by Steve Israel
All those medicines. Under the watchful eye of Guadalupe, the flirtatious pharmacy assistant with the butterfly tattoo rising from her chest. Not exactly Ricardo’s type, but here in the mausoleum romance wasn’t difficult with someone who still had her own teeth and didn’t forget her name.
He thought sometimes about the blond receptionist he jilted on Long Island.
I’ve gone from Victoria with those sexy legs to Minny with one foot in the grave. Aaaaah, the sacrifices I must make.
But it was worth it. He was stockpiling medications, delivering them to a safe place on Long Island where they were soon watered down and chalked up. Then they were resold into the retail market and stocked on the shelves of America’s drugstores. True, people were dying. But he was making a nice living.
He learned one thing at the Bella Abzug Home for the Aged: We all die, sooner or later. Or in the case of Minny Schwartzman, way, way later.
CALL YOUR MOTHER
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2004
You’re kidding, right? Hassan asked God.
The hurricane had come. And it had gone. Barely scuffing the Paradise Hotel and Residences. As if God Himself, in one of His infinite mysteries, decided to spare Boca. Florida’s orange groves—those He destroyed. The Zionists, the infidels, the occupiers of lands and towels, they escaped His wrath. Again.
You’ve got to be kidding!
Balancing on a stepladder, Hassan returned the TWO TOWELS PER GUEST sign to its place. A cart containing dozens of laundered towels was parked next to the hut. Hotel workers raked the beach and swept the grounds to erase any sign of the hurricane. An early-morning sun glowed on the horizon, winking at an ocean that seemed to sigh with relief.
Hassan stepped off the ladder, bent toward the cart, scooped the first pile of fresh towels, and placed them on the shelves in the hut.
Then he heard it:
“So nu? You’re back in business?”
Like the call of the muezzin, a sweet beckoning to Hassan.
“Good morning, Mrs. Feldstein! You survived the storm, thank God.”
Rona waved dismissively. “Gottenyu, all that hype! Morris and I were fine. His biggest crisis was when we lost the satellite TV. As if he didn’t already know the ending to Meet Me in St. Louis. Did ya evuh?”
“I nevuh, Mrs. Feldstein. May I give you a towel? Or two?”
Rona turned, and her shoulders drooped.
“Is something wrong, Mrs. Feldstein?”
“No towel today, Hassan. I’m afraid my pool days are over for now. Morris and I going home. To Great Neck. Morris has to get back to Celfex and I have my clients.”
Hassan felt his stomach tighten. Who would give him medicine if his headaches returned? Who would mother him?
Rona interrupted his despair. “Hassan, I have something to say.”
She cleared her throat, as if summoning the words from inside, bit her lip, and said:
“Hassan, I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’ll be very concerned about you when I leave. So I want you to keep this. For when you need it.”
Hassan felt a thin slab of metal attached to a crumpled card pressed against the palm of his hand.
“It’s the spare set of keys, Hassan. To our unit. You can keep an eye on things for me while we’re away. And God forbid, while you’re checking on everything, you put on some air-conditioning . . . watch some satellite TV . . . make yourself a little nosh . . .” Her voice lifted the last word of each phrase into the air, as if singing a jingle about the amenities of her condo.
“Oh no, Mrs. Feldstein. I couldn’t. What about the schmutz? Remember what you said about other people’s schmutz in your unit—”
“Oooh, pul-eeeeeze, Hassan. I’ve seen how you fold towels! You’re very professional. And you’re not like other people! You’re like family! I’m your surrogate mother, Hassan. Your surrogate Jewish mother from Great Neck, New Yawk! How many Arabs can say that!”
Probably not that many, Hassan thought.
“I wrote down my cell number. I want you to call me. When you want to schmooze. When . . . when you need someone to talk to, Hassan. Promise you’ll call me, Hassan.”
“I promise, Mrs. Feldstein.”
“Good. Now, we’re going to make a little deal, you and me.”
“A deal, Mrs. Feldstein?”
