The Butcher's Theatre

The Butcher's Theatre

Jonathan Kellerman

Spring

Yaakov Schlesinger could think only of food.

Idiot, he told himself. Immersed in such beauty and unable to take your mind off your belly.

Unclipping his flashlight from his belt, he beamed it briefly on the southern gate of the campus. Satisfied that the lock was in place, he hitched up his trousers and trudged forward in the darkness, determined to ignore the gnawing from within.

The Mount Scopus Road climbed suddenly, but it was a rise that he knew well-what was this, his two hundredth patrol?-and he remained sure-footed. Veering to the left, he walked toward the eastern ridge and looked out, with a pleasurable sense of vertigo, at nothingness: the unlit expanse of the Judean wilderness. In less than an hour dawn would break and sunlight would flood the dessert like honeyed porridge dripping thickly into an earthenware bowl… ach, there it was again. Food.

Still, he rationalized, a bowl was exactly what it looked like to him. Or maybe a dinner plate. A broad, concave disk of desert, chalky-white, seamed with copper, dotted by mesquite and pocked with caves-a gigantic cracked dinner plate tipping into the Dead Sea. Any terrorist foolish enough to try to cross the wilderness would be as conspicuous as a fly on paper, certain to be spotted by the Border Patrol long before reaching the Ma'ale Adumim settlement. Which made his job, he supposed, little more than a formality. An old man's assignment.

He absently touched the butt of the M-l carbine strapped over his shoulder and experienced a sudden rush of memories. A twinge of melancholy that he suppressed by telling himself he had nothing to complain about. That he should be thankful for the opportunity to volunteer. Grateful for the nightly exercise, the cool, fragrant air. Proud of the slap of the M-l against his shoulder blades, the crisp Hagah uniform that made him feel like a soldier again.

A scurrying sound crackled somewhere beyond the ridge and caused his heart to jump. He pulled the carbine down, held it in both hands, and waited. Silence, then another scurry, this time easy to classify: the frantic dash of a rodent or shrew. Letting out his breath, he kept his right hand clamped around the M-l, took the flashlight in his left, and skimmed the beam over the brush. The light caught only rocks and shrubs. A clump of weeds. A filmy swirl of nightflying insects. Stepping away from the ridge, he commenced walking south. The barrenness of the road was broken at the crest by a stolid, many-roofed mass huddled around a high, peaked tower: the Amelia Catherine Hospital, arrogantly colonial on this Levantine stretch of mountaintop. Because the hospital compound was U.N. property, it was excluded from his route, but sometimes he liked to stop and take a break just outside the grounds. Smoke a cigarette and watch as the odor of Turkish tobacco stirred the goats and donkeys penned behind the main building. Why, he wondered, were the Arabs allowed to keep animals there? What did that say for the hygiene of the place?

His stomach growled. Absurd. He'd eaten a hearty dinner at eight, spent the next four hours sitting on the balcony while slowly ingesting the food Eva set out for him before she went'tŠ bed: dried apricots and apples, a string of fat Calimyrna figs, tea wafers, lemon cookies, marzipan, tangerines and kumquats, toasted gar'inim, jagged chunks of bittersweet chocolate, jelly candies, halvah. Topped off by an entire liter bottle of grapefruit juice and a Sipholux full of soda-the last in hopes that gas bubbles might accomplish what solid matter had failed to do: fill him up. No such luck.

He'd lived with his hunger-and its accomplice, insomnia-for more than forty years. Long enough to think of them as a pair of living, breathing creatures. Abdominal homunculi implanted by the bastards at Dachau. Twin demons who scraped away at his peace of mind, evoking constant misery. True, it wasn't cancer, but neither was it trivial.

The pain fluctuated. At best, a dull, maddeningly abstract hollowness; at worst, real, grinding agony, as if an iron hand were clamped around his vitals.

No one took him seriously anymore. Eva said he was fortunate to be able to eat whatever he wanted and remain skinny. This, as she pinched the soft ring around her own thickening waistline and examined the latest diet brochure handed out at the Kupat Holim clinic. And the doctors delighted in telling him there was nothing wrong with him. That the experiments had left no tangible scars. He was a superb specimen, they insisted, possessing the alimentary tract, and general constitution, of a man twenty years younger.

"You're seventy years old, Mr. Schlesinger," one of them had explained before settling back with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. As if that settled it. An active metabolism, another had pronounced. "Be thankful you're as active as you are, adoni." Still another had listened with apparent sympathy, raising his hopes, then dashing them by suggesting that he visit the Psychiatric Faculty at Hadassah. Which only illustrated that the man was just another civil-service idiot-the gnawing was in his belly, not his head. He vowed to cease all dealings with the clinic and find himself a private doctor, cost be damned. Someone who could understand what it was like to feel as if you were starving amid plenty, who could appreciate the bottomless ache that had plagued him since the Americans had discovered him, a barely breathing skeleton, lying limply atop a mound of stinking, broken corpses

Enough, fool. Ancient history. You're free, now. A soldier. The man in charge, armed and masterful. Privileged to patrol the most beautiful of cities at the most beautiful of hours. To watch her awaken, bathed in lavender and scarlet light, like a princess rising from a bed canopied with silk

Schlesinger the poet.

He took a deep breath, filled his nostrils with the sharp perfume of Jerusalem pine, and turned away from the looming silhouette of the hospital. Exhaling slowly, he gazed out over the steeply sloping terraces of Wadi el Joz, toward the view from the southwest, the one he always saved for last:

The Old City, backlit in amber, turrets and battlements stitching a flame-colored hem across the pure black sky. Beyond the walls, faint shadowy contours of domes, spires, steeples, and minarets. At the southern end the vertical thrust of The Citadel. Dominating the north, the Haram esh-Sharif plateau, upon which sat the Great Mosque of the Rock, its golden dome burnished rosy in the half-light, nestled within the sleeping city like a brooch cradled in gray velvet.

" Immersed in beauty like that, how could he think of his belly? And yet, the ache had intensified, quickened, taken on a pulse of its own.

Angry, he picked up his pace and crossed the road. Just off the asphalt was a shallow gully leading to the empty fields that anticipated the wadi. Casually, he ran the flashlight over familiar terrain. The same damned contours, the same damned shadows. This olive tree, that row of border stones. The rusty abandoned water heater that had been there for months, glints of broken glass, the sharp stink of sheep dung

And something else.

An oblong shape, maybe a meter and a half long, tucked into a terraced pocket near the top of the north wall of the gully. Lying inert at the base of an olive sapling. Unmoving. A bomb? His instinctive answer was no-it looked too soft. But one couldn't be too careful.

As he considered his options, his arm began to move, seemingly of it own volition, sweeping the flashlight beam over the shape. Up and down, back and forth. This was definitely something new. Striped? No, two tones of fabric. Dark over light. A blanket over sheeting. A shroud. Glistening wet and dark around the edges.

The light continued to wash across the gully. Nothing. No one. He considered calling for help, decided it would be needlessly alarmist. Better to check first.

Carbine in hand, he inched to the rim of the gully, began climbing down, then stopped, legs suddenly leaden. Short of breath. Fatigued. Feeling his age. Deliberating some more, he berated himself: Milksop. A pile of blankets turns you to jelly? Probably nothing.

He resumed his descent, zigging and zagging toward the shape, extending his free arm horizontally in an attempt to maintain balance. Stopping every few seconds to aim the flashlight. Radar-eyed. Ears attuned to alien sounds. Prepared at any moment to drop the light and pull the M-l into firing position. But nothing moved; the silence remained unblemished. Just him and the shape. The foreign shape.

As he lowered himself farther, the ground dipped abruptly. He stumbled, fought for equilibrium, dug his heels in, and remained upright. Good. Very good for an old man. Active metabolism

He was almost there now, just a few feet away. Stop. Check the area for other foreign shapes. The hint of movement. Nothing. Wait. Go on. Take a good look. Avoid that mound of dung. Step around the panicky scatter of glossy black beetles. Tiny black legs scampering over clots of dung. Onto something pale. Something extending from the sheeting. Pale lozenges.

He was standing over the shape now. Kneeling. Chest tautened by breath withheld. Tilting his light downward, he saw them, soft and speckled like small white cucumbers: human fingers. The soft pad of palm. Speckled. Night-black. Edged with crimson. An outstretched hand. Beseeching.

Pinching a corner of the blanket between his fingers, he began peeling it back with the foreboding and compulsion of a child turning over a rock, knowing all the while that slimy things lived on the underside.

There. He let go of the fabric and stared at what he'd exposed.

Lock-jawed, he moaned involuntarily. He was-had been -a soldier, had seen his share of abominations. But this was different. Clinical. So terribly reminiscent of something else

Averting his eyes, he felt them swing back again and lock on to the contents of the blanket, imbibing the horror. Suddenly he was reeling, swaying, bobbing helplessly in a sea of images. Memories. Other hands, other nightmares. Hands. The same pose of supplication. Thousands of hands, a mountain of hands. Begging for mercy that never came.

Rising unsteadily, he took hold of an olive limb and exhaled in fierce, hot gusts. Sickened to the core, yet not unaware of the irony of the moment.

For what lay within the sheets had demolished the demons, freeing him for the first time in more than forty years.

He felt his viscera begin to churn. The iron hand letting go. A burning tide of bile rose uncontrollably in his gullet. Retching and heaving, he vomited repeatedly in the dirt, one part of him curiously detached, as if he were observing his own defilement. Careful to direct the spray away from the blankets. Not wishing to worsen what had already been done.

When he'd emptied himself he looked down again with a child's magical hope. Believing, for an instant, that his emesis had served as a ritual, a sacrificial atonement that had somehow caused the horror to vanish.

But the only thing that had vanished was his hunger.

