Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

Daoud nodded and put the photo in his jacket pocket.

A shout came from across the room:

"All recruits at attention!"

A striking-looking man swaggered toward the table. Well over six feet, bulging and knotted with the heavy musculature of a weight lifter, he wore white shorts, rubber beach sandals, and a red sleeveless mesh shirt that exposed lots of hard saffron skin. His hair was blue-black, straight, parted in the middle and styled with a blow-dryer, his face wholly Asian, broad and flat like that of a Mongolian warrior. Eyes resting on high shelflike cheekbones were twin slits in rice paper. A blue shadow of beard darkened his chin. About thirty years old, with five years latitude on either side of the estimate.

"Shalom, Dani. Nahum." The man's voice was deep and harsh.

"Chinaman." Shmeltzer nodded. "Day off?"

"Till now," said the big man. He looked at Daoud apprais-ingly, then sat down next to him.

"Yossi Lee," he said, extending his hand. "You're Daoud, right? The ace of Kishle."

Daoud took the hand tentatively, as if assessing the greeting for sarcasm. Lee's shake was energetic, his smile an equine flash of long, curving white teeth. Releasing the Arab's hand, he yawned and stretched.

"What do they have to eat in this dump? I'm starved."

"Better this dump than somewhere else," said Shmeltzer.

"Somewhere else would be free," said Lee. "Free always tastes terrific."

"Next time, Chinaman," promised Daniel. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes late and the new man hadn't arrived.

Emil came in with menus.

"A beer," said the Chinaman.

"Goldstar or Maccabee?" asked Emil.

"Goldstar."

The waiter started to leave.

"Stick around," said Daniel. "We'll order now."

Shmeltzer and the Chinaman ordered stuffed marrow appetizers and a double mixed grill each. Daniel noticed Daoud examine the menu, shift his eyes to the price column, and hesitate. Wondering, no doubt, how far a brand-new sergeant's salary would carry him. Daniel had visited Daoud's home in Bethlehem shortly after the bust of the Number Two Gang, bringing news of the promotion and a gift of dried fruit. The poverty had surprised him, though it shouldn't have-most cops had serious money problems. The papers had just run a story about a bunch of new hires applying for welfare. And before joining the force Daoud had worked as a box boy in a souvenir shop, one of those cramped, musty places that sold olive-wood crucifixes and straw mockups of the Nativity to Christian tourists. Earning what-a thousand a year?

Now, watching the Arab scan the menu, the memory of that poverty returned: the Daoud household-three closet-sized rooms in an ancient building, mattresses on the floor, a charcoal stove for heat, prints of Jesus in agony on whitewashed walls. Children everywhere-at least half a dozen, toddling and tripping, in various stages of undress. A shy young wife gone to fat, a crippled mother-in-law knitting silently. Cooking smells and baby squalls.

Putting his own menu down, he said: "I'll have a mint salad."

"Mint salad." said Emil the Waiter, copying. "What else, Pakad?"

"That's it."

The waiter's eyebrows rose.

"Dieting?" said the Chinaman.

"Shabbat tonight," said Daniel. "Big meal."

Daoud handed his menu to Emil the Waiter.

"I'll have a mint salad too," he said.

"What else for you?"

"A coffee."

Emil grew wary, as if expecting to be the butt of a joke.

"Don't tell me," said the Chinaman. "You're eating at his house."

Daoud smiled.

"That'll be all," said Daniel to the waiter, who departed, muttering, "Salads, salads."

Daniel began laying out the case before the food came and continued after its delivery, ignoring his salad and talking while the others ate. Handing a photo of the dead girl to Lee, he placed another in front of the empty chair, and passed on what he'd learned so far. The detectives took notes, holding pens in one hand, forks in the other. Chewing, swallowing, but mechanically. A silent audience.

"Three possibilities come to mind immediately," he said. "One, a psychopathic murder. Two, a crime of passion-in that I include blood revenge. Three, terrorism. Any other suggestions?"

"Gang murder," said Shmeltzer. "She was someone's girl and got in the middle of something."

"The gangs use bullets and they don't kill women," said the Chinaman. He slid cubes of shishlik off a skewer, stared at them, ate one.

