Tongues of Fire (20 page)

The old man's crying turned to sniffles, shivers, nothing.

Bunting said: “Feeling better?”

So quietly Krebs could barely hear him, the old man said: “Yes.”

Bunting said: “Good. Where is the girl?”

The old man said: “My granddaughter?”

Bunting said: “Yes, yes.”

The old man said: “She died that night. She was badly wounded. We couldn't stop the bleeding.”

Bunting said: “Where's the body?”

The old man said: “In the ocean. I rented a little boat at Montauk.”

Bunting said: “We'll want to see this boat.”

The old man said: “I can show you.”

Bunting said: “You're telling me you drove to Montauk, carried the body onto the boat, rode out to sea, and dumped it over the side. How old are you, Uri?”

The old man said: “Sixty-eight.”

Bunting said: “I don't believe you did all that yourself.” There was a long pause. Krebs looked down and watched the shiny brown tape spin silently around the spools. After a while Bunting said: “Dennis.”

The old man said: “No. No.”

Bunting said: “Wait, Dennis.”

The old man said: “Rehv helped me.”

Bunting said: “Rehv? The waiter?” Krebs bent closer to the machine.

The old man said: “Yes. But he's not just a waiter. It was his idea in the first place. He took the bodies to Montauk and waited for me on a beach. I brought the boat along the coast until I found him. Then we took them out to sea.”

Bunting said: “Bodies.” There was another pause, not as long as the first.

The old man said: “Abu Fahoum's bodyguard. Rehv killed him later that night. In self-defense.”

Bunting said: “And Abu Fahoum?”

The old man said: “I know nothing about Abu Fahoum, except what I read in the newspapers.” The tape sped on. Another match was struck. Krebs heard it fall with a very slight ring into a glass ashtray. In a low voice the old man added: “But the bodyguard was killed with a knife as well.” Then, for no apparent reason, the old man began to cry again.

Bunting pressed the stop button. “There's a lot more, but nothing to concern you immediately.” He placed the tape recorder carefully on the floor, glancing at Krebs. “You look a bit better,” he said.

“I'd like to question him,” Krebs said.

Bunting shook his head. “Too late. He's already transferred.”

“Transferred?”

“The usual way.”

“When did this happen?”

“Last night. Early this morning, in fact.”

“You've got Rehv then?”

“Not yet. We tried that gallery in SoHo, but he had already gone. We're watching it though, and the restaurant. We'll get him when he comes in to work.” Bunting spoke a little faster than he normally did, and Krebs knew that there had been a mistake. Perhaps they had not moved fast enough.

“There's one place we could look while we're waiting,” Krebs said. He told Bunting. Bunting told the driver.

Traffic grew denser as they neared the city. They crossed the bridge at less than walking pace. The sun turned the dirty air to smoky gold. Inside the car it was smoky blue. Looking out, Krebs realized that he had hardly been aware of spring and summer. If you watched enough television it was always winter. “Does Armbrister know about this?” he asked.

“Armbrister? No.” His eyes straight ahead, Bunting inhaled smoke and let it out with a little sigh. “I'm not sure what to do with old Armbrister. Now that you've taken over his job.” Thoughts, too many to examine individually, burst in Krebs's mind like a meteor shower: Sell the house, run, do push-ups, shave, fire Armbrister's secretary. The hard-assed girl. And others he would dwell on later.

The driver parked in front of a brick apartment building that was slowly sinking through the class structure, working its way down generation by generation while its occupants were trying to go the other way. A black man in a pearl gray suit came out of the building, carrying a small package wrapped in brown paper. He was dressed better than Bunting.

Krebs stared up at the facade. “I don't know the apartment number, but it was that window—two from the end and six up.” He led Bunting into the building. The inner door was held open by a pail of brown water. They rode the old elevator to the sixth floor and followed the worn carpet to the end of the hall. Number 606. “It has to be here,” Krebs said softly. He knocked twice.

