Pattern crimes

"A MAN WHO HAS BEEN WRONGED"

Everyone in the Russian Compound knew that Pattern Crimes was in disgrace. Cops who'd envied David his status as favorite son of Rafi's CID, greeted him with hypocritical commiseration, while real friends stopped him in the corridors to tell him he'd been handed a rotten deal.

One day in the men's room he over-heard himself discussed. A pair of middle-aged narcotics detectives were pounding on the coffee machine just outside the door:

"He's a terrific detective," said the first, "but he's got this complex-he's going to save us all."

"Yeah," said the second, "it's not enough for him to investigate. David has to understand."

He watched his people carefully. Each reacted in his own way. Uri Schuster per-formed isometric exercises while gazing sullenly into space. Micha made inefficient busywork with the files while Dov braved his gloom by striding aggressively up and down the halls. Only Shoshana seemed unperturbed. She wore the preoccupied look of a detective puzzling out a baffling case. She's onto something, David thought. He decided to leave her alone. Whatever it was she would play with it until she dropped it or brought it in.

Sarah Dorfman was kind; she took Rebecca Marcus out to a concert. Then, three days after David's dismissal from the case, Rafi summoned him into his office, dispatched Sarah on an errand, then rose and closed the door.

"You're angry with me. I can tell by your expression. You think I should have fought harder on your behalf." Not true, of course, but David said nothing; his father had taught him to allow guilty-feeling people to express their guilt. "… but don't forget: that kind of loyalty has to be reciprocal. If you'd consulted me first, I'd have backed you up no matter what. But you moved in on your own, and went too far. I did the best I could for you. I'm sorry you feel betrayed."

Rafi lit his pipe, then mumbled something about having David and Anna over for dinner. But then, with no date set, the invitation hung between them awkwardly.

The next evening, when David came home, he found a strange assortment of flowers on the windowsill, bizarre epiphytic orchids with oblong ruffled pink-veined leaves.

"From Rafi," Anna explained. "He even sent the vase."

He began to leave the office early to take long walks in the city. His hope was that this exercise would work off his malaise. But these walks made him feel sorrowful. Jerusalem resisted his advances. The city remained elusive, evading his attempts to read her pattern, understand her grand design.

He started to revisit places he remembered from his youth, streets where long ago he and Gideon had walked or ridden bikes. Memories of his brother haunted him; he couldn't understand why. Then one evening he found himself just outside his father's door.

He didn't knock, simply stood outside in the gloom listening to the commotion within. A quarrel was taking place. The words were indecipherable. A woman whose voice he didn't recognize was carrying on hysterically and his father was responding with angry words. Thenthere was quiet, then whispers, then weeping again. Fascinated and embarrassed, David hurried down the stairs. In the alley he paused to stare up at the window. Then he rushed back through Me'a Shearim, past storekeepers pulling down their roller blinds, to the bright lights of Jaffa Road.

That night he told Anna about the incident. "Who could it have been? I know this sounds stupid but it never occurred to me that he still has a private life. I always think of him brooding at home alone, and then, when I catch him in an emotional scene, I wonder: Do I really understand him? Do I know anything about him? Oh, Anna, why do I feel so out of touch?"

She said she thought it was his case-that having been deprived of it so suddenly, it was impossible for him not to feel lost.

"Sure," he said, "that's why I started taking walks. But they've only made me feel worse. Things come back, bits and pieces of the past. The more I walk the more morose I get."

"Tell me."

"I've been thinking of Gideon. I suppose it's because of Ephraim Cohen and Peretz. Just this evening I had an idea-that somehow he took upon himself all the problems we should have shared. That he absorbed all the pathology in our family, took on all the abuse. And that now, because he did, I'm walking around alive."

"What pathology?"

"The thing our parents generated. The web they wove around us from which we had to struggle free."

"You think Gideon…?"

"He took it all upon himself, Anna. And by doing that he left me free to become a sane adult."

