Write me a Letter

memory.
    ”Where did they go?”
    ”Eighteen forty-three South Vermont ,” he said, again from memory.
    ”And what is there, Willing Boy?”
    ”An office duplex,” he said. ”The Vineyards of Bourgogne on the ground floor, something called ITC on the top. I didn’t want to go in, I thought the guy driving might have made me, or maybe the little lady, she was looking back over her shoulder.”
    ”She shouldn’t have,” I said. ”Willing Boy, attend. If you ever have cause to suspect someone is following you, what you don’t do is look back because that tells the person who is following you that you have cause to think someone might be following you, which is not an activity innocent people indulge in.”
    ”Truly words of wisdom I shall ne’er forget,” he said humbly.
    ”What did the guy driving look like?”
    ”Short,” he said. ”Full of energy. Looked like he could take care of himself, dunno exactly why. Chinos, white shirt, sandals. Crew-cut blond hair. Sunglasses.”
    ”Anything else come to mind that might be helpful?”
    Willing Boy thought it over for a moment, then said, ”Nope. That’s all she wrote.”
    ”I hope you will not refuse this token of my gratitude,” I said, fishing out two twenties and a ten.
    ”It would be uncouthness itself to do so,” he said, folding up the bills and putting them into one of the myriad of zippered pockets in his leathers. He arose and made to leave.
    ”Speaking of that’s all she wrote, and I wish it was,” I said, merely to be polite, ”how’s Sara?”
    ”How would I know?” he said. ”I haven’t seen her since last night. She sounded OK on the phone this morning.” He grinned again and departed. I watched him start up and chug off, wondering briefly what hidden qualities Miss Sara Silvetti, poetess and total nerd, could possibly have to attract a gorgeous hunk like that. Maybe he was teaching her how to spell. Maybe he was enlarging her vocabulary all the way up to two- and three-syllable words. Yeah, that was probably it, the old Pygmalion game.
    The Vineyards of Bourgogne—what the hell. I got down the atlas again. Maybe that’s what Ruth Braukis was, a purveyor of overpriced French rotgut with fancy labels saying things I didn’t know what they meant. I thought labels were supposed to be helpful these days and list all the poisons within and generally be of some use, it was time the Frogs woke up and started communicating in good old U.S. of A. And that stuff called French bread you get in supermarkets now? Awful.
    I located the administrative district of Bourgogne right in the middle of the map of France. I’d never heard of any of the towns in it, except maybe Limoges, which almost rang a bell. Was it beer mugs they made there, or soup tureens... zut, alors.
    I looked up ITC in the phone book. There were quite a few, but only one at 1843 South Vermont. Holy shit.
    Yes, holy shit, I thought. I may even have said it aloud. Give me the Vineyards of Bourgogne any time. Give me the Industrial Tools Cooperative, the International Turbine Corporation, the Instant Ticket Company, give me any of the other ITCs but don’t give me the Israeli Trade Center.
    Oh, I had no doubt that down there on South Vermont the Israeli Trade Center was busily polishing a million oranges at that very minute, then squeezing them into little cardboard cans. I had no doubt their grapefruit salesmen who were out scouring the country were continually phoning in with new orders, and that teams of Sabras were busy giving thousands of avocados a final green rinse. I also had no doubt, none at all, that in a small back room protected by a heavily locked door, a group of the most respected and/or feared secret service agents on earth, members of the dreaded Israeli Mossad, were gathering to plot the downfall of one harmless, innocent, still boyish-looking in the right light—and not an eclipse, either—private investigator.
    Why oh why couldn’t ITC have been the Italian Tagliatelli Connection? Give me the Mafia anytime.
    And what did Mossad want with me, anyway? What were they up to these days? They couldn’t still be trying to track down guys with hankies on their heads for what they did to the Israeli athletes at Munich, that was ancient history, come on, and so was Entebbe. Of course, there were probably a few of the most ruthless, most dedicated, and most unforgiving still out there, scouring the globe for ancient Nazis....
    Oh no.
    Not them.
    Say it