the Hunted (1977) (9 page)

Rashad closed his eyes. He'd rest a few minutes.

When he opened them Norman was saying t
o him, "You gonna spend the night here, are you?"

"Where's that Marine?"

"Dave? I don't know. He left."

The place was empty except for Chris and Lillian, and the Welshman hanging on the bar.

Leaving the place, Rashad tried to think of wha
t had been going on just before he'd fallen asleep.

The Marine talking to the skinny kid. Yeah. It wa
s cool outside, the street deserted. No taxis, shit, no t even any cars. About six blocks to the hotel. H
e could see the skinny kid--bony face, long haird rinking his Coca-Cola in the bar. He could see hi m inside another place then. Yeah, waiting for luggage. The skinny kid and the Israeli girl with th e nice ass, meeting the man at the airport. The sam e girl talking to the Marine in the lobby.

The Marine was gone, but he was still mixed u
p in it, wasn't he?

ROSEN DECIDED there was one employee at the Kin
g David who did nothing but watch for him. The gu y would say, "Quick, here he comes," and they'd ge t the basket of fruit up to 732 with the note from Mr.

Fink, the manager. "With compliments and sincer
e good wishes for an enjoyable visit." Rosen ha d been living in the King David for three years. He'
d go to Tel Aviv or Haifa for a couple of days, com e back, and find Mr. Fink's note in the fruit.

Usually Rosen ate the banana, apples, and oranges within a couple of days. This time the fruit remained beneath its cellophane wrapper whil e Rosen paced the floor of his suite and stared out th e window. It was a nice view: the lawn and gardens , the cyprus trees around the swimming pool, and , beyond the hotel property, the walls of the Old Cit y at the Jaffa Gate. Directly beneath his window , seven stories down, was the terrace where Pau l Newman and Eva Marie Saint had sipped martini s in Exodus.

He felt protected within the familiar rooms of hi
s hotel suite. The King David was home; they'
d guard his privacy at the desk and the switchboard.

But outside, on the road from Netanya t
o Jerusalem, setting a new personal elapsed-tim e record of fifty-five minutes, he'd felt vulnerable.

The country was too small to hide in for any lengt
h of time. He'd have to leave soon, fly to Athens o r Paris. But to leave he needed his passport, and t o get it he had to find Edie Broder. He pictured her lying in bed looking at him. Yes, at least ten years younger in the dim light. Mature, a grown-up lady , but no excess flesh or fat. Nice tits. He pictured he r back home in Columbus, his passport in the pocke t of his safari jacket hanging in her closet.

Come on, he had to think.

All right, first try to locate Edie. Check.

Then fly out. Leave the car at Ben Gurion . . .

No, they'd be watching the airport. The colore
d guy in the kaffiyeh would have help by now. Or h e might have been replaced. Rosen couldn't get ove r it: their sending a colored guy to do the job, as i f they'd thought it was going to be easy--with onl y about a hundred and ten colored guys in the whol e country--not somebody who'd blend in with th e crowd. Christ, they could've gotten a real Arab fo r twenty bucks.

Instead of Ben Gurion, drive down to Eilat an
d get an SAS flight to Copenhagen.

No, first call Tali and get the money. Tomorro
w was the twenty-sixth. Convert it to pounds on th e black market at ten and a half or eleven to one. . . .

Then what? Put it in the bank? What if he didn'
t come back to Israel? But how was he going t o take it with him? Get a hundred thousand U
. S
. dollars through the security checks--plus the fiftysomething grand he had in a Bank Leumi safe-deposit box? There was too much to thin k about. Too many loose ends. All right, but arrang e to get the money tomorrow or the next day. Cal l Tali and work something out. Thinking of Tali, h e thought of Mel Bandy.

Mel was supposed to be here, when? Today.

