Read Online Green Kills by Avi Domoshevizki - Free Book Online Page B

unannounced and knocked on Ronnie’s door.
Ronnie’s mother, who opened the door, told Gadi that her son was in Tel Aviv
and would return that evening. “But,” she added, “ you’re welcome to wait for him. We’re just about to go to the kibbutz dining room to
have lunch. Why don’t you join us?”
    Gadi stepped inside hesitantly and remained standing at the
center of the room.
    “My name is Judith, and this is Moses, Ronnie’s father, and
that’s his sister, Rebecca. Gadi is Ronnie’s friend,” Judith introduced all the
people in the room to him, “and he’ll be joining us for lunch.”
    In the dining room, Gadi filled his tray with enough food to
satisfy the hunger of an entire pack of wolves and devoured every last bit.
They ate in silence, and once they’d finished, Moses turned to him and said, “I
need to head out to the cowshed to fill up the feeding stations. You look like
a strong young man. Unless you’ve got something better to do, I’d be happy if
you could give me a hand.”
    Gadi joined Moses. The afternoon hours passed by quickly, and
when they returned home, Ronnie welcomed Gadi. “You smell like cow shit.” He
was beside himself with pleasure. “Go take a shower, then we’ll go meet a few
of my friends at the kibbutz club. After that, my mother insists you call your
mother and tell her you’re sleeping over. She won’t hear of you going back to
Lod by yourself at night.”
    “We don’t have a telephone,” answered Gadi, embarrassed, “but I
can try and call the family my mother works for; she babysits their children in
the evenings.”
    After Gadi had showered, and as they walked toward the club, he
quickly said with his head downcast, “This is the first time in my life anyone
has worried about me.”
    In the months that followed, Gadi put Ronnie and his family
through a series of tests. He deliberately got into fights and was arrested for
disorderly conduct, giving Ronnie’s parents’ names to the police so they would
come to bail him out. Each time, they did indeed come, accompanied by Ronnie,
and vouched for him without asking any questions. One time, Ronnie took Gadi
aside and told him, “Since you’re jerking us around and expect us to come here
every time, we might as well pay you back. Starting tomorrow, you’re going back
to school and you’re studying seriously. We came here in the kibbutz vehicle;
you’ll find a schoolbag there filled with all the books you need and new
notebooks. It’s time for you to take responsibility for your life. By the way,
I’m not asking, I’m telling!”
    Gadi returned to school and became a good student, although not
a very diligent one. With the social worker’s approval and his mother’s
blessing, a year later, Gadi moved to the kibbutz. Two years after Ronnie had enlisted
in an elite unit, Gadi joined the army as well. The army had realized the best
way to catch criminals was to work with men who’d grown up with them, so Gadi
was stationed in the criminal investigation division, where he took an
investigator’s course, graduated with honors, and became a living legend,
closing the highest number of cases in the unit’s history. “The criminals don’t
stand a chance against him,” people in the unit said knowingly, “he knows how
to think like them, only ten times faster.”
    When Ronnie was discharged after five years (his mandatory three
plus two additional years as a paid, career soldier) and began to study at the
Israel Institute of Technology, Gadi enrolled in the Haifa University
department of criminology. They both graduated with honors. Even though Gadi
was wooed by various security organizations, he eventually decided to open an
office of his own, handling private investigations and security services.
Ronnie moved to the United States to continue his studies. They both found the
distance between them to be difficult, and the occasional visits had done
little to satisfy their need to spend time with each other,