I hammer another fist, this time into her stomach. The woman swerves, shoving past me, trying to get room to fight back, gasping.
I step back and aim a hard kick at the woman’s throat. I am too ambitious. I miss, hit low, the heel of my boot slamming into the woman’s breasts, driving air from the lungs. The woman’s gun clatters to the tiles.
The two captive girls stumble from the kitchen, one dragging the other, trampling over the bound Boris, who is trying to maneuver to his feet.
I throw the woman across the kitchen. She lands against the counter. Leftovers from breakfast lie by the sink. Coarse bread, mug of coffee. The tall woman throws the mug at me, it catches my temple, ice-cold, bitter coffee splashes in my eyes. I blink away the sting and then I see the sharp bread knife slashing toward me.
The tip of the knife catches me along the edge of the hand and it hurts, I cry out and the tall woman slashes back with the knife, an inch from my throat, the air singing. I can feel the whip of the blade, the slicing of air. Before the tall woman can slam the blade backwards in its arc – and I see her reverse her grip on the knife with a nimble strut of fingers – I grab the skillet, crusted with leftover egg, and slam it into the woman’s face with the force of a tennis racket.
She howls. Blood flies from her mouth.
I crack the skillet against the woman’s knife hand; the knife drops to the tile. It bounces, it gleams.
I use the skillet to batter the woman down, raining the blows. The final barrage sends her sprawling, bleeding, quiet at last.
The two girls are gone. I stand in the doorway and scan the street for them, flat of my hand against the sunlight, like a mama surveying the street for her kids.
Better this way, I think.
I have what I need. The disc, the address for Nelly.
I realize then that I’m hurt – cut across both sets of knuckles, another slash across my stomach. It doesn’t hurt so much until I see the wounds; the blood brings the sharp sting.
I turn and Boris has staggered to his feet, hopping, and I pick up the skillet and I put him back down. Then I take the edge of the skillet and slam it into his crotch.
‘ Tu mori,’ I say to him, but I don’t think he’s listening any more.
I turn to the stove. I crank on the gas on all the burners. I open a drawer and find foil and stick a wad of it inside the microwave and turn it on, set the timer to cook for five minutes. I run out the door, Boris screeching behind the gag, what sounds like a plea for mercy. He’s a smart boy.
I’m not all the way down the street when the back of the house explodes outwards, the roof buckling, taking to air like untested wings.
I hear the debris crashing into the yard.
I don’t look back. Sam, you cannot look back either.
68
Red-light district, Tel Aviv, Israel
It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I left Bucharest. The bandages on my hands need a change and the pain from the knife cut surges up through my arm like a flickering torch. I had to leave the Taser and the guns behind – I could not have gotten them through Romanian or Israeli customs without extra forms and attention, and I don’t want the Israeli authorities having anything in my file except arrival and departure dates.
I sit in the pizzeria. From this window I can see the men walking past the open door of the restaurant. I wear dark jeans, black untucked blouse, dark glasses. I order a steady supply of juice and food so the counter staff are not annoyed by me keeping a table. I have a notebook so they think I am a writer sitting and working. No Cokes, I cannot take caffeine on top of my nerves. I feel worn down, exhausted, as though I am getting sick. I eat a slice of vegetarian pizza. I don’t have much appetite.
The brothel is above the pizzeria. The sidewalks on Rehov Fin – or, as it gets nicknamed, Rehov Pin, for ‘penis’ – are painted with red arrows that point to the peep shows and brothels. The windows on the second stories are barred. Signs show women, in silhouette, writhing in ecstasy, or bound, or beckoning to men with a curled finger. Club Joy. Sexxxy’s Studio. Club Viagra. No, I’m not making that last one up, Sam.
I watch the men as they arrive and leave. Many are alone, and they are a mix: Jewish and Arab and Christian. Some look like businessmen or office workers, some like foreign laborers. Some are soldiers, in uniform. Apparently they rate a discount. Some are Orthodox Jews, stuffing their skullcaps into their pockets as they enter the doors. And pulling them out when they walk back into the accusing sunshine. Some are duos and trios of young men I am sure are Americans. College students.
What would their parents think, I wonder.
I want to storm the doors. But if my plan is to work, I must know how busy the parlor is, when it is at its least crowded. But I hate every second, knowing Nelly is inside.
I know what they will do to me if I am caught. They will kill me or try to break me like the girls back in Bucharest. Like Nelly.
So I force myself to watch, to find the pattern of scumball traffic that will allow me to get in and get out with the least violence. I see an older man leave, return with a bag of food. An employee. Probably there are at least two employees inside at all times. One to take payment, coordinate the visits. One for security, to make sure the girls can’t leave and to make sure the clients behave themselves.
And maybe Mr Mohawk, Zviman, maybe he’s inside. Him I long to meet.
I see that there is a sudden, noticeable drop in traffic before dinner time. Fine. I go back to a hotel, not the one that I am staying in, to get what I need.
Every hotel guard is armed in Israel. Ivan told me this; he’d read about it in an article covering a thwarted Palestinian attack where the guard shot down the suicide bomber. I approach a guard at a Marriott, fumbling with a Russian-language guidebook, confused look on my face, a wrongly folded map. Tourist from Moscow, I can almost see the thought flit across the guard’s face.
I drop the map and jet the pepper spray I’ve bought into the guard’s face, with a hiss of sorry on my lips. As he staggers, his hand going to the gun, I seize the weapon out of its holster.
And I run. I flee out of the hotel, through a shopping center, into a cab. The gun is cool against the flat of my stomach under my shirt.
I think about what to wear into battle. I expect I could die so I decide to splurge. Only the best for the crazy teacher, Sam. I know you have always admired my style, yes? The next afternoon I find a boutique at the very upscale Ramat Aviv mall and I buy black leather pants and a taut black turtleneck and a neat, fitted black leather jacket. It’s as close as a girl gets to armor. Winter has passed so I get the gear on sale, but it still would cost a fortune back in Moldova. I use Boris’s cash for the purchase. Thank you, Boris. The gun fits into the small of my back.
Back at my hotel room I get dressed and then I make a secret preparation, in case I am captured. A final revenge on Zviman or his men. I check my gun. If I cannot get us out, then a bullet for Nelly and a bullet for myself.
I calm myself by applying my make-up – more than I would ever wear back home. I look like such a bad girl. Red mouth, cat eyes heavy on liner. I laugh to myself, thinking girl now you have on your warpaint . I feel like a different person. The schoolteacher is dead. The schoolteacher has killed three people and freed two slaves and blown up a house.
That was nothing to what I must do now.
I take a cab to the pizzeria.
It’s still daylight, the sun sliding its farewell into the Mediterranean. It’s the time of the pre-dinner lull I noticed yesterday.
A man catcalls me as I get out of the cab and tip the driver. I ignore him. I walk up the steps. Lucky Strike Parlor, the sign reads in both Hebrew and English. Whose luck? I wonder. I go up the stairs to a door that is blood-red, LUCKY STRIKE painted on it in cursive black letters.