Bag Man

Lavie Tidhar

 

1

 

“How come you never got married, Max?”

He was sitting on the edge of the bed putting on his socks and shoes. Marina reclined on the mattress. The street light outside the window cast her face in a yellow glow.

“Who says I didn’t?”

He pulled up his trousers and buckled his belt and smoothed the crease in his trousers and put on his gun. He had one strapped to his leg and another under the coat and he also had a knife, just in case. The briefcase was on the floor beside the bed.

“I never figured you for the marrying kind.”

Marina had been a working girl in the past but now she ran a flower shop and she and Max had an understanding. And he didn’t normally say any damn thing, so why was he being chatty tonight? He thought of Sylvie in Marseilles and the boy, who might even have grown-up children of his own by now. It had been nearly forty years since he’d gone and left them. When he came to Israel he joined the army, full of enthusiasm, a patriotism he’d never quite lost. Never quite lost the accent, either.

These days he barely remembered what she had looked like, even her smell. He wondered vaguely if she was still alive. But he’d done what was best.

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said. “Considering.”

You can’t lose what you never had, he thought. Put on his wristwatch. Sat down again and ran his hand along Marina’s smooth leg, fondly. “I have to go,” he said.

“You always have to go,” she said.

Max shrugged. Picked up the briefcase and went to the door. “A man’s got to work,” he said.

“And you’re more honest than most,” she said, and laughed, showing small white teeth. “What’s in the case, Max? Guns? Money? Pills?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He really didn’t, and he didn’t care. “I just know where to pick it up and where to drop it off.”

Truth was Benny was keeping him mostly on ice after that job in the Negev went bad. A Bedouin clan had been muscling in on some of Benny’s southern territory and he’d sent Max to take care of things, and Max did, he’d left two bodies behind him in Rahat but they caught up with him as he was driving back along the lonely desert road and they filled his rented car with bullets. He was lucky to still be alive, he’d run into one of the dry wadis, and before they could come after him a border police patrol showed up and the Bedouins made themselves scarce. But it had been close and he wasn’t getting any younger, sixty was coming up on him like a brick wall.

He tried to remember what it felt like, the pursuit and running through the dry riverbed, thinking they were coming behind with their AKs. For a moment it felt like being a kid again, playing cowboys and Indians. It should have been horrifying: instead it was a rush.

He smiled at Marina as he left. Went down the stairs with the briefcase in his hand. A kiddie job. He hummed a song, something even older than himself. Opened the door to the street and stepped outside still humming.

 

 

2

 

“On the ground, motherfucker,” Pinky said. Pinky was hopped up on speed and he felt like he was flying. He perched on the seat of his bicycle and aimed the gun at the old man with the briefcase.

There were four of them on bicycles, all training guns on the old dude. They’d waited outside in the shadows until the light came on in the upstairs apartment where that old Russian whore lived. It was so easy it was laughable. He wanted to laugh. His teeth were chattering from the speed and he couldn’t make them stop. “Hand over the briefcase, slowly.”

The old man didn’t put up a fight. He looked very calm, which annoyed Pinky. Pinky was seventeen and he didn’t like old people, with the exception of his grandmother, who let him stay with her and sometimes cooked him roast chicken with paprika in the oven, which he loved, but who most of the time just sat by the window with a sad, resigned look on her face.

Apart from old people, Pinky didn’t like African refugees, Filipino workers, Russian immigrants, beggars, teachers, fat people, stuck-up girls who wouldn’t talk to him, Arabs (obviously), Orthodox Jews (obviously), social workers and, of course, the police.

He hefted the briefcase in his hand wondering what was in it. It felt light but not too light. He grinned like a maniac and his teeth chattered. “That’s it,” he said. “Stay on the ground, old man.”

The old man didn’t say anything, just lay there, looking up at Pinky like he was memorising his face.

“Did I say you can look at me!” Pinky screamed. The window overhead opened and the Russian whore stuck her ugly face out and Pinky raised the gun and she quickly withdrew.

“Come on, Pinky, let’s go,” Bilbo said. They called him Bilbo because he was small and hairy. It was either that or, sometimes, Toilet Brush.

“Shut up!” Pinky said. “I said no names!”

