An Accidental Messiah Read online

  The Brit took the hint and almost strangled himself on the seatbelt strap in his rush to get out of the car.

  Alex kept the motor running and turned up the air conditioning. He did not get out of the car or enter the post office. He glanced at his wrist watch. There was no need to rush. Yesterday he had posted an ad of his own on Yad2 and arranged to meet an eager buyer at this very spot in another ten minutes. Within the space of a half hour, Alex’s street magic would have earned him ten thousand shekels, without ever having the car registered in his name. Now you see it, now you don’t.

  His phone rang.

  He knew the caller’s number by heart, although he wasn’t careless enough to add the number to his list of contacts. That number meant trouble.

  He answered but did not say hello.

  “I have a job for you,” said the deep voice on the phone.

  A jar of acid shattered in Alex’s gut. The last job Mandrake had assigned him had almost broken him.

  “I already have a job, remember?”

  “I know, my friend. But this job requires… your special brand of magic.”

  Refusal was not an option.

  Alex said, “I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 12

  At 6 AM on Wednesday, Moshe broke the law. From the sidewalk of Kaplan Street, the Knesset building peeked above the bushes like a broad, flat fortress, and Moshe had prepared for a long siege.

  Dry Bones Society volunteers offloaded equipment from two minivans: placards, fliers, empty packing crates, folding tables, and a large supply of bottled water. Irina and Samira climbed ladders and tied a large banner to the perimeter fence, while Shmuel oversaw the construction of a makeshift platform. The banner read, “LET US LIVE!” and volunteers handed out black shirts emblazoned with the words, “I AM ALIVE TOO.”

  Moshe had asked Galit, Rabbi Yosef, and Rafi—anyone with a valid identity card and something to lose—to stay away. Savta Sarah had put up a fight. “An army marches on its stomach,” she had said. Moshe had accepted her food but refused to put her in harm’s way or to involve any of them in the illegal demonstration.

  The police had given him no choice. He had filled in the Urgent Protest Application form on the Israel Police website, only to receive a call an hour later notifying him that his request had been denied because his identity number belonged to a dead man.

  By the time the first vehicles arrived, the picket line had formed along the sidewalk. Their signs read, “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL” and “OUR BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS.” Shmuel led the chant on a megaphone. Ha’am. Doresh. Zedek chevrati! The People. Demand. Social justice!

  Soon, the picket line extended around the street corner.

  “How many do we have so far?” Moshe asked Irina. She was handing out fliers.

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but we just ran out of shirts.”

  “How many did we print?”

  “Five hundred.”

  Moshe whistled. The turnout was better than he had expected. By the time the television vans arrived, the line had become a throng of demonstrators that choked the sidewalk. Then the luxury cars with tinted windows finally trickled in—members of parliament getting a late start to the day. The masses of angry, disenfranchised men and women overflowed into the street and surged around the vehicles. The drivers, with dark glasses and earpieces, honked their horns and crawled toward the safety of the Knesset compound.

  Shmuel handed Moshe the megaphone. “It’s time,” he said.

  Moshe nodded and climbed the wobbly platform of packing crates, those butterflies flapping madly in his belly. A pre-recorded address was one thing; speaking at an illegal demonstration before rolling cameras was quite another.

  He glanced at his audience and the air fled from his lungs. “Dear God,” he gasped. The roads and sidewalks were a sea of people as far as the eye could see. Thousands had answered his call—were there even that many resurrected Israelis? Their chants settled to an expectant murmur as they waited to hear his voice.

  “Welcome, friends.” His voice sounded deeper than usual on the megaphone and his words echoed off the crowded hills. “Thank you for joining us here today.” Cheers spread across the swells of humanity. He waited for silence. “We have gathered here today not to disturb the peace, but because we have no other choice. Many of us here today have been blessed with a second chance at life. We want to be a part of society again. To work. To build. To live with dignity.”

  Another cheer rose in the mass of supporters. “LIVE WITH DIGNITY,” they chanted. Moshe’s pulse quickened but the inner butterflies fell into formation. The thrill of the crowd had an intoxicating effect that focused his attention. He was no longer nervous. When he raised his hand for silence, the crowd obeyed. It was time to get to the point.

  “But the current government,” he continued, “has rejected us.” The people booed. “They tie our hands with red tape. Well, my friends, they can’t hold us back any longer.” A cheer. “We demand—”

  The wail of a police siren interrupted his speech. A large black van with the police emblem—a Star of David within a laurel wreath—on the hood, waded through the crowd toward the platform and then blared its foghorn. A uniformed officer wearing a large shiny police hat stood through an opening in the roof. “Mr. Karlin,” the man roared into a megaphone. “This gathering is illegal. Disperse at once.”

  Angry voices erupted in the crowd. A school of dark uniforms swam through the demonstrators toward him. He had a few seconds before they reached the platform.

  “We will disperse,” Moshe said. “Once the Minister of the Interior fulfills his promise and recognizes us as legal citizens with all the rights and—”

  The siren wailed again. “Mr. Karlin, you are not above the law. Disperse your people at once.”

