Rafi caught sight of the broom's approach and tried to take a step back to avoid being whacked. He wouldn't have made it—he was too slow on his feet. What saved him was that I arrested the motion of the broom three inches from his head. There we stood on the threshold, two big men, one holding a broom like a weapon, the other with eyes wide and a face drained of blood.
"Whoa, whoa."
Rafi, it appeared, was not articulate when he was nervous or scared.
I lowered the broom. "What are you doing here, Rafi?"
He cast a quick look to both sides. "Can I come in?"
Without turning my back on him, I vacated the doorway. He stepped inside and stuck his hands in his pants pockets.
"Take out your hands," I told him. "Keep them where I can see them."
He took them out and shifted on his feet. I told him to walk to the back. He limped as he walked. I closed and locked the front door. Greta appeared in the entrance to the kitchen.
"Who was it, Adam?" Then she saw Rafi, and her eyebrows rose.
"We're going to have a short talk," I said. I looked at Rafi. "Right?"
He nodded and I told Greta we would need a few minutes of privacy. She nodded and left the room.
Rafi and I went to my table. He dropped into a chair with a grunt. Apparently, being on his feet was uncomfortable with the injury I had given him. I leaned the broom on a neighboring table and slipped my jacket on. Only when I reached into the jacket pocket and felt the comforting shape of my knife did I calm. I could certainly take out Rafi with it, especially with his limp, and there wasn't anyone else here with him.
I stared at him across the table, waiting for him to start talking.
"I thought I would be too late," he said. "I thought this place would be closed."
"It is closed. I was just helping with the sweeping and tidying up."
"Good. If you weren't here, I wouldn't have known where to find you."
"Find me for what?"
"To warn you. They're coming to get you. Charlie's men."
My eyes went to the opening to the kitchen, where Greta was tidying up. "Here?"
"No. To your apartment. Charlie had someone follow you last night after you left the club."
I frowned, recalling that I had listened for sounds that someone was coming out of the club after me and heard none.
"I didn't notice anyone," I said.
"He had a guy on the street, waiting for you to come out, and he trailed you all the way to your place."
"But that would mean…" I started saying but didn't finish the sentence. Because I had already figured out that Charlie Buzaglo had been expecting me. He had known I was looking for him, why else would he be at the nightclub I was bound to check out first?
If I ran, I could get to my apartment in a few minutes. And I had the Luger there, in my box, loaded and ready for action.
If I wanted to face them.
Perhaps avoidance was the best option, but they might trash the apartment, and I didn't want them to take the things in my box. "When are they coming? How many?"
"Soon. They might be heading out as we speak. I was there earlier when Charlie talked to them. He told them to wait until after dark, when they were sure you'd be home. I got away as soon as I could. There are three guys in total, though one may just be the driver."
I still had time. I could be in my apartment and out before they came. I could lie in wait for them or avoid them altogether. Still, wasting time was foolish. I got to my feet. "And what are they supposed to do to me?"
"They're coming to kill you. 'Kill the son of a bitch,' is what Charlie told them. 'Kick him in the ribs a few times first if you can.' You made him very angry that night."
Good, I thought, and it wouldn't be the last thing I did to Charlie Buzaglo.
Rafi and I walked to the café's entrance, and I called out to Greta that I was leaving.
At the door I asked him, "Why are you here, Rafi? Why warn me?"
"Because of what you did the night we came after you, Charlie and me. Sure, you busted up my knee, but I would have done the same to you and worse. I was sure you were going to kill me that night. And if I had been in your shoes, I'd have done so. I figured I owed you one." He shifted his eyes to the side. "And besides, Charlie's been riding me ever since that night, calling me names, telling everyone how clumsy and slow I am. The only reason he had me witness his little talk with the men who are coming for you was so he could make fun of me some more. 'Now you'll see how real men handle business, Rafi.' He shouldn't have made fun of me in front of the others. That wasn't nice. I hope you can pay him back for both of us."
"Don't worry," I said. "I will. But I'll need to find him where I can reach him. Where does he live?"
There was the slightest hesitation, and then he gave me an address deep inside Jaffa.
I told him it would be good if he never told anyone about our meeting.
"Are you kidding?" he said. "If anyone knew I was here, I'd be a dead man, even if Charlie Buzaglo was no longer around to do it himself. This is how it is in my line of work."
I nodded in understanding. "You did good coming here, Rafi. Thank you."
He shrugged. "Now we're even."
"Yes. Now we are."
He walked off one way and I the other, toward home. It took me ten steps before I realized that I was heading for the wrong place. Rafi had told me that Buzaglo had someone follow me home from the nightclub the previous night. But I did not go home from the nightclub. I went to Sima Vaaknin's apartment. And that was not that close to where I was standing now. Charlie's men might get there ahead of me. And they would find Sima…
I started running.
20
I pumped my arms, pushing myself hard, feet pounding on the pavement. It was a warm night, and Allenby Street was busy with pedestrians enjoying the nice weather. I weaved my way around people, once having to step into the road to dodge a burly man who was drunk and uneven on his feet. As I stepped off the curb, a car horn blared behind me and brakes shrieked, and I heard the driver shouting after me, questioning my sanity in spicy Yiddish.
People watched with puzzled expressions as I ran past them, and one guy asked half-jokingly if I had done something to upset my wife and had her on my tail. I didn't waste my breath explaining that I was running toward danger, not away from it.
A taxi went by, and I tried to hail it, but either the driver didn't see me, or something about the way I looked made him think he would be better off with some other fare. I kept on running, and a few hundred meters farther north, I noticed another taxi at the curb, discharging a fare. It was a woman in her fifties, gray hair held in a tight bun at the back of her head, and as she paid the driver and bid him goodnight, I grabbed the door she was about to close, and jumped into the car.
The driver was balding, with wide-set brown eyes and a thick nose.
"Sorry, but I'm done for this evening. You need to find yourself another taxi."
I grabbed whatever cash I had in my pocket, held it out to him, and gave him Sima's address. "Get me there in the next five minutes and I won't bother with change."
He eyed the money, then my face, then the money again. He shrugged and said, “All right. Hang on to the door handle."
I did just that and he shot away from the curb. The taxi wasn't built for racing, but he got what he could out of it. He muttered under his breath throughout the drive. The words were Romanian, and he was asking himself whether running into another car or a building was worth the money I'd offered him. All this self-doubt didn't seem to slow him down any or make him less focused on the road ahead. He made his way expertly uptown without incident and turned onto Sima's street after exactly six minutes.