“Sorry, Pinky. I mean—”

“You want me to shoot you myself?” Pinky waved the gun at Bilbo.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Bilbo said. His real name was Chaim, which was even worse than Toilet Brush, or at least that’s what Pinky always figured.

“Take the case and go,” the old man said. His tone annoyed Pinky. He climbed off the bike.

“I already did,” he said.

“Good for you,” the old man said.

“Fuck you!” Pinky said, and he kicked the old man viciously in the ribs. The old man grunted but didn’t say a thing.

“Come on, man!” Rambo said. Rambo was big and stupid but he was loyal. Pinky hawked up phlegm and spat on the old man but missed him and the spit landed on the pavement near the old man’s face. Pinky got back on the bike and then, just to prove he could, he aimed the gun up at the sky and squeezed off a shot. It inadvertently hit the street light, which exploded loudly, startling all of them and scattering glass on the ground.

“Shit!” Rambo said. Pinky’s heart was beating to a drum and bass track. They got on their bikes and pedalled away as quickly as they could, whooping into the night.

 

 

3

 

Max got up and brushed glass shards off his trousers. Marina stuck her head out of the window, and he could see her in silhouette against the light of the moon. “Get back inside,” he said, gently.

For a moment there he thought that punk kid was going to shoot him. What a way to go, he thought. Shot by some kid on a dirty street in the old bus station area. They didn’t even pat him down for his guns.

He didn’t really care who they were, but he wanted to know who had employed them to rob him.

He began to walk, humming softly to himself. At this time of night the old bus station area was coming alive as its residents, mostly foreign migrant workers and refugees, returned home to their slum-like apartments. The bars and shebeens, always open, became busier. The junkies, who came from all over the city, congregated on the burnt remains of the old terminal building, and the sex shops and what was left of the brothels welcomed their furtive johns with tired indifference.

But there was beauty here, too, Max thought, passing a stall selling flowers, roses and chrysanthemums, anemones, poppies. They scented the air, joining the smells from the nearby shawarma stand where suicide bombers twice blew themselves up, the smell of cumin and garlic and lamb fat. Two Filipino kids, up late, played football by a butcher stall, where a man in a stained apron methodically cut chops out of the carcass of a pig, using the cleaver with a proficiency Max admired.

He wove his way deeper into the maze of narrow streets, crumbling building fronts, faded shop signs. A young white girl with needle marks on her arms tried to entice him into a dark hallway, lethargically. He waved her away. The night was still young and boys will be boys, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be as easy as that. He reached the front of a store that said Bookshop overhead. Dusty textbooks in the window, geography books by the long-deceased Y. Paporish with maps that showed countries which no longer existed. Max let himself in.

A bell dinged as he stepped through. The shop was dark and dusty, with books piled everywhere, paperbacks in English and French, forgotten Hebrew novels and ancient comics hung up by a string, their pages fluttering sadly like the wings of dead butterflies.

Hanging on the wall was a detailed artist’s illustration of the imagined future of Tel Aviv’s central bus station. It showed a graceful tower rising into the sky, a sort of 1950s retrofuturistic construction decorated with spiral bridgeways and floating flower gardens, and showed happy, well-fed, well-dressed residents, the men in suits and ties and the women in floral dresses, all smiling and holding hands as they beheld this miracle of engineering.

“Makes you cry, doesn’t it?” a voice said. Max turned and saw Mr Bentovich, the ancient proprietor, a small pale man who always seemed to Max to resemble a particularly inedible and quite likely poisonous mushroom.

“Didn’t see you there, Bento.”

“You’re being familiar again, Max. I don’t like people being familiar.”

“Sorry, Mr Bentovich.”

They shook hands. Bento’s was moist and cold. His touch made Max shudder. They stood there and admired the artist’s impression of what the future most decidedly did not look like.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Max? You’re not here to do me in, are you?” Bento laughed, the sound a dry cough in the dusty air of the bookshop. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “If anyone’s to do it, I’d rather it was you, Max.”

“I’m flattered.”

“What do you want?” Bento said. “I’m up on my payments to Benny.” He went behind the counter and when Max looked at him he knew Bento had his hand, under the desk, on the butt of a gun.

He shook his head, raised his hands. “I come in peace,” he said.