  A thousand trusting faces looked to him. They had answered his call. They had kept his terms of non-violence and zero damage to property. The least he could do was stand up for them.

  “You’re right,” Moshe said into the megaphone. “We’re not above the law. We’re below the law. You deny us our right to demonstrate and exclude us from society, and so you have no right to silence us or—”

  He did not finish the sentence. Iron hands gripped his legs. His feet slipped from beneath him and the megaphone flew from his hands. He landed hard on the asphalt. Four uniforms pinned him to the ground as he struggled.

  “Let me go!”

  A sweaty officer snarled over him. “Resisting arrest, are you?”

  Then he slammed his baton down on Moshe’s face.

  CHAPTER 13

  Boris waited in the parked van outside the Karlin residence on Shimshon Street and considered his future. The boss had called in an outsider to infiltrate the Dry Bones Society, a task that Boris should have handled himself. A wise man would prove his worth while he could still draw breath.

  The sound of munching from the passenger seat grated on his nerves.

  “Didn’t your mother teach you to chew with your mouth closed?”

  Igor stuffed a handful of puffed maize into his mouth from a jumbo bag of Bamba. The other men called him the Rottweiler, and now his dog breath stank of peanuts.

  He grunted. “Never knew her.”

  That figured. The collapse of the Soviet Union had unleashed hordes of motherless ex-army thugs on the world, many of whom had found a new home in the Organization.

  A white Kia Sportage pulled up outside the Karlin home and a dishy woman with dark hair got out. She unlocked the door of the house and stepped inside without even looking their way. Mrs. Karlin had returned home, and Moshe Karlin now had something to lose. Family and friends were weaknesses and Boris had taken care to accumulate neither.

  Not even Igor. In the five years since the Organization had assigned Igor to him, this was the first time Boris had inquired about his childhood. The thug had muscle for brains but caused no trouble if you kept him well supplied with Bamba to munch and bones to break. The less you knew, th
e less you cared; the less you cared, the longer you lived in this business, and Boris planned to live to a ripe old age.

  He caught glimpses of the woman as she moved through the house. In the kitchen, she took a mug from a shelf and poured a cup of coffee.

  Igor crumpled the empty bag of Bamba, tossed it out the window, and slapped peanut flakes from his hands. “Want me to get her?”

  Boris shook his head. “First we watch and learn. Then, when the time is right—”

  A movement on the sidewalk cut his words short. A hedge between the houses shook. Then a head appeared above the hedge and peered over the leaves. The head had a messy mop of oily hair and a face dark with stubble. The man dashed around the hedge in a rumpled shirt and dirt-stained jeans, and scuttled toward the Karlin home, his back bent in an exaggerated and failed attempt at stealth. The tramp pressed his back to the wall and stole a quick peek through the kitchen window.

  “Well, well, well,” Boris said. “It seems that Mrs. Karlin has a secret admirer.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Avi Segal brushed off his jeans and sucked in a deep breath. You can do this. He hadn’t spoken to Galit since she had stood him up under the chuppah two months ago.

  The love of his life had left him for a zombie. That had hurt, and in a fit of rage he had sworn that he would never have anything to do with the Karlins again. But Galit had never left his thoughts. Not for a moment.

  He shifted from one foot to the other on the threshold of the Karlin home. The house had been his home until Moshe had returned from the grave and stolen Galit from him a second time. This was all Moshe’s fault, but now Avi would take back what was his.

  He pressed the buzzer. High heels clacked in the entrance hall and the door opened.

  Her welcoming smile faded when she laid eyes on him. “You have a lot of nerve, showing up here.”

  Avi needed to talk fast. He didn’t ask for permission to enter. Inside she might throw dishes at him and her aim had improved.

  “I love you, Galit. I need you. Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Moshe did this to us. Can’t you see? He’s vile. Unnatural. He should be six feet under. How can you live under the same roof as him?”

  She gave a derisive laugh. “No, Avi. You did this. With your lies.” Her eyes glanced at his clothing, and derision turned into revulsion. “What’s happened to you?”

  Yes! Sympathy. Make her feel sorry for you.

  “My parents threw me out,” he said. He had slept on their living room couch through the summer, but they had turned him out when he had failed to find a job.

  “Get off your lazy bum,” his mother had said. “We put half our savings into that wedding, and even that went down the drain.” He had run out of credit there.

  “Last night,” Avi told Galit, “I slept on a bench in Gan Sacher.”

  Pity flickered in her eyes for a moment before they hardened. “Good,” she said. “You deserve worse. Is that why you’re here—to leech off us again?”

  The word “us” pierced his gut like a dagger, but the truth was he had nowhere left to go.

  She made to close the door.

  “Wait. Listen, I made mistakes, I know. Please, give me another chance.”

  “You’re crazy. You should never have come here. I don’t want to see you again. Ever.”

  As the door swung shut, Avi blurted, “I’ll tell him!”

  The door cracked open and Galit shot him a frightened look. “Tell him what?” she said but she knew only too well.

  He had not meant to threaten her but she had given him no choice.

  “He still doesn’t remember how he died,” Avi said. “I’ll tell him.”

