I had to be there, not only because I had been the last man who saw him alive, and not only because he might have been hit by a bullet that had just missed me; the consulate’s professional contacts required our presence at such a funeral. Jay had been the commander of the airport police, after all.
A police rifle party fired a three-volley salute. Rows of uniformed police officers, along with some in civilian clothes, clenched their jaws, thinking of their families and loved ones. They reflected on the life-threatening danger most of them were exposed to daily, each of whom might have been there today in the casket, instead of Jay.
More than anyone there, I’d had a better chance of being in such a casket, in the belly of an El Al plane on my way back to Israel. The murderer had passed right next to me, and I hadn’t suspected for a moment what was about to happen.
What did they think now? Which of them believed I could have done something? I wondered what Giora would have to say now. “Report any new developments,” he’d curtly instructed me in our brief, anxious call. I hadn’t bothered to argue.
None of the police officers said a word to me. McFlaherty stood in front, by the rifle party, in his ceremonial peaked cap and dress uniform. His natural sourness now looked like real grief. At least twelve television cameras were recording the funeral; the story about the murder was the top story for all the local news broadcasts. McFlaherty, I had to admit, looked really good. Tough and laconic, staying within a fifty-word vocabulary.
“How’s your Spanish?” Dorothy, the longtime secretary to the consul general, asked me. She looked like an older white lady, but as a proud Texan, she made a lot of fuss out of Mexican- and Native American traditions as well. She was wearing a brown poncho and matching straw hat that gave her the look of a Franciscan monk.
“Basic at best.” I looked at Jay’s mother and sisters, who couldn’t stop weeping.
Dorothy had put in a lot of effort to eventually convince Almog that it wouldn’t be right for him to attend the funeral. “No one has yet made the connection between the murder and your arrival, and you don’t want to be the first to highlight it. In any case, your first public appearance has to be before the Jewish community.” Persuading Almog was no mean feat, but Dorothy, with her rapid-fire English, impressed and even overwhelmed him. She, on the other hand, was in attendance, because she knew half the people of Texas, including Jay’s poor mother.
“You’re missing a lot of Spanish poetry.” Dorothy was referring to a tearful eulogy being delivered by the family’s Mexican priest.
“McFlaherty is not really Irish,” she continued, whispering. “A real Irishman would stand next to Jay’s mother and comfort her.”
The police chaplain handed over the American flag that had enveloped the casket, now crisply folded, to Jay’s mother. “He loved his mother above all,” Dorothy explained as she continued her play-by-play commentary.
“He loved his country above all,” I replied, remembering his enthusiasm at the greatness of the nation, the Constitution, and the armed forces.
“They sometimes overdo it, these cops. Okay, they love their country, but let’s keep it in perspective. Look at McFlaherty! Did you know he’s a member of the John Birch Society? Worse than the Ku Klux Klan, if you ask me.”
“He can’t be. Is that even legal? They would not let him stay on the force if he had been a member of that association of racist psychos. He may be a little slow, but that’s all.”
“He wouldn’t be allowed to stay on the force?” Dorothy chuckled. “Right, and the moon is made of green cheese, and a can of spinach makes you strong.”
“Did Jay have a lot friends?” I asked her. Jay’s last moments came back to me, chilling me.
“A whole lot of friends… and girlfriends.”
I had noticed more than a few striking women in attendance. There was one in particular, petite but amazingly attractive, wearing a black dress and a broad-brimmed, 1930s-style hat. She had dark skin and full lips, a Latina, probably a family member; but like us, she stood apart from the first rank of mourners, eyeing the crowd.
Dorothy was loud and boisterous and opinionated, and I trusted her completely. Behind the torrent of words and the bizarre local customs, there stood a wise woman; perhaps even more important, she was more honest and more loyal than most of the other people around us, with whom I might have had a conversation.
“Do you know what a warhead is?”
She looked away from the line of people she had been scrutinizing and spat on the hot ground in a Native gesture I’m supposed to understand.
“Warhead.” She sighed. “Yes. “
The eyes of the beautiful Latina met mine. She flashed a smile for a second, as if she wanted something from me.
“It could be anything. Your consul general likes to talk about such subjects. Most Israeli men have a ‘warhead.’” She snorted. “Why’re you asking?”
“Jay’s last words to me. He warned me about the warhead.”
“What do you mean? What kind of warning?”
“Well, he was in no condition to have a conversation with me; he just said something about the warhead. Not to let them have it, something like that. Except for me and now you, no one knows about it “
“What about your people in New York?”
“There’s only one person I trust there; I already told him about it.”
“And the one who killed him knows. So that makes the four of us, right? Let me think about it.”
The Latina gave me another smile. It was a funeral, for fuck’s sake.
“You know her?” asked Dorothy, and I decided that it was the right time to make my move.
I made my way over to the family. “Thank you for everything you did,” Jay’s mother said as I shook her hand, but I really didn’t know what to say.
