“No, you.”
She didn’t move. “OK, together,” I said.
Together we walked to the freezer—one of those pull-out kind and very large. Each of us took one side of the drawer and looked at each other, silently counting. “One, two, three . . . go!”
We pulled hard and the heavy drawer snapped against its tracks, disturbing the automatic icemaker and causing a loud rattling of ice.
“Shhhshshhh!”
Unsure of what might be in the freezer—food? severed heads?—together we ventured a peek inside. It looked like a normal freezer to me though there were a suspicious number of packages of frozen edamame.
Very slowly, Jelicka stuck the hand with the damaged nail into the drawer and started pushing the frozen food around. If there were any body parts, they were cleverly disguised as chicken tenders.
“Let’s check the other rooms,” whispered Jelicka.
We were walking down the hallway, carpeted with sisal, when I heard a door open somewhere.
“Madelyn?” The voice calling my name was familiar but it wasn’t a welcome familiarity.
Jelicka, who was in front of me, whirled around.
“Nissim,” I mouthed silently.
“What’s he doing here?” she whispered frantically, as if she finally realized that what we were doing entailed such risks as the legal owner returning to his home.
I had no idea what he was doing home at two o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, but there was no time to discuss it. I pushed her further down the hallway.
Jelicka began reaching inside her handbag and I snatched it from her.
“No gun,” I said as softly and firmly as I could.
“But—”
“No. No gun!”
Nissim spoke again, this time sort of sing-songy. “Ma-de-lyn—I think you’re in here. I saw your car outside.”
Why hadn’t we taken Jelicka’s car!
The windows wouldn’t open enough for us to fit through, so true to crime cliché, she and I dived into the closet with me clutching both our handbags, and we held our breaths.
“My neighbor called to tell me there were a couple of women in my back yard and I was just down on Vine having lunch, so I decided to come up and see what was going on.”
“Give me the gun,” Jelicka whispered, grabbing at the handbags, which I tried to keep out of her reach without knocking clothes from hangers or overturning shoes.
“OK, Maddie, you can come out now.” Nissim sounded almost playful. I wouldn’t have felt particularly playful toward an interloper in my house.
“Stop. Jelicka, shhhh!” I said, pushing her hands away.
“I know why you’re here, Madelyn. Berggren told me you were asking questions. And to tell you the truth, if our situations were reversed, I’d be curious, too.”
Why was he saying all this? To soften me up somehow? He didn’t sound upset or even alarmed, but then again, he was a professional, and he was moving steadily toward us. I had no game plan. There was nowhere to hide.
“You and your friend were right, by the way. I used to be Mossad.”
Jelicka reached out and clutched my arm. I felt for her other hand just to make sure she hadn’t snagged the gun somehow. No Mossad agent would take kindly to having a Glock pointed at him.
“But it was a long time ago,” he went on. “I’ve been exclusively into real estate for about six years now. That is the truth.”
His voice was getting louder. Soon he would open the closet door and the jig—as they say— would be up.
“I’m still friends with those guys, though. I worked with them a long time. So sometimes they ask me to help them out. This was one of those times.”
He was very close now. I tried to see Jelicka’s expression in the dark, which was impossible, but from the death grip she had on my arm, I knew she was terrified.
The closet door opened, throwing light onto us and revealing Nissim’s smiling face. “Ladies . . .” He didn’t seem to think we were a threat.
“Nissim—” I said. “Hello.”
“Boker tov,” said Jelicka.
Nissim turned his attention to Jelicka. “Other than the fact it’s the afternoon, good morning to you, too.”
Jelicka’s Hebrew, like most things about her, was inconsistent.
“Let me introduce my friend. Nissim, Jelicka. Jelicka this is Nissim,” I said as cheerfully as if I were at the Southern California Mediation Association annual dinner instead of in a guy’s closet with one too many overcoats.
“Shalom,” said Nissim.
