Dancing Bear

  We went down 42nd St. and up the steps to a small playground in Tudor Court. It was getting dark. We sat down on a bench. We could see down 42nd St. almost to the Hudson River. Headlights were coming on, and, like always, the city looked like a huge, busy beehive.

  Gadi started speaking first. "Look, I don't have to tell you anything about my business here. You were one of us once, and I don't have to tell you what nuts, paranoids, and schizophrenics show up here every week with `information' about the latest Russian or American plot to destroy the world. And the ones who think they're on someone's black list or green list or God knows what. It's a shame you believed one of those stories. I know all about Kate Beaver. She tried to call my office several times. I never answered her myself. You know as well as I do that our instructions are to get rid of these people as quickly as possible. You have to remember we're guests of the American government, and our position is very sensitive, very delicate, not to mention our special relationship and our understandings with them. I never would’ve thought you'd fall into such a trap, David. I expected a little more professionalism, a little more maturity, from you."

  "Somebody's after her," I said. "There was a Russian engineer in the consulate when she showed up, and then there were federal agents waiting at my house, and two people followed us to Cape Cod."

  Gadi looked at me with an expression of pity. "She was in a mental home," he said. "She must have escaped again, so they had good reason to run her down. You sure the guys at your house were waiting for you? Did you talk to them?"

  "No."

  "You see. Just be careful. You might be imagining things too. It's catching, you know."

  We started back toward the car.

  "What about Avihu?" I asked. "And Benjamin?"

  Gadi froze for a second. "There's an Israeli Air Force pilot called Avihu, a student at New York University. Maybe he pronged her, like so many others like her. Maybe that's what set off the trip she's on now."

  "Is there a Benjamin too?"

  Gadi unlocked the car and climbed in. "I never heard that name here," he said, slamming the door and starting the engine.

  I didn't believe him.

  It was dark - clear and very cold. I was feeling a little dizzy, wondering what to do next. Then I headed in the direction of the nearest subway station.

  *

  My toes were freezing by the time I got to the Windsor, Kate's apartment building on East 69th St. I thanked my lucky stars that she had told me where she lived. I remembered her telling me of the weird guy who climbed the stairs to her apartment on the twentieth floor because he had a fear of elevators. I couldn't remember the number of the apartment though. Maybe she'd never told me? I looked up at the twentieth floor. There were dozens of windows, some dark, others lit. I didn't have a clue which ones belonged to my missing lady.

  It was a gray brick building, thirty-two stories high. At a rough guess, there must be about six hundred people living there - a good place for secret meetings. None of the neighbors would pay any attention to the large number of people coming and going from Kate's apartment. I went up to the front door and looked in at the sumptuous lobby. I was greeted by two doormen in the imposing green uniforms of train conductors from the '30s.

  "Who do you want?" one of them asked.

  "Kate Beaver."

  "What name should I give?"

  "Avihu Shahak."

  The doorman pushed a button on the enormous intercom beside him, as I made a mental note that she was in apartment 2014 and that the next one over read "Weinberg." There was no answer. I conjured up the image of someone living in New York without ever leaving his house, just using the telephone, a fax machine, and an intercom. People could only visit by invitation, and if he didn't want to see someone, the doorman would throw him out.

  "She's not in," the conductor doorman announced.

  That wasn't enough for me. I thanked the doorman and left. The building was on the corner of Second Ave. I wandered up and down the street. There was a flower shop, two restaurants, a pet shop and a beauty parlor.

  It was seven-thirty. The doormen's shift had to be over sometime. It happened twenty minutes later. Two other amiable looking old geezers decked out in the uniforms of conductors on the Orient Express were walking toward the building. Things were looking up.

  I went into the flower shop and bought a bunch of roses that must have been about to wilt, because for $3.99 I got a very large, exquisitely wrapped bouquet. I left my bag in the shop and stepped back inside the Windsor's grand lobby. I covered my Boston accent with a Mexican lilt.