"They never used to kill anyone," said Shmeltzer. "There's always a first time."

"They hide their corpses, Nahum," said Lee. "The last thing they want is to make it public." To Daoud: "You guys never found any of the ones The Number Two boys hit, did you?"

Daoud shook his head.

"Any gang wars brewing that you know of?" Daniel asked Lee.

The Chinaman took a swallow of beer and shook his head. "The hashish gangs are stable-heavy supply down from Lebanon with enough to go around for everyone. Zik and the Chain Street Boys have a truce going on stolen goods. Zik's also cornered the opium market but for now it's too small for anyone to challenge him."

"What about the melon gangs?" asked Shmeltzer.

"The crop will be small this summer so we can expect some conflict, but that's a while off and we've never had a melon murder yet."

"All in due time," said the older detective. "We're growing civilized at an alarming rate."

"Look into the gangs, Chinaman," said Daniel. "And investigate the possibility of a pimp-whore thing-that she was a street girl who betrayed her sarsur and he wanted to make an example of her. Show her picture to the lowlifes and see if anyone knew her."

"Will do," said Lee.

"Any other hypotheses?" asked Daniel. When no one answered he said, "Let's go back to the first three, starting with terrorism. On the surface it doesn't look political-there was no message attached to the body and no one's claimed credit. But that may still be coming. We know they've been trying out street crime as a strategy-the one who stabbed Shlomo Mendelsohn shouted slogans, as did the punks who shot at the hikers near Solomon's Pool. Both of those cases were semi-impulsive-opportunistic-and this one looks more premeditated, but so was the job Tutunji's gang did on Talia Gidal, so let's keep our minds open. Nahum, I want you to liaison with Shin Bet and find out if they've picked up word of a sex murder strategy from overseas or any of the territories. Elias, have you heard anything along those lines?"

"There's always talk," said Daoud cautiously.

Shmeltzer's face tightened. "What kind of talk?" he asked.

"Slogans. Nothing specific."

"That so?" said the older detective, wiping his glasses. "I saw something specific the other day. Graffiti near the Hill of Golgotha. 'Lop off the head of the Zionist monster.' Could be someone followed instructions."

Daoud said nothing.

"When you get right down to it," Shmeltzer continued, "there's nothing new about Arabs mixing mutilation and politics." He jabbed his fork into a piece of grilled kidney, put it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. "In the Hebron massacre they sliced the breasts off all the women. Castrated the men and stuffed their balls in their mouths. The Saudis still dismember thieves. It's part of the Arabic culture, right?"

Daoud stared straight ahead, tugging at his mustache until the skin around it reddened.

Daniel and the Chinaman looked at Shmeltzer, who shrugged and said, "This is Jerusalem, boys. A historical context is essential."

He returned his attention to his food, cutting into a baby lamb chop, masticating with exaggerated enthusiasm.

The silence that followed was ponderous and cold. Daoud broke it, speaking in a near murmur.

"For this murder to be political, the girl would have to be Jewish-"

"Or a member of an Arab family viewed as collaborationist," said Shmeltzer.

Daoud lowered his glance and pushed salad greens around his plate.

"All possibilities will be considered," said Daniel. "Let's move on to the second possibility. Crime of passion-unrequited love, an affair gone sour, soiled honor, blood revenge. Any of you know of family conflicts that could get nasty?"

"A couple of Moroccan families over in Katamon Tet have been punching each other out for the last few months," said the Chinaman. "Something about where the laundry should hang. Last I heard it'd cooled down. I'll check."

"Two betrothed families from Surif are feuding over a dowry," said Daoud. "It's been all words so far but the words are growing stronger and it may very well boil over into violence. But I know all the family members on both sides and she's not of them. The only other thing I can think of is that Druze sheikh who was murdered last year."

"Hakim al Atrash," said Daniel.

"Yes. Common belief is that it was a land dispute and the Janbulat clan was behind it. It's an open situation-vengeance has yet to be accomplished. But when they kill someone it will be another man, not a young girl."

