An Accidental Murder: An Avram Cohen Mystery (5 page)

“You owe Israel an apology,” Cohen said softly.

Lassman covered his eyes and Tina’s expression changed to fear.

Carey kept his poker face.

“For what?” Kaplan demanded.

“For helping to pay for a campaign that ended with the assassination of our prime minister,” said Cohen. “As I wrote in my book.”

“What are you talking about?” Tina exclaimed. “Avram?”

“In the chapter about how the undergrounds are financed by American contributors,” Lassman reminded her.

“You didn’t mention Mr. Kaplan. Believe me, I would have caught that,” she said, then turned to the author in the wheelchair. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Kaplan. I’m Tina Andrews, Avram’s agent. And I’ve been a huge fan of yours since I was a little girl … “

Kaplan gave her a practiced grin. But he was concentrating on Cohen. “It’s too bad, really. I don’t want to have to sue you for libel and slander.”

“Oh, shit,” Carey moaned. Kaplan’s narrow eyes shifted to gaze at him.

“Carey Mccloskey,” the editor offered, rising out of his chair to extend his hand. “TMC.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of you. The golden boy. A real smart ass, I hear.”

Mccloskey could only smile weakly.

“Don’t worry, smart-ass,” Kaplan said, suddenly changing tone. “I’m not going to sue. Unlike him,” Kaplan added, pointing a thumb at Cohen, “I believe in free speech.”

Cohen scowled, working to hold his temper. But the dam broke. “Mr. Kaplan, we were in a meeting here,” he tried, wanting the old man to go away and leave him alone.

“Until you interrupted us rudely.” He was tired of fighting.

The book was supposed to do the fighting for him.

Tina was appalled, Carey amused, and Lassman was watching both Kaplan and Cohen like a fan suddenly allowed into the dressing room to meet the boxers before the fight.

Kaplan easily ignored Cohen’s request; as one of the ten best-selling novelists worldwide for more than three decades, he could set rules of behavior. And he set a new one on the spot, suddenly turning on Tina to ask if she was Jewish.

“Like Charlie Chaplin said,” she answered, almost automatically, as if she had used the line many times before, “I’m afraid I don’t have that honor.”

“And I know you aren’t, Mccloskey,” Kaplan added. “So neither of you really have any idea of what Cohen’s book is about. What it’s really about.” He paused to create a sense of mystery, but lost his advantage when Lassman interrupted.

“It’s about how ‘, not religion; faith, not fanaticism, must prevail,’ ” Lassman quoted from memory.

“So he’s ready to sell out to the Arabs,” the old author hissed. He turned to Cohen. “Who’s he?” he asked referring to. Lassman.

“My name’s Benjamin Lassman. I translated Avram’s book, and my own book, about … ” But Kaplan wasn’t interested. “Bernie?” he asked the little fat man, “can you see Francine? She’s supposed to be bringing some champagne.” Cohen shifted in his seat, but said nothing.

“Avram, what is he talking about?” Tina asked.

“Jewish wars,” Lassman explained. “It’s what brought down the commonwealths in the past. The stronger we get, the more we argue among ourselves about whether we’re really strong—and if God has anything to do with it.”

“Jews didn’t used to argue about God having something to do with it.” Kaplan sneered.

“I leave discussions of God to religious people,” Cohen finally interrupted. “I am not religious, Mr. Kaplan, and as I told you before at the elevator, as far as I can tell, neither are you. Which is why I am not interested in arguing with you, sir. At least not on this issue. I can say I am surprised that a man like you, traveling the world, making movies, able to write stories that interest hundreds of millions of people, is nonetheless more interested in finding excuses in the past than solutions for the future.”

He spoke as politely as possible, making sure to control his temper.

“Bravo!” Tina exclaimed.

“You’re right, Carey,” the little fat man suddenly squealed, “he sounds just like Kissinger.” “Sounds like a dreamer to me,” Kaplan said.

Cohen hated being discussed in the third person in his presence. It came with the uniform, but it was never the uniform that Cohen loved about being a cop. He scowled at the little fat man, who, conscious of it or not, backed up a step away from Cohen’s expression.

“Please, Bernie,” Mccloskey said in an annoyed tone, and surprised everyone by keeping his eyes on Cohen.

“I’m trying to understand what they’re arguing about.” He looked at Cohen. “It’s not just politics, is it?” “No,” said Cohen. “It’s not.”