“I hate this place,” Bento said. His little wizened face looked like it would cry. “I used to sell books, Max. Books!”

“I know, Bent—Mr Bentovich. I know. How’s business, though?”

Bento shrugged. “Alright,” he said. He pushed a hidden button on the desk and the top sprung open and he swept his hand majestically as if to say, take your pick.

The desk was divided into compartments and in each one Max saw dried fungus, cubes of hashish, pre-rolled joints, moist cannabis sativa, pills, more pills, even more pills, and a bag of mints—“For my throat,” Bento said when he saw Max’s look.

“Sell to kids, much?”

“From where I’m standing,” Bento said, morosely, “everyone’s a kid, Max. Even you.”

“I’m looking for one kid in particular,” Max said. “About seventeen, pre-army. A little shit.”

“They’re all little shits, Max. Can I offer you anything? On the house. You need some Viagra? Cialis? Something to keep your pecker up?”

“I need what you know, Bento,” Max said, and the friendliness was gone from his voice, and this time Bento didn’t correct him on the use of his name. “About a little shit called Pinky, who has three friends even stupider than he is.”

“Pinky, Pinky,” the old bookseller said, “now, why would I know a Pinky?”

“Because he was as high as a kite the last time I saw him,” Max said, “which was not that long ago, Bento. Not that long ago at all. You sell diet pills?”

“I sell everything, Max,” Bento said, reproachfully. “You mean amphetamines?”

“Why are you fucking with me, Bento?” Max said. “You know who I’m after. So why are we playing games? What are you after?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m not after, Max. I’m not after any trouble.”

“And why would there be trouble?”

Bento just shrugged, which made Max wary.

“Who is this kid?” he said.

“He’s just a punk,” Bento said.

“Who is he working for?”

Bento laughed. “Working for?” he said. “Who’d employ a moron like that.”

“I don’t know, Bento,” Max said, patiently. “That’s why I asked.”

“Why the interest, anyway?” Bento said.

“Do you always answer a question with a question?”

“Do you?”

Max sighed and pulled out his gun and put the muzzle against Bento’s forehead. Bento stood very still and his eyes were large and jumped around too much: they were the only animated feature of his face. “You dip into your own merchandise?” Max said.

“You try being stuck in here all day dealing with scum,” Bento said. “Those kids would be the death of me one day. You know someone got done just outside my front door? The other side of the road. Eritrean or Somali, one of those guys.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Max said.

“Wise guy,” Bento said. “Can you take the gun away, please?”

“Since you said please,” Max said. “No. Tell me where I can find Pinky.”

Bento’s face twisted in a sudden grimace of hatred, but whether it was of Max, of the kids, or of the circumstances that led him here, to this dismal bookshop in the modern ghetto of the old bus station of Tel Aviv, Max couldn’t say.

“He and his little friends squat in an abandoned flat on Wolfson,” Bento said.

“Yes?”

Bento gave him the address. Max made the gun disappear. When Max was at the door Bento said, “Max?” and Max said, “Yes?” turning around to face him.

“Don’t come back here,” Bento said.

“I hope I don’t have to,” Max said, and he saw the old bookseller scowl.

 

 

4

 

He had the feeling he was being watched as he walked to the address Bento gave him. A vague sense of unease that grew with each step, but Max could see no one, could only trust his instinct, and he thought, they will come in good time. First, he had his business to take care of.

It was a rundown building on a rundown street and it didn’t take much to break the lock on the downstairs door. The stairwell was unlit and smelled of piss and as he climbed the floors he saw four pairs of bicycles chained to the railings. He reached the third floor and an unpainted door and kicked it open and walked inside with his gun drawn.

Five pairs of eyes turned to stare at him in mute shock. They were sitting on a couple of couches rescued from a dumpster and the air was thick with the smell of Bento’s dope.

“Hello, Pinky.”

“What the fuck.” Pinky reached under the cushion for a gun. Max fired, once, the bullet sinking into the dirty stuffing of the couch, sending up a plume of dust and crumbly foam.

“Shit, man,” Pinky said. His movements were jerky, delayed with shock and drugs.

“The next one will be in your brains,” Max said, “if you had any.”

The short fat kid started to laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, Bilbo,” Pinky said.

There were four boys and a girl. She looked up at Max with stoned, uncurious eyes.

