The Hunted Page 2

  Yes, and like scoring with stylish ladies who appreciated you and absolutely fucking loved it and knew you weren't going to spread it around or tel l the folks back home in Columbus.

  "Or like you and I running into each other." He paused, looking toward the open balcony. "Tomorrow evening we'll walk the wall of the Old City, past the Armenian Quarter, and see, across th e rooftops, the Dome of the Mosque bathed i n moonlight." He turned from the balcony. "No, I w asn't surprised, and not because I had you figure d out in any way. But as you said, you knew it wa s going to happen. I did too, and I accepted it a s God's will." Rosen picked up his trousers from th e chair and felt the pockets. "I thought I brough t some cigarettes."

  "I don't know if I can handle that," Edie said, "bringing God into it. I can't say I was thinkin g about God at the time."

  "You don't have to. See, what you do, you aim in the direction you want to go, or to get what yo u want. But you don't manipulate or force people t o do anything. What I mean is, you have to be hones t with yourself. You're not out to con anybody; yo u let things happen and you don't worry about it.

  That's the key--you don't worry. Something happens or it doesn't."

  "What about when something bad happens?"

  Edie said.

  "What's bad? A week later you're telling somebody about it; you're laughing."

  "Like if you find out you have terminal cancer."

  "Then you're fucked," Rosen said. "No, I'm kidding. There's nothing you can do about that , right? So why fight it? That's the secret. Accep t what comes and don't worry about anything yo u know you can't change."

  "It's that simple, huh?" Edie eased back down to the pillow. "Maybe for some people."

  "For anybody," Rosen said. "Listen, you didn't know me before. I've learned to be patient. I've almost quit smoking. In fact, it looks like I have. I haven't had a Gelusil in almost a year. And no w you and I've met and we're going to have a wonderful time together. . . . You don't smoke, uh?"

  "I quit two years ago."

  "You don't happen to have a mashed-up pack in the bottom of your purse?" Rosen went into th e bathroom and closed the door to take a leak.

  It was getting easier to explain his revolutionary Will of God theory. A few months ago it hadn't sounded as clear or foolproof when he'd brought i t out in the open. Like the time he'd told the lady a t the Jerusalem Hilton about it--in that big, activ e cocktail lounge--their second day together, an d she'd said, "Jesus Christ, I was worried you were a gangster, and you turn out to be a religious freak."

  He had put down in his mind: Never talk philoso phy with tourist ladies. Then qualified it later: A t least never talk philosophy with ladies who stay a t the Hilton.

  And don't overdo it with any of them. Edie seemed content--why confuse her?--lying in be d with her bare arms and shoulders out of the sheet , watching him as he came from the bathroom int o the lamplight again.

  "Were you smoking in there?"

  "No, I told you, I don't have any." He looked on the low bank of dressers again, catching his reflection in the mirror, the deeply tanned hard body--relatively hard for his age--against the brief white Jockeys.

  "I thought I smelled cigarette smoke," Edie said.

  "Guess not. . . . Is there any wine left?"

  "All gone." Rosen came over and she moved her hip to give him space to sit down. "We can cal l room service."

  "I think it's too late."

  "You don't want the waiter to see me. Listen, they've seen everything. You can't shock a roomservice waiter."

  "I really do think it's too late."

  "I can get us a bottle somewhere." He was touching her face, letting his hand slide down t o her bare shoulder.

  "Isn't everything closed?"

  "If you want more wine, I'll get it," Rosen said, though he had no idea where.

  "Do we need it?"

  Quietly, caressing her: "No, we don't need it."

  She looked ten years younger in bed, in the lamp glow from across the room. Her breasts were good , hardly any sag--right there under the sheet--an d her thighs were firm, with no sign yet of dimples , and not likely to develop any during the next te n days.

  Edie sniffed. "I still smell something."

  "It's not me," Rosen said. "Must be somebody else."

  "No, like smoke. Don't you smell it?"

  Rosen sniffed. He got up from the bed and walked across the room sniffing. He stopped.

  "Yeah--like something burning." He walked through the short hallway to the door, opened it--

  "Christ!"--and was coughing, choking, as he slammed the door against the smoke billowing i n from the fifth-floor hall.

  "Christ, the place is on fire!"

