Tongues of Fire (7 page)

Rehv parked and got out of the car.

“My friend,” someone called to him from the shadows of a doorway. Rehv said nothing and turned toward the cinema. A black man stepped out of the doorway. He was very tall, at least a head taller than Rehv, and very thin. “My friend,” he said again, blocking Rehv's path. “How about some nice soft pussy?” The black man had a voice like a honey-coated knife. He wore a pink suit and red shoes, but no coat. He was tall and strange and dangerous, but his lips were blue and his teeth were chattering. Rehv pushed past.

“Soft pussy, you motherfucker,” the black man shouted at his back, but Rehv heard little anger in his voice. “Soft,” he repeated more quietly, urgently, as if it had been on that point that negotiations had broken down.

Rehv walked quickly to the cinema and pulled at the door handle. A dark-colored van went slowly by, distracting him for a moment. The wind caught the door and blew it wide open with an angry scraping of metal on metal.

“Shut the fuckin' door,” someone yelled from inside. Rehv jerked it closed and entered the lobby.

It was cramped, ill lit, and dirty, but he noticed none of that at first. He noticed the smells: armpit sweat, foot sweat, crotch sweat, urine. And other smells that he couldn't identify precisely, but were all bodily. At the end of the lobby a stained and shabby curtain hung across a narrow doorway. In front of the doorway was a small booth, enclosed completely by clear plastic walls. In the booth sat a fat, bald man with mustard on his cheek and a thick salami in his hand.

“You think it's summertime or something?” the fat man asked. He bit angrily on the salami. Rehv could not remember having seen a fatter man. Fat hung in pouches under his shirt and under his chin; its invasion of his face was almost complete: Only two pinprick eyes remained to show that there had once been defined features.

Rehv approached the booth. “One admission please,” he said.

“One admission please,” the fat man mimicked in the voice of a cabaret homosexual. Rehv felt himself becoming angry, not because he cared what the fat man said, but because he was drawing attention to himself. “Five bucks,” the fat man said, forcing the words around the meat in his mouth.

Rehv slipped a bill into the slot and walked toward the dirty curtain. As he drew it aside he realized that the tiny eyes had never once focused on his face. Maybe the man had grown tired of looking at the kind of people who came into his lobby; maybe he couldn't see past the salami.

Rehv stepped inside the theater. It was very dark. He waited for a minute or two until his pupils dilated. The theater was much bigger than he would have guessed, as large as those that showed the latest expensive features from Hollywood. Nothing like that was playing at the Sheba. On the screen a black man was sitting on a sprung and tattered couch. An overweight white woman sat on his lap with her back to him. His penis appeared to be partway inside her rectum. In a tinny voice she told the black man, or perhaps no one in particular, that it made her feel nice. But she sounded quite bored, and the words weren't synchronized with the movements of her mouth. The actress bounced up and down a couple of times. The actor was looking off to the side. After a few moments another man appeared from that direction. He wore a cowboy outfit. Soon he didn't. He tried to push his penis into the actress's vagina. She said it felt nice, and attempted to bounce up and down again, but couldn't. None of the principals seemed able to move at all. The camera went to a close-up of the two penises, vagina and anus, but the lens was very much out of focus: It showed a close-up of a large and indeterminate shape, something that might wash up on a beach after a gale, and that might have once been alive.

Rehv swept his eyes over the rows of seats. In very tight ranks they descended right to the foot of the screen, as though every inch of space saved meant more money for the owner. But there were few customers: Here and there a solitary figure slouched in the shadows.

Rehv moved slowly down the aisle, careful to make no noise. In a row near the front he saw a lone silhouette that seemed to sit taller than the others. Rehv went nearer. The silhouette moved slightly, catching a gleam of light in the wrinkle of a leather coat. It glistened like the skin of a black snake. Quietly Rehv walked down the aisle. He turned into an empty row and moved along it in a crouch. In the middle of the row he stopped and very gently sat down, directly behind Abu Fahoum.

Abu Fahoum did not sense his presence. His eyes were on the screen. Another actress had entered. She was skinny, and looked very young. She pulled the black man's penis out of the overweight women's anus and took it in her mouth. The camera moved in for a close-up. The girl raised the corners of her mouth in a grin. Abu Fahoum moaned softly.

