Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

He looked for the bartender, someone to witness what was going on. Gone.

"Police. Come with us," said a dry voice.

"Now wait one sec-" He was lifted off the stool, all booze-limp, marched out the door to a waiting car with its motor idling.

As they dragged him, he tried to clear his head, zero in on details.

The car: white Ford Escort four-door. No chance to look at the plates. The driver was shielding his face with a newspaper.

The rear door opened. He was eased in, next to a young guy. Good-looking. Tan. Bearded. Skintight red polo shirt, tight designer jeans. Angry face.

"Seat belt," said Dry Voice, and he got in, too, sandwiching Wilbur and slamming the door shut. Wilbur examined him: an older one, limp gray suit, glasses, pale face, beak-nosed and thin-lipped. Semitic version of the guy in "American Gothic." Something about him made Wilbur's stomach queasy.

He fought to suppress his fear, telling himself: No problem, this is a democracy. No Tontons Macoute/Savak types here, unless… they weren't policemen. All he'd seen of the badge was a flash of metal-cops in a democracy weren't supposed to behave like this.

Nasty thoughts flashed through his mind. Israeli mafia. Or some crazy Arab group-even though neither of the two in the back looked like Arabs. Maybe Gvura crazies getting back at him for the riot.

A fourth man came around from the rear of the car and got in front, next to the driver. Bushy black hair, big and broad-had to be the one who'd grabbed his neck. Black polo shirt. Huge, hunched shoulders-weight lifter's shoulders. The seat creaked when he moved.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Seat belt," repeated Dry Voice, and when Wilbur hesitated, both he and Handsome reached over and fastened the belt themselves, yanking it tight over his midriff.

The driver put the Escort in gear. Kinky-haired, modified Afro with a yarmulke bobby-pinned to the crown. Crocheted black yarmulke with red roses around the border. Band of dark skin showing above a white shirt collar-a black Jew?

Kinky backed out HaHistadrut Street, onto King George, drove north, shot the amber light at the Yafo intersection and continued on Straus, weaving in and out of traffic like some joyrider.

Straight out of a second-rate foreign film, thought Wilbur. French or Italian. Only this was real and he was scared shitless.

The Escort hurtled along atbreakneck speed until coming to a red light at Malkhei Yisrael, at which point Kinky hooked into an alley so narrow its stone walls threatened to scrape the sides of the car. Kinky maintained his pace, dodging potholes and rubbish.

Wilbur's fingernails dug into his knees. His tailbone was taking a beating, though most of the impact was absorbed by the bodies of Handsome and Dry Voice, compressing him shoulder to shoulder. They stared ahead, paying no attention to him, as if he were too insignificant to deal with. Smelling of cologne and sweat. Dry Voice kept one hand in his jacket.

Very subtle.

The alley hairpinned. Kinky kept speeding.

Wilbur stared at the floor in order to keep from heaving.

They emerged on Yehesqel, turned on Shmuel Hanavi, and Wilbur thought: They are police. Taking me to National Headquarters on French Hill.

Outrageous.

He permitted himself to get angry, began selecting the precise wording of his official protest.

Then the Escort bypassed the police compound and continued north and he felt the fear rise again in his gut, stronger, mingling with booze-tinged nausea.

"I demand to-" Croaking. Sounding like a wimp.

"Quiet," said Dry Voice, meaning it.

Kinky kept up the speed. They zipped through the northern suburbs, passed Ramot Eshkol, and the city stopped looking citylike.

Goddamned desert. Empty stretches that preceded the Ramot. Then the northern heights themselves.

Ramot A.

Ramot B.

Wilbur forced himself to keep concentrating on the details, keeping his mind on the story that would come out of all this. The story he was going to shove down these bastards' throats: Reporter abducted; State Department protests. International scandal. Exclusive story by Mark A. Wilbur. TV interviews, talk shows. Dinner at the White House. No problem selling this screenplay… who'd be right to play him? Redford? Too flat

On the story, off reality.

The four men in the car didn't talk. They really didn't seem concerned with him.