The Ford Escort ran the red light at the intersection fronting the mouth of Liberty Bell Park. Turning left on King David, it hooked onto Shlomo Hamelekh as far as Zahal Square, then sped northeast on Sultan Suleiman Road, hugging the perimeter of the Old City.

The promise of daybreak had been newly fulfilled by a fiery desert sun that rose steadily over the Mount of Olives, warming the morning, tossing splashes of copper and gold across the ashen city walls with the abandon of a painter gone mad.

The Escort rushed through brightening cobbled streets, past sidewalks and alleys dotted with early risers: Bedouin shepherds nudging their flock toward the northeast corner of the Old City wails in preparation for the Friday livestock market; veiled women from the nearby villages settling down with bright bolts of fabric and baskets of produce for the curbside bazaar at the entrance to the Damascus Gate; Hassidim in long black coats and white leggings walking in pairs and trios toward the Jaffa Gate, eyes affixed to the ground, hurrying to be in place at the Western Wall for the first shaharit minyan of the day; stooped, skullcapped porters bearing massive crates on narrow backs; bakers' boys carrying rings of sesame-studded bagelah suspended from stout iron bars.

Under other circumstances the driver of the Escort would have noticed all this, and more. His feelings for the city had never dimmed and no matter how many times he experienced her sights and sounds and smells, they never ceased to enchant him. But this morning his mind was on other things.

He turned the wheel and swung up Shmuel Ben Adayah. A quick left brought him onto the Mount of Olives Road toward the peak of Mount Scopus. The highest point in the city. The Eye of Jerusalem, where the outrage had taken place.

Flares and metal barriers had been laid across the road. Behind the barriers stood a border policeman-a Druze the driver knew, by the name of Salman Afif. Afif maintained an impassive watch, legs spread and planted firmly, one hand resting on his holstered pistol, the other twirling the ends of enormous black mustaches. When the Escort approached he mentioned for it to halt, came to the open window, and nodded in recognition. After a cursory exchange of greetings, the barriers were pulled aside.

As the Escort passed through, the drivers surveyed the hilltop, examining the vehicles parked along the road: the mobile crime van; the transport van from the Abu Kabir pathology lab; a blue-and-white, its blue blinker still flashing; Afif's jeep; a white Volvo 240 with police plates. The technicians had already arrived, as had uniformed officers-but only two of them. Next to the Volvo stood Deputy Commander Laufer and his driver. But no police spokesman, no press, no sign of the pathologist. Wondering about it, the driver parked at some distance from the others, turned off the engine, and set the hand brake. There was a note pad on the passenger seat.

He grasped it somewhat clumsily in his left hand and got out of the car.

He was a small, dark, neat-looking man, five foot seven, one hundred and forty pounds, thirty-seven years old but appearing ten years younger. He wore simple clothes-short-sleeved white cotton shirt, dark trousers, sandals without socks-and no jewelry except for an inexpensive wristwatch and an incongruously ornate wedding band of gold filigree.

His hair was thick, black, and tightly kinked, trimmed to medium length in the style the Americans called Afro, and topped with a small black kipah sruguh-knitted yarmul-ke-bordered with red roses. The face below the Afro was lean and smooth, skin the color of coffee liberally laced with cream, stretched tightly over a clearly delineated substructure: high, sharp cheekbones, strong nose anchored by flared nostrils, wide lips, full and bowed. Only the upper surface of his left hand was a different color-grayish-white, puckered. and shiny, crisscrossed with scars.

Arched eyebrows created the illusion of perpetual surprise. Deep sockets housed a pair of liquid, almond eyes, the irises a strange shade of golden-brown, the lashes so long they bordered on the womanish. In another context he could have been taken for someone of Latin or Caribbean descent, or perhaps Iberian melded with a robust infusion of Aztec. On at least one occasion he had been mistaken fora light-skinned black man.

His name was Daniel Shalom Sharavi and he was, in fact, a Jew of Yemenite origins. Time, circumstance, and protekzia-fortuitous connections-had made him a policeman. Intelligence and industriousness had raised him to the rank of pakad-chief inspector-in the National Police, Southern District. For most of his career, he'd been a detective. For the last two years he'd specialized in Major Crimes, which, in Jerusalem, rarely referred to the kind of thing that had brought him to Scopus this morning.

He walked toward the activity. The transport attendants sat in their van. The uniformed policemen were talking to an older man in a Civil Guard uniform. Daniel gave him a second look: late sixties to early seventies, thin but powerfully built, with close-cropped white hair and a bristly white mustache. He seemed to be lecturing the policemen, pointing toward a gully off the west side of the road, gesticulating with his hands, moving his lips rapidly.

Laufer stood several yards away, seemingly oblivious to the lecture, smoking and checking his watch. The deputy commander wore a black knit shirt and gray slacks, as if he'd lacked the time to don his uniform. In civilian clothes, bereft of ribbons, he looked pudgier, definitely less impressive. When he saw Daniel approaching, he dropped his cigarette and ground it out in the dirt, then said something to the driver, who walked away. Not waiting for Daniel to reach him, he moved forward, paunch first, in short, brisk steps.

They met midway and shared a minimal handshake.

"Horrible," said Laufer. "Butchery." When he spoke his jowls quivered like empty water bladders. His eyes, Daniel noticed, looked more tired than usual.

Laufer's hand fumbled in his shirt pocket and drew out a pack of cigarettes. English Ovals. Souvenirs from the latest London trip, no doubt. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out of his nose in twin drafts.

"Butchery," he said again.

Daniel cocked his head toward the Hagah man.

"He the one who found it?"

Laufer nodded. "Schlesinger, Yaakov."

"This part of his regular patrol?"

"Yes. From Old Hadassah, around the university, down past the Amelia Catherine, and back. Back and forth, five times a night, six nights a week."

"A lot of walking for someone his age."

"He's a tough one. Former palmahi. Claims he doesn't need much sleep."

"How many times had he been through when he discovered it?"

"Four. This was the last pass. Back up the road and then he picks up his car on Sderot Churchill and drives home. To French Hill."

"Does he log?"

"At the end, in the car. Unless he finds something out of the ordinary." Laufer smiled bitterly.

"So we may be able to pinpoint when it was dumped."

"Depending on how seriously you take him."

"Any reason not to?"

"At his age?" said Laufer. "He says he's certain it wasn't there before, but who knows? He may be trying to avoid looking sloppy."

Daniel looked a the old man. He'd stopped lecturing and stood ruler-straight between the policemen. Wearing the M-l as if it were part of him. Uniform pressedaand creased. The old-guard type. Nothing sloppy about him.

Turning back to Laufer, he lifted his note pad with his bad hand, flipped it open, and pulled out his pen.

"What time does he say he found it?" he asked.

"Five forty-five."

A full hour before he'd been called. He lowered the pen, looked at Laufer questioningly.

"I wanted things quiet," said the deputy commander matter-of-factly. Without apology. "At least until we can put this in context. No press, no statements, a minimum of personnel. And no needless chatter with any personnel not on the investigating team."

"I see," said Daniel. "Dr. Levi's been here?"

"Been and gone. He'll do the necropsy this afternoon and call you."

The deputy commander took a deep drag on his cigarette, got a shred of tobacco on his lip and spat it out.

"Do you think he's back?" he asked. "Our gray friend?"

It was a premature question, thought Daniel. Even for one who had made his mark in administration.

"Does the evidence fit?" he asked.

Laufer's expression made light of the question. "The site fits, doesn't it? Weren't the others found right around here?"

"One of them-Marcovici. Farther down. In the woodlands."

"And the others?"

"Two in Sheikh Jarrah, the fourth-"

"Exactly." Laufer cut him off. "All within a half-kilometer radius. Perhaps the bastard has a thing for this area. Something psychological."

"Perhaps," said Daniel. "What about the wounds?"

"Go down there and look for yourself," said the deputy commander.

He turned away, smoking and coughing. Daniel left him and climbed nimbly down into the gully. Two technicians, one male, one female, were working near the body, which was covered by a white sheet.

"Good morning, Pakad Sharavi," the man said with mock deference. He held a test tube up to the sunlight, shook it gently, and placed it in an open evidence case.

"Steinfeld," acknowledged Daniel. He ran his eyes over the site. Searching for revelations, seeing only the gray of stone, the dun of soil. Torsos of olive trees twisting through the dust, their tops shimmering silver-green. A kilometer of sloping rocky field; beyond it the deep, narrow valley of Wadi el Joz. Sheikh Jarrah, with its jumble of alleys and vanilla-colored houses. Flashes of turquoise: wrought-iron grills painted in the hue the Arabs believed would repel evil spirits. The towers and steeples of the American colony meshing with tangles of television antennas.

No blood spatter, no trail of crushed foliage, no bits of clothing adhering conveniently to jutting tree limbs. No geographical confession. Just a white form lying under a tree. Isolated, ovoid, out of place. Like an egg dropped out of the sky by some giant, careless bird.

"Did Dr. Levi have anything to say after his examination?" he asked.

"Clucked his tongue a lot." Steinfeld picked up another test tube, examined it, put it down.

Daniel noticed several plaster casts in the case and asked, "Any clear footprints?"

"Just those of the Hagah man," the technician said disgustedly. "If there were others, he obliterated them. He also threw up. Over there." He pointed to a dry, whitening patch a meter to the left of the sheet. "Missed the body. Good aim, eh?"

The woman was a new hire named Avital. She knelt in the dirt, taking samples of leaves, twigs, and dung, scooping them into plastic bags, working quickly and silently with an intent expression on her face. When she'd sealed the bags she looked up and grimaced. "You don't want to look at this one, adoni.'

"How true," said Daniel. He got down on his knees and lifted up the sheet.

The face had been left intact. It lay tilted in an unnatural position, staring up at him with half-closed, clouded eyes. Horribly pretty, like a doll's head fastened to the carnage below. A young face, dusky, roundish, lightly sprinkled with pimples on forehead and chin, wavy black hair, long and shining.