Rehv took out the gun. “Just be sure you are too close to miss and pull the trigger,” Harry had told him. “When you are finished drop the gun and walk away. It is untraceable.” The army had taught him guns. He was no marksman, but more than good enough for this.

Abu Fahoum's seat squeaked. Rehv felt him straining against it. The metallic back touched his knees, and he drew away.

“Now,” came a voice from the screen. Rehv looked up. The girl pulled the black penis from her mouth. It dribbled weakly. Semen fell on her cheek. She grinned again. Abu Fahoum moaned. Rehv stood up and held the gun two inches from the back of Abu Fahoum's head.

A little movement made him glance down, over Abu Fahoum's shoulder. The thick leather coat was unbuttoned. Abu Fahoum's zipper was open and his legs were spread wide. A girl knelt on the floor between them. She was licking the tip of his penis with her pointed tongue.

Rehv felt the gun in his hand, felt the trigger against his finger, but he could not squeeze it. Even the thought of Lena could not make him do it. He stood motionless. Deep within his consciousness he heard the screaming start. Only very dimly did he sense a slight form slipping toward him along the row. He dropped the gun. Abu Fahoum turned, startled. The little form moved quickly in front of Rehv. Steel flashed. A blade bit into Abu Fahoum's neck. He rose turning from his seat, eyes huge and white, and toppled onto the girl. She screamed a scream that everyone could hear.

The killer took his arm. “Come,” he said. By the grainy light of the screen Rehv saw the face that was half dead.

“Come,” Harry said again, and led him up the aisle. None of the slouching figures moved at all. Whatever had happened in the dark was no business of theirs. In the lobby the fat man was counting money. He did not look up as they left.

They sat silently in the dark green van. Harry drove. Rehv listened to the screaming slowly die away. The wind blew trash cans across the streets. Harry guided the van through SoHo. He stopped in front of the building where the gallery was and turned to Rehv.

“Good-bye,” he said. “I have no use for you.”

Rehv set the camp cot down beside the falling Gordon and lay down. He pulled the covers up to his neck and curled into a ball. Gordon loomed above him in the darkness. Crumpet Gordon with his eyes of jam, forever falling. The jam eyes gazed down fiercely, refusing to admit vulnerability even then, refusing to acknowledge doom. Harry's eyes were like that. But they were blue, and Gordon's were strawberry. Blue for Israel and red for England. There was still an England, Rehv thought, no matter what it had come to.

In his mind he saw a little patch of land where he would like to lie down. A little patch of land where they were Buried. He would never see it again. Like Gordon they were all doomed, but they had no Kitchener to avenge them, no Kitchener to come and make everything the way it was. Harry thought it was 1948 all over again, but it was not. There was no Jewish Agency, no American money, no Zionism, no men, no arms. There would only be an Israel if the Arabs gave it back to them.

For a long time Rehv lay in the fetal position beneath the strawberry gaze. The wind rattled the windows. He closed his eyes and began to dream of the desert and General Gordon and the warrior hordes of the Mahdi who had killed him. He sank deeper into sleep. The desert grew broader, the hordes vaster. He rode with them on a huge black horse. Faster and faster he rode. He led them. The hooves of the great black horse scarcely touched the ground. The warriors followed him, filling the whole desert. Invincible. Nothing could stand before him. He was the wind.

When Isaac Rehv awoke, he was not the same man.

CHAPTER SIX

Krebs spent part of the night in bed and part of it on the couch in the den. This was not unusual: A blanket waited for him there, folded on the bottom shelf of the liquor cabinet, a mute and commonplace symbol of the difficulties of his marriage.

He had come home late from the office, eaten a ham sandwich, and gone to bed, thinking of Armbrister and his salmon steaks. Alice arrived much later. Krebs listened to her turn the car into the drive. He heard a new squeak. She made no effort at all to maintain the car, but he never said anything. It was her car, bought with money her father had given her.