They went out for a walk late one afternoon along the wall that ran along the western edge of the Old City. They walked silently until they reached the Jaffa Gate. Then Anna turned to him and spoke:

"I love it here, David. I don't know why. I'm not religious but I'm stirred. There's no river, no harbor, but I love it anyway. The city covering the hills like a carpet. The long shadows of people by the walls. Oh, David, it's your place, your city. This magic city-made-of stones…"

Early Saturday morning he drove to Haifa, arriving at the Raskov house at ten o'clock. It was an extremely large house in Central Carmel, modern, flat-roofed, and sprawling, with a fine view of the harbor below.

A Druse woman opened the door. No sign of Judith or Joe. "I'm Captain Bar-Lev," David said to her in Arabic.

The woman nodded. "Please wait. Hagith will be right down."

From the stoop David looked around. The lawn was perfectly manicured, and there were two shiny Mercedes-Benz automobiles parked beside the house. The trunk door of one had been left open exposing tennis rackets, an expensive set of golf clubs, a pair of snorkeling flippers and a breathing tube.

Hagith's face reminded David of Gideon's, but her gestures were reminiscent of Judith. On the drive up to Tiberias, they talked about her schoolwork, her teachers, her friends, carefully skirting details of her life at home.

"Anna and I want you to stay with us," he said. "For a week, or longer if you like, and your mother approves." Hagith didn't answer. "Don't you miss Jerusalem? Do you remember it? It's been almost a year since you came up to visit."

"Yes, I remember," she said. And then she started to cry.

"Darling! What's the matter?" He pulled the car over to the side of the road. "Why are you upset? Is it something I said? Please tell me so I can help."

"I want to visit," she said. "I miss you and grandfather very much."

"We miss you too. That's nothing to cry about."

"Joe won't let me come," she said.

"What do you mean, he won't let you? Why not, darling?"

"He says people will try and kidnap me so they can get his money."

The crude son-of-a-bitch! He fought hard to control his fury. "Listen, Hagith-it doesn't matter what Joe says. Doesn't matter at all. A visit to Jerusalem is between you, me, and your mother-and nobody else."

"I don't like him," she said suddenly. "His breath smells bad." She threw herself sobbing across David's lap. He petted her splayed hair while explaining that no matter where she lived, he, David, would always love her and would always be her daddy. But even as he said all of this he couldn't help but be aware of a surge of joy inside. She hates Joe Raskov, hates the smell of his breath! She still my daughter! Suddenly he felt better than he had in weeks.

"I've been thinking about Anna and her problem playing Mendelssohn," his father said.

"Yes?"

"Mendelssohn was a Jewish composer."

"So…?"

"So that could be significant. She's having trouble with a Jew."

"You think she's having trouble with me, father?"

"Maybe. Of course this is only a suggestion, David, but perhaps it would be helpful if you would both examine that."

When he glanced up Shoshana's supple body filled the doorway. She shook her glossy curls and grinned.

"So here you are," he said.

"I know you've been waiting for me."

He motioned her to a chair. She sat and crossed her arms. "Nine days ago you sent me to catch Amit Nissim. I told you what happened-she couldn't describe the scary bearded man any better than she had for you. So I thought: Okay, I'll keep in touch, she knows something, she's the only one who does, she may be only six years old but right now she's all we've got. Every afternoon I've been dropping by the school just when they let the kids go loose. Amit sees me, runs over, we give each other a hug, then we walk a couple blocks, I buy her an orange, we talk, about police work, this and that, then I pat her on her fanny and send her home.

"I like her. She looks up to me, says she wants to join the force when she grows up. But I'm not spending my time with a six-year-old because I need my ego massaged. I figure she's seen this scary bearded guy once, maybe she'll see him again. Every time we meet I ask her if she has, and she shakes her head and promises she'll tell me if she does.

