Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

They'd have a long, happy life together.

He met with Fields three weeks after giving the slime the assignment. Grubby little fucker was surprisingly thorough, had a thick file labeled schwann, d. clutched in his grubby little hands.

"How you doin', Doc?"

"Here's your money. What do you have?"

Fields stuffed the money in his shirt pocket. "Good news and bad news time, Doc. The good news is I found out all about him. The bad news is the sonofabitch is dead."

Saying it with a twinkle in his eye that signed his own death certificate.

"Dead?"

"As a doorknob." Slimeball shrugged. "Sometimes in these bad-debt cases you can sue the estate in probate court, try to collect, but this Schwann was a foreigner-goddamned Kraut. His body was shipped back to Krautland. Try to collect from over there, you're gonna need an international lawyer."

Dead. Daddy dead. His roots completely severed. He sat there, numb, flooded with pain.

Fields mistook the numbness for disappointment over the debt, tried to comfort him with "Tough luck, eh, Doc? Anyway, guy like you, being a doctor and all that, should be able to write it off, pay less taxes this year. Could be rse, eh?"

Babbling. Making things worse for himself.

The slime was staring at him. He shook himself out of the numbness.

"Give me the file."

"I got a report for you, Doc. All summed up and everything."

"I want the file."

"Eh, usually I keep the file. You want a copy, I got Xeroxing charges, extra expenses."

"Would twenty dollars take care of it?"

"Uh, yeah-thirty would be more like it. Doc."

Fields took the three tens and held out the folder.

"All yours, Doc."

"Thanks." He stood up, took the folder with one hand, picked up the old-fashioned desk calender with the other, and slammed the fucker across the face with the rusty metal base.

Fields went down without a sound, slumping on the desk. A red stain spread from under his face and saturated the blotter.

He wrapped his hands in tissues, lifted the slime, and inspected him. The front of Fields's face was flattened and bloody, the nose a soft smear. Still a weak wrist pulse.

He put him facedown on the desk, slammed him on the back of the head with the calendar base, kept slamming him, enjoying it. Making him pay for Schwann, for the twinkle in his slimy eyes.

No pulse-how could there be? The medulla oblongata had been turned to shit.

Looked out the window: only neon, and pigeons on the roof. He drew the shade, locked the door, searched for any mention of his or Schwann's names in any other file or in the calendar, then wiped his hands and everything he'd touched clean with a handkerchief-the important thing was to clean up properly.

A little blood had spattered on his shirt. He buttoned his jacket; that took care of that.

Picking up the Schwann file, he left the fucker lying there leaking, stepped out into the hallway, and walked away casually. Feeling like a king, the emperor of everything.

Dr. T.

Those good feelings grew as he drove home on Nasty. Looking at the geeks and pimps and junkies and bikers, all thinking they were bad, so bad. Thinking: How many of you losers have gone all the way? Remembering what Fields's face had looked like after being slammed. The weak pulse. Then nothing.

One giant step for Dr. Terrific.

Back home, he put the Schwann file on his bed, stripped naked, masturbated twice, and took a cold bath that made him angry and hungry for bloody mind pictures. After toweling himself dry, he jerked off some more, came weakly but nicely, and, still naked, went in and got the file.

Noble Schwann, dead.

Cut off at the roots.

The bad-machines started grinding.

He should have taken his time with Fields, really punished him. Brought the slime's body back here, for exploration, real science.

Except the guy's body would have had to be putrid, a real stinker. So no loss.

Anyway, no use crying over split milk… split blood, ha ha.

He grinned, took the file into the stale, empty space that had once been the Ice Palace, sat on the bare wooden floor, and began to read.

Fourteen minutes before Thursday night surrendered to Fri: day morning, Brother Roselli exited the Saint Saviour's monastery and began walking east on St. Francis Street.

