Just People

by Paul Usiskin

  ‘How did you kill them?’

  There was silence then Hareven began to speak, slowly at first then faster and faster. ‘Papa had a pistol. He said it was a war trophy. I didn’t believe him. He wasn’t tough enough to steal it. Anyway he had it and I took it from the drawer in the kitchen dresser and shot them with it. One bullet each in the head while they were asleep. I felt free, it was wonderful, I was in control, I made Sophia help me wrap their bodies in sheets and blankets and we dragged them down to the iced up lake and I found a hole in it for fishing and we dropped them in, it was very early in the morning and snowing, then I caught some fish in the hole, gutted them, took them home and cooked them there was some vodka in the dresser so I made Sophia drink and I drank then I fucked her took the money from under the mattress in Mama and Papa’s bedroom and left...’ He was breathless.

  ‘What about Sophia?’

  ‘What about her? She kept on nagging after we dropped the bodies in the lake she started crying so I fucked her and she stopped.’

  ‘Why did you have her killed?’

  ‘She was no longer relevant.’

  ‘Did she know you then?’

  ‘No. She came to Israel and one of my people gave her a job. She was good at sex, on videos. She was a real turn on. The more she did the better she got. Then she was set up as a call girl. She was very good at that too. And later very competent at running the escort agency.’

  ‘Did she know it was you she worked for?’

  ‘No. I do everything anonymously. It’s how I run all my businesses, why I’m so successful. Nothing was ever or is ever, traced to me.’

  ‘How long after Sophia’s murder did you divest yourself of that business?’

  ‘Maybe a year or so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d made more than enough out of it. I wanted a change, it’s called divest and diversify.’

  ‘Do you think about all those people you’ve killed or had killed over the years?’

  ‘Why? Compassion is for wimps. You can’t run a successful business on emotion.’

  The ants came back.

  The screams lasted longer than before, after the lights went out.

  *

  The light flashed brilliant white, filling the cube, penetrating into Hareven’s semi-consciousness.

  ‘Boris!’

  Nothing.

  ‘Boris!’

  Nothing.

  ‘Boris Gulkowitsch!’

  The voice said his name carefully again, breaking it into two syllables, ‘Buh Ress’ and repeated it, and turned it into a chant, echoing in the cube louder and louder, ‘Buh-Reess! Buh-Reess! Buh-Reess!’

  ‘What?’ Hareven’s voice trembled.

  The voice whispered, ‘Look.’

  The patterns of the black holes reappeared, shifting and shifting, and got bigger and bigger.

  On one hole across the corner a scene emerged. It was a speeded up sequence in bright colors, old film stock, shakily filmed. A body was projected over the corner of the cube so that the torso was on one wall and the buttocks and legs on the other. It was face down on a dry empty patch of land in a craggy mountain landscape. The body had deep cuts in it. After a moment, first one and then another and another huge winged vulture descended on the body, hooked beaks and long sharp claws tearing away at the cuts, devouring great lumps of flesh. The blood on their legs gleamed and became pale as they urinated on themselves to cool them from their efforts. Beige earth, black brown wings, blood flecked beaks, ceres, ruffs.

  The cube went black.

  Hareven was gasping and sobbing.

  ‘Enter the hole,’ the voice said and repeated.

  Hareven unfolded himself and crawled silently and slowly towards the same hole as before, huge at first. It got smaller as he got nearer, so that it was just large enough for him to put his head into. He leaned his head against it, rubbed his forehead up and down on it, pushed his head at it, trying to fit his head inside it. Convinced it was real and not a projection.

  ‘Let me in. OH please let me in. I want to go in, please, IN! IN! INNN...

  He banged his head against the hole, tendons standing out on his neck, like a ram butting.

  The cube vibrated with the impact, once, twice, three times.

  His skull shattered. His body collapsed.

  In the observation room, Dov threw up all over the control panel.

  36

  A mild Saturday afternoon in March. Dov was packing when his entry-phone buzzed and buzzed. He looked at the screen and saw Yakub jumping up and down, Lana shushing him.

  As he entered Yakub started solemnly, ‘How long will you be away Aba?’ but the solemnity lasted seconds. ‘Can I play with the plane? Can you take me for a ride on the Segway? Can Mummy come too?’

  ‘It’s all up to her,’ Dov said smiling, ‘I don’t know how much time you both have.’

