An Accidental Murder: An Avram Cohen Mystery (18 page)

Cohen took a deep breath, trying to regain control.

“I was just about to make a cup of tea and cognacxfve got this flu,” said Benny. “You have no idea how sick I am.”

There was a dry and claustrophobic smell in the room, which was overfurnished with Lassman’s landlady’s old heavy upholstered furniture.

“Alexander Witkoff,” Cohen repeated.

“Why don’t you sit down,” Lassman offered. “Calm down, tell me what this is about. I was about to make some tea.” He didn’t wait for Cohen to sit down, and instead shuffled toward the little kitchenette attached to the main room that Lassman had turned into an office.

Cohen’s glance naturally went to the desk. Lassman was untidy, not sloppy. No overflowing ashtrays or unwashed cups and glasses were to be seen. But on the floor around the desk and on level surfaces in the room, stacks and piles of papers, magazines, and books were probably organized in a way that only Lassman could understand.

“I heard about Nissim,” Benny said, his back to Cohen, who was glancing over the papers on the desk. “I said to myself,” Lassman continued, “it was bound to happen.

That guy took chances. Big chances.” “He was murdered,” Cohen said bluntly.

Lassman turned, the bottle of cognac in his hand. “What are you talking about? The radio said an accident.”

Cohen shook his head. “There was a shooting.” “Who did it?” “The system says it was Kobi Alper. But I’m looking at Russians. And one of my Russians had the book. Alexander Witkoff.” He repeated the name. “You signed his book.”

“Could be, I don’t know. I’ll have to check the notes.”

“Now.” “Why don’t you sit down?” he asked Cohen, pointing at a stack of papers on the seat of an armchair. “Just drop the pile on the floor.” Lassman turned back to the kitchen counter to prime the two cups of tea with shots of Extra Fine, a cheap brown brandy sold only in Jerusalem.

Cohen reached for the pile of magazines and photocopies sitting on the chair. The top document was a photocopy of a three-inch clipping from a Texas newspaper.

Headlined “Book Fair Bomb,” it was a wire service version of what happened in Frankfurt.

Underneath that little clip was a glossy American magazine that compared the Cohen case to the Rushdie case.

The next was an article that analyzed Cohen’s book and reached the conclusion that the mystery bomber was ideologically motivated by Nazism. Still standing, Cohen leafed through the thick pile. There were photocopies of book reviews and letters to the editor, there were original magazines and ragged tear sheets from newspapers. In one way or another it was about him, his book, and the bomb—and why Nazis did it.

“What is all this?” he asked, “all these articles?”

Lassman turned around with the two cups of tea. He passed one to Cohen with a long reach, then put his own cup down on this desk and picking up a blanket crumpled on the floor beside his chair, wrapped himself like a mummy, and sat down at the desk. One hand held the blanket closed, while the other he used for his tea. He smiled at Cohen. “Clips, research. Notes. Books. What it looks like.”

Cohen knew very well why he didn’t want to give interviews, why he didn’t want to cooperate with the journalists.

What he didn’t know, until then, was just how much attention his case had received. He had stopped asking Carey to send him reviews even before the Frankfurt Book Fair. Leterhaus only sent news when there was some, which had become less and less frequent.

Tina, too, had a life that would have to go on after Cohen.

He only asked that she keep the media away from him. He let her sell translation rights, but nothing else. And yes, he’d let the book be sold to Hollywood, on condition they “don’t use the title, don’t name the character Cohen, and don’t ask for interviews,” and then, just to make sure she understood, he added, “and I don’t have to go there.” He eventually compromised. They could use Benny’s title. But he knew his conditions precluded any sale.

At first, Tina called almost once a day, each time asking with a nervous giggle, “So when do you think the coast will be clear?” He’d say only when the murderer was caught.

Gradually, the calls dropped off to once a week and then every other week, until finally, she stopped calling entirely.

Her office staff was efficient, of course. As the checks came in, she wired the money—less her commission—to the proper accounts. But Laskoff handled that side of the matter for Cohen.

He was looking around the room at the piles, astonished by the amount of material. “It’s not all about you, of course,” Lassman said. “The Nazi stuff is on the couch.

Messianicists over there,” he added, pointing to the left of the desk, “and Israeli criminals in Frankfurt over here.” “What’s this?” Cohen asked, pointing to the pile he put down on the floor.