How old could she have been? he thought. Fifteen, maybe sixteen? A hot anger kindled in his abdomen. Avital was staring at him and he realized he was clenching his fists. Quickly he relaxed them, felt the fingertips tingle.

"Was the hair like this when you found it?" he asked.

"Like what?" asked Steinfeld.

"Clean. Combed."

The technicians looked at each other.

"Yes," said Avital.

Steinfeld nodded and paused expectantly, as if waiting for another question. When none came he shrugged and went back to work.

Daniel leaned in closer and sniffed. The stench of death had begun to issue from the corpse but through it he made out the clean, sweet scent of soap. Someone had washed her.

He raised his head and continued examining the face. The mouth hung slightly agape, revealing a hint of white but widely spaced teeth. The lower ones were crowded and chipped. An upper canine was missing. Not a rich girl. Pierced ears but no earrings. No tribal tattoos, scars, birthmarks, or blemishes.

"Any identification?"

"Life should be so easy," said Steinfeld.

Daniel stared a bit longer, then ceased his inspection of individual features. Shifting his perspective, he regarded the face as an entity and searched for ethnic characteristics. She appeared Oriental, but that meant little. It was a rare Jerusalem face that told a definite ethnic story-Arab, Ashkenazi, Druze, Bukharan, Armenian. Each had its prototype, but the overlap was substantial. He'd seen too many blond, blue-eyed Arabs, too many swarthy Germans to be confident about racial guesses. Still, it would have been nice to find something, somewhere to start

A shiny green fly settled on the lower lip and began exploring. He shooed it away. Forced his eyes downward.

The throat had been cut deeply from ear to ear, severing gullet and trachea, separating the ivory knobs of the spinal cord, millimeters from complete decapitation. Each small breast was circled by stab wounds. The abdomen had been sliced open under the ribs on the right side, swooping down to the pelvis and back up to the left. Glossy bits of tissue peeked out from under the flap of the wound. The pubic region was an unrecognizable mass of gore.

The fire in his belly intensified. He covered the body from the neck down.

"She wasn't killed here," he said.

Steinfeld shook his head in agreement. "Not enough blood for that. Almost no blood at all, in fact. Looks as if she's been drained."

"What do you mean?"

Steinfeld pointed to the wound flap. "No blood on the body. What's visible under the wound looks pale-like a lab specimen. Drained."

"What about semen?"

"Nothing conspicuous-we took scrapings. Levi's internal will tell you more."

Daniel thought of the destruction that had been visited upon the genitals. "Do you think Dr. Levi will be able to get anything from the vaginal vault?"

"You'll have to ask Dr. Levi." Steinfeld snapped the evidence case shut.

"Someone cleaned her up thoroughly," said Daniel, more to himself than to the techs.

"I suppose."

There was a camera next to the case.

"You've taken your pictures?"

"All the usual ones."

"Take some extra ones. Just in case."

"We've already shot three rolls," said Steinfeld.

"Shoot more," said Daniel. "Let's not have a repeat of the Aboutboul disaster."

"I had nothing to do with Aboutboul," said Steinfeld, defensively. But the look on his face bespoke more than defensiveness.

He's horrified, thought Daniel, and fighting to hide it. He softened his tone.

"I know that, Meir."

"Some defective from Northern District on loan to the National Staff," the technician continued to complain. "Takes the camera and opens it in a lighted room-bye-bye evidence."

Daniel's mind longed to be somewhere else, but he shook his head knowingly, forced himself to commiserate.

"Protekzia?'

"What else? Someone's nephew."

"Figures."

Steinfeld inspected the contents of his case, closed it, and wiped his hands on his pants. He glanced toward the camera, picked it up.

"How many extra rolls do you want?"

"Take two more, okay?"

"Okay."

Daniel wrote in his note pad, rose, brushed off his trousers, and looked again at the dead girl. The static beauty of the face, the defilement… Young one, what were your final thoughts, your agonies…?

"Any sand on the body?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Avital, "not even between the toes."

"What about the hair?"

"No," she said. "I combed through it. Before that, it looked perfect-shampooed and set." Pause. "Why would that be?"

"A hair fetishist," said Steinfeld. "A freak. When you deal with freaks, anything's possible. Isn't that right, Pakad?"

"Absolutely." Daniel said good-bye and climbed back up. Laufer was back in his Volvo, talking on the radio. His driver stood behind the barrier, chatting with Afif. The old Hagah man was still sandwiched between the two officers. Daniel caught his eye and he nodded formally, as if in salute. Daniel began walking toward him but was stopped by the deputy commander's voice.

"Sharavi."

He turned around. Laufer had gotten out of the car and was waving him over.

"So?" the deputy commander demanded when they were face to face.

"As you said, butchery."

"Does it look like the bastard's work?"

"Not on the surface."

"Be specific," ordered Laufer.

"This one's a child. The Gray Man's victims were older- mid- to late thirties."

The deputy commander dismissed the point with a wave.

"Perhaps he's changed his taste," he said. "Acquired a lust for young whores."

"We don't know this one's a whore," said Daniel, surprised at the edge in his voice.

Laufer grunted, looked away.

"The wounds differ as well," said Daniel. "The Gray Man made his incision laterally, on the left side of the throat. He severed the major blood vessels but didn't cut nearly as deeply as this one-which makes sense, because the Gadish woman, the one who'd survived long enough to talk, described his knife as a small one. This poor girl was just about decapitated, which suggests a larger, heavier weapon."

"Which would be the cause if he's gotten angrier and better-armed," said Laufer. "Progressively more violent. It's a pattern with sex fiends, isn't it?"

"Sometimes," said Daniel. "But the discrepancies go beyond intensity. The Gray Man concentrated on the upper trunk. Struck at the breasts, but never below the waist. And he killed his victims on the spot, after they began to fellate him. This one was murdered elsewhere. Someone washed her hair and combed it out. Scrubbed her clean."

Laufer perked up. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

The deputy commander grabbed another Oval, jammed it in his mouth, lit it, and puffed furiously.

"Another one," he said. "Another mad bastard prowling our streets."

"There are other possibilities," said Daniel. "What, another Tutunji?"

"It needs to be considered."

"Shit."

Faiz Tutunji. Daniel uttered the name to himself and conjured the face that went with it: long, sunken-cheeked, snaggle-toothed, the same lazy eyes in every arrest photo. A petty thief from Hebron, with a talent for getting caught. Definitely small-time until a trip to Amman had turned him into a revolutionary. He'd come back spouting slogans, assembled six cohorts, and kidnapped a female soldier off a side street not far from the Haifa harbor. Gang-raped her in the Carmel mountains, then strangled her and cut her up to make it look like a sex murder. A Northern District patrol had caught up with them just outside of Acre, trying to force another hayelet into their van at gunpoint. The ensuing shootout had eliminated six out of seven gang members, including Tutunji, and the survivor had produced written orders from Fatah Central Command. Blessings from Chairman Arafat for an honorable new strategy against the Zionist interloper.

"Liberation through mutilation," spat Laufer. "Just what we need." He grimaced in contemplation, then said, "Okay. I'll make the appropriate inquiries, find out if any new rumblings have been picked up. It if turns into a security case you'll liaison with Latam, Shin Bet, and Mossad." He began walking up the road, toward the still-quiet southern border of the old Hebrew University campus. Daniel stayed by his side.

"What else?" said the deputy commander. "You said possibilities."

"Blood revenge. Love gone wrong."

Laufer digested that.

"A little brutal for that, don't you think?"

"When passion plays a role, things can get out of hand," said Daniel, "but yes, I think it's only a remote possibility."

"Blood revenge," Laufer reflected. "She look like an Arab to you?"

"No way to tell."

Laufer looked displeased, as if Daniel possessed some special insight into what Arabs looked like and had chosen to withhold it.

"Our first priority," said Daniel, "should be to identify her, then work backward from here. The sooner we assemble the tleam, the better."

"Fine, fine. Ben-Ari's available, as is Zussman. Which do you want?"

"Neither. I'll take Nahum Shmeltzer."

"I thought he retired."

"Not yet-next spring."

"None too soon. He's a dray horse, burned out. Lacks creativity."

"He's creative in his own way," said Daniel. "Bright and tenacious-well suited for records work. There'll be plenty of that on this case."

Laufer blew smoke at the sky, cleared his throat, said finally, "Very well, take him. In terms of your subinspector-"

"I want Yosef Lee."

"Free egg rolls, eh?"

"He's a good team worker. Knows the streets, indefatigable."

"How much homicide experience?"

"He put in time on the old woman from Musrara-the one asphyxiated by the burglar's gag. And he came onto Gray Man shortly before we… reduced our activity. Along with Daoud, whom I also want."

"The Arab from Bethlehem?"

"The same."

"That," said Laufer, "could prove awkward."

"I'm aware of that. But the benefits exceed the drawbacks."

"Name them."

Daniel did and the deputy commander listened with a bland expression in his face. After several moments of deliberation he said, "You want an Arab, okay, but you'll have to run a tight ship. If it turns into a security case he'll be transferred out immediately-for his own good, as well as ours. And it will go down on your record as an administrative blunder."

Daniel ignored the threat, put forth his next request. "Something this big, I could use more than one samal. There's a kid over at the Russian Compound named Ben Aharon-"

"Forget it on both counts," said Laufer. He turned on his heel, began walking back to the Volvo, forcing Daniel to follow in order to hear what he was saying. "Business as usual-one samal-and I've already chosen him. New hire named Avi Cohen, just transferred from Tel Aviv."

"What talent does he have to pull a transfer so soon?"

"Young, strong, eager, earned a ribbon in Lebanon." Laufer paused. "He's the third son of Pinni Cohen, the Labor MK from Petah Tikva."

