Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

"In your honor," said Daniel, toasting. "May this be only the first of many visits."

"Amen," said Luanne.

They drank in silence.

"So you enjoyed the Galilee," said Laura.

"Nothing's like Jerusalem," said Luanne. "The vitality- you can just feel the spirituality, from every stone. But Galilee was fantastic, just the same."

She was a handsome woman, tall-almost as tall as Gene -with square, broad shoulders, graying hair marcelled into precise waves, and svrong African features. She wore a simple boat-necked dress of off-white silk striped diagonally in navy-blue, a strand of pearls, and pearl earrings. The dress and the jewelry set off her skin, which was the same color as Daniel's.

"To be able to actually see everything you've read about in the Scriptures," she said. "The Church of the Annunciation, realizing that you're putting your feet down in the same spot where He walked-it's unbelievable."

"Did the guide take you to see the Church of Saint Joseph also?" asked Laura.

"Oh, yes. And the cave underneath-I could just visualize Joseph's workshop, him working there on his carpentry, Mary upstairs, maybe cooking or thinking about when the baby was going to come. When I come back and tell my class about it, it will inject a real sense of life into our lessons." She turned to Gene: "Isn't it just amazing, honey, seeing it like that?"

"Amazing," said Gene, the word coming out slurred because he was chewing, the heavy jaws working, the big gray mustache revolving as if gear-driven. He broke off a piece of pita and put it in his mouth. Emptied his wineglass and mouthed thank you when Daniel refilled it for him.

"I'm keeping a log," said Luanne. "Of all the holy spots we visit. For a project that I promised the children-a Holy Land sojourn map to hang up in the classroom." She reached into her purse and took out a small note pad. Daniel recognized it as the type that Gene used, marked LAPD.

"So far," she said, "I've got eighteen churches listed-some of them we haven't actually gone into but we've passed them close by, so I consider it legal to include them. Then there are the natural landmarks: This morning we saw a stream in Tiberias that fed Mary's well, and yesterday we visited the Gethsemane garden and the hill of Golgotha-it really does look like a skull, doesn't it?-though Gene couldn't see it." To her husband: "I certainly saw it, Gene."

"Eye of the beholder," said Gene. "Are you eating all of your soup?"

"Take it, honey. All the walking we did, you need your nutrition."

"Thanks."

The waitress brought a plate of appetizers: stuffed peppers and marrows, chopped oxtail, kirshe, pickled vegetables, slices of grilled kidney, coin-sized barbecued chicken hearts.

"What's this?" asked Gene, tasting some of the kirshe.

"It's a traditional Yemenite dish called kirshe," said Laura. "The meat is chopped pieces of cow's intestine, boiled, then fried with onion, tomatoes, garlic, and spices."

"Chitlins," said Gene. Turning to his wife: "Excuse me, chitterlings." He took some more, nodded approvingly. Picking up the menu, he put on a pair of half-glasses and scanned it.

"Got a lot of organ meats here,"he said. "Poor folks'food."

"Gene," said Luanne.

"What's the matter?" asked her husband innocently. "It's true. Poor folks eat organs 'cause it's an efficient way of getting protein and rich folks throw it away. Rich folk eat sirloin steaks and get all the cholesterol and clogged arteries. Now you tell me who's smarter?"

"Liver is an organ meat and liver is loaded with cholesterol," said Luanne. "Which is why the doctor took you off it."

"Liver doesn't count. I'm talking hearts, lungs, glands-"

"All right, dear."

"Those people," said Gene, pointing to pictures on the walls. "Every one of them is skinny. They all look in great shape, even the old ones. From eating organs." He speared several chicken hearts with his fork and swallowed them.

"It's true," said Laura. "When the Yemenites first arrived, they had less heart disease than anyone. Then they started assimilating and eating like the Europeans and developed the same health problems as everyone else."

"There you go," said Gene, looking at the menu again. "What's this expensive stuff-'geed'?"

Daniel and Laura looked at each other. Laura burst out laughing.

"Geed means penis," explained Daniel, struggling to remain straight-faced. "It's prepared like kirshe-sliced and fried with vegetables and onions."

"Ouch," said Gene.

