Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

Safe.

He opened the door.

She was lying on the fourposter, all lamed-out, her mouth wide open. A weird whistling sound was coming from it. The cat was curled next to her pillow-both of them fucking lame-os. It opened its eyes when he came in, gave him a dirty look as if it owned the place and he was some robber.

He cleared his throat, as a test. If she woke up he'd ask how she was feeling, if she needed anything. The same test he used before sneaking into the library and locking himself in so that he could play with the knives, read Schwann's big green book and the others, look through the stuff in the closet. Nothing. She was out. Another throat-clear. Out cold.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the Tuna Treet, and showed it to the cat.

The blues eyes narrowed, then widened. Interested, you little fucker?

The cat moved forward, then sank back on the satin bed. Lazy and fat, like her. It got everything it needed, wouldn't surprise him if she jacked it off-no, she couldn't, no balls. It probably couldn't get a hard-on. He waved the Tuna Treet.

The cat stared at it, then him, then back at the fish-shaped cracker, water-eyes all greedy. It licked its lips and got all tight, like it was ready to spring. C'mere, sweetie. TOOONA! It didn't. It knew something was up. He touched the Treet to his lips, smiled at the cat. Lick lick, look what I've got that you don't. The cat moved forward again, froze. He put the Tuna Treet back in his pocket. The cat's ears perked.

Come-a-here, come-a-here. Pu-ss… The cat was still frozen, smelling the cracker but not knowing what to do, dumb dickhead.

He took a step backward, as if he didn't give a flying fuck. The cat watched him.

Out came the Treet again. Another lick, a big smile. Like it was the best thing he'd ever eaten in his life.

The cat took a couple of cautious steps, rocking the bed.

Lick.

Yum yum.

He waved the Tuna Treet, put it between his teeth, and started to leave the room.

The cat jumped off the bed and landed silently on the white carpet, stepping on her to do it, using her grossed-out belly as a diving board. She was so out of it she didn't even feel it.

He kept walking toward the door, real casual.

C'mere, sweetie.

A piece of the Treet broke off in his mouth-actually it didn't taste that bad.

Maybe I'll eat it myself, you furry little piece of shit.

The cat was following him from a distance as he backed out of the room, smiling and licking the Tuna Treet.

They were out on the landing now. He closed the door to the ice palace.

The cat meowed, making like it was his friend.

Beg, dickhead.

He kept walking backward, nibbling on the Tuna Treet. Not bad, actually. Kind of like fried fish.

The cat followed him.

Here, kitty, stupid, fucking kitty.

Walk, follow, walk, follow.

A look-down to see what the maids were doing.

Still blabbing and vacuming. The coast was clear.

Into his room, licking, waving.

In came the cat.

Close the door, lock it, grab the furry fucker by the neck and throw it hard against the wall.

Thud. It cried out and slid down the wall and landed on his bed, alive but something was broken. It just lay there looking funny.

He unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk, pulled out the hypodermic needle that he'd prepared. Lidocaine from one of the little rubber-topped bottles Doctor kept in the library closet, along with boxes of disposable needles, packages of gloves, bandages, and the empty doctor's bag-a Gladstone bag. it was called-which made this fantastic thunk when you opened and closed it. A couple of times he'd taken stuff, put it in the bag, and brought it up to his room.

Big smile: Hi. I'm Dr. Terrific. What seems to be the problem?

He'd used lidocaine on bugs and worms and the mouse that he'd found half-dead in the trap in the cellar. Mostly it killed them right away, so he figured it was too strong. But bugs were no fun anyway-so small, just sticking them with the needle fucked them totally up. And the mouse had been all crushed, almost dead when he found it.

A cat, now that was a different story-a step forward, real science.

In school, he was flunking science because it wasn't real science-the teacher was a lame-o, all words, no reality.

The cat tried to crawl off the bed, stopped, just lay there.

This was real. He'd been real scientific, taken the time to plan everything. There was a pediatrics book in the library-he read it for hours before finding a drug dosage chart for newborn infants, then used it to dilute the lidocaine, then added even more water, mixing all of it together in a juice glass, hoping he hadn't ruined the lidocaine.

