An Accidental Murder: An Avram Cohen Mystery (27 page)

Cohen worked up an angry sweat in the few minutes it took for him to get out of the tight parking spot. Driving down the narrow street, he passed the tourist who had been photographing the hotel and the Y. He was getting into a rented car.

The tourist turned his head as Cohen passed and Cohen’s paranoia shifted gears once again, convincing him that the tourist had turned his own face away from Cohen with the same instinct that Cohen had followed when he had become aware of the camera lens pointing at the hotel—with him and Amos in the frame—only a little while ago.

Still, the murder of the cat was madness, not professionalism.

The mad make mistakes. That was his only comfort as he cursed his way through the claustrophobic clog of traffic in the heart of town until finally he was on the highway speeding west toward Tel Aviv, hoping without much reason to believe he’d succeed, to catch up with the two black Mercedes.

Bernstein, for sure. But what was the aunt’s first name? It was a Jewish name, he remembered. Sarah, Rachel. What?

He reached into his memory, trying to see in his mind’s eye the flimsy white paper with its faded purple lines and his Hebrew handwriting. The name, the address, a phone number. Hannah. That was it, Hannah Bernstein.

She was ready, willing, even eager to get the girl. “I never understood why Irwin stayed in Jerusalem. Such a pathetic little town. Yes. Send me the girl. I will take care of her.” Why did he send her, why did he trust her? He asked her a few questions. The woman had money from reparations.

No, she didn’t mind living among Germans. Yes, she would be able to handle all the expenses. Including the hospitalization and psychiatric care. No, she had no plans to visit Israel. “Once was enough, thank you. It is not a place for me.” She was in her fifties and in her own way (which she never mentioned) she had survived the war.

Irwin, her cousin, the father broken in Jerusalem, was already broken by the war. Not her, she didn’t have to say.

Irwin went to Palestine. She stayed in Germany. In Hamburg, “where I was born,” she had said.

Yes, Hannah, that was her name.

Coming down the mountain from Jerusalem, the cellular phone found and lost its connection as he tried calling overseas.

“Kristina Scheller’s office,” answered a secretary in the publishing house in Munich.

“Is Miss. Scheller there?” he asked in German, realizing only after he did so that he had been pushed so far that he was now breaking one of the most basic rules of his life.

“Who is calling?”

“An author, Avram Cohen.”

A moment later, his German editor was on the line.

“Avram, how are you?” Kristina fluttered. “How wonderful of you to call. It has been so long. We worry so much for you. We … ” She was speaking in English.

He answered in German, admitting to himself that he was becoming desperate, surprising her. “Kristina, I need a favor.”

“Please, what? Anything I can do.”

“I need a phone number. From Hamburg. A woman named Hannah Bernstein. I know she was living in Hamburg in 1975.”

“You were in Hamburg in 1975?” the editor asked with surprise.

“No, she was. Please. See if you can find her telephone number. And then call me back. Any time of day or night.

Here’s my new number.” He recited the digits twice, to make sure she had it right, and then asked her to recite it back once to him. “I must speak with her,” he said.

“May I ask what it’s about?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I’d rather not explain right now.” “Is it for a book?” asked the editor.

“No, nothing like that,” he protested.

“About your bombing?”

He had to pause before answering, disbelieving that she would know about what had happened that morning, but not at all sure that some quick CNN or wire service reporter might not have picked up the story already from the Voice of Israel. He decided not to mention it. ‘ get back to me with the number,” said Cohen. “She lived alone. Unmarried.

So the phone number will be under her name.”

“I have an author from Hamburg. A mystery writer who knows the police. Maybe he can help,” Kristina started to explain, but Cohen felt like he was running out of time.

“Whatever,” he answered. “Just see if you can find out for me a number for Hannah Bernstein.”

Next he tried Ahuva at the office. She would help him straighten it all out in his head; Lerner, Zagorksy, a boy, a girl, she at least would know the right questions to ask. But a clerk said that the judge was in session and could not be disturbed for anything. “Have her call me at this number please, as soon as she can,” Cohen asked, leaving the cell phone number. At least she was safe, he decided. And she knew enough so that if she didn’t hear from him, she’d check into a hotel or stay with a friend.

