The Zigzag Kid (15 page)

I smiled my brattiest smile, and played with my pigtail. I was beginning to enjoy this.

“Ah, she is shy.” Grandpa smiled. “But her report card: all A's! She is good, sweet little girl!”

“My wife is expecting,” said the policeman all of a sudden, and a blush spread over his cheeks. “In two months, our first child.”

He didn't have to tell us. Felix never asked him. He volunteered the information. It burst out of him spontaneously and landed like a gift in Felix's outstretched hands. I'd realized by now that this is how it always was with Felix: people confided in him almost immediately. His eyes, his smile, made you want to entrust something valuable to him, your most cherished secrets. The way the policeman blurted out the story of his expected child, or the way I told him about Zohara, and even the engineer, though he tried to fight it, eventually agreed to let me drive the locomotive. And I couldn't understand it, because—how shall I say this without offending him—Felix is sort of a con man, you know? And what if Dad was wrong, what if you can't read a person's character in his face? But why should someone with such a trustworthy look about him choose the life of a con man?

And what of me, with the seven deadly sins in my heart and the face of an angel?

Felix's cheeks melted with pure pleasure. “Yes, Mr. Policeman, your life will be transformed after this first child is born!” A nostalgic smile lit up his face.

“Yes.” The policeman smiled with him. “All my friends with children say the same thing.”

“I tell you from my own experience, young man,” continued Felix, radiant with joy, “once your child is born you are someone else. Someone new. Something changes in here, in here!” He hit his
narrow chest with a trembling hand and immediately started coughing.

The policeman slapped him gently on the back, still smiling shyly at all the things that Felix had told him. It was only then that I noticed what nice eyes he had, big almond-shaped eyes with long lashes. He stood leaning over Felix's window, and you could sense how much he was enjoying the closeness, as though he believed that in some strange way this wise old man could pass on his life experience.

It was the kind of moment you can't time with a clock, only with the beating of your heart. Even I felt left out of the warm bubble that enveloped them. I completely forgot that Felix was only acting. That he'd told me himself about the terrible way he had neglected his daughter, and how sorely he regretted it. I had forgotten. I didn't want to remember.

The policeman savored the moment, and then with a sigh he looked into my eyes and said, “Have fun with Grandpa!”

“This Saturday is my bat mitzvah,” I chirped.

I didn't have to say that. No one asked me. But I said it just the same. I blurted it out, and in the appropriate voice for Tammy-with-a-pigtail. The policeman threw me a smile, tapped Felix on the shoulder, glanced again at his driver's license, to remember his name. “All the best, Mr. Glick,” he said with a wave, then mounted his motorcycle and zoomed away.

Mr. Glick?

That was the name the policeman said.

He had read that name on Felix's driver's license.

Glick. Felix Glick.

“Mazel tov on your bat mitzvah.” Tammy's grandfather chuckled as he started the Beetle. Oh my God, I thought, I'm on the road with the one and only Felix Glick.

The man with the golden ears of wheat.

“I never knew you have so much talent,” said Felix.

“What talent?”

“Acting talent,” he said. “Perhaps someone in your family was once actor?”

“Uh-uh, don't think so,” I said, averting my eyes so he wouldn't see how excited I was. Felix Glick had once been the most notorious criminal in Israel. He had squandered his millions, after robbing banks all over the world and swindling governments and shaming the police. He had had a private yacht, a thousand mistresses.

And it was Dad who finally caught him.

“And also fine talent for lying. You were cool as cucumber just then, my boy. Perhaps there is future for you. Do you often tell lies?”

“Sometimes. Not too often.”

Like now, Mr. Glick.

“But you see, policeman as good as invited us to lie,” said Felix. “So what is wrong? You tremble at your own courage?”

“Why? Why do you ask?”

“You are looking pale. You want we should stop? Feeling ill? Must to vomit?”

