"A gun would have been better," I said.
He shook his head. "No. It has to be a knife. I'll do to him what he did to her."
I didn't bother telling him he could never do to Rosen all that he did to Maryam. It was something I learned while hunting Nazis after the war. Sometimes you took whatever revenge you could find.
"When we first met," he said, "I told you I wanted to avenge my sister's death. You told me no. You wanted her killer to stand trial. What changed your mind?"
"Reality did," I said. "I know what happened, but I have very little evidence. Buzaglo is dead, and there are no other witnesses who can testify as to the nature of Rosen's relationship with Maryam. What there is won't be enough for an investigation, let alone a conviction."
And in the meantime, Rosen would do anything he could to stop me. He would send other people to kill me, just as he had sent Jalal and Kadir Jamalka to kill Buzaglo. And I wouldn't be the only one to die. Any potential witness against him would also be killed. In fact, I suspected that Rosen would do that anyway. He would spare no one who might incriminate him.
"I want justice for your sister, and this is the only way to get it."
"Thank you," he said.
I looked at him. "You know what doing this will mean for you? Once you kill Rosen, the police will not rest until you're in custody. You will have to run away, leave Israel."
"I know."
"You won't be able to come back. Ever."
He offered a frail half smile. "Maybe I'll come back as part of an Arab army."
"Then I'll be there to fight you as part of a Jewish one."
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and he offered a small nod.
"Just in case you're not able to get away—"
"I will not give the police your name," he said. "You have my word. I owe you my thanks for the work you did for me, and for Maryam."
"I only did what you paid me to do," I said.
"Speaking of which, do I owe you anything?"
"No. The retainer you gave me covers my work. But if you have some of that tobacco…"
He laughed, reached into his pocket, and drew out the tobacco pouch. He handed it to me.
"Take it all. Where I'm going, I can get more with no trouble."
I put the tobacco in my pocket and offered him my hand. He shook it, and I told him where to wait for my meeting with Rosen.
What happened after Rosen and I parted company I know only from news reports and what facts I could later gather.
Rosen walked out of Gan Meir and made his way south back to police headquarters. Ahmed followed him by car, passing him and parking some distance ahead on King George. He waited for Rosen to walk by the car, got out, and came up behind him, the knife in his hand covered by the same newspaper he had been reading in the park.
It was unclear precisely what Ahmed shouted as he yanked off the newspaper and plunged the knife into Rosen's back. It was in Arabic, and only a handful of the people who witnessed the stabbing spoke the language with any degree of fluency. But more than one of them recalled hearing the name Maryam even as Ahmed stabbed the now fallen Rosen a second and third and fourth time.
One man rushed Ahmed and tried to disarm him. Ahmed pushed him off but did not try to stab him. He waved the knife around, warning the crowd of people to keep their distance. Then he jumped into his car and tore off.
The police were telephoned from a nearby café, and a doctor who had been walking on the opposite sidewalk at the time of the stabbing attempted to save Rosen's life. But one of the knife thrusts had found his heart, and he died before the ambulance arrived.
It didn't take long for the police to identify Ahmed. Often, in such attacks, what people remembered could be hazy and lacking in detail. But this time there was no such problem. Everyone recalled Ahmed's scar. One woman said it was so red, she thought he was bleeding.
I was in Greta's Café, drinking scalding coffee when one of the regulars burst in, excitement coloring his face, and informed the rest of the patrons of what had happened on King George Street.
"Stabbed him in the back," he said. "The coward. Just stabbed him and left him to die in the street."
There were some nasty comments among the regulars. And one man predicted that it was the opening shot of a new war with the Arabs. Greta looked shaken, and that was the only thing about Rosen's death that made me sad.
25
Two days later, Yossi Talmon stomped his way to my table at Greta's and stood there glowering at me. His eyes were no longer sad. Now they looked furious.
"Good morning, Yossi," I said.
"You lunatic," he said through gritted teeth. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
I made a show of looking around. "Sit down, Yossi. You're attracting attention."
For a moment he just stood there, and I could see his upper lip twitching, making his mustache dance. Then he planted himself in a chair opposite me. He sat there glaring at me, his entire face set as if it had been carved in stone. He looked a little like a mad bear, with his bushy beard and mustache and angry eyes. He looked about ready to maul me.
Greta's eyes had followed Talmon's march toward my table. She had risen out of her chair by the window and was now leaning on the counter, looking our way, a worried frown on her face. I smiled reassuringly at her.
To Talmon I said, "I'm assuming this is about Rosen."
"What else could it be about? Please tell me you did not give Ahmed Jamalka the idea that Rosen killed his sister."
"It happens to be the truth."
His eyes nearly popped out of his head. A vein in his temple throbbed. "You'd better explain that, Adam," he said.
I told him everything, how I took his advice and started with Maryam Jamalka's criminal record, how it led me to Club Adom, and from there to where she lived and the hotel to which she took clients. I explained how I'd learned that Charlie Buzaglo had been Maryam's pimp and how he had tried to have me killed. I described how I’d waited outside his home, saw him and his men get gunned down in the street, and the talk I had with him before he died. Finally, I gave an account of my talk with Rosen in Gan Meir.
During my narration, Talmon's expression morphed from anger to incredulity to reluctant belief, the latter when I told him about Rosen's visit to Maryam Jamalka while she was in jail. He kept tugging and pulling so hard at his beard that I expected it to come out in tufts.
When I was finally done, Talmon stared at me in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "So you sent Ahmed Jamalka to kill Rosen."
"I told him the truth," I said, "but I did not send him to kill Rosen. He did that all by himself."
"But you knew he would do it, didn't you?"
"Yes. Though my answer would be different if this were an official investigation. Is it?"
"It isn't and you know it. If it were, you'd be sitting in a windowless interrogation room instead of this sunny café. But it might become official in the very near future, don't think it won't."
"I will think no such thing, Yossi. Though I can't see what the charge would be—telling person A that person B killed person A's sister is hardly a crime, when it's the truth. And I fail to see what you're so upset about. You wanted justice for Maryam Jamalka, and now you have it."
"Goddamn you, you know I didn't want it this way. This may be the way you did things in Hungary, but it's not the way we do them here in Israel."
"And how do you do things in Israel?" I asked.
"In Israel we put people on trial, and when they're found guilty, we lock them up in prison."
"Does this include cases the police decide not to investigate? Because in Hungary such cases never made it to trial."
He blinked, then slumped a bit in his chair, looking at me with eyes that shone a tad less with anger and a tad more with sadness.