the Hunted (1977) (4 page)

"Yes, of course. Tomorrow, the twenty-sixth o
f March. Always the twenty-sixth of March and th e twenty-sixth of September."

"When'd you last see him?"

"It was . . . a week ago today in Netanya. H
e wanted to write letters."

"In Netanya. What was he doing there?"

"I don't know. Maybe to swim in the sea."

"Or chasing tail. Was he staying in that hotel?"

"No, another one. I don't know why he wa
s in the hotel that burned," Tali said. She imagine d the building on fire, people running out through th e smoke. "Did you bring the newspaper with th e picture?"

Mel pulled his attache case from the floor to hi
s lap, opened it, and handed Tali a file folder. "Ou r hero," Mel said. "See if you recognize him."

She brought the tear sheets out of the folder
, glanced at the front-page story, unfolded the sheets , and stared at the photo page, at the figure s wrapped in blankets and the bearded, shirtless ma n in the light-colored trousers.

"Yes, he looks like an Israeli there," Tali said
, "but I can see it's Mr. Rosen. We don't have thi s picture here."

"Wire service," Mel Bandy said. "It was in th
e Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit papers, it could've been in every paper in the country--Rosi e showing off his body--and he doesn't know it."

"He called you from Netanya?"

"I think that's what he said. But he was--wha
t should I say--upset, distraught? He was shitscared is what he was. See, I already had my reservation. I told him hang on, call me late Wednesday afternoon at the Pal Hotel, Tel Aviv, we'd work i t out together."

"Oh, you were coming here to see him?"

"I told him last month I'd be here sometime i
n March."

"I didn't know that," the girl said. She ha
d thought Mr. Bandy, Mr. Rosen's lawyer, was her e because someone had tried to kill Mr. Rosen. Sh e didn't know of another reason for the lawyer to b e here. She didn't want to ask him about it. He looke d tired and hot, even in the air-conditioned car.

"It wasn't in the newspapers about a man shooting at anyone," Tali said. "I went to Netanya, but I didn't find out what coffeehouse it was that it happened at. Only that he checked out from the hotel."

Approaching a highway intersection, they followed the curving shortcut lane past a green sign with arrows and the names of towns in Hebre w and English-- Peta Tiqva, Ramla, Tel Aviv--an d past lines of soldiers waiting for rides: girls in min i uniform skirts and young bareheaded men, some o f them armed with submachine guns.

"How far is it?" Mel said.

Tali looked at him. "Netanya? I don't think he'
s there anymore."

"Tel Aviv."

"Oh . . . twenty minutes more."

"How about the money? The guy get it yet?"

"He receive it yesterday," Tali said. "I call whe
n we get to the hotel."

"Have him bring it over as soon as he can."

Tali hesitated, not sure if it was her place to as
k questions. "You want to give it to Mr. Rosen yourself?"

"I'm thinking about it," Mel said. "We'll se
e how it goes."

The black guy, standing by the open trunk of th
e BMW, waved in quick come-on gestures to the tw o Americans walking out of the Ben Gurion termina l building, each carrying a suitcase and a small bag.

The older of the two men, who had the look of
a retired professional football player, a line coach , was Gene Valenzuela. His gaze, squinted in th e sunglare, moved from the white BMW to the right , to the flow of traffic leaving the airport, and bac k again to the BMW. Valenzuela had short hair an d wore his sport shirt open, the collar tips pointin g out to his shoulders, outside his checked sportcoat.

The younger one, Teddy Cass, had long hair h
e combed with his fingers. He had good shoulder s and no hips, the cuffs of his green-and-gold prin t shirt turned up once. Teddy Cass was saying, "Shit , we could've brought it with us. Anything we wan t to use."

The black guy was waving at them. "Come on
, throw it in. They already took off."

Reaching him, Valenzuela said, "You see thei
r car?"

"Gray Mercedes. Chickie with the nice ass got i
n with him."

"So they're going the same way we are," Tedd
y Cass said.

"My man," the black guy said, "any place yo
u are, they four ways to go. They could be going t o Jerusalem. They could be going north or south. W
e got to know it."

In the BMW, driving away from the terminal
, Teddy Cass still couldn't get over breezing throug h Customs without opening a bag.

Gene Valenzuela had the back seat to himself.

He had a road map of Israel open on his lap. H
e would look out the window at the fields and th e sun and then look at the map.

The black guy asked, "He see you on the plane?"

Leaving it up to either one.

"He was in back with the rabbis and the tou
r groups," Valenzuela said. "I know what he did, th e cheap fuck. The company buys him a first-clas s ticket and he trades it in on a coach. Makes about a grand. I don't know, maybe he saw us. It doesn'
t matter. He's gonna see us again."

"We could've brought anything we wanted,"

Teddy Cass said. "Any thing. Shit, I thought it wa
s gonna be so tight I didn't even bring any e-z wider."

"Paper's scarce, but nobody gives a shit. You ge
t all the hash you want," the black guy said. "The y say anything to you at Immigration?"

"That's what I'm talking about," Teddy Cas
s said.

"No, that's Customs. Immigration, the man wh
o looked at your passport." The black guy was holding the BMW at seventy-five, passing cars and tour buses in effortless sweeps. "Man look at mine, h e look at me. He look at the passport again. He say , 'Kamal Rashad.' I say, 'That's right.' He say, wher e was I born? I say, 'It's right there. Dalton, Georgia.'

He say, where was my mother and daddy born? I
s ay, 'Dalton, Georgia.' He say, where do I live? I s ay, 'Detroit, Michigan.' He want to see my ticket , make sure that's where I came from. He say, whe n was the last time I was in an Arab country? I say I n ever been to an Arab country. He say, 'But you a n Arab.' I say, 'My man, I'm a Muslim. You don'
t have to be an Arab to be a Muslim.' "

Teddy Cass said, "Kamal Rashad, shit. Clarenc
e Robinson out of Dalton, Detroit, the Wayn e County Jail, and Jackson Prison."