  Lana smiled back. ‘We have as much time as you want. You’re flying out tomorrow morning, so you must have lots to do. I know I would have if I was getting ready for a long stay abroad.’ She was standing inside the door, looking around at Dov’s domain, taking in all she saw.

  He was going abroad for three months, and if he’d wanted to extend it, the Minister had said he could, but he should check in at the end of each month. Not unreasonable, in fact generous of her, she’d just started in her new role, he was the head of PID, but she knew he was close to mission overkill, from a mission that had nearly killed him. He needed to stop, go well away, recuperate, recharge his batteries, so on. Amos was promoted Deputy PID head on Dov’s strong recommendation, endorsed to his surprise by Hassid. He hadn’t mentioned it to Amos, only hinting that his salary increase was ‘A little more than I originally suggested, kind of results driven.’ Amos had stared at him, no blink. Later he admitted to Dov that the eye control had been the hard part.

  ‘OK. Lana don’t stand there like this place will swallow you up, help yourself to something to drink from the refrigerator, there’re juices and soda and chocolate milk for Yakub. I’ll get the plane box and you can help him assemble it while I finish packing.’

  Shortly after, they were on the promenade. ‘Which first? Plane or Segway?’ asked Dov. ‘Plane, plane!’ Yakub shouted so Dov set the engine going and Yakub showed off all his aerial acrobatics.

  ‘He’s very adept,’ Dov said as Yakub flew the little craft, careful to avoid people, there weren’t that many, a few sun seekers, but the wind was light so there was no danger the plane would be carried away. At one point it went out of range and Dov watched anxiously as two people picked it up and walked to Yakub with it. Dov restarted it and it took off.

  Then Yakub wanted to go on the Segway, so Dov packed the plane away and got the Segway from the basement garage. When he returned, Yakub wanted him to show Lana how it worked. They spent five minutes watching and laughing as she practiced leaning forward, going slowly until she was comfortable. ‘Let’s go together,’ Yakub demanded and Dov showed Lana how to keep balance with Yakub on the platform and off they went, towards the Marina and back.

  ‘I can see why he likes it so much,’ she said, ‘it’s really great.’

  ‘Wonderful. Why don’t you go the other way down to Allenby, there’s an ice-cream parlor near the corner. I’ll walk down and meet you there.’

  They past the varied hotel façades on one side, and he followed, absently counting the water breaks on the other. In the distance he could see his Segway. It stopped before crossing traffic above the little roundabout on Knesset Square, at the top of Allenby Street, and then was lost to view. Dov sped up. The closer to the intersection he got, the more anxious he became, it was, yes of course, Chizzik instinct, little brain warning flares were going off; something was happening and he couldn’t see what it was.

  He crossed the intersection with Allenby, running h
ard, and raced to the ice cream parlor, another of those new glass frontages in a section of the street that was in transition, gentrification taking hold of neighboring premises. His Segway was propped up against the wall, left of the entrance. No Lana or Yakub.

  He went inside. Not there either. He started trying to ask the girl at the counter serving another customer. She ignored him. He did that Israeli thing, elbowing aside the customer, a woman, his voice rising, ‘have you seen...’ and stopped.

  Irit Sasson. He’d watched her interrogation at the black site, prior to her transfer to prison, when was that, two months ago? She calmly handed him a chocolate and pistachio cone and asked for another.

  Why he waited for the ice cream and for her to turn to him, he didn’t comprehend, as she licked provocatively, before she said, ‘Yakub’s favorite, right?’

  She led him outside to a table and chairs and sat down and he joined her. The LanaYakub! tinnitus started up and kept clashing with the route of his train of thoughts, constantly crossing sets of emotional points, LanaYakub! cell phone, gun, no time, LanaYakub! Segway, LanaYakub! Go! LanaYakub! Oh stop! One thing at a time! Lan…Shut UP! He watched as Irit gave good head to the chocolate appetizer, the pistachio the main course.

  ‘How and why I’m here?’ she licked gleefully. He worked on his next steps, ignoring her. He sought calm in a fast insincere smile, for the camera Dov, we’ve got you, he must have looked ridiculous. ‘I’m useless locked away,’ she stated, ‘to those who value me and want you gone. It’s the result of an intensive Situational Awareness exercise,’ she grinned a chocolate grin, ‘lots of lists, from a number of hi-profile people, and when we pooled them, one person stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, the individual who was the exact opposite of a sine qua non; sine Dov is what they want.’