“Yes. You can use our unit. But don’t breathe a word to Morris. It’s our little secret.”
I can keep secrets, Hassan thought.
“And one more thing I want you to do.”
“Yes, Mrs. Feldstein?”
“I want you to call your mother.”
Reflexively Hassan pushed the keys back to Rona. And just as reflexively Rona held up both hands.
“Ah, ah, ah. I am not taking no for an answer! I’m a professional. I’m trained to pick up certain clues. You don’t think I noticed how you reacted when I asked you about your mother? The clenched fists? How your face shriveled up like a day-old Danish?”
Hassan lowered his eyes.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Hassan. The mother-son dynamic is complex. Entire books have been written on the subject. Have you read Chicken Soup for the Oedipal Male Soul? No? I’ll send it to you. With the Migramize. I’m trying to help, Hassan. Call your mother.”
The sweat of his palm now covered the key. “I cannot . . .” His words were course and heavy.
“Hassan. I’m not asking you to call your mother in my professional capacity as a certified social worker with a degree from Long Island University. I’m giving you this advice . . .” she paused in a futile effort to keep her voice from trembling, “. . . as a mother myself.”
Hassan noticed Rona’s lips begin to quiver. “I have two precious children. My Caryn wants to be a filmmaker. Documentaries. Have you seen Fox News Fascists? On YouTube? That’s Caryn.”
“Now my Jeffrey, he’s another story! Whatever you think your mother did to you, you’ve punished her enough. No, you’ve tortured her, Hassan. Because when a mother loses a son, it’s torture. God knows my Jeffrey and I had our differences. I wanted him to go to law school. I begged him. But no. Stocks, he said. Did you evuh? One day they’re up, the next day they’re down.
“ ‘Jeffrey,’ I said, ‘you want to earn a living on a roller coaster, you should go to work at Disneyland.’ So we fought. Like cats and dogs. But I cannot imagine how it would be if Jeffrey stopped talking to me. Fighting I can deal with. Silence? It’s like torture. Tor . . . cha!” Rona bit her upper lip, removed her sunglasses, and wiped her glistening eyes with a fresh Kleenex she retrieved from her tote bag.
Hassan felt an uncomfortable stirring inside. Rona managed to do what no CIA interrogator could hope to do: She got inside his head. Dredging the muck. Starting a flow of submerged thoughts. Eroding his willpower. And Rona knew where to pull the pin of the emotional grenade: in that part of the brain where guilt resides. That was the sweet spot. Rona knew it, as did all the Jewish mothers and the Italian mothers and the Irish mothers and even Hamidah Muzan, a Palestinian mother in Gaza. They could be their own category in the Geneva Convention prohibitions against cruel and inhuman punishment; but no one wanted to upset them by suggesting it.
Still, Hassan knew that calling home—just for a moment, just to hear his mother’s voice, just to let her know he was alive—could compromise the entire operation. One call from my cell phone and the next thing I know, a B-52 drops a five-hundred-pound bunker buster and there’s a crater where the towel hut used to be. No thank you, US Air Force!
“Perhaps another day, Mrs. Feldstein.”
“Take it from me, Hassan. Take it from a mother.”
Resist, Hassan!
“I will write to her, Mrs. Feldstein.”
“Writing is always nice . . .”
Excellent, Hassan!
“Assuming your mother gets the
letter, of course. Acchhh, who knows with the mail these days? You’ll write a letter to her and God only knows when she’ll get it. Or if she’ll get it. But I’m sure she can wait. After all, she waited all this time to hear from her son. What’s another few weeks. Or months? Or evuh?”
Hassan thought: Plus, she could open the letter, get a paper cut and blood poisoning, and that’s that!
“Here.” Rona extended her cell phone to him. “You can borrow my cell.”
“Yes, Mrs. Feldstein.”
NEWS BREAK
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2004
That night, in Morris and Rona’s Great Neck dining room, the negotiation of what to watch on television commenced over some Italian food from Luiggi’s Ristorante.