"Didn't Cohen just die?"

"Two months ago. Heart attack, all the stress. In case you don't read the papers, he was one of our friends in Knesset, a sweetheart during budget struggles. Kid's got a good record and we'd be doing the widow a favor."

"Why the transfer?"

"Personal reasons."

"How personal?"

"Nothing to do with his work. He had an affair with the wife of a superior. Asher Davidoff's blonde, a first-class kurva."

"It indicates," said Daniel, "a distinct lack of good judgment."

The deputy commander waved away his objection. "It's an old story with her, Sharavi. She goes for the young ones, makes a blatant play for them. No reason for Cohen to eat it because he got caught. Give him a chance."

His tone indicated that further debate was unwelcome, and Daniel decided the issue wasn't worth pressing. He'd gotten nearly everything he wanted. There'd be plenty of quiet work for this Cohen. Enough to keep him busy and out of trouble.

"Fine," he said, suddenly impatient with talk. Looking over his shoulder at the Hagah man, he began mentally framing his interview questions, the best way to approach an old soldier.

"… absolutely no contact with the press," Laufer was saying, "I'll let you know if and when a leak is called for.

You'll report directly to me. Keep me one hundred percent informed."

"Certainly. Anything else?"

"Nothing else," said Laufer. "Just clear this one up."

After the deputy commander had been driven away, Daniel walked over to Schlesinger. He told the uniformed officers to wait by their car and extended his hand to the Hagah man. he one that gripped it in return was hard and dry.

"Adon Schlesinger, I'm Pakad Sharavi. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Sharavi?" The man's voice was deep, hoarse, his Hebrew dipped short by the vestiges of a German accent. "You're a Yemenite?"

Daniel nodded.

"I knew a Sharavi once," said Schlesinger. "Skinny little fellow-Moshe the baker. Lived in the Old City before we lost it in '48, left to join the crew that built the cable trolley from the Ophthalmic Hospital to Mount Zion." He pointed pouth. "We put it up every night, dismantled it before sunrise. So the goddamned British wouldn't catch us sending food and medicine to our fighters."

"My uncle," said Daniel. "Ach, small world. How's he doing?"

"He died five years ago."

"What from?"

"Stroke."

"How old was he, seventy?" Schlesinger's face had drawn tight with anxiety, the bushy white eyebrows drooping low over watery blue eyes. "Seventy-nine."

"Seventy-nine," echoed Schlesinger. "Could be worse. He was a hell of a worker for a little guy, never griped. You come from good stock, Pakad Sharavi."

"Thank you," Daniel pulled out his note pad. Schlesinger's eyes followed him, stopped, focused on the back of his hand. Stared at the scar tissue. An observant one, thought Daniel.

"Tell me about your patrol," he said.

Schlesinger shrugged. "What's there to tell? I walk up and down the road five times a night, scaring away jack-rabbits."

"How long have you been with Hagah?"

"Fourteen years, first spring out of the reserves. Patrolled Rehavya for thirteen of them, past the Prime Minister's house. A year ago I bought a flat in the towers on French Hill-near your headquarters-and the wife insisted I take something closer to home."

"What's your schedule?"

"Midnight to sunrise, Monday through Saturday. Five passes from Old Hadassah to the Ben Adayah intersection and back."

"Fifteen kilometers a night," said Daniel.

"Closer to twenty if you include curves in the road."

"A lot of walking, adoni."

"For an old fart?"

"For anyone."

Schlesinger laughd dryly.

"The brass at the Civil Guard thought so too. They worried I'd drop dead and they'd be sued. Tried to talk me into doing half a shift, but I convinced them to give me a tryout." He patted his midsection. "Three years later and still breathing. Legs like iron. Active metabolism."

Daniel nodded appreciatively. "How long does each pass take you?" he asked.

"Fifty minutes to an hour. Twice I stop to smoke, once a shift I take a leak."

"Any other interruptions?"

"None," said Schlesinger. "You can set your watch by me."

"What time did you find the girl?"

"Five forty-seven."

"That's very precise."

"I checked my watch," said Schlesinger, but he looked uneasy.

"Something the matter?"

The old man glanced around, as if searching for eavesdroppers. Touched the barrel of the M-l and gnawed on his mustache.

"If you're not certain of the precise time, an estimate will do," said Daniel.

"No, no. Five forty-seven. Precisely."

Daniel wrote it down. The act seemed to increase Schlesinger's uneasiness.

"Actually," he said, lowering his voice, "that's the time I called in. Not when I found her."

Daniel looked up. "Was there much of a time lapse between the two?"

Schlesinger avoided Daniel's eyes.

"I… when I saw her I became sick. Tossed my dinner into the bushes."

"An understandable reaction, adoni."

The old man ignored the empathy. "Point is, I was out of it for a while. Dizzy and faint. Can't be certain how much time went by before my head cleared."

"Did it seem more than a few minutes?"

"No, but I can't be certain."

"When did you last pass by the spot where you found her?"

"On the way up from the fourth trip. About an hour before."

"Four-thirty?"

"Approximately."

"And you saw nothing."

"There was nothing," said Schlesinger adamantly. "I make it a point to check the gully carefully. It's a good place for someone to hide."

"So," said Daniel, writing again, "as far as you could tell, she was brought there between four-thirty and five forty-seven."

"Absolutely."

"During that time, did you see or hear any cars?"

"No."

"Anyone on donkey or horseback?"

"No."

"What about from the campus?"

"The campus was locked-at that hour it's dead."

"Pedestrians?"

"Not a one. Before I found it… her, I heard something from over there, on the desert side." He swiveled and indicated the eastern ridge. "Scurrying, a rustle of leaves. Lizards, maybe. Or rodents. I ran my light over it. Several times. There was nothing."

"How long before you found her did this occur?"

"Just a few minutes. Then I crossed over. But there was no one there, I assure you."

Daniel lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and looked out at the wilderness: jagged golden heights striped rust and green by ancient terraces, dropping without warning to the bone-white table of the Jordanian Rift; at vision's end, the shadow-like ellipse that was the Dead Sea. A leaden wedge of fog hovered over the water, dissolving the horizon.

He made a note to have some uniforms go over the slope on foot.

"Nothing there," repeated Schlesinger. "No doubt they came from the city side. Sheikh Jarrah or the wadi."

"They?"

"Arabs. This is obviously their dirty work."

"Why do you say that?"

"She was cut up, wasn't she? The Arab loves a blade."

"You said Arabs," said Daniel. "In the plural. Any reason for that?"

"Just being logical," said Schlesinger. "It's their style, the mob mentality. Gang up on someone defenseless, mutilate them. It was a common thing, before your time-Hebron, Kfar Etzion, the Jaffa Gate riots. Women and children slaughtered like sheep. The goddamned British used to stand by and let it happen. I remember one time-end of '47-they arrested four of our boys and handed them over to a mob at the Damascus Gate. The Arabs ripped them apart. Like jackals. Nothing left to bury."

Schlesinger's face had grown hawklike, the eyes com-rressed to slashes, the mouth under the mustache thin-lipped and grim.

"You want to solve this, son? Knock on doors in East Jerusalem."

Daniel closed the pad. "One more thing, adoni."

"Yes?"

"You said you live on French Hill."

"That's correct. Just up the road."

"That's within walking distance of your patrol route."

"Correct."

"And by your own account, you're a strong walker. Yet you drive your car and park it on Sderot Churchill."

Schlesinger gave him a stony look.

"Sometimes when I finish," he said, "I'm not ready to go ne. I take a drive."

"Anywhere in particular?"

"Here and there. Anything wrong with that, Pakad?" The old man's gutturals were harsh with indignation.

"Nothing at all," said Daniel, but to himself he thought: Ben adam afor, Carmellah Gadish had gasped, when they'd found her. A gray man. Three barely audible words bubbling from between bloody lips. Then, the loss of consciousness, descent into coma. Death.

Ben adam afor. A feeble bit of information, perhaps nothing more than delirium. But it was the closest thing they had to evidence and, as such, had taken on an aura of significance. Gray man. They'd spent days on it. An alias or some kind of underworld code? The color of the slasher's clothing? A sickly complexion? Something characterological?

Or advanced age?

He looked at Schlesinger, smiled reassuringly. White hair and mustache. Sky-blue eyes, bordered by a ring of gray. White, light-blue. At night it could all look the same. Gray. It seemed crazy, almost heretical, to think of an old Palmahi doing something like that. And he himself had pointed out to Laufer the discrepancies between this death and the other five. But one never knew. Schlesinger had begun patrolling Scopus shortly after the last Gray Man murder. Thirteen years in one neighborhood, then a sudden move. Perhaps there was some connection, something oblique that he had yet to grasp. He resolved to look into the old man's background.

"I fought for this city," Schlesinger was saying, testily. "Broke my ass. You'd think I'd deserve better than being treated like a suspect."

Daniel wondered if his thoughts were that transparent, looked at Schlesinger and decided the old man was being touchy.

"No one suspects you of anything, adoni," he soothed. "I was merely succumbing to curiosity-an occupational hazard."

Schlesinger scowled and asked if he could go.

"Certainly, and thank you for your time. I'll have the officers take you back to your car."

"I can walk just fine."

"I'm sure you can, but regulations dictate otherwise."

He called the uniforms over while the old man muttered about bureaucrats and red tape, had one of them walk him to the blue-and-white, and drew the other aside.

"Take a look at his car, Amnon. Nothing detailed, just a casual glance. Inform him that the carbine must be kept in the trunk and put it there yourself. When you do, check the trunk."

"Anything in particular to look for?"

"Anything out of the ordinary. Be sure to keep it casual-don't let on what you're doing."

The officer looked at Schlesinger's retreating form.

"Is he a suspect?"