Only one way to find out.

The cat was trying to get off the bed, again. Its eyes were all cloudy and its back legs were dragging.

Fuck you, dickhead, messing things up like that!

He picked it up by the scruff, stuck the needle in its chest, and shot in the lidocaine. Did it a bunch more times, the way it said in the book, trying to get pinpoint anesthesia.

The cat made squeaky sounds, struggled for a while, then shuddered and then went all stiff.

He placed it on his desk, belly-up, on top of the layers of newspaper he'd spread all over.

It wasn't moving-shit! No fair!

No, wait… Yeah, there it was, the chest going up and down. Fucker was still breathing, weak, you could barely see it, but still breathing!

All right!

He opened the bottom drawer again, took out the two knives that he'd chosen from the box in the library: the biggest scalpel and a curved bistoury. He held them in his hands, watching the cat breathe, knowing this was real science, not any bugs or half-dead mouses.

Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific.

What seems to be the problem, Mr. Cat, Mr. Snowball? Mr. Little Dickhead who almost ruined my life?

The cat just lay there.

Big problems for you. Things got all red in front of his eyes. The roar in his head got louder.

He took a deep breath. A bunch of them, until things got clear again.

Hello, Mr. Cat. Time for surgery.

Friday. Daoud's nights keeping Roselli under surveillance had been as productive as tilling concrete.

For the past week, the monk had remained within the walls of Saint Saviour's, taking only one brief walk Wednesday night, shortly after midnight. Not even a walk, really. Fifty steps before turning on his heel-abruptly, as if he'd experienced anxiety, a sudden change of heart about venturing out-and heading back quickly for the refuge of the monastery. Daoud had just begun to trail him, walking maybe ten meters behind, disguised as a Franciscan, the hood pulled down. After Roselli changed direction, Daoud kept on going and, as they passed each other, retracted his head into the brown folds of his robe and stared downward, as if lost in contemplation.

When Roselli had gone twenty more steps, nearing the curve at Casa Nova Road, Daoud permitted himself a half-turn and a look back. He watched the monk round the bend and disappear; then Daoud headed swiftly toward the monastery on silent, crepe soled feet, getting to the curve just in time to see his quarry vanish behind the large doors. He stopped, listened, heard retreating footsteps, and waited in the darkness for an hour before satisfying himself that Roselli was in for the night.

He kept the surveillance going until daybreak, shuffling back and forth on St. Francis Road, down Aquabat el Khanqa to the Via Dolorosa, reading the Arabic Bible that he'd brought for a prop, always keeping one eye on the tower of the monastery. He stuck it out until the city awoke under a golden banner of sunlight, watched early risers emerging from the shadows, and, tucking the Bible under his arm, started walking away in an old man's halting pace, blending in with the burgeoning stream of workers and worshippers, allowing himself to be carried along in the human flow that exited the Old City at the New Gate.

Engine roars and bleats and guttural commands filled his ears. Fruit and vegetable vendors were unloading their cargo; flocks of sheep were being herded toward the city walls for market. He inhaled the rotten sweetness of wet produce, made his way through dancing spirals of dung-laden dust, and walked the two kilometers to his car, still dressed as a monk.

The night-watch assignment was a little boring, but he enjoyed the solitude, the coolness of dark, empty streets. Took strange pleasure in the coarse, heavy feel of the robe, the large, leather-bound Bible he'd brought from home. As he drove home to Bethlehem, he wondered what it would have been like had he devoted his life to Christ.

Shmeltzer continued the week's routine of double-checking doctors, finding them arrogant, stingy with their time, a real bunch of little princes. Friday morning he had breakfast with his Shin Bet friend at the Sheraton, watched her eat buckwheat pancakes with powdered sugar and maple syrup. and asked the tape recorder in her purse to contact Mossad and check out Juliet Haddad's Beirut brothel. Afternoon was more record-searching and collating, the detailed, patience-straining work that he found enjoyable.

Friday evening he spent, as he had the past five evenings, with Eva Schlesinger, waiting in the corridor at the Hadassah Oncology Ward, then taking her arm as she walked shakily out of the room where her husband lay unconscious, hooked up to monitors and nourished by tubes.

