“What if Shin Bet stops your operation?”
“They’re groping in the dark,” Elie said. “They know I’m up to something, but they don’t know what. They’re clueless.”
“You’re an optimist,” Itah said, exchanging a glance with Rabbi Gerster. “Anyway, I can use Sorkeh’s headscarf.”
“Yes,” Elie said, “but what about the famous leader of Neturay Karta?”
Rabbi Gerster stood up. “It appears that my rabbinical career is over.”
Elie watched from the bathroom door. The scissors in Itah’s hands were small but relentless. She snipped off the payos and worked through the bushy, gray beard that had masked Abraham Gerster’s face for fifty years. The medicine cabinet was well stocked with shaving cream and disposable blades. She shaved him carefully.
Removing his black skullcap, Itah watered her hands and combed his hair backward. “My my,” she said, standing back to examine her handiwork, “you’re drop dead handsome!”
Elie felt a stab of envy. It had been the same with Tanya Galinski in 1945. Despite the deep snow and the warm corpse of her Nazi lover, Tanya had stared at Abraham Gerster the same way-enamored, enchanted. It was incredible to watch him now, at age sixty-nine, impact a woman the same way. Elie cleared his throat. “Shall we go downstairs for dinner?” He had decided not to warn them that Freckles would be arriving to pick him up. Their reaction would reveal how much they knew about the chubby agent-provocateur.
“I’m starving.” Itah adjusted Sorkeh’s headscarf over her hair.
“ Why don’t we order room service?” Rabbi Gerster absently rubbed his smooth cheeks.
“ Don’t worry,” Elie said. “The restaurant here is too expensive for Shin Bet agents.”
*
Traffic inched uphill while pedestrians threaded their way among the moving vehicles. Lemmy turned into the YMCA parking lot and found a spot for the Fiat. This was the last known stop in Elie’s escape, and the mention of going to Haifa could have been a diversion for the benefit of the taxi driver’s ears.
He stepped out of the Fiat, looked around, and immediately saw the solution.
Across the street, he strolled into the circular driveway at the King David Hotel and balked at the sight of two Subaru sedans with the familiar roof antennas. He kept moving along the circular driveway until he was back on the street, this time walking downhill. Was this the next trap? But how did the Shin Bet know he would be coming to the King David Hotel? Had they made the same assumption as he and were now searching the hotel?
A limousine passed by with small flags fluttering from the corners of its hood. It occurred to him that the King David Hotel was the preferred place for visiting foreign dignitaries. Shin Bet, or another government agency that used similar Subaru sedans, was probably at the hotel for reasons that had nothing to do with Elie Weiss, SOD, or the man travelling under the name of Baruch Spinoza. He almost laughed in relief. The world wasn’t revolving around this single crisis! He turned back toward the hotel.
*
Rabbi Gerster felt naked without his black coat and hat, without the long beard and dangling payos. For decades, throughout his adult life, whenever he entered a public place, people recognized him, bowed their heads in respect, and made way for him. But as he entered the La Regence Grill, the only glances he attracted came from two middle-aged women, who smiled at him, and from a single man in a pink jacket, who looked up from his soup and winked. It took Rabbi Gerster a moment to comprehend that his new appearance was attracting a different type of attention, the type drawn by a handsome, mature man who radiated confidence and authority.
Elie ordered a cup of chicken soup. Itah and Rabbi Gerster ordered steak dinners.
Before the food arrived, a stout young man joined their table. His face was infested with the dotted pigmentation that had earned him his nickname. He was dressed inadequately in worn sandals, khaki shorts, and a white T-shirt that bore a quote from the prophet Isaiah: Your detractors and destroyers shall emerge from within you. The knitted skullcap sat askew on his head, jauntily contrasting with the nervous twitch of his mouth. At first glance, he seemed like a beggar who had slipped through the lobby to hit on gullible tourists before the maitre d’ threw him out.
Elie looked up from his soup. “You’re early.”
“ Am I?” Freckles glanced over his shoulder.
“Three minutes,” Elie said. “How uncharacteristic of you.”
“ Trying to get better at my job, you know?” He laughed nervously. “Ready to go?”
“ Hungry, Freckles?” Itah nudged the basket of fresh rolls toward him.
He creased his eyes. “Do I know you?”
Itah pulled off the headscarf.
“ Oh, God!” He stood, then sat back down, looked left and right. “No cameras, right?”
Itah laughed. “Not today. Hush hush. Like spies. You ever heard of Kim Philby?”
Freckles looked at Rabbi Gerster, and his eyes widened. “God, have mercy!”
“ Amen.” Rabbi Gerster’s hand instinctively reached to touch his beard, which was gone. He realized that Elie had tricked them by summoning his agent to take him somewhere else. “How’s business going for you? Money coming in steadily?”
“ What’s going on here?” Freckles got up again, glanced at the door. “I don’t like this!”
“ Sit down.” Elie said it quietly, but the tone was icy. “You all know each other?”
“ Freckles has been a great source,” Itah said. “I’ve earned many kudos for my reports on ILOT. But lately I’ve come to doubt him a bit.”
Elie’s little black eyes focused on her. “Why?”
“ Hold on.” Rabbi Gerster noticed that Freckles kept looking toward the entrance to the restaurant. “I think we should-”
“ I had a little peek,” Itah said, “at his bank account. Regular deposits of French francs in cash, but also a monthly paycheck from Shin Bet, plus medical and pension. Did you know about that?”
“ It’s a trap,” Rabbi Gerster said, rising.
Elie didn’t answer Itah’s question, but his hand landed on the rabbi’s toothed steak knife, rose unhurriedly, and stuck the knife’s point under Freckles’ chin, penetrating the skin, and pulled him closer. “Is that true? Do you work for Shin Bet?”
Freckles couldn’t nod, and opening his mouth was also impossible. Only his lips moved when he squeaked, “I can…explain.”
Rabbi Gerster grabbed Itah’s arm. “We’re leaving!”
Several of the patrons suddenly rose, including the man in the pink jacket, and surrounded their table.
“ Step back,” Elie said, “or I’ll puncture his brain.”
A man in a blue jacket jogged across the restaurant to the table, his hand held up. “Good drill, fellows. Excellent practice!”
“ Agent Cohen.” Rising slowly, Elie kept Freckles’ chin impaled on the steak knife. “Call off your men and have a car ready for us outside.”
“ Let him go.” The Shin Bet officer spoke too quietly for the other patrons to hear. “We can discuss our differences elsewhere.”
“ I think not.” Elie headed for the door with Freckles.
Rabbi Gerster was determined not to allow Jewish blood to be spilled. “We’re outnumbered. Let’s live to fight another day.”
“ Follow me,” Elie said, leading Freckles with the knife.
The rabbi saw Itah raise her eyebrows in a manner of someone accepting defeat. They had made a mistake not telling Elie about the Shin Bet salary Freckles was earning, and Elie had kept from them the fact that he had summoned Freckles to the hotel. Now the game was over.
Rabbi Gerster could have pulled down Elie’s hand to release the hapless Freckles, but the young man’s double-crossing irritated the rabbi enough to make him choose a less-pleasant method. He swung his arm and hit Freckles on the forehead with the back of his hand. The agent’s head flew backward, his face turned to the ceiling, and his chin tore off from Elie’s knife. The strike’s momentum caused him to fall backward, where he stayed sprawled on the carpet, too shocked to move.
Removing the knife from Elie’s hand, the rabbi flipped it in the air and offered it to Agent Cohen with the handle first.