  He was coughing again, then seeing Edie Broder out of bed naked, seeing her terrified expression a s she screamed.

  TUESDAY, TEN-FORTY A. M.: Rosen was the Acapulco's only customer. He sat with his coffee and pack o f cigarettes in the row of tables nearest the street, a t the edge of the awning shade. Across the square , above the shrubs and palm trees, the facade of th e Goldar Hotel showed its age in the sunlight. Som e of the guests from the Park Hotel had been move d there. Others were at the King Solomon. Mr. Fin e had taken Edie Broder and the rest of the Columbus group to the Pal Hotel in Tel Aviv, to be near the U. S. Embassy and whatever attache handled legal matters for American citizens.

  It was getting complicated. Why go to Tel Aviv?

  She could move in with him at the Four Seasons.

  But Edie felt she should stay with the tour until they decided what they were going to do, and made sur e she'd have a flight home if they left, and all that.

  Rosen said that was the tour leader's responsibility.

  Edie said yes, except all Mr. Fine talked about was suing the hotel. She'd be back Tuesday afternoon , promise, ready for Al Rosen's super five-star Mercedes tour of Israel.

  Ordinarily the new Rosen would have accepted this quietly. If she came back, fine. If she didn't, tha t was all right too. But there was a problem. Edie ha d his short-sleeved safari jacket, with his passpor t and prescription sunglasses in the pocket. Up i n 507, before getting the wet towels, he'd jammed hi s shirt and jacket into her suitcase, on top of he r clothes, and sailed the suitcase from the balcony , out into the night and straight down five stories t o the pavement. All she had lost were some bathroom articles and makeup. He'd lost his sandals.

  He should have driven down to Tel Aviv yesterday and picked up his passport and stuff.

  That's where most of the cars were still coming from--Tel Aviv, sightseers. The cars passed close t o the cafe, following the circle around the parkway , then turned off on the beach road north and crep t past the fire-gutted hotel, everybody gawking up a t the honeycomb of empty balconies and at th e places where the cement was singed black. Saturday, the Shabat, had been the big day, the cars bumper to bumper all around the square, comin g and going.

  There were relatively few cars this morning--n ow that he thought about it--coming from th e street to the parkway. There were no cars standin g along the curb by the cafe. It gave Rosen a nic e view of the square.

  Sunday he had read the account of the fire in the Jerusalem Post and looked through the Hebre w dailies, Ma'ariv and Ha'arez, for pictures. Ther e had been photos in all three papers of firemen fighting the blaze, and "before" and "after" shots of the hotel. But no pictures of rescued tourists, or o f Rosen walking around without a shirt. So he didn't have to worry about becoming a celebrity.

  Still, he was keyed up, experiencing old anxieties, smoking again, into his third pack of cigarettes since Saturday morning. Getting away for a while with Edie felt like a good idea.

  He saw the white sedan go past, moving toward the beach. With an Arab driving? It was possible , but not something he was used to seeing. Arab s were usually walking along the road, old me n wearing the head scarves, the kaffiyeh, and drab , thrown-away clothes, old suitcoats that had neve r been cleaned. The one in the car wore the traditio
nal kaffiyeh--the white with black checkered lines that gave the cloth a grayish look, a double d black band holding it to his head.

  The white car turned left and crept around the circle to the other side of the parkway, the drive r maybe looking for something or not knowin g where he was going. Rosen could see the front en d now on an angle, two vertical ovals on the grille. A BMW. The higher-priced model that would cos t roughly thirty thousand in Israel, maybe more. A n Arab driving an expensive German automobil e around Netanya, an expensive resort town.

  Rosen lit a cigarette, keeping an eye on the BMW, waiting for it to come around this end of th e circle. When it went past he'd try to get a look a t the Arab. He wasn't suspicious, he was curious; h e had nothing better to do. He heard the BMW, across the parkway, downshift and pick up speed.

  It would probably keep going now and duck into the main street, away from the beach.

