The Hit

by Michal Hartstein

  "Everything's alright. I don't like interrupting you, really. We can talk later."

  "You rescued me from the longest and dullest meeting in history. As far as I’m concerned, you can speak with me now about anything you want," he said happily.

  I giggled. "Okay, thanks. The truth is, it’s a work-related question."

  "Ha," he said, disappointed. "Well?"

  "Do you remember working for Zvika Leibovitz?"

  "Of course. Stingy Zvika. Who could forget?"

  "Do you remember how long you worked for him?"

  "Until the beginning of 2008. I left right before our trip to New Zealand. I remember I’d been accepted for the job at Indigo, and then we decided to go on our trip before I started my new job," Yinon reminded me.

  I remembered. This was exactly how it had happened. Before the yearning for that distant period overwhelmed me, I hurried to ask, "Do you remember the official name of Zvika's company?"

  He thought for a moment. "Z. L. Engineering," he said hesitantly.

  "Is it possible that you’re switching the initials? Was it L. Z. Engineering Services, Ltd.?"

  "Yes, yes," he agreed immediately. "What you just said. This was the name that appeared on the pay slips."

  "Did you know any people over there?"

  "Why are you asking?" his curiosity was piqued.

  "Hmm. It's related to my investigation. The company's name came up in relation to a business dispute with the Panda Company."

  "The cellular company?"

  "Yes. What's Zvika's connection to Panda? Why would Panda need to consult over an engineering matter?"

  "No idea. Zvika’s very well connected. It could be that they needed advice on outfitting electronic equipment, or something along those lines."

  "Okay. There's no chance I'll understand what you're talking about. Let's return to the issue itself. Do you remember Zvika? Or his employees? I mean, the financial personnel in particular?"

  Yinon exhaled. "Wow, it's been over three years. I'm not sure all of them would still be there."

  "Zvika’s certainly still there."

  "Well, he's the owner."

  "What’s he like?"

  "In my opinion, a good man, but many thought he was a chronic penny-pincher."

  I remembered that the terms of Yinon’s employment had met the requirements of the law to the letter without a single enhancement. He had always received his salary on the last possible day.

  I returned to Sigal's list and looked at the comment she had written. According to her description, Panda had called L. Z. once, and after providing the service, the supplier had called dozens of times, harassing the department's personnel and threatening them. She did not specify what type of threats.

  "Can you guess at why Zvika would harass the Panda Company and threaten them?"

  "I'm almost certain I know what happened there."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. Zvika provided services to Panda and they didn’t pay him - something like that."

  "Exactly. How did you know?"

  "It was Zvika's primary difficulty, working with big companies. On one hand, they provided him with secure, good work, but some companies have terrible payment ethics."

  "Big companies, too?"

  "Yes. The worst to work with were the defense companies, but there was no choice. A considerable amount of work in mechanical engineering comes from the military."

  "Why is that?"

  "You're asking me?" Yinon chuckled. "I'm a mechanical engineer, not a finance expert. For a company like Zvika's, any delay in payment was problematic. He had to pay his employees on time, but he received the money from his customers only after a long time, with a lot of chasing and nagging. If he threatened them, it was understandable. It's definitely frustrating and unpleasant to have to chase up customers’ payments."

  "Was it like that with all the customers, every month?"

  "That would be an exaggeration. It happened mainly with one-off projects."

  Yinon's answer corresponded to Sigal's comment. I erased Zvika's company from the list of possible suspects.

  "It's annoying," I said.

  "Yes," answered Yinon.

  A few oddly silent moments followed.

  "Do you want to meet up?" asked Yinon.

  It is not a question of wanting, I thought to myself. "I don't know if that’s advisable," I said.

  "You could come to visit Orit and me," Yinon hastened to add, offering Orit as a defensive wall against mutual loss of control. We both knew that any meeting between us was volatile. Yinon sounded desperate to see me.

