Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

"Okay, let's be cautious and say sixteen," said Daniel. "That would make him at least thirty today, most likely older."

"If Shehadeh was his first."

"If she wasn't, he could be much older. But not much younger."

"I can buy that," said Gene.

"Thirties or older"-Daniel thought out loud-"an American, or one who travels to America frequently." Thinking to himself: if he's not an American, all those trips to the U.S. will show up on his passport.

"Hundred to one, he's American," said Gene. "He knew the terrain, knew where to kill, where to dump. Some of those dump spots are out of the way. Americans are suspicious of foreigners. If one was lurking around, you'd expect it to surface in at least some of the investigations. Unless," he added, "you've got Interpol suggesting otherwise."

"No, I'm still waiting for Interpol. A question, Gene: In America, he's a traveling killer, goes from city to city. Here, he stays in Jerusalem. Why didn't he murder one girl-in Jerusalem, another in Tel Aviv, move on to Haifa?"

"Maybe Jerusalem's got some special meaning for him. Defiling the holiness or something."

"Maybe," said Daniel. But his mind was racing:

Defiling the holiness of three faiths. Defiling women. Dark women. Arabs. A Mexican stripper. An Indian girl. Maybe a Louisiana mixed-blood. Maybe a Jew-the Blumen-thal girl from Oregon could be Jewish.

Every identified victim a member of a racial or ethnic minority.

But here, only Arabs. The main ethnic minority.

A racist killer?

A Jewish killer? Kaganism justified by the Bible and carried to bloody extreme?

Or blood libel, as Shmeltzer insisted. Someone blaming it on the Jews?

Whoever had sent that note to Wilbur had defiled the Bible, too. Cutting the text out and pasting it up like some ransom note. What observant Jew would do that, when the sentences could just as easily be copied?

Unless you didn't know Hebrew.

Addressing the envelope in English block letters.

He didn't know Hebrew. A foreigner.

An outsider.

Fomenting hatred, setting Jew against Arab? Semite against Semite?

A genuine anti-Semite.

A racist American maniac. Amira Nasser's story about the crazy-eyed foreigner was sounding better and better: crazy eyes, strange smile… Dammit, where were the Mossad hotshots when you needed them?

"… still only general, we need specifics," Gene was saying. "Best thing is to take a look at the original police files, or at least get the important details over the phone. I can help you with San Francisco and New Orleans. The rest I've got no personal contacts with but they may cooperate, one American cop to another."

"You've done more than enough, my friend. I'll call them myself. Do you have the addresses and phone numbers?"

Gene dictated them, then said, "It's no problem my calling them, Danny. It'll go faster, believe me."

"You've only got four days left in Jerusalem, Gene. I don't want to take up the remainder of your holiday."

The line went silent.

"Listen," said Gene, "if you need me, I can postpone leaving."

"Gene, Rome is a beautiful-"

"Danny, Rome is more churches. Bigger ones. Shrines and murals. Murals on ceilings always give me a stiff neck."

Daniel laughed.

"However," said the black man, "I think there're still a few holy places around here that Lu hasn't seen. Just this morning she was complaining about a missing a lecture series on ancient pottery whosits or something. So there's a chance I can persuade her to modify our itinerary if you need me. Have to know soon, though, or we run into problems with changing the tickets."

"I need you, Gene."

"Nice to hear. You can tell me again at dinner tonight. Meantime, let me get going on those calls. Bye."

Daniel put the phone down, thought more about the traveling killer.

America to Israel.

Europe in between?

He phoned Friedman in Bonn, knowing it was barely morning in Germany and not caring if the Interpol man got yanked out of sweet dreams.

The same detached secretary's voice came on the line. Reciting a recorded message.

He slammed the phone down, studied his notes, let his mind run with the facts, expand them. Kept returning to one thought:

A racist killer.

Calculating. Careful.

Manipulative.

He remembered the phrase that had come to him while reading the books and monographs on psychopathic killers:

Street-corner Mengeles.