  "Delivery for Weinberg, 2016," I declared. The doorman greeted me with a nod and turned to the panel of intercom buttons. I held my breath.

  "Flowers for you, Ma'am," he announced. I could hear the Weinberg lady giggling into the speaker.

  "Sure, send him up," and then, "though I can't imagine who they're from."

  I went up to the twenty-first floor, took the stairs back down to twenty, and cracked the door to the hallway. Three corridors led off from the elevators, the only place where you could see the whole floor. After about two minutes, a door opened and an ancient dyed blond in a flowery housecoat looked out, checking the hallway in both directions, and then disappeared back into her apartment.

  I raced past her door and stopped in front of 2014. I rang the bell once, waited, and then twice more. There was no answer. I had the feeling I could find the answers to a lot of questions behind that door. Was Kate huddling in a corner in panic? Was someone holding her prisoner there? If not, maybe I could find some sort of clue to her whereabouts. I didn't have much time to work out the possibilities. I untwisted a metal wire from one of the flowers. From deep in my pocket I pulled out a credit card - American Express. "Don't leave home without it," the ads said. After resisting me for a couple a minutes, the door finally gave way. I went in and closed it quickly behind me. I left the bouquet on the floor.

  The whole apartment - living room, kitchenette, and bedroom - was completely empty. Dark rectangles on the wall showed where pictures had hung. There was nothing there, not even a thumbtack, except for the refrigerator that was still connected and running, but equally empty. I left in a hurry, walking rapidly toward the elevators, when I heard a voice behind me:

  "Hey you, where are the flowers?" Mrs. Weinberg in the housecoat sounded annoyed.

  "Oops, my mistake!" I shouted in her direction. "I left them in the apartment next door. The lady who opened the door didn't say a word! You can go in and get them!"

  "There is no lady living there," said the neighbor and slammed her door.

  I hurried toward the stairs, sped down to the ground floor, and raced out of the building through the service entrance in the back. That stunt hadn't gotten me anywhere. The doorman was ready to buzz Kate Beaver, but the neighbor never met her. I was still at square one. The few leads I had were evaporating by the minute. I headed south, down Second Avenue to Washington Square.

  On the way, I called Danny in Boston from a phone booth.

  "Where are you?" he asked. "I've got half the world here looking for you." He was all set to give me the details and the latest news from his garage.

  "I don't have time for stories," I cut him off.

  "You need help?" His voice became confidential and serious.

  "Not yet. I'll call you if I do. Take care of yourself and look out for everyone there. And call if you hear anything."

  "No problem, but call where?"

  There was only one place left that Kate had ever mentioned, and that's where I was going.

  "I'll be hanging around Motti Pizza in New York, Washington Square."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Motti Pizza was noisy and overcrowded. From the large signs out front, I discovered that their specialty was pizza, but they also offered the hungry diner Middle Eastern food and subs. More and more people kept pushing their way in, although no one inside appeared to be in a hurry to leave. It was hot, humid, and cramped. I ordered
pizza and coffee, and managed to shoulder my way to a seat.

  At first glance, the restaurant looked like an over-decorated stable. It was long and narrow, with two rows of tables along the walls. One of the side walls was fake brick, supposedly to give it a British look, and was covered in ornaments celebrating Israel's 25th anniversary, celebrated over fifteen years ago. There were a few color posters of Jerusalem, and even a few photos of former high-ranking officers in the Israeli army. Very former. I figured it was Motti, the owner, showing off his patriotic spirit.

  I looked over at the counter I had passed on my way in. That part of the restaurant looked like the engine room of a ship. There was constant activity, and it was overheated. Two big ovens took up most of the space, and a long spit of lamb turned on an open grill in the shawarma corner. The frenzied cooking had left its mark in the form of several dark oil stains on the ceiling. From the little I could see of the kitchen itself, I figured it was used mainly to store onions, cabbage, and sacks of flour.

