“Is that Mickey?” She now sounded doubtful.
“Yes, who is it?”
“Mickey with the green eyes?” She had already seen me.
“I suggest you identify yourself.” She was enjoying playing with me.
“Angela Weinfeld. I was at the consulate yesterday, and I’m ready to donate.” I almost slammed the phone down, but then at the last second I remembered something. The Latina of my dreams. The inviting eyes at the funeral.
“Is that you with the dizzying perfume?”
She laughed deeply. “Jacques Aristide. By special order. So you like it?”
“You were a friend of Jay’s?”
“I can’t discuss that over the phone.”
“So is there a reason for your call today?”
“The donation. I still want to donate. Can we talk about it?” I must confess that it sounded interesting when she mentioned it the first time, but I still hesitated.
“What are you talking about? What do you want to contribute? To whom?”
“Money, what do you think? A lot of it. Twelve million dollars.”
I waited patiently for some indication that she was joking, but she added not a word.
“Twelve million, you said?”
“Yes, right. That’s a lot.”
I was silent.
“Hello?”
“You’d better talk to the consul general. A donation that large ought to go through him.”
“Will he meet with me? After all, I was demonstrating against him yesterday.”
“For a donation that large, he’ll meet you anytime, anywhere — as long as this isn’t a ruse.”
“No, this is serious,” she said. “Could we meet there in one hour?’
After a second of hesitation, I agreed.
“Very well. I’ll be there, with my lawyer, but I want you to be at the meeting too.”
That was fine by me.
Almog, who was finishing up a difficult phone conversation with his son Eli in South America, was happy when I told him and eager to welcome our generous benefactor.
An hour-and-a-half later, Angela Weinfeld arrived at the consulate in a well-tailored burgundy-and-cream suit and six-inch needle heels. She was accompanied by a lawyer who looked and behaved like a miniature Pinscher, a small, barking pet. Despite the angry glance that Angela shot at me, I left them alone in the consul general’s office and returned to my business. I didn’t tell Almog that she had requested that I stay. I wasn’t going to put myself in a bind, choosing between the benefit of the state and my own financial future.
18.
“She’s all yours,” Almog told me the next day. He meant Angela and her staggering donation. Personally, I wasn’t sure if I was lucky or being saddled with a draining task that would sap my limited time.
“It’s her lawyer who has her on a short leash,” Almog attempted to explain. “Her story gets a lot more complicated. The only thing I could get out of her is that she wants you to come over and help her with a few things.” I had a hard time reading Almog’s mind. “To me it sounds like it’s really worth it.” he smiled.
Did he understand that Angela didn’t care about my conflict between professional responsibility and personal benefit? I didn’t want to start doing “favors” for the State of Israel. I’d had a hard enough time with Giora in New York when he tried to recruit me for some covert mission. With an assignment of that kind, you never know where it ends. Twelve million dollars, on the other hand, still made my heart pound. Perhaps this money would eventually make its way to the Mickey Markovsky Relief Fund?
“Where does she live?” I asked.
“5400 Inverness. It’s in River Oaks,” Almog replied after checking with Dorothy. “Do you know it?”
“I think I do.”
On the way out, Dorothy grabbed me. “River Oaks?! That’s a whites-only neighborhood. To this day, only three Jewish families have been allowed to move in, and one black family. And that only by mistake.”
“And Ms. Weinfeld? Is she one of those three?”
“She doesn’t count,” Dorothy was very clear. “The Jews are Judge Shechter; Eliot Karp of Office Depot; and of course, our good friend Klein of Klein Aerospace. Not this Weinfeld lady. Old Man Weinfeld may have registered the house in her name before she changed her name. The poor shmuck dropped dead a year after he married her.”
“But he must have left her a pretty penny,” I pointed out. “The neighborhood must be classy, right?”
“Classy?!” I knew this tone of hers, whenever she got excited. That’s what I needed: to collect data before I got to the heart of any matter.
“It’s the hottest neighborhood now. Glitzy, fancy-schmancy, all that.” She was all fired up and couldn’t be stopped. “Dan Dougherty lives there, you know, from the Rockets? And former President Bush has a home there too. Every house has its swimming pool and golf course and airstrip — well, most of them, at least. That oughta be fun. Can I tag along?”
“It’s not for you, Cherokee girl. Too much golf, not enough pasture.”
Dorothy was right. At six o’clock, there was not much movement in River Oaks. Here and there a Porsche or a large Jeep with a bored housewife returned from the gym or a social gathering; or a long limousine brought back a devoted husband from a business meeting to a modest house posing as the White House or Taj Mahal.
The house at 5400 Inverness had a single story; but as if to compensate for the lack of the second floor, the main living room had many side rooms at different heights, so the outline was very pleasant. It’s a bit like the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, who, according to my marketing classes, had been driving the United States crazy for almost fifty years because he believed that the houses he built should fit both people and the environment.
