Israel (84 page)

Today Benny assured Herschel that the witnesses to the boiler mishap knew better than to talk about it. “Those guys kept their mouths shut when three corpses fell out of a shipment,” Benny laughed. “Believe me, Kol, you don't need to sweat them going to the cops about a couple of measly popguns.”

Benny's desk was a clutter of papers, some of which he shoved aside to make room for Herschel's briefcase. Herschel noticed something carrying the Pickman letterhead—a note from Rebecca soliciting Benny's help raising donations of supplies.

“Yeah, how about that,” Benny shrugged when Herschel made mention of the letter. “I get it from both sides of the family, huh?”

“What do you mean?” Herschel asked, puzzled.

Benny stared at him. “You mean to say you don't know that Danny and Becky are brother and sister?”

“No, I didn't.” Herschel laughed, totally flabbergasted. “What a coincidence. Why, I just came from her office.” He went on to explain in vague terms that Rebecca was helping him in his work. “Wait until I tell Danny.”

“Danny doesn't know?”

“No, it's never come up.”

“Take my advice, Kol, and don't tell him. Danny's a hotheaded sort, and he's always had to live in his sister's shadow. If he finds out Becky's one of the big shots, he's likely to walk out on you.”

“That would be terrible. I really need his help right now. Thanks, Talkin. I won't say a word.”

Benny nodded. “Okay. You know, she and I used to date. It was a long time ago, but we were pretty serious about one another for a year or so.”

“Oh, really?” Herschel began to fidget, not wanting to hear about Benny's relationship with Rebecca. “Why don't we get back to work?”

“Sure—you know, I still got a soft spot right here.” He patted his heart. “You can't blame me; she's a great-looking broad.” He winked. “She knows how to treat a guy right, too.”

“Talkin!”

Talkin reared back in his chair, blinking in surprise at Herschel's aggrieved tone. “What's eating you? I say something wrong?”

“No. I mean—well, yes,” Herschel replied. “She is married, after all.”

“Yeah, she's married all right.” A light seemed to dawn in Benny's eyes. “Hey, I get it. You've been working with her a couple of months, eh, Kol? That's long enough; I should know. Tough break, huh?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Have it your way, Kol. No shame in it, though. I'd say she's your type.” He grinned like a cat. “I don't want no one thinking I'm crude, though, so let's drop it and get back to work.”

Forty minutes later Herschel was at a pay telephone, dialing the number of the headquarters apartment in the hope that Wilbur Burns had called. He was still disturbed by his reaction to Benny's gossip about Rebecca Pickman. Why should he care if the two of them had dated seriously? Rebecca's past was no concern of his.

As the phone rang he mused on how odd it felt to be thinking about a woman at all. He had not done so since that day years ago when Yol Popovich came to visit him in prison with the news of Frieda's death.

How young he was when he shared Frieda's bed, how deep and intense his love. To find himself thinking about another woman was disloyal to Frieda's memory.

All thoughts of women and love were swept from his mind as somebody at last picked up the phone. “Herschel, your friend from out of town has called three times already.” The youngster at the other end of the line sounded frightened. “It sounds like bad trouble.”

“The telephone calls started coming a few weeks ago,” Wilbur Burns said. “At first I denied everything, but there was no point in doing that once the fellow mentioned you. He knew everything—that I was designing a weapon for the Jews; when it was supposed to be finished; how much you were going to pay me.”

“And he said he was representing Syria?” Herschel repeated. “He freely admitted that?”

They were sitting in the Burnses' tidy front parlor. Herschel slumped in a worn armchair with a rust-colored corduroy slipcover.

After their telephone conversation earlier that day, Herschel went directly to Penn Station, where he caught the three o'clock train to Providence. He arrived at eight o'clock and took a taxi to the Burnses' home. Mrs. Burns was now in the kitchen, scrambling eggs and making coffee. Wilbur was leaning forward on his couch, his hands clasped and his elbows planted on his knees as he told his story.

