Authors: Elmore Leonard
"What about him?" Teddy Cass said, half turne
d on the seat, nodding at Mati.
"He's going with us," Valenzuela said, "He'
s gonna knock on the door for us."
"It's the same car," Rosen said. "You can almos
t see the dents in the front end. Sonofabitch with a n Arab thing over his head."
"He showed it to me," Davis said. "Jesus, I neve
r had any idea. Guy trying to get you to like him."
"I'm not blaming you," Rosen said. He wa
s standing away from the balcony railing so that h e could just see the BMW past the flat cement surface. "You wouldn't have any way of knowing.
Maybe--could they have seen you with Tali?"
"I guess that was it, in the lobby. We weren't together more than a minute."
"Then the colored guy sucks up, gets in you
r car," Rosen said. "The one in front, I think that'
s the young guy with the hair. I don't know his name.
Val's probably in back. You see a guy looks like a
n off-duty cop, that's Val. Or a fucking linebacker , something like that."
"The colored guy said his name was Kama
l Rashad."
"Yeah, they're getting these cute names now,"
Rosen said. "Alabama Arabians. Well, shit, I don'
t know--" He turned to go into the room and cam e around again and stood there.
Davis watched the black guy, Rashad, comin
g away from the BMW, past empty parking spaces , then go behind some other cars, walking towar d the Camaro.
"Which one's your car?" Davis said.
"The black one, right near the walk." It was
a Mercedes four-door sedan.
"They know it's yours?"
"I don't see how they could."
It was next to the Camaro. They could run, ge
t to the cars--then what?
All the BMW had to do was back up and i
t would block the drive. There were shrubs alon g the street; you couldn't run over the lawn to ge t out. Well, maybe, but you could get hung up on a bush.
If they sat here long enough the guys in the BMW
w ould come up looking, assuming they wanted t o kill Rosen and they knew he was upstairs.
Davis realized he was getting excited. It was
a good feeling. Not being aware of it as a feeling, bu t thinking, figuring out a way to gain control and either neutralize the situation or kick ass.
One option--call the police.
There's a suspicious-looking white car down i
n the parking lot. Then what? An Israeli cop comes i n his white car. But if they were serious and it wa s their business--the guys in the BMW--they wer e liable to shoot the cop. Davis tried to imagine calling the police and explaining it in English over the phone, telling a long story.
Or call the embassy. Get somebody there, afte
r he explained it, to call the cops and explain it again , second-hand, in Hebrew. How long would it take?
The black guy was opening the door of the Camar
o now, getting his bag out, looking up at the building.
They'd be armed. They could be impatient--
"What'd he shoot at you with?" Davis said.
"The colored guy."
"I don't know. Some kind of a pistol."
Davis went into the room and picked up th
e Beretta. "This fully loaded?"
"I checked it," Rosen said.
"You got more cartridges?"
"In the briefcase. With an extra clip."
The Beretta had a three-and-five-eighths-inc
h barrel that barely extended past Davis' knuckl e when his finger was wrapped around the trigge r guard. "Are you any good with it?"
"I've had it since I came here," Rosen said.
"Can you put the rounds where you want i
s what I'm asking," Davis said.
"I've fired it a few times, in the desert."
He probably couldn't hit the wall but woul
d never admit it. "Makes a noise for a little thing , doesn't it? Well," Davis said, "I think, instead of u s standing around scratching our asses, we might a s well be doing something."
"Like what?" Rosen said.
He was nervous but controlling it. That wa
s good. "You want to get out of here," Davis said.
"How about if we get the police?"
"The pol ice? What do I say, these guys are annoying me? We're standing there looking at each other? Listen, these people, you put them in a position, they'd shoot the cops cold, no fucking around. I don't think you understand who thes e people are."
"I said get the cops. I didn't say call them and ge
t into something we can't explain," Davis said. "No , we give your friends a little time to get out. Work i t so you don't get mixed up in it and have to answe r questions."
"How?"
"Take your money, whatever you're gonna take
, go downstairs by the door, and wait. You see thei r car leave, watch which way it turns going out. Yo u take off and head the other way."
"Where will you be?"
"Don't worry about it. Then, once you're clear
, where do you think you'll go?"
"Jesus Christ, I'm standing here--I don't se
e how I'm going anywhere, for Christ's sake, three , four of them waiting down there--"
"Mr. Rosen, come on. You got it pretty much together," Davis said. "You don't want to lose it now.
Tell me where you're likely to go."
"I guess Jerusalem"--calm again--"the Kin
g David."
"Okay, later on I'll give you a call, see how yo
u made it."
Rosen was frowning at him again, trying to figure something out. "Whatever you're doing, this is still part of the grand Mel gave you?"
"You worry too much about money," Davi
s said.
He waited on the balcony with the Beretta, the extra clip, and the box of cartridges, giving Rosen two minutes to get downstairs--seeing the blac k guy with his bag over by the BMW again; the drive r with long hair out of the car on the other side, th e black guy moving away then, starting across th e lawn toward the side of the apartment building.