I parked my beat-up Chevy Nova in the driveway, alongside a shiny, bright green Jaguar. No cars were parked on the street; they were all hidden on the inner paths of the estates. There was one vehicle though, a suspicious Dodge pickup in black and red, parked across the street, with golden wreaths on the hood. Only a lowlife would drive such a monstrosity, I thought. The engine was running, the dual exhaust pipes shaking. The side windows were opaque, so you could not tell who was sitting there. As soon as I got out of my car, I heard fierce barking, on the verge of hysteria, outside of the house. The lady’s dogs smelled prey.
What did I really want from her? Someone as wealthy as her must be on the lookout for gold-diggers. The twelve million she had offered seemed to me a bit small, and it was not clear to me how to extricate myself without looking like an idiot. On the other hand, I had already come here as a consulate employee. She was interested in doing something for the State of Israel, and right then I was the one who represented the state.
I rang the bell a few times until a Mexican maid, who looked like a child, opened the door. She quickly called the dogs to her and quieted them. She then took me through a marble-floored entrance hall with gray, undressed stone walls, into one of the side rooms, which turned out to be a huge bedroom. The white room, I thought. There was a thick angora rug, snow-white Formica furniture, eggshell curtains, and a multi-arm chandelier of fine milky glass. Angela stood in front of a full-length mirror. The maid and the dogs disappeared, as if they had vanished into the air of the perfumed room. Angela’s stylish party dress wasn’t quite zipped up in the front, and she was still fiddling with her hair.
“Mickey Markovsky?” Her handshake was dry and firm. “So that Nova is yours?” she scolded me.
“Yeah, that’s me. It’s a good car, manual. May I sit down?”
I did not want to spoil the snowy harmony of the room.
“Whiskey?” She does not bother waiting for an answer, instead going to the bar at the other end of the room, from behind which she emerges with a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and two glasses. Her f
ingers are relatively short, but she’s got six rings, adding up to a lots of carats. Her rich skin tone seems to be from a tanning bed, and she has the benefit of a perfect facelift without any wrinkles or marks. Up close, she is also far more serious and focused than I would’ve thought based on the fleeting looks we exchanged at Jay’s funeral and at the consulate.
“So that pickup outside — is it hunting season already?” The question seemed to neutralize any show of arrogance. She frowned with concern, a crease on her forehead.
“He showed up a few minutes before you. And it’s not the first time. Yesterday he was hanging around here too.”
“Someone is trying to scare you. That’s no vehicle for surveillance or covert operations.”
“It’s about time that you guys showed up,” she said, as she returned to looking at herself in the mirror.
“‘You guys’? I have nothing to do with that pickup.”
“You Israelis, I mean. It was about time you deigned to speak with us.”
“I thought you were demonstrating against us.”
“I’m protesting the unjust policies of your government, and I’m finally old enough to start taking serious action for what is right.”
“Uh huh,” I said noncommittally. “So you’re going out now?”
“We’re going out. Are you driving?”
“That’s the help you needed? That’s why you asked me to come?”
“Of course not.” She smiled rather sadly. “We need to talk about the money, about the twelve million.”
“What were you doing at Jay’s funeral?” I had to understand what her game was before I agreed to play.
“Poor Jay.” Her eyes filled with tears. It looked real. “I’m telling you, it’s important. A lot of people are in danger. It’s good that you people are taking it seriously. You guys have to know.”
“I’m just one man. ‘We’ is reserved for monarchs and men with tapeworms, right?” I hoped that my wit (or, at least, my half-remembered quote) wouldn’t be wasted on her.
Through the tears, she tried to smile. “Money is the great uniter. It’s the be-all and end-all. You’ll take the money, and then everything can go back to normal.”
“‘Everything can go back to normal?’ I don’t get it.”
“Of course you don’t get it.” She sat on a ten thousand dollar armchair and started to weep silently. It was heartbreaking.
“Why don’t you tell me about Jay?” I asked softly
“We grew up together,” she said, recovering her composure a bit. “He’s been guarding and protecting me all these years. Until last week.”
“As the commander of the airport police?”
“As everything. I went through one husband after another, but he never married. I think it has something to do with his mother.”
“That’s gross.”
“Don’t be so juvenile. I just mean he was a momma’s boy. They just want to be taken care of. And now he’s gone…”
“Who killed him?”
She looked at me, lost and desperate. “What do you mean? You Israelis, you killed him. Who else?”
I remained speechless.
“Don’t misunderstand me, I love you guys. That’s why I protest: because someone has to tell you to stop doing dumb shit. But the fact is that Jay was killed because of you.”
She moved toward the window and tried to look out. “The FBI took over this investigation as soon as they could, just to bury it. Believe me, I know what I’m saying. I’m familiar with the SAC, O’Brien.”
“In the meantime, I’ve only seen McFlaherty,” I said. “What do you want from me now?”
“I know many people here. McFlaherty hides a lot of things.”
“With or without the FBI, the investigation seems to be going nowhere. “
“The case is a hard one, tricky,” she agreed. “I am not sure that McFlaherty wants to make an effort. “
“So why are you so glad that we came to get your twelve million?”