"We're being thorough. He lives on French Hill. Escort him to the towers, and radio for two more men. Have them bring a metal detector and the four of you climb down there and do a grid search of the slope on the desert side. Concentrate on the immediate vicinity beyond the ridge-a two-kilometer radius should be sufficient. Look for footprints, blood, human waste, food wrappers."

"Anything out of the ordinary."

"Exactly. And no loose lips. The brass wants this kept quiet."

The officer nodded and left, talked to Schlesinger, and ushered him to the car. The blue-and-white drove off, fol-lowed shortly by the technical van. The transport drivers disappeared into the gully with a stretcher and a folded black plastic body bag and reappeared shortly with the bag filled. They slid it into the Abu Kabir van, climbed in, slammed the doors, and sped away. Daniel walked over to Afif and together they removed the barriers and loaded them into the jeep.

"Salman, what's the chance of someone sneaking in from the desert in the early morning hours?"

"Everything's been quiet," the Druze said stoically. "Well under control."

"What about from Isawiya?"

"Silent. We've got infrared scopes at our stations in the Rift. On the tenders and some of the jeeps as well. All we've been picking up are snakes and rabbits. Small band of Bedouins up north of the Ramot, they won't come down until summer."

"What about Ramallah?"

"Local unrest, but nothing beyond talk."

"The Bethlehem sector?"

"Patrol's been beefed up since the girl's funeral. No suspi-cius movement."

The girl. Najwa Sa'id Mussa. Fourteen years old and on her way to market when she'd been caught in the cross fire between a mob of stone-throwing Arabs and two nineteen-year-old soldiers who'd fired back in defense. A bullet to the head had turned her into a heroine, posters emblazoned with her picture slapped to the trunks of the fig trees that grew along the Hebron Road, the graffiti of vengeance marring walls and boulders. A near-riot of a funeral, and then things had gotten quiet again.

Or had they?

He thought about another dead girl and wondered.

By seven forty-five, students had begun drifting toward campus and the hum of traffic filtered down the road. Daniel crossed over and walked down toward the Amelia Catherine Hospital. He'd passed the place numerous times but had never been inside. During the Gray Man investigation, Gavrieli had taken the task of handling the U.N. people on his own. A good boss. Too bad he'd been careless.

As Daniel neared the compound he was struck by how out of place it seemed, perched atop Scopus, with its pink stone facade, obelisk bell tower, yawning gargoyles, and steeply pitched tile roofs. An overdressed Victorian dowager camped out in the desert.

An arched, ivied entry fronted the main building. Embedded in the limestone at the apex was a rectangle of gray granite, carved with a legend in English: Amelia Catherine PILGRIMS' HOSPICE AND INFIRMARY, ERECTED BY HERMANN brauner, AUGUST 15,1898. An enameled plaque, white with blue letters, had been nailed just below: UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS ASSOCIATION. CO-ADMINISTERED BY THE world ASSEMBLY OF CHURCHES. English and Arabic, not a trace of Hebrew. Climbing white roses, their petals heat-browned, embraced the fluted columns that flanked the arch. The entry led to a large dusty courtyard, shaded at the hub by a spreading live oak as old as the edifice. Circling the trunk of the big tree were spokelike beds of flowers: tulips, poppies, irises, more roses. A high, carved fountain sat in one corner, dry and silent, its marble basin striated with dirt.

Just inside the entry sat a portly middle-aged Arab watchman on a flimsy plastic chair, sleepy-eyed and inert except for fingers that danced nimbly over a string of amber worry beads. The man wore gray work pants and a gray shirt. Under his armpits were black crescents of sweat. A glass of iced tamarindy rested on the ground, next to one leg of the chair, the ice cubes rounding to slush.

Daniel's footsteps raised the watchman's eyelids, and the Arab's face became a stew of emotions: curiosity, distrust, the muddled torpor of one whose dreams have been rudely curtailed.

Daniel greeted him in Arabic and showed him his badge. The watchman frowned, pulled his bulk upright, and reached into his pocket for identification.

"Not necessary," said Daniel. "Just your name, please."

"Hajab, Zia." The watchman avoided eye contact and looked out at a distant point over Daniel's left shoulder. Running a thick hand over crew-cut hair the color and texture of iron filings, he tapped his foot impatiently. His mustache was a charcoal patch of stubble, the lips below, thin and pale. Daniel noticed that his fingers were horned with callus, the fingernails broken and rimmed with grime.

"Are you from Jerusalem, Mr. Hajab?"

"Ramallah." The watchman drew himself up with regional pride. The hubris of a poor man from a rich city.

"I'd like to ask you some questions."

Hajab shrugged resignedly, continued to look away. "Ask, but I know nothing about it."

"About what?"

"Your police matters." Hajab sucked in his breath and began working on the beads with both hands.

"What time did you come on duty this morning, Mr. Hajab?"

"Six-thirty."

"Is that when you usually begin working?"

"Not usually. Always."

"And which road did you take from Ramallah?"

"None."

"Pardon?"

"No road. I live here."

"Here at the hospital?"

"Yes."

"Is that arrangement part of your job?"

"I maintain a beautiful home in Ramallah," said the watchman defensively. "A large garden, fig trees, and vines. But my skills must be easily available, so the hospital has provided me with a room. Lovely, clean, freshly painted, and well furnished."

"It's a lovely hospital," said Daniel. "Well built."

"Yes." Hajab was solemn.

"When is your custom to awaken?"

"Six."

"And your routine upon rising?"

"Ablutions, the morning prayers, a light breakfast, and straight to my post."

"How long have you lived here at the hospital, Mr. Hajab?"

"Thirteen months."

"And before that?"

"Before that, I lived in Ramallah. As I told you." Exasperated.

"Were you a sentry in Ramallah as well?"

"No." Hajab paused, massaged his beads. His brow had glossed with perspiration and he used one hand to wipe it.

"In Ramallah, I was an… automotive engineer."

Daniel wrote "mechanic" next to Hajab's name.

"What caused you to change occupations?"

Hajab's meaty face darkened with anger. "The station that employed me was sold. The new owner gave my job to his son-in-law." He looked at his beads, coughed, and cursed in Arabic under his breath: "Zaiyel te'ban." Like a snake.

He coughed again, licked his lips and gazed longingly at the tamarindy.

"Please," said Daniel, indicating the drink, but the watchman shook his head.

"Go on with your questions," he said.

"Do you understand why I'm asking these questions?"

"An incident," said Hajab with forced disinterest.

Daniel waited for more and, when it didn't come, asked, "Do you have any knowledge of this incident?"

"As I told you, I know nothing of police matters."

"But you knew there had been an incident."

"I saw the barriers and the cars and assumed there was an incident." Hajab smiled mirthlessly. "I thought nothing of it. There are always incidents, always questions."

"Up here at the hospital?"

"Everywhere."

The watchman's tone was hostile and Daniel read the covert message: Life has been nothing but troubles since you Jews took over.

"Are you a sound sleeper, Mr. Hajab?"

"My dreams are peaceful. As sweet as roses."

"Did you dream sweetly last night?"

"And why not?"

"Did you hear or see anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nothing at all."

"No unusual movement? Voices?"

"No."

"How," asked Daniel, "did you come to work at the Amelia Catherine?"

"After I left my engineering position I experienced an illness and was treated at a clinic run by the hospital."

"What kind of illness?"

"Head pains."

"And where was the clinic?"

"In Bir Zeit."

"Go on, please."

"What's to go on about?"

"How you came to work here."

Hajab frowned. "The doctor at the clinic advised me to come here for tests. On the day I arrived I saw a notice on one of the walls, soliciting help. Sentry duty and repairs. I made inquiries and when my engineering talents were discovered by Mr. Baldwin, I was asked to join the staff."

"A bit of good fortune."

Hajab shrugged.

"Al Maktoub" he said, casually. "It was written on my forehead."

"How is your head now?"

"Very well, bless the Prophet."

"Good. Tell me, Mr. Hajab, how many others live here at the hospital?"

"I've never taken count."

Before Daniel could pursue the point, a shiny black Lancia Beta drove up to the entrance. The sports car let out a belch, then shuddered as its engine died. The driver's door opened and out climbed a tall fair-haired man dressed in a khaki safari jacket over brown corduroy trousers. Under the jacket was a white shirt and green-and-red striped tie. The man was of indeterminate age-one of those smooth-faced types who could be anywhere from thirty to forty, wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with a heavy build and long arms that dangled loosely. His light hair was waxy and straight, thinning to outright baldness at the crown; his face, narrow and sunburned, topped by a high, freckled brow. His lips were chapped; his nose, uptilted, pink, and peeling. Mirrored sunglasses concealed his eyes. He faced Daniel, then Hajab. "Zia?" he said.

"Police, Mr. Baldwin," said Hajab, in English. "Questions."

The man turned back to Daniel, smiled faintly, then grew serious. "I'm Sorrel Baldwin, administrator of the hospital. What seems to be the trouble, Officer?"

His accent was American, tinctured by the kind of drawl Daniel had heard in cowboy movies. Ah'm for I'm.

"A routine investigation," said Daniel, offering his badge. Baldwin took it.

"An incident," said Hajab, growing bold.

"Uh hmm," said Baldwin, lifting his sunglasses and peering at the badge. His eyes were small, blue, shot through with red. Drinker's eyes? "And you're… an inspector."

"Chief inspector."

Baldwin handed back the badge.

"Any police dealings I've had have always been with Deputy Commander Gavrieli."

Buddies with boss. Letting Daniel know that he was outclassed. But the fact that he thought Gavrieli's name still carried weight gave lie to his words. Daniel ignored the snub, got down to business.

"Mr. Baldwin, during the early hours of the morning a crime was committed-crucial- evidence was found in that gully, just down the road. I'd like to talk to your staff, to find out if anyone saw something that could help us in our investigation."