Yes, Cohen knew how to fight, but if he had to point his finger at the single reason for his survival in a world he regarded with much suspicion, it was that he had learned to dodge and hide, as well as hunt, and if need be, to kill.

Was he afraid? He didn’t know anymore. Of what? Death?

His heart was still strong, despite the incident, as his doctor called it. He cut back his smoking and felt the difference.

He drank and it made him feel either more alive or sleepy, and he knew how much he required for each need.

He did not take any pills stronger than an over-the counter codeine-laced aspirin. He generally ate only food he or a cook he knew prepared. His eyes were not as good as they used to be, forcing him to carry a pair of half-rim spectacles for reading fine print. Alcohol was his own painkiller, and he had plenty to kill. Writing the book had also been a painkiller of sorts, looking into his memories, looking into his soul. Publishing was the mistake. The book was supposed to carry on his fight. Writing it had convinced him he was past fighting.

Carey was right: Cohen was afraid. He was afraid of the trap he had laid for himself. Once his fingers learned their way around the keyboard, the first draft poured out of him. He had never told the story before, not from start to finish, and by doing so it cleared passages clogged by guilt, wiped clear windows clouded by shame. There were moments he had found himself crying as he typed. He wrote to reveal his thoughts, but the writing had freed his emotions.

He wrote Twentieth-Century Cop by accident. Trying to learn one thing, he learned another, so what had begun as one story turned into two. It wasn’t a religious book, of course. But because so much of it was about what it meant to be a Jew in Nazi Germany, and then later a cop in modern Jerusalem—a city of flesh and blood that could be spilled in the name of religion—his book was a text that spoke to longings both political and spiritual.

For some Jewish reviewers much more moderate than Kaplan, perhaps, but no less jealous about their idea of Jewish survival, Cohen’s book was indeed only one step shy of heresy, controversial precisely because it differentiated between the idea of a united Jerusalem and the reality of its internal divisions. While the politicians in Israel said they’d never let Jerusalem be divided, he described in anecdotes and stories how the division ran deeper than ever because of political obsessions that regarded the symbol of Jerusalem as more important than the safety of its people, no matter what their religion.

Nobody could question Cohen’s defense of the Jewish people, nor his work on behalf of the safety of Jerusalem.

Yet it was precisely his profound distrust of ideology and fanaticism that made him so suspicious to so many in the city. Ultraorthodox teenagers rioting over Sabbath desecration, hurling rocks and bottles at cops and citizens trying to get home by car, called him a Nazi; as an Israeli cop, he was known as fair by Palestinians in the city but was never fully trusted, for as much as he put the law above ideology, he was a Jew. The powerful of Jerusalem respected him but treated him warily, fearing his knowledge of what they knew of him, knowing his integrity was not for sale.

Among the dishonest, he was considered honest. That’s why he was retired earlier than he wanted to leave the force. And why now, he wanted a drink. But definitely not Frank Kaplan’s champagne.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, standing up, startling them all except the photographer, still lurking in the corner, waiting for his shot. Again, a flash blinded Cohen momentarily, forcing him to rub his eyes.

“What’s the matter, Cohen?” Kaplan asked in a suddenly concerned tone. “Don’t go now, Francine should be here with the champagne soon.”

Cohen ignored him. “We have to be at Koethe’s reception at seven?” he asked Tina.

She could only gape and nod.

“Where are you going?” Carey asked.

“I’m going for a walk before the reception.”

“It’s pouring out there,” Tina pointed out.

“I like the rain,” Cohen said.

“We still have business to discuss,” the TMC editor reminded him.

“I know,” Cohen said wearily. “Tell Mr. Wang I keep my contracts,” he added and left them in the alcove, heading toward the elevator back to his room to fetch the raincoat.

The bustle of the lobby had only intensified since his arrival. An outsider, he felt that everyone knew everyone, except him. But he was aware of sideways glances at him as he tried to find a path through the crowd to the elevators.

At a narrow entrance under a sign promising a bar the crowd was thickest, which explained why there had been no service to the alcove. Two waiters were trying to get through, but they were outnumbered five to one by young men and old men, young women and old women, all apparently in a high state of excitement, trying either to get into or out of the bar.