Morris surrendered early.
After all, the Mets had dropped nine in a row. Morris was tired of losing. The only thing better than watching another agonizing Mets loss was watching the agonizing news.
He sat in the RoyaLounger. Rona curled up on the couch. And the dramatic CNN overture filled the room.
Wolf Blitzer began with a report of a deadly battle between US troops and Shia forces in a place called Sadr City. And Rona bit her lip.
Then Blitzer reported a grizzly milestone: the one-thousandth American death in Iraq. Rona let out a long, quivering sigh. Or cry.
This is why we shouldn’t watch the news, Morris thought. It’s always bad, these days. And there’s nothing we can do about it. So why bother?
On the couch, Rona felt the lump in her throat grow. And couldn’t help but liken it to the lump on that chair. Staring at the television as if it were just one of his classic movies, as though he could just change the channel instead of trying to change the world.
THE SAFE HOUSE WITH LOX
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2004
“This is Paradise.”
“No it isn’t.”
“It seems like Paradise.”
“Then where are the virgins?”
“Maybe no virgins. But it’s got the Emeril Signature kitchen, satellite television, and look at that ocean view!”
“You are a fool.”
Hassan cradled his head in his hands as his cell members bickered in the Feldstein living room at The Residences at Paradise.
Azad was sprawled on the Berber carpet, leafing through a People magazine. He wore his favorite designer jeans, which annoyed Hassan. They must have cost Azad a month’s pay mowing lawns at the landscaping company.
Achmed napped on the couch, snoring through a gaping mouth. He was constantly tired from his night job cleaning jets’ cabins. Achmed was the cell’s explosives expert.
And Pervez. On the battlefields of Afghanistan, he was famous for uncoiling on his enemy like a venomous snake. Now he seemed stitched into a green microfiber recliner. He was bloated from the employee discounts he received as a counterman at McDonald’s.
Gleaming marble, sparkling glass, and textured wallpaper with extravagant pastel streaks surrounded them. Hassan’s nostrils tingled from the scent of the recently installed Berber carpet.
Almost as soon as Rona and Morris returned to New York, he had relocated the cell from a hovel in Little Havana. It seemed like a sensible idea at the time. The Residences at Paradise was the last place the FBI would be on the lookout for global crime (unless they were investigating an international mahjong ring). And the relocation would improve the cell’s morale, which was just as low as his own, at least prior to meeting Rona. Here, they could plan their attack, and when fatigue set in, they could take a break, have a little nosh, and watch the gigantic plasma television mounted on a wall.
Hassan stared at the screen. CNN was regurgitating a comment the Vice President had made earlier in the day: “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November second, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.”
How did he find out? Hassan thought.
Achmed awakened with a grunt. “I am sick of CNN,” he said. “Turn on Fox News!”
Azad protested: “I refuse to watch Fox! I want to watch That ’70s Show!”
“But we had a deal!” insisted Achmed. “Your shows on odd-numbered days. Fox on even days. Today is the eighth. We watch Fox. Right, Hassan?”
Before Hassan could take a side, Pervez chimed in. “Excuuuuuse me! Someone is trying to read here!” He was now leafing through a copy of Rona’s glossy coffee-table book, Marc Chagall: Masterpieces.
“Shut up, Pervez!” Azad yelled.
“Enough!” Hassan said. He grabbed the television clicker from the coffee table and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. The gesture caught everyone’s attention. They trained their eyes on him, not quite ready to confront the authority that befalls one who possesses the television clicker.
Hassan stared back, making sure to fix his eyes on each one. They wouldn’t challenge him, he knew. They couldn’t. They were too lazy. Draped around the room like discarded clothing.
This terrorist cell would bring the West to its knees. Right after Larry King on CNN.
Hassan clapped his hands like cymbals. “We must stay focused!” he demanded.