“Get out,” he said. He motioned with his gun.

“Me, mister?”

“You. Leave.”

“But I only just got here.”

“Do I have to ask you twice?”

“Can I at least take the dope?” the girl said.

Max shrugged. “Why not,” he said.

“Hey!” Bilbo said.

“Shut up, Bilbo,” Max said.

The girl went through the boys’ effects and pocketed weed, pills and money.

“Bitch,” Pinky said. She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Are you going to shoot them, mister?” she said when she was almost at the door.

“I don’t know,” Max said, “what do you think?”

She shrugged. “It’s a free country,” she said.

She disappeared outside and Max returned to the business at hand. “Where is my briefcase?” he said.

“Look, we didn’t mean nothing, it was just—”

Max shot Pinky in the knee.

The boy screamed, a high-pitched cry that filled the room and leaked like snot to the street outside. The other boys huddled in their seats, staring at Max with frightened stoned eyes.

“Where’s my briefcase?”

“It’s not here!” It was the fat kid, Bilbo. “We didn’t have nothing to do with it, honestly, mister, it was just a job! He said it was nothing, just taking something from an old guy and—”

“He?” Max said.

“Bogdan,” Pinky said, crying. He was going into shock. “It was Bogdan, it was Bogdan!”

“Ah,” Max said. He almost felt sorry for the kids.

Almost.

“You gave him the briefcase?”

“Soon as we left you. Then we scored some weed and came home.”

“We really didn’t mean nothing, mister. We weren’t going to really shoot you or anything.”

“I need a doctor! Call an ambulance!”

“You don’t need an ambulance yet,” Max said. He surveyed the four boys. Shook his head. What was Bogdan thinking, using these clowns? They didn’t even shave properly yet.

He said, “Look, I’m going to give you a choice.”

They looked at him but didn’t say anything. Good. Max said, “I can either shoot you now—”

“Please don’t!”

He waited for them to calm down. “Or,” he said, waving the gun at the narrow balcony, “you could take yourselves over there and jump.”

“You what?”

“Are you crazy, mister?”

“Or I could shoot you where you are.”

The boys looked at each other, pale and frightened. Pinky moaned softly, his hands round his ruined leg.

“You’d have to pick him up and throw him over,” Max said. “I don’t think he can make it on his own.”

“Please, mister!”

“It’s not that far down,” Max said. “I figure you’ll probably break a few bones but you’re young, your bodies are still flexible. You might live.” He waved the gun. “Come on,” he said. “I haven’t got all night to stay and chat.”

“Please! We’ll get you back the case!”

“From Bogdan?”

They looked down at the floor.

“I’m going to count down from three,” Max said, “starting with you,” he pointed at a big lump of a boy. “What’s your name?”

“Rambo,” the boy mumbled.

“Well, Rambo,” Max said. “Help your friend Pinky there get to his feet. Three, two, one—”

“OK, alright! You don’t have to count so quickly!” The boy jumped to his feet. He went over to Pinky.

“Come on, Pinky,” he said. He slung Pinky’s arm over his shoulders and lifted him up. Pinky was crying, snot was running down the front of his shirt.

“You, Bilbo, and you, what’s your name?”

“Danny?” the boy said.

“I don’t know,” Max said. “Is it?”

“What?”

“Just get over there,” Max said. The three boys and the wounded Pinky made their way slowly to the balcony. The balcony doors were open. A warm breeze wafted into the room and the marijuana smoke made its way out to the street.

“What’s it going to be?” Max said.

The boys looked down to the street. Looked back at Max and his gun. He smiled at them without humour. “Well?”

“Shit,” Rambo said. “We just wanted to get high.” He picked up Pinky and before anyone could say anything to stop him he threw him over the railings.

Pinky disappeared over the balcony and dropped. There was a short scream and then a thud. They all looked over the balcony. Pinky lay on the asphalt with his leg at an angle and his head caved in.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Max said.

The small kid, Danny, panicked. He rushed Max, almost knocking him back, and made for the door. Max fired once, twice, and hit the kid in the back. Danny fell, his hand still on the door handle. He didn’t get up.

Max stood up and looked at Bilbo and the big kid. “Well?” he said.

“Please,” Rambo said. “Please.”