"Another remote possibility," said Daniel, "is Bedouins. They'd be quick to execute a lapsed virgin or an adulteress and a Bedouin girl this age could very well have been married or engaged. But the pathologist is certain that this one wore shoes and he made another good point: Bedouins bury their dead in the desert, away from prying eyes. There'd be no reason to bring her up into the city."

He took a drink of soda water, ate salad without tasting it, drank again, and said, "My intuition tells me this was no honor killing-all the ones I've seen or heard about have been done with a single throat-cut or a bullet to the head. Swift and clean. No body wounds or hacking of the genitals. No washing the corpse. I saw what had been done to her-the pictures don't capture it." He paused, chose his words. "It was butchery, ritualistic. Lots of rage, but calculated."

"A sex murder," said the Chinaman.

"It's our best working hypothesis."

"If it's a sex murder, we're out of our element," said Shmeltzer."Working from textbooks again. Like goddamned rookies."

The remark angered Daniel, partly because it was true. A junior grade detective in any American city saw more in one year than he'd encounter in a lifetime. Serial killings, demonic rituals, child murders, back alley mutilations. A dark, ugly world that he'd read about but had never encountered. Until eight months ago, when Gray Man had come along. A welcome-back from vacation. Four slashings in two months. A one-man crime wave in a city that hosted nine or ten killings in a bad year, most of them the bloody offspring of family squabbles. Four dead women, victimized for selling phony love

"Things are changing, boys." Shmeltzer was lecturing the Chinaman and Daoud. "And we're not equipped for it. Drug fiends, psychopaths-nut-case foreigners in rags. You never used to see them. Now they're all over the city. On the way here I saw one meshuggener lurching across Herzl, muttering to himself, frothing at the mouth, nearly got himself run over. Go into Independence Park and they're lying under the trees like mounds of dog shit."

"That's not the type we're looking for, Nahum," said Daniel. "Too disorganized, unable to plan. Dr. Ben David's profile of the Gray Man was a social misfit, withdrawn but outwardly normal."

"Terrific," said Shmeltzer. "Very scholarly guy, Dr. Ben David. Did us a hell of a lot of good."

What, Daniel wondered, was eating at him? Shmeltzer had always played the part of devil's advocate; Daniel didn't mind it-it kept him thinking. But today it seemed different, less constructive, as if the older man no longer had any interest in work. Perhaps Laufer had been right: The dray horse had outlived his usefulness. On a case like this he needed a rock-solid number two man-the type of detective Shmeltzer had always been before. Not the nay-saying cynic across the tabie. He looked at Shmeltzer drinking cola, face half-hidden by the glass; considered dealing with it right then and there, decided against it.

"Nahum," he said, "get the computer guys to update the list of sex offenders we pulled on Gray Man, subclassify again in terms of tendencies toward violence and use of a knife. Fondness for young girls and drug use are other variables to look for. Most of them are going to be guys we've already talked to, but they deserve going over again. A new samal named Avi Cohen will help you with the preliminary screening and I can get you a clerk for tabulation if you need one. Once we've established a good sublist, we'll start pulling them in for interviews. While you're waiting for the data, check the Scopus campus, see if anyone was working late, if any of the locks on the gates were tampered with.

"Our first priority," he said, picking up a photo, "will be identifying her. It's twenty-four-hour shift time. The earrings are a possible link-the killer may have taken them, but until we know what they look like, a jewelry store canvass isn't worthwhile. In addition, Dr. Levi said they weren't gold, so it's doubtful a professional jeweler would buy them. Still, if you come across someone who buys trinkets, ask them if anyone's tried to palm some earrings off on them."

He turned to Daoud. "Elias, take the villages-you can follow your hunch and start with Abu Tor and Silwan. If they don't pan out, do the others as well. Isawiya, in particular, is of interest, because you can walk across the desert and up to Scopus without traversing the rest of the city. The Border Patrol says everything's been quiet, but they're not infallible. If you learn nothing in any of the villages, start scouring the

Old City up to the Damascus Gate, Sultan Suleiman, the area around the Arab bus station and the train station. Visit the orphanages. Talk to drivers, ticket clerks, porters, anyone who might have seen a young girl come in. I'll hit the main bus station this afternoon and do the same. Got it?"