Davis planned his shots and when he began firing the Beretta--the sound coming suddenly, echoing in the afternoon, in the shadow of the building--h e knew where he wanted to place the rounds an d fired methodically, steadily, running the black gu y back to the car first, then creasing one off the roo f of the car and seeing the guy with long hair duc k out of sight. Four, three, two, one more. He pulle d out the clip and pushed the spare one into the gri p with the flat of his hand and began firing at th e open space of blacktop close to the car--hopin g someone was phoning the police by now--puttin g a couple of rounds into the doors, but being carefu l to keep away from the engine and windows. H
e didn't want to disable the car and he didn't want t o hit any of them on purpose. He had fired on an d killed people he didn't know before, but it wasn'
t his purpose now to kill. He was throwing rocks a t crows in a planted field, getting them out of there; h e wasn't at Khe San or Da Nang or Hill 881. H
e reloaded a clip and fired three rounds, then reloaded the second clip before he emptied the first one and reloaded it again. He heard the sirens, th e irritating wail becoming gradually louder. H
e waited, giving the guys in the car time to hear it an d think about it, then poured five rounds hard int o the flank of the white car. The car was backing out.
He was tempted to glance one off the windshield
, but it could fuck things up, delay them. The sire n wail was doing the job, the sounds coming fro m different directions now. He fired two more shots , changed clips, fired three times as the BMW backe d up, cutting hard, and emptied the clip at the taillight as the car shot out the drive and turned right.
Rosen was outside . . . getting in his car.
Come on, get the fucker out of there! Quick!
Rosen made it. He was out the drive and on th
e street, then taking his time--good--as three Israel i police cars, sirens flashing, came screaming up Bil u toward the apartment building.
Davis used his shirt tail to wipe the grip of th
e Beretta. He dropped the gun and the extra clip an d the box of cartridges over the side, down five floor s into thick bushes.
A squad car sealed him off before he got the door o
f the Camaro open. He asked them what the hell wa s going on, man. They patted him down and looke d inside the Marine bag and asked to see his I . D .
w hile squad cars came wailing in and police bega n swarming around the building. Davis gave them a n anxious, bewildered look. They asked him if h e lived here. He said no, he'd been visiting somebody.
The shooting had started and he hadn't known if i
t was another war or her husband coming in th e fucking door. Either way he was getting out of here.
He'd have told them more if they'd wanted t
o wait and listen.
THE MAN SEEMED TO SPEND half his life in the bathroom. When Tali came back with his cigarettes---
a fter looking around the lobby and then lookin g outside for Mati or the car, not knowing where h e had parked it yesterday--Mr. Bandy was still in th e bathroom, the one in 823. The only time he'd use d the one in 824 was when he'd say to her, "Hold it, I g ot to piss," or, "I got to take a leak," telling he r what he was going to do.
She thought about the Marine. Mr. Rosen ha
d said yes, he was there, everything was fine. But sh e knew it wasn't fine, at least not everything, becaus e Mati hadn't come back.
She thought of a friend of hers named Omri wh
o worked for El Al as a flight security officer. He ha d shot a terrorist and arrested another during an attempted skyjack. It had been more than three years ago. She didn't know what Omri was doing now o r why she thought of him. Maybe she wanted to se e him again. Maybe the Marine reminded her of him , though they looked nothing alike.
Mr. Bandy confused her a little when he cam
e into the room with the towel wrapped around hi s middle and carrying a magazine, which he thre w on the couch. She could not understand why a ma n with his body would like to walk around hal f naked. Even people at the beach would look a t him; he was so white. She had to pretend not to notice his nakedness.
"Your cigarettes are there on the table."
"I see them." He was making another drink
, which he always did after bathing, before he go t dressed.
"Those men weren't in the lobby," Tali said.
"They're probably still following what's-hisname." Now, as he always did, he sprawled on the couch and raised one of his legs to rest it on the cushion. She could see the fleshy insides of his thighs.
"It wouldn't take him that long to go to Jaffa an
d return," Tali said. "Even if he walk there." Mat i was to go to the archeological excavation in th e center of the tourist area and, when it appeared tha t no one was watching, drop the package into the dig.
"He's cruising Dizengoff in the Mercedes," Me
l said. "Lining up some ass."
"He was suppose to come right back." Tal
i walked to the windows and watched the cars o n Hayarkon. "Maybe they didn't follow him."
"Or maybe he took off," Mel said. "Rosie actually trusts him with a Mercedes?"
"Mr. Rosen bought a new one," Tali said. "He'
s going to sell the one we're using, when he tells m e to advertise it in the Post." From the window, al l the cars on the street looked the same. "Mat i should be back," Tali said.
"You sleeping with Mati?"
"No, I don't sleep with him. He's a friend."
"Don't you sleep with friends?"
"I know Mati a long time, when I am teaching a
t the ulpan in Jerusalem, the language school for immigrants. Do you know the ulpan? Like an absorption center."
"I hope you weren't teaching him English."
"No, I taught Hebrew. Mati is Yemenite, bu
t he was living with his family in Bayt Lahm-Bethlehem. Well, one day when Mati was muc h younger . . . the people there, this day they are Jordanian, the next day they are Israeli. In the '67
War." Tali gave her little shrug. "So we have
a place, the ulpan, where we teach them Hebrew.
Also people from Europe, from all over they com
e there. I did that when I moved from Beersheba an d was going to the university."
"You teach Rosie Hebrew?"
"No"--she shook her head in a relaxed sweep
, with an innocent expression, thinking of what sh e was going to say--"after my army service I went t o work for El Al as an air hostess. That was where I m et Mr. Rosen." She smiled. "He talk to me all th e time from New York to Athens. Then I was wit h him again in a few days here at the Pal where h e was staying. We talk some more." She was smilin g again. "I laugh very much at the things he say.