He thought, again, of the disgusting paperbacks in Ben David's office. The Black Book of Fascist Horror.

Read the chapter on "Murder for Profit," the psychologist had said. The surgical experiments.

I found myself thinking about them in Nazi terms

You see, you don't need me. Your unconscious is guiding you in the right direction.

His unconscious. It had been languishing, sick with frustration, withering from disuse. But the data on the FBI list-the link-had breathed new life into it. Now, an image of the killer had been sculpted in his mind-a soft sculpture, to be sure, a wax outline, gross features melting in the glare of uncertainty. But an image nonetheless.

He was certain he was right.

The killer was no Jew, no Arab.

An American with strange eyes, a diseased mind, and a racist scheme. A beast of the highway stalking the herd.

Americans, thousands of them living and visiting here, but the only ones under surveillance were Roselli and Wilbur. Not very promising; The reporter was unethical, but no killer; the monk's big secret was that he wanted to be a Jew.

Which made him intriguing, but no suspect.

Unless he had more than one big secret.

From what Daoud had overheard, the monk knew he was under suspicion. Was the move to the yeshiva a means of covering something up?

Daniel had instructed Daoud to stay on Roselli. The Arab's "Yes, Pakad" had been reflexive but strained. Poor guy was probably cross-eyed with boredom by now. If nothing came up soon, Daniel resolved to put his talents to better use. Any further observation of Roselli could be carried out by one of Harel's Latam boys, wrapped in robes and kafftyah.

He thought about Roselli again. From monk to yeshiva student.

A spiritual quest? Or just another impulsive shift for an unbalanced mind?

Another crazy American. With crazy eyes?

Thousands of Americans walking the streets of Jerusalem-find the one with the crazy eyes. Like sifting granules of gold for a single speck of dross.

Big mess, but small country. An outsider couldn't submerge himself indefinitely.

He took pen in hand, outlined his plan.

Airline cross-checks, page-by-page reviews of tens of thousands of uncomputerized passport records-the tedium the Chinaman had dreaded out loud but which was the surest way to fine-carve the sculpture. Canvasses of hotels, pensiones, hostels, dormitories, housing agents and automobile rental firms, travel and tour companies, kibbutzim and moshavim that took on foreign volunteers.

The evil bastard couldn't hide deep enough. He'd root him out, put an end to the defilement.

For the first time in a long time he felt lightened with hope. The mastery of the hunter.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Yes?"

The door opened a crack and a uniform stuck his head in. Young, gawky, with a peach-fuzz face, he had to be barely out of the training course. He blinked rapidly, bobbed his head, looking everywhere but at Daniel.

"Pakad Sharavi?"

"Yes? Come in."

The patrolman's body remained in the corridor; only his head bobbed around inside the office, jumpy and vigilant, like a chicken watching out for the shohel's knife.

"What is it?"

The uniform bit his lip and chewed air. When he finally got the words moving, they tumbled out in a rush:

"Pakad, a dead body, they said to call you, you'd know all about it. In Talpiyot, along the industrial stretch. Not far from the lot where we tow the parking violators."

BOOK THREE

Dr. Levi's promptness was commendable. Within hours of the removal of the body to Abu Kabir, the necropsy findings were phoned to Daniel.

But the pathologist might just as well have taken his time. The wounds on number three were identical to Fatma's and Juliet's, save for one bit of information that Daniel had anticipated: The killer had removed Shahin Barakat's ovaries and her kidneys.

Just as he'd done, ten years ago, to his third American victim. The Indian girl, Shawnee Scoggins.

Shahin's body had been found, dumped like garbage in a stand of eucalyptus, reeking of encroaching decay and menthol. Only meters from the police tow yard.

Thumbing his nose at us.

Shahin. Another pretty face preserved intact above the gaping neck wound. Nineteen years old, black hair lustrous, thick, and wavy. Dainty pierced ears, the earrings missing.