“Shalom,” responded Jelicka.
Nissim was being very gracious and understanding, I thought. Hardly the kind of behavior one would expect from a man finding uninvited persons in his house.
“Please . . .” He gestured for us to step out of the closet.
“Nice to see you again,” I said in my friendliest voice as I followed him out of the room, Jelicka close behind me.
He turned to face us, once he’d reached the dining area. “You broke into my house,” he said.
Clearly he was correct, so there was no point in denying it. Instead, I switched to my empathic mediator voice. “Yes. We did. I’m so sorry, Nissim.” I spoke as if I’d only just learned that his father had passed.
“I should call the police.”
“From previous experience I know you don’t like to call the police.”
He smiled, clearly recalling that day at my house when he and his friends came for Udi’s body. “It depends,” he said. “I’ve been known to make exceptions.”
Jelicka had been pretty quiet up to this point, but she was starting to recover her nerve. “We had to get in to find out what really happened. I know a little something about Israel and the Mossad.”
“And this would mean what?” asked Nissim, his body language difficult to read, even for me, an astute reader of body language.
“She’s been to Israel and has friends there,” I said.
“Madelyn told me how you showed up at her house that day but it didn’t sound on the up-and-up. In fact, it stinks like an overflowing Van Nuys garbage can in August.”
Nissim gestured to the dining table and we obediently sat down.
“Look at the situation from our point of view," he said. "An Israeli citizen dies in your country while having sexual intercourse. If he were to go to a U.S. morgue, what would be gained?”
“How about ‘we follow the rules’ is what would be gained?” Jelicka said with a smile.
I gave her a kick under the table to get her to call off the attack-dog antics.
“Perhaps,” Nissim said, “but this Israeli citizen who died is not insured in your country. His last will and testament—in a safe-deposit box in Tel Aviv—says nothing about being buried in the U.S. His family is in Israel. His Israeli employer, the safest airline in the world, can get him home quickly and for free. What would you have done?”
“Well, what was that about implanted chips?” Jelicka asked in her “softer” voice. “That sounded really suspicious to me.”
“As I told Madelyn, El Al implants microchips in all its employees.”
“But why would they do that?”
“Why not? Training people is expensive. They’re protecting their investment.”
Jelicka scowled.
“People do put chips in a lot of things these days,” I said. “Dogs, horses. Why not people?”
“It’s very cost-effective as well,” Nissim went on. “Israel produces most of the microchips for human implantation, so they’re very cheap. People in Israel are putting chips in their children so they won't wander away from the playground.”
If this were true, I could consider putting one in Lila, just in case she forgot her phone.
“When Udi’s movement stopped that day, these friends of mine knew it immediately. They called to ask if I knew what Udi was doing in Agoura Hills and I told them I thought he was having sex with you, or perhaps he was sleeping. Then late
r they called back and said he was still not moving, so something was wrong and would I come with them. And that’s what we did. The rest you know. That’s it.”
“But those guys with you... especially the one who was built like a Sub-zero,” I protested. "He looked like a hired thug from the WWF."
“You mean like him?” Jelicka asked, pointing behind me.
I turned to see the refrigerator-like man who’d been at my house that day. “Yeah, like him.” Alarm bells went off inside me, but I tried to keep it together. I brought my hand up in a small effort at a wave, like we’d originally met under more auspicious circumstances. He smiled in return.
“Who is that big guy?” Jelicka whispered, a little too provocatively.
I shot her a look and said, “Listen, Nissim. I’m sorry we broke in. It wasn’t right. I know I didn’t know Udi very well, but I kind of felt I owed it to him to, you know, turn over all the stones.”
Nissim nodded—a concession—then he said, “He was crazy about you. When they got him back to Israel, the airline did an autopsy and it turned out he had large amounts of a drug in his system that he shouldn’t have been taking.”
I was stunned. “A drug? He didn’t act like he was taking drugs. He barely took a drink.”