Something else to think about. He was coming--
t hey'd said on the phone--to review the busines s and discuss future plans, which had sounded a littl e funny to Rosen. They didn't need his approval o n anything. Why, after three years out of the business , would they give a shit what he thought about future plans? His business partners seldom contacted him. They sent the money and a Christmas card.

Why, all of a sudden, were they sending a lawyer? I
t hadn't bothered him before, but now it did.

The lawyer arrives the same time a payment i
s due.

The lawyer arrives the same time somebody i
s trying to kill me.

Was there a connection?

He was getting off on something else now. H
e didn't need to imagine problems, he had enoug h real ones. First, find Edie Broder.

He phoned the Four Seasons in Netanya. Ther
e were no messages. He called the Goldar Hotel. Th e Columbus, Ohio, group had checked out, gon e home. The ones at the Pal in Tel Aviv had als o checked out. How about Mr. Fine, the tour leade r with lawsuits in his eyes? Mr. Fine was at th e Samuel. No, he wasn't, the Hotel Samuel said, Mr.

Fine had checked out. Voices at the U
. S
. Embass y knew nothing about a Mr. Fine or the Columbu s group.

What Rosen finally did--which would hav
e saved him hours hunched over the phone staring a t the wall if he'd thought of it earlier--he calle d Columbus, Ohio, directory assistance. They didn'
t have an Edie or an Edith Broder. The closest the y could come was E. Broder. Rosen got a teen-age d Broder girl out of bed at four in the morning, eleve n o'clock Jerusalem time, and asked for her mother.

The sleepy, irritated voice said her mother was i
n Israel. "Ahhhh," Rosen said. "Where in Israel?"

On a tour. "Where on a tour?" With some group.

"But the group went home." No, her mother ha
d called; she was with another group. "What othe r group?" The girl couldn't remember. "Think!"

Well, it sounded like egghead. "Egged Tours,"

Rosen said. "Where? Where did she call you fro
m and when?" Tuesday night, from Tel Aviv. "You'r e a sweet girl," Rosen told her. "I'm going to sen d you a present." Big deal, the sweet girl said.

Rosen called Egged Tours in Tel Aviv. Yes, a Ms.

Edie Broder had joined one of their tours, "Hadassah Holiday," and was staying at the Dan Hotel.

Closing in, Rosen called the Dan. The Hadassa
h group, just a minute . . . had gone to Hadera, to th e kibbutz Shemu'el, for the day; returning this evening. Eight hours later: the Hadassah group was back, but Ms. Broder was not in her room. Wa s there a message? Rosen hesitated, then said yes, as k her to please call Mr. Rosen at the King David , Jerusalem.

He felt better. He felt good enough, in fact, t
o shower and dress and leave the room for the firs t time in two days.

Silva, the barman, placed a cocktail napkin i
n front of him and said, "Mr. Rosen, sir. We haven'
t been seeing you lately." He poured Scotch over ice , adding a splash of water and a twist. Then put ou t dishes of nuts and ripe olives.

"Netanya doesn't have it," Rosen said. "There'
s only one city in Israel."

"Of course, sir." Silva was Portuguese, born i
n Hong Kong, and spoke with a British-Israeli accent. To Rosen, Silva was the King David. Silva, th e oriental carpets, the bellboy who actually rang a bell as he paged and carried the guest's name on a square of blackboard.

Rosen eyed a tourist lady having her lonely cocktail and was tempted. Not bad, though a little too elaborate, with a fixed blonde hairdo you could no t muss up, though you might chip it with a hammer.

More the Hilton type, lost here in the quiet of th
e King David's lounge. No, he had enough going o n and phone calls to make. Three sundowners an d quiet conversation with Silva would do this evening. He dined alone, three tables from the blonde tourist lady, went up to his suite, left it semi-dark , and phoned Tali's apartment.

There was no answer.