Winding through the crowd, he found himself face-to face with Francine. She was carrying a bottle of champagne and a cluster of upside-down glasses, their stems under the palm of her hand.

“Where’s Frank?” she asked. “He said he’d be with you.”

“Back there,” Cohen indicated with his thumb, the expression on his face saying all that he felt about Kaplan.

She leaned toward him to whisper in his ear. “He’s a little crazy, you know. You shouldn’t take him so seriously.”

“That’s very loyal of you,” Cohen said.

“Loyal?” she scoffed. “He’s crazy. He’s paying me three thousand a day plus all expenses—including appropriate wardrobe—for the week. Now that’s crazy. He needs a servant, not an escort. And if it keeps up like this, I’m not sure I’m sticking around the full week.”

“You knew he didn’t like my book,” Cohen asked, by stating the fact, telling himself he just wanted that one contradiction cleared away and he’d put Kaplan out of his mind.

“If you ask me,” she said, “he envies you.”

Cohen found that hard to believe.

“It’s true. He was so mad to see you on CNN with the chancellor last night.”

Cohen scowled.

“You know, he hates his own books. It was practically the first thing he told me when I took the job. I even went out and bought a copy of The Hurricane for him to autograph. I asked him to sign and while he’s doing it, he says, ”s all the same shit.’ Can you believe it? About his own books.

Maybe he doesn’t like what you wrote—don’t ask me, I’m not Jewish, I don’t know anything about Israel or anything.

But he told me and he told you himself, he thought it was a good book. I think that’s what makes him so mad.”

“Excuse me,” blurted a gray-haired woman, clutching a stack of folders to her chest, blocked by the crowd, and trying to get past Francine, who stepped aside toward the alcove, away from Cohen.

“I’ve got to go,” Francine said. “It’s too bad you didn’t stay for the champagne. See you,” she added and was on her way, adding over her shoulder, “I bought your book.” “Handsome woman,” a man beside him said with an English accent. “Last year he brought an Asian. He’s famous for it. Every year, a different one.” “Sad,” Cohen said softly.

“He doesn’t think so,” the Englishman said.

“For the girls,” Cohen said.

“They seem pretty happy about it,” said the man. He offered his hand to shake Cohen’s. ‘ Roth,” he introduced himself. “Just out of curiosity, is Tina using Diane to handle U.K. rights for you?” he asked, and out of his sports jacket pocket, a business card appeared in his hand.

“You’ll have to find out from her,” Cohen said. He had never heard about any Diane from Tina.

“Because I am a Jew, Mr. Cohen, I would like to help your book in the U.K. market,” the British agent said.

“Really, you’ll have to ask her.”

“So you didn’t meet Diane?”

Cohen snorted a little laugh. “In the last two days I met what feels like several hundred people, Mr. Roth. Swiss bookstore owners and Berlin publishers, specialists in Hindu philosophy and a woman who I understand is my competitor in the autobiography market this year, only her book is all about the men she slept with until she became a lesbian.”

Roth laughed.

“Believe me, Mr. Roth … “

“Jeremy, please.”

“I have lost all interest in this business of being a writer.

It was a mistake. If Tina hasn’t sold the rights yet in the U. K., I probably will ask her not to do so.” “What?” Roth asked, astonished.

But just then Lassman interrupted, yanking at Cohen’s jacket, curtly said “excuse me” to the Englishman, and turned to Cohen. “I need to talk with you,” he said in Hebrew. Cohen nodded farewell to the Englishman, hesitated for a second, and then took the business card Roth had been offering since he began talking with Cohen.

Cohen told Lassman to accompany him to the elevator.

“I want to pick up my raincoat.” It was a trench coat Ahuva bought him for his birthday last year.

“Kaplan was trying to pick a fight with you and at the same time,” Lassman tried to explain, “he was trying to make friends.” “I’m not interested in him,” Cohen said. “I’m not even sure I want to stay. I’m thinking about going home. This really was a mistake.”

“What are you talking about? We’re halfway through it.

You said you were ready to do the American tour. This is a piece of cake compared to a tour.”

The elevator doors opened. Cohen took a step forward.

Lassman grabbed his arm. “Please, Avram, don’t screw this up,” he begged. “You know how much I’ve been counting on this.”

Some Japanese businessmen were holding the elevator door, all four looking at Cohen with expectation in their eyes. He signaled to them that they should go up, and turned to Lassman.