  "I'm in the middle of a high-pressure investigation. I can't set up anything," I tried to get out of it.

  "But we'll set something up, sometime?" he almost begged.

  "Alright," I muttered. I was desperate myself.

  I hung up. In a moment of candor, I admitted to myself that that conversation had not been necessary for the continuation of the investigation. I had, indeed, eliminated one name from the list, but it definitely had not been the only reason I called Yinon.

  I decided to move on to a more practical inspection. I entered the business permit numbers of the suppliers to the search databases. I found that the owners of three of the companies had criminal records. Two of those had criminal records for tax evasion and false registrations in corporate documents. The third person had a criminal record for extorti. His name was Yossi Baruch. I returned to Sigal's list and found the name of the business owned by Yossi Baruch – Super-Duper. I assumed it was a supermarket that provided groceries for Panda. The comment indicated that there had recently been a misunderstanding with the customer in regard to tax invoices. The name of the business sounded very familiar. I entered the name in Google Maps. Bingo. Super-Duper was two stores away from the Zelda snack bar.

  I called Sigal.

  "Do you know Yossi Baruch?" I asked.

  "No."

  "He's the registered owner of Super-Duper."

  "Ah… Yossi… Yes, sure! We do some shopping at his place, like coffee, soft drinks, cleaning materials and refreshments for guests."

  "You noted that there had been some problems with him lately. What did you mean?"

  "Yes. It was rather unpleasant. Usually, there are no problems with him, but apparently one of our employees didn’t transfer the tax invoice to bookkeeping, and Yossi waited for his payment for a long time. It was a rather large invoice, for a lot of refreshments."

  "What was unpleasant?"

  "He called my office and yelled at me. It was quite unusual. Our relationship with him had been very cordial until then."

  "And that was the end of the story?"

  "Not really. We decided to cut down our dealings with him. His outburst was, indeed, unusual and unreasonable. We still purchase some products from him here and there, but not on credit and on a far smaller scale."

  "Did you know he has a criminal record?"

  "Wow, I didn't!" She sounded surprised.

  "Did he have a confrontation with Shirley about it?"

  "Could be. He claimed he’d delivered the tax invoice to her, but she said she hadn’t received anything from him."

  "You’ve been very helpful. Thank you."

  "My pleasure. I have to go over several more suppliers. Do you want me to send you an additional list?"

  "Yes, sure. Thanks again," I said and hung up.

  Yossi Baruch had been released from jail in 2001 after serving a three-year sentence for extortion. He belonged to a criminal gang that had disbanded in the meantime. Following his release, he travelled to the US and returned to Israel after five years. He opened his store on Lincoln Street, and - at least, on paper - he stayed away from the world of crime. How did he finance the establishment of a new supermarket in the center of Tel-Aviv? I could only guess. I printed Yossi's picture from the Prison Service database. It was a ten-year-old picture, but it was the most up-to-date one I could obtain at this stage.

  Thirty minutes l
ater, I was waiting for Nagusto in one of the interrogation rooms at Abu Kabir. He dragged himself into the room looking weary.

  "How are you?"

  "Alright."

  "Do you remember saying that you met with somebody who asked you to eliminate Shirley?"

  "Yes."

  "I’m going to show you a picture. I’m telling you in advance that this picture isn’t up-to-date, but it’s very clear. I want you to try to remember if this is the same Lior who asked you to eliminate Shirley and Koby."

  I handed him the picture. He examined it and returned it to me after a few seconds.

  "This isn’t the man."

  "Are you sure?" I asked, disappointed.

  "One hundred percent."

  "It doesn't even resemble him a little? I told you it’s not up-to-date. The man in the picture’s ten years older today."

  "I’m positive it's not the man."

  "Why?"

  "The man in the picture looks older than Lior. So if it's a picture from ten years ago, then it's definitely not him."

  I left Nagusto regretfully. I had hoped he would identify Yossi and the mystery would be solved.