But, unlike the other, married. The husband had been hanging around the Kishle substation for days, dogging the uniforms, begging them to find his wife.

"Ex-wife." Patrolman Mustafa Habiba had been quick to clarify, the moment Daniel entered the substation, telling his side of the story, then rushing off to fetch the Pakad an unrequested cup of Turkish coffee and a piece of baklava wrapped in wax paper. The Arab policeman was a leftover from the days of Jordanian occupation, unschooled, nearing sixty, and waiting for his pension from the Jews. Allowed to remain on the force because of his familiarity with the black alleys and their denizens, the desire by the brass to maintain the illusion of continuity.

"He kicks her out, give her three times talaq, then changes his mind and wants us to be the marriage counselors. How were we to know, Pakad?"

Habiba needed a shave. His grizzled face twitched with fear; his uniform needed ironing. Daniel had brought him back to Headquarters and he looked out of place in the sterile emptiness of the interrogation room. An antiquity.

Forty years of pocketing petty baksheesh and dishing out bureaucratic indifference, thought Daniel, and now he's terrified that indifference is going to be twisted into something cruel.

"There was no way to know," Habiba repeated, whining.

"No, there wasn't," said Daniel. The man's anxiety was starting to wear on him.

"What difference would it have made had we looked for her?" insisted Habiba. "When this Butcher wants someone, he gets her."

There was awe in the old policeman's voice when he spoke of the killer. Awe undercoated with contempt for his own police force.

He thinks of the bastard as superhuman, some kind of demon-a Jewish demon. The helplessness-the homage to evil-angered Daniel and he had to restrain himself from dressing the old policeman down.

"Marriage counselors," muttered Habiba. "We're too busy for that kind of nonsense."

Anger overtook restraint.

"Of course you are," said Daniel. "Feel free to return to Kishle. Don't let a murder investigation keep you from your pressing business."

Habiba flushed. "I didn't mean, Pakad-"

"Forget it, Officer Habiba. Go back to Kishle. Don't worry, your retirement's intact."

Habiba started to say something, thought better of it, and left the room.

Daniel looked at his watch. Six P.M. Goodbye, family; goodbye, Shabbat. The husband was in another room, being comforted by relatives under the watchful eye of the Chinaman and Shmeltzer. Daniel had tried to get something out of him but the poor guy was too distraught, frozen silent, near catatonic, only the hands moving-scratching his face bloody. The imperviousness to pain chilled Daniel's heart.

Maybe Daoud could do better. He was due over from the Old City any minute. No mistaking the joy in his voice at being reeled in-jubilation at being regarded as someone with special talents. And relief at being pulled off the Roselli surveillance. The timing couldn't have been better-last night's watch had now provided the monk with an ironclad alibi.

Daniel tried to imagine Roselli as a yeshiva student, wondered how long the monk would stay faithful to his latest mistress. The spartan lodgings and seventeen-hour days Buchwald demanded from his students might not prove too different from the rigors of monkhood. But Daniel suspected that Roselli was one of those philosophic grasshoppers, leaping from creed to creed. A searcher destined never to find what he was looking for, because you had to fill your own void. No rabbi or priest or mullah could do it for you.

Not that the searchers would ever stop searching. Or flocking to Jerusalem. The city was a psychic magnet, drawing in the Rosellis of the world and those who promised them salvation. At that first meeting at The Star, Shmeltzer had bemoaned the influx of fanatics and nut cases as if it were a new phenomenon, but the attraction was as old as Jerusalem itself. Pilgrims and self-flagellators, crucifiers and false messiahs, visionaries, dervishes, charlatans, and the willfully blind. Determined to squeeze blood out of every rock, hallucinate sacred flames licking from every arid clump of mesquite.

Searchers, some of them undoubtedly mad, others teetering on the brink of madness. Yet, despite them, the city endured wave after wave of destruction and rebirth. Or maybe because of them.

Mad but benign, seeking internal order.