He was following his instincts and they were frayed with fear. The unpredictable rhythm of chilly wind blowing through the open window kept him alert, as his mind raced with less control than the routine of his driving.

Passing cars and trucks, he pushed the car faster, hoping that just ahead of the next barreling bus he’d spot the convoy of two black seven-seater Mercedes. All he got for his effort was a near accident, and more self-recrimination. It was burning up inside him, the fear he was totally mistaken, that paranoia, not reason, was driving him forward.

He tried calling Shmulik, but there, too, only a machine answered. He left no message.

He struggled with the feeling all the way to the city, until finally, trapped in the mundane traffic of red lights and green when he got off the highway at the Tel Aviv Railway station, the wind ceased and his own thoughts settled.

He drove the rest of the way to Ahuva’s place with a sense of serenity that if not for the peace it provided would have frightened him with the implications of its resignation to fate. Lerner or Zagorksy, boy or girl, he knew he would encounter them. For just as he realized that no matter what happened he could never know the whole truth, he also recognized for the simplicity of the truth that it was not he who was hunting the Russian—or the boy, or the girl—but it was one of them, or both, hunting him.

Thus, the paranoia took over completely even while it felt as if it had passed. He parked in the basement lot, rode the elevator to Ahuva’s floor, and used his key to get in.

He made himself some coffee and carried it to the porch beyond the sliding glass doors, pulled one of the plastic outdoor chairs close to the railing so he could put his feet up, and waited. With the sun at midday directly above, the soothing blue of the clean winter sky was changing into a glaring white. Waves were choppy on the distant surface of the sea.

Again he called her office, and again the secretary said she was in court until three and then had the rest of the day free. Again he left a message reminding her to call him on the cellular as soon as she was free.

He leaned backward, with a peripheral view that included the front door to the flat and the beach scene below. And all the while, beside his coffee cup and the ashtray for his precious cigarettes on the little wrought-iron and marble-topped table, the matte metal handgun, its clip full and its barrel clean, waited with him. But it was neither Zagorsky nor Maya Bernstein, not even Ahuva, who surprised Cohen. His cellular phone rang. It was Shvilli.

“I’ve got something, boss, I’ve got something. It’s big.

Real big. Where are you?”

“Tel Aviv.”

“Excellent. So am I.”

“What do you have?”

“It’s not for the phone. We have to meet.”

Cohen decided on the cafe downstairs from Ahuva’s apartment. Shvilli promised to be there “as soon as possible.”

Downstairs, under a broad yellow umbrella protecting him from the harsh light of the sun swamping the city, he drank a double espresso at a table with a view of the street in one direction and the beach in the other, waiting for Shvilli. He felt exposed but alert, and, in a way, he was almost eager for them to find him, to confront him and get it over, one way or the other.

The Georgian showed up a few minutes later, taking the shallow steps up from the sidewalk three at a time, almost running to Cohen.

“Listen to this,” he began, with the same breathless excitement that always accompanied his first telling of a breakthrough. “Remember Yudelstein? At that nightclub in Beersheba?”

“The fat man. The judge.” Cohen remembered.

“Yes. He called me, an hour ago. Asked me if I knew how to let the police know something, without it getting back to him.”

“Why you?” Cohen nearly spat the question. “See, I told you it’s dangerous for you. He knows you’re police.

The others know.”

“Maybe he knows. But I trust him.” Cohen sighed. “Nissim,” he said paternally, and for a second they both froze, realizing how Freudian the slip was. “Misha,” Cohen corrected himself, then repeated what he said. “You’ve been doing this too long. If he knows, they know.”

“It doesn’t matter. They didn’t order Nissim killed. It wasn’t Witkoff or Yuhewitz or even your man Zagrosky.”

“Zagorsky,” Cohen corrected Shvilli.

“The point is that it wasn’t the bosses who ordered Nissim killed. It was a couple of their punks. I know them both. Yosef and Gregory. Dumb. Like only real muscle can be dumb. But Yosef is ambitious. Real ambitious.”

“A bad combination.”

“Very bad,” Shvilli agreed.

“So?”

“He’s the one who ambushed Nissim. Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Shvilli moaned. “Just some stupid muscle trying to think for their bosses. They saw how angry Nissim made Yuhewitz, and they wanted to make a move. Decided they’d give the boss what he wanted.”