“It is all my mistake. You know people are sometimes murdered for fifty dollars. The twelve million had to be transferred to someone, but they did not arrive on time, and a series of misunderstandings began. Sheer stupidity.”
“Jay’s stupidity?”
“Jay wasn’t stupid. He was an idealist. He believed in you. Just like I do.”
“You want to have your cake and eat it too. You get rid of the money, you save yourself, and no one can trace it back to its source.”
“You’re a genius.”
“Why was Jay killed?”
She examined my face with great interest, as if seeing me for the first time. “You must take the money.” Her dress was still unzipped, and she bent to show me the treasures inside, but her look remained grim. “I’ll give you the whole amount tomorrow in cash.”
“Just like that?”
“No, not just like that. This Almog of yours will take it as a donation to the Soldiers’ Relief Fund, and he will make a big deal about it, as he has already explained to me.”
“Who else knows the whole story? What is the story anyway?” I still couldn’t understand it. “And besides, do me a favor and zip up that the dress.”
“Is it hard for Mickey to concentrate?” Her eyes were laughing as she sat next to me. The dress remained open.
“It’s certainly hard for Jacob,” I said morosely.
“Who’s Jacob?”
“That the head you’re turning right now.”
She laughed.
I try to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand. “You said that ‘you Israelis’ killed Jay. Who are these Israelis?”
“It’s not just any Israelis.” She turned away from me, and I got some blood flowing back to my brain. “Look, I shouldn’t have generalized. Someone there just went crazy. All the Israelis I know are good people. Some are even very, very good. You, Almog, Shuki. You are better than you think, and I know already how you think of yourselves.”
“Shuki?”
“You don’t know the guy.”
“Who is he?”
“Professor Shuki Bareket. A strange person, but a good guy, nevertheless. He was a senior officer in the Israeli Air Force, and now he’s a scientist here in Houston. I don’t know how he got mixed up with those people.”
“What trouble? What does that have to do with Jay?” I recalled the Israeli scientists arrested in Albuquerque, how Noni had to handle it personally.
“I can’t talk about it.” Her brow furrowed. “I was at the consulate yesterday with my lawyer; all I’m at liberty to say, I said then.”
“The consul general had the impression that this lawyer of yours was holding you back.”
“He restrains me a bit; he’s a little guarded. That’s how it should be.” She moved toward me, and I felt that the serious talk was over.
“Aren’t you afraid to be here alone?”
“It’s good for me to be alone, but I have people looking out for me, if that’s your question.”
“You’re playing with fire.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “This money does not belong to anyone, that’s why it cannot be touched or used for anything. Instead, it should go to charity. How does that saying go? You can’t be harmed when your mission is a mitzvah? This way, we don’t need to worry about vengeance or score-settling or any other troubles.”
“That’s a nice thought,” I said. “Entirely unrealistic, but nice nonetheless.”
“So,” she changed the subject deftly. “You’re my driver for tonight, right? You don’t mind, do you?”
“I’m happy to do it, if you just explain to me one last time what’s so bad about this money. I have to understand.”
She exhaled in despair, then replied, “Do you know what “barium money” is?”
“No.”
“You know what barium is, right?”
“Disgusting stuff you swallow so they can see if your digestive tract works.”
“Exactly. That’s the whole story.”
“You mean…?” It began to dawn on me.
“Yes, I mean, these are marked bills. They were meant to demarcate a certain trail. Whoever lays a hand on them will get burned; it’s as simple as that. Anyone other than the State of Israel, on which no one can lay a hand. You guys launder money for the yeshivas, for the mob, and more. Nobody can touch you, unless—”
“Unless…?”
“Unless one of your emissaries fucks up.”
“You can’t be harmed if your mission is a mitzvah, but you sure as hell can inflict some serious harm.”
19.
“No, I have to change!” she suddenly announced. She pulled away from the mirror after considering herself one last time, coming back a few minutes later in a low-cut sheath. The dressing game had begun anew. This one opens in the back, and she needs my help to zip it up. She is petite, mature, and charming.
I zipped her up and come around to admire her. Then she takes another half-step toward me; at this point, you couldn’t pass even a sheet of paper between us. She ran a hand over my back. Once she’d told me what she wanted, she was much more relaxed. Even the menacing pickup outside could not break the mood.
“Some muscles you’ve got,” she said. She had black eyes and lots of makeup. As my excitement grew, I stopped thinking about facelifts or wrinkles. She was probably used to getting what she wanted, because when I did not respond, she moved to my waistline, under my shirt. “Have you fallen asleep?” she asked hoarsely.
My body was already responding to electric currents of all kinds. “I am here as an official representative of the consulate,” I apologized.
“Ooh, ‘an official representative.’ Next you’ll be telling me about the conventions of diplomatic… intercourse. Formality always turns me on.”
She moved to take care of my neck, totally unfocusing me. Or refocusing me, I thought.
“Shall we finish the conversation first?” I was still trying to stay on target.
The Consulate Conspiracy Page 10