“Stuff that still needs to be filed.”

“And where’s Alexander Witkoff in all of this?” “How should I know?” asked Lassman. “I’m not looking at Russians. At least none have turned up in my investigation … “

“I am not interested in your investigation,” said Cohen angrily. He pushed himself to his feet from the armchair.

Lassman looked surprised, and was even more surprised when Cohen stepped over a pile of files toward the desk.

Cohen knew that despite all the semichaos of the room’s surroundings, Lassman was meticulous about saving information in his computer.

“I’m telling you, Avram,” Lassman said, standing up and away from the chair in front of the computer. “I haven’t come across any Russians on this story.”

Cohen sat down in front of the computer. He gave the mouse a little shake to clear the screen saver of bouncing quadrangles. An array of icons was laid out on the screen.

“Top righth and corner,” Lassman said, sighing.

Cohen clicked on the icon of a telephone named “contacts.”

A spreadsheet listing names and telephone numbers in columns opened up. He clicked for the find menu and typed Witkoff’s name into the window. “Not found.” said the box that appeared on the screen after a few seconds.

“See,” Benny said, watching from over Cohen’s shoulder.

Cohen typed “Alex” into the box.

Lassman laughed. “It’s going to find hundreds of names.

At least two dozen from Alexandria.” “Egypt?” Cohen asked.

“No, Virginia. You wouldn’t know about it. Did a great cocktail party there. Collected a lot of business cards. And do me a favor, when it gets to Alexandra, remind me of her last name. She picked me up in Chicago. Amazing woman.”

“Shut up, Benny,” Cohen muttered, slapping the return button with a growing anger as one by one the machine found every instance of “Alex” in the spreadsheet. Lass man did collect a lot of business cards with Alexandria, Virginia, addresses. And Alexandra’s last name was Swartz.

But no Alexander Witkoff showed up in Lassman’s computerized phone book.

“Maybe if you gave me a description,” Lassman suggested.

“I only saw his picture.” “And?” Cohen thought about the pictures he had seen at Witkoff’s penthouse. Could he even be sure the man he had seen in the photos was indeed Witkoff? Most of the pictures had shown the man with famous people—a minister, a singer, a television talk show host. One photo had stood out, because in it the man had been alone, at the hotel. He hadn’t been praying, but rather posing with the big stones against his back. It had been afternoon, Cohen could tell from the picture, both from the squint in the man’s eyes and a hint of shadow on the wall behind the man. He had been wearing a kippa perched with unfamiliarity on his head; a new tallith, edged with gold embroidery, had glistened white in the bright sun. The man had not really been smiling, but there had been an almost smug self-satisfaction in his expression.

“Short hair. Cropped close. Very short hair. Fifties.

Maybe forties. Thin eyebrows. Thin lips.” Cohen thought a second longer. The photo had been full-frame, but had cut the man’s legs just below the knees. However, the tallith, conservative-style and embroidered with gold at the neck, had reached only to Witkoff’s waist. “Tall,” Cohen concluded.

Lassman shook his head. “You have to understand. I spent a month on the road in the States touring for that book. I signed hundreds of those. Mostly to strangers.

Like Alexandra.” Lassman went to the kitchen counter to add a shot of brandy to his tea. He offered the bottle to Cohen, who shook his head no.

“It was the German edition,” Cohen suddenly realized.

“The German edition. But you signed in Hebrew. You signed it for an Israeli. Not a foreigner.”

That’s when Lassman remembered. He didn’t say so, not yet. But Cohen could see in the split second that Lass man’s hand paused on the cork cap of the liquor bottle that the reporter remembered. “Tell me,” said the old detective.

Lassman added another shot of cognac to his glass tea cup, then shuddered as the alcohol steamed into his system.

Finally, he sheepishly turned to face Cohen. “I can’t be sure it’s him. I never did get to meet him. But maybe.

Maybe.” “What?” Cohen asked.

“I told you I was planning to do a story on the slave trade. After Frankfurt. I even started researching. But then there was the bomb.”

“How did he get the book?” Cohen asked, spacing the words with an exaggerated patience that indicated he was losing his.