"Okay, two days ago we go through it again. No, she hasn't seen him, so we go on to something else. Then, out of the blue, she says: 'I saw the other one.' 'Who?' 'The other one,' she says-which just about freaks me out. Turns out, to please me she's been sitting with her parents watching all the grown-up shows. And on one of them, a discussion program a week ago, she recognized another of the three men from the van. Not the scary bearded one, and not the guy who was hurt. But the third man who, with the beard, helped the injured guy limp away. Can she describe him? A little. He had gray hair, sharp eyes, and acted very proud. Since that fits just about every Israeli TV panelist I've ever seen, I asked the broadcast people for a list. It wasn't long. I found pictures of most of the men in old newspapers and magazines. I compiled a little scrapbook and this afternoon I showed it to Amit. She examined every face, then fingered one of them. You know, David, she's been an excellent witness, and so far she's been on the button every time."

Shoshana placed her scrapbook on his desk. He turned the pages: party leaders, former cabinet ministers, public personalities from business and the arts. When he reached an old newspaper photo of General Yigal Gati, Shoshana clicked her teeth.

He glanced up at her. "Him?"

Her eyes were flashing. "Yup."

He leaned back, thrilled. Pieces were finally clicking into place.

"You know, Shoshana, you've become one damn fine detective after all."

"Thanks. And now I suppose you'll take this into Rafi since, of course, it's not our case anymore. I hear the new team's discrediting all our work. Dov says they don't even care about the accident. So they'll probably discount this too."

He touched the scar on his cheek. "Fuck them," he said.

"Right! Fuck them!" She laughed. "What are we going to do?"

He leaned forward. "I want you to check up on our old friend Gutman, the Torah thief. He's been in the lock-up awhile. Maybe that prosecutor, Netzer, wouldn't mind if you took him out for a little walk."

"Gutman?" She squinted at him.

"Yeah. Don't you think he could use some air?"

"Is there some connection between him and General Gati?"

"Talk to Netzer, Shoshana. We need old Gutman. So when you go in use all your charms."

Late that afternoon she brought Gutman to where he waited beside the Jean Arp sculpture on the western edge of Independence Park. It had been a magical Jerusalem day, the sky deep blue, the dry air fragrant with decaying lilac blossoms. Now Arp's three vertical steel waves stood like profiles of gigantic women, silver silhouettes against the dense summer greenery.

Gutman had aged since the night of his arrest. He'd lost weight, his skin was pale, and he blinked like a man not used to being out in natural light.

"So it's you." When he saw David he lifted his eyebrows. "For this they let me loose?"

"You're not loose," David replied.

"Oh? More Gestapo torture. I get it now." Gutman enlarged his eyes. "Bring the old Jew out of Bergen-Belsen, let him breathe, then send him quick to the delousing van."

David knew Gutman was a shrewd old crook and that his indignant persecution talk was merely rhetoric. But he found the Nazi references troubling. They were bad enough coming from Arabs, but when a Jew used them they were calculated to injure and infuriate.

"Let's call this a short reprieve."

"Just how damn short is it going to be?"

"Depends on you."

"Do I have to read your mind?"

"Okay, Jacob, let's take a little walk."

He gestured for Shoshana to follow, then guided Gutman up King George toward the offices of the Chief Rabbinate.

"How's your father?" A moderate tone now, as if Gutman had decided to behave like a normal person for a while.

"You should have told me you knew him."

"And embarrass you?"

"I wouldn't have been embarrassed."

"Oh? So you like to arrest your father's friends?"

The harsh defensive tone again; David ignored it. "You recognized me. Tell me how."

"I knew you when you were a kid. I've seen you a few times since. People point you out: 'Hey, there goes young Bar-Lev, nice boy.' See, David, you're not old enough yet. Later your face will change. Your true cop-type character will assert itself."

They passed Stein's Bookstore. Through the window David saw an old man in a skullcap moving languidly among stacks of moldy second-hand Hebrew and German books. Ahead, grenade screens guarded the entrance to the Jewish Agency. Bands of razor wire caught the sun.

"I haven't seen your father in years. Or many of the others."

"The hunters."

Gutman glanced at him. "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing. It's the one thing about which he's never said a word."

