Tel Aviv Noir Page 2

  She said they didn’t tell her sister anything. Poor girl, she was a soldier, she didn’t need this drama. That sister, she said, was something special. She learned how to play the piano from a young age. One day, when her sister was in the sixth grade, Shiri came home and heard music. The door was unlocked. She walked in and couldn’t believe her eyes. Her sister was wearing one of her mom’s sleeping masks, the kind they give out on flights. She was blindfolded, playing some classical music on the piano, swaying from side to side, immersed in the music. I yelled at her, she said. I told her she was wearing a mask while the door was unlocked, that someone could come in and take everything and she wouldn’t even notice. But the truth is, she said, I yelled because I envied her. I was always so involved in my parents’ shit, I knew everything. But that little girl had an escape. She’s a good soul, my sister, she said. Clean. She herself was never clean. She was a wild girl who hung with wild people. She started doing drugs in seventh grade. Things only changed when her mother died and she took over the business and became the responsible adult.

  So she went to Bnei Brak to meet with the gorillas’ boss. Loan sharks put on a friendly face until you owe them money. This Orthodox guy, about forty years old, long brown beard, big smile, was sitting in the gallery of a furniture store. The gallery held the office, and overlooked the showroom on the ground floor. This was the person who loaned her father the money. He preached to her about responsibility. When a man takes someone else’s money, he should have a plan for how to pay it back. Her father told him the money was intended for expanding the business, but then he played the money away and was left with nothing. So what’s the collateral? The business. She told him the property that held their business was mortgaged, and that the business itself was worth about 400,000, which didn’t cover the debt, certainly not with interest. The rest, he said, she should have her father pay back, or find a way to pay it back herself, he didn’t care. She told him she would, she just needed a few days to get it together. She cried a little. He let her cry and then pretended to soften up and offered a solution. She’s a pretty girl, he said. He could connect her with an escort agency his friend owned. They’d treat her well, make sure no one tried to give her any trouble. She told him to forget about it, she’d deal with it herself. He gave her a week to think things over. She told him she didn’t need to—she’d transfer the business over to him, and then pay an additional fifty per month. It was her business how, not his. He did the math on the piece of paper. With interest, it would take her a year and a half to pay everything back. So that’s that, she said. She really needed the money. She paid the first couple months using a bank loan, but now she had nothing left.

  I felt myself falling in love with her, but I didn’t take it seriously—that’s how you feel on MD, you could fall in love with anything. She was high too. She sucked me off, this time like she was hungry for it. Come in my mouth, she said. I came in her mouth. Unbelievable.

  The truth is, I wasn’t totally sure it was only the MD, so I kept my distance, just in case. Falling in love wasn’t part of my plan. I didn’t need any trouble. I didn’t invite her over again, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because I did. It wasn’t about money. I didn’t care about the money. But I kept thinking about her. Her thighs in those cutoffs. Her smile. Her voice. And that sister, playing the piano with a mask on, I even thought about her sometimes too. I never saw her in the store after that, she had some guy working there instead.

  I had other things to think about, like that dumb law about advertising prostitution. It was almost specifically directed against me. I mean, against Nightlife. And the people who put escort service business cards under windshield wipers. Smart-asses, the self-righteous nuts who came up with this law. They try to protect the prostitutes, but who do they end up hurting? The prostitutes. If there’s any method to lawmaking where prostitution is concerned, this is it: the prostitutes get fucked over.