“I wanted to meet someone—anyone—from high up in the organization. A boss of bosses. I asked Nissim for help. But he brushed me off. ‘,’ he had said. And the girls weren’t much help. Half of them didn’t even realize that he existed. And those who did had no idea of his name. I went to house after house, trying to get lucky. And I did, I thought. An owner—a woman, and that’s rare in that business—offered to help. She wouldn’t give me a name. It was too dangerous, she said. But she told me that if I gave her a copy of one of my books, and a letter, she could make sure it got to the right person.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Did she want to help?”

“I paid her,” Lassman admitted.

“So you sent my book.”

“The author’s copies had arrived the day before,” Lassman admitted sheepishly.

“How do you know he could read German?”

“I didn’t. But I was down to my last copy of the American edition. I had asked Carey for more. But they only came the next week.”

“Why not send one of your own books?”

Lassman shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m down to my last copies and they’re both out of print.”

Cohen refocused on his purpose. “Who’s the woman?

The madame?”

“Her name’s Sonia. At the Exotica. It’s in Tel Aviv. I even have the card here somewhere.” While Lassman looked for the card, he kept explaining what he did. “I brought a book and attached a letter with the questions I wanted to ask.”

“Which were?”

“How the business works. How they get the girls. Who they bribe.”

Cohen couldn’t help but laugh. “Why did you think he’d give you any answers?” Lassman paused from where he had hunched over the desk drawer, rummaging for the business card. “The letter said I wanted to write a book about how his business is a business like any other business. I complimented him on his organization, flattered him. I promised that if he didn’t want to be quoted by name, I had no problem with that.

All I wanted was to understand how the system worked. I appealed to his ego.” “And you thought that would get through to him?”

“It’s worked in the past. I appealed to his obvious love of capitalism.”

“You didn’t even know his name.”

“If he’s really the man for all those houses, then he’s brilliant. I estimated that he’s making at least a million a week. To build a business like that in less than five years, it’s impressive. I said so in the letter.”

“Did it work?”

“I never heard from him again.”

“You didn’t try?”

“I called Sonia a couple of times over the next two weeks, but she said she hadn’t heard anything from him.

And then there was Frankfurt. And the bomb.”

“And the chambermaid,” Cohen reminded him.

“Yes, and afterward … wait, here’s the card.” He presented the little business card embossed with a florid script reading EXOTICA, held up by a pair of line-drawn nude girls. Beneath was an address and phone number in Tel Aviv.

“What?” Cohen asked. “What happened afterward?” “I became obsessed,” Lassman said simply. He waved at the piles of folders all around them. “This, it took precedence over everything.”

“You never heard from him again?” Cohen asked.

“Never,” Lassman said sadly.

“I’m sorry,” Cohen said. He meant it.

He had a claustrophobic headache from the overheated flat and a gnawing guilt over the writer’s obsession with the Frankfurt bombing. Worse, though he still had nothing more substantial than Witkoff’s reading of his book, it created a connection, tenuous, unclear, ambiguous but nonetheless a connection between the Frankfurt bombing attempt and Nissim’s murder. And if they were connected, then Hagit was right. Cohen was to blame for Nissim’s death.

So perhaps more than anything, right then, Cohen feared the pain that would rock him if indeed he was to learn that the shaky link was in fact a strong rope between the two affairs. Death. More than ever, he was determined to find Nissim’s killer.

It was barely a kilometer from Lassman’s garden flat to Cohen’s place in the German Colony. But two blocks from home, traffic onto Emek Refaim was stopped by a pair of patrol cars.

He waited ten minutes until the sirens announced the prime minister’s passage. Until the assassination, such a progression had meant two silver-gray cars. Now, the convoy included at least two motorcycles, three jeeps, and an American-made, four-wheel-drive van, as well as two bulletproof sedans, one for decoy and the other carrying the premier.

Cohen never liked sirens. Levy loved them. Cohen scowled at the politician’s party as it whooped past, and then the two young policemen who stopped him at the corner let him pull into Emek Refaim Street. Two turns later, his car was in the little tin garage and he was on his way up the stairs to his apartment on the second floor.

Suspect, the old tomcat that lived off and on at Cohen’s apartment, was asleep on the middle of his bed, a privilege the cat was allowed to enjoy only when Cohen was away from the apartment. The cat opened one eye, looked at him briefly, then closed it indifferently for a second before rising. It stretched from paw to paw for another long second before it walked to the edge of the bed and jumped down, disappearing past the door into the little hallway between the living room study and the kitchen.