Tel Aviv Noir

by Etgar Keret

  “You knew him,” she stated the obvious. She’d never been beautiful, but in the two or three years we hadn’t seen each other, she’d dried up like a rotting mushroom.

  “Mordechai Weintraub. Everyone called him Mota Sharmuta, Mota the Whore.”

  “Tsk.” She shook her head. “What a miserable soul.”

  On the contrary, I thought. He hated playing the victim. He joked about his horrid life, mixing obscenities with humor, and proved that even a gigolo could sound like Woody Allen. But instead of blabbering about neuroses, he told us how many liras he used to get for a blow job, converting the sums into shekels so that everyone could understand.

  “If he were a professional miserable soul I would have stayed away,” I answered.

  “I meant you.” Farkash smiled, pleased with her little zing.

  I ignored her tease. “I thought I was done with this kind of stuff when I retired. He was used to being attacked. He knew how to handle himself, and yet this still happened.”

  “It’s natural for you to feel angry. He was the star of your show.”

  “I’m more concerned with the fact that forensics isn’t here.”

  “They’re on their way,” she said drily.

  “The rain is going to erase the evidence, you’ll have a silent crime scene on your hands.”

  “Once an investigator, always an investigator,” she said with a cynicism she didn’t have back when I was in charge.

  “That’s absolutely right, and this is no way to manage a murder investigation.”

  “I’m not certain this is a murder yet.”

  “Come on, Farkash, get serious.”

  “Did he have any enemies?” She pulled out a notepad. “Is there anyone in particular who you suspect?”

  “Go figure, we all have enemies.”

  “I want names.”

  “And I want forensics,” I repeated, getting irritated. “Radio them in.”

  “Why don’t I take care of the crime scene and you take care of your tourists, and we’ll each do our own jobs?”

  “They aren’t tourists,” I said curtly. “And who said that was my job?”

  * * *

  In retrospect, I should have given my customers an excuse, but I felt guilty and I wasn’t thinking ahead. Farkash was right. Mota was a star, comic relief, a vent to release the pressure from the tour’s previous stops: the riverbank where the dead girl in the suitcase was found, the building in whose yard they finally captured the “Polite Rapist,” the club where a police-officer-turned-stripper showed everybody her boobs. My target audience was the bourgeois Israeli with a full-time job, two or three children, and some free time, who came into the city for a weekend visit and happened across my flier. I also got worker union groups and retirees looking for thrills buying tickets for my moving freak show, enjoying the shock they got from the fact that things like this happened in our tiny country. Fear and sanctimoniousness are a profitable combination.

  But I was still shaken up, and rather than making up some story, I gathered my participants by the kiosk in the middle of the boulevard and told them the truth. They didn’t believe me. They convinced themselves it was part of the program. With my connections, I must have brought the police cars and the ambulance just for atmosphere.

  I told the driver to take us to the S&M Basement. I heard text messages and whispers inside the bus all the way there. A few of my participants, who were in the know, checked out the situation, and by the time we arrived at HaSharon Street, the entire bus realized what had happened. Three couples hailed taxis and escaped. The rest gathered at the entrance to the old industrial building, suspicious and confused.

  “We can end the tour here,” I offered. “We’ll drive you back to the meeting point.”

  “We only hit half of the stops,” someone complained. “We deserve half our money back.”

  “I’m not dodging that,” I dodged. “Give me a day or two, we’ll figure it out.”

  “I’d rather get credited for another tour some other time,” the man’s wife intervened.

  “I have everybody’s contact details. I’ll be in touch.”

  “We should have taken that other tour,” one nasally woman said.

  “There were no vacancies,” her friend replied with frustration. “Now we know why.”

  * * *

  Arab boys in waiter uniforms removed tablecloths and overturned chairs, preparing the floor to be mopped. The closed windows locked in the smell of meat and puff pastry. From the southern tip of the seawall boardwalk, the hotels on the beach created the illusion of a real city’s skyline.

  I found Little Gideonof in the kitchen, leaning on a stainless steel surface, wiping sauce with pieces of torn challah. I watched him for signs of struggle, a bloodstain. Nothing. He nodded at me with his mouth full and handed me a piece of cooked beef tongue fluttering on a fork.

  “I don’t eat standing up, and I certainly don’t take food from the hand of someone who’s fucking me over,” I said.

  He stopped chewing, grabbed a pitcher of water from a passing waiter, washed his food down, and let out a burp that sounded like a quick strum of a bass guitar. I didn’t expect anything more from him. He was a man of few words.

  “Not talking nice,” said Little Gideonof. There was nothing little about him. When my old business fell through, I sadly went to see him and his brother. All the banks required collateral against loans, but my ex-wife had forgotten all of our good times and had cleaned me out in one fell swoop, like a collector cleans out a synagogue charity box: she took the house, the kids. Other shylocks wanted nothing to do with a former cop. Unluckily enough, I knew the Gideonof brothers from my days at the Clock Square Station, twenty meters away from their event hall. I made an enormous effort to give my payments on time, having seen with my own eyes what happened to people who borrowed and didn’t return. Gray market, blue market, purple, brown.