  It’s not like I started Nightlife to help anybody out. I started it because it gave me the kind of standing no one else had with these girls. I knew them, I hung out with them, I learned their secrets, I heard all about their lives. They turned to me before they turned to each other. It’s an isolating profession. How were these girls supposed to explain their experiences or problems to their friends from school or from home? They couldn’t even begin to describe the kinds of things they’ve seen and the people they’ve met. We all walk inside the grid of normal life. But they walk under it, crossing all the lines diagonally. The world doesn’t just look different from that angle, it looks upside down. I’m not trying to say that’s where you see the truth. It’s a half-truth, the half most people don’t want to see. That doesn’t mean most people live a lie—they just live one half of the truth. And those girls, they see the other half. It’s not more true, even if they think it is, it’s just the other side of it. But it’s also true. So they have each other, and they have other people here and there who understand it: drivers, brothel owners, some clients. But the clients are on the opposite side of the fence, and I spend part of my time on that side and the rest on the girls’ side. That’s how I like it. I may not be their true friend, but I’m someone they can talk to. I spend a lot of time with them. They’re a collection of wild-child types and crazies like you’ve never seen, and that’s what I like about it. I don’t know why. It’s like they’ve given up on being normal, which is like jumping off a cliff. Like trying to fly. You can’t fly. But I still like people who have the guts to try. Normal life always seemed like walking death to me anyway.

  At any rate, I didn’t start the paper to help anyone. I started it for me. For money, for status. But at the same time, I cut out what the law calls “pimps.” Escort service owners. I never advertised services, only girls. Which meant I cut the middlemen. Services get you clients but take half the money for each appointment. Girls who advertised through me got clients through the paper and kept the entire sum. They didn’t work for the driver; the driver worked for them. It’s like I short-circuited the entire market. Lots of service owners found themselves with much less work. And they didn’t like me for it. But by the time they figured out what was happening, they were so busy fighting each other for whatever work was left that they couldn’t afford to take me on. So I got some threats. I even went to the police once when it seemed like more than just talk. But mostly these guys aren’t serious criminals. They’re amateurs. And those they pay protection money to, the real criminals, they didn’t care enough to start a war. Why would they? They knew me. I hooked them up with the best girls. I knew the face behind each ad. Who else would they call to ask about new girls and find somebody who’s their type?

  So when this law was passed, I replaced the word Escort with the word Massage in all my ads, and put a red caption that read No Sex on each one. I read the law carefully on the Knesset website. It says you can’t advertise escort services under the pretense of massage. So it says. So what? To verify that you’re actually advertising sex services, they would have to check out each provider, and the police weren’t dumb enough to create more work for themselves. They’d be turning a whole market sector into more work. Why would they?

  But you can’t be sure until you try. Two months passed, and I published two issues, and nothing happened. That didn’t confirm anything, but it was a good start. I was about to print the third issue. I was on the phone in my office when Shiri walked in, pale. No light in her eyes, nothing. Scared. She was holding this big brown envelope. She put it down on the table and paced around the office. She lit a cigarette. She looked terrific. Made up, in her work clothes. Tight jeans, thin button-down blouse, kind of vintage-looking and almost see-through. A nice black bra under it.

  I don’t know if I can even say anything, she said. She kept pacing, wouldn’t sit down. Maybe I should keep quiet.

  I told her she could tell me. She had no one else to talk to, and it was clear she couldn’t keep this to herself, whatever it was.

  Finally she
sat down and pulled a wad of cash from the envelope. Fifteen thousand shekels. Six hours. That’s 9,000 charged and an extra 6,000 in tips. She stared at me as if I could solve a riddle for her. But there was no riddle. I could tell she already knew this. That kind of money was no tip. It was violence. She was wound up like a spring from all the coke they did. She’d been at his place since eleven that morning. Her nose was running. She kept sniffing.

  It wasn’t her first time with this client. The first time was about a week before. A two-hour booking. Three people, all loaded, and all clearly criminals. It was all right. There were other girls there, but the guy who asked for her acted like a real king. At first she enjoyed it. It was the penthouse at the Carlton Hotel. Guards at the door. These were powerful people and she thought they might one day even help her with her little Orthodox loan shark. Who knows? They liked her. They could tell she was no sucker, because she didn’t act scared. She stood her ground, asked for more money the minute their time was up, and definitely didn’t give them the feeling that coke would buy them more time. It amused her to see them fighting over her, until the one who acted like the boss didn’t let anybody else touch her. She went home with all sorts of plans on how to leverage this relationship.