"Didn't he say anything about me?"

"Yes. He said you were a man who had been 'wronged.' "

Gutman smiled. "Still, you knew I'd been a hunter?"

"Yigal Gati told me. He came around one day."

"Hmmm. This is interesting. Tell me more."

"I didn't like him much. Pushy kind of guy."

"He always was. A good commander but no compassion, none at all."

"Yes," said David, "I know what you mean. A real first-class Israeli prick."

Suddenly Gutman stopped. He turned to David. There was fear in his eyes and wariness too. "What are you telling me?"

"That Gati's not doing you any good. That if you want help with your difficulties, Gati's not your man."

"So who is my man? You?"

"Calm down. Let's go into the park. It's nice and cool down there."

He glanced back at Shoshana, then guided Gutman off King George. As they descended by a footpath and entered the trees, the sounds of Jerusalem traffic faded away.

"So what are you going to do for me, sonny-boy? Going to get me off?"

"Can't do that. A reduced charge-maybe. But for that you'll have to trade."

"Trade? You mean bargain? Your camel for my rug-that sort of thing?"

"How about your money for my Torah?" For the first time, David saw Gutman grin.

This, he knew, was the crucial moment, the pivot upon which the interview would turn. Gutman could spill, if indeed he had anything to spill. Or he could tighten up and then it would be useless to try and make him talk.

They passed a young mother in a red blouse pushing a baby carriage, and then a young man with one leg, tall, tanned, athletic, a Lebanon veteran, walking with crutches, his sweetheart by his side.

"I want to explain about the Torahs."

"I'm listening." David gestured toward a bench. Gutman sat down. David sat beside him. Shoshana leaned against a tree.

"I don't want you to misunderstand. I didn't do it for the money. I never cared about that."

"So what did you care about?"

"Religious people. Their stupid halacha. The way they've brought this country to its knees. They're detestable. The Knesset ought to ban them. Fire the rabbis. Outlaw the yarmulke. Cut off their damn earlocks and if they don't like it ship them out." He shook his head. "One day in 1972 one of them, a black-suited black-hatted son-of-a bitch, hit my only daughter, Miriam, with his car. He was a diamond merchant, fifty-two years old. She was nineteen, on leave from the army, a beautiful red-headed kid, eyes so sweet you'd look into them and want to cry. He ran her down, squashed her right there on Malkhe Yisrael, and the bastard didn't even stop. Just drove off with his precious diamonds, and then, when they caught him and put him on trial-no doubt of the outcome; the case was open-and-shut-up pop a dozen of his friends to say he couldn't have been the driver because he was with them in their lernen group interpreting Talmud at the time. Then his lawyer starts in on Miriam like she was some kind of slut, like she practically deserved to be run over for walking in a religious neighborhood, her head provocatively uncovered and her bare legs fanning flames of lust. The prosecutor was a young smart-ass. He didn't prepare himself; they ate him up alive. Then came the verdict. Reasonable doubt, says the judge. No punishment. No damages. The fucker walks out of court, a great big smile on his face. Your father tells you I was 'wronged.' Yeah, I was wronged. Oh yeah! I was wronged!"

Gutman twisted in his seat. There were tears in his eyes. David glanced at Shoshana; she was staring embarrassed at the ground.

"Give your father credit, he tried to help. Told me I had to come to terms with what had happened, put it behind me and get on with my life. I listened and I tried but I couldn't do it. My wife was dead. I had nobody left. So that's when I thought up my little vengeance scheme. Pretty pathetic for a hunter, maybe, but for me at my age it wasn't bad…"

He shifted position, wiped his eyes, tensed himself as if to show them he was strong. "Trade in Judaica. Export the stuff to the diaspora. The scrolls too. I practically gave them away. Anything to get the damn things out of here faster than the damn scribes could write up more. So maybe it was pathetic. Still it satisfied. Every time I sold off some of that crap I felt a little thrill, a little lighter in my heart." He laughed. Now they want to lynch me. A Torah thief-they're crying for my blood. Suppose I say: 'Okay, sorry, judge, I'm remorseful, I won't do it again.' Then what? He gives me four years instead of five?" Gutman looked around. "A day like this, you think what prison could be like. I know I'm going there, and I know that's where I'm going to die."

