by Elik Katzav
I take a deep breath, steady myself and squeeze the trigger, only to witness Meir pulling his arm up in an inhumanly rapid motion, in his attempt to stop the bullet, which he indeed succeeds in diverting. My bullet gets lodged in the wall right behind him. He grins and bears his teeth again in such a wide smirk, his lips are nearly falling off his mouth.
Shit, I refitted the gun but forgot to switch to non metallic bullets too.
I take a quick look around the place as Meir begins to assemble metal objects in mid air to hurl them against us.
A glance at Rose’s dining room table, or what’s left of it. This gives me an idea. I aim at Meir and empty my magazine all over him. Bullet after bullet, they cut through the air, forcing him to drop all his pieces of metal and focus on escaping the bullets, preventing them from hitting him. Now, he looks more like a giant ball with arms and feet. I seize the opportunity and run towards the table, turn it over and hide behind it.
Meir is shouting something I cannot decipher. He’s livid.
I can see Rose in the corner of my eye, dragging herself across the floor in her attempt to escape the room. I feel the floor shaking and see Meir at the corner, across the table, very close to me, looking more and more like a giant ball with a head. The more he strains, the more his shape loses any trace of its former human traits. He stretches what’s left of his arms backwards, and the dining room begins to crack, literally!
Can he do it? He is so caught up in his mission, he’s about to knock the entire building down and perish along with us, like Samson.
I have no intention of hanging around to find out whether Meir is capable of that or not. I hurl myself at the edge of the table, grab the staff Rose had brought all the way from Africa, swing it over my head, and pounce on Meir, hitting him over the head with both my arms.
The knock makes a hollow sound, as though I was hitting a pipe. Meir is looking at the staff, which is now wedged in the middle of his head. He utters this scream and stares down. Then, he gives me an astonished look. The next thing I see is what’s left of him literally coming apart at the seams! I have no other way to describe it.
It’s as though hitting Meir using that staff produced actual cracks in his corporeal body, gaping holes beginning to ooze black smoke. He looks like he is trying to stop pulling the metal off of all the walls around him, in order to preserve what little strength he’s got left to keep his own body intact, but it’s too late. The cracks are getting too big.
By the time I get what’s about to happen, it’s already too late to run away. I look on, stunned. My eyes are wide open, but my feet have already turned to flee.
Suddenly, a flash of bright light where Meir just stood, like a nuclear explosion, blinds me for a moment. I regain my eyesight after a few seconds. The light goes out just as quickly as it burst. A black stain on the floor. That’s all that’s left of this demon.
- Say hi from me in hell!
I begin to feel the pain of countless metal shards hitting me as I collapse onto the floor, only to feel all that broken glass as well.
Chapter 28
I don’t know how long it was before I came to.
Meir’s voice was still reverberating in my ears, drowning out all other sounds. Teary eyed and trying to adjust to the room’s natural light, I sense that a part of the dining table is on fire. I try to get up and head for where Rose is lying. Those dozens of little scratches and tiny holes that just went through me are beginning to bleed out now, just as the adrenaline levels in my blood begin to subside. I feel each and every injury I sustained. My hitherto muffled headache is beginning to roll like thunder.
I eventually drag myself to where Rose is, only to find her hand in an expanding pool of blood, surrounded by broken glass.
Her pulse is strong. She’s alive!
I am so relieved to realize that Rose survived.
Now that I drew closer to her, I can hear her faint cry.
It’s like she waited for me to touch her hand to cling to mine.
The kitchen is suddenly teaming with all sorts of people. The neighbors are gathering around us.
They must have realized something bad was going on, so they called for help.
Someone is bending over to check on Rose, while another helps me to my feet. Another person in uniform is talking into some device, requesting an ambulance. I can hear someone else using a fire extinguisher to put the fire out before it spreads from Rose’s table to the rest of what’s left of the apartment.
People are walking in with gurneys. Someone is flashing some light right into my eyes. I attempt to see how Rose is doing, to make sure she’s being taken care of, but I cannot shake the light.
The woman with the light keeps asking me these questions. I realize she’s a paramedic.
I really don’t know if I can stand.
They’re taking Rose out on the stretcher. The paramedic is propping me up right behind them.
Baby steps.
One of the police officers at the scene picks my gun up from the floor and bags it for forensics.
I see myself out of Rose’s apartment. The paramedic remains by my side nonetheless.
There’s quite a crowd outside the building. We made quite a scene.
They’re spilling over onto the road. The small streets aren’t enough to hold them.
The crowd clears a path for Rose’s ambulance, but the ambulance I am in is still here, as I refuse to leave.
I turn to the officer who questions me about what just happened:
- I am a former cop. Please contact Superintendent Aharon Hanan. I am a former officer of his. If there’s any issue, he can back me up.
They pass this on over the police radio. The paramedic uses the time to bandage me up.
