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Someone was breathing hard … and then a crack. The hard breathing could be his, but the cracking noise wasn’t. He turned around to find the source of the noise and found himself again at Marian’s window. The curtains hid the interior, but let a pale reflection of light out around the sides. He didn’t see shadows. He clearly heard what was going on inside the room. Someone was breathing very hard. Another smack.
    ‘We don’t have all night, kid,’ a harsh male voice said.
    ‘I’ve already told you. I don’t know what you want me to say. You’ve got the wrong guy,’ a voice cried. ‘Let me go, please.’
    Another crack, very hard, it sounded to Shimon. Chairs scraping and other unintelligible sounds.
    ‘I’m not going to be so gentle next time,’ the former voice menaced.
    ‘Do what he tells you, kid. We don’t have much time,’ another, more cordial voice, advised.
    ‘I’m nobody. You’re mistaking me for someone else,’ the tearful voice repeated.
    ‘Your name is Ben Isaac Jr.?’ the friendlier-sounding voice asked. ‘Son of Ben Isaac?’
    The sorrowful voice didn’t answer.
    A blow sounded. Perhaps to the head. ‘Didn’t you hear? Answer!’ the first voice joined in again.
    ‘I am,’ Ben answered fearfully. ‘Call my father. He’ll pay any amount you ask for.’ His pain was obvious.
    The friendly voice started to laugh. ‘This is not about money. No one’s going to ask for ransom.’
    ‘No?’ Ben asked. He was completely confused.
    ‘No,’ the friendly voice confirmed. ‘But we want something, obviously. And you’re going to help us get it, Ben. Do we understand each other?’
    Shimon was astonished, leaning against Marian’s window. He had to go home and call the police. Someone had kidnapped Ben Isaac Jr., whoever he was. He is terrified, the son of Ben Isaac Sr., who must have something important for mafia of this caliber. Why were they hiding in Marian’s house? Another mystery. One thing at a time. The police first. He walked rapidly toward the street. As rapidly as his age and the strength G-d permitted him. Human life was at risk. When the neighborhood heard about this, there would be an outcry. Shimon passed the window of the living room, and …
    When he came to, he was a prisoner in a chair from Marian’s bedroom with a pulsing pain in his neck. Ben was next to him, drooling blood, with his head on his chest. He looked unconscious. Three men were watching Shimon.
    ‘Who are you?’ the one with the friendly voice, obviously the leader, asked. He was also the shortest.
    ‘Me?’ Shimon gasped in fear. He couldn’t think from the pain in the back of his head.
    ‘Yeah, you. Didn’t you hear me?’ He recognized the voice, the more brutal one.
    ‘I … I … I’m the neighbor from next door.’ What else could he say but the truth.
    The one with the pleasant voice smiled and approached him, looking him in the eye.
    ‘No, do you know who you are?’ he asked sarcastically, while pressing a revolver against Shimon’s head, who closed his eyes and pressed his lips together in panic, a cold shiver going over his spine … the last. ‘Collateral damage.’

10
    The summons arrived at his residence days before, but Hans Schmidt had been expecting it for a long time. The congregation complied scrupulously with every bureaucratic precept without fail, delay, or weakness.
    Vienna was having its first cold days. The heat came on, warm clothes were taken out of drawers, and the latest fashions in winter wear were purchased. Hans enjoyed taking his daily walks through the Ringstrasse, indifferent to the freezing rain and cutting cold, filling the air with warm blasts of his breath. He closed his eyes and felt his breathing for a few seconds. He walked with no specific destination, like life itself. It was said that Freud enjoyed similar walking, and the reason was not difficult to understand. Life beat on indifferently. Smiles, cries, someone calling out a name,