David peered at him. This, he decided, was one very strange human being. Gutman was spilling, so far so good. But there was more, there had to be.

"So tell me, Mister Big-Shot Detective, why do you think Gati's been trying so hard to get me off?"

"You have something on him."

A shrewd smile now. "Pretty smart, sonny-boy. Yes, you're pretty smart."

"Tell me about it?"

"Maybe I will." He paused. "Funny thing, I kind of like the idea of him being so frantic on my account. Hiring that fancy lawyer Abramsohn for me-yeah, that was nice. Then Abramsohn says I should just keep calm and everything will get worked out. By calm he means silent. But now I'm not so sure. I could get killed in jail, poisoned, or maybe one night someone sneaks in and slits my throat. Anything to silence me, because they don't know what I know. The truth is, I don't know much. Just that there was some kind of accident."

David stared at him. "What kind?"

"An accident. How the hell should I know what kind it was? I wasn't there. But I do know that's what they're worried about."

"Who's worried?"

"Oh, Gati. Maybe Abramsohn. Maybe some other people too. That's the trouble. I just don't know. I don't know what it means."

"Where did you hear this?"

"I heard it."

"Not enough, Jacob. We already know about the accident. Who? Where? You have to say."

"In the first place, sonny-boy, I don't have to tell you anything. But suppose I do? Then what happens? They hear I squawked and decide to kill us both. I don't care about myself, but you're Doc Bar-Lev's boy. I wouldn't feel right my dying moment knowing I'd brought that kind of grief on him."

David peered at him. As much as he wanted to probe he knew it would be a mistake. So they just sat there together in silence until finally Gutman cleared his throat.

"What happened with our hunters group-now that's an interesting tale. First it was just to talk it through, your father's idea after he became a psychoanalyst. We'd all long since gone on to other things, but there was still something lingering in our hearts. Not guilt exactly, but this awful feeling about having killed so coldly and brutally the way we had. So your father got us together. A reunion, he said. A chance to talk things out. Regular meetings. I looked forward to them, the first Thursday of every month.

"But then, after we'd been through it all a hundred times, we began to speak of other things. Israel. Her destiny. What should be done. It was around that time, after the Yom Kippur War, that there occurred what we later called 'the split.'

"I'm not saying up to then we didn't disagree. Gati and I, for instance-we always hated each other's guts. But this new thing went beyond personalities. It had to do with the way we'd each responded to what we'd done. How to put it? There were two completely different ways. Your father's, the way of most of us, that we'd done what we had to do and that that was over for us now. And the smaller faction, Gati's gang, who felt the opposite. They had this idea we should become an avenging knighthood and go back to doing dirty clean-up work. So that was the division: hunters who wanted to live normal lives, and hunters who wanted to hunt some more.

"After the split we went separate ways. We didn't mix with them and they didn't mix with us. But there were still a few odd contacts, guys who moved back and forth. One of them, Max Rosenfeld, lived in my house on Hananya Street.

"Max died two and a half months ago. Liver cancer. Started feeling bad, went into the hospital, and three weeks later he was gone. I went to visit him four, five days before the end. He sent for me, said he knew something important about Gati and the rest of them, something he wanted to pass on. He was very sick. He didn't give details. Just said there'd been this accident. Gati was worried about it, all of them were worried, and they were trying desperately to cover it up. He also told me they'd robbed your father's papers, files he'd stored in Herman Blumenthal's garage. He said they'd taken stuff to cover their tracks, because they were going to try and set you up."

" Me?" David was astonished. "Me personally?"