“It’s a big loss,” I finally said sincerely. She had laugh lines, but from now on her face would be shaped by grief only.
“He died the same way he lived,” she said. “He always made big waves. Maybe too big.” I hoped the grief would not drive her mad.
The Latina beauty had come over to embrace Jay’s mother; she murmured a few words of consolation and hurried away.
“Do you know who that was?” Jay’s mother asked me. “She seems familiar. I think I knew her when she was a kid.”
10.
I had volunteered to pick up Almog from his hotel the next morning, but I felt a wistful twinge when I pulled out from my parking spot. This day was going to be a challenge, I suddenly felt. As I maneuvered into the flow of morning traffic, I thought about my little apartment, my mancave. It gave me a sense of safety and security.
I lived in Johnson Towers — not quite the most luxurious apartment building in the city, but definitely decent. It had one bedroom, one living room, full bathroom, and kitchen, for twelve hundred dollars a month; in Houston, constantly stumbling from one energy crisis to the next, that was a lot. Rent ate up half my salary from the consulate, including overtime; but it was worth every cent of it.
Most of the tenants were high-class professionals who worked in the city, or students from well-established families — American aristocracy from all over the continent. I had discovered that the daughter of one of the Hassenfeld brothers, founders of Hasbro Toys, actually lived a floor below me, but I had not been successful in making contact with her. The doorman below filtered out unwanted guests, which was very convenient for people like me, who never wanted guests, any guests. This was the last thing I needed seven thousand miles away from Israel, on the twenty-fourth floor of my building, in a city made only for business.
The consul general’s official car was in the shop. His shipping container had not arrived yet, but he had been doing pretty well for the last week with his two checked suitcases. He was waiting for me behind the glass front doors of the Four Seasons Hotel. Even before I came to a
full stop, he rushed out to meet me.
“Step on it,” he muttered, but he looked very pleased with himself. He spent a quiet twenty minutes beside me as he devoured a lengthy article in the Houston Chronicle, and then we arrived at the Galaxy, a huge office building housing the consulate. The owner of the building, our friend Larry Klein, was the president of the Jewish Federation of Houston and the owner of thirty other buildings, as well as Klein Aerospace, Inc.
In front of the Galaxy there were two women and a man, demonstrating with hand-painted signs: Killer, Go Home!
Almog tensed in the car seat and muttered, “And who are those bastards?” His anger overshadowed the pleasant smell of his Paco Rabanne aftershave, and even dimmed the shine of the large gold cufflinks he wore on his sleeves.
“Leftist Jews always find a reason,” I explained to him. “It’s best to ignore them.”
His jaw tightened. I thought he was starting to sweat. “Come on, let’s go through the parking lot and go straight up in the elevator. You don’t need that shit,” I told him.
“Stop right here. Immediately!” Almog responded sharply, trying to obscure the frustration and pain. “I didn’t get where I am by avoiding conflict. Just park the car here, and let one of the valets take care of it. You’re with me.” He did not shy away from any fight, as he said.
The three did not know him personally, but he would not give up. In his poor English, he said, “Who is the killer?”
The older woman, white-haired and modestly dressed, responded in a schoolmarmish tone, “The consul general of Israel, haven’t you heard? You should know such things.”
The other woman was in her mid-forties, but made a good effort to hide it. She was petite, in a tailored, brown and tan, sporty pantsuit. Her eyes were inviting, regardless of the demonstration. I knew her. I had seen her quite recently.
The older woman was breathing fire and brimstone. Behind the small group were two uniformed policemen and someone in plainclothes, with a buzzcut and a reasonable suit. A member of the DSS, I assumed, responsible for the security of foreign missions.
Where had I seen the younger woman? Again I caught her glance; she was clearly trying to make eye contact.
Almog took the old woman’s measure with his gaze. “Worthless old bitch,” he said in Hebrew. “Who did I kill? What do you know of special operations?”
“Excuse me?!” She was really surprised.
I did not understand the connection either. “Let’s get on with it,” I suggested. The three looked at us with great interest.
“You speak Hebrew,” said the younger lady. She was the leader.
“Yes, this is the consul general you have complaints against.”
I saw the astonishment in their eyes. Now they jumped on us, riled up. “You’re killing Palestinians! You slaughter them, you oppress them, you imprison them. And who are you sending us here, if not a chief architect of the oppression and the perpetrator of Nazi methods in the Occupied Territories?”
Even when she screamed, the Latina with her thirsty eyes looked like a doll. She wanted attention, I was sure.
Then it hit me like a lightning bolt where I recognized here from. A different hairstyle, a brown pantsuit replacing the solid black dress and the femme fatale hat — and here was the Latina from the cemetery. Again she flashed the quick smile. Surely she recognized me!
I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t get Almog entangled in this story. But what was she playing at? Clearly she had her own unseen motives as well, because she wasn’t saying a word about it either.
The man in this group stuck out. We had to be careful with him. He was dressed very well and had not opened his mouth.