“No, I'm fine … Drive on. Keep going …”

Whenever Felix Glick struck, he would leave a fine ear of wheat made of gold at the scene of the crime. This was his trademark, recognized by police departments the world over. Time after time he'd risked getting caught on account of it. Gabi, incidentally, had her heart set on owning one of Felix Glick's trademarks, the golden ear of wheat; that, and the purple scarf belonging to her favorite actress, Lola Ciperola. “Someday, when those two things are mine,” Gabi would say, “I'll close my eyes and make a big wish, and then we'll see if miracles still happen.”

“Where are we going?” I managed to squeeze the question through the excitement choking my throat.

“Out for dinner, to finest restaurant in Israel. The Bugatti of restaurants! This is your day!”

I looked away. It was typical of Dad not to mention Felix Glick to me, although Gabi (also typically) used to tell me things about him from time to time, quite a lot of things, in fact: about his escapades, and his legendary wealth, and all the women who had loved him, and how people used to say it would take someone with two brains to outwit
Felix Glick. The whole of Interpol was on his track, a host of detectives investigated his every crime, yet he always managed to get away, to slip like a shadow out of every trap they set, and only Dad succeeded in laying his heavy hand upon him. That's right, they do know each other professionally! I thought, almost choking with laughter. And how they do!

I stretched my legs out, still looking the other way. I was afraid Felix would see everything on my face. I took a deep breath of fresh air. Dad's plan was beginning to seem even crazier to me now, and better: I almost cried, it was so touching that twenty years later, he and Felix had joined forces to entertain me on the occasion of my bar mitzvah. And I could just imagine how it happened, how Dad made contact with Felix and met with him to talk somewhere, and how Felix said, “We must to forget past, Mr. Feuerberg. We had fair fight, and you won. You are true pro, and I admire you. You caught Felix, and because of this, you are top detective in all of Israel, perhaps outside Israel, too. We both know how it is lonely at the top, and for this reason I think is natural you turn to me, it is great compliment that you wish me to guide your son through world of crime. You will never find better guide than Felix, yes sir!”

And my sad-eyed father shook hands with him, and his face turned red.

This so moved me that I almost jumped up and gave Felix a hug.

“At least he left us very nice present,” said Felix, suddenly mischievous.

“Who?”

“That boychik policeman.”

He raised his hand and displayed the policeman's watch on his wrist, the big Marvin all members of the force had received as a gift last Passover.

“How …? When did you …?”

“Who knows? I see it there and I take it. My fingers think faster than I do.”

I didn't know what to say. I didn't quite know how I felt about him now. On the one hand, Felix had actually stolen something, but here he was, looking at me sheepishly, knowing full well what I thought of him.

“How silly,” he blurted at last. “You are right. It was mean to take it from him, that nice young man.”

“So why did you take it?”

Felix slowed down, his head between his shoulders. Now he did look old, and the pitiful mustache seemed to be really his.

“I think perhaps … don't laugh, but I think that perhaps I wish to impress you …”

“To impress me? How?”

“Well, I don't know, maybe by showing you I can steal watch of policeman … I lift it while he is checking my license … for prank, for joke, you see, to laugh at later, you and I…”

I was annoyed with him for stealing the watch. For me this petty theft marred the noble understanding between him and Dad. Again I could feel the cold blade twisting under my heart, cautioning me that I was mistaken, that there was something I had yet to discover about Felix. But then I looked at his remorseful face, at his penitent lips muttering silently, and I felt sorry for him. He was only trying to make me happy, I thought. He would have danced for me if he could have, or sung if he could sing to make me happy, but all he knows is how to cheat and steal and shoot a gun. So first he shot the gun, and now he put on this little pocketpicking demonstration for me.

“Maybe we could return the watch to him?” I suggested.

“Maybe … yes. We will leave it in car when we abandon it.”

“Why are we going to abandon it?”

“Because we must to keep changing everything, cars, Purim costumes, cover stories. Otherwise police will catch up with Felix, and then no more game! But never you worry! I am used to this,” he said with a glum little chuckle. “All my life I am changeable this way.”

“Hey, wait.” I had a sudden suspicion. “Is this car legit?”

