The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 by B. Hesse Pflingger

Author:B. Hesse Pflingger [Pflingger, B. Hesse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tinderboxed Press
Published: 2014-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

4 | Bazaar

I slipped back out through the door, held stock-still on the sidewalk for a moment or two, then eased away along the street until out of the lobby’s windows’ line of sight. I took a seat inside a handy café across the way from which I could watch the hotel door, ordered a tea, and waited. Presently Grotesqcu emerged and sauntered down Avenue Roosevelt. It was him, all right. Like myself he had a changeling face—you couldn’t always be sure you’d seen him before—but this time there was no mistaking. The broad face, the straw-colored hair under a Panama hat, his pasty northern European complexion a little more sun-tanned this time. When he’d disappeared I left some rials on the table and returned to the Semiramis.

Rachael still sat where she’d been. As I approached she exclaimed, “Jake! Fancy meeting you here.”

“Rachel! What the hell are you…?” I took Grotesqcu’s empty seat.

“Oh, same as you, carpets and stuff.”

“Ben sent you? I don’t see the point. How did you wind up in the lobby here?”

“Well, actually I was sort of waiting for you. The clerk said you’d be back soon. Ben must have told me this is where you were staying. Didn’t you give Ben your forwarding address?”

Since I hadn’t known my address until I arrived, and hadn’t sent it to Ben, I knew that wasn’t true. She’d ferreted it out somehow. “That man you were talking to, who is he?”

“Somebody I met just now, waiting for you. He came over and started chatting me up. Said he’s a caviar merchant from Russia, here on a buying trip. Interesting guy. What, did you come in earlier?” Said very innocently. She’d spotted me.

“Ben’s more than just a carpet salesman,” I suggested. “This goes beyond carpets.”

“Well, yeah. Ben’s kind of involved in things. Has been for a long time, going back to the 40s, in Israel. He keeps track of happenings in this region.”

“What was he doing in the ‘40s?”

“Well, earlier he was a partisan in Belarus during the War, managed to avoid the death camps. Lived in the woods and swamps, survived by ambushing SS patrols and stealing their supplies. After the war he made his way to Israel with a bunch of displaced persons, got married, wound up in the Irgun with Menachem Begin until Deir Yassin, where he found out he no longer had the stomach for that kind of fighting. So he and his wife bailed out and went to America, taking Little Orphan Rachel along with them. Yes, I’m adopted, another D P. He had some cousins in California in the carpet business, et voila! He’s stayed in the game, doing what he can to help the cause from over there, and there’s more to do than you’d think. He brought me in when Chet Alverson queried him about prepping you for a gig in Iran. Big Oil? CIA covert ops guy? A carpet buyer as cover? We wondered, what’s up with this? Might be something interesting.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.