“Maybe you just weren’t aware of the symptoms. And anyway, this drug is legal.”
Jelicka gasped.
“He was taking Viagra,” said Nissim the same second I realized myself what the drug must have been.
“I thought of that, but he was so young! Did he need it?”
“That stuff is deadly,” Jelicka said. “My husband—well, ex-husband— went off it because of a heart condition. That's the choice—sex or a heart attack.”
Nissim tilted his head to the side and exhaled slowly. “There you have it, exactly. Udi had a small problem with his heart, but because he wanted to be with Madelyn so badly, and to please her, he took the risk. As it turned out, this was not a good idea.”
“So, I killed him.” This was horrible.
“No, not you. Love killed him.”
Nissim seemed almost wistful for a second or two before ruining the mood. “Believe me, there are far worse ways to die. I should know.”
He was looking at me now. I did believe him, but I didn't want to know.
“Was he a Mossad agent, too?” Jelicka asked.
“Udi? No,” Nissim guffawed. “No. Udi just liked people to think he was Mossad but Udi was what he said he was—a sky marshal for El Al.”
Almost like it had just happened, I felt the fresh hurt of Udi dying on top of me. “Occam’s razor,” I said.
“Him again,” Jelicka sighed. “What’s with the razor? Why don’t they just say Occam’s principle?” She paused. “What is it again?”
“It’s the idea that the simplest, most obvious explanation for something is usually the right one. I knew he’d died of natural causes, but I guess some part of me wanted it to be something more.”
“Well, my version of events could have happened,” said Jelicka. “It was possible.”
“Yes, it was possible, but I’m sorry to tell you it is not what occurred,” Nissim said.
“You could have told me more, as things were going on,” I told Nissim. “You didn’t even tell me his real name when you had the chance. You let me continue to believe his name was Udi Hamoudi. What was I supposed to think?”
“Would you have listened?” asked Nissim. “I could have told you Udi was really a double agent conducting affairs with women in several different countries and wanted for murder in at least five of them. This probably would only have added to the excitement. Which is not to say you weren’t genuinely attracted to each other, I think you were. I also think that you were excited by the idea of Udi more than by Udi himself.”
Part of me resented what he said but I had to admit at least a little of it was true. Udi had been mysterious and different from anyone I’d ever met. I hadn’t wanted to know more for fear of destroying the fantasy.
“Do you want to know his real name?”
I thought about the question for a few seconds. “No,” I said. “What would be the point?”
If he was gone, that was it. He’d always be Udi to me.
“So what are you going to do to us?” asked Jelicka.
“Nothing,” Nissim said. “Let’s just say we had a misunderstanding. I’ll overlook the fact you broke into my house. Was it difficult, by the way?”
“Ten minutes,” said Jelicka. “But a pro could have done it much faster.”
“I’ll change the locks.”
Nissim stood and we did the same. Jelicka picked up her bag, the gun and lock-pick kit out of sight inside, and slowly we moved toward the door. Refrigerator Man stepped aside to let us pass. I think he might have winked at me.
“It must have been very good sex—you and Udi,” said Nissim.
“Yes, it was,” I said, looking down at my shoes. How much had Udi told him, I wondered.
“Sounded very good to me,” added Jelicka, smiling. She was probably thinking about her own recent romp.
“Try not to feel bad, Madelyn. If he had a choice, I think Udi would have chosen this way.”
Jelicka and I walked to the car, and I was struck once more by how quickly life can change, for good or ill, and that it was best just to roll with whatever comes. Most of all, it was important not to have regrets. As far as Udi was concerned, I didn’t have any. Of course I wished he weren’t dead, but his death wasn’t really my fault. If he hadn’t died with me, it probably would have happened with some other woman, some time in the not-too-distant future.
