d agreed to the newspaper story—but nothing this bizarre.

  Rinnah Eldar still smiled on the screen. If this really was his wife, then Miriam would try to be charitable and figure he was distraught, not thinking straight. But she certainly hoped she’d never hear from Mr. Eldar again.

  THIRTY-SIX: Staten Island, 3 December

  Jake stopped rolling the tire-sized ball of snow and hunched to look into Eve’s eyes. “What do you think, Bunny? Bigger?”

  Eve pondered the snowman’s bottom end, then peeked across the street at the competing snowman the Rodgers’ three grandsons were scraping together on their front lawn. After a moment, she shrugged.

  He stifled a sigh. Why wouldn’t she talk? Jake screwed on a smile he didn’t feel, hoped it wouldn’t look too fake. “How ‘bout a little bigger, then? We want a good snowman for Uncle Gene and Aunt Monica, right?” Eve nodded. “Okay, help me push.”

  Jake had tried to keep Eve busy for the past two days, tried to make her feel safe and to keep himself from thinking—reading, watching DVDs, baking cookies. Now this. As they heaved the globe another six feet up the incline toward the house, he glimpsed the white-and-blue car behind them. Officially, the 122nd Precinct couldn’t post a guard on the house; unofficially, a patrol unit lurked at the curb whenever it wasn’t on a call. Jake couldn’t decide if this was a comfort or yet another shadow over his head and Eve’s.

  Jake knelt next to Eve. His jeans were already cold and wet from the knees down. “Big enough? You want it big like Uncle Gene?” He curved his arms around an imaginary belly. The ghost of a smile flitted over Eve’s lips, gone in a moment, but the best sight Jake had seen in the past couple of days. “Okay. Pack on some more snow.”

  He watched Eve’s pink mittens plump out the snowman-to-be and saw another winter seven years gone. Rinnah hadn’t been in snow since her parents took her to Mount Hermon when she was thirteen. On the first Saturday morning they’d awakened to a white-cloaked New York City, Jake had taken Rinnah to Central Park. They rode a horse-drawn carriage and rented plastic saucers to slide down a gentle slope. And they’d built a snowman.

  Eve looked just like her mother. Their faces melted together—Eve, then Rinnah, then Eve again—until Jake had to look away, choke down the sob fighting up his throat. I’m sorry ran in a loop through his head. Who was he apologizing to? Rinnah? Eve? Himself? Did it matter?

  Car doors slammed. Jake twisted, noticed the dark-blue Crown Victoria nosed up behind the patrol car. Two men in dark overcoats and gloves slogged through the snowplow’s leavings to get to the shoveled front walk.

  Eve flung herself to his side, trying to disappear into the bulk of his parka. He sucked in a halting breath, wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay, Bunny. They’re policemen.” Brooklyn Homicide Squad. Detective DeAngelo, in the lead, had questioned Jake the evening Rinnah was killed; Jake couldn’t remember the black partner’s name.

  DeAngelo nodded to him as the pair marched to the front door. What do they want? He heard Gene’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. If they had news, they’d tell him, right?

  Jake turned back to Eve. “Hey, let’s fatten this guy up, okay?”

  They padded out the snowman half-heartedly, each of them watching the front doorstep and each other. When the two detectives reappeared, Eve scrambled behind Jake again, panic all over her face. Jake squatted in the snow until Gene shouldered his way past the Homicide Squad men and beckoned to him. “Hey, kid, got a minute?”

  Jake couldn’t read Gene’s expression. Good thing or bad? Eve’s hands grabbed at the hem of his parka when he stood. He pulled off a glove, bent, cupped her cheek in his hand. “I’m just going over there with Uncle Gene. You can watch me, okay? I’ll be right there. Jasmine’ll keep you company.” He slid the doll from his coat pocket, pressed her into Eve’s hands, kissed the top of his daughter’s head through her hood, then backed away until he stood next to Gene. Eve never took her eyes off him. “What’s up?” he asked Gene.

  DeAngelo edged into Jake’s field of vision, glanced at Eve, then hunched in closer. “We think we got the fuck who did your wife,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Stunned, Jake staggered back a step. “Already? Who? What, an Arab guy? When?”

  “Not an Arab guy.” DeAngelo closed the gap. “A dead guy.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN: Cherry Hill, 4 December

  Morning mist blurred the flat planes of Schaffer’s apartment block across the street. Frost shimmered beneath the milk-blue streetlights and the lobby doors’ lightwash. Gur leaned forward slightly, peered up through the wi
ndshield’s top edge. The dawn bleached the sky a pale lavender. No sign of Hezbollah.

  “Why’d we wait so long to talk like this?” Kelila asked.