Baldwin put his sunglasses back on.

"If anyone had noticed anything," he said, "they would have reported it, I assure you."

"I'm sure they would have. But sometimes people see things-small things-and are unaware of their significance."

"What kind of crime are we talking about?" asked Baldwin.

"A major one. I'm not at liberty to say more."

"Security censorship, eh?"

Daniel smiled. "May I talk to your staff?"

Baldwin kneaded his chin with one hand. "You realize, Officer…"

"Sharavi."

"…Officer Sharavi, that we are an arm of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and, as such, are entitled to diplomatic privilege with regard to police procedure."

"Of course, Mr. Baldwin."

"Understand also that involvement in local political matters is something we make a concerted effort to avoid."

"This is a criminal matter, sir. Not a political one."

"In this city," said Baldwin, "that's a fine distinction. One, I'm sorry to say, that the police don't often seem able to make." He paused, looked down at Daniel. "No, I'm sorry, Officer Sharavi, I just can't see my way clear to letting you disrupt our procedures."

As Daniel listened to the American, the image of the murdered girl intruded on his consciousness and he surrendered to a fantasy etched in anger: He, the policeman, takes hold of the bureaucrat's arm and leads him to the gully, over the edge, right into the butchery. Presses his face close to the corpse, forces him to inhale the stench of evil. Breathe that, experience it. Viscerally. Is it criminal or political, pencil pusher?

"I agree," he heard himself saying. "It is a very fine distinction. But one that we're getting better at recognizing. You remember, of course, the case of Corporal Takumbai?"

"Vaguely." Baldwin shifted his weight, looked uncomfortable. "Somewhere up north, wasn't it?"

"Yes it was. In Tiberias. Corporal Takumbai was part of a Fijian contingent assigned to the UNIFIL patrol in Southern Lebanon. He had a history of mental imbalance that no one thought was important. One night, during a holiday on the Sea of Galilee, he left his comrades, broke into an apartment, and raped two old women. Someone heard screams and called the police. When they tried to capture him, Takumbai wounded one officer and-"

"I really don't see what this has to do with-"

"-came close to killing another. Despite all that, we let him go, Mr. Baldwin. Back to Fiji, without prosecution. He was protected by his position with the United Nations and we respected that. We were able to separate the political from the criminal. There have been others, of course-a Frenchman, Grimaud, who was a compulsive shoplifter; a Finn named Kokkonen, who enjoyed getting drunk and beating up women. Even as we speak, the file of another Frenchman is being processed. This one was caught smuggling hashish resin out of the Beach Refugee Camp in Gaza. Like all the others, he'll be expelled without trial. Without public exposure. So you see, Mr. Baldwin, you have nothing to fear. We continue to protect the good name of the United Nations. We are able to make fine distinctions."

Baldwin glanced over his shoulder at Hajab, who'd listened to the exchange raptly, moving his head back and forth like a soccer fan. Reaching into his pocket, the American pulled out a set of car keys and tossed them to the watchman.

"Park the car, Zia."

Though clearly disappointed, the watchman complied. When the Lancia had driven off, Baldwin said to Daniel: "In any organization, there are going to be a few bad apples. That has nothing to do with the staff of this hospital. They're handpicked. Altruists. Good solid folk."

"I don't doubt that for a moment, Mr. Baldwin. As altruists they should be pleased to help."

The American peeled a papery shred of skin from his nose and looked toward the scene of the crime. A flock of crows rose from the gully. From somewhere behind the hospital came the bray of a donkey.

"I could," said Daniel, "go through channels. Which would mean a delay of the investigation-meetings, memoranda. We are a small country, Mr. Baldwin. News travels quickly. The longer something stretches out, the more difficult it is to keep it out of the public eye. People would want to know why so many criminals are avoiding punishment. One would hate to see the public image of the U.N. suffer needlessly."

When Baldwin didn't respond, Daniel added, "Perhaps I'm not speaking clearly. My English-"

"Your English is just fine," said Baldwin, smiling sourly.

Daniel returned the smile. "I had an excellent teacher," he said, then looked at his watch. Flipping over his note pad, he began to write. Several more moments passed.

"All right," said Baldwin, "but let's try to keep it quick."

He turned on his heel, and Daniel followed him under the arch and across the silent courtyard. A lizard scampered up the trunk of the big oak and disappeared. Daniel breathed in deeply and the aroma of roses settled moistly in his nostrils. Like a cool spray of syrup, filtered through the hot, morning air.

The hospital had a history. Daniel had learned about it in '67, during training with the 66th, when rumors of war caused every paratroop officer to study his maps and his history books.

The Amelia Catherine had begun its life as a private residence-a great, lumbering manse at the crest of the watershed between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean.

Conceived by a wealthy German missionary as a wedding present for his young bride and named for her, the estate had been fashioned of native limestone and marble by the hands of local masons. But its plans had been drawn up in Munich by an Anglophile architect and the result was a self-conscious display of Victoriana transported to Palestine-oversized, decidedly snobbish, surrounded by formal gardens replete with boxwood hedges, beds of flowers, and velvet lawns that perished quickly in the Judean heat. The missionary was also a man of high taste, and he shipped over tinned meats and preserved delicacies, bottles of French wine stored in cavernous cellars beneath the mansion.

The object of all this architectural affection, a frail blond fraulein of twenty-one, contracted cholera two months after her arrival in Jerusalem and was dead three weeks later. After burying her near the Grove of Gethsemane, the grieving widower found himself shaken by a crisis of faith that sucked him back to Europe, never to return, abandoning his dream house to the ruling Ottomans.

The Turks had always entertained a disdain for Jerusalem and its structures and, during four centuries of reign, had transformed it from a teeming Crusader shrine into a dusty, disease-ridden, provincial village, home to beggars, lepers, and fanatic Jew-infidels. From the moment its foundation had been laid, the Amelia Catherine had been an affront to their world view-that a Christian-infidel should be allowed to build something so vulgar as a house for a woman, a house that looked down upon the mosques of AI Aqsa and the Rock, was a grievous insult to Allah.

Heavy taxes collected from the German fool had kept these religious reservations at bay. But once he was gone, the gardens were ordered fallow, the lawns burned, the great house transformed to a military warehouse. Soon, the stink of machine grease emanated from every marble corridor.

That state of affairs endured until 1917, when the British invaded Palestine. The debased mansion on Scopus was strategically located and its begrimed windows witnessed many a long bloody battle. When the gunfire died, on December 11, General Allenby was marching into Jerusalem and the Ottoman Empire was a thing of the past.

The British welcomed themselves with a ceremony of exceptional pomp-one that amused the poor Jews and Arabs whose families had inhabited the city for centuries-and like every conquering horde before them, the new rulers lost no time refurbishing the Holy City to their taste, starting with the Amelia Catherine.

Crews of workmen were ordered to scythe through ankle-ripping coils of weeds; limestone was abraded to its original blush; cisterns were emptied, cesspools drained and relined. Within weeks, suitably impressive headquarters for the British military governor had been created and the genteel mix of small talk and the clatter of teacups could be heard on the veranda.

In 1947 tensions between Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs began boiling over. The British lost their taste for empire building and quickly pulled up stakes. Fighting broke out, followed by a cease-fire and a United Nations partition that created a jigsaw solution: The land was divided into six sections, with the southern and northern coastal regions and the heartland, including Jerusalem and most major cities, granted to the Arabs. The Jews received a strip of central coastline, an inland wedge of Galilee, and the barren Negev desert. Though they'd been deeded the lion's share of natural resources, the Arabs were dissatisfied with less than everything and, in 1948, attacked the Jews. Thousands of lives and one armistice later found the Jewish portion, now called Israel, enlarged to include the entire western section of Palestine but still smaller than the Arab portion, now called Jordan, which encompassed both sides of the Jordan River and spread to the east.

Faulty prophecy left Jerusalem bizarrely divided. The Holy City had been carved up hastily on November 30, 1948, during a temporary cease-fire. The process of division was an unceremonious exercise conducted in an abandoned building in the Musrara slum by the Jewish commander, a lieutenant colonel named Moshe Dayan, and the Arab commander, a lieutenant colonel named Abdullah Tal.

Neither Dayan nor Tal thought the truce would last and both considered their efforts temporary. The Jews hoped for a permanent peace treaty with their cousins, and Abdullah Tal still harbored fantasies of conquest, having boasted only days before of riding into Jewish Jerusalem on a white horse.

They went to work, using soft, waxy pencils-Dayan's red, Tal's green-on a 1:20,000 scale map of Jerusalem, drawing crude, arbitrary lines that corresponded to a land width of 50 meters. Lines that expanded as the wax melted, cutting through the centers of homes and backyards, shops and offices, splitting the city like Solomon's baby. Lines that didn't deserve serious attention because they were nothing more than transitory sketches.

But the commanders were sectioning a land that devours its prophets, where the only consistency is surprise. As the days stretched out, cease-fire matured to armistice, sketches became international borders, the space between the wax, a no-man's-land for nineteen years.

Due to its strategic value, Mount Scopus had been divided earlier, turned into a demilitarized zone administered by the United Nations. Israel retained the ruins of Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University; the eastern slope, housing the battered Amelia Catherine, was assigned to Jordan. All buildings on both sides of the mountain lay vacant and unused, though minimal patrols were permitted, the weeds were kept trimmed, and Arabs farmers were allowed, illegally, to plough the fields surrounding the Amelia Catherine and grow truck crops.

In 1967 the Arabs attacked again and, once again, lost honor and land. Jerusalem fell under exclusive Jewish rule for the first time in more than three thousand years and Scopus was unified. The Amelia Catherine entered its fifth metamorphosis, as a hospital, operated jointly by the U.N. and a Swiss-based group of Protestant missionaries.