  But this time it was different. Stressful. His driver called her up. He sounded Russian, said his boss wanted her to come for an hour. He told her to wait on the street, he’d pick her up. She didn’t realize it was one of the three guys she met last time. Anyway, two black Lexus sedans came by. Darkened windows. This gorilla steps out of one car and opens the door for her. There’s another one already in the car. She couldn’t see who was in the second car. The driver was the one with the Russian accent. He tried to act smart. He congratulated her on her high price. He wanted to know why it was so expensive. Fifteen hundred an hour, he said, your pussy must be made of velvet and gold. A comedian. She didn’t laugh. Told him to watch his mouth. He did. She knew how to handle herself, and he probably didn’t want his boss to hear that he misbehaved. They drove like that, in silence, until they reached the Yoo Towers. They drove into the underground parking lot and pulled over at an elevator. The driver and the other guy walked with her, and another gorilla stayed to watch the cars. Sunglasses, suits. Big showoff. She walked inside.

  Two armed men with security company logos on their T-shirts sat in the apartment lobby. At first she thought she’d been brought to entertain some politician or something. But it was that same guy from last time. He’d prepared. He dressed up, poured about a gallon of aftershave on himself. She felt things were getting out of hand. This wasn’t how you treated a call girl. It’s how you treated your date. She decided to act as if nothing was wrong, as if everything was under control. She asked him if he had taken a shower and he said he had. She said she needed one herself. It kills about ten minutes from the appointment. She took her time, because she knew she couldn’t show weakness around power. She came out wearing a bathrobe he left there for her. It was an enormous apartment, but not for a family. It was his bachelor pad. She sat down on a chair and put her feet up on the coffee table. She studied her French pedicure, as if this was what concerned her now.

  He liked that she wasn’t scared. He asked if she knew who he was. She said she didn’t. He asked if she read the papers. She said, Probably not the pages you read. He laughed. He introduced himself: Victor Simianof. She watched me carefully when she said that name. But I kept my cool. She was silent for a bit, then asked if I knew who he was. I told her I did. I didn’t have any personal acquaintance with people of his caliber, but yes, I knew of him. He was pretty big in the Bukharan community in the ’90s, but when the Russian immigration began he climbed over all the old Bukharan mobsters and the new Russian mobsters and took a seat at the very top. He was a name you didn’t see very often in papers, but he was one of the biggest five or six mobsters in Israel. This was no laughing matter. She said nothing. Maybe she was wondering how she dared put her feet up on his table. Maybe she was thinking she took it too far.

  She breathed deep, then continued talking. He said he wanted to book her for six hours if she was willing to give him a special price. She said she wouldn’t. Six hours cost 9,000 shekels. Special prices you can get at department stores, she said, whereas she was one of a kind. She also told him it didn’t seem as if he had any money problems. He liked that. He said cool. She counted the 9,000 shekels and put the money in her purse. Then he picked up her purse and opened it. She thought maybe he was only kidding about the six hours and was going to take the money back. No. Instead he pulled out her cell phone, turned it off, and took out the battery. I’m a careful man, he said. That’s why I’m still around. He smiled. She said nothing, but she could tell this was serious.

  When they began messing around she relaxed a little. He gave her a few lines of coke but didn’t do any himself. They fucked, drank some wine, laughed. Then he fell asleep and she watched television. His siesta cost him 3,000 shekels and a gram of coke. Then he woke up, they fucked again, he offered her more coke, and this time did some himself. He touched her a little, wanted her to touch him, and that was it. In the end, just like everyone else, he asked what a girl like her was doing, working as an escort. She told him what she told everyone else: she needed the money. But he wouldn’t drop it. What does a twenty-six-year-old need this kind of money for? She said she was saving up for an apartment. She could tell he wasn’t buying it. He said, Look, baby, I’m not stupid, so let’s make a deal: don’t lie to me, okay? It insults me. A good twenty-six-year-old girl doesn’t become a prostitute because she wants her own apartment. Don’t mess with me. He smiled. So are you going to tell me, he asked, or should I find out for myself?