“This Syrian fellow mentioned the names and addresses
of my son and daughter—she was widowed by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Anyway, this guy on the phone warned me that something might happen to my kids and my grandchildren if I didn't sell him my designs. I told him to call late tonight. Then I started phoning you.”

“And he offered you fifty thousand dollars?”

“That's what he said,” Burns replied. “He said he had it in cash. I give him my designs and he hands over a briefcase.”

Nodding glumly, Herschel looked around at the modest furnishings, the tattered wallpaper. Music began filtering through the party wall of the two-family house.

“That's just my neighbor—Portuguese, but a nice family, born here and all. The husband works at the Narragansett brewery, and he likes to let off a little steam at night. The music's a nuisance usually, but tonight we can at least be sure nobody can hear our conversation.”

“Burns, I tell you now what I told you over the telephone. You don't have to put up with your family being threatened. The Syrians are offering almost triple what I can pay. Sell them the plans; take their fifty thousand dollars. Provide for your family and find yourself a more comfortable home.”

Burns fussed with his corncob pipe. “Don't you be talking so hard. Seventeen thousand is all your group can come up with, eh?”

Herschel could match the Syrians' bid out of his own pocket, but what was to prevent them from raising the ante? They were most likely backed by the oil-rich Transjordan. As wealthy as he was, he couldn't hope to outbid a nation. Besides, he'd already planned to pay for manufacture of the gun, and he had a responsibility to his mother not to deplete their fortune.

“Seventeen thousand is all I can pay. I can give you all sorts of arguments, but Palestine is very far away. You
are an American, not even a Jew. Take the fifty thousand. You don't owe me anything.”

Mrs. Burns was still fussing in the kitchen, but it suddenly got quiet in there and Herschel could tell she was listening to them. In matters like this a wife had great influence on her husband, Herschel knew. What did she want him to do?

“Kol, I asked you to take the train up here so that we could talk face to face. I don't have a thing against the Syrian people, but I don't subscribe to a bunch of foreigners coming here to push me around. I admit their money was tempting, but they made the wrong move when they threatened me. I wouldn't have taken such treatment from you, and I won't take it from them. You and I shook hands on the deal and that's that as far as I'm concerned.”

As Herschel gratefully murmured his thanks, Mrs. Burns appeared in the doorway. She had a wooden spoon in one hand and a smile on her round face.

“I'm glad that's settled,” she said. “Now Mr. Kol, come have something to eat.”

As they headed into the kitchen Wilbur Burns stopped him. “Damn. With all the excitement I forgot to tell you. I finished this morning.”

It was decided that Herschel would spend the night in their son's bedroom. “We've used it for storage, but it's the best we can do. My daughter took her bedroom furniture with her when she moved, and that living room sofa isn't fit to sleep on.”

Herschel and Wilbur spread the blueprints out on the parlor carpet to go over them while they waited for the Syrians to call.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Wilbur asked him. “It seems to me you're hunting trouble if you confront these people.”

“They will not harm your family,” Herschel assured him.

“Figured that out for myself,” Wilbur admitted. “There'll be no point once I turn the plans over to you, and they'd have hell to pay, since I'd never keep my mouth shut about it, but why do you want to take them on? Those Arabs would probably enjoy roughing up the likes of you.”

“I don't intend to let them rough me up, but I need to know who they are. Clearly there is a leak in my organization, and I've got to plug it if I can. The man they send to the exchange is most likely the one in contact with our traitor. If I can force him to tell me who that is—”

“How do you intend to force him?”

Herschel looked away. “It's war between the Jews and the Arabs, my friend. Whatever happens, I promise that you will be in no way implicated.”

Burns wanted to argue that point, but he never got the chance. The telephone rang.

The two men exchanged glances. “Could be my daughter. She and her mother do like to chat.” He looked ready to bite clear through the stem of his pipe.

“Wilbur, it's for you,” Mrs. Burns called from the kitchen.

“Shit,” Burns sighed, reaching for the parlor extension.

