Murder in Jerusalem by Batya Gur Read Free Book Online Page B

urgent.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” Zadik said, acquiescing. “But for now, take a seat.”
    Hefetz quickly scooted his chair aside, closer to Erez, and Rubin took a seat at the corner of the conference table. Aviva, who was standing behind him, placed a soft hand on his shoulder, pressing gently, while David Shalit caught his glance, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. It really was an insufferable situation; no one knew what to say or what to think. Arye Rubin lifted the page and glanced at it. Hefetz was watching Natasha as she cast Rubin a questioning look, then threw her canvas bag on the corner sofa next to the water dispenser.
    â€œThere’s no choice,” Hefetz said again, wrenching his gaze from Natasha, who was leaning on the wall next to the sofa and playing with the fringes of her red wool scarf. “As they say, we don’t have the luxury of mourning. Do we have that luxury? No, we don’t. We’ve got to discuss the lineup.”
    â€œSo what have we got today?” Zadik asked with a sigh. “The way it looks to me is that today the strike is entering a new phase, the taxi drivers and the whole health system out on an open-ended strike. Soon they’re going to take to the streets. So, what have you people got?”
    â€œBen Gurion Airport, trash collection,” Erez said. “We’ll start with a piece on the trash in Tel Aviv, we’ve got pictures for the opening credits, and lots of stories from the airport.”
    â€œYesterday I said—about the airport—bring in an interesting angle, something new: foreign workers, Arabs,” Hefetz complained. “I said get some foreign workers, didn’t I? I did, that’s what I said. And it’s not a bad idea to get on the phone with some folks stuck overseas, is it? No, not a bad idea at all.”
    â€œOverseas? Why overseas? We’ve got a general strike right here, lots of stuff going down,” David Shalit interrupted. As always when he was talking about something that mattered to him, his forehead turned red and he blushed to the tip of his pointed chin, concealing the freckles that dotted his cheeks. “The overseas operator is connecting people stuck overseas free of charge. In Tel Aviv…”
    â€œYesterday I heard that soldiers have been fighting over seats on buses,” Niva added from the far end of the conference table, where she was engaged in disentangling the phone cord from the receiver of the hotline.
    â€œGuys,” Erez said, raising his voice as he tinkered with the metal frame of his glasses, “we’ve got the Mossad affair, Zohar’s handling it, he’s got some great stuff.”
    â€œWhere is Zohar? Isn’t he in Turkey covering the exercises the IDF is doing with the Turkish army?”
    â€œTell me something,” Miri the language editor interjected, removing her reading glasses. “Don’t you think it’s high time we do something about those daily ads that keep appearing in Haaretz, the ones that read LIAR? Don’t you think people are interested in knowing who’s behind them, and who’s the liar? After all, they cost a fortune.” She stared expectantly at Hefetz.
    â€œNo,” Hefetz said to Erez, “Zohar is back in the country, but he phoned to say he’d be late. He doesn’t even know about Tirzah yet, about what happened. Something’s going on, I don’t even know where. He went out with a crew…he’ll be calling soon.”
    â€œEveryone knows who those ads are about,” Aviva said, her lower lip protruding. “Who doesn’t know that the liar is Bibi Netanyahu?”
    â€œAre you certain about that?” Miri asked as she raised her thick-lensed glasses to her eyes and leaned forward to read from the lineup. “Sometimes what seems totally obvious—”
    â€œA thousand percent certain,” Aviva answered assuredly.