  The fact that Yossi was not the same mysterious Lior who had met with Nagusto did not rule out the possibility that he had ordered the hit. It was possible that he was the customer and Lior was his field agent. But, at this point, without Nagusto identifying him, I had no basis for an arrest warrant for Yossi. I had no choice but to drive to Super-Duper on Lincoln Street and hope that Yossi Baruch would agree to speak with me.

  CHAPTER 18

  I was already inside my car, ready to move off, when vigorous knocking on the window made me jump in my seat. It was one of the junior prison staff from Abu Kabir.

  "Hadas Levinger?"

  "Yes."

  "I was asked to call you back to the interrogation room. It's urgent!"

  My heart leapt. I turned off the engine and almost ran back to the interrogation room.

  Nagusto was sitting there, holding a copy of Israel Today. I sat down opposite him, and before I could ask why he had called me back, he burst into an explanation.

  "After you left, they took me back to my cell. I asked to stop for a second at the water cooler for a drink. While I was drinking, the jailer picked up this paper from one of the chairs." He brandished the paper in his hand. "As we continued on to the cell, I noticed Lior's picture in the paper. I immediately had them call you back."

  I looked at him, alert. He turned the paper to the back page, to the gossip section.

  "Here." He pointed at one of the pictures. "This is Lior - the one in the white shirt."

  I took the paper from him. It was a picture from the launch of some product.

  The picture showed two guys and a girl laughing in a phony way at the camera. I did not recognize the girl, but, according to the caption, she had been a participant in a reality show. I did not recognize Lior, the guy in the white shirt, either. But I knew very well who the tall, muscular guy in the black shirt was.

  It was Tom Sela, who, only two weeks earlier, had been sitting across from me in the interrogation room. He had been smiling a lot less, then, of course.

  I was satisfied. Nagusto also looked satisfied with his fortuitous identification. I studied the picture of the egotistical duo and my smile vanished. It was the word of an Eritrean refugee threatened with deportation against the word of two Sabras, one of them, at least outwardly, the salt of the earth. A connecting link was missing.

  "Are you positive Lior never called you from an identifiable phone?" I asked hopefully.

  "No, he was really scrupulous."

  "And he paid you in cash?"

  "Yes."

  "How? In an envelope? In rolled bills?"

  "He gave me the advance in rolled bills, but the rest was in a kind of black washbag."

  "What did you do with the bag?"

  "I don't remember. I think I kept it in the closet. I thought I’d use it for travelling."

  I thanked Nagusto, took the newspaper and rushed to the police station.

  I went straight to Alon's office and showed him the picture. He recognized the guy and provided me with complete details. Lior Zemach was his complete and real name, and he was Yaakov Sela's nephew. Lior's family kept its distance from the Sela family, but they lived in the same city. Lior and Tom had attended the same school, where they became good friends. Lior had been attracted to the Sela family's life of luxury and, consequently, they were quite happy to draw him into their dubious business. Unlike Tom, who completed his full military service, Lior was discharged after one year due to incompatibility. His first criminal indictment was submitted several months later, though his criminal record was relatively scanty - marginal felonies with no genuine public interest. The arrests and interrogations were designed to wear down the Sela family and gain access the higher echelons of their hierarchy. I had not yet had a chance to interrogate him.

  That was about to change.

  I dispatched a police car with two cops, instructing them to turn Nagusto's apartment inside out until they find the black washbag. An hour later, the bag was with Forensics and I was on my way with two police cars and six patrolmen to Yaakov Sela's supermarket chain's headquarters. The offices were located above the company warehouse. I directed one police car to block the exit from the parking lot, and another cop was sent to the back exit to make sure that nobody escaped that way. The receptionist on the ground floor was far from surprised to see a bunch of cops. Apparently, she was used to it. Without fuss, she stood up and demanded to see a warrant. I showed her the arrest warrants and she fell silent. I did not pressure her. After a few moments, she pointed at the stairs.