Herschel listened as Burns arranged for a meeting at noon the next day. In accordance with his agreement with Herschel, Burns insisted that he did not want the Syrian to come to his house. They would meet in a public place; he suggested the carousel house in Roger Williams Park. It was a crowded spot, especially in summer, but just a few steps away were trees and shrubs for concealment.

Burns hung up the telephone. “It's all set. We'll drive over there, and—”

“We?” Herschel frowned. “You're not going.”

“Don't be dumb, Kol. If I'm not at that damned merry-go-round tomorrow, they won't show themselves.”

“How can I ever thank you?”

“By not getting me, yourself or anyone else killed. By waiting until you and the Syrians are back home before you have your damned war. Good night, Kol. I'm tired. It's been a long day, and tomorrow isn't going to be much shorter.”

The son's bedroom was plastered with baseball pennants, and much of the floor was taken up with stacked cartons, old furniture and odds and ends. It made Herschel sad to be here, surrounded by the detritus of other people's lives. It made him desperately homesick.

He took his shaving kit from his overnight bag and rummaged through it for his toothbrush. Next to his safety razor and blades was a semiautomatic Beretta, small and square and deadly. It would go with him tomorrow for his day at the amusement park.

Much later he tossed and turned in the boy-sized bed, waiting for sleep that would not come. A cool breeze began to blow through the screened windows, ruffling the curtains and taking the worst out of the humid summer night.

Herschel kicked himself free of the tangled sheets, went to his bag to fetch the Beretta and put it under his pillow. He immediately relaxed. Sleeping with a gun at hand was a habit most Palestinians formed early. After he fell asleep he dreamed of Rebecca Pickman.

The next morning at eleven-fifteen they drove in Burns' rattly Ford to Roger Williams Park. Herschel's Beretta, a round in the chamber and the safety catch up, was in the pocket of his suit coat.

“Hope you're reluctant to use that piece of yours,” Burns remarked as they drove into the park.

“You can see it?”

“Don't go getting upset, son. I've been around guns all my life. I can tell when a man's packing. I know how wound up you are, but do bear in mind that if you get nicked on a weapons charge—or for murder—it'll mean the end of your gun project and probably the end of your organization in America. Remember what I said about how the Syrians wouldn't dare harm a citizen of the United States? Think about the sort of press coverage you would get for starting a shoot-out near a merry-go-round full of kids on a sunny summer afternoon.”

“I understand,” Herschel sighed.

The area near the carousel was crowded, and both sides of the winding boulevard were lined with cars. Burns turned in to a cul-de-sac and slowed to let Herschel out.

“The carousel house is down that incline,” he said. Herschel could hear the music. “I'll find a parking spot and have myself an ice cream, I guess,” Burns continued. “I'll be here at noon.” He checked his watch and nodded. “See you.”

Herschel walked down the sloping lawn to the open-sided carousel house. It was chaotic. The paved area surrounding the building was mobbed with cart vendors selling balloons, peanuts, candied apples and frozen ices. Children dashed about, shrieking and laughing or tugging at their parents' hands to hurry their pace. People were shuffling and queuing to buy snacks or tickets for the carousel; fat yellow jackets swooped and darted above the trash barrels; and everywhere was the crashing nursery music of the carousel organ. Children were bouncing up and down on prancing candy-colored steeds while their parents or grandparents looked on.

Herschel noticed a fat policeman, his visored cap pushed back on his head, his belly straining his shirt buttons. The cop, casually twirling his nightstick, paused
at a pushcart to help himself to a candied apple; the vendor looked resigned.

Somewhere on the other side of the park gates a factory siren blew noon. Herschel saw Burns walking toward the carousel. He had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders were hunched. He looked worried, Herschel thought as he stepped back to stand behind a tree. That was all right. He had ample reason to be worried.

Wilbur had promised to meet the Syrian and lead the man to his car; the designs were supposed to be in the trunk. Herschel had promised to intercept them before they got there, but it looked as though he'd have to follow them away from this place. It was too busy here, and the policeman was still lurking, munching his apple on a stick.