The Moses Legacy

Chapter 26

Once again, Goliath was afflicted by a feeling of failure. Senator Morris had told him that it was going to be a difficult task, but had been sure that he could pull it off. All he had to do was get the clothes and leave. But instead he had left empty-handed and a nurse dead.

Now, sitting alone in his hotel room, he was turning over the events in his mind, feeling something that he didn’t often feel: guilt.

He didn’t like killing the innocent, even though he knew that God would take them to his bosom in the next life. It was only the wicked that he enjoyed killing.

He remembered how, after he was released from prison, he had killed the lawyer who had represented him at the murder trial over the killing of the rabbi. He would have liked to have killed the lawyer who represented his wife in the divorce, but he was already dead of natural causes, so he decided to kill the lawyer who had defended him instead.

It wasn’t that he blamed the lawyer for his imprisonment. His lawyer had in fact done very well to get him off with manslaughter. But he was Jewish and he was a parasite, making his money off other people’s misery. It was only because of money that the lawyer had represented him in the first place.

The lawyer was no different from a hooker: he went with anyone as long as he was paid. Today it might be Goliath, tomorrow it might be some crooked Jewish banker who had embezzled billions of other people’s money. To the lawyer, it was all the same.

So Goliath had had no qualms about killing him. He wasn’t even troubled by the fact that he had killed him in front of his five-year-old son. The kid would probably grow up just like his father. He had intended to kill the kid too, but the kid had screamed and that alerted other people. He had to flee before any witnesses saw him. Just as he had to flee from the hospital. Witnesses could land him in prison.

His thoughts were interrupted by the phone.

‘Hallo.’

It was the senator.

‘Can you talk?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve just heard a news item from England about a curator at the British Museum.’

‘What?’ asked Goliath, confused.

‘Never mind. The point is, it’s given me another idea. It still involves getting a sample of clothes, but from Daniel Klein and the Gusack woman.’

He explained the details. When he had finished, Goliath asked a question.

‘What should I do with the people, once I’ve got the clothes?’

‘Kill them.’