It was a hasty transformation, wholly lacking in sentiment: the compound enclosed by high chain-link fences, grand suites reduced to wards by particle-board partitions, the mansion's large paneled library painted a pale clinical green and apportioned into a warren of offices. Soon the high stone walls resonated with the moans and muffled sobs of human infirmity.

It was this diminished grandeur that Daniel saw as he followed Baldwin under a sweeping marble staircase and down a long, whitewashed corridor. The building seemed empty and, except for a sonata played haltingly on typewriter, silent.

The administrator's office was midway down the hall, a small, light room with a high domed ceiling. Tacked to the back of the door was a schedule of mobile clinics.

The furnishings were cheap and efficient: an imitation Danish modern desk at the center, two matching straight-backed chairs, a striped cotton sofa along the left wall. Above the sofa hung a framed print of "The Last Supper" and two diplomas: a bachelor's degree in business from an agricultural college in San Antonio, Texas, and a master's in sociology from the American University in Beirut. Opposite the sofa was a wall of bracket shelves, half filled with textbooks and spiral-bound U.N. publications. A small electric fan blew air from one of the empty shelves. Next to it sat a cowboy hat with a leather band. Behind the desk, a pair of tall, arched windows exposed a panoramic view of the desert. Between the windows stood a glass display case filled with archaeological relics: coins, small clay urns, strips of parchment. Baldwin saw Daniel looking at them and smiled.

"All legal and proper, Officer Sharavi. Official property of the U.N."

Daniel returned the smile and the American moved behind the desk and reclined in his chair. Taking a seat across from him, Daniel held his note pad in his lap and searched for signs of personal attachment-family snapshots, the little curios that people bring to the workplace to remind them of home. Except for the hat, nothing.

"How many people are on your staff, Mr. Baldwin?"

"Full time only, or part time as well?"

"Everyone, please."

"In that case, I can't answer you other than to say that it's a long list."

"Does this list exist in written form?"

Baldwin shook his head. "It's not that simple, Officer. The Amelia Catherine concentrates on two spheres of activity: mobile outreach clinics to refugees and indigents, and weekly in-house clinics that we run right here-dermatology, eye care, neurology, women's problems, maternal and child health. Many of the local doctors and nurses volunteer their services; some are paid on a part-time basis; still others are full-time employees. What you'd call a dynamic situation."

"I'm interested," said Daniel, "in those who sleep in the building."

"That," drawled Baldwin, "narrows things down considerably." The American held up his hand, ticked off fingers as he spoke. "There are our nurses, Peggy Cassidy and Catherine Hauser-"

"What are their nationalities?"

"Peggy's an American-California, if that means anything to you. Catherine's Swiss."

"And both of them slept here last night?"

"Whoa," said Baldwin, holding out his hands, palms out. "You said 'sleep,' in general terms. As far as last night, specifically, I have no idea."

The man had a way of reacting to simple questions as if they were traps. The wariness, thought Daniel, of a criminal or a politician;

"Go on, please," he said, writing. "Who else?"

"Dr. Carter, Dr. Al Biyadi, possibly Dr. Darousha."

"Possibly?"

"Dr. Darousha lives in Ramallah. He's a very dedicated man, a fine physician. Comes here after seeing his private patients and sometimes works well into the night. We provide him with a room so that he doesn't have to drive home in a state of fatigue. I have no way of knowing if he used it last night."

"The doctors' first names, please."

"Richard Carter, Hassan Al Biyadi, Walid Darousha."

"Thank you. Any others?"

"Ma'ila Khoury, our secretary; Zia-whom you've met; and myself."

Daniel consulted his notes. "Dr. Carter is an American?"

"Canadian. Dr. Al Biyadi is a native of Jerusalem."

Daniel knew an Al Biyadi family. Greengrocers with a stall in the Old City, on the Street of Chains. He wondered about a connection.

"Ma'ila is Lebanese," Baldwin was saying, "Zia's a Palestinian, and I'm from the great Lone Star State of Texas. And that's it."

"What about patients?"

Baldwin cleared his throat.

"There are no clinics today, in honor of Muslim Sabbath."

"I mean hospitalized patients."

Baldwin frowned. "I explained before, we function primarily as an outpatient center and outreach facility. Our goal is to make contact with those who wouldn't ordinarily have access to health care. We identify problems and direct them to the appropriate source of treatment."

"A referral center."

"In a sense, but we do administer primary treatment at our clinics."

"So patients are never admitted here?"

"I wouldn't say never, but rarely."

Such a huge building, thought Daniel, housing only a handful of people. Vacant wards, empty beds. All that foreign money so that poor Arabs could see doctors who told them to go see other doctors. It seemed foolish, symbolism posing as function. Typical of the U.N. But that was neither here nor there.

"Mr. Hajab," he said. "What is his job?"

"Watchman, custodial work, general repairs."

"This is a large building to be maintained by one person."

"A cleaning crew-some women from East Jerusalem-do the daily mop-up. Zia helps with odds and ends."

"Both Mr. Hajab and Dr. Darousha are from Ramallah.

Did they know each other before Mr. Hajab began working here?"

"Dr. Darousha recommended Zia for the job. More than that, I can't tell you."

"Mr. Hajab told me his first contact with the hospital was as a patient. Was Dr. Darousha his physician?"

"You'll have to talk to Dr. Darousha about that."

"Very well," said Daniel, rising. "I'd like to do just that."

Baldwin made a phone call and, when no one answered, took Daniel across the hall, to the source of the typing. Ma'ila Khoury was a lovely-looking woman of about twenty-five, with full pale lips, curly hennaed hair, and widely spaced khaki eyes. She wore smart Western clothes and her nails were long and polished. An emancipated woman of old Beirut. Daniel wondered why and how she'd come to Israel to work and received his answer a moment later when a quick look-something that implied more than boss and secretary-passed between her and Baldwin. The American spoke to her in poor Arabic and she answered in a cultured Lebanese accent.

"Did Dr. Darousha sleep here last night, Ma'ila?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Is he here in the hospital?"

"Yes, sir. In examining room four, with an emergency patient who just arrived."

"Come with me, Officer Sharavi."

The examining rooms were on the other side of the staircase, on the west wing of the building, five numbered doors that had once been servants' quarters. Baldwin knocked lightly on number four and opened it. The room within was peacock-blue paint over lumpy plaster, relieved by a single grilled window just below the arch of the ceiling. An olive-wood crucifix and a white metal first-aid box adhered to one wall. Filling most of the floor space was a chipped white examining table next to a chipped white cabinet. A hanging white lamp swung from the ceiling, emitting cold bluish light.

On the examining table lay a man-from the looks of his dusty clothing a farm laborer-stolid and unmoving, one arm by his side, the other resting limply in the grasp of a second man in a long white coat. The man holding the arm looked up at the intrusion.

"Good morning, Dr. Darousha," said Baldwin.

Darousha gave a wait-one-minute gesture and returned his attention to the arm, which Daniel saw was as red and glossy as boiled sausage. The doctor was short, dark, fiftyish, froglike, with coarse, bushy hair and sad, drooping eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. His coat was starched and spotless, and he wore it buttoned, over a white shirt and dark tie and razor-pressed black slacks. A stethoscope hung scarflike around his neck. His feet were small and narrow in woven black loafers and, as he rocked from one to the other, seemed barely to touch the ground.

"How many wasps bit you?" he asked in a deep, authoritative voice.

"Hundreds. Maybe thousands."

Darousha scowled and laid the arm down gently. Inserting the prongs of the stethoscope in his ears, he placed the disc on the man's still-clothed chest, listened, and put the instrument away. Lifting the arm again, he said, "This is nasty. Very nasty." He stared down sternly at the farmer, who smiled weakly.

"Very well. I'm going to give you an injection of something that will fight the infection, as well as some pills. Take them twice a day for ten days and then come and see me again. If this isn't any better, I'll have to cut it open to drain it, which will hurt badly. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Take every one of those pills, do you understand?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"How often must you take them?"

"Two times a day, Doctor."

"For how long?"

"Ten days."

"Roll over, facing the door."

Darousha pulled a hypodermic syringe out of the cabinet, went through the routine of filling, checking, and expelling air bubbles, and tugged down the waistband of the man's trousers, which were so loose they didn't need to be unfastened. Aiming the needle like a dart, he jabbed it into the fanner's buttocks. The man blinked at the pain, smiled at Daniel and Baldwin.

"Go on now. The nurse in number two will give you the pills."

"Thank you, Doctor."

When the farmer had gone, Darousha stepped out into the hallway and lit up a Rothmans. Daniel's presence didn't seem to bother him, when Baldwin introduced him as a policeman, Darousha nodded, as if the visit had been expected.

"I've got a few things to look into," said Baldwin, taking a step. "Be back in a minute, okay?"

There was furtive tension in the American's eyes and Daniel wondered what he planned to do. Warn the others of impending interrogation? Sneak a drink? Flirt with Ma'ila?

"Okay," he said and watched Baldwin lope down the hallway, then turned back to Darousha, who was smoking the cigarette as if it were his last.

"What can I do for you?" asked the doctor. Daniel had expected to converse in Arabic but the man's Hebrew was perfect.

"A serious crime has been committed in the vicinity of the hospital, Doctor. I'm questioning the staff of the hospital about unusual occurrences."

Darousha remained placid. "What kind of unusual occurrences?"

"Sights, sounds, anything out of the ordinary."

"I saw and heard police cars. Otherwise, nothing."

"And you were here all night?"

"Yes."

"What time did you go to bed?"

"Shortly before midnight."

"When did you awaken?"

"Seven."

"How often do you sleep here, Doctor?"

"That depends upon my schedule. If it's late when I complete my obligations and I feel too tired to drive, I stay over."

"By 'obligations' you mean patients?"