  "They're in the office upstairs," she said quietly and sank back into her armchair. I left her with one cop and went upstairs with the three remaining cops.

  As soon as we entered the space of the upper floor, I identified Lior and Tom. They were sitting with three other men in a conference room partitioned by glass walls. I went toward the glass door, but suddenly heard an imposing female voice.

  "Excuse me. Who are you looking for?"

  I turned and saw the speaker. She was a good-looking young woman, sitting at a side desk at the entrance to the floor, holding a phone receiver. I was so focused on Lior and Tom that I had not noticed her before.

  The woman put down the receiver, got up and approached me.

  "As you’ve just been informed by the receptionist," I said and pointed at the telephone lying on the woman's desk, "I need to speak with Tom and Lior."

  She smiled like someone who just heard a really humorless joke. "You’ll have to wait," she said, and folded her arms.

  I pulled out the two warrants. "I’m really not waiting," I said. I signaled to the cops to stay with her and stormed into the conference room. The eyes of all present were directed toward me. Tom and Lior got up together and looked at me menacingly. Within two seconds, they noticed the uniformed cops standing outside and their look was transformed. Tom needed a few additional seconds to recognize me and put on an innocent expression.

  "Hello, everybody," I said in my most authoritative tone. "Sorry for the interruption. I am Inspector Hadas Levinger, from the Tel-Aviv Police. Tom Sela and Lior Zemach, you're under arrest. Put your hands up, please. The rest of you, put your hands on the desk."

  They obeyed silently. The cops entered the conference room and handcuffed Tom and Lior. A crowd started to assemble outside the conference room as the employees came out of their offices to watch. I assumed it was not the first time they had seen their bosses being arrested.

  "Return to your offices!" I commanded. "The show’s over!" I pulled out my radio and informed the entire team that the suspects had been apprehended and they should wait for me together.

  "I don't understand," Tom said almost tearfully as we were going down the stairs, “I already told you everything I know two weeks ago…"

  Lior preferred to stay silent.

  Whe
n we arrived downstairs, I read the suspects their rights. I instructed the cops to send Tom in one police car, and got into the second car with Lior. I assumed he would remain silent, but I wanted to examine his body language. As expected, he projected tension.

  When we arrived at the station, Tom yelled at me, "Inspector Levinger! Inspector Levinger!" I approached him.

  "I'm telling you again," he said, now with real tears. "It's a mistake, you're arresting the wrong person! It's simply an outrage! You've conspired against me because I'm Yaakov Sela's son. When my father hears about it, he’ll sue the police and you’ll all have to look for another job."

  Lior was standing next to me. He closed his eyes, bit his lower lip and signaled to Tom with a small shake of his head to shut him up. Had his hands been free, I assume he would have jumped on Tom in order to silence him. But Tom did not notice Lior's subtle signal and kept up his torrent of condemnations and threats all the way to the cells.

  My phone vibrated. It was Shachar, letting me know that Yaakov Sela had been arrested as well, and they were on their way to the station. Things had finally begun to roll! I went to my room to go over the material before I started interrogating the wider Sela family. I had barely sat down when a raucous knock on the door cut off the brief silence.

  It was Ricky. She peeked inside and asked cautiously, "May I interrupt you?"

  "Not really," I said impatiently. "I’m under insane pressure…"

  "I know," she said and slipped carefully into my office, careful to close the door behind her. "There's someone here claiming you told him to come in for questioning. He's driving me crazy!"

  "What? Who is it?"

  "Some Yoni. A really, really unpleasant guy!"

  "Wow, right!" I pressed my hands to my forehead. It was Shirley Navon's fiancé, presenting himself for questioning. How could I have forgotten about him?

  "See if he can wait for me for about an hour."

  She laughed sarcastically. "He's already been waiting for you for an hour. I’d like to see you convince him to wait even one more minute…"

  CHAPTER 19

  Yoni looked furious.