  So she told him about her dad who gambled all his money away. He thought that was funny. Maybe he lost it in my casino, he told her. Maybe he owes it to me. She said he didn’t. He owed nothing to a casino, he owed it to loan sharks. He laughed again. You’re naive like a little girl, he told her. The loan sharks might be working for me too. He offered to help her out. Any notions about how someone like him could save her flew right out the window. She knew this was not a guy you wanted to owe a favor to. She had brains.

  She lit another cigarette and stared at me, wide-eyed. You think he could find out about me? she asked. I shrugged. I told her I wasn’t sure what more there was to find out. He already knew she was an escort. I said he probably wouldn’t go to the trouble of checking her out too much. He must hire lots of girls. I told her not to panic, not to try to disappear on him, not to give him a reason to chase her. Even if he liked her, he’d get over it. He didn’t care that much about her debt. He wouldn’t pay that kind of money just to show off. She stayed silent. Don’t be rude to him, I said. Not because he’d punish you, but because it turns him on that you hold your own. Be a little more submissive, and he’ll get bored. A quarter-smile flickered on her face for a second. She pushed the blinds and gazed out. Her eyes went soft. Lost in thought. She turned to face me again. Can I spend the night with you? she asked. I said sure. She sniffed. She was still all wound up from the coke.

  * * *

  She took a shower at my place and we watched television in the living room. She still wasn’t calm. Eventually I took her to the bedroom and gave her some Bondormin to help her fall asleep. I got in bed with her. She wanted to put her head on my chest and just lie there quietly for a bit, but then suddenly, I don’t know what came over her, she asked me to go down on her. I thought I misheard, but yeah, that’s what she said. That’s the kind of girl she was. I was glad to do it. She came, and then fell asleep. I lay there for another hour with her head on my chest and the smell of her hair in my nostrils. Then I gently pushed her off and lay her on her back. She folded over to her side again. I went to the living room, had a beer, and watched a show about Nazi U-boats. I couldn’t concentrate. I turned it off. I went back to bed, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I lay next to her on my side, my arm curled under my head. I watched her face on
the pillow. Her eyebrows. She wasn’t calm, even in her sleep. Who knew what was going through her mind? I don’t know how much time passed, but when her phone rang, I jumped. It was her work phone. I suddenly felt enraged at her clients. I grabbed the ringing phone and went to the living room. I answered. This guy wanted to know what he’d get for so much money. Smart-ass. I told him that for so little money, she’d barely give him a blow job with a rubber, let alone fuck him. He sounded insulted. I said, Listen up, asshole, you’ll never fuck a girl like that in your life, so 1,500 is charity for a scumbag like you. Then I hung up. I don’t know why I did that. I smoked a cigarette and paced the living room. Finally I put her phone on silent and went back to bed. I watched her for another hour or two, just lying there and thinking before I finally fell asleep.

  When I woke up she was still asleep. She had twenty-one missed calls. Even with that kind of price, there was demand. Or maybe it was because of that kind of price. She slept till ten.

  * * *

  And that’s how things went on. First she slept over twice a week, then almost every night. It was crazy how we found a home in the middle of our messy lives. I stopped asking other girls over. I didn’t feel like it. She kept working, and as strange as it may sound, it turned me on. When she came home from shifts, I’d fuck her like an animal. That was our best sex. Some girls get horny after their shifts. People don’t realize it, but it can be like that. They fake orgasms at work. They try not to actually have them. That’s losing control. It breaks down the barriers a girl builds so that she can live her life: I’m here for the money, you’re here for me, and we never switch roles. But still—they’re having sex all night. Even just the friction can get you hot. That’s how she was, anyway. Maybe I didn’t need anyone else not just because I liked her, but because she fit my kinky side perfectly: I was the closest person to her, the only one who wasn’t a client.