"Or other matters. Yesterday, for example, I attended a day-long seminar at Hadassah. Emergency crises in children-anaphylaxis, choking. My afternoon patients were delayed until evening and I didn't finish until after eleven."

"Did the other doctors-Carter and Al Biyadi-attend the seminar as well?"

"Dr. Carter, yes. Dr. AI Biyadi, no."

"He remained here?"

"I have no idea." Darousha put the cigarette to his lips, inhaled, and added a millimeter of ash to the tip.

"You live in Ramallah."

"That's correct."

"Zia Hajab is also from there."

A nod. The ash tumbled.

"How well do you know him?"

"Our families are entwined. His grandfather worked for my grandfather, his father for my father."

"What kind of work did they do?"

"We owned orchards. They were field hands."

"Does that relationship persist?"

Darousha shook his head. "I'm my father's only son. After his death I decided to study medicine, and the orchards were leased to another family who had no need for Zia's services. I was gone at the time, studying medicine in Amman. Otherwise I would have intervened. As it turned out, he found part-time work at a petrol station."

"Until another family transaction edged him out."

"That's correct."

"Difficult for him and his family."

"For him, yes. There is no family. Both parents and a sister died of tuberculosis thirty years ago. His three brothers were inducted into the Arab Legion. All were killed in '67."

"Did he fight too?"

"Yes. He was taken captive."

"What about wife and children?"

"None."

Daniel found his interest in the watchman growing. For the picture Darousha was painting was one of chronic failure, habitual abuse by the fates. Why did Hajab have difficulty holding on to a job? And why, with bachelorhood virtually unknown among the Arabs, had he never purchased a woman, never spread his seed? It indicated social problems, the kind of downtrodden, isolated life that could lead to self-hatred. Or the resentment that sometimes blossomed into violence.

He needed to know more about the workings of the man's mind, but sensed that a direct question would put Darousha off. Taking an indirect path, he said, "Hajab told me he had headache problems. Did you treat him for his pain?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Please explain."

Darousha's sad eyes drooped even further.

"His pain was a pain of the soul that chose to settle in his head. I offered reassurance and chalky syrup. My most effective medical intervention was helping him get a job."

"It was a psychosomatic disorder, then."

Darousha stiffened. "These are confidential matters. I cannot discuss them further."

"Doctor," said Daniel, "if there's something in Hajab's psychological makeup that would predispose him to antisocial behavior, it's essential that you tell me."

"He's a moody man," said Darousha. "Suffers from depression. But there's nothing criminal in him. Nothing that would interest you."

"How often does he get depressed?"

"Infrequently, perhaps once or twice a month."

"For prolonged periods of time?"

"Two or three days."

"And what are his symptoms?"

Darousha threw up his hands, impatiently.

"I shouldn't be discussing this, but if it will simplify matters, I'll tell you. He develops ambiguous pains-psychosomatic symptoms-the headaches, gets very weak and goes to sleep. There's no aggressiveness, no antisocial behavior. Now, if you'll excuse me, please, I really must be going."

The man's face was closed tight as a vault. Sensing that any further prodding would be useless, Daniel took down his home address and phone number, thanked him for his time, and ended the interview.

Alone in the hall, he thought for a while about Zia Hajab, was still thinking when Baldwin returned.

"All the others except Peggy are in the dining room," said the American. "They say they've seen or heard nothing."

"What did you tell them?" asked Daniel.

"Just what you told me. That there'd been a crime nearby. None of them knows anything that can help you."

"Nevertheless, I'll need to talk to them."

"Suit yourself."

The dining room was an airy blue rectangle furnished with half a dozen circular tables, five of them empty. The ceiling was white and edged with crown moldings. French doors led out to a patio that served as pecking grounds for dozens of pigeons. Their clucks and thrums could be heard through the glass. Each table was surrounded by folding chairs and covered with an aquamarine tablecloth. Arabic music played from a portable radio. A long table at the center of the room bore plates of pastry and fruit, glasses of orange juice. A brass samovar on a wheeled cart hissed coffee-flavoured steam. Next to it stood Zia Hajab, solemn-faced, a white apron fastened over his work clothes, holding a cup under the spout.

Baldwin walked Daniel to a table by the window where the other two doctors and the Swiss nurse, Catherine Hauser, were seated together eating breakfast. After making the introductions, the administrator sat down with them. Before Baldwin's rump had settled on the chair, Hajab moved in quickly to serve him, filling his plate with dates and apples, pouring steaming coffee into his cup, punctuating the activity with obsequious bows.

No invitation to sit was offered Daniel and he remained standing. Three faces stared up at him. He needed to speak to each individually, and breaking up their klatch made him feel intrusive. He took Catherine Hauser first, drawing her to a table at the far end of the room, carrying her coffee cup for her and setting it down in front of her.

She thanked him and smiled, a plump, elderly woman dressed in a shapeless, colourless smock. Gray-haired and blue-eyed, with the same kind of parchment skin he'd seen on the older nuns at the Convent of Notre Dame de Sion. As he looked at her, coins of color rose on each cheek. She seemed friendly and cooperative but was sure she'd heard or seen nothing. What had happened? she wanted to know. A crime, he said, smiled, and ushered her back to her table.

The Canadian, Carter, he would have pegged for one of the Scandinavian backpackers who traipsed through the city each summer-big-framed and heavy-featured, with curly blond hair, narrow gray eyes, and a full ginger beard. He was in his early thirties and wore old-fashioned round gold-framed glasses. His hair was shaggy and longish and, like the rest of him, seemed carelessly assembled. His white coat was wrinkled and he wore it over a blue work shirt and faded jeans. Slow-talking and deliberate, he appeared to be lost in his own world, though he did express normal curiosity about the crime.

Daniel answered his questions with vague generalities and asked, "You attended the seminar with Dr. Darousha?"

"Sure did."

"Did you see patients afterwards?"

"No," said Carter. "Wally went back by himself. I was off-shift, so I took a cab into East Jerusalem and had dinner. At the Dallas Restaurant." He chuckled and added: "Fillet steak, chips, three bottles of Heineken." Another chuckle.

"Something amusing, Dr. Carter?"

Carter shook his head, ran his fingers through his beard, and smiled.

"Not really. Just that this sounds like one of those cop shows back home-where were you on the night and all that."

"I suppose it does," said Daniel, writing. "What time did you arrive back at the hospital?"

"Must have been close to ten-thirty."

"What did you do when you arrived?"

"Went to my room, read medical journals until they put me to sleep, and popped off."

"What time was that?"

"I really couldn't tell you. This was fairly boring stuff so it could have been as early as eleven. When was this crime committed?"

"That hasn't been established yet. Did you hear or see anything at all that was out of the ordinary?"

"Nothing. Sorry."

Daniel dismissed him and he shambled back to his table. A former hippie, Daniel guessed. The kind who might blunt life's edges with a hit of hashish now and then. A dreamer.

Dr. Hassan Al Biyadi, by contrast, was all points and angles, formal, dapper, and delicate-almost willowy-with skin as dark as Daniel's, short black hair, well-oiled, and a pencil-line mustache that had been trimmed to architectural precision. He looked too young to be a doctor, and his white coat and elegant clothes only served to enhance the image of a child playing dress-up.

"By any chance," Daniel asked him, "are you related to Mohammed Al Biyadi, the grocer?"

"He is my father," said Al Biyadi, suspiciously.

"Many years ago, when I was a uniformed officer, thieves broke into your father's warehouse and stole a new shipment of melons and squash. I was assigned to the case." One of the first triumphs, the criminals quickly apprehended, the merchandise returned. He'd swelled with pride for days.

As an attempt to gain rapport, it failed.

"I know nothing of melons," said the young physician coldly. "Ten years ago I lived in America."

"Where in America?"

"Detroit, Michigan."

"The automobile city."

Al Biyadi folded his arms across his chest. "What do you want of me?"

"Did you study medicine in Detroit, Michigan?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Wayne State University."

"When did you return to Israel?"

"I returned to Palestine two years ago."

"Have you worked at the Amelia Catherine all that time?"

"Yes."

"What is your specialty?"

"Family medicine."

"Did you attend the seminar at Hadassah?"

Al Biyadi's face contracted, almost shriveling with anger. "You know the answer to that, policeman. Why play games?"

Daniel looked at him calmly and said nothing.

"The same thing over and over," said Al Biyadi. "Something happens and you harass us."

"Have you been harassed by the police before, Dr. Al Biyadi?"

"You know what I mean," snapped the young Arab. He looked at his watch, drummed his fingers on the table. "I have things to do, patients to see."

"Speaking of seeing, did you see anything unusual last night?"

"No, nothing, and that's likely to be my answer to all of your questions."

"What about during the early morning hours?"

"No."

"No shouts or cries?"

"No."

"Do you own a car?" asked Daniel, knowing he was prolonging the interview in response to Al Biyadi's hostility. But it was more than a petty reaction: The young doctor's response was out of proportion. Was his anger politically rooted or something more-the edginess of the guilty? He wanted a bit more time to study Hassan Al Biyadi.

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"A Mercedes."

"What color?"

"Green."

"Diesel or petrol?"

"Diesel." From between clenched jaws.

"Where do you park it?"

"In the back. With everyone else's."

"Did you drive it last night?"

"I didn't go out last night."

"You were here all night."

"Correct."

"Doing what?"

"Studying, going about my business."

"Studying for what?"

Al Biyadi tossed him a patronizing look. "Unlike the less educated occupations, the field of medicine is complex, always changing. One needs constantly to study."

A woman in her late twenties came into the dining room. She saw Al Biyadi, walked over to him, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Good morning, Hassan," she said brightly, in heavily accented Arabic.

Al Biyadi mumbled a reply.

"Any more questions?" he asked Daniel.

The woman looked puzzled. She was plain, with a flat, pleasant face, snub-