Things are probably not as bad as I initially thought. Sure, I’ve got plenty of cuts and bruises, and I am also pretty sure I have lots of metal shards stuck all over, but here I am, standing on my own two feet. All my fingers and toes work well. My sight and my hearing are back to normal.
The paramedic goes over each and every injury and cleans them. By the time she’s finished, my torso is covered by all sorts of bandages and band aids. My shirt is laying beside me. Carefully cut out.
I try to get out of the ambulance and make it back to Rose’s digs, but the cops won’t hear of it.
“You cannot get into the building just yet. The firefighters aren’t done checking for any additional gas leaks.”
So they’ve decided the explosion was due to some gas leak. That would sure sound better, especially for tomorrow’s headlines, than the assertion that some demon came over and blew Rose’s kitchen up.
I head back out into the street. The paramedic escorts me, leads me, to be accurate, back to the ambulance, where another police car is now parked. Aharon steps out. He’s in plain clothes. I can see him walking over to one of the policemen at the scene. Then, he turns back to face me and heads my way.
- He tried to kill us! Seriously! He fucking did!
“Who tried to kill you? Talk to me. I can’t help you unless you fill me in.”
- There’s nothing for me to fill you in on. Last time I thought of sharing things with you, they broke my face in using a desk. That’s police cooperation for you. That’s all the police can give me, I’ll have you know.
“You did promise to share information with us. I let you into that hospital in exchange for information.”
- And I expected the police to take it upon themselves to at least try to find Idan. So we’re both in for a disappointment. Besides, I understood from Na’ama that the house at Omer led you to the information on the murder of the journalist you were investigating, so in my book, we’re even.
Aharon is shaking his head. “I don’t know whether to be angry with you or arrest you for being a public hazard.” He looks me over and continues. “The initia
l report mentioned a number of shots heard inside the apartment. They found a gun with an empty magazine. I assume it’s yours, but there is no trace of anything else back there.”
That’s because it melted, but I cannot tell you that, because you’ll have me in that ambulance faster than I can stand.
“So the pistol was empty. No bullets left. Who did you shoot? There aren’t any bullet holes or slugs inside the apartment. We looked.”
- I didn’t shoot anyone. There wasn’t anyone there. I was cleaning the gun. That’s how come they found it was on the floor. The magazine was on the kitchen table, so the bullets probably caught fire with all the explosion. That accounts for the sound of shots.
“Does this have anything to do with your missing child case?”
- I am telling you nothing happened. This must have been a gas leak, no? That’s what they keep saying.
“You wish to play that game? Be my guest. Get on the ambulance. I shall make sure a uniformed police man stays with you at the hospital until such time that you are able to tell us everything you do have to say about this case.”
I sigh.
- I do not want to play any games. It’s just better this way. Once I am able to tell you anything, believe me, you’re the first person I’ll talk to.
He gives me this tired look and eventually nods.
“Get yourself to the emergency room just to make sure there’s no permanent damage, because in my opinion, your brain was fried. I am saying this without any medical knowledge. It’s just my opinion as an amateur diagnostician.”
Aharon shuts the ambulance doors and it heads for the hospital, sirens blaring.
Chapter 29
Two whole hours. That’s how long it took. They wasted two whole hours of my time on all sorts of tests. They wouldn’t let me go until they were done.
I rush over to intensive care, where Rose is hospitalized, only to be stopped by a nurse upon entering the room.
“You cannot get in. She is in recovery.”
- I’m her boyfriend. I can get in.
What is this?
“That’s a problem, because her real boyfriend is already in there with her.”
- What?! Who?
She’s checking her chart. “Itay Lemech. He was under ‘next of kin in case of emergency’, you see?”
That hurt a lot more than I had expected it to. Then again, this must have originated back when they were together.
Or is it that she simply knew she could trust him more. She knew Itay would rush to her aid no matter what.
I look through the window in the door to Rose’s room, fully expecting to see her when they draw the curtain, but out comes Itay, a worried look on his face, which turns to distinct anger when he sees me on the other side of the door.
“You’ve got some nerve, coming in here after what you’ve done!” he pushes me further out into the hospital corridor.
I swallow the physical pain of the push.
- I am here because I worry about her.
“Way to go. Putting her into intensive care really shows how much you care.”
- It isn’t like that. It’s not-
“Not what? Didn’t you drag her into one of your fantasies? Didn’t you just put her life in danger? The police are calling it “a gas pipe explosion”, but they found your gun among the artifacts on the floor of her apartment. Why the hell wasn’t it on you?! Tell me what really happened!”
I shake my head.
- I don’t think it matters. The important thing is that Rose is going to be fine.
“Fine? Fine? They had to give her a shot to make her sleep. She was just sitting up, gawking, staring, muttering something… What did you do to her? What?!”
- Nothing. I didn’t do anything. Nothing happened. She went over to the kitchen after she had already boiled some water to make us tea. There was probably a short fuse, followed by an explosion. That is all.
