Tel Aviv Noir

by Etgar Keret

  I didn’t know what to say. I’ve been doing renovations with Srulik for six months and I’ve never heard about this. Not about the ad, not about the investigations. I’ve never even heard that other phone ring. I also couldn’t figure out what my job was, and how much I’d get paid.

  “I know exactly what’s going through your mind,” Srulik said as we drove below Dizengoff Square, and for seven sudden seconds the rain stopped banging on the roof of the car. “You’re wondering if I’d gotten any investigation work since posting the ad. So let’s just say . . . let’s say not really. Nothing serious. I found a lost cat once for a student.” He swallowed and slid the truck down the steep concrete ramp into the guts of the Dizengoff Center parking lot.

  “Come on,” he added as he pressed the button to lock the car, which bade us farewell with beeps and blinking lights, “let’s go see what this Monbaz guy has for us.”

  Apartment Tower, 11th Floor

  The city looked wet and dark through the windows in Monbaz’s apartment, and Dizengoff Street resembled a tired bus to the Bnei Brak neighborhood. Monbaz served us espressos and lit a thin cigar. He wore rimless glasses and shiny leather shoes.

  We sat in a spacious living room. A giant flat screen hovered black before us. A fuzzy white carpet caressed our socks from below. We were asked to take off our muddy work boots when we came in. After a bit of small talk about the weather and the view and the name Monbaz, which signifies descendants of Queen Helena of Adiabene, Srulik leaned back and asked, “How can we help you?”

  Something flickered in Monbaz’s eyes as he observed Srulik. “I want you to find out what happened to a guy who disappeared a few days ago.”

  “Name?” asked Srulik.

  “Lior Posen.”

  “Relationship?”

  “Partner. Business partner.”

  “When was he last seen?”

  I was surprised by Srulik. He asked his questions in a level, professional tone. If I hadn’t known him, I’d have thought he was a real detective.

  “I don’t know. I last saw him on Friday, around two p.m.”

  Srulik checked his cell phone. “Three days ago,” he said.

  I cleared my throat. “Should I be writing this down?”

  “No, no,” Monbaz and Srulik said in unison. They looked at each other and chuckled. Then their expressions turned serious again.

  “Where did you see him?”

  “In the pool on the roof of this building.”

  “Does he live here too?”

  “No. But he goes to the gym here.”

  “Why do you think he disappeared?”

  “He isn’t answering his phone or returning calls. He isn’t answering e-mails. He never came home on Friday. He’s married and he has a child.”

  “Has his wife called the police?”

  “I asked her to keep the police out of this. I told her we’d find him.”

  Srulik turned away from Monbaz’s eyes for the first time and fixed his gaze on the ceiling light. He reached over to pick up his coffee cup. He sipped and put the cup down, then relaxed his nervous posture. “So what’s the story, Monbaz?” he finally asked.

  Monbaz hesitated. I now noticed he was wearing a thick gray sweater, dark slacks, and socks with a diamond pattern. He seemed put together. So did his place. He said, “I need you to give me your word that this stays between us. I don’t want the police getting involved. I didn’t contact them for a reason, and it’s the same reason I didn’t call a well-known investigation firm. I opened the yellow pages and saw your ad. I don’t want anyone knowing I contacted you.” It was clear Srulik had passed some sort of test. He got the job.

  “You have our word,” Srulik said.

  “Posen and I are partners in a start-up company. We got an offer from a large American firm. They want to buy us out. $163.5 million dollars. We need to give them our answer by the end of the year, which is four days from now, on Friday. Because of expenses and tax issues, if we miss the end of the year, the deal is in jeopardy. Even if it doesn’t fall through, the price would drop significantly—”

  “Google?” Srulik intervened.

  “No, not Google.”

  “Yahoo?”

  Monbaz squirmed in his seat and adjusted his glasses. “That doesn’t matter right now,” he said. “Anyway, our partner contract defines that the decision to sell must be unanimous. I’m for it. So is another partner, Sharon Reich. Posen was against it, and now he’s gone.”