"Yeah, you, sonny-boy. Avraham Bar-Lev's Big-Shot Policeman Son. Truthfully, that's all I know. I forgot about it because it didn't mean a thing. But after I got arrested I remembered and sent word to Gati I knew certain stuff, that I needed help, and that if I didn't get it I was going to spill to the police. He was famous. I figured he could pull some strings. Now I see he can't and neither can that fancy Abramsohn. So now I'm wondering: What's going to happen? Am I going to die in prison? Or, now that I've squawked, is this pretty young police girl here going to trot me off to the delousing van…?"

He went directly from the park to see his father. No advance call. The old man's embrace was brittle. The stubble of his beard bruised David's cheek.

"What's the matter? You look unhappy."

"I didn't come for therapy."

"I don't do therapy anymore." A pause. "Why did you come?"

"Which of your papers were stolen?"

"None. I told you that."

David glanced at the photos on the table: Gideon in his Air Force uniform smiling, his mother's sad longing eyes meeting his with reproach.

"Listen, Father, this is difficult to say, but I know you've not been truthful. Dr. Blumenthal never reported the break-in. I checked. And on his deathbed Max Rosenfeld told Gutman that Gati and his faction robbed your files. Which ones? Files on the hunters? I can understand that; Rosenfeld spoke of covering their tracks. But he also said that they were going to try and set me up." Silence. "What files could you have that could possibly help them do a thing like that?"

Avraham stared at him, then turned away. "I'm sorry…"

"Never mind that. What did they take?"

"Remember the concept of the broken vessels…"

"No Kabbalah, Father, please. This one time just the facts."

"You want facts. All right. They did take the hunters files, not that that means anything. Everything we did has been common knowledge for years."

"What else?"

"That doesn't concern you."

"Dammit, Father, don't hold out on me. I must know everything. I may be your son, but I'm also a captain of police."

"Ha! You're going to play the big shot now with me? "

"Don't lie to me again. Or withhold or shade the truth."

Just then the window shook: the sonic boom of a fighter crashing across Jerusalem's skies.

"Would you arrest me? Really?" Avraham's voice now was subdued.

David lowered his to match. "If I had to-yes," he said.

The old man winced. The room was steamy. David wiped his brow. A long pause, and then Avraham spoke: "They also took my file on Gideon."

"Why?"

"I don't know. To hold over me maybe, remind me I'd already lost one son."

"A warning?"

"I think so." Avraham squirmed. "If they read that file they know I blame myself."

"How can you? Gideon was an adult. He made a choice."

"But what compelled him to make it? I don't know. That's the trouble-he was more difficult and perplexing than any patient I ever had. After he died I lost belief. For thirty-five years I gave people answers. Then, when he killed himself, I started wondering: Was my profession just a fraud?"

"You helped many people. You can be certain of that."

"I look around now and I see sickness everywhere."

The light in the little room was dim but David was certain he saw tears in his father's eyes. He wanted to say something, give the old man comfort, then he knew that the best comfort he could give him would be to give up their struggle and allow him to regain his dignity.

"I'm sorry I talked to you the way I did. Sometimes I get carried away." He paused. "It's hard, you know, being the big-shot cop. Sometimes even harder than being Dr. Avraham Bar-Lev's son."

Avraham smiled. "No, you were right. I shouldn't have lied to you. But now I have something more to say." He paused. "This time will you let me tell it my own way?"

"Of course."

"An analogy between the broken vessels and your case. The vessels, remember, were unable to contain the powerful light that poured into them, and thus they shattered into a million shards. I believe that's why your case is so important. The forces you are confronting are very powerful. And if you don't separate them, David, they may blow everything apart."

"You already figured it out, David. You told me before they set you up to go chase after Peretz."

Anna was lying on their bed, hands behind her head. David stood by the window staring out.

"Peretz-yes," he said. "But now I think there may have been something more."

He gazed down upon Jerusalem. In the summer night the lights of the city made a pattern across the valleys and the hills. The Dome of the Rock seemed poised above everything, like a cap holding in the anger boiling out of the maze below.