  “You knew the money was on the way,” I reminded him. “What did you kill Mota for?”

  “Who’s Mota?”

  “It’s harder to get the entire sum without him. You’ve hurt yourselves too.”

  “Not talking nice,” he repeated, this time as a threat. My past career as a police officer was my only protection against him and his older brother. It was nothing like military protection, though. It was more like a condom.

  “I want to see your brother,” I demanded.

  “In Eilat,” he said.

  “When did he go?”

  “Two, three days.”

  That garbled my theory. He was the brute force, his brother was the brain. If his brother wasn’t around, they really must not be related to the murder. Or maybe it was just an alibi.

  “When will he be back?” I asked.

  He pointed at the window. Outside I saw an Arkia airplane descending toward Dov Airport, its body illuminated by the city’s lights. Little Gideonof returned to his sauce. It was funny to see a Bukharan who liked Ashkenazi food. It made me pity him.

  “You need to watch what you eat,” I said. “All that food, it’s a shame.”

  “Talk nice,” he growled at me through a mouthful of dough. “And bring money or we find you.”

  * * *

  She was standing by a bulletin board covered in posters for deejays and rabbis, bent down, sleeves covering the holes in her arms. I hung my helmet on the handlebars of my moped and gave her an apologetic hug. She was as thin as the ribbon you hang a medal on. Whenever I touched her, I wanted to stand at the threshold of the moment when her body grew accustomed to the beatings and the humiliation and stop the apathy from seeping into her soul. The veteran Eritrean refugees on Har Zion Avenue were used to seeing us together. If someone watched us with wonder, it meant they only recently crossed over illegally. I left the infiltrators and the shelter-seekers for the bleeding hearts. Charity begins at home.

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you we weren’t going to make it to you on the tour last night. Have you been waiting lon
g?”

  “No matter,” she said with a slight accent, pulling a cigarette from the pocket of her sweatpants. “I heard Mota dead.”

  “What else have you heard?”

  “Bus get scared, run away on you.”

  Hinges creaked. A door along the peeling plaster wall opened with effort, like a swollen eye. Her little pimp peeked out. He reminded me of my Iraqi neighbor from HaZiyonut Avenue, back when I still had money and a home. I’d return from the station or the precinct at dawn and find him waiting for the paper delivery guy. He never answered my “Good morning,” and made me wonder what it meant to be a normal person.

  Now I noticed her glazed eyes. She was high.

  “Go home to your mother,” I said. “Only for a week, until we can figure this out.”

  A thin smile and shaking teeth—that’s how she laughed. What I said really was ridiculous. What mother and what home? What would they do for a whole week up in Karmiel, besides fighting over the vodka bottle? There wasn’t enough heroin for her in the entire Galilee region. The urge would begin on the way to the train station, and before she was even past Tel Aviv University, she’d be dope sick.

  “No need,” she said.

  “It’s getting dangerous here. Not for you specifically, but I’m still worried.”

  She chuckled again. So alone and so vaporous. Every day of her life was more dangerous than anything I’d experienced on the police force. A client could decide to cut her up instead of paying. She could overdose, contract AIDS, syphilis, get pregnant. The people I brought to see her on the tour were sorry for her for a moment, felt guilty for their apathy, begged her to go to rehab. I understood them. She made me feel better about myself too. I used to think the tour was a break from her shitty life, until she told me it was nothing more than a chance to speak some Hebrew. I pulled out my wad of cash and counted four hundred shekels. She stuck the bills between her jeans and her boot. Soon she’d buy another hit, connecting with her heart once more.

  “Have you eaten anything today?” I asked.

  The door squeaked again. I glanced over for just a moment, but when I looked back she was gone, and I was left alone with the stench of ammonia from the urinary tracts of Tel Aviv.

  * * *

  The first phone call woke me at eleven. I thought it was that blonde from the radio again, a crime reporter who wanted me to discuss the murder on the air.

  “Izzy Schuster?” a woman asked. She sounded like a teacher from the countryside.

  Fucking Google. We appeared one after the other in the search results, and people never paid attention to what they clicked. Twice a week I received phone calls intended for my competition.

  “Huh?” I blinked into the light, surprised to find it was already another day. Then I lied, “Yes, that’s me.”

  “It’s my husband’s birthday on Friday. Are there any seats left? Two people.”

  “Let me check.” I pretended to leaf through a datebook. “No problem. Meet me at five thirty at the edge of the Nokia Arena parking lot, in Yad Eliyahu.”

  She repeated what I said slowly. I heard the call waiting beep and switched lines.

  This time it was really for me, not for Izzy.

  “How did you hear about me?” I asked.

  “You were mentioned on the morning news, and I also saw your name in the paper.”

  “What was it in reference to?”

  “A man who was part of your tour has been murdered. I assume you already know this.”

  “I was sure people would be nervous and stop calling,” I admitted.

  “Not necessarily.” He sounded like a putz. “We’re actually pretty excited about it.” He continued babbling until I interrupted him.

  “All right, I have you down for six people. Meet me at the Nokia Arena parking lot, Friday, five thirty.”

  “Thanks—and good luck.”