  He shifted to face her once again. Kelila curled up in the Pathfinder’s passenger seat, wrapped in her camel wool coat and a contented smile, as close as if they sat in bed. Isolated in the dark, they’d talked nonstop for three hours about surprisingly personal things—love and loss, dead spouses, raising children alone, delayed dreams, joy and sorrow. For the first time since Varda’s murder, he could speak plainly with a woman who understood him, a feeling as soothing as a swim in warm, calm water.

  “I don’t know. I’m glad we did.”

  “So am I.” Kelila watched him with soft, hooded eyes, then leaned forward and took Gur’s face in her hands. She kissed him, briefly but tenderly.

  The kiss burned its way to the soles of his feet. His body wanted more, but he squashed the impulse. Not in the field. Crazy schedules, no privacy, tired all the time. The team would know, they’d analyze everything he said to her, everything she did, see favoritism or abuse in the smallest look or word. It wouldn’t be fair to her, to him, anyone. If only we were home, where we belong.

  “Our shift isn’t over,” he mumbled. “We’ll miss the Arabs.” Of all the things to say…

  “I know.” Smiling, she leaned back in her seat. “I’ll behave.”

  They sat in a charged silence as dawn’s muted colors dripped onto the trees and buildings around them. Gur started the engine and ran the heater for a few minutes. Nothing stirred—no white van, no Arabs, no watchers. Just him and this attractive, interesting woman he dearly wanted to pursue, if not for the job.

  “Do you think she knows?” Kelila asked once he stopped the engine.

  He didn’t want to talk about this. He wanted to return to the dark intimacy of an hour before. He ached to kiss Kelila again, but if he started he wouldn’t stop. “I don’t know how she could. There’s been nothing in the news. How would she know?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe we should warn her, give her a chance.”

  “How do we do that? We can’t risk the contact.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I’d hate to be in her place, left out like a staked goat.”

  “We need to draw out the dogs. It’s the only way we’ll put them down.”

  Kelila frowned out the windshield. “I just hope they don’t put her down first.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT: Cherry Hill, 4 December

  Miriam hefted the two-pound hand weight. How far could she throw this and hit a target? It weighed about twice as much as the hand grenades she’d carried in the Magav, and she could heave those a good twenty-five or thirty meters at the range. This thing, not nearly so far. Then again, the dumbbell didn’t explode; no fragmentation to worry about.

  She’d never realized how many weapons she could find in this mirrored, enameled, echoing, thumping gym. She’d never needed to—until Friday.

  Miriam had looked up the names on the INTERPOL list, and they were dead, just like Eldar had said. She was still processing that. It would’ve been so easy to forget him and his warning if he’d been wrong, but he’d been right, and she’d started seeing things in shadows.

  One of the few other gym inmates paced by, both hands pulling his towel tight against the back of his neck. Miriam didn’t recognize him; her muscles snapped alert. She sidestepped to the rack of chromed iron bars for the universal machine, gripped a heavy four-foot pull-down bar, ready to come out swinging. The man veered away, shaking his head.

  Don’t be silly. You think the terrorists are playing racquetball?

  She’d caught herself thinking in Hebrew over the past couple of days, a sure sign she was on edge. When she’d stepped into the One Commerce Square courtyard Friday evening, she could have sworn a man followed her to her car. Once she was behind her locked front door that evening, she felt unmentionably stupid for believing such a thing; at the time, though, she actually got nervous, fingering the pepper-spray canister in her purse as she stormed through the melting snow. Yesterday, she’d thought some men in a white van followed her home from the Shop Rite. But that couldn’t be…could it?

  Paranoia was wearing her out. Miriam needed to turn off her brain.

  She dropped to the floor and clicked off push-ups, real ones like she’d learned in the Magav, not the girly ones other women did. While she pumped, she eyed the exits. Fire flowed into her biceps. The pain felt good, necessary. She urged it on by dipping lower, rising faster.

  Miriam finished thirty, flipped onto her rear and flexed out her gimpy knee. Her poly warmup pants made faint scraping noises as they dragged over her spandex knee brace.

  Was Eldar crazy?

  Was she?

  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.

  She didn’t hurt enough yet; she could still think. Thirty minutes on the elliptical would fix that.

  She’d take the pull-down bar with her. Just in case.

  THIRTY-NINE: Staten Island, 4 December

  Jake pounded out an ambitious pace on Gene’s dormant treadmill. He felt flabby and lazy. He and Rinnah used to run and play tennis together, but once Eve came along, parenthood had cut into workout time, and sleeping time, and all other kinds of time. Now his time with Rinnah was done. Just the thought threatened to squeeze his windpipe shut.