“Oh, yeah,” Almog said to me as if he understood. A great relief descended upon him. “They mean that I was the commander of a division in the territories. That’s water under the bridge. Nobody is interested in this story anymore. It is much less important than anybody may think.” He unwittingly wrings his hands. “Excuse me, folks, for asking, but do you all belong to the Jewish community?”
“It’s totally irrelevant. As Jews, we only have a more developed conscience,” the old woman muttered. “Your country’s attitude toward the Arabs is a disgrace to the entire Jewish people, a disgrace to humanity.”
“Is that so, lady? And how would you solve that, if I may ask?”
“They are a people like all the other peoples of the world,” the old woman jumped into the trap. “Give them a state of their own; they deserve it like all people, who are born equal. But you, as a military man, may not understand this.”
“Oh, yeah? I don’t think it gets anymore condescending than that. Well, let me tell you something. I’m not going to tell the security here to toss you out, even though you’re violating my rights as a tenant in the building. You have the right to demonstrate. I understand that there is real pain, but what would you do or think when your children are being slaughtered at night. What would you do then? Just think of it. Would you give them a state?”
“It’s irrelevant.” She blinked, unable to follow Almog’s line of logic.
“The State of Israel could at least send us here, to Houston, a consul who hasn’t spent his career shooting Arab children while they’re demonstrating,” the younger woman stated.
The other protester, the silent man, was listening. The last words made him wriggle uncomfortably. The police officers were watching, trying to hide their embarrassment.
Almog inhaled deeply, straightened his back, and declared, “Well, lady, I think you should be ashamed to say those words to a man who has given thirty years of his life to the security of the Jewish homeland. What have you been doing for the welfare of the Jewish people in the last thirty years? You lived happily in Texas? Are you sure that you belong here!?”
I observed everything in silence.
“Come, let’s go,” he told me, as if he had closed the case.
We entered the lobby of the consulate building, leaving the demonstrators somewhat astonished. In the elevator, he muttered, as if to himself, “These people are so soft, so fragile. They’ve never experienced any real hardships. Look how easy it was with them. All it took was two minutes, and they cracked like eggs.”
I did not respond even as he looked at me, waiting for confirmation.
11.
“McFlaherty is waiting for you in the conference room,” Saar, our local security officer, told me as we walked into the consulate.
I realized that my day was totally screwed. I’d have been better off turning around and going home, immediately, just staying in bed until tomorrow morning. It was a feeling I’d been struggling with since leaving my apartment.
“You remember the guy?” Saar pressed. “The new airport police commander?”
“I know who he is. Why did you let him in?”
“He said he wanted to talk to you.”
“So? We have no scheduled appointment.” Saar really was a good guy and didn’t deserve to take any heat from me, but right then I was in no mood to admit that.
Almog disappeared into his office, but not before he thundered, “Good morning!” at Dorothy, rattling all the doors and shaking the entire consulate.
I turned back to Saar. “You know that you cannot let policemen in here without a permit from Israel or at least from the head of the mission,” I berated him
“C’mon, man, what’s with you?” asked Saar, and with that he walked away, the fight over. That left me alone with the problem.
I entered the conference room to find McFlaherty standing and surveying the view from the tenth floor. “A year from now, I’m out,” he said to the window in front of him. “And believe me, I never needed this promotion.”
I quite believed him. From the first moment, the job had seemed too big for him.
“Did O’Brien talk with you?” He pulled up a chair and s
at down gingerly.
“Who’s O’Brien?”
“Very good.” He felt he had received an answer and then he was silent, his face a blank slate as usual. “He was complaining that I didn’t take a full statement from you.”
“Who’s O’Brien?” I repeated.
“The SAC. Special agent in charge of the FBI field office here. Now it’s their investigation, but the inspector general, my superior, wants us to keep the case open.”
I waited for him to continue, but again he was silent and prepared to continue to sit silently with me. His gloomy eyes wandered around the prints of paintings by Joseph Zaritsky. We had gotten it the previous year courtesy of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, which had embarked on a five-year “small missions redecorating program.”
I was ready to play the game with McFlaherty, even as I thought about his membership in the John Birch Society. Birchers are usually reactionary, brainless, faux intellectuals who believe in white supremacy and think of blacks and Jews as an existential threat to the United States.
“So do you like the paintings?” I asked, unable to restrain myself anymore.
“Not my area of expertise,” he admitted. “We didn’t find any shell casings…” As if continuing from a previous conversation.
“Maybe it was a revolver,” I offered.
“No, Beretta .22,” he explained. “Automatic.”
“This joker used a silencer,” I argued. “So maybe he bagged the casings. You know we have such designs for our Galilee rifle.”
“You guys have a lot of clever tricks,” he reflected sadly.
“We’re special,” I replied, and again I thought about the John Birch Society.
“It’s the standard gun of Israeli consulates,” he continued. “We want to check your guns here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. “Aside from that, what does it have to do with me?”
The Consulate Conspiracy Page 5