Shmeltzer leaned against a gurney and watched people hurrying up and down the hospital halls, oblivious to his presence. Nurses, technicians. More doctors-he couldn't get away from them. Not that they were worth a damn. He remembered their reactions to Leah's aneurysm, the damned shrugs and false sympathy.

One time he'd peeked into Schlesinger's room, amazed at how far the old man had faded in so short a time. The tubes and needles were all over him, like the tentacles of some kind of sea monster-a giant jellyfish-wrapping themselves around what remained of his body. Meters and machines beeping away as it it meant something. All that technology was supposed to be life supporting-that was the story the white-coats told-but to Shmeltzer it seemed to be sucking the life out of the old palmahi.

A couple of times the hospital visits had been followed by tea at a cafe, an hour or so of winding down from the damned hospital ambience, small talk to hide from the big issue. But tonight Eva told him to take her straight home. During the drive back to French Hill, she was silent, sitting up against the passenger door,.as far from him as possible. When they got to her door, she turned the key in the lock, gave him a look full of anger-no, more than that: hatred.

Wrong time, wrong place, he thought, and braced himself for something unpleasant, feeling like an idiot for getting involved in a no-win situation, for getting involved at all. But instead of spitting out her pain, Eva bored her eyes into his, breathed in deeply, took his hand, and pulled him into the apartment. Moments later they were lying next to each other in her bed-Tell it straight, shmuck: their beds, hers and the old man's. Schlesinger wouldn't be sleeping in it again but

Shmeltzer still felt like an adulterer.

They remained that way for a while, naked and sweat-ing atop the covers, holding hands, staring at the ceiling.

both of them mute, the words knocked out of them, a mismatched pair of alter kockers, if he'd ever seen one. He, a scrawny bird; she, all pillows, wonderfully upholstered, her breasts heavy and flattened, thighs as soft and white as hallah dough.

She began crying. Shmeltzer felt the words of comfort lump up in his gullet, congealed by inhibition. He lifted her hand, touched dimpled knuckles to his mouth. Then, suddenly, they were rolling toward each other, slapping against each other like magnets of opposite polarity. Cleaving and clawing, Shmeltzer cradling her, listening to her sobs, wiping wet cheeks, feeling-and this was really crazy-young and strong. As if time were a pie and a large slice had been restored by some compassionate god.

The Chinaman spent another Friday night in and around the Damascus Gate, alternating between joking around with the lowlifes and pressuring them. Receiving promises from all of them, Arabs and Jews, that the moment they saw or heard anything, blah blah blah.

At one in the morning a series of behind-the-hand whispers steered him to a petty sleaze naned Gadallah Ibn Hamdeh, and known as Little Hook, a diminutive, crook-backed thief and swindler who sidelined by running girls out on the Jericho Road. The Chinaman knew him by sight but had never dealt with him personally and wasn't familiar with his haunts. It took an hour to find him, halfway across the Old City, in Omar Ibn el Khatab Square, inside the Jaffa Gate. Talking to a pair of backpackers at the top of the steps that led down to David Street, just past the facade of the Petra Hotel.

The Chinaman stood back for a moment and watched then conferring in the dark, wondering if it was a drug deal. Ibn Hamdeh was bowing and scraping, gesticulating wildly with his arms as if painting a picture in the air, reaching back every so often to touch his hump. The backpackers followed every movement and smiled like trusting idiots. Except for a solitary street sweeper who soon turned down the Armenian Patriarchate Road, the three of them were alone in the square; the Aftimos Market and all the other shops on David Street, dark and shuttered.

Too conspicuous for dope, decided the Chinaman. Had to be some kind of swindle.

The backpackers looked to be around nineteen or twenty, a boy and a girl, tall and heavily built, wearing shorts and tank tops and hiking boots, and carrying nylon knapsacks supported by aluminum frames. Scandinavian, he guessed, from the goyische features and blond, stringy hair. They towered over the little hunchback as he kept jabbering on in a steady stream of broken English. Laying on the shit in a high, choppy voice.