  He wanted to say Oh come on, dismissing the urge to work out who valued her; what for?

  ‘Still working it out Dov?’ she asked munching her cone. ‘Pointless waste of your superb brain. We want you to be an ex-Dov,’ said gleefully. Dov tried to be dispassionate, to quell the repeating tinnitus. ‘Who we are and how it’s done isn’t relevant.’ He nodded at that. ‘And we want Lana and Yakub removed too. Can’t have your Palestinian woman wanting blood for your death, or worse still, your son driven by revenge. Imagine the mix of Jewish and Muslim blood boiling over in him for a father erased.’

  An obvious and dangerous plan came to him, one with a start but no end, as he said, ‘All those ultimates Irit.’ He shifted not quite imperceptibly in his seat, fast glance at the Segway, only one blink, picking up the red dot there on his chest and if he’d had a mirror, there’d be another on the back of his head.

  ‘Yes, it’s on the back of your head,’ said Irit, wiping her fingers with a paper napkin. ‘Oh and the security surveillance for Lana and Yakub? Incompetent.’ Those two people who gave Yakub back the plane; ours or theirs? Working out angles, how much damage he could take and still function, which direction if he made a move. His eyes came back to the glass frontage. In its reflection a queue had formed from the counter out to the sidewalk. Next to him a family of three, father, mother and a lively little girl skipping about singing, ‘strawberry and vanilla,’ over and again. Two lovers, in their teens began to cross the glass front behind Dov so it became a matter of…

  Timing. Dov leaned to his left as the lovers, unable to stop kissing, wandered, he guessed, into the red dot beam on the back of his head and the little girl, round-faced, mischievous eyes, was told to stop skipping about by her parents if she wanted ice cream, but she kept on and broke the red dot beam on Dov’s chest, lovely child, and he went down between the legs of the queuing ice cream addicts, got to the Segway, started it, wheeled it to the left and into the alley he’d registered as he’d arrived, praying it wasn’t a dead end. It wasn’t. It took him to an untended backyard with trees to the right, a place he didn’t know existed, weeds and uncut grass, no pathways, all bordered by the backs of apartment blocks, some old, some very recent, which way to go, he made for the trees and under them was another alley, cars parked along it, and he slowed to maneuver the Segway between two of them, couldn’t, stopped, turned the Personal Transporter sideways on and dragged it clear, scraping bodywork, and drove it up to a barrier, squeezed by it onto the sidewalk on Idelson Street, passed an apartment entrance and then down the two steps, then a U turn and back to the next junction and left and back onto Allenby.

  The first shot clipped the Segway above the right wheel. He heard no gunshot, so it had to be a suppressed gun but suppressors reduce effective kill-range. Another shot passed his head and he looked back. A tall man with plasters on his face and nose was running after him, a handgun in both hands. No Irit; she was letting her minions do the work.

  The Segway had been on permanent charge until Lana and Yakub drove it, not far or for long. Dov had done trial and error to take his Segway beyond its speed-limiter, set to 12.5 mph, a trick from an American on the Internet who wanted speed. The trick wasn’t fail safe but Dov needed it to work now and repeated what he’d practiced, watching the power bar get to three quarters across the screen and then twisting the throttle all the way and then back a little and the Segway rocketed, as much as a Segway could rocket anywhere, up to 20 mph and a little more and the power bar stayed there.

  The fastest average running speed, attained by the man with the imaginary arrow bolt, was 27.9 mph over 100 meters. The guy with the plasters and the gun wasn’t Usain and had already covered 100 meters, Dov guessed, as the Segway sped on.

  At the ice cream parlor the red laser dots had come from guns above him in windows either side of Allenby. That made them long guns, sniper or assault rifles. There were, he knew, similar sights for handguns, but he hadn’t seen one on his pursuer’s weapon. Laser sights were fine if the target and the shooter weren’t moving, but the target was off at 20 mph plus and the shooter was chasing on foot.

  Dov needed comms, and keeping the Segway at its max he got his cell out and called Amos. ‘Urgent. Confirm surveillance on Lana and Yakub is still active!’ he shouted.

  Amos responded, ‘Primary surveillance compromised.’ Dov knew what primary was, a team or teams. ‘Secondary and tertiary fully functioning.’ There was no time to ask what those were, but they must involve electronics.

