Just People Read online

  To Stephi, always with me, always my first star in the sky.

  Producer & International Distributor

  eBookPro Publishing

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  Just People

  Paul Usiskin

  Copyright © 2019 Paul Usiskin

  All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

  Contact: [email protected]

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  About the Author

  Message from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Once again there are many people to whom I owe a thank you for this third Dov Chizzik book.

  Amongst them are Ahmad, David, Lisa, Marianne, Richard and RG.

  Any errors in this book are all mine.

  1

  They waited in the cool Washington night, not winter cold, not yet. Every few minutes, one of them would walk past the plate glass frontage of the hotel bar to make sure their man was still there. We’ll call them Slim and Heavy for now.

  ‘Dunno what Mr Poshface has to talk about. But there’s talkers and doers and he’s definitely a talker,’ Heavy said, coming back from his latest peek. He kept his voice low, not wanting his New York accent to be heard.

  ‘Yeah, but there’s talkin’ and talkin’, right?’ said Slim. ‘Didn’t the Brits have a sayin’ in the war, ‘Loose lips sinks ship?’ Ain’t that what this man’s been doin’? And this is a war.’

  ‘Yeah right. He’s been blatherin’ to people who hate us. Even tried to give money to some project or other, fuckin’ do-gooder Not-For-Profit. As if no one’d notice? Well we fuckin’ noticed.’ Heavy pointed at the plate glass, his tone angry, pumping up the adrenaline.

  ‘Who’s the guy he’s with?’ Slim asked.

  ‘Fuck knows. Forget him, just focus on shutting Mr. Poshface’s mouth. It’s your turn to check him out, before we check him out, know what I’m sayin’?’

  Slim sidled away from the cover of the corner arch of the arcade, past the bar, looked in and carried on a few paces, turned and came back, his steps quicker.

  ‘I think they’ve finished gabbin’ and he’s ‘bout ready to make for his car.’

  ‘Yeah, here comes Mr. Poshface,’ Heavy confirmed over his shoulder.

  ‘Is the other guy with him?’

  ‘No, he’s waitin’ to cross the traffic.’

  The heavier man watched as the target approached. He looked familiar, like a forgotten actor from a 70s film or TV drama. He was forty-something, medium height, full head of graying hair, mustache, good looking, elegantly dressed in a dark top coat, carrying a leather document case under one arm.

  Heavy let a length of striated steel rebar covered in duct tape slide out of his jacket sleeve. He’d found it discarded on a construction site, perfect length. It fitted comfortably into his hand and as Mr. Poshface passed him, his colleague stepped away and he raised it, yelled ‘Fuckin’ Kapo!’ and slammed it down onto the right shoulder, figuring the coat material would absorb some of the impact, but still do real damage.

  It did.

  Mr. Poshface grunted in agony and shock, half fainting with pain, incredulous at what he thought he’d heard. He stumbled, tried to keep his balance, grabbing at the source of the injury, a fractured shoulder blade, eyes squeezing tears of agony.

  Slim confronted Mr. Poshface, shouted ‘Jew Nazi!’ and punched straight to the grimacing face. His weapon was brass knuckles. It was an antique set, sold to him as ‘just like the ones Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguards carried.’ He ignored the ‘just like’ and told his friends that if they were good enough to protect a President, they were good enough for him.

  He broke Mr. Poshface’s jaw.

  The man fell to the ground.

  Passers-by did just that.

  The men took turns kicking, Heavy at his kidneys, Slim at his chest. They kicked in rhythm, each kick with a curse, to which the man was deaf, slipping in and out of consciousness, ‘Self-hating Jew’, ‘Hitler’s helper,’ ‘Arab lover,’ all prefaced with ‘fuckin’. The heavier man began to enjoy himself.

  The kick to Heavy’s kidneys was so shocking, he reared up, bent back, exposing his neck to a hand edge strike as devastating as the kick, and he collapsed, hissing ‘Fuckin’ cunt!’

  Slim saw his colleague fall and looked for the source, but wasn’t fast enough. His head was grabbed and jerked down to meet an upcoming knee.

  He went down on all fours and was kicked in the ribs viciously enough to fell him.

  ‘Stay with it Daniel, I’m calling 911 to get you to a hospital,’ Slim heard and was aware that Mr. Poshface was being pulled gently into the recovery position, in the light. Then he heard the same voice say, ‘Ambulance, corner of H Street North West and 10th Street North West, man badly beaten.’

  Dov Chizzik saw that the two men on the ground both wore knitted kippot clipped to their hair. ‘You shouldn’t rely on weapons. That’s so lazy,’ he told them in Hebrew.

  ‘Go to fuckin’ hell,’ Slim muttered through clenched teeth. He said something else in Hebrew that Dov didn’t hear fully for the sound of the ambulance, but ‘your face’ was part of it.

