The Jerusalem Puzzle. Laurence O’Bryan

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      I was deflated. This wasn’t going to be easy. I’d hoped for a busy street with shops, cafes maybe, people we could talk to, ask if they’d seen an American of Kaiser’s description. He hadn’t been a quiet guy who could escape attention. But this was a long street full of anonymous apartment buildings.

      ‘What’s your plan?’ said Isabel.

      ‘I thought we might have dinner? Look at all the restaurants,’ I gestured around us.

      She put her hands on her hips, turning on her heel. ‘Yes, what a big choice.’

      A pizza delivery motorbike went past. ‘There is pizza somewhere,’ I said.

      ‘Wonderful, are you going to run after him?’ The noise of the disappearing motorbike faded into the distance.

      ‘Let’s walk that way.’ I pointed back down towards the Old City. ‘He has to have stayed one side of this roundabout. That gives us a fifty percent chance of being right.’ We walked onto the pavement.

      The weather was getting even more gloomy. It was 3.30 p.m. and colder than I’d expected, like London in mid-March. All we needed was for it to start raining.

      Up ahead, where the road curved, a red car was parked. As we watched, it pulled away. A group of young people were coming towards us. They were moving like a rolling party, the boys swirling around the outside of the group in long t-shirts mostly with the names of obscure bands on them. The girls were laughing, linking arms.

      As they came near I approached one of the boys. He was tall, had Clark Kent glasses and a puzzled expression.

      ‘Do you know an American archaeologist living around here?’ I said.

      His accent was all New York when he answered. ‘Yeah right, half the professors in our university look like American archaeologists.’

      One of the girls stopped in front of us. ‘What are you people doing in Israel?’ she said. She had a thick wave of curly brown hair and a friendly smile.

      ‘We’re looking for a friend of ours who got lost,’ said Isabel.

      They were all in their late teens or early twenties.

      ‘Everybody’s looking for somebody,’ said the girl.

      The guy was eyeing up Isabel; most men found her attractive I’d noticed. He was giving her a big grin. ‘You wanna come with us for a few beers,’ he said. He didn’t even look at me. Isabel’s straight black hair and dark tight jeans took at least five years off her age. She could have easily passed for someone in her late twenties.

      ‘You can come too,’ said the girl. She pushed her hair away from her face. ‘We’re all going to a party. Are you Jewish?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘It don’t matter,’ she said. ‘I can hear an American accent under there.’

      ‘I grew up in the States,’ I said. ‘Then my dad was stationed in England.’

      ‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘Having to listen to Oasis every day.’

      ‘I like Oasis.’

      Isabel was looking at me sceptically. I motioned for us to go along with them. We might be able to ask them a few questions about what went on in this neighbourhood.

      As we walked, the girl turned to her friend. She was taller than the first girl. She was grinning at me. I looked away. The next time I looked at her she had a big joint in her mouth and there was a trail of blue smoke coming from it like a steaming power plant. This was not what I needed. Getting arrested was not in the plan.

      ‘I think you better throw that away,’ I said, turning back to the girl. ‘There’s a police car right behind us.’ It was true. I’d just spotted it. They had to be trailing this group.

      The girl turned her head fast, then looked back at me. ‘Goddamn it,’ she said.

      The joint fell from her fingers.

      ‘We’ll catch up with you later,’ I said. I took Isabel’s arm.

      ‘They’re all going to get arrested any minute now.’ Isabel waved goodbye as we peeled away from them. We headed for an entranceway, as if we were going into one of the apartment buildings.

      ‘I don’t think spending a night in the cells is going to help us.’

      ‘They might have known something,’ said Isabel.

      I shook my head. ‘There has to be a better way than this.’

      I stopped, bent down to tie the laces on my trainers. I was facing back towards the road. The police car passed us at walking speed. The officer on our side, who had big glasses on, stared intently at us as they passed. I gave her a smile in return. What could they do to us, charge us with talking to someone?

      ‘I have an idea,’ I said.

      ‘I hope it’s better than your last one.’

      ‘Come on.’

      We walked to the bottom of the road. Ten minutes later we were at the nearest takeaway pizza place.

      ‘No, I want to sit down and eat,’ said Isabel. ‘Not eat pizza at the side of the road.’

      ‘You don’t have to eat anything,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

      I pulled two red two hundred shekel notes from my wallet. Then I went to the delivery guy by the big glass window of the pizza place. He was leaning against his motorbike and had big earphones on. I began talking. He took the earphones off.

      ‘Hi, can you help us? I’m supposed to meet a friend of mine here for a party. He’s an American, a guy called Max Kaiser. He’s a big guy, with bushy black hair, a young-looking professor. He lives on Jabotinsky, but for the life of me I can’t remember which number. If you can tell me where he lives, I’ll give you this.’ I pushed the two notes forward. ‘I don’t want to miss my chance with that one.’ I nodded towards Isabel.

      The boy, he seemed more Arab than Jewish, looked at me as if I was certifiable. He had patches of beard on his face and a collection of beaded necklaces hanging from his neck.

      ‘Can’t help,’ he said. ‘Don’t know who you’re talking about.’ He turned away, making it clear that even if he did know something, he wasn’t going to tell me anything useful.

      ‘How many delivery guys does this place have?’

      He glanced at me, then looked away, putting his phone to his ear as if he’d suddenly remembered he had an urgent phone call to make.

      I went into the shop, asked the guy behind the counter how many delivery people they had. He looked at me as if he had no idea what language I was even speaking in. He pointed up at the plastic sign above his head. Another bigger guy was looking at us steadily, as if getting ready to pull a baseball bat out at the first sign of trouble. Though, considering what country we were in, he probably had a legally held UZI СКАЧАТЬ