Bilbo was crying.

Max said nothing.

The two boys held hands. They looked over the railing. “Help me up,” Bilbo said. He was struggling to climb over the railing. Rambo made an impatient motion and pushed him, and Bilbo flapped his arms in the air as he lost his balance and then he, too, dropped with a high-pitched scream. Rambo was the last to go. Max looked down and saw that he’d landed on the fat kid’s body.

Max pocketed the gun and stepped over the small kid’s body and left the flat.

 

 

5

 

When he left the building the stars had gone and he thought it was going to rain. Someone was screaming from an open window. The kids were lying on the ground.

Max walked away from them when someone took a shot at him.

It had come from somewhere to his left, ahead of him, and he was already moving, taking the corner and seeing two dark figures holding guns both levelled at him. He fired and one went down and the other yelled something in Arabic and behind him Max heard running footsteps and he knew they’d finally caught up with him.

“Listen,” he said, “it was just a job, it wasn’t personal.”

The man had a gun to his face and behind him more men blocked the passageway. There was no way out. The man came out of the shadows. He was a thin young man in worn jeans and a chequered shirt, and he had deeply tanned skin. On his head he wore a red Bedouin keffiyeh.

“Shut up,” he said. He raised his gun and slapped Max hard with it. The pain seared through Max’s head. He tasted blood. The man gestured. Max turned. Three other men stood there training guns on him.

“Start moving.”

If they wanted him dead he would already be dead, he thought. He followed them down the road. They left the one man’s corpse behind them. A dusty jeep was parked by the side of the road.

“Get in.”

Max stopped and just stood there.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” the man said. “I’ll shoot you in the leg. You’re not going to die yet. Not for a long time yet.”

The other men laughed and Max felt a cold fury rising in him. He heard police sirens in the distance. One of the neighbours would have rang up the emergency services by now, for the kids.

Max said, “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“I have a package to deliver.”

“What sort of package?”

“Drugs, money. I don’t know. A kidney maybe.”

“You don’t know.”

“I don’t know. But I just killed at least two kids to keep it.”

He heard them conferring though he did not understand the words.

“Where is it?”

“Someone took it.”

“Who?”

“A guy called Bogdan.”

“Who does the package belong to?”

“Benny,” Max said. “It belongs to Benny.”

He heard the man spit on the ground. “Benny sent you? To kill my father?”

“He did.”

The Bedouin laughed. “Then we will go get your package, Mr. Max,” he said. “And then we will pay Benny a visit.”

They shoved him into the back of the car. Piled in on either side of him, taciturn men with the warmth of the desert. “What’s your name?” Max said.

“Ashraf,” the man said. He was sitting up front in the passenger seat. Turned and scrutinized Max. “Who is this Bogdan?” he said.

“He is a dangerous man in a world of dangerous men,” Max said, and Ashraf laughed, and the other men followed suit.

“What is he, mafiya?” Ashraf said.

Max nodded. Ashram studied him. Behind them police cars with flashing blue lights congregated on Wolfson. “Not a friend of yours, then?”

“He and Benny had a disagreement,” Max said. He might as well be honest. He wasn’t sure he was going to live through this, but losing the briefcase annoyed him all the same.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said.

Ashraf slapped him. “You’re not worthy of saying his name,” he said. But Max had forgotten what the old Bedouin’s name was.

He had come into the yard before the trailer, with a permanent fire burning in the yard and the skeleton of a Tel Aviv car suspended on a jack, stripped bare of its components, and two small children playing backgammon with an intensity that didn’t allow them to even glance at him. He came in his car and the old man and two bodyguards stepped out with AKs and he shot before they had a chance to shoot him, putting down the old man with a bullet to the head and one bodyguard in the chest shot and the other with a gut shot. Then he drove away: the whole thing did not take a minute.

“You would have caught me sooner,” he said, thinking of the cars chasing him down the Arava road, and of his desperate dash into the dunes. “If it wasn’t for the border police.”

Ashraf laughed without humour. “Well,” he said. “We caught up with you now.”

He looked at Max with uncurious eyes. “Where is this Bogdan?” he said.

So Max told him.

 

 

6

 

It was a Bauhaus building on the edge of the old neighbourhood. It resembled a ship, with a rounded foredeck and small round porthole windows. It was two stories high and the paint job was peeling badly.