  ‘Fix location and ex-filtrate them,’ Dov ordered.

  A phrase came to him, gratis Ephraim Cordova, ‘pseudo-pros’ and he began working on why that fitted now. Static guns with red dot sights, only one pursuer so far, no body search so he still had his cell, the keys still in the Segway. They’d been in a hurry to take Lana and Yakub. He looked back, no one, no vehicle coming after him, did they have electronic surveillance on him? On the Segway? Where the hell was he?

  He gazed about, unsure. Nothing looked familiar. Afternoon light was dimming into evening dark, quickly, the way it always did. Was this Allenby Street? Which part of it? North of King George Street or south? South was once the rotting end of Allenby, decomposing Bauhaus architecture, some being renovated, but the shops, passed down from first owners to sellers of cheap trash, clothes, bags, shoes, none made to last, hadn’t they changed since his childhood? No. Why sell that stuff? Because not everyone can afford the Azrieli tower mall, right? Chic north Allenby, new build apartment houses, in Jerusalem stone would you believe, cheek by jowl with burnished edifices of banks and financial services that wouldn’t look out of place in most Western cities. Brash Tel Aviv in a collision of cultures since the mass Russian migration of the 1980s. So, the grunge shops peter out and restaurants with menus in Hebrew and Russian take over, roasted pork knuckle flakes on dark rye, pungent Russian beers and 100 proof vodkas in a variety of flavors, balalaika music from a club, songs in full throated old Russian favorites, Akh Odyessa! and Karavan about the lost glories of Afghanistan.

  But wait what do I see, are they walking back for me? Isn’t that Dimi Demidov, arm in arm with B
arry Hareven, stumbling out of one those eateries, waving a chilled vodka bottle in one hand and a forkful of stewed lamb in the other, weeping at the sight of Dov, ‘We always loved you Duveleh.’ No. Both dead.

  Amos would find and ex-filtrate Lana and Yakub from whoever had them, and Dov would do what he’d done before, in the name of the state, remove a threat to national security. Yes? Not again. Whatever happens, he swore to himself that he would have no hand in any more death.

  More shots, a fusillade peppering the road surface behind him, his left tire deflating, a judder as the Segway chose that moment to reject the trick with its speed limiter and slowed. Dov looked back again. A black SUV, two men leaning out of front and rear windows shooting. Why were the bad guys’ SUVs always black? Need to get off Allenby. On the left. A crowd of young shoppers going in and out of a brightly lit passageway, an arcade of small stores between two bigger ones, bollards to prevent vehicle entry, but enough space for the Segway, so Dov leaned into the gap as the lithium batteries died.

  He left it and pushed his way down the arcade, pulling out his phone, dialing the beach snitch.

  ‘Yes Mr Chizzik,’ the laid back voice answered.

  ‘I need Vadim’s number. How much?’

  The beach snitch laughed, ‘It’s still a freebie Mr Chizzik, here’s the number’ and Dov called it as he heard running footsteps coming down the passageway behind him.

  Vadim answered and listened and told Dov to stay within the passageway, he was en route, ten minutes maybe, ‘For to help government yes?’

  Three pseudo-pros came down the passageway as Dov hunkered low in the shadows of a recessed service

  doorway behind a wheelie bin. They past him, focussed at head height, searching shoppers faces, led by the guy with the plasters, close enough to identify him as Aviv Glazer who’d left his DNA on a matchstick and on Aviel’s face, last seen exiting a black site cell on the way to another interrogation. How had he got out? Some wet ops specialist, performance levels poor, breathless from running, he waved his gun for the other two to keep on searching, frightening shoppers, slowing at the end of the passage, just beyond Dov, who waited until the other two were gone in the crowd at the far end, to take down Glazer from behind in a blur of moves, pulling at his head with his right arm, his left fist smashing at Glazer’s twice broken nose, keeping his right hand over Glazer’s mouth to stop his yell, increasing the choke-out on the carotid, producing what Dov wanted, temporary loss of consciousness, the gun on the floor, Dov grabbed it, left Glazer propped inside the doorway, obscured by the bin, checked the gun, a universal Glock, one round in the chamber, one in the magazine, one full magazine in Glazer’s trouser pocket and Dov was up and walking against the tide of shoppers, heading back for the street.