Elias Daoud, swaddled in a musty Franciscan habit and concealed in the shadows of the Casa Nova Hospice, was not impressed. The farthest Roselli had ever gone was down the Via Dolorosa, tracing Christ's walk in reverse, to the doors of the Monastery of the Flagellation. Hesitating at the shrine, as if contemplating entry, then turning back. And that was a long-distance hike-usually Roselli walked no farther than the market street that bisected the Old City longitudinally, separating the Jewish Quarter from the Christian Quarter. And the moment he got there, he jerked his head back nervously and turned around.

Hardly worth the effort of following him.

Strange bird, thought Daoud. He'd come to resent the monk, deeply, for the numbing boredom he'd brought into his ife. Sitting, hour after hour,-*ight after night, as inert as the cobblestones beneath his feet, wearing the coarse, unwashed robes or some beggar's rags. So stagnant he feared his brain would soon weaken from disuse.

Feeling the resentment grow as he thought about it, then plagued by guilt at harboring anger toward a man of God.

But a strange man of God. Why did he stop and go like some wind-up toy? Setting out purposefully, only to reverse himself as if manipulated by some unseen puppeteer?

Conflict, he and Sharavi had agreed. The man is in conflict over something. The Yemenite had told him to keep watching.

He'd begun, eventually, to resent Sharavi too. Keeping him away from the action, stuck on this dummy assignment.

But let's be truthful: It wasn't the boredom that bothered him. A week wasn't that long-he was patient by nature, had always enjoyed the solitude of undercover, the shifting of identities.

It was being excluded.

He'd done his job well, identifying the Rashmawi girl. But no matter-now that things had gotten political, he was unwanted baggage. No way would they trust him with anything of substance.

The others-even young Cohen, little more than a rookie, with no judgment and no brains-banded together as a team. Where the action was.

While Elias Daoud sat and watched a strange monk walk two hundred meters and turn back.

He knew what was in store for him when this assignment ended: Off the Butcher case, back to Kishle, maybe even back in uniform, handling tourists' purse-snatches and petty squabbles. Maybe another undercover some day, if it wasn't political.

Working for the Jews, everything was political.

Not a single Arab he knew would regret seeing the Jews disappear. Nationalistic talk had grown fashionable even among the Christians. He himself couldn't muster much passion for politics. He had no use, personally, for the Jews, supposed an all-Arab state would be better. But, then again, without Jews to complain about, Christians and Muslims would surely turn on one another; it was the way things had been for centuries. And given-that state of affairs, everyone knew who'd win-look at Lebanon.

So it was probably best to have Jews around. Not in charge, to be sure. But a few, as a distraction.

He stepped out on St. Francis Street and looked east. Roselli's outline was visible a hundred meters up, just past Es Sayyida Road; the monk's sandal-shuffle could be heard clear up the street. Daoud wore sandals, too, but his were crepe-soled. Police issue. The discrepancy concealed by the floor-length robes.

Roselli kept walking, approaching the market intersection. Daoud stayed out of sight, flush with the buildings, prepared to duck into a doorway when the monk reversed himself.

Roselli passed the Abyssinian monastery, stopped, turned right onto Souq El Attarin, and disappeared.

It took a moment for the fact to register. Caught by surprise, Daoud ran to catch up, his boredom suddenly replaced by anxiety.

Thinking: What if I lose him?

To the east, the souq was ribbed with dozens of narrow roads and arched alleyways leading to the Jewish Quarter. Tiny courtyards and ancient clay-domed homes restored by the Jews, orphanages and one-room schools and synagogues* If someone wanted to lose himself at night, no section of the city was more suitable.

Just his luck, he lamented, sprinting silently in the darkness. All those stagnant nights followed by split-second failure.

A Thursday night, too. If Roselli was the Butcher, he might very well be prepared to strike.

Constricted with tension, Daoud sped toward the souq, thinking: Back in uniform for sure. Please, God, don't let me lose him.

He turned on El Attarin, entered the souq, caught his breath, pressed himself against a cold stone wall, and looked around.

Prayers answered: Roselli's outline, clearly visible in the moonlight streaming between the arches. Walking quickly and deliberately down stone steps, through the deserted market street.