The door opened as his knuckles tapped it the second time. A tiny old black woman in a wheelchair faced them across the threshold. “What has to be here?” she said. Even though the apartment was warm she wore a wool blanket over her knees.

“We're very sorry to bother you, madam,” Bunting said. “We're looking for a man named Isaac Rehv.”

“Name means nothing to me.” She pulled the blanket a little higher.

“We're looking anyway,” Krebs said. He grabbed the arms of the wheelchair and pushed the old woman into the living room.

“Go on,” she said. “Kill me. Do you think I care?”

Krebs and Bunting left her there to search the apartment. They found nothing. When they returned to the living room she was in the corner watching television, sitting less than three feet from the screen. Without looking at them she said, “Take all I got. Kill me. I'm ready.”

“You're making a mistake,” Bunting said gently. “We don't want to hurt you. We're just looking for Isaac Rehv. We don't want to hurt him either.”

“Just do it,” the old woman said, rolling a little closer to the television. “I'm ready.”

Krebs took a step in her direction, but Bunting took him by the arm and turned him toward the door. They went outside and sat in the car. “Do you want me to stay here?” Krebs asked. “Or will you send someone else?”

Bunting lit another cigarette and examined its burning tip. “Are you sure about the apartment?” he said at last.

“Two over and six up. Of course I'm sure. I saw him look through the blinds.”

“But it was night,” Bunting said mildly. “It would have been easy to make a mistake.”

“I haven't made any on this one so far.”

“All right,” Bunting said, and he asked the driver to give him the telephone.

“Goddamn it,” Krebs said suddenly. He jerked the door open. “We should have cut her phone cables.”

“Krebs. She's senile.”

“Maybe.” Krebs ran into the building and up the stairs, taking them two at a time at first, then singly, finally walking. He had not realized how badly out of condition he was. When he reached number 606 he was panting. He knocked. This time the door did not open immediately. He knocked again. And again. It was not going to open at all. He turned the handle. It was unlocked. He went inside. She was gone.

Early morning. Isaac Rehv, carrying two small packages wrapped in brown paper, unlocked the door to number 606 and walked in. The old woman was watching television. He stood beside the wheelchair for a few minutes, watching with her. It was the movie critic again. “The liberal middle class has a very weak stomach these days, and it's getting weaker. It can't digest anything raw—everything has to be sugarcoated. And this applies especially to any sort of violence. I'm talking about the kind of liberals who—” The interviewer smiled and held up his hand like a traffic cop: “We'll find out all about it after this short break.” The movie critic smiled a thin smile. It was just as false as the interviewer's, but at least it meant something. Talking intestinal bacteria appeared on the screen.

“I've brought these packages,” Rehv said.

“Shh.”

He waited until the intestinal bacteria were dead. “One is for Paulette. It's her money. The other is for Cohee. He'll come for it soon.” He laid the packages on the old woman's lap. Without looking she took them one at a time in her bent, arthritic hands and tucked them under her blanket.

“When's she coming home?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Then she's going away.”

“Just for a few days. To the Bahamas. She's tired.”

“Me too.”

The movie critic reappeared and began talking about movies she didn't like. Her mouth moved very fast. Rehv looked down at the old woman and saw that her eyes were closed. He turned to go.

The old woman's hand reached up and caught his. “I want to see that baby,” she said. Her hand was cold. “Please. I've got a right. He's my great-grandson.” She opened her eyes and twisted her body around in the wheelchair so she could see him: eyes staring up at him, blurred and wet.

“I'll bring him by at the end of the week.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rehv.” She turned back to the screen.

He spent most of the day in the library, reading about Islamic prayer rugs and studying photographs of them. When he had learned about them he telephoned a few dealers from the booth outside and asked about prices. Then he started walking to work.

The sidewalk was very crowded. He stepped on someone's heels; someone else stepped on his. He passed a blind man holding a box of orange pencils who had very little money in the upturned hat at his feet, and a man who was playing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with a saxophone. He wasn't playing it very well, but his hat was almost full. Two blocks from La Basquaise he slowed down to watch a supple man in whiteface who seemed to be miming the story of Adam and Eve: He was curled around an imaginary tree and flicking his pointed tongue wickedly; then he was a buffoon biting an apple.

