he’s doing his yogilates.’
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘Yogilates. It’s a mix of … Doesn’t matter. Sit tight. I’ll get him.’
Everything is shiny in Leo’s bar: no cracks in the red leather seats of the booths at the back. It’s obvious these guys don’t need tourists to make money. Shant makes me wait, but I stay casual even though I can feel my ass sweating. This is already wrong. I can’t run a job unless I’m the boss, and he’s letting me know I’m not the boss.
‘Hey.’ The voice is high-pitched. It comes from a pair of spectacles peering over the back of the seats three booths away. The face behind them is a boy, kind of. It’s one of those staring-down-the-barrel-of-puberty faces that’s still making up its mind.
‘Hey.’
The face comes up. It looks at me like I’m a cat that wandered in off the street, not sure whether he’s supposed to pet me or kick me out. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m, uh … waiting for someone.’
‘Oh, you’re here to see my dad.’ Suddenly he sounds bored.
I look again at the eyes. There’s a bony hardness around them that could be Shant. The rest must be his mother. ‘You’re Shant’s son?’
‘Mmm …’
‘Learning the old man’s business, eh?’
‘Yeah.’ The word comes out as a sigh. His head turns so the cheek rests on the top of the booth, like he’s going to sleep. He’s had this conversation before, and he doesn’t want to be here. I don’t blame him. If he was my kid, I for sure would keep him the hell away from all this shit.
‘You should count yourself lucky, kid. You know what my father did?’ The face rises from the seat back, curious. ‘He ran a furniture showroom on the Rehov Hanevi’im.’
‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’
‘Really? What do you think I did all day? Nothing, that’s what. School holidays killed me. To this day, I still get antsy if I smell wood polish.’
‘That does sound boring. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to learn sitting around here. All I see is people come in, start talking, and my dad gets angry.’ His eyes dart around the room; then he leans forward. ‘Some of the kids at school say he hurts people.’
Shit. You can tell by the look on his face: he knows – not the ugly detail, but he can feel what’s not right. Kids are smart like that. I mean, my dad was a fucker, but the worst he ever did was leave a few bruises on us, and Mom if she got loud. He never buried anyone in an underpass. What can I say? He’s looking at me, waiting for an answer, a guy who just walked in off the street, like somehow my opinion matters.
‘Those kids don’t know what they’re talking about. Would I be here if your dad was gonna hurt me?’
‘I guess not.’ He looks happier, but not much. I guess he probably wanted me to tell him his dad was really the greatest guy on the planet, but he’d know I was lying. Sometimes the truth sucks, but it’s what you’ve got. ‘You know, the other guys who come around here don’t say more than two words to me.’
‘Well, they’re idiots. Maybe that’s why your dad has to shout at them.’ The sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs drags me back to reality. ‘Don’t worry about learning the business. All that “follow in your father’s footsteps” stuff is for schmucks with no imagination. You do you, kid.’
He gives me a grin that looks nothing like his father.
Shant Manoukian appears from an arched doorway with no door at the back of the room, big but lean in a loose tracksuit, all smiles and handshakes. A faint sheen of sweat gives his face a movie-star glow. He looks at the kid for a second, seems about to say something, then shrugs and turns to me.
‘I see you met Kyle. Sorry to keep you waiting. I was just finishing up my yogilates.’ I never heard that word before Leo said it. It must be some bullshit workout thing. I’m hoping for the purposes of this conversation it won’t matter. Whatever, he’s not sorry. White teeth flash every time he grins, which is a lot.
‘Yeah, Leo said.’
‘You should try it, man. Your posture could use a little work.’ My spine twitches with the urge to straighten.
‘You sound like my mother.’
‘Ha! I like you, Levi. You’re a funny guy. So, Leo tells me you got a job. What’s the deal?’
‘Ten K for a week of planning, executing next week, half now, half on completion.’
Shant nods in mock approval. ‘You sure you got five K, Levi? That pays for my time but what’s the job?’
I give him the same line Mizrachi gave me – listening to the details constitutes agreement to complete the job. His face tells me exactly how shitty that line is. The movie-star head starts to shake slowly, almost sympathetically. He holds up a hand like a traffic cop.
‘You’re talking about signing up blind. That’s not professional. Maybe Uncle Leo said something to you about risks. He looks out for me, but I run my own business. I can take risks; it just costs is all. One hundred K, fifty up front. You got fifty in your pocket, Levi Peres?’
I start making out that I’m good for the money, but when I get to the part about only ten K up front he looks like he’s sucking something sour. I stop talking and his expression softens.
‘Levi, it’s not for me. You’re a smart kid; I can see that. Leo would tell me to nod and smile and keep pumping you for info, but I respect you for coming here. I respect you for trying to make this work, but it’s no good. Walk away from this. Have you thought about Gaza?’
We shake hands. As I head out the door, Uncle Leo gives me a mock salute with the stub of his cigar. All that respect stuff was bullshit. Shant figured out it’s a job they don’t want to steal, so he found a quick way to end the conversation. In a way it doesn’t matter. They’ll forget about the job they didn’t do, but they’ll remember we had this conversation. After this, Levi Peres can sit down and talk business with anyone in this city, which is great, but it doesn’t get me out of my hole with Safar. Only money’s going to do that, but I have a manpower problem, and not enough money to fix it.
From a distance, the Mission is a white hole in the dark of the Old City. As Clementine gets near she can see the cracks the whitewash doesn’t cover. In the gothic-arched doorway the smell hits her: an intense urine tang. The deranged cluster in the shadows, dark piles of shambling rags drawn to this place of succour, but repelled by some ineffable magnetism from the door itself. A pair of yellow eyes, slitted like a cat’s, watches her pass from beneath a concealing hood, the expression impossible to read.
Inside,