“Yuhewitz didn’t order it?”

Shvilli shook his head. There was disappointment in his eyes.

“Yudelstein is certain?” Shvilli nodded. “But listen to this. Yudelstein says it has something to do with the girl.” “What about her?” Cohen demanded.

“He didn’t know for sure. Something about her being seen with Nissim that night in the hotel. Jealousy, maybe?”

“I don’t believe it.” “That Yudelstein told me this?”

“No, that it had to do with jealousy. You questioned Pinny more?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“That he saw them talking in the lobby. That was all.” “I know that,” Cohen said softly, coldly. “Did he say anything about the muscle, these two—what are their names?”

“Yosef and Gregory.”

“Yosef and Gregory. Were they in the lobby? Did Zagorsky, or for that matter, Witkoff or Yuhewitz, see Nissim with the girl?”

“Pinny didn’t say anything about that.” “Did you ask him?” Cohen demanded, and immediately cut himself off. He had only himself to blame for not asking Pinny.

“No,” Shvilli admitted weakly.

“Find out,” Cohen ordered.

Shvilli pulled his cellular phone out of his holster.

“Wait,” Cohen instructed. “Did you tell Caspi about any of this?”

“Not yet.”

“Is there any evidence? Aside from Yudelstein?”

Shvilli grimaced.

“The radio this morning said Caspi brought in the Alper mother,” Cohen pointed out. “He’s trying to put pressure on the boys.” He paused for a second, then made a decision.

“You have to tell Caspi,” Cohen ordered. “Now.”

It was an instinctual command, but it did little to clear his own mind of all the confusion. The girl. Why should she hate him so much? Could she have manipulated the two thugs into helping her? Were they in Frankfurt that night?

That helpless feeling of grasping water came back to him.

While Shvilli called first Caspi and then Pinny, Cohen got up and went to the railing overlooking the little park and the path down to the beach. Maybe the assassination of Nissim Levy had nothing to do with him. Zagorsky wasn’t after him. But that left the “toy,” as all the men so far had referred to the girl—or was it the boy? Cohen was not even sure anymore of that instinct that he had followed.

As if timed to give him the answer, his phone rang.

Krista Scheller was on the line. “I did what you asked for, Avram,” she said. “But this woman, Hannah Bernstein?

She’s dead. Has been for years.”

It made him gasp slightly and he rubbed his chest.

The pause made her ask, “Avram? Are you there?” “How? When?” he asked. “Are you sure?”

“My author in Hamburg, a mystery writer with connections to the police. He tells me that there was a fire in the apartment building. The poor woman didn’t get out.”

“There was a young girl staying with the woman then,” Cohen said. “She either just had a baby or was about to have a baby. Did he say anything about her?” “No-o,” said the editor. “You should have said something, I could have asked.”

“Please,” he requested, “and call me back if you learn anything.”

Shvilli came back to the table and sat down, grumbling to himself.

“Caspi’s an asshole. He wants to know my source.”

“Did you give it?”

“How could I? Caspi will go barging after Yudelstein and everything I’ve worked for, Nissim worked for, will go down the drain.”

Cohen just nodded with sympathy. He was thinking. “What happened to the idiots. Yosef and Gregory?”

“They’re being taken care of.”

“Executions?”

Shvilli shrugged.

“There’s something wrong in that. Wouldn’t it be smarter for them to turn in the two? Loosen the pressure.”

“There is no pressure. Not as far as I can tell. Nobody’s going to move on Witkoff, not without direct orders from the minister.”

“Unless there’s proof they were involved in murder,” Cohen pointed out.

“Which we don’t have,” Shvilli added.

They sat silently for a minute. Suddenly, Cohen realized what Shvilli forgot to tell him. “Why are you in Tel Aviv?” “Yuhewitz is here,” Shvilli said. “I should have told you right away. Sorry. I came up with him. On the flight from Eilat.”

“And you didn’t get anything from him?”

Shvilli scowled at Cohen. “I didn’t think this was the time to press.”

“So where is he?”

Shvilli covered his eyes. “I lost him. I was stupid. He said he was being picked up for a business meeting, so couldn’t offer me a ride. Someone picked him up.”