  “How many partners own the firm?” Srulik glanced at me, still reflecting the height of professionalism.

  “Three.”

  “And you suspect Sharon.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Have you spoken to Sharon since Friday?”

  “Of course I have.”

  Srulik turned to me again, then put two fingers to his lips and blew. “Where are your offices?”

  Monbaz pointed out the window at the building next door. “There, the twenty-fourth floor. I can see from here which rooms still have the light on at night.” He smiled.

  “What do you do?”

  Monbaz got up and asked, “Anyone want a soda? Another coffee?”

  We both shook our heads.

  He walked to the kitchen that opened into the living room, and while he poured he said, “Something cool. An application that helps you find misplaced things. You take a picture of something with your cell phone. Say your keys, or your wallet, and the app remembers the exact coordinates. Then, when you search for it, the app tells you where it is. It’s going to be a hit.”

  Srulik half smiled. He seemed impressed. Then he frowned slightly. “Why did Lior Posen object to the sale?”

  Queen Helena’s descendant dropped his arms to his sides and said, “He thought we could sell it for more money within a year. He didn’t want us to get too excited.”

  Apartment Tower, Swimming Pool

  It was only early afternoon, but the light outside reminded me of twilight. The rain had stopped, leaving its dark and heavy clouds as backup. Two old men and a young woman swam in the pool on the roof, and on the floor beneath, at the gym, a handful of people pumped the pedals of exercise bikes.

  We walked around the men’s dressing room. Srulik lowered his big black mane of hair and sniffed the air around the sinks, as if trying to capture remnants of the cologne Lior Posen had sprayed himself with before disappearing three days earlier. Then he saw a scale in the corner and mounted it. “Wow, ninety-eight kilos, I can’t believe it.” He looked crestfallen. He went to the rows of lockers that covered one of the walls and fluttered his fingers over them. He stopped at locker 99. “Look,” he said. A transparent sticker was attached to the locker, printed with Lior’s name. I pointed out that the adjacent locker had Monbaz’s name. “Nice work, doctor!” He smiled at me. He scanned the ceiling and walls. “No cameras. Let’s get our tools from the car.”

  Twelve minutes later, Srulik stood in front of the broken-into locker. “Look at this. Condoms, a twelve-pack. Only . . . seven left. Deodorant, cologne, bodywash, goggles, jogging pants. And in Monbaz’s locker . . .” He fiddled with the lock. “Even more boring. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Office Tower, 24th Floor

  It continued raining all night, and the weather report said it was going to keep going all week. Roads became rivers, gigantic puddles pooled at intersections. Srulik said he told the client in Tzahala that we’d return next week, when it dried out. We wouldn’t be working on her pool renovations this week. He picked me up and we drove back to Dizengoff Center, for a company meeting.

  On the way, Srulik said, “You must be asking yourself, why would a married man keep a pack of condoms in his gym locker? And you’re right to be asking that. At this meeting, take a good look at the women. But I’ll do you one better, doctor. That Monbaz guy, something about him doesn’t add up. He said nothing about the lockers. When I asked for Posen’s wife’s number, he squirmed. Something stinks here.”


  I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t noticed any of that.

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Srulik said. “You’re thinking, if he’s the one who made Posen disappear—because Monbaz wants to sell the company by the end of the week and Posen objected—why would he book a PI? And that question, doctor, is one I can’t answer just yet.”

  The windshield wipers swooshed from side to side, moving water from the center of the glass to its edges. A swarm of red lights stood ahead of us in the lane. Gusty winds shook traffic lights and trees.

  “Look at that,” Srulik said, but I couldn’t tell what he was motioning to. “Now, don’t think I just stopped there. I did call Posen’s wife. I got her number. I told her I was looking into her husband’s disappearance on behalf of the company, that the investigation was in good hands, and that, due to the sensitivity of the business deal, we prefer not to involve the police at this point. She confirmed what Monbaz said about the time of disappearance.”

