Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

"Does a pig have habits?"

"What did he do to piss you off?"

Maksoud laughed coldly. "Zaiyel mara," he spat. "He is like a woman." The ultimate Arabic insult, branding Abdelatif as deceitful and irresponsible. "For fifteen years I've been putting him up and all he creates is trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"From the time he was a baby-playing with matches, almost set the place on fire. Not that it would be a great loss, eh? Your government promised me a house. Five years ago and I'm still in this shithole."

"What else besides the matches?"

"I told him about the matches, tried to knock sense into him. Little pig kept doing it. One of my sons got burned on the face."

"What else?" Shmeltzer repeated.

"What else? When he was about ten he started to knife rats and cats and watch them die. Brought them inside and watched. She didn't do a thing to stop him. When I found out about it I beat him thoroughly and he threatened to use the knife on me."

"What did you do about that?"

"Took it away from him and beat him some more. He didn't learn. Stupid pig!"

The sister suppressed a sniffle. The Chinaman stopped walking. Shmeltzer and Cohen turned and saw the tears flowing down her cheeks.

Her husband stood up quickly and turned on her, screaming. "Stupid woman! Is this a lie? Is it a lie that he's a pig, descended from pigs? Had I known what lineage and dowry you brought I would have run from our wedding all the way to Mecca."

The woman backed away and bowed her head again. Wiped a dish that had dried long ago. Maksoud swore and settled back down on the cushion.

"What kind of knife did he use on the animals?" asked the Chinaman.

"All kinds. Whatever he could find or steal-in addition to his other fine qualities he's a thief." Maksoud's eyes scanned the putrid house. "You can see our wealth, how much money we have to spare. I tried to get hold of his U.N. allotment, to force him to pay his share, but he always managed to hide it-and steal mine as well. All for his stinking games."

"What kinds of games?" asked Shmeltzer.

"Sheshbesh, cards, dice."

"Where did he gamble?"

"Anywhere there was a game."

"Did he go into Jerusalem to play?"

"Jerusalem, Hebron. The lowest of the coffeehouses."

"Did he ever make any money?"

The question enraged Maksoud. He made a fist and shook one scrawny arm in the air.

"Always a loser! A parasite! When you find him, throw him in one of your prisons-everyone knows how Palestinians are treated there."

"Where can we find him?" asked Shmeltzer.

Maksoud shrugged expansively. "What do you want him for anyway?"

"What do you think?"

"Could be anything-he was born to steal."

"Did you ever see him with a girl?"

"Not girls, whores. Three times he brought home the body lice. All of us had to wash ourselves with something the doctor gave us."

Shmeltzer showed him the picture of Fatma Rashmawi.

"Ever seen her?"

No reaction. "Nah."

"Did he use drugs?"

"What would I know of such things?"

Ask a stupid question

"Where do you think he's gone?"

Maksoud shrugged again. "Maybe to Lebanon, maybe to Amman, maybe to Damascus."

"Does he have family connections in any of those places?"

"No."

"Anywhere else?"

"No." Maksoud looked hatefully at his wife. "He's the last of a stinking line. The parents died in Amman, there was another brother left, lived up in Beirut, but you Jews finished him off last year."

The sister buried her face and tried to hide herself in a corner of the cooking area.

"Has Issa ever been up to Lebanon?" asked Shmeltzer- another stupid question, but they'd walked through shit to get here, why not ask? His Sheraton companion had turned up nothing political, but it had been short notice and she had other sources yet to check.

"What for? He's a thief, not a fighter."

Shmeltzer smiled, stepped closer, and looked down at Maksoud's left forearm.

"He steal that scar for you?"

The brother-in-law covered the forearm, hastily.

"A work injury," he said. But the belligerence in his voice failed to mask the fear in his eyes.

"A knife man," said the Chinaman, as they drove back to Jerusalem.

The unmarked's air conditioning had malfunctioned and all the windows were opened. They passed an army halftrack and an Arab on a donkey. Black-robed women picked fruit from the huge, gnarled fig trees that lined the road. The earth was the color of freshly baked bread.