“Focused on what, Hassan?” Pervez grumbled. “It’s been thirty months. And still we know nothing about when we will attack, where we will attack, who we will attack, or even if we will attack! I thought I would be in Paradise by now. Instead I just got my fourth raise at McDonald’s and I’m up for assistant manager. I can’t keep waiting. Maybe I’ll apply to al-Qaeda. I hear they’re expanding.”
“Then go to al-Qaeda,” said Azad. “Whine to them. See how fast they take you!”
“I will go, Azad. But first I will cut out your tongue,” Pervez snarled. There was a time, Hassan reflected, when that threat would have petrified Azad. The first time that Hassan saw Pervez—at the Abu al-Zarqawi Army of Jihad Martyrs of Militancy Brigade training camp—he immediately requested that headquarters assign him to the South Florida cell. That snarl would come in handy at the right moment. It would strike fear into someone’s heart. But Pervez’s transfer to America required him to change his appearance to blend in. His beard came off, and after he started at the McDonald’s, the pounds went on. His jowls grew puffy, and his once-fierce jaw drooped with wobbly flesh. Now, his snarl was no more threatening than the annoyed expression of a McDonald’s employee toward a customer who took too long deciding on which value meal to order. And it’s hard to effectuate a good snarl when your lips are orange from Doritos crumbs.
They were looking, acting, more like the Weight Watchers Club of Boca Raton than a terrorist cell, Hassan realized. Thirty months was just too long to maintain unit cohesion and discipline.
What is Tora Bora waiting for? How long can they expect me to keep everyone motivated without even giving us a hint of our mission? How many towels must I fold? How many Happy Meals must Pervez serve, lawns must Azad landscape, planes must Achmed vacuum, before the order comes to activate the cell?
A string of commercials droned on the television, broken by some gentle piano notes. A woman stared through a window at a slightly falling rain. And then this: “Sometimes, even your depression medicine isn’t enough. That’s why there’s Enhancify. Prescribed by your doctor, Enhancify gives you the added tools you need to make it through the day. Every day.” In the next scene, the woman walked with her husband, under an umbrella with the bright-yellow Enhancify trademark.
“This I do not understand,” Azad commented. “They give you depression medicine for your depression medicine?”
Which gave Hassan an idea.
Rona. The surrogate mother/therapist. With her UJA tote bag full of kaleidoscopic pills and tablets.
The words were recorded slowly and methodically. The voice heartened Hassan.
>
“Hello. Thank you for caw-ling Row-nuh Feldstein, C-S-double-yuuuuuu. I am unable to come to the phone at the present time. But if you leave yaw name, phone numbuh, day and time of yaw call, I will return it as soon as possible. Please. You should wait for the beep. And then tawk.”
“Hello, Mrs. Feldstein? So, nu? Please call me. It is important. Good-bye.”
Please call back soon, he thought.
The call was intercepted by Alonso Diaz of FBI–Boca. He plugged into his computer the New York phone number that Hassan had called. Leaned back. And waited.
His monitor flickered with information about the recipient of Hassan’s call: Rona Feldstein of Great Neck, New York. He scrolled through her driver’s license number, her social security number, her current address (19 Soundview Drive), her previous known address/addresses (“none”), her employer (“self-employed”), her husband’s name, social security number, and employer, her record of arrests and infractions (“none”), and miscellaneous details about her life that had all the intrigue of a PBS series on the Blue-winged Warbler.
He clicked the icon on his photo gallery and found the images of Hassan and Rona at the Paradise. It brought a delicious smile to Diaz’s lips.
The camera doesn’t lie. People do.
What turns ordinary people into secret agents, skulking in the shadows, disguising phone records, and creating clandestine greetings like “So, nu?”
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” he liked to quote Freud. It was the only Freud quote he knew, but it seemed to explain most of the entries on the “persons of interest” list.
Lust.
Take Hassan and Rona. How perfect! Not only was a middle-aged Jewish woman from New York cheating on her husband, but she was doing it with an Arab! What could be more dangerous? More arousing? Less kosher! Talk about mixing milk with meat!
