The Kill Artist

business-straight fucking business, Gabriel-and you've given me the right royal shaft. What am I supposed to do about the Vecellio while you're playing games with Ari?"
    "Wait for me," Gabriel said. "This will be over soon, and I'll work day and night on it until it's finished."
    "I don't want a crash job. I brought it to you because I knew you would take your time and do it right. If I wanted a crash job, I could have hired a hack to do it for a third of what I'm paying you."
    "Give me some time. Keep your buyer at bay, and whatever you do, don't sell out to Oliver Dimbleby. You'll never forgive yourself."
    Isherwood looked at his watch and stood up. "I have an appointment. Someone who actually wants to buy a picture." He turned and started to walk away; then he stopped and said, "By the way, you left a brokenhearted little boy behind in Cornwall."
    "Peel," Gabriel said distantly.
    "It's funny, Gabriel, but I never had you figured for the type that would hurt a child. Tell your girl to be at the gallery at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. And tell her not to be late."
    "She'll be there."
    "What am I to call this secretary you're sending me?"
    "You may call her Dominique."
    "Good-looking?" Isherwood said, regaining a bit of his old humor.
    "Not bad."
    TWENTY-ONE
    Maida Vale, London
    Gabriel carried the suitcases in while Jacqueline surveyed her new home, a cramped bed-sit flat with a single window overlooking an inner courtyard. A foldout couch, a club chair of cracked leather, a small writing desk. Next to the window was a flaking radiator and next to the radiator a door leading to a kitchen scarcely larger than the galley on Gabriel's ketch. Jacqueline went into the kitchen and began opening and closing cabinets, sadly, as if each was more repulsive than the last.
    "I had the bodel do a bit of shopping for you."
    "Couldn't you have found something a little bit nicer?"
    "Dominique Bonard is a girl from Paris who came to London in search of work. I didn't think a three-bedroom maisonette in Mayfair was appropriate."
    "Is that where you're staying?"
    "Not exactly."
    "Stay for a few minutes. I find the thought of being alone here depressing."
    "A few."
    She filled the kettle with water, placed it on the stove, and switched on the burner. Gabriel found tea bags and a box of shelf milk. She prepared two mugs of tea and carried them into the sitting room. Gabriel was on the couch. Jacqueline removed her shoes and sat across from him, knees beneath her chin. "When do we start?"
    "Tomorrow night. If that doesn't work, we'll try the next night."
    She lit a cigarette, threw back her head, blew smoke at the ceiling. Then she looked at Gabriel and narrowed her eyes. "Do you remember that night in Tunis?"
    "Which night?"
    "The night of the operation."
    "Of course I remember it."
    "I remember it as though it were yesterday." She closed her eyes. "I especially remember the trip across the water back to the boat. I was so excited I couldn't feel my body. I was flying. We had actually done it. We had walked right into that bastard's house in the middle of a PLO compound and taken him out. I wanted to scream with joy. But I'll never forget the look on your face. You were haunted. It was as if the dead men were sitting next to you in the boat."
    "Very few people understand what it's like to shoot a man at close range. Even fewer know what it's like to place a gun against the side of his head and pull the trigger. Killing on the secret battlefield is different from killing a man on the Golan or Sinai, even when it's a murderous bastard like Abu Jihad."
    "I understand that now. I felt like such a fool when we got back to Tel Aviv. I acted like you had just scored the winning goal, and all the while you were dying inside. I hope you can forgive me."
    "You don't need to apologize."
    "But what I don't understand is how Shamron enticed you back after all these years."
    "It has nothing to do with Shamron. It's about Tariq."
    "What about Tariq?"
    Gabriel sat silently for a moment, then stood and walked to the window. In the courtyard a trio of boys kicked a ball in amber lamplight, old newspaper floating above them in the wet wind like cinder.
    "Tariq's older brother, Mahmoud, was a member of Black September. Ari Shamron tracked him to Cologne, and he sent me to finish him off. I slipped into his flat while he was sleeping and pointed a gun at his face. Then I woke him up so that he wouldn't die a peaceful death. I shot him in both eyes.