That scared him.

Details:

Apartment tracts knocked up quickly for new immigrants -clusters of no-frills rectangles, cinder block faced with limestone, sitting on dry beds devoid of landscaping. Depressing. Like the housing projects back in New York, but these had a ghost-town quality to them, separated from one another by acres of sand.

Laundry on lines.

A vest-pocket park shaded by pines and olives. Kerchiefed women pushing strollers. Hassid types walking with their hands clasped behind their backs. A small shopping center.

A handful of people. Too far to notice what was happening.

Or care.

The Escort kept barreling along, traveling so fast the chassis was rattling.

Ramot Pollin.

Fewer people, then none. Things were starting to look downright desolate.

Half-finished foundations. Scaffolding. The skeletal underpinnings of buildings. A prefab gas station on a concrete pad, the windows opaque with dust and still X-taped, four oblong trenches where the pumps were going to be.

But no workers, no signs of construction activity. Some goddamned strike, no doubt.

Trenches. Tractor treads. Craters occupied by dormant bulldozers and cranes, the dirt pushed up around the rims in soft brown pyramids.

Unfinished roads bleeding off into dust.

Quiet. Silent. Too damned silent.

A roller-coaster hump in the road, then a sharp dip, another construction site at the bottom, this one stillborn, completely deserted: a single story of cinder block, the rest wood frame. Off in the distance, Wilbur could see tents. Bedouins-where the hell were they taking him?

Kinky answered that question by driving off the road, down a muddy ditch, and onto the side. He circled the cinder-block wall until coming to a six-foot opening at the rear and driving through it.

Another car was parked inside, half-hidden by shadows. Red BMW, grayed by dust.

Kinky turned off the engine.

Wilbur looked around: dark, damp place, probably the future subterranean garage. Roofed with sheets of plywood and black plastic tarp. Garbage all over the dirt floor: nail-studded wood scraps, plasterboard fragments, shreds of insulation, bent metal rods, probably a healthy dose of asbestos particles floating in the air.

During orientation, Grabowsky had amused him with stories of how the Israeli mafia buried their victims in the foundations of buildings under construction. Religious Hassid who were kohens-some special kind of priest-afraid of going into the buildings because Jewish law prohibited them from being near dead bodies.

No longer amusing.

No, couldn't be. Kinky wore a yarmulke. Nice Jewish boy, no mafia.

Then he remembered some of the stuff that guys with yarmulkes had pulled off in the diamond district.

Oh, shit.

"Okay," said Dry Voice. He opened the door. Wilbur saw the gun bulge under his suit jacket. Wool suit-asshole wasn't even sweating.

All of them except Kinky got out of the car. Dry Voice took Wilbur's elbow and led him a few feet past the front bumper.

Handsome and Iron Pumper folded their arms across their chests, stood there staring at him. Iron Pumper turned full face. Wilbur saw he was an Oriental-goddamned Oriental giant with cold slit eyes. This had to be a dream. Too much booze-he'd wake up any moment with a four-plus hangover.

A door slammed. Kinky was out of the car now, holding an attache case in one hand, the paper he'd used to shield his face in the other.

Wilbur looked at the paper. This morning's international Trib, his Butcher-letter story on page two.

Dry Voice held on to his elbow. Handsome and Slant-Eye had backed away into the shadows, but he could still sense their presence.

Kinky came closer. Small guy-not black, more like a mixed-blood, the kind you saw all over Brazil. But with weird golden eyes that shone in the dimness like those of a cat. The hand holding the paper was a mess-stiff-looking, covered with shiny pink scars. Real contrast to the rest of him, which was all brown and smooth and seamless. Baby face. But the eyes were old.

"Hello, Mr. Wilbur." Soft voice, barely an accent.

"Who are you?" Who the fuck are you!

"Daniel Sharavi. I understand you've been asking about me."

Goddamned geezer at the archives. They all stuck together.

"In the course of my work-"

"That's what we want to talk to you about," said Sharavi. "Your work." He waved the Herald Tribune.

