The cart hit the boards and kept on going through them as she ran.
She heard screaming.
It sounded like a mad banshee inside her head.
It took her a moment to realize it was her.
And then the boards tore free and daylight came flooding in.
Head down, Orla staggered out onto the street, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She breathed in the hot morning air.
She was alive.
Sokol was dead.
That was all that mattered to her.
She stumbled barefoot toward the side of the road. She needed to get as far away from this place as she could.
Cars passed her on the street. She held out her hand, trying to hitch a ride. A few slowed, then accelerated, seeing the gun and the mess she was in. Just when she was beginning to think there were no good Samaritans on the road to Tel Aviv a white SUV slowed. She tensed, expecting to see the toad behind the wheel. If it had been Gavrel Schnur driving she would have shot him through the windshield without a second thought. It wasn’t. It was a middle-aged man with his wife in the seat beside him. Orla stumbled toward the passenger door as the car slowed to a stop at the side of the road.
The woman rolled down her window, took one look at Orla half-naked, battered and bruised and holding the Jericho 941 as though it were a snake, and seemed to understand. She was young, maybe twenty-five herself, but she had grown up in the conflicts of Palestine and Israel; and in Orla she saw a victim. It was as simple as that. Orla guessed the woman had made her husband pull over. The stranger didn’t ask what happened, she simply said, “Get in.” And when Orla was inside the SUV, she said, “Drive.”
They peeled away from the curb and into the traffic.
There was a blonde-haired doll on the backseat. They had a daughter. She wasn’t in the car with them. Orla’s stomach tightened at the realization that the Barbie-ideal of womanhood transcended state and nation. In the passenger seat the woman turned to look at Orla in the back. Orla could see a dozen questions behind her eyes, not least of which was, what have we done? It was natural. People didn’t want to interpose themselves into situations where trouble was rife. But thankfully, her first instinct had been maternal, to protect. Questions were fine now; they were out of there and getting further and further away from the abandoned grocery store by the minute.
“Thank,” Orla said, for the second time in a few short minutes. This time she really meant it.
“What happened to you?”
It was the biggest of all of the potential questions. Too big for her to answer in the back of the car. Orla shook her head. She knew it would look like she was in shock. She looked at the woman and told her, “I thought I was going to die. You saved my life.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but it seemed to appease the woman for the moment at least. She had more questions, practical ones: Where are you from? Where are you staying? Do you want us to take you to the police station?
That was the last thing she wanted. She fended the constant barrage of questions with one of her own. “Do you have a cell phone?” The woman nodded. Of course they did. Everyone in the world had cell phones these days. “Do you mind if I make a call? I need to tell people I am okay.”
“Of course,” the woman fumbled about in her purse and handed a small gold D amp;G Motorola. Orla took it and flipped it open. She dialed in the +44 for England and prayed the dial tone wouldn’t cut off into the operator’s voice telling her that her service plan didn’t cover international calls. It didn’t. She punched in the rest of the numbers for Nonesuch.
Lethe picked up on the second ring. He sounded like he was in the car beside her as he said, “Go for Lethe.”
She breathed out a long shaky sigh. She hadn’t realized just how good it would be to hear a familiar voice. She closed her eyes and smiled. “Hey Jude.”
He answered her with the rest of the famous lyric, then said, “Are you okay? Ah, hell, stupid question, I know. I mean… are you… did they hurt you?”
“Yes,” she said, meaning yes she was okay, yes she was out of there, and yes they had hurt her, but not as much as she was going to hurt them. “I want an address, Jude. Gavrel Schnur. It should be in the Ramat district, North Tel Aviv. He’s with the IDF.”
“I’m on it, gimme a sec. It’s good to hear your voice, Orla. I thought I’d never…” He let the thought hang. He didn’t need to finish it. She’d had the thought often enough from the other side while she was down there in the dark cellar.
“I know,” she said. “Tell the old man I am coming home. I’ve just got one thing to clean up first.”
“You know what he’s going to say,” Lethe told her.
“I know. That’s why I am telling you, not him. Have you got that address for me?”
It was off the 481, close to the water. She knew the area. It wasn’t an area a young politician could afford, even if he was a rising star in the Likud party and favored of Menachem Begin, Shamir and Netanyahu. It was old money. Lots and lots of filthy old money. That should have been her first clue all the way back when she had been looking at the photograph of Schnur and his wife, Dassah. Schnur had to have got his money somehow, and that offshore account in Hottinger amp; Cie and all of those Silverthorn deposits were making an awful lot of sense to her now. The money came from Caspi. That was the joke wasn’t it? Made of Silver. And what was more Christian in terms of iconography than the crown of thorns? She stared out of the window, watching the streets go by.
“Who is he?”
“Mabus,” she said, grateful that the conversation only made sense to the pair of them. She smiled at the woman. It was meant to assure her that everything was fine. She was sure she looked mad.
“Be careful, Orla. Promise me.”
“I’ll be home soon,” she said. It wasn’t the promise he’d wanted, but it was the only one she was prepared to give him. She wasn’t about to be careful. The time for care had passed. She was hunting the man who had made her last few days a living hell. She hung up the phone on him and gave it back to the woman. “Thank you,” she said again. “I can’t pay for the call, I’m sorry. My money is all back at the hotel.”
“That’s okay, honey, don’t worry. Where are you staying?”
She gave them Gavrel Schnur’s address, the big house off the 481, down by the water.
She watched her good Samaritans drive off into the blue sky of the coast road.
Staying in Tel Avivwas counter-intuitive. They would expect her to run, to get as far away from them as she could. Schnur wouldn’t expect her to go to his home and wait for him. It made no logical sense. But revenge wasn’t about logic.
There was no security gate, and no cameras that she could see. That didn’t mean they weren’t there.
She had so many questions. She wanted to ask him to his face why he had done it. Why had he plotted with Solomon and Devere to cause so much pain. She wanted to hear him justify himself? Was he going to blame the murder of his wife? The death of his son? And did it even matter what he said? It could never be justification enough. Hearing it might humanize the toad, but it could never make him human. Nothing could ever do that again.
She walked toward the house.
It was odd that he had never moved, given what had happened to his wife in the driveway, but she reasoned, perhaps he needed the constant reminder to fuel his hatred?
It was the middle of the day, broad daylight, so most likely the toad was at work, or heading to the grocery store basement to finish her. He wouldn’t be home until later. Which would give her time to break in and cover her tracks so that when he finally came home she would be waiting for him.
There wouldn’t be any questions, she decided.
She didn’t want to hear his answers.
The toad didn’t come home for three hours.
It gave her time.
She sat at his desk, breathing in his lingering smell. Everything in the place reeked of Gavrel Schnur. Orla sat back in his high-backed leather chair, wearing one of his wife’s dresses. They were a similar size, if not exactly the