  *

  A US Justice Department liaison officer had met Dov at Washington International passport control that morning. He was a thin young man in a tight black suit, whose jacket looked a size too small. He had one of those forgettable faces useful to government agents, the effect ruined by a shaved head and wraparound sunglasses. Dov continued appraising him. His black moccasins were like alligator heads, with trainer soles and heel air bubbles. His narrow suit pants exacerbated the length of the shoes. Dov worried he might trip on the escalator but he managed and at the exit, wished Dov a nice day.

  His first smell of America, something of coffee and grilled meat overlaying aviation fuel fumes, had reached his nostrils during his New York stop over. It stayed with him.

  It was close to eleven a.m. when he exited Arrivals where the Embassy driver, a ubiquitous Yossi, met him. He agreed to show Dov essential landmarks in a whistle-stop tour.

  Justice Minister Yosef Hassid had insisted that Dov fly business class and take advantage of the sleeper seating for the long haul from Tel Aviv to New York. Dov was less jet-lagged as a result and overawed by the scale of everything American he saw. The music he associated with this country, Gershwin, Copland and Glass extracts, guitar riffs, a vocalist’s lyric, had all played in his head unbidden as the trans-Atlantic flight reached landfall.

  They drove the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, from one seat of power on Capitol Hill to the other, the White House.r />
  ‘Another four years of that Hussein Obama,’ Yossi said, like he and Dov were drinking buddies at their regular bar. It was a week since the President’s re-election. ‘He’ll pressure us into all sorts of crap, including not taking out Tehran.’

  ‘His name’s Barack Obama.’

  ‘Barack. Hussein. Muslim names. He’s no friend.’

  ‘Didn’t we have a Barak as Prime Minister?’

  ‘Not the same. One’s a Zionist, the other hates Israel.’

  ‘How well do you know his record?’

  ‘Enough to know that we can’t rely on him.’

  ‘How long’ve you been an Embassy driver?’

  ‘Since before the last election.’

  ‘Ours or theirs?’

  ‘Ours.’

  ‘Is Embassy scuttlebutt always so anti-Obama?’

  ‘He spoke to the Arabs in Cairo. Why hasn’t he come to Jerusalem to speak to us?’

  ‘I don’t know, OK? But I do know that his administration granted Israel $205 million and full tech support to develop the Iron Dome missile defense system and another $70 million to extend Iron Dome’s range for the whole of populated southern Israel. That’s on top of the $3 billion he assured us in annual military aid.’

  ‘Iron Dome doesn’t take out every Qassam rocket.’

  ‘That’s narrow thinking. It’s the only system of its kind and we developed it, and thanks to this President, the US paid for that and as I’m sure you know, no system’s 100 percent perfect. Then there’s his political support, blocking Palestinian attempts to by-pass talks and using the US veto against the UN condemning our settlement policy. What more do you want?’

  ‘He’s still an Arab. And Bibi is King of Israel and he’s going to win the next election.’

  ‘And what about Obama’s personal intervention to help save our diplomats in the Cairo embassy attack last year, staffers like you?’

  That generated a shrug of shoulders and Dov gave up and had Yossi wait for the hour he took at the Lincoln Memorial, the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument. In his mind was the fact that America’s first black President had been as supportive of Israel as any of his predecessors. Why the negativity? Because Obama hadn’t made the usual grossly unctuous speeches about Israel, and had suffered public dissing from an Israeli prime minister he clearly disliked. Back from seeing Washington icons, Dov was driven downtown to his boutique hotel just above K Street.

  He waited for Yossi to take his cabin bag out of the trunk and took in his navy-blue suit and his white Nike trainers. Was that fitting footwear for an Embassy employee? OK, they were Israeli national colors. But who wore trainers with a suit? Only in America, he guessed.

  ‘Is there a good bar around here, up-market, discrete?’ he asked as he extended the handle from his bag.

  ‘Yes. The Cure Bar at the Grand Hyatt.’

  ‘And that’s where?’

  ‘Take a left on the corner, that’s 10th Street, go down as far as New York Avenue, cross the square, it’s also a bus park. Walk through and at the other end is the Grand Hyatt. By the way, the building next to the Grand Hyatt is the US Secret Service HQ.’

  ‘I don’t think they’d protect me somehow. Will you be taking me back to the airport?’

  ‘Me or one of the of the driver. If you’re coming to the Embassy, just call and a car will collect you.’

  ‘Thanks and thanks for the tour.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. And he’s still an Arab.’

  The hotel was cute, and his room was larger than his own at home, on the second floor, with a king size four poster bed, nicely furnished, sizeable en-suite, and a view through trees above the hotel entrance of a dual carriageway and an empty lot on the other side. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be spending time staring at the traffic or the lot.

  He looked at his watch, 14.25, and called the Embassy.

  ‘Aviel Weiss please.’

  And a moment later, a voice said ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aviel, it’s me, Dov.’

  ‘I had a feeling they’d send you.’

  ‘Can we meet? The Cure Bar in the Grand Hyatt?’

  ‘How long’ve you been in Washington?’

  He peeked at his watch.‘In town? About an hour and a half.’

  ‘And you already know a smart bar?’

  ‘Israelis huh? Make ourselves at home wherever we are.’

  ‘Why not come to the Embassy?’