  A few days later, when I was an employee of this establishment, I discovered that its reputation was built on the shawarma, and not the pizza. The thing with the shawarma was the special sauce Nissim prepared first thing in the morning, every morning, “According to a secret family recipient that was secretly passed down the family for generations back in Iraq," as he used to tell people who came from faraway places like Philadelphia and Miami, just for the shawarma. People with Mediterranean roots of all kinds, would come over whenever visiting town, humming happily with their eyes half closed. The truth was, there was no secret recipe, unless you call ground goat cheese secret. Nissim would grind it in a huge Magi mix blender, and add oil until it became a sauce for which people would travel hundreds of miles. Occasional workers, who left the place and try to tell the story of the sauce, found that it fell on deaf ears. The legend was stronger than the bare truth.

  "Your first time here, right?" a very friendly blond confronted me.

  "There's always a first time," I gave my well-practiced answer.

  "Do you mind?" Without waiting for a reply, she sat down opposite me. "Don't worry, you'll be back. It's a great place." She ordered shawarma, and when it came, started gnawing at it hungrily.

  "Been in the city long?" she asked, chewing.

  "I got in this morning."

  "And you already found us. Not bad." She must have something to do with the place, and was about to ask what I was doing in New York, my plans, my connection to Israel and all this. I had to change the subject.

  "Tell me, which one is Motti?"

  "Motti?" She leaned back in her seat, laughing. "Motti is history. The only thing left of him here is the name. He opened the place a long time ago, and gave it up after a while. Legend has it, he's now a congressman from Illinois. The owner's Nissim, that guy over there."

  She pointed to a quiet, dark man intently filling pita breads with hummus, falafel, and shawarma.

  "He's supposed to be a student at New York University, but the truth is he owns several major businesses in the city."

  I watched him talking to customers. Everyone seemed to know him and they obviously respected him. She lit a cigarette and tried again to hint that she wouldn't mind getting to know me better.

  "I'm not in the mood to chat today," I said honestly.

  "Excuse me." I didn't know if she was offended or was respecting my wishes. She put out the cigarette, got up, and walked away. I sat there, playing with my coffee cup.

  An hour later the crowd had thinned out. The students had gone back to their dorms or to some jazz club; the tourists had gone on to the off-Broadway theaters; couples who had met five minutes earlier in the restaurant went out together for a movie and a drink; the rest had gone back to their lonely holes. The people at the next table were having some kind of heated argument about Central America. The loudest one answered to the name of Miller and was regaling them with his experiences there.

  "In Guatemala," he asserted, "one hundred and fifty thousand people live in the capital and play the government's game, and eight million live in the mountains. They don't know anything about their government, and they don't want to know. Their major concern is how to avoid paying taxes and how to hide their young men so they don't get hauled off to the army by the government or the rebels."

  "Come on," an energetic, well-dressed, redheaded guy reacted angrily. "What kind of miserable naivety is that? You can't avoid being involved. You either screw or get screwed. There's no middle ground. Step on or be stepped on. They lick your ass or you lick theirs."

  "All you need is for people to learn the lesson and let other live too. It's a win-win game," offered Nissim, the owner. "Normal people just want to live in peace without being bothered. That's all there is to it. They don't want to rule, most of them, or lick ass, or step on anyone."

  "Yeah, right," said the redhead. "You haven't met my wife yet!" Everybody laughed. "You haven't either, "Nissim answered back, grinning."At least, not for the last six months or so."

  "Did you meet the president?" someone asked.

  "Sure. I usually do." Miller had been waiting for the question. "This time he made us cool our heels for five hours at the airport. He was coming back from the States with new gifts and promises. His plane was late, but he was so delighted nevertheless. He declared a special national holiday in honor of the new special relationship he'd wheedled out of the gringos."

  "So how’s the business now?" someone else asked in a deep baritone.

  Nissim, planted between the grill and the pizza oven, proclaimed, "Special onion pizza for Avihu," and deftly slid the bubbling pizza onto a round cardboard platter on the counter. My fortune goddess was on duty that night after all.