  But it didn't. The BMW was coming around the near end of the circle. In second gear. Rosen coul d hear the revs, the engine winding up. He heard th e tires begin to screech, the BMW coming throug h the circle now toward the cafe, Rosen looking directly at the grille and the broad windshield, thinking that the Arab had better crank it now, and knowing in that moment that the dark face unde r the kaffiyeh looking at him through the windshiel d had no intention of making the curve. Rose n pushed the table as he lunged out of the chair. He saw the owner standing inside the cafe and the expression on his face, but Rosen did not turn to look around. He was to the walk space between the caf e and the tables when the BMW jumped the curb an d plowed through the first row of tables and kep t pushing, taking out part of the second row befor e the car jerked to a stop and the dark man in the ka f fiyeh was out, throwing an end of the scarf aroun d the lower part of his face and bringing the heav y Webley military revolver from beneath his coat , aiming it as the owner of the cafe dropped flat t o the tile floor, aiming at Rosen, who was inside now , running toward the back of the place between th e counter and a row of tables, and firing the heavy revolver, firing again down the aisle, steadying the outstretched revolver with his left hand and firin g quickly now, three times, before Rosen bange d through a doorway and the door slammed closed.

  In the ringing silence the man with the Arab scarf across his face stared into the cafe, making up hi s mind. He looked down at the owner of the Acapulco on the floor, his face buried in his arms. The man with the Arab scarf turned and looked up th e sidewalk in the direction of the shops that sold oriental rugs and jewelry, where the sidewalk passed beneath the arches of a street-front arcade, wher e people were standing now, watching him. He go t into the BMW and backed out, dragging a chai r that was hooked to the front bumper, braked hard , and mangled the chair as the BMW shot forward , engine winding, taking the curve into the busines s street east; and then it was gone.

  The owner of the Acapulco got to his hands and knees and looked out toward the street for a moment, then scrambled to his feet and went to th e phone behind the counter. No--he remembere d the customer--the customer first, and he hurried t o the back of the cafe and opened the door with th e sign that said toilet.

  Rosen was standing in the small enclosure, his back to the wall. There was a sound of water, th e toilet tank dripping.

  "He's gone," the owner of the cafe said. Rosen stared at him, his eyes strange, and the owner of th e cafe, frightened and bewildered, wasn't sure Rose n understood him. "That man, the Arab, he's gon e now." He wanted to say more to Rosen and as k him things, but he could only think of the words i n Hebrew. Finally he said, "Why did he want to d o that to you? The Arab. Try to hurt you like that."

  "He wasn't an Arab," Rosen said.

  The owner of the cafe tried to speak to Rosen and tried to make him remain while he called th e police. But that was all Rosen said before h e walked out.

  "He wasn't an Arab."

  Edie Broder, with Rosen's shirt and jacket in her big suitcase and his passport in her tote--anxious , antsy, hardly able to sit still--took a taxi back t o Netanya from Tel Aviv and paid one hundre d twenty Israeli pounds, almost twenty dollars, fo r the ride.

  It was worth it, arriving at the Four Seasons just a little after one o'clock, in time to have lunch wit h her new boyfriend, God, as eager as a twenty-yearold but not nearly as cool about it. Her daughters would die. They wouldn't understand a mothe r having this kind of a feeling. They'd like him , though. He was kind, he was gentle, he was funny.

  He wasn't nearly as patient as he thought he was.

  She had to smile, picturing him in his Jockey shorts looking for cigarettes, holding his stomach in an d glancing at himself in the mirror. (Telling her h e was forty-five when his passport said fifty.) The n very cool with the whole building on fire, knowin g exactly what to do, keeping everyone calm as he le d them through the smoke. He was great. He migh t even be perfect. She wouldn't look too far ahead , though, and begin fantasizing about the future. No , as Al Rosen would say, relax and let things happen.

  The doorman asked Edie if she was checking in.

  She told him just to put the bags somewhere, she'd let him know, and went to a house phone to cal l Rosen's room. There was no answer.

  She made a quick run down to the corner of the lobby that looked out on the pool. He wasn't there.

  He wasn't at the bar, or, looking past the bar, in the dining room.

  At the desk she asked if Mr. Rosen had left a message for a Mrs. Broder.

  The desk clerk said, "Mr. Rosen--" As he started to turn away, an Israeli woman Edie recognized as a guide with Egged Tours reached the desk and said something in Hebrew. The clerk paused t o reply. The tour guide had him now and gave th e clerk a barrage of Hebrew, her voice rising, intense.

  When the clerk turned away again, Edie said, "Mr.