  Galit took a step back. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Avi stuck out his chest. The balance of power had shifted in his favor. “I don’t want to but I will if that’s what it takes. What will he think of you then?”

  He had her now. A few words to Moshe, and he’d never want to see her again. Avi would do it to get her back, to save her from herself.

  She lifted her nose in the air. “Then you’re a liar and an idiot,” she said, tears distorting her voice, “if you think that threats will make me take you back.”

  She slammed the door.

  “You’re making a big mistake, Galit!” he yelled. “Galit, please!”

  Crap! He had blown it. What was he thinking? He pulled at his hair. Now she feared him and hated his guts. He had lost her for good.

  This was all Moshe’s fault. If not for Moshe, she wouldn’t feel this way.

  Avi slunk away from the house and crossed the street. He needed to find something to eat and a place to sleep tonight. More than that, he needed a plan to turn his life around.

  He didn’t dwell on it for long. As he walked past a parked brown van, a sliding door opened, two large hands pulled him inside, and the door slid shut.

  CHAPTER 15

  Boris turned on the ceiling light of the van. Igor had cleared the interior of seats, covered the floor in plastic sheeting, and tinted the windows black, adapting the vehicle for the smuggling of goods and, presently, the interrogation of captives.

  From the low bench at the back, Boris sized up the tramp. The man kicked and flailed in Igor’s cement lock. Igor grunted and wrinkled his nose. Boris smelled it too. Their visitor hadn’t showered in days. Let’s cut to the chase.

  “What do you want with Moshe Karlin?” he asked.

  “None of your business.”

  Boris glanced at Igor, who straightened his arms, pressing the man’s neck forward and wrenching his shoulder blades back, until the man cried out.

  “I’ll decide what’s my business or not. Is Karlin a friend of yours?”

  “No,” the tramp said. “I hate his filthy guts.”

  “Then why are you at his house?”

  “Galit,” he said. “His wife. She was mine. Until Moshe came back from the dead.”

  Galit. Mrs. Karlin now had a name and Boris had stumbled upon a love triangle. How touching.

  The tramp hung limp in the strongman’s grip. “He used to be my best friend,” he continued, suddenly eager to talk. “But he took everything from me.”

  Boris knew an opportunity when he saw one. “Tell me all you know about the Karlins,” he said.

  “Why should I?”

  The tramp had a short memory, but Boris decided to humor him. “Do you want to destroy Moshe Karlin?”

  The tramp looked up at him and his face contracted with loathing. “More than anything.”

  “Then,” Boris said, “it seems we have something in common.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Hello,” Moshe called through the steel bars of the holding cell. Down the corridor and out of sight, police boots clicked over the grimy square floor tiles.

  An hour ago, he had woken up on the coarse blanket of a low metal cot. The only other furnishing, a metal shelf, hung from a chain on the wall. His calls for attention had received no response.

  With the swing of a baton, he had lost his hard-won liberty. His possessions too. The officers had emptied his pockets of his keys, his phone, and his pocket pack of tissues. He had never felt so helpless. Even Boris’s forced labor camp had provided at least the illusion of freedom. In this bleak detention cell, a man could rot.

  Late afternoon light seeped through the small barred window high on the wall of the corridor. Only a few hours had passed since his brutal arrest outside the Knesset compound. Unless he had lain there unconscious for a whole day. Or days? Did Galit know of his arrest? Had she tried to reach him? She must be worried sick. He had to call her, but his jailers had not answered his cries, never mind offered him a phone call.

  Footfalls echoed down the corridor and grew louder. A policewoman came into view. Finally!

  “Officer,” Moshe said. “Excuse me.”

  She waddled along and passed his cell without even glancing his way.r />
  “Please, ma’am. I need to call my wife.”

  Her back disappeared down the corridor.

  How long were they going to hold him? Was he going to meet with an attorney? What was the punishment for arranging an illegal public gathering? Surely he had the right to a fair trial. Or did the deceased have no civil rights? Without rights, law enforcement was just one more violent gang out to get him.

  He sat down on the hard cot and tried to be patient. He massaged the tender swelling where the baton had connected with his skull. His stomach growled. They’d have to feed him eventually. They couldn’t just let him starve, could they?

  The demonstration had drawn the attention of the authorities, all right, just not the kind of attention he had intended. He had not expected the road to victory to be short and level, but now he thought of little Talya and her dark curls. He had read her Winnie the Pooh before bed last night. Who would read her a bedtime story tonight? Was Galit wondering why he hadn’t come home? He had only just won his way back into their lives. Was he willing to lose them again?

  Regulation boots clicked on the tiles again, and this time the policewoman halted outside his cell. Moshe looked up. Dinner time already? She was not holding a tray of food.

  He stood up and decided to say nothing. Stay calm. Be polite. The change of tactic seemed to work, for the policewoman jingled a chain of keys in her hand.

  “Somebody likes you,” she said.

  She unlocked the gate of the cell and led him down the corridor. A heavy door of thick bars clicked open as they drew near. Did he have a visitor? Would they tell him to change into a prison uniform, then lead him to a long row of booths, where Galit would stare at him through reinforced glass while he spoke to her using a telephone receiver? Moshe had seen that in a movie.