  ‘Do you really want to do this formally?’

  ‘It’s already been round the rumor-mill.’

  ‘Want to risk it in public? The Twitter-sphere? Hello magazine? The Washington Post?’

  ‘Is that some kind of not-so-veiled threat? And anyway, a Washington bar’s just as risky. ’

  ‘The last guy but one in your post got caught in a similar thing and the scandal broke in the international press before he was summoned home.’ Dov imagined Aviel squirming, but he didn’t reply. Dov told him to stop being an ass.

  ‘I’ll see you at the bar at six.’

  He sat at the desk and re-read the PID file. There were allegations of sexual misconduct and rape by two Embassy staffers against their boss, the Israel Police Washington liaison officer, police Brigadier General Aviel Weiss.

  2

  Lana al-Batuf stood in her favorite place looking out at the valley of her dreams and nightmares. The autumn sun over the Galilee hadn’t lost its heat, not yet, so the air was warm and clean with the merest hint of the cold to come. It was a welcome change from the urban smells and sounds she lived with now.

  She’d loved to lose herself in the valley’s patchwork of greens, beiges and mauves, letting them blur and meld into each other like mixing paints on a pallet. In summer she’d lie down and inhale the breeze and know that that was wild rosemary, that lavender and that sage. As a little girl Lana had believed the valley was hers. After all, her family had taken their name from it. That was when she had dreams.

  She’d come here when her world had been shaken by family storms, and then when she’d bade farewell to her past. That was after her nightmares.

  She took her son Yakub’s hand and reminded him that they were on a secret journey. He was seven and gifted with a vivid imagination.

  ‘I used to come up here to get answers from the earth and the sky,’ she said, smiling as much at how prosaic she’d sounded as the quizzical expression on Yakub’s face. But she said nothing more, so he walked forward and peered down. She came and stood by him, seeing what he saw, the cluster of her father’s farm buildings at the foot of the hill. She took Yakub’s hand and they went back up to the crest to look down on the other side at the village where she grew up. This valley was less picturesque, hemmed in by rocky scree, the village scattered across it wherever it could, multi-story houses on cramped plots, never horizontal spreads, that wasn’t allowed, on narrow streets, many still unpaved, bedecked with electric and phone cables.

  Yakub pointed up at two wide winged birds soaring and gliding somnolently high above.

  ‘We call them Bowaz, honey buzzards. They go after bees and wasps, not honey,’ she explained, but her first memories of them, when her father took her on the quest to show her where her roots began, crowded in.

  Yakub practiced the name aloud, following their flight paths, digesting what his mother had said.

  Lana pointed out watermelon fields and olive groves owned by Ibrahim her father, her voice catching, causing Yakub to look up inquiringly. All she could do was stroke his head reassuringly. The groves held her, silver gray leaves, gnarled trunks, red earth, ‘blood on the ground’ her father had once said. One of the nightmares.

  And in the end all I wanted was to escape, she thought. Staring at her past, she hadn’t heard the approaching vehicle.

  ‘Hello little sister from the hills,’ a voice said.


  She reached out to hug her brother.

  ‘Yakub, this is your uncle Yunis,’ she said. Yakub tried not to stare because he knew that was rude. Lana took a video camera from her bag and started filming as Yakub opened his arms in welcome. Yunis didn’t pause. He picked Yakub up and held him. ‘Goodness you’re a big boy for seven,’ he said and Yakub beamed.

  ‘How did you know we were here Uncle Yunis? Mummy said no one knew we were coming.’ Lana smiled broadly.

  ‘The truth? I just knew,’ said Yunis, his eyes on his sister’s, ‘there’s something magical about families. We know things without being told. ‘

  ‘Magic?’ Yakub asked.

  ‘Yes, and I’m sure you have it too.’ To Lana, ‘What are you doing here?’

  She put the camera away. ‘It was the right time for Yakub.’

  ‘You didn’t call?’

  Lana shook her head.

  ‘I don’t need to guess, you’re going to climb that rocky hill back there,’ he nodded westwards, ‘and show him the place you were born?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Yakub interjected excitedly. ‘Mummy said these hills look like a ram’s horns.’ He giggled, ‘We’re standing on one of them.’ He added seriously, ‘It doesn’t hurt the ram.’

  Mother and brother grinned.

  ‘You won’t come to the house?’ Yunis watched Lana’s lips set in a firm line, so much like Khadija their mother. She had Khadija’s feline facial elegance, a slim figure, lucent raven hair, and Ibrahim’s black olive eyes.

  ‘Whose house Mummy?’ Yakub asked.

  Now Lana faced the challenge she’d hoped to avoid. Yakub was why she’d left this place, he was why she couldn’t visit her parents. She’d fallen in love with an Israeli, and knew there’d be a child. No way could she bring up that child in an Arab village. She’d had to leave and never come back. Maybe subconsciously that’s what she’d wanted.

  Lana had kept her pregnancy from everyone. Honor killings were still part of the Arab way in many villages. An honor killing had brought Dov Chizzik, police investigator, to her village when she was a girl.