He'd been afraid of that. Assuming she ha
d picked Mel up at the airport--this had bee n arranged more than a week before--she might stil l be with him, knowing Mel. He'd either be dictatin g letters, eating, or trying to get into her pants. Rose n wasn't worried about Tali. She was a stand-up littl e girl. If Mel got obnoxious she'd belt him or else politely walk out. What did worry Rosen was the unknown, what might be going on out there in the near world. Tali was alert, she sensed things, and h e wanted to talk to her before he talked to Mel.

Well, he would or he wouldn't. Rosen called th
e Pal Hotel, asked for Mr. Bandy, and Tali's voic e said, "Ken?"

"Be cool," Rosen said. "Don't say my name yet.

I'm your boyfriend calling or your mother, okay?"

"Where are you?" Her voice low.

"Home. Are you with Mel? Mr. Bandy?"

"He's in the bathroom." Her voice rushed at hi
m then. "There were two men here to see him. The y threatened him. I didn't know who they were, th e way they were talking, saying things about you , asking questions--"

"It's okay," Rosen said quietly. "Take it easy
, okay? What were their names?"

"I don't know. Mr. Bandy said . . . first he wa
s afraid, when they were here and threatened him.

Then he wasn't afraid anymore, when they wer
e gone. He was like a different person. He said . . .
a terrible thing."

"What did he say?"

"He said they wanted to kill you." Her voic
e dropped. "He's coming out."

Rosen could hear the toilet flushing. "Did th
e money come?"

"Yes, but it was more this time."

He could barely hear her. "What? How muc
h more?"

"Two--"

"Listen, okay, tell him it's me. Tali? Don'
t worry." He heard her saying, away from the phone , "It's Mr. Rosen."

Rosen sat back in his chair in the semi-dar
k room, the Jaffa Gate illuminated outside beyon d the garden. He looked at his watch. Ten-fifteen. H
e lit a cigarette and felt ready, a leg up on Mel, read y for Mel's openers. He began to think, If you neve r liked him much, why did you hire him? . . .

"Rosie, Jesus Christ, man, I been worried sick. I
t hought you were gonna call this afternoon."

"I didn't know I was supposed to," Rosen said.

"They told you. My flight was due in at on
e thirty-five. I've been sitting here, Jesus, worrie d sick."

"How was the flight, Mel? You're feeling a littl
e jet lag, I suppose."

"Rosie--"

"Mel, just a minute. Ross . . . Rosen . . . eve
n Al. But no Rosie, okay?"

"Sorry. Christ, you're worried about that--Gen
e Valenzuela was here."

"Yeah, go on," Rosen said.

"I mean right here in this room. He's looking fo
r you."

"Mel, a guy tries to run over me with a car an
d takes five shots at me. You think it's some guy of f the street?"

"I mean he walked right in here, he says
, 'Where's Ross?' He's not keeping it any secret."

"If I already know the guy's after me--" Rose
n said. No, forget it. "Mel, tell me what he said."

"He asked me, he wants to know where you are.

I told him I had no idea. I said I was here to see yo
u on business, but now I wasn't sure if you'd contac t me or not."

"What business?"

"I tried to explain that the reason I was here ha
d nothing to do with what was going on."

"What business, Mel? You said you wanted t
o see me on business."

"It's not something we can handle over th
e phone, I mean in any detail," Mel said. "I want t o see you--as I told them, it's the reason I'm here--
b ut under the circumstances I think we're gonn a have to wait. They'll be watching me like a fuckin g hawk, every move I make."

"Tomorrow's payday," Rosen said. "I was wondering if it had arrived."

"Yes, the guy brought it, the Marine."

"Did you look, it's all there?"

"Everything's in order." Mel paused. "As a matter of fact there's more this time. Considerably more."

"Why?" Rosen said.

"Jesus Christ, I never heard anybody questioning money coming in."

"Mel, why'm I getting more?"

"I want to sit down and talk to you, Rosie, as I
m entioned. But we can't do it over the phone. Righ t now, the thing to decide is how to get the money t o you."