  He glanced to the other end of the finished basement, where Monica read Milne’s Winnie the Pooh to Eve. Gene’s house was littered with kid books for the grandchildren, but Jake had to mount a major search to find one that didn’t feature a dead or missing parent. Eve huddled against Monica’s substantial figure on the couch, Jasmine clutched to her chest, her eyes locked on Jake. It was the farthest she’d been from him since yesterday’s Homicide Squad visit.

  Gene clanked his beer bottle against the treadmill console. “You wanted to talk, kid, so talk.”

  Jake faced his uncle, who slumped on a barstool like a bear. “You know this gangbanger thing is bullshit.” He kept his voice low so Eve couldn’t hear over the treadmill’s rumble.

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”

  “Oh, come on.” Jake slowed the treadmill a couple clicks so he could talk and breathe at the same time. “This LaVon whatever was a hard case, right? Drugs, armed robbery, ADW, all that? He’s got all of Sunset Park to play in, and he comes up twenty blocks to rob my apartment? You believe that?”

  Gene took a swig from his bottle, looked past Jake to Eve, waved a sad paw at her, then returned to Jake. “I believe it more than I do some terrorist killed Rinnah, then capped this guy and planted the gun and the swag on him. Know what that sounds like?”

  It sounded nuts, Jake knew. He ran a few paces, trying to scrape his words together. “How about the guy who stabbed Brown? They catch him yet? Same guy maybe?”

  “Nope. Witnesses say that one’s a skinny Hispanic guy, used a knife and some kind of pipe or club. Your neighbors saw a big black dude coming out your window. LaVon Delaine’s a big black dude. Was. Plus he had the piece that fired the slug CSU found in your apartment, and he had your stuff. Plus he was a total shitbag.” He leaned back, pushed his fingers through his hair. “So maybe you can see why Seven-Two and the Homicide Squad like him for this.”

  Jake could, even though his gut told him they were wrong. “He didn’t do it, Gene. It’s too easy, it doesn’t make any sense. He’s—”

  Gene held up a hand. “Kid. They’re not closing it out yet. The Commissioner wants it closed yesterday, but Seven-Two’ll keep it going another couple days as a personal favor to me. Check it all out, make sure it’s solid. That’s the best they can do, okay?”

  No, it wasn’t. They’d spend the time confirming what they already believed. But what could he do? What proof did he have?

  He looked toward Eve again. She stared back at him, anguish in her dark eyes. He saw Rinnah’s face pleading for an explanation. He couldn’t bear to see that look, but it was hard to t
urn away. He deserved it. He’d failed Rinnah and Eve in the most fundamental possible way.

  If he left things the way they were, Miriam Schaffer would die and he’d have failed her, too. The phone call had been a disaster. She obviously figured him for some kind of nut. He’d been afraid to check his computer this morning, dreaded seeing the Google News alert with her name in boldface. It wasn’t; today, she was still alive. But tomorrow?

  Jake cranked the treadmill back to a fast walk. “I gotta go to Philly tomorrow.”

  Gene scowled. “Philly?”

  “I gotta talk to Schaffer, face-to-face. Make her believe she’s in danger. It was stupid to do it on the phone, I—”

  “You need to stay here with Chava. She needs you.”

  “Keep it down. I know. I can’t just let Schaffer die, I can’t live with that, not if I can still help her see what’s going on. I should’ve told Rinnah, but I didn’t and now she’s dead.”

  Gene lumbered off the stool and grabbed Jake’s arm. “It’s not your fault, kid. There’s nothing you could’ve done, except maybe die with her if you were there. Schaffer isn’t your problem, Chava is. You can’t just leave her, not now.”

  Jake shook off his uncle’s hand, glanced back at Eve. Her stare still burned holes through his soul. “Once is enough, Gene. I owe it to Rinnah. I gotta save somebody.”

  FORTY: Philadelphia, 5 December

  “Sir? She’s here.”

  Jake followed the receptionist’s nod to see Miriam Schaffer, hands folded at her lap, standing at the entrance to a blue-carpeted corridor that led to the law firm’s inner sanctum.

  The news photo of her at her husband’s funeral didn’t do her justice. In her businesslike black pumps she was a good head taller than Rinnah, only a couple inches shorter than Jake. Her pearl-blue long-sleeved blouse and slim slate-blue skirt showcased a well-kept figure. If Rinnah’s hair had been dark walnut, Miriam’s was rosewood, pulled back tight in a no-nonsense bun. But what he noticed most as he closed the distance between them was her posture—erect, shoulders square, chest out, chin up, like she was on parade. Jake felt like he was reporting to the principal’s office; he was glad he’d worn a suit and had a fresh haircut.