Krebs heard her footsteps on the stairs, slightly too heavy, slightly unsteady, and heard her go into the bathroom. He heard her urinate and flush the toilet. He didn't hear her wash her hands or her face or brush her teeth. He knew her too well to attribute this to the sound of the toilet flushing.

She came to the bed. He kept his eyes closed.

“Robert?” she said in a stage whisper. He said nothing. First he smelled a little puff of whisky breath, then he felt the mattress undulate beneath him as she got into bed. Krebs was about to fall asleep when he felt the light touch of her hand on his thigh. It was very light. He knew it was meant to be flirtatious and sexy. Without looking he knew exactly the expression on her face: eyes big and coy, lips slightly parted in anxiety and expectation. He hated that expression.

They made love, or had intercourse, or performed the sex act: He didn't know what to call these infrequent attempts. Krebs kept his eyes closed the whole time, and tried to imagine he was inside the hard girl who brought him coffee. But Alice wasn't hard. She was soft and plumps.

“That's too rough, Robert,” she said. But it was over anyway. The whole time hadn't lasted long enough. Her body went very still, waiting rigidly for him to move off her. Then she rolled to her side of the bed and pulled the blankets over her like armor plate. He was wide awake. He sensed her tense body across the sheets, full of complicated emotion. After a while he got out of bed and went down to the den. As he left he heard her make a soft sound between her teeth.

Much later he slept. He dreamed of cows under the sea. He had not finished dreaming of them when the telephone rang. Krebs was always very quick to shake off sleep. The telephone sat on a little desk on the far side of the room, but he answered it before the second ring.

“Krebs?” It was Armbrister.

“I've got it, Alice,” Krebs said. He waited. “I've got it, thank you,” he said again. He heard a muffled click, and the connection with Armbrister became less diffuse.

“Separate bedrooms?” Armbrister said, sounding pleasantly surprised.

“I was just up doing some paperwork.”

“Good for you. Since you're up anyway a drive to Manhattan won't be such an annoyance. Your friend from the East has run into some difficulty. Forty-third and Seventh. The Sheba.”

“We'll meet there?”

“No. It's a one-man job.”

Krebs hung up. It was too much of an annoyance for Armbrister to go, although he lived in Manhattan. Krebs lived in New Jersey.

He went to the window and looked out between the curtains. It was still very dark, but there would be no point in coming home after he looked in at the Sheba. He would go right to the office. Since he was up for the day, he lay prone on the floor, dug his toes into the broadloom, spread his hands, and pushed his body up until his arms were fully extended. He did this ninety-nine more times, counting in a grunting whisper. The last dozen grunts grew louder and further apart. Krebs put it down to lack of sleep.

Upstairs he quickly shaved and showered. He went into the bedroom and found what clothing he could in the dark. He carried it into the hall, closing the door behind him. He knew Alice was awake because he heard the little sound she made between her teeth.

As he drove into Manhattan the sky became lighter: a gritty colorless budget-priced dawn with no extra-cost options. As morning seeped through the clouds the wind began to die, as if there was a fixed supply of energy to power the atmosphere, and all the elements had to share it.

A city patrolman stood in front of the Sheba cinema. His face was oily and needed a shave. He looked at Krebs suspiciously the way policemen do after a crime has been committed. Krebs identified himself and went inside.

Yellow overhead lights had been switched on in the theater. They exposed it mercilessly, like a cop's flashlight on the face of an old whore. Three men stood near the front, two wearing uniforms, one a duffle coat. Krebs joined them.

“You Krebs?” the one in the duffle coat said. He had a bad cold. Krebs nodded. “Christ, you took your time getting here. They said we couldn't move anything until you showed up.”

“I live in New Jersey,” Krebs said.

“Christ,” the man in the duffle coat said again.

Krebs looked down at what was wedged between the seats. The three men watched him look. “Had his throat cut from ear to ear. First time I've really seen it,” one of the uniformed men said. “Course I've seen plenty of throats cut,” he added quickly. “Plenty. But not like this. Ear to ear.”

But Krebs saw it wasn't like that at all. The point of a sharp and narrow knife had been stuck deeply into the side of the neck, then the edge of the blade had sliced forward through the front. The throat had been cut from the inside out by someone who knew how.

They waited for him to say something.