“We can’t gure out what that smel is,” she said. “And we’re afraid to nd out! It’s de nitely coming from Jacky’s place. What if he’s hanged himself! What if he’s been rot ing away for a few days in there? That already happened to me once, with my poor friend Irenie. I’m not taking a chance like that again! I stil have nightmares.”
“I’m sure he’s alive,” I said, though I was beginning to feel a lit le worried myself. I rang Jacky’s bel but there was no answer. I reminded myself that this in itself didn’t mean anything; Jacky rarely answered the door.
“Jacky, open up, it’s me, Dana!” I shouted. “Are you there?”
Jacky hardly ever left his at. When he did go out, he draped himself with prayer shawls. He was very gaunt and his shaggy gray beard reached his midri ; he seemed to belong in a Grimm story, except that no one in Grimm walked around with prayer shawls over his shoulders. We never saw him eating and it wasn’t clear what he lived on. There was no point bringing him meals because he’d arrange the food neatly on the hal way oor, where it would at ract every cockroach in the city. Maybe that was his intention, to feed the cockroaches.
One could never be sure with Jacky.
I continued pounding on the door. Final y it opened a crack and two heavy-lidded eyes peered out at us.
“I have nothing more to tel anyone,” Jacky said. “There’s no point asking me. I’ve told them al I know.”
“Jacky, what’s that smel coming from your flat?”
“What smel ?” He opened the door and Tanya and I both stepped back, as if pushed forceful y away. This was a smel with kinetic powers.
“I don’t smel anything,” he said.
“How can you not smel anything!” I exclaimed.
“That’s what they asked me when they took me in. I told them al I knew.”
Despite the heat, Jacky was wearing a heavy sweater and brown corduroy pants. It was hard associating him with the pop star who’d had such an enthusiastic and devoted fol owing, once upon a time. Daniel had often sung his songs. I had a dream about angels, they were carrying you out of the tank, and your uniform grew wings, and I wanted you back.
Jacky returned to the rat y, rust-colored sofa in the center of the room and folded his arms. The sofa was the only piece of furniture that had survived his ef orts to remove listening devices from his flat. “I think it’s coming from under the sink,” he admit ed.
I entered his bare at, opened the cupboard door under the sink, and sti ed a scream. There were ve dead mice lying on the torn linoleum. They looked like tiny pink fetuses.
“What is it?” Jacky asked.
“Mice. Dead.”
“I knew that,” Jacky said. “I put poison.”
“Wel , why didn’t you tel us?”
“I thought maybe the government sent you. They have a file on me.”
“Yes, I know. Who can blame them?”
“What should we do?” I asked Tanya.
“I’m not touching them,” she said. “Find a man.”
“Where?”
“They’re al over the place,” Tanya laughed.
I went downstairs, crossed the street to the City Beach Hotel, and asked to see Coby, the manager. After a few minutes he emerged from his back o ce. Coby always wore a suit and tie, which I suppose was expected of him, and he was tal and slim, with dark-framed glasses: the cumulative e ect was reassuring. He looked like a character in a slick, fast-paced movie about corporate intrigue; he’d be the person who stuck to his principles and didn’t give in to temptation.
“Coby?” I said. “I’m a friend of Rafi’s.”
“You’re Dana, of course. I’ve seen you around. How are you?”
“We have a mouse problem. In Jacky’s apartment. There are some dead mice under the sink.”
He smiled. “I’l send the guard,” he said. He stepped outside and approached Marik. “Go up with this woman, please, and help her get rid of a dead mouse,” he said. “You’l need a bag to put it in.”
“Thanks, Marik,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind mice?”
Marik didn’t answer, but he got up from his stool and fol owed me to Jacky’s flat.
Marik didn’t answer, but he got up from his stool and fol owed me to Jacky’s flat.
Jacky looked at Marik calmly and said, “He’s a government agent. I can spot them miles away.”
“I wish,” Marik said. “Then maybe I’d be paid something.”
Using the bag itself as a glove, he maneuvred the mice inside it. “This smel could wake the dead,” he said. He had a heavy accent, and when he spoke, the words seemed to be col iding against each other in odd rhythms.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Uh,” he replied.
“Tel them to stop sending mice,” Jacky said. “I’ve told them everything I know.”
