But he hadn't thought of removing the brilliantine from his hair. As in our last meeting, it was oiled back from his forehead, each hair in place and glinting like metal. It was that oily smell that I'd caught, and my brain had made the connection, alerting me to danger before I could even consciously name it.
The man can pop just about any lock in twenty seconds flat and not leave a mark, Meir Gadot had told me about his cousin, and he'd been right. I had not noticed a thing when I unlocked my door.
"You're faster than I thought, cop," Amiram said.
His knife had a long, bright blade. I could tell it was razor sharp even from six feet away. If I hadn't moved, that blade would have sliced me open like a fish and, judging by the way it had dug into the mattress, would have torn my heart or lung practically in two.
"I appreciate that you took off your shoes when you came in," I said with false bravado, my eyes dancing frantically around, looking for an easy-to-reach weapon and finding none. "I try to keep the place clean."
He smiled in the way hyenas smile. He looked loose and calm and confident. I felt the exact opposite. He was the one with the knife. He was lighter on his feet. And he had bloody murder in his eyes.
If I wasn't in such a bad spot, I might have laughed. Here I was, expecting an attempt on my life by either Isser Rotner or Ofra Wexler, and now, just a few hours after springing my ingenious plan, I was facing death from a totally different direction. Some lunatic I had offended on another job entirely.
I thought about yelling for help, but what good would it do? This fight would be over well before any cops showed up. And it was just as likely to cause some nosy neighbor to come see what was going on and end up dead as a result. I did not want innocent blood on my hands, just that of the guilty.
I could have rushed to the door or the table where my knife lay. But I'd never get the door open, or the knife unfolded, before Amiram would be at my back, his knife in me.
"You should have minded your own business," Amiram said, taking a small step forward, the knife pointing at my heart. "But cops always get involved in things that don't concern them."
This was payback for insulting him in front of his cousin. And for telling Meir not to share with Amiram the name of the man who was stealing from him. Which made me fear for Meir's safety.
"Where's Meir?" I asked. "Is he all right?"
Amiram narrowed his eyes, then let out a throaty laugh. "You are stupid, aren't you, cop? Like so many of you. Don't worry about Meir. Worry about me."
He took another step forward, and I backed away. That made him grin wider, showing me more teeth and a pink strip of his gums, thinning his lips to needle width. Another step, and my back touched the wall. Nowhere to retreat to. This fight would happen very soon, and only one of us would make it out of this apartment still breathing. I made my lips tremble, let all my fear show on my face, and raised my free hand before me, fingers spread, as though to ward him off. "Don't," I said in a small voice. "Please." I wanted him to think I was too scared to resist properly. I wanted him to think that when he came at me, all I'd do was cower and curl up and die.
I could tell it was working by how his expression turned gleeful and ravenous, already tasting his triumph and my death. Any second now.
I switched my gaze from his face to his feet, waiting for his move. When he tilted onto the balls of his feet to spring forward, I was ready. As he launched himself at me, knife in an underhand grip to stab upward, I snapped my wrist and hurled the apple at his face. At the same time, I threw myself toward him, the exact opposite of what he'd expected.
The apple got him high in the cheek. Not as hard as I wanted, but enough to break his stride. I came at him fast, aiming a fist at his nose. With incredible agility, he jerked his body sideways. My fist bounced against the top of his shoulder. The blow spun him around, but he kept his feet, the bastard. I swung my left fist, a wild punch, but he danced away on those light feet of his, and I knew I'd missed my opportunity. He was back in control, and now he was careful.
"You're full of surprises, aren't you?" he said, no smile on his face this time, just brutal determination. This had been fun, his expression seemed to say, but now it was time to get serious and finish the job.
We were closer to the table now, and I made a desperate lunge for my knife. Amiram slashed his blade through the air, and I felt a lick of wet fire burn along the underside of my forearm. I jumped back, clenching my teeth, the pain hot and stinging. Amiram picked up my knife, pressed the release button, looked at the blade, and chuckled.
"I bet you wish you had this with you, huh?" Then he closed the knife and dropped it to the floor and kicked it to the far corner of the room, away from me, so now I had to go through him to get it. "Go ahead," he said. "Make another grab for it."
But all I did was grip my slashed forearm with my other hand, trying to keep the blood from oozing out. It didn't work. I was dripping all over the floor, running out of blood the same way I had run out of ideas.
Then he moved, coming forward with his lips pulled back and the knife arcing upward, and I only barely managed to jerk out of the blade's path before it could rip open my belly.
He jumped at me again, feinting another low stab, but I read him right, and when he raised the knife for a downward strike, I grabbed his wrist with both hands, stopping the tip of the blade a few inches from my throat. His momentum carried us both backward, and my back smacked into a wall, knocking some of my air out. The blade moved closer before I managed to push it away again.
Up close, I could smell his sweat and breath and feel the excited heat of a predator approaching a kill wafting off him. We were pressed close together now, and with his free hand, he began jabbing at my side. The punches were not powerful, but they were well placed, and gradually they made my kidney feel as though it were being ground up. My strength was waning, my grip on Amiram's wrist slipping. He felt it too and joined both hands together to try to push the knife into me.
With one arm bleeding, I knew I could not hold him back for long. I gathered my strength and, with a deep growl, pushed the knife up and away from me. The blade scraped along the wall, then bounced over something with a dull thud, followed by the sound of ripping canvas.
Amiram jerked his hands back and forth, trying to wrench his wrist free from my grip. The knife kept colliding with something on the wall behind me, just outside my field of vision. Finally, Amiram broke loose, stumbling a few steps backward, the movement yanking the painting the knife had torn off its nail.
It bumped against my shoulder, and I instinctively caught it. The canvas was ripped to shreds, strips hanging like loose skin off the frame. I just barely had time to realize it was the inside of the frame the blade had kept colliding with, when Amiram came at me again, knife first.
With more desperation than hope, I swung what remained of the painting at his head. At the last instant, he raised an arm. The frame broke at the contact, two sides falling to the floor. Still, I could tell I'd hurt him. He fell to one knee with a grunt, a few strands of oily hair dangling over his forehead.
In my hands remained two sides of the frame, barely held together in what used to be a corner. As Amiram rose to his feet, I tore the two sides apart, dropping one and holding the other like a stake. When he sprang forward again, driven to frenzy with pain and bloodlust, I thrust the makeshift stake at his belly. I felt that split-second resistance as his skin fought against the pressure before it gave way. And then it was as though his body was sucking in the intrusion, almost welcoming it, but I knew it was me, driving it in with a bloodlust of my own, wanting to tear the insides of this evil man to pulp, to rip out his life as he had tried to rip out mine.