"Suppose they were planning to create a case," he said, "a pattern case that would have to be assigned to me. Suppose they deliberately left a trail of killings that they knew would pull me in."

"But why would anyone want to do that? What could they possibly gain?"

"Maybe they thought it would seduce me, and then, on account of some personal flaw, I'd botch it and then they could go ahead with whatever it was they'd planned."

He turned to her. The shadows beneath her arms were pools of darkness. "I wonder…"

"Yes?"

"I wonder if they did this so that maybe later on…" He shook his head. "I know this is a bizarre idea, Anna, but suppose they did this so that later they could use me somehow…?"

He phoned Yehuda Merom at the Ministry of Defense. "Can you get hold of my brother's medical file?"

"No problem…"

But later that afternoon, when Yehuda called him back, his voice had lost its confidence.

"David, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to give you what you want."

"The file's missing?"

"Most of it, yes. It'll turn up eventually. Probably it was just misplaced."

"The psychological portions?"

"Yes. But, David, how did you know?"

"It's been almost two years since he crashed. Are the records on a dead pilot kept secure?"

"They're supposed to be."

"But not really, right, Yehuda? You had access to them, so other people did too. Any number of people could have removed them. And no one would have noticed because nobody cares once the officer is deceased."

David was surprised. Israeli generals did not usually retire into luxury. They tended to favor simple farmhouses or the beloved kibbutzim of their youths. Yigal Gati, however, inhabited a penthouse in the most expensive area of the rebuilt Jewish quarter, the complex designed by Moshe Safdie that overlooked the Western Wall.

The scene below was fascinating as always, but observing it from here David felt detached. So vivid and engaging when seen from out-of-doors, the view seemed dead through Gati's wall of soundproof glass.

He turned back to the room. The general, sipping from a glass of mineral water, observed him from a sleek gray soft glove-leather couch. Except for a pair of expensive contemporary chairs the large living room was under-furnished and austere. Sets of thick glass shelves recessed in the walls contained a collection of archaeological artifacts. David examined them: superb examples of pottery, papyrus, and ancient coins illuminated by invisible lights. There was a large ornate menorah too, the kind one might have found sixty years before in a wealthy synagogue in Prague. And beside it, in a simple frame, hung a fine small glowing oil painting by Chagall.

Gati, offering no explanation as to how he had acquired these priceless objects, watched with curiosity as David took them in. Finally, when David sat down, Gati met his eyes.

"So-nothing can be done. I was afraid of that. Poor Gutman. I had hoped…" He made a gesture to show he understood the inexorable processes of the law.

"Still," David said, "we have loose ends. Gutman's case, it turns out, is not as simple as we thought."

"Oh? I thought you found the Torahs in his apartment."

"Yes. But now it's not the scrolls that interest us."

"What then?"

"Collateral aspects. Certain statements the man has made. He's a strange fellow, clear one moment, barely rational the next. He sees us alternatively as friends and persecutors. In his paranoid phases he sometimes says the most extraordinary things."

"Such as?"

"Well, for one thing, he hints at knowledge of inflammatory facts."

"Is this what you've come to tell me?" Gati was studying him with the same cool evaluating gaze he'd employed on his unexpected visit to Abu Tor. "You have something to say, David, go ahead and say it."

David nodded. "I know now why you came to see me, even though you always hated Gutman's guts."

"Why did I come?"

"You were afraid he'd talk."

Gati didn't wince or blink or exhibit any other symptom of stress. "What could he say, that crazy old man?"

"He had plenty to say about you. Including the fact that you'd been recognized leaving the scene of a certain unreported accident."

Gati laughed. "Ever since his daughter was killed, Gutman's had accidents on the brain." He continued to gaze at David. Then, after a long silence, he shook his head. "You're bluffing. And what's more, you know I know you are." He stood up, went to the huge window, stared out, then turned. "Tell me-what do you really want?"

"Since you ask so bluntly, I'd like to see you without your mask."

"An honest man. You're not like your father. I always found him a little…oblique."