“Mr. Rehv?” A woman's voice, almost a whisper. He looked around and saw her, pale and thin, her back to a window display. She stepped forward and touched his arm. “It is you?” He heard the soft Israeli accent. He had seen her somewhere before. “You work at a restaurant called La Basquaise?”

He nodded.

“Don't go there.” Her voice rose. She pulled him toward the window, out of the flow of people. “I've been waiting here all afternoon to warn you. They've got my grandfather.”

He remembered. Tear gas. “Harry?”

“That's not his real name. His real name is Uri Nissim.”

“Who has him?”

“The Americans.” Panic circled the edges of her voice, threatening to engulf it. One of her eyelids was twitching uncontrollably.

“I'm sorry.” He couldn't think of anything else to say.

She looked at him for a moment, puzzled. “You don't understand. He's had enough pain. He won't be able to take any more. He's going to tell them everything.”

He understood. Quickly he crossed the sidewalk and raised his hand for a taxi. She followed him. “Where are you going?” She pressed her fingers against her eye, but it didn't stop the twitching. A taxi pulled up in front of him. As he opened the door he felt her hand clinging to his arm. “Where are you going?”

He looked into her frightened eyes. She wanted to come with him. He looked away. “Don't worry about your grandfather,” he said, as gently as he could. “They won't send someone his age to prison.”

“Prison? They don't send any of us to prison. They hand us over to the Arabs.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's a deal the Americans made. They try to keep it a secret, but everyone knows. If they catch you they send you back to …” The word stuck in her throat. “To Palestine.”

Someone honked. “In or out, bud,” the taxi driver said.

Rehv got in and closed the door. Through the window he saw her bury her face in her hands. “Roosevelt Hospital,” he said. He left her standing hunched on the edge of the sidewalk.

The taxi moved forward, stopping frequently in the heavy traffic. “I'm in a hurry.”

“Then fly.”

One block. Two. Rehv looked down the second street. In front of La Basquaise a few workmen in yellow hard hats were standing around an open manhole. The one using the walkie-talkie was Major Kay. Rehv slid down out of sight.

At the hospital he paid the driver and started running. Inside. Into the elevator. Twentieth floor. Down the hall. The nursery.

Behind the glass were babies, rows of them, lying in bassinets, the girls wrapped in pink blankets, the boys in blue. Most of them were crying with their mouths wide open, but the glass kept all the sound inside.

Rehv went to the nearest door and knocked. A nurse opened it. “Yes?”

“I want to see my baby.”

She pointed to the clock at the end of the hall. “Forty-five minutes until visiting time.”

“Please. I have to go to work in half an hour.”

“Oh, all right, all right. Don't look so desperate. Boy or girl?”

“Boy.”

“Surname?”

“Rehv.”

“Go to the window. I'll wheel him up to the front.”

“I'd like to hold him. I haven't held him yet.”

“For God's sake.”

“It's not against the rules, is it?”

She sighed. “No, no.” She took a folded white coat from a counter beside her and handed it to him. “You have to wear this.”

She went inside the nursery. He put on the coat and waited. In a few minutes she returned carrying a baby wrapped in blue. He could have picked him out among a thousand babies. He was not sleeping or fussing or crying. He was just watching, with his big dark eyes. She handed him to Rehv.

“I'm going to take him for a walk. He likes walks.”

“Five minutes.”

He nodded. He started walking down the hall. He went past the nurses' station and smiled at the nurses. They smiled back. He kept going, around the corner, past the elevators, to the stairs. He walked down twenty flights, through a service entrance, and into the street. The baby did not make a sound.

“That's a good boy,” Isaac Rehv said to him quietly. “That's a good boy.”

Krebs stood at the foot of the bed, riffling through the green bundles: three bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills, held together by elastic bands; fifty bills in each one.