  The center appeared before us like goalposts: two towers on opposite sides of the street, and the bridges connecting them on top. We parked in the underground lot and went up to the company offices. The view was more impressive than the one from Monbaz’s apartment. We could see the entire shoreline from the conference room. White foam scratched the surface of the wild gray sea.

  Eighteen people were convened around a large table. Monbaz introduced Srulik and me. I watched the women, as Srulik instructed. There was one well-kept blonde who sat by Monbaz at the head of the table and spoke. She was sexy. Another woman, very beautiful, with pale skin and smooth black hair, whispered to a curly haired man next to her who, for some reason, was wearing sunglasses on his forehead. The third looked like a lesbian—cropped hair, square forehead, brown eyes, broad shoulders, and big breasts. In the middle of the meeting someone came in and said, “Sorry, I need Olga,” and the lesbian got up and went with him. After that everybody started chattering and Monbaz scolded the pretty woman with the black hair: “Tamar! Quiet. I want to continue.” So I knew two names now. Was one of them Lior Posen’s lover? The one who stretched those five missing condoms over him? Five minutes later, Olga came back.

  I turned to Srulik, but he was concentrating on the meeting. I didn’t know how he was going to save himself from embarrassment and hide the fact that he was a complete novice. On the other hand, sitting at the offices of a high-tech company with a view of the sea was better than doing renovation work in the rain. I hoped the missing person would just reappear and solve all of our problems.

  Monbaz spoke through most of the meeting, mainly discussing the sale. I waited for him to mention Posen, and when he did, with a nervous cough, the room turned silent. “The truth is, right now the sale is in jeopardy, because Lior isn’t answering calls and hasn’t been seen by anyone since Friday.”

  I looked carefully at the women, but saw no visible reactions.

  “We hoped he would turn up somewhere, but there are only three days before the year ends, and this is becoming an issue. Have any of you seen him or heard from him since Friday?” He peered around the room and I tried to notice if he was lingering on anyone in particular. From the corner of my eye I saw Srulik examining everyone as well.

  “What does that mean, the sale is in jeopardy?” a firm-bodied bald man asked in a deep voice. “If he doesn’t show up for the shareholder vote he loses his voting rights, no? And then the call is yours and Sharon’s to make, right?”

  “No, Vladi,” said Monbaz. “Our lawyers discussed this at length yesterday. To approve the sale, all three shareholders, Sharon, Lior, and I, have to vote unanimously. If one of us objects, for whatever reason, the sale won’t be approved.”

  A murmur began around the table. Beautiful, pale Tamar shot Vladi a quick look.

  “Unless . . . quiet . . . unless,” Monbaz continued, “something happens to one of the shareholders. Meaning, something that hasn’t . . . something—”

  “Unless he’s dead,” the blonde sitting next to him intervened. “God forbid. But if we find that he’s . . . I mean, as long as he’s missing, as long as there’s no unequivocal evidence—” She moved her eyes over everyone around the table. “We can’t close the deal.”

  Monbaz nodded along.

  From this point on, the atmosphere in the room was tumultuous. A few minutes later, Monbaz brought the meeting to a close and we joined him in his office. The blonde came in with us.

  “You were a little harsh,” Monbaz told her.

  “You know he isn’t dead,” she said. “But what I said is true, it’s what the lawyers said.”

  “How do you know he isn’t dead?”

  “He made himself disappear, it’s pretty obvious. This way he doesn’t have to make a decision.”

  “But what difference does it make? It would have been the same had he stayed and objected. The sale wouldn’t have gone through. Why disappear?”

  “You’ll see. A couple days into the new year he’ll turn up with some excuse. He doesn’t have the balls to stand up to us and all the employees and pull the rug out from under us. Son of a bitch.” Bitter wrinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes. She wore a cream-colored silk blouse and a skirt, beneath which peeked dark panty hose. Her blond hair was shoulder length and her pleasant scent filled the office. She was tall. A woman who knew she was attractive. “Monbaz, are you going to introduce me to our guests?”

  He introduced us and then said, “This is Sharon Reich, my partner.”