"Very convenient, eh?" said Shmeltzer.

"You don't like it?"

"If it's real, I'm in love with it. First let's find the bastard."

"Why," asked Cohen, "did the brother-in-law speak so freely to us?" He was behind the wheel, driving fast, the feel of the auto giving him confidence.

"Why not?" said Shmeltzer.

"We're the enemy."

"Think about it, boychik," said the older man. "What did he really tell us?"

Cohen sped up around a curve, felt the sweat trickle down his back as he strained to remember the exact wording of the interview.

"Not much," he said.

"Exactly," said Shmeltzer. "He brayed like a goat until it came down to substance-like where to find the pisser. Then he clammed up." The radio was belching static. He reached over and turned it off. "The end result being that the bastard got a bunch of shit off his chest and told us nothing. When we get back to Headquarters, I'm sending him a bill for psychotherapy."

The other detectives laughed, Cohen finally starting to feel like one of them. In the back the Chinaman stretched out his long legs and lit up a Marlboro. Taking a deep drag, he put his hand out the window and let the breeze blow off the ashes.

"What about the Rashmawi brothers?" asked Shmeltzer.

"The defective one never came out of the house all night," said the Chinaman. "The two older ones were hard-asses. Daoud and I questioned them before they got home and they didn't even blink. Tough guys, like the father. Knew nothing about anything-not an eye-blink when we told them Fatma was dead."

"Cold," said Avi Cohen.

"What's it like," asked Shmeltzer, "working with the Arab?"

The Chinaman smoked and thought.

"Daoud? Like working with anyone else, I guess. Why?"

"Just asking."

"You've got to be tolerant, Nahum," the Chinaman said, smiling. "Open yourself up to new experiences."

"New experiences, bullshit," said Shmeltzer. "Theold ones are bad enough."

On Sunday at six P.M., Daniel came home to an empty apartment.

Twenty-four hours ago he'd left Saint Saviour's and gone walking through the Old City, down the Via Dolorosa and through the Christian Quarter with its mass of churches and rest spots commemorating the death walk of Jesus, then over through El Wad Road to the covered bazaar that filled David Street and the Street of the Chain. Talking to Arab souvenir vendors hawking made-in-Taiwan T-shirts aimed at American tourists (l LOVE ISRAEL with a small red heart substituted for the word love; KISS ME, I'M A JEWISH PRINCE above a caricature of a frog wearing a crown). He entered the stalls of spice traders presiding over bins of cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, and mint; talked to barbers deftly wielding straight razors; butchers slicing their way through the carcasses of sheep and goats, viscera hanging flaccidly from barbed metal hooks affixed to blood-pinkened tile walls. Showed Fatma's picture to metalsmiths, grocers, porters, and beggars; touched base with the Arab uniforms who patrolled the Muslim Quarter, and the Border Patrolmen keeping an eye on the Western Wall. Trying, without success, to find someone who'd seen the girl or her boyfriend.

After that, there had been a quick break for prayer at the Kotel, then the conference with the other detectives in a corner of the parking lot near the Jewish Quarter. What was supposed to have been a brief get-together had stretched out after Daoud had reported pulling Abdelatifs ID out of Mrs. Nasif, and Shmeltzer had arrived with the arrest information on both the boyfriend and Anwar Rashmawi. The five of them had traded guesses, discussed possibilities. The case seemed to be coming together, taking form, though he was far from sure what the final picture would look like.

By the time he'd gotten home last night, it had been close to midnight and everyone was asleep. His own slumber was fitful and he rose at five thirty, full of nervous energy. Abdelatifs family had been located in the Dheisheh camp, and he wanted to reconfirm the trip with the army, to make sure that everything went smoothly.

He'd traded sleepy good-byes with Laura and kissed the kids on their foreheads while buttoning his shirt. The boys had rolled away from him, but Shoshi had reached out in her sleep, wrapped her arms around him so tightly that he'd had to peel her fingers from his neck.