"Some of the old people order it," said Laura, "but it's pretty obsolete. They put it on the menu but I doubt they have it."

"Penis shortage, huh?" said Gene.

"Honey!"

The black man grinned.

"Get the recipe, Lu. We get back home you can cook it for Reverend Chambers."

"Oh, Gene," said Luanne, but she was stifling a giggle herself.

"Can't you just see it, Lu? We're sitting around at the church supper, with all your tight-girdled bridge buddies jabbering on and tearing people down, and I turn to them and say, 'Now, girls, stop gossiping and eat your penis!' What kind of animal they use?"

"Ram, or bull," said Daniel.

"For the church supper, we'd definitely need bull."

"I think," said Luanne, "that I'd like to go powder my nose."

"I'll join you," said Laura.

"Ever notice that?" said Gene, after the women had left. "Put two females together and they have this instinctive urge to go to the bathroom at the same time. Just let two fellows do that and people start to figure there's something funny about them."

Daniel laughed. "Maybe it's hormones," he said.

"Gotta be, Danny Boy."

"How are you enjoying your visit?"

Gene rolled his eyes and picked a crumb out of his mustache. He leaned closer, pressing his palms together prayerfully.

"Rescue me, Danny Boy. I love that woman to death, but she's got this religious thing-always has. At home I don't mind it because she raises Gloria and Andrea straight and narrow-she certainly gets the credit for what they are. But what I'm fast finding out is that Israel's one big religious candy store-everywhere you go there's some sort of church or shrine or Jesus Slept Here whoozis. And Lu can't bear to miss one of them. I'm a profane person, start seeing double after a while."

"There's a lot more to Israel than shrines," said Daniel. "We've got the same problems as anyone else."

"Tell me quick. I need a shot of reality."

"What do you want to hear about?"

"The job, guy, what do you think? What kind of stuff you've been working on."

"We just finished a homicide-"

"This one?" asked Gene, reaching into his pocket and drawing out a newspaper clipping. He handed it to Daniel.

Yesterday's Jerusalem Post. Laufer's press release had been used verbatim-just like in the Hebrew papers-with the conspicuous addition of a tag line:

.. LED BY CHIEF INSPECTOR DANIEL SHARAVI. SHARAVI ALSO HEADED THE TEAM THAT INVESTIGATED THE ASSASSINATION OF RAMLE PRISON WARDEN ELAZAR LIPPMANN LAST AUTUMN.

AN INQUIRY THAT LED TO THE RESIGNATION AND PROSECUTION OF SEVERAL SENIOR PRISON OFFICIALS ON CHARGES OF CORRUPTION AND

He put the clipping down.

"You're a star, Danny Boy," said Gene. "Only time I ever received that kind of coverage was when I got shot."

"If I could wrap up the publicity and give it to you, I would, Gene. Tied with a ribbon."

"What's the problem, threatening the brass?"

"How'd you know?"

Gene's smile was as clean as a paper cut. Pure white against umber, like a slice out of a coconut.

"Ace detective, remember?" He picked up the clipping, put his half-glasses on again. "All that good stuff about you and then they just throw in the other guy-Laufer-at the end. No matter that the other guy is probably a Mickey Mouse pencil-pusher who didn't do a thing to deserve having his name in there in the first place. Executive types don't like being preempted. How'm I doing?"

"A-plus," said Daniel and thought of telling Gene about his protekzia with Gavrieli, how he'd lost it and now had to deal with Laufer, then reconsidered and talked about the Rashmawi case instead. All the loose ends, the things he didn't like about it.

Gene listened and nodded. Starting, finally, to enjoy the vacation.

They broke off the discussion when the women returned. The conversation shifted to children, schools. Then the entrees came-a heaping mixed grill-and all conversation died.

Daniel watched, with awe, as Gene consumed lamb chops, sausage, shishlik, kebab, grilled chicken, serving after serving of saffron rice and bulghur salad. Washing it down with beer and water. Not wolfing-on the contrary, eating slowly, with an almost dainty finesse. But steadily and efficiently, avoiding distraction, concentrating on the food.