One thing I could say for sure was that I would have regretted not meeting Udi and not spending those blissful hours with him. If it hadn’t been for the Muffia, my book club made up of slightly flawed women, and our reading Deliciously Disturbed and Distracted, he and I might never have gotten together. So no, I had no regrets about anything that had happened.
Even Jelicka’s hyping an ordinary death into a matter of national security had its upside. She and I had gotten to know each other better, she’d found a boyfriend and Nissim and I had cleared the air —proving that even insane things happen for a reason.
I pressed the power button on the Prius and my ears picked up that comforting no- sound sound of a charged battery. “So, how far are you into We Need to Talk About Kevin,” I asked.
She grimaced. “Just started it. I’m with Kiki —it’s a downer.”
“Not completely. You’ve been spared having a school shooter for a son. That’s got to be uplifting.”
“Oh my God—I just thought of something,” she said, that look of suspicion coming over her face. “Do you think the author is writing in code about some future incident?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the possibility that there’s a school shooting that’s going to occur, and that the where, when and how are contained in the pages of Kevin.”
I put the car back in park and faced her, ready to nip the next would-be adventure in the bud. “You’ve really got way too much time on your hands. You need a job. Maybe you should go home and sear something.”
“I’m kidding,” she said, giving my shoulder a gentle shove. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 34
Paige lives in an area the Los Angeles realtors like to tout as “Beverly Hills Adjacent.” This wanna-be neighbor of BH covers miles of pavement, mini-malls, apartments, condos and small, overpriced homes bearing little relationship to the 90210 zip code made popular by the 1980s television show.
The evening after Jelicka and I made our narrow escape from Nissim’s, the Muffia met at Paige’s charming, if over-priced, three-bedroom house, a little too close to the freeway, to feed our souls and talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin, among other things.
“So different from Disturbed, but I actually found it a lot more disturbing,” I heard Sarah say.
“You read it?”
Jelicka asked, genuinely surprised.
Sarah nodded. “I’m making an effort to be a better person—you know, read the books, not fall into destructive relationships.”
“That's two books you've read now,” I said in support.
“She’s seeing a therapist,” Lauren mouthed so Sarah couldn’t see, then she drew her palm across her forehead in a show of relief before leaning in to give Sarah a hug.
“We needed a change of pace, don’t you think?” Rachel said—Rachel who reads and loves almost everything and never has trouble adjusting to whatever genre gets picked.
“From love-making all the time to worrying about whether or not your kid is a psychopathic mass murderer? Yeah, that’ll do it,” Vicki said, camera panning the Muffs while we consumed Paige’s Middle Eastern feast.
Again with the Middle East! It just so happened that even though Kevin was another book set in New Jersey, the narrator of the story, Eva Khatchadourian, is Armenian—granted, not quite the Middle East—but she’s a great cook. Paige’s fare rose to the occasion, but Lauren still felt compelled to show up with a sauce made from an alcoholic celebrity’s vodka. I begged off because it didn’t really work with the shwarma Paige had prepared.
“To be honest…I missed all the sex in Deliciously Disturbed,” said Jelicka. “But Eva sure made me want to see the world with her ‘Wing and a Prayer’ travel guides.”
“Those did sound fun,” everyone agreed and I flashed on Cullen at the Blue Mosque, rolling his mom around the whirling dervishes.
“The way the book was written, it’s hard to believe Eva and her husband ever had sex,” Sarah said. She had a good point.
“Well, they must have—at least twice,” I suggested.
“Oh, that poor little girl when she lost her eye. I wanted to kill Kevin,” Lauren almost shrieked.
“I wish you had,” said Kiki. “It would have saved us having to read any more.”
“Shriver sure was successful in getting us riled,” Paige confirmed.
Kiki shrugged. “You mean in getting some of us not to like her book? Yeah, I guess.” I saw Kiki smile at Vicki. Something had transpired there and I could see it had been something good. Maybe I wouldn’t force her to come clean tonight after all but just let it evolve.
The Muffia Page 25