Leaving that way had made him feel wistful and guilty- since the case had begun he'd barely had time for any of them, and so soon after Gray Man. Foolish guilt, really. It had been only two days, but the nonstop pace made it seem longer, and the loss of Shabbat had disrupted his routine.

As he walked out the door, the image of his own father filled his childhood memories-always there for him, ready with a smile or words of comfort, knowing exactly the right thing to say. Would Shoshi and Benny and Mikey feel the same way about him in twenty years?

Those feelings resurfaced as he arrived home on Sunday evening, weary from empty hours of surveillance and hoping to catch Laura before she left to pick up Luanne and Gene. But all was quiet except for Dayan's welcoming yips.

He petted the dog and read the note on the dining room table: ("Off to Ben Gurion, love. Food's in the refrig., the kids are at friends.") If he'd known which friends, he could have dropped by, but they had so many, there was no way to guess.

He stayed just long enough to eat a quick dinner-pita and hummus, leftover Shabbat chicken that he'd never had a chance to eat hot, a handful of black wine grapes, two cups of instant coffee to wash it all down. Dayan kept him company, begging for scraps, the black patch surrounding the little spaniel's left eye quivering each time he cried.

"Okay, okay," said Daniel. "But just this little piece." Finishing quickly, he wiped his face, said grace after meals, changed his shirt, and was out the door at six twenty-five, behind the wheel of the Escort and speeding back toward Silwan.

Sunday night. The end of Christian Sabbath and all the church bells were ringing. He parked on the outskirts of the village and covered the rest of the journey on foot. By seven he was was back in the olive grove, with Daoud and the Chinaman. Watching.

"Why don't we just go in there and lay it on the line with them?" said the Chinaman. "Tell them we know about Abdelatif and ask them if they took care of him?" He picked up a fallen olive, rolled it between his fingers, and tossed it aside. Ten forty-three, nothing had happened, and he couldn't even smoke in case someone saw the glow. The kind of night that made him think about another line of work.

"They're hardly likely to tell us," said Daniel.

"So? We're not finding out anything this way. If we confront them, at least we've got the element of surprise working for us."

"We can always do that," said Daniel. "Let's wait a while longer."

"For what?"

"Maybe nothing."

"For all we know," persisted the Chinaman, "the guy's still alive, flown off to Amman or Damascus."

"Looking into that is someone else's job. This is ours."

At eleven-ten, a man out of the Rashmawi house, looked both ways, and walked silently down the pathway. A small dark shadow, barely discernible against a coal-black sky. The detectives had to strain to keep him in their sights as he made his way east, to where the bluff dipped its lowest.

Climbing gingerly down the embankment, he began walking down the hill, in the center of their visual field. Merging in the darkness for stretches of time that seemed interminable, then surfacing briefly as a moonlit hint of movement. Like a swimmer bobbing up and down in a midnight lagoon, thought Daniel as he focused his binoculars.

The man came closer. The binoculars turned him into something larger, but still unidentifiable. A dark, fuzzy shape, sidling out of view.

It reminded Daniel of '67. Lying on his belly on Ammunition Hill, holding his breath, feeling weightless with terror, burning with pain, his body reduced to something hollow and flimsy.

The Butcher's Theater, they called the hills of Jerusalem. Terrain full of nasty surprises. It carved up soldiers and turned them into vulture fodder.

He lowered the binoculars to follow the shape, which had grown suddenly enormous, heard the Chinaman's harsh whisper and abandoned his reminiscence:

"Shit! He's headed straight here!"

It was true: The shape was making a beeline for the grove.

All three detectives shot to their feet and retreated quickly to the rear of the thicket, hiding behind the knotted trunks of thousand-year-old trees.

Moments later the shape entered the grove and became a man again. Pushing his way through branches, he stepped into a clearing created by a tree that had fallen and begun to rot. Cold, pale light filtered through the treetops and turned the clearing into a stage.

Breathing hard, his face a mask of pain and confusion, the man sat down on the felled trunk, put his face in his hands, and began to sob.