"And my brother? Do I remind you of him?"

"No. Not at all. He was a completely different type. Extremely talented, perhaps the most effective pilot I ever had in my command. But he was a coward killing himself the way he did. Not that there's anything wrong with suicide. In appropriate circumstances it can be honorable. The zealots of Masada; that Japanese guy, Mishima; Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment. But your brother…look, if he wanted to take his own life, okay. But a single bullet would have done the job. To destroy a perfectly magnificent aircraft in the process -I'm sorry, I lose sympathy. I don't respect grandiose gestures designed to distract attention from-and let's be honest now-unsavory personal flaws."

Gati seemed actually to froth as he said this. Now he stood in a defiant posture as if challenging David to mount a physical assault.

"I notice something about you, general."

"Yes?"

"You like to stand in front of windows when you talk."

Gati grinned. "Not a bad observation. Though I'd have hoped for better from the 'best detective in all of Israel.' " He shrugged. "Anyway, since I'm standing here, let me say a few words about the view." He turned his back, stood at parade rest, and stared out as he had done in front of David's window in Abu Tor.

"We hear a lot of talk these days about territory. It's become our national fetish. West Bank. East Bank. Frontiers. Annexations. Lines drawn and redrawn again and again. Parties are formed. Old friends become bitter enemies. People shout. People scream. But in the end they're squabbling over nothing. Because the real issue isn't territory. It's something else. It's character-who we are and what we want to be."

He faced David again, then pointed through the window toward the Western Wall. "Take the Wall. Sometimes I stand here and stare at it for hours. Such a tired bedraggled place. Such pathetic performances too. A wretched remnant. Old men bobbing up and down. Tourists gushing tears. But look above it. The Mount! Now there's something serious. We took it in '67, paid for it with Jewish blood. And then, like perfect idiots, we gave it back. Can you imagine? The high ground! Gave it back!"

He left the window, sat down wearily on the couch. "I ask you: What kind of people are we that we would give up our temple site and settle for a moldy cellar wall? So you see, David, if I give long speeches while standing in front of windows, it's just the reaction of a bitter old patriot to a truly sickening sight."

The man was crazy. It was time to leave. David leaned forward as he spoke.

"I'm going to be very frank with you, general. I didn't come about Gutman. He was my excuse. I came about certain personal papers stolen from my father. You took them, and I want them back."

Then, for the first time since he had entered the apartment, David saw Gati shake. It was only a tremor, it lasted only for a moment; the general regained his composure almost immediately. But in that single instant of trembling all of David's suspicions were confirmed. He knew for certain now that Amit Nissim's identification had been correct, and that Max Rosenfeld, on his deathbed, had told Jacob Gutman the truth.

The Mendelssohn sonata: now Anna worked on it every day. Whenever David came up the stairs to the apartment he could hear her practicing portions through the door.

"It sounds better," he told her. She shook her head. "Well, not hopeless."

"No, not quite hopeless," she agreed.

She had a special way of smiling even when she was sad. That smile touched him. It made him want to take her in his arms.

She was worried about Targov. "He's here for a purpose. He won't tell me what it is, but I think the unveiling is a pretext for something else."

"Sokolov?"

"Yes. But not just to see him-it's not just that. He has a plan. Something complicated. Deep and strange, I think."

"He wouldn't try to hurt Sokolov, would he? To cover up what he did?"

"No, no-he's too torn up with guilt. I'm more worried he'll hurt himself. He liked you, David. Very much. He told me that several times. But he's cryptic. He talks about redemption, making things right, settlements, settling scores. He has something in mind. Perhaps something dangerous. I wonder if Jerusalem is really good for him. He's become obsessed with martyrdom. That's all he sees here, all he thinks about…"

David nodded. The city was filled with repentant madmen-saints and saviors of every stripe. "Messiahs" walked the streets, along with criminals and psychopaths, each harboring his agenda, his plan for redemption, his way of righting ancient wrongs and putting an end to tortured sleepless nights.