The first time he'd seen Gene eat had been in a Mexican restaurant near Parker Center. Nothing kosher there-he'd nursed a soft drink and eaten a salad, watching the black detective attack an assortment of tasty-looking dishes. He'd learned the names since Tio Tuvia had come to Jerusalem: burritos and tostadas, enchiladas and chile rellenos. Beans, pancakes, spicy meat-except for the cheese, not all that different from Yemenite food.

His first thought had been that if the man ate like that all the time, he would weigh two hundred kilos. Learning, over the course of the summer, that Gene did eat like that all the time, had no use for exercise, and managed to stay normal-looking. About a meter nine tall, maybe ninety kilos, a bit of a belly but not bad for a guy in his late forties.

They'd met at Parker Center-a bigger, shinier version of French Hill Headquarters. In orientation, listening to an FBI agent talk about terrorism and counterterrorism, the logistics of keeping things safe with that many people around.

The Olympics job had been a real plum, the last one Gavrieli had handed him before the Lippmann case. The opportunity to go to Los Angeles, all expenses paid, gave Laura a chance to see her parents and visit old friends. The kids had been talking about Disneyland since Grandpa Al and Grandma Estelle had told them about it.

The assignment had turned out to be a quiet one-he and eleven other officers tagging along with the Israeli athletes. Nine in Los Angeles, two with the rowing team in Santa Barbara, ten-hour shifts, rotation schedules. There had been a couple of weak rumors that had to be taken seriously anyway. Some hate mail signed by the Palestine Solidarity Army and traced, the day before the Games, to an inmate of the state mental hospital in Camarillo.

But mostly it was watching, hours of inactivity, eyes always on the lookout for anything that didn't fit: heavy coats in hot weather, strange contours under garments, furtive movements, the look of hatred on a jumpy, terrified face- probably young, probably dark, but you never could be sure. The look imprinted on Daniel's brain: an aura, a storm warning, before the seizure of stunning, stomach-churning violence.

A quiet assignment, no Munich in L.A. He'd ended each shift with a tension headache.

He'd sat in the front of the room during the orientation lecture and grown aware, before long, that someone was looking at him. A few backward glances located the source of scrutiny: a very dark black man in a light-blue summer suit, a SUPERVISOR identification badge clipped to his lapel. Local police.

The man was heavily built, older-late forties to early fifties, Daniel figured. Bald on top with gray hair at the side, the hairless crown resembling gift candy-a mound of bittersweet chocolate nestled in silver foil. A thick gray mustache flared out from under a broad, flat nose.

He wondered why the man was looking at him, tried smiling and received a curt nod in response. Later, after the lecture, the man remained behind after the others had left, chewed on his pen for a few seconds, then pocketed it and walked toward him. When he got close enough, Daniel read the badge: lt. EUGENE brooker, lapd.

Putting on a pair of half-glasses, Brooker looked down at Daniel's badge.

"Israel, huh. I've been trying to figure out what you are."

"Pardon me?"

"We've got all types in town. It's a job to sort out who's who. When I first saw you I figured you for some sort of West Indian. Then I saw the skullcap and wondered if it was a yarmuike or some type of costume."

"It's a yarmuike."

"Yeah, I can see that. Where are you from?"

"Israel." Was the man stupid?

"Before Israel."

"I was born in Israel. My ancestors came from Yemen. It's in Arabia."

"You related to the Ethiopians?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"My wife's always been interested in Jews and Israel," said Brooker. "Thinks you guys are the chosen people and reads a lot of books on you. She told me there are some black Jews in Ethiopia. Starving along with the rest of them."

"There are twenty thousand Ethiopian Jews," said Daniel. "A few have immigrated to Israel. We'd like to get the others out. They're darker than me-more like you."

Brooker smiled. "You're no Swede, yourself," he said. "You've also got some Black Hebrews over in Israel. Came over from America."

A delicate topic. Daniel decided to be direct.

"The Black Hebrews are a criminal cult," he said. "They steal credit cards and abuse their children."

Brooker nodded. "I know it. Busted a bunch of them a couple of years ago. Con artists and worse-what we American law-enforcement personnel call sleazeballs. It's a technical term."

"I like that," said Daniel. "I'll remember it."