  "Great," Miller answered, "couldn't be better." The baritone passed Miller a confidential smile, and then went over to the counter to collect his pizza.

  *

  Avihu was a good-looking man with dark blond hair and light blue eyes. "Steel gray and blue," said Kate. Maybe. He was very quiet, and projecting power. Without thinking much, I got up and joined his table. By now the restaurant was nearly empty. The only people left were Miller, Avihu, and the owner, who also took a seat at their table, together with me, looking singularly bored.

  "I'm looking for a woman," I said.

  All three turned their startled faces to me.

  "Aren't we all?" Miller was the first to answer. He was stout, his hair dyed coal black, his brow gleaming with sweat, and with eyes that darted about restlessly behind gold framed glasses. A bright red cut showed under his ear, a memento from a careless shave.

  I ignored him. "Her name is Kate Beaver."

  Something awoke in Nissim's eyes for an instant; Avihu scratched his chin; Miller said: "Isn't that one of your American groupies, Nissim?" His eyes had not yet come to rest.

  "What's the story?" Avihu asked in his soft, deep voice, nearly a whisper.

  "A friend of mine," I said, "actually, a cousin, is looking for her."

  "A cousin or a government," Nissim asked.

  "What do you mean, a government?"

  "Who are you? Where do you come from? What's your name?" Miller shot a barrage of questions at me. I answered laconically.

  "What did you come here for?"

  "I told you, I'm looking for Kate."

  Miller eyed me closely, as if he were gathering and filing away as many details as possible.

  "Okay." It was Nissim who finally decided to answer me. "She used to hang out here sometimes. A classy girl. American-Filipino. After a while she became an Israel junkie, but I think she kind of lost it lately. It happens, you know. Tell your friend to check the mental homes."

  Avihu and Miller got up and left. We were alone. Nissim started the daily routine of closing up.

  "Can you tell me more about her?"

  He gave me his full attention. "You're not government, I can spot them, and this isn't about some friend of yours you're trying to help. You have a thing for her, right?"
r />   I nodded and was about to leave when I for the first time realized that I had lost my job today, I had hardly any money left, and I didn't really have anything to go back to. "You wouldn't happen to have a job here?" I asked.

  "What can you do?"

  "Anything you say. I'm a good worker."

  "I can tell. You have a place to stay?"

  I hadn't thought about that yet. "No," I said.

  New York is a tough city. I didn't really know anyone there - except for the people at the consulate. I'm not spoiled, but I didn't fancy sleeping on a park bench. It wasn't only distasteful, it was pretty dangerous. Now that he had asked, I realized how tired I was. I looked at Nissim and he stared back at me.

  I looked trustworthy.

  "What do you do?" he finally asked.

  "Security guard at the consulate in Boston, at least until a week ago."

  Surprised, he let out a whistle.

  "Not bad," he proclaimed. "I don't know why you don't stay with one of your friends from the consulate here in New York, but that's none of my business. You can spend the night in the storeroom. There's a bed and a baseball bat in there. Use it to chase any thieves away, but don't play the hero - I've got insurance. What I can't stand is the mess they leave behind."

  I must have looked pretty down in the dumps, because he felt the need to try to cheer me up.

  "Forget about Kate," he said. "Women like that come and go. If you stay here for a while, you'll find plenty just like her every night."

  Then he left.

  The place was just right for me. In my present state, I couldn't afford unwarranted expenses. The storeroom was far from luxurious, but it was right at the major scene of events and the people who knew Kate, the woman who still made my heart beat faster and I couldn't get out of my thoughts. I remembered the butterfly-shaped barrette in her hair and the scent of lilies. I was exhausted. I must have fallen asleep the minute my head hit the mattress spread out on the floor. In my sleep I heard the whine of police sirens and I couldn't tell if the flashing blue and red lights were real or part of the weird dream I was having. Kate was swimming in the ocean somewhere on the Cape, while I sat on the beach surrounded by people. We were all watching her. Suddenly she started screaming, calling for help.