Felix Glick shrugged his shoulders. “No, it is not, young Mr. Feuerberg,”
he said, “nothing in this entire game is legit. The only question is: Do you still want to play?”

I thought about Dad, about his meeting with Felix after twenty years, and how he entrusted me to his care and shook his hand. And I thought about the story of Zohara, which Felix had agreed to tell me. And then I sat up straight: You bet I want to play.

We drove on in silence, as though we were both sad for the same reason, a reason I couldn't quite explain. It was as if we had failed in some way. But it was Felix who stole the watch, so why did I feel this bitter pain? Maybe it was because I saw the way he lied, I saw how easy it was for him to lie, and I knew he was capable of cheating me as well. Or maybe it was the way he winced like a child caught doing something naughty—childish shame in an old man's wrinkles; and just then an unhappy memory recurred to me, the memory of Chaim Stauber, and the way I had tried to impress him and make him like me, and what had happened as a result to Mautner's cow, so maybe I wasn't any better than Felix, and who could say where I would end up after such an unpromising start?

I closed my eyes. I pretended to sleep. I went over what happened with Chaim relentlessly, so it would hurt. I thought about the day he moved into the neighborhood, and the way his eyes glowed with a little sunrise over the pupils whenever he became excited about something, and how before him, the only friend I had was Micah, who wasn't really a friend, as I realized all along, except I didn't have anyone else, and he never argued with me and hardly ever talked, and whenever he listened, his face looked dark and dull, till sometimes I suspected that he wasn't listening out of friendship but the opposite—it almost gratified him to see me carried away by my own tall tales.

But when Chaim arrived on the scene, everything changed. My whole life was transformed. He came in the middle of the school year. The
week before, they started telling us about this special new kid, the son of a famous professor, who would soon be joining our class; the kid was an absolute genius, and a concert pianist, too.

A few days after Purim, in the middle of an arithmetic lesson, the school principal knocked on the door and introduced Chaim to our class. We looked him over. He seemed normal enough, though he did have a big head, as befitting a genius. There was something strange about his forehead, too: it was high and tan where his thick dark hair was brushed back. That looked unusual. The teacher sat him next to Michael Karni and told us to be nice to the new boy.

At that time I used to hang around with a little gang of kids who always did things together. We had a password and a hideout and a tree house, and we would go on secret missions, and there was this enemy spy we used to pester—some poor guy named Kremmerman who lived upstairs. (I should probably point out here that in those days, children played together, not through a modem.)

During recess I suggested that we let the new boy into our gang, so he wouldn't feel lonely.

The new boy was only too happy to join us. We played soccer and we made him goalie, only he wasn't so good at it, a real butterfingers. I did like his spirit of self-sacrifice, though. I remember saying to Micah, See those suicidal leaps of his? And Micah answered dully, Yeah, but what's the point of leaping if every ball goes straight into the goal?

After school we walked home together, me, Micah, and Chaim Stauber. They walked, that is; I roller-skated. In those days I virtually lived on wheels. I hardly ever stepped out of the house without my big, clunky skates. On the way home from school, Micah would walk while I skated circles around him, talking to him first from one side, then the other, enjoying the way he kept looking for me where I wasn't anymore. The day Chaim joined us I skated even wider circles. I gave a casual demonstration of what a professional skater can do. A few little whirls, death-defying leaps from the sidewalk, and a long, pensive slide on one foot between two disruptive cars—my usual routine. Chaim Stauber devoured me with his eyes. This was the first time I saw his eyes light up as if somebody had struck a match inside them. There really was a
little sunrise over each eye. I could tell he was bursting to ask me for a turn, and I started planning how much to charge him. He was obviously rich. We walked him home. He lived in a big house not far from our building. As we all stood chatting outside his gate, his mother ran out calling, “Chaim, Chaimke, how was your first day at school?” And Chaim said quietly to Micah and me, “Don't tell her I played soccer with you,” and he stood there letting her cuddle him like a baby.