They watched it from the jeep. There were two bulky men outside, packing under their coats. The only door was reinforced steel. No one came in or out of the building.

The Bedouins were organising. Ashraf barked orders and the men disappeared from the car. One had a sniper rifle, Israeli military issue. Then it was just Ashraf and Max and the driver in the car.

“Remember,” Ashraf said, and smiled without humour. “The first bullet’s for you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Max said. He stepped out of the car. He did not like the plan. Not that there really was a plan. He walked to the building’s entrance.

“Stop right there.” They were two large Russians and now they brought up guns. Max stopped and raised his hands, palms forward. “I’m not carrying,” he said.

“That’s smart,” the one on the left said.

Max knew him slightly. “Leonid,” he said, nodding.

“Max,” Leonid said. He smirked. The other one Max didn’t know. “You sore?”

“A little,” Max admitted. “Sending kids?”

Leonid smirked wider. “Boss wanted the package,” he said.

“What’s in the package?” Max said.

Leonid shrugged. “What do I know,” he said. “I just work here.”

“Can I see him?”

“Why? You want to ask for it back?”

Leonid said something in Russian and the other man laughed.

“I thought Bogdan and Benny had an understanding,” Max said. Leonid shrugged again. Opened his mouth to say something and never finished the thought.

There were two cracks in the night and Leonid’s head disappeared. He crumpled by the door. The other man was down. Whoever Ashraf’s shooter was, he was well-trained. The two other men ran crouching to the door and attached a small explosive device. Max flattened himself against the wall when the explosion came. It tore the door off its hinges and blasted it in. The Bedouins were already moving, Ashraf and two of his men, the unseen sniper still there, Max thought. Ashraf pushed Max through the door first, roughly. It was full of smoke and debris inside. It was hard to see, which was when Max elbowed Ashraf in the face, broke his nose, and reached for the man’s gun hand. The gun fired but missed. Then Max broke two of Ashraf’s fingers and took hold of the gun. He was going to shoot Ashraf but there was a blast of machine gun fire and Max dropped to the ground. He crawled through smoke and the firefly flashes of tracer bullets. Soft grunts and the sound of falling bodies behind him. He saw the shooter through the smoke and raised Ashraf’s gun and fired. The shooter fell back and suddenly there was silence. It hurt Max’s ears. He stood cautiously and stepped forward.

“Don’t fucking move, Max.”

“Bogdan.”

The gun was stuck in Max’s ribs.

“Drop it, Max.”

“It wasn’t my idea, Bogdan. It was these Bedouins.”

“I said drop it, Max.”

“Where’s the briefcase, Bogdan?”

Bogdan laughed. “I wish I could have seen your face when those kids robbed you,” he said.

“You can see my face now,” Max said. “Am I laughing?”

“The gun, Max.”

Max dropped the gun.

“Good, good.”

The smoke was clearing. There were bodies on the ground.

Max said, “There’s still a sniper outside.”

Men were streaming past Max and Bogdan, heading outside. Max heard shots. Bogdan said, “Not for much longer.”

“I just want the briefcase, Bogdan.”

“You have some nerve, Max. I’ll give you that.”

“Hey, I was going to ask nicely.”

The gun didn’t leave his side. Max took a deep breath, coughed.

He said, “Look what I’ve got.” Pulled back his coat. Showed Bogdan the Bedouins’ final joke.

“Fuck me, Max, when did you join the Palestinian resistance?” Bogdan said. He took a step back. They’d wired Max up with explosives and a dead man’s switch.

“Drop the gun, Bogdan,” Max said. He bent down and picked up his own gun. There was no reason, he just felt more comfortable that way.

“Take it easy, Max,” Bogdan said. “I can help you. I’ve got guys can disarm that thing in a minute if you let them.”

“And where will we be then, Bogdan?” Max said. “No, I’ll take my chances. Maybe I could go into business as a walking bomb.”

“Just don’t try boarding a plane,” Bogdan said. “You know how they are at the airport about these things.”

“And I was just thinking how nice it would be to take a holiday,” Max said. “Where’s the case, Bogdan?”