  “With what?” I asked.

  “You’re a former police officer. I imagine you must be conducting your own investigation.”

  “Oh yeah, sure, sure.”

  “Do you have any leads?” He seemed pleased with himself.

  “The problem with leads is that they can lead you nowhere.”

  But he was right. I needed to find the maniac who did it. I wasn’t concerned with justice. Nobody was. But my people could be in danger, and so could I. I needed investigational materials and could only rely on connections. I hated relying on connections. The last time I did that, I ended up on the streets, depressed, waiting for happy days that rarely came. I called Hila Farkash.

  “What the hell do you want?” she said.

  “Whatever you’re willing to give me.”

  “I was willing to give you a lot, but you wouldn’t be serious.”

  “Holy shit!” I finally got it. “Don’t tell me you’re still into me.”

  “Eh,” she snorted, “I’m not that desperate.”

  “I’m sorry to say, but yes, yes, you are.”

  “And what about you? Your life is garbage.”

  “You know, being insulted is a choice.”

  “And what’s being insulting, a necessity?”

  A moment after I burned yet one more bridge, I got another booking. And fifteen minutes later, another two calls came in. I was fully booked by the afternoon, and had to stop myself from getting overbooked. I called the driver and reserved a bus for Friday night. He was surprised. We’d never had anything like this. I took a shower, jerked off, and drove to the funeral.

  * * *

  The Aztecs landed a pyramid in the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery. That’s what it looked like from a distance, anyway. Inside were three floors of concrete domes with hives of graves. Mota had bought a low alcove in advance, considerate of the undertakers who would have to carry him. They sealed him in with a few bricks, apologized to the deceased, and dispersed. Two drag queens wiped tears behind rhinestone sunglasses. I gave them my phone number and two hundred shekels. They opened umbrellas and wobbled away on high heels, ignoring the Orthodox Jews who watched them from the burial home.

  I bent down and placed a stone on the small ledge. Then I took off my yarmulke and turned to leave into the rain.

  Izzy Schuster appeared right then at the edge of the dome, folding his arms across the suspenders that held up jeans from the Stone Age. His ever-present bag hung off his shoulder. “You’re wasting your money.” He shook my hand. “They don’t know anything.”

  “It’s not for information,” I said.

  “Sure, it’s so they say the Kaddish prayer for Mota in a synagogue.”

  “Nobody came besides the four of us,” I observed with surprise.

  “What did you expect, the philharmonic to play a requiem for the sharmuta?” he said in his hoarse voice. Izzy still displayed the kind of energy that had made him the most furious and relentless crime reporter, until he was finally fired under coercion of the police commander and the minister. At least that’s what he says. We were afraid of him on the force. He mocked us and brought us down. He knew more criminals than I did, understood the inner workings of both the police and organized crime. He knew what was going on way before we did. People loved giving him intel, wanted to appear in his column, even anonymously. My tour of the city’s sewers had actually been inspired by his original crime tours.

  “I wish I’d called you right after it happened,” I said.

  “Why?” He searched around, then walked to the burial alcove and tapped the gray bricks, as if expecting Mota to open up.

  “Because if there are any rumors about who did it, they’d reach you.”

  “Who says they haven’t?”

  “Really? Who is it, then?”

  “You.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” That’s all I managed, working hard to keep calm, ignoring the chill that ran down my back. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “You were mad with envy,” he said without hesitation.

  “Envy for what? You and I split the city and the night
s between us.”

  “And that helped you at first, but then it went to your head.”

  “It helped both of us, and the people we work with. This way there’s enough work for everybody.”

  “You stole my creation. You took it down, word for word.”

  “Those stories and events are no less a part of my life than they are a part of yours.”

  “You let other people do all the hard work and then came in to collect.”

  “If that’s how it is, you should have kept Mota rather than give him away.”

  “Everyone knows your head is messed up. That’s why they kicked you off the force.”

  “Whatever,” I sighed. “At least nobody takes you seriously.”

  He nodded and pulled a camera from his bag. A police car drove quietly up the road to the cemetery. It stopped and Farkash emerged. I still didn’t get it, even as she stood beside me and grabbed my arm.

  “Come on, let’s go,” she said, dragging me off as if I were a drunk driver.

  “You’re kidding,” I said when it finally clicked. “You’re arresting me?”

  “Ronny, let’s not do this.”

  “You’re enjoying this,” I said angrily. “I can tell, don’t think I can’t.”

  “Watch your head,” she said, placing a hand on top of my head as I bent down and slipped into the car. The flash in Izzy Schuster’s camera blinked like the police car’s flashing lights.

  * * *

  The city’s least experienced attorney sat across from me. He worked for a criminal attorney who owed me a favor and promised to send over an ace. Instead, he sent an arrogant kid who was more concerned with the fit of his jacket than with my arrest.

  “What do they have on me?” I whispered into the phone. Not that my whispering mattered. The basement of the Tel Aviv precinct had a meeting booth like in the movies, with a window separating the person in custody from the visitor. We spoke on a closed-circuit phone which I knew was tapped.

  “Meaning?” He looked at me with confusion.