  Rosen. Did he leave a message--" The clerk walked down to the cashier's counter and cam e back with something, a sheet of paper, and bega n talking to the Egged tour guide, who seemed in a rage now and reached the point of almost shoutin g at the indifferent clerk. The Egged tour woma n stopped abruptly and walked away.

  "Mr. Rosen," Edie said, trying very hard to remain calm. "I want to know if he left a note for me, Mrs. Broder."

  The clerk looked at her vacantly for a moment.

  "Mr. Rosen? Oh, Mr. Rosen," the clerk said. "He checked out. I believe about an hour ago."

  MEL BANDY SAID to the good-looking Israeli girl in the jeans and white blouse and no bra, "Actually , the flight was ten minutes early coming into Be n Gurion. So what do they do, they take you off th e 707 and pack you on a bus with everybody and yo u stand out there for fif teen minutes to make up fo r it. How'd you know I was Mr. Bandy?"

  "I asked the air hostess," the girl said. "She point you out to me."

  "And you're Atalia."

  "Yes, or Tali I'm called." She smiled. Nice smile, nice eyes and freckles. "We write to each othe r sometime, now we meet."

  "You got a cute accent," Mel Bandy said.

  "You're a cute girl," looking down at the open neck of her blouse. Not much there at all, but very tender. Twenty-one years old, out of the Israeli Army, very bright but seemed innocent, spoke Arabic a s well as Hebrew and English. She didn't look Jewish.

  The guy with her didn't look Jewish either. He looked like an Arab, or Mel Bandy's idea of a young Arab, with the mustache and wild curly hair.

  The rest of him, the jeans dragging on the ground and the open vinyl jacket, was universal. His nam e was Mati Harari and he was a Yemenite, supposedly trustworthy. But Mel had seen the guy too many times in Detroit Recorder's Court. White , black, Yemenite, they all looked alike--arraigne d on some kind of a hustle.

  Mel was carrying an alligator attache case. He pointed to his red-and-green-trimmed Gucci luggage coming into the terminal on the conveyor loop. The skinny Yemenite picked up the two bags , brushing the porters aside in Hebrew, and Tal i smiled and said something to the two Israeli Customs officials, who waved them past. Nothing to it.

  Mel was
surprised. Outside, waiting in front of the terminal while Mati got the car, he said, "I though t it was tight security here."

  "They know you are searched before you get here, in New York or Athens." Tali shrugged. "Yo u know--only if they don't like the way you look."

  "It's hot here."

  "Yes, it's nice, isn't it?"

  Mel was sweating in the lightweight gray suit.

  The next few days he'd take it easy on the booze and all that sour-cream kosher shit he didn't lik e much anyway, maybe drop about ten pounds. Goddamn shirt, sticking to him--he pulled his silver-g ray silk tie down and unbuttoned the collar. Goddamn pants were too tight. He gave Tali his attache case, took off his suitcoat, and, holding it in fron t of him, adjusted his crotch. What he'd like to los e was about twenty-five pounds. He hadn't though t it was going to be this hot. Shit, it had been snowing when he'd left Detroit.

  The car was a gray Mercedes. Tali wanted Mr.

  Bandy to get in front so he could see better, but Mel arranged the seating: him and Tali in back. He'd se e all he wanted with the girl next to him and also b e able to talk to her without the Arab-looking guy listening. He waited, though, until they were out of the airport and passing through open country o n the way to Tel Aviv.

  "Have you heard from him since we talked on the phone?"

  "He didn't call last night or this morning," the girl said. "I don't know where he could be."

  Mel Bandy looked over--she sounded genuinely worried--wondering if Rosen was getting into her.

  Why not? She worked for him. Probably made more than any secretary in Israel. If that's what sh e was, a secretary.

  "You can't call him?"

  "I tried three places. He wasn't there."

  "He knows when he's supposed to get his money?"

  "Yes, of course. Tomorrow, the twenty-sixth of March. Always the twenty-sixth of March and th e twenty-sixth of September."

  "When'd you last see him?"

  "It was . . . a week ago today in Netanya. He wanted to write letters."

  "In Netanya. What was he doing there?"

  "I don't know. Maybe to swim in the sea."

  "Or chasing tail. Was he staying in that hotel?"