  When she shook my hand her collar moved and I saw a tattoo, some Latin phrase, swirling down her shoulder toward her chest. As she turned back to Monbaz I saw another one, a small turtle, on her neck. She said she had to run out to a meeting, added, “I hope you find out where that bastard is hiding,” and left. The phone on Monbaz’s desk rang.

  Srulik came up to me and was about to say something when Monbaz spoke into the phone: “What? Who is this? Where? Hello?”

  Elephant Bridge, Shopping Center, 3rd Floor

  The large plastic-and-fiberglass elephant opened its giant mouth and spit out sliding children. Monbaz led us, on his face a bewildered expression he hadn’t been able to hide since receiving that phone call. In the elevator, he said the voice on the line was distorted and never identified itself. “He said, You have a memento from Lior Posen in the dumpster near the elephant.”

  “What’s the dumpster near the elephant?” Srulik asked.

  “It’s a dumpster for electronic waste. We use it sometimes for screens, cables, that kind of stuff. Here it is.”

  We approached carefully. Among some Styrofoam, a toaster oven, and a DVD player, a thick red sheet of plastic emerged.

  Srulik was the first one to speak: “It’s a leg.”

  Monbaz said, “Don’t touch it.”

  I stood there, staring. I could see a toe, the outline of a foot, an ankle, and a muscular, manly calf. The rest was covered by garbage. The leg was wrapped in a thick layer of polyethylene, the insides of the wrapping smeared with blood. I pushed down the urge to vomit.

  Monbaz said, “If I take this out, I have to call the police. I’m going up to the office. Check this out, take pictures, and then put it back. Then come up to the office and we’ll consider our next step.”

  Srulik told me, “Go to the pharmacy and buy a pack of sterile plastic gloves. Ask them to put it in the largest bag they have. On your way, check for footsteps, blood trails, anything.”

  When I returned he put on a pair of gloves, told me to keep watch, and reached in for the leg. I stood with my back to him, listening to the whispers of the Styrofoam and to Srulik’s heavy breathing by my ear. He cursed quietly, but a moment later whispered, “Let’s go,” removed the gloves, and began walking. The pharmacy bag was in his hand. “Only a leg,” he whispered, “not an entire body.” He walked down the spiral ramp strewn with stores, bypassing baby strollers, goth girls, and European-looking grandmas absorbed in cellular conversations.

  Parking Lot, Level -2
>
  Behind a concrete pole, in a deserted corner of the parking lot, Srulik donned another pair of gloves, removed the limb from the polyethylene, and shone a flashlight on it: a man’s leg, dismembered below the knee with a sharp object. Clean work. The leg was quite hairy and a Latin phrase was tattooed vertically along the shin bone. Srulik took pictures of the leg from several angles, repacked it, and put it back in the bag. We dropped the leg in the electronic-waste dumpster and went back to Monbaz’s office.

  Office Tower, 24th Floor

  Sharon Reich’s shock seemed authentic to me. We stood in her office, the door closed behind us, Srulik’s cell phone presenting the pictures of the leg on her desk, her eyes red and puffy, her head shaking from side to side. Monbaz said nothing. In fact, no one had said anything since Monbaz saw the pictures in his office, got up and told us to follow him, went into his partner’s office, and placed the phone on her desk.

  “Is he dead?” she finally asked.

  “Who knows?” said Srulik. “Are you sure it’s his leg?”

  She responded by pulling her sexy silk blouse off her shoulder. A red patterned bra strap adorned the shoulder, and beside it was a tattoo like the one in the photo: a phrase made up of Latin letters.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s a quote from Nietzsche. One half of the quote is written on his skin, and the other on mine. The full phrase is: There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

  “Yours is longer,” I said. Srulik looked at me, but Monbaz and Sharon didn’t react. I realized those were the first words out of my mouth all day. I took a step back.

  “What does it mean?” Srulik asked again.

  Sharon broke into tears.

  Monbaz said, “Stay here and take it easy. I’ll get you a Valium and some tissues. I’ll talk to these guys in my office and we’ll decide what to do.”