Daoud followed. The souq was deserted and shuttered. Rancid-sweet-produce smells still clung to the night air, seasoned intermittently by other fragrances: freshly tanned leather, spices, peanuts, coffee.

Roselli kept going to the end of the souq, to where Attarin merged with Habad Street.

Pure Jewish territory now. What business could the monk have here? Unless he was planning to head west, into the Armenian Quarter. But a Franciscan would have little more to do with the Pointed Hats than he would with the Jews.

Daoud maintained his distance, ducking and weaving and maintaining a keen eye on Roselli, who kept bearing south. Past the Cardo colonnade, up through the top plaza of the

Jewish Quarter, the fancy shops that Jews had built there. Across the large parking lot, now empty.

Two border guards stood watch on the walls, turned at the sound of Roselli's sandals and stared at him, then at Daoud following moments later. A moment of analysis; then, just as quickly, the guards turned away.

Two brown-robes, nothing unusual.

Roselli passed under the arch that, during the day, served as an outdoor office for the Armenian moneylenders, showing no interest in either the Cathedral of Saint James or the Armenian Orthodox monastery. Daoud followed him toward the Zion Gate, mentally reviewing the Roman Catholic sites that graced that area: the Church of Saint Peter of the Cock-Crowing? Or perhaps the monk was headed outside the Old City walls, to the Crypt of Mary's Sleep-the Franciscans were entrusted with the tomb of Jesus' mother

But neither shrine proved to be Roselli's destination.

Just inside the Zion Gate was a cluster of Jewish schools- yeshivas. Newly built structures constructed on the sites of the old yeshivas Hussein had reduced to rubble in '48, Arab homes built by the Jordanians confiscated in '67 to make way for the rebuilding of the schools.

The typical Jerusalem seesaw.

Noisy places, yeshivas-the Jews liked to chant their studies for the world to hear. Black-coated longbeards and kids with skimpy whiskers hunched behind wooden lecterns, poring over their Old Testaments and their Talmuds. Reciting and debating without letup-even at this hour there was activity: brightly lit windows checkering the darkness; Daoud could hear a low sing-song drone of voices as he walked past.

Heretics, for sure, but one thing you had to give them: They had great powers of concentration.

Roselli walked past the larger yeshivas, approached a small one set back from the road and nearly obscured by its neighbors.

Ohavei Torah Talmudic Academy-domed building with a plain facade. Meager dirt yard in the front; to one side a big pine tree, the boughs casting spidery shadows over four parked cars.

The monk ducked behind the tree. Daoud closed the distance between them, saw that beyond the tree was a high stone wall separating the yeshiva from a three-story building with sheer stone walls. Nowhere to go. What was the monk up to?

A moment later, the monk emerged from the tree, a monk no longer.

The robes gone, just a shirt and pants.

One of those Jewish skullcaps on his head!

Daoud watched in astonishment as this new, Jewish-looking Roselli walked to the front door of Ohavei Torah Taimudic Academy and knocked.

A kid of about sixteen opened the door. He looked at Roselli with clear recognition. The two of them exchanged words, shook hands; the kid nodded and disappeared, leaving Roselli standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets.

Daoud was suddenly afraid: What was this, some Jewish plot, some cult? Had the Bible-quote letter sent to the American journalist been truthful? All the talk of Jewish blood sacrifices more than the idle rumors he'd taken them for?

Just what he needed: Arab detective unearths Jewish murder plot.

They'd be as likely to accept that as elect Arafat Prime Minister.

Behead-the-messenger time-what likelier scapegoat than Elias Daoud. Even success would bring failure.

It is my destiny, he thought, to remain humble. Kismet-if a Muslim blasphemy could be permitted, dear Lord.

But what was there to do other than perform his duties? Slipping between two parked cars and crouching, he continued his surveillance of the yeshiva.

Roselli was still standing there, looking like a red-bearded Jew with his skullcap. Daoud itched to approach him, confront him. Wondered what he'd do if the monk entered the building.