Wilbur felt the anger return. More than anger-rage-at what the bastards had put him through.

"This stinks," he said. "Kidnapping me like some-"

"Shut your fucking mouth," said Dry Voice, tightening the hold on his elbow. Heavier accent than Sharavi, but no mistaking the words or the tone.

Sharavi glanced at Dry Voice, smiled apologetically, as if excusing an errant brother. So this was going to be one of those good-cop-bad-cop routines

"Have a seat," said Sharavi, motioning to a plywood board suspended on cinder blocks.

"I'll stand."

Dry Voice led him to the board and sat him down. Hard.

"Stay."

Wilbur stared up at him. Asshole looked like an accountant. IRS auditor delivering bad news.

Wilbur kept eye contact. "These are Gestapo tactics," he said.

Dry Voice knelt in front of him, gave a very ugly smile. "You're an expert on Gestapo?"

When Wilbur didn't answer, the asshole stood, kicked the dirt, and said, "Shmuck."

Sharavi said something to him in Hebrew and the guy moved back, folded his arms over his chest like the others.

Sharavi lifted a cinder block, brought it close to Wilbur, and sat on it, facing him.

"Your article today was very interesting," he said.

"Get to the point."

"You used a biblical scholar to locate the precise references of the passages."

Wilbur said nothing.

"May I ask which scholar?"

"My sources are confidential. Your government assures the right-"

Sharavi smiled.

"Mutti Abramowitz isn't much of a scholar. In fact, his father told me his grades in Bible Studies have always been very poor."

Little guy put his hands on his knees and leaned forward, as if expecting an answer.

"What's your point?" said Wilbur.

Sharavi ignored the question, opened his attache case, and rummaged in it. Head concealed by the lid, he asked, "Where were you three Thursdays ago?"

"Now, how am I supposed to remember that?"

"The day before Juliet Haddad's body was found."

"I don't know where I was, probably following some… Whoa, wait a minute. I don't have to do this." Wilbur stood. "I want a lawyer."

"Why do you think you need one?" Sharavi asked, mildly.

"Because you people are trampling on my rights. My strong advice to you is quit right now and minimize the damage, because I'm going to raise a stink the likes of which-"

"Sit down, Mr. Wilbur," said Sharavi.

Dry Voice took a step forward, hand in his jacket. Sit, shmuck."

Wilbur sat, head swimming with booze and bad vibes.

"What were you doing three Thursdays ago?" Sharavi repeated.

"I have no idea. I'd just gotten back from Greece, but you guys probably know that, don't you?"

"Tell me everything you know about the murders of Fatma Rashmawi and Juliet Haddad."

"My articles speak for themselves."

Dry Voice said, "Your articles are shit."

"Tell me about the wounds on Juliet Haddad's body," said Sharavi, almost whispering.

"How the hell would I know anything about that?"

Sharavi unfolded the Herald Tribune, searched for a place with his finger, found it, and read out loud: '"… rumors of sacrificial mutilation have persisted.' Where did you hear those rumors, Mr. Wilbur?"

Wilbur didn't reply. Sharavi turned to the others and asked, "Have you heard such rumors?"

Three head shakes.

"We haven't heard any such rumors, Mr. Wilbur. Where did you hear them?"

"My sources are confidential."

"Your sources are shit," said Dry Voice. "You're a liar. You make them up."

"Inspector Shmeltzer lacks tact," said Sharavi, smiling, 'but I can't argue strongly with him, Mr. Wilbur." Little bastard held out his hands palms up, all sweetness and light. The palm of the messy hand was puckered with scar tis-sue.

"Mutti Abramowitz as a biblical scholar," he said, shaking his head. "A clown like Samir El Said as a sociological scholar. Rumors of 'sacrificial mutilations.' You have a vivid imagination, Mr. Wilbur."

"Lying shmuck," said Dry Voice.

"Listen," said Wilbur, "this good-cop-bad-cop stuff isn't going to work. I've watched the same movies you have."