"A long way around," Rashad said. "And I ain'
t goin' back."

"You're not going anywhere, you blow anothe
r setup," Valenzuela said.

"Man saw me," Rashad said, looking at th
e rearview mirror. "He moved. I had five in this bi g old army piece, that's all. What was I supposed t o do? Once I emptied it--see, there was people--I d idn't have the time to load and go after him."

"So it doesn't sound like you prepared it,"

Valenzuela said.

"I didn't have time. I had to get a car. I had t
o buy a gun. I had to locate the man and kill him i n like twenty-four hours."

"No you didn't," Valenzuela said. "You had t
o locate him. That's what I'm saying--you didn't prepare it. You wanted the quick shot and some points. Now the guy's flushed and we gotta fin d him again. We can assume, I think, he hasn't left th e country. Otherwise Mr. Mel Bandy wouldn't b e here to see him. That's the only thing we got goin g for us. But we lose him, you don't get on that Mercedes' ass pretty soon, we might as well go home and wait for another fire."

"We already on it," Rashad said. "Three, fou
r cars ahead of us." Nice. He felt his timing comin g back.

Valenzuela leaned forward to lay his arms on th
e back of the front seat and study the traffic ahead o f them. After a moment he said, "You're gonna hav e to get another car. Christ, driving around in a whit e car with red paint all over the front end. Also, w e gotta make a contact for guns where we've got a selection, not some rusty shit they picked up in a field."

"I already done it," Rashad said.

"We could've brought our own if somebody'
d told us," Teddy Cass said. He was looking out th e window as they approached a line of hitchhikin g soldiers. He got excited seeing them. "Hey, shit, w e could take theirs. You see that?" Teddy Cas s twisted in his seat to look back. "What's tha t they're carrying, M-16s?"

"M-16s and Uzis, the submachine gun," Rasha
d said. "Fine little weapon. Holds thirty rounds in a banana clip. Fold the stock up on the Uzi, it fit i n your briefcase. But you take one off a soldier--I'
m told they roadblock the whole fucking country, ge t your ass in half an hour."

"I like it," Teddy Cass said. "I like the sound.

Ouuuzi."

"Five bills on the black," Rashad said. "Yo
u want to pay that much. Nice Browning automatic , Beretta Parabellum, we can get for two each. Ver y popular."

"How about explosives?" Valenzuela said.

"I haven't priced none of that," Rashad said. "I
f igure that's Teddy's department." He slowed dow n as he saw the Mercedes, now two cars ahead o f them, make a curving right into an intersectin g highway. Rashad grinned. "Keeping it easy for us.

They going to Tel Aviv."

The five-star hotels in Tel Aviv are all on th
e Mediterranean on a one-mile stretch of beach: th e Dan, the Continental, the Plaza, the Hilton, an d the Pal.

Mel Bandy could see the Hilton as they cam
e south on Hayarkon and turned into the Pal. Th e Hilton looked newer, more modern. The Pal looke d put together, its newest wing coming out from th e front on pillars, with a parking area and the mai n entrance beneath. Tali said oh yes, the Pal was a n excellent hotel. Mel Bandy wasn't sure.

He got out of the Mercedes and entered th
e lobby, pulling at the trousers sticking to his can , and waited while Tali spoke to the desk people i n Hebrew, sounding like she was arguing wit h them--good, not taking any shit--then brough t out the manager, Mr. Shapira, who was delighte d to meet Mr. Bandy from Detroit. Mel was surprise d and felt a little better.

Moving to the elevator, he said, "We got a suite?"

Tali looked at the two keys she was holding. "I
d on't know. I think it's adjoining rooms."

"I told them I wanted a suite."

"Let me ask Mr. Shapira."

"Never mind," Mel said. "Get the bags upstair
s and call the guy at the embassy. I'll look at th e rooms. I don't like them, we'll have them changed."

Tali said yes, of course. She didn't know if sh
e liked this Mr. Bandy. He wasn't at all like Mr.

Rosen.

The white BMW, motor idling, waited on Hayarkon in front of the Pal.

"Where's the Hilton from here?" Valenzuel
a was leaning forward again, looking through th e windshield.

Rashad pointed. "The one right there. Independence Park in between. You can run it in two minutes."

"Looks better'n this place," Teddy Cass said.

But it was Valenzuela who'd decide. He said, "I
d on't like to run. I want to be close by, in the sam e place."

"How do I know where the man's going t
o stay?" Rashad said. "See, he didn't call me and le t me know."

Valenzuela didn't bother to give him a look. H
e said to Teddy Cass, "Go in, tell them we got a reservation. Two rooms. Wait a minute, tell them you're a friend of Mr. Bandy's. And find out what roo m he's in."

Teddy Cass got out of the car and walked int
o the shade of the parking area beneath the ne w wing.

Valenzuela sat back in the seat, thoughtful.

"Where's the gun contact? How far?"

"Cross town, over in the Hatikva Quarter."

"You and Teddy'll go there this afternoon. Bu
t you got to watch him. Teddy'll buy the fuckin g store."

"I'm supposed to meet the man tonight. Ain'
t somebody you call up and say make it three fortyfive instead."

"All right, this evening. How'd you find him?"

"You recall I came here with a name. Friend of
a friend."

"Five for an Uzi, huh?"

"Going price yesterday. Subject to change."

"We're not going to worry about that. We're no
t gonna go crazy, but we're not gonna skimp either.

How about shotguns?"

"I 'magine. Probably buy shotguns on a stree
t corner. This man leans toward the more exoti c weapons."