He sensed men behind him. Sensed guns trained on him. Smiled. Went to Bogdan and smashed him across the face with the gun. Bogdan stared up at him in hatred.

“This isn’t over,” he said.

Max took Bogdan’s gun and pocketed it. Stuck his own gun in Bogdan’s ribs. Thought that every moment could be his last. Wondered how stable the explosives were.

“You’re staying close to me,” he said.

“Isn’t over,” Bogdan said. He led Max deeper into the building, into a room on the second floor. Bogdan’s men followed silently but didn’t fire. It was a regular office room with filing cabinets and a desk. There was a bottle of arak on the table. Max helped himself to the bottle, drank, the aniseed flavour smooth on his throat. The alcohol burned pleasantly. He figured he’d earned himself a drink.

Bogdan reached under the desk and brought out the case. Max ran his fingers on it. The lock was intact.

“You didn’t open it?” he said.

“It isn’t for me,” Bogdan said.

“Then who for?”

“For your mother, the whore,” Bogdan said.

Max sighed. “Come on,” he said. He picked up the case. “You go first.”

“You’re mad if you think you can get away with it.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Max said. For the first time he felt his composure slipping. It’s been a long night. “You robbed me!”

“If I knew you were going to be such a bitch about it I’d have just told those kids to shoot you.”

“We all make mistakes,” Max said.

He pushed Bogdan out the door and down the stairs. Bogdan’s men parted silently before them. Max felt that every moment he could get a bullet in the back, but he didn’t.

He pushed Bogdan past Ashraf’s corpse and what remained of the door and then over Leonid. The Bedouins’ jeep was still there, the driver slumped in the seat with his head at an unnatural angle. The windows were broken and the frame riddled with bullet holes but the wheels were intact. They went to the car and Max opened the door and pulled the driver’s corpse out and climbed in. There was blood on the steering wheel. Max kept his gun trained on Bogdan’s face.

“I’ll be seeing you again, Max,” Bogdan said. “Real soon.”

Max sighed. The key was in the ignition. He turned the key and the jeep came alive and he felt it buck and shudder beneath him.

“Oh, fuck it,” he said, and shot Bogdan in the face.

A storm of bullets started up as Bogdan fell; but Max’s foot was already on the accelerator and he drove away, expecting to be blown up at every moment, bullets pinging into the chassis and the doors and he wondered what suicide bombers prayed for, the moment before they blew up.

But he got away and the gunfire receded behind him. One wheel was out, but he didn’t care. He manoeuvred the car away from Bogdan’s Bauhaus building, away from the gunshots, all the dead men and the dead or dying Bogdan, who, even if he lived, would never smile again, if he ever did.

He ditched the car three blocks away, knowing they would come after him but he had the case, that was the important thing. He went into the night and the night’s velvety darkness sang to him with the cry of the dead and the wail of police sirens.

 

 

7

 

“Did you have any problems?” Benny said.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

It was the next day and he was at the Market Porter, an old Persian restaurant Benny favoured as his informal office. Faded pictures on the walls of television actors famous three decades in the past. The smell of greasy lamb cooking on a spit.

He’d gone to see an old friend from the army who cut him out of the bomb vest and seemed happy to accept the explosives in lieu of payment. They would go on the open market and—who knew?—perhaps end up strapped to a genuine suicide bomber. There was always a market for explosives.

Max didn’t care. He’d taken a room in a boarding house for the night and slept deeply and well and then went to see Benny in the morning.

“You’re late,” Benny said.

Max put the briefcase on the table. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he said.

Benny pushed aside the newspaper he’d been reading. Dominating the front page was a picture of dead men in front of a Bauhaus building shaped like a ship and, at the bottom, a news item about the shocking torture meted out to a group of young thugs, three of whom were dead and one still in intensive care.

“I suppose you are,” Benny said. He took out a thick envelope and tossed it to Max, who caught it one handed.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Benny stood up to go, picking up the briefcase. “I might as well pull you off light duty,” he said. “Seeing as you can’t seem to keep away from trouble either way.”

Max smiled. As Benny went to leave he said, “What’s in the case?”

Benny turned by the restaurant door and looked back at him. “Does it matter?” he said.

Max thought about it. Sunlight rippled through the windows into the gloom of the restaurant.

“No,” he said. “I suppose not.”