“I don’t think so. Something doesn’t sound right. There’s something you’re not telling me. It doesn’t add up.”
Yeah, spot on. There was a demon in her kitchen. He tried to kill us both. I shot him and now we’re going to live forever, with all that fear and madness.
- It’s an old building, Itay. These things just happen.
He shakes his head from side to side and taps me on the shoulder. “Fine then. If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll be in there with my girlfriend, just in case you decide to talk to me,” he turns away and returns to the ward.
A long night passes, during which Rose never wakes up. The next day, I awake at noon, only to find myself on the hospital bench. I never did like sleeping on benches, although when you have to, you just do it.
I see Itay leaving Rose’s intensive care room. He’s walking over to me. “She woke up and seems alert and lucid, which is a good sign. Apparently, she remembers nothing since the last class she gave. She doesn’t even remember you paying her a visit.
- She doesn’t remember anything? When can I see her?
“That’s what I’m out for. They’re allowing one visitor at a time, and she’s asking for you. She wants you to come in while I call her parents.”
As I turn to go in through the door, Itay lays his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I was very rough on you. I was going through my own emotional turmoil, blaming you for things you’re not accountable for.”
- That’s all right, Itay. Every family has its arguments, its ups and downs. The important thing as that we get through them, and that-
I turn my head towards Rose’s bed,
- Eventually, we are all safe and sound.
Itay gives me a hug and lets out a deep sigh. I return the hug until he lets go, and then I walk over to Rose. She is lying in bed.
So small in that sea of white.
She gives me a faint smile and motions me to approach with her bandaged hands.
She notices my glance. “Oh, this? It’s the latest fashion. They came up with this way to stop me going near computers any time soon.”
- Looking good. Check out mine.
I lift my shirt up to reveal the dozens of band aids and bandages all over my torso.
“What a sight. Want me to lift mine too?”
- Huh? What’s that?
She laughs and makes a funny face. “It hurts to laugh. Some log fell on top of me. Nearly broke all my bones.”
- Yeah, sorry about that. The gas went off. I had to protect you from the explosion.
“Yeah, right… some guy, he sure was full of gas when he blew off.”
She’s no longer smiling when she says this.
- You remember that guy? And everything that happened?
“Remember? How could I forget? Was this guy high on drugs or something? The way he took all my stuff apart and threw them at me…
- Oh, he sure did. So you didn’t see me shoot him, did you?
“How could I? You were laying on top of me. I only remember him holding something that looked like a ball, maybe a grenade, and then you jumped on him and shot him, after which he blew up into a million pieces, just like in the movies.”
- Rose, remember I told you about Eldad and his men, right?
“I do.”
- That guy from last night was Meir, one of Eldad’s people.
Rose’s eyes are wide open. “You recognized him? Was it one of Eldad’s body guards, you mean? What are we going to do? What if he sends someone else after us? He knows where I live! I’ve got nowhere else to go… What are we going to do?”
I place my hand on her shoulder. She’s shivering all over.
- I got this. No one will go after us. No one. I’ll see to that.
“But how? He’s such a powerful man, he’s unstoppable. If he comes after us, that’ll be it for us, whether it’s tomorrow or next wee
k.”
- No. It’s not going to be like that. I hung around to see if you were fine, and now I am going to drive over to him and try to straighten things out. Everything about this case simply isn’t worth what happened to you. I will go and convince him we’re not worth his time.
Not that it’ll do any good. As far as Eldad is concerned, he’s tying up loose ends.
“Promise me he won’t go after me. Promise.”
- I promise I will do whatever it takes to prevent him from chasing after you.
I rise from my chair. Rose’s eyes fill with tears. I can see Itay through the window in the door, standing next to a cop.
- Rose, I have to go now. I am going to resolve this mess once and for all.
She nods. The tears never stop.
I leave her in the recovery room.
Chapter 30
I’ve got no time to waste, but first thing’s first. I have to go down to the police station.
The police officer who has been waiting for me is now leading me to the police car. I see other officers too. They’ve been waiting ever so patiently for my testimony concerning the events of last night.
I glance over the free daily newspaper they’ve got laying around in the police car and discover a small article on Eldad Ben Ya’ar and his scheduled flight, today, for an innovative treatment in France that might help him combat his illness.
Shit, he’s going away for three weeks. I have to wrap things up at the station as quickly as possible.
My cell phone was turned off during the night, so its battery is still enough to make a quick call to Na’ama, who’s waiting for my arrival.
She’ll help speed things along.
- If you want to see any breakthrough in your investigation of Noga’s murder, help me conclude my interview at the station ASAP. I have a tight schedule to keep, otherwise, no one is going to catch the people they are after.
“You know I could hold you for at least two days just for what you just told meid?”
- Na’ama, you can keep me locked up for two days or two years for all I care. You do know I will only tell you what I know, and even that, when I choose to do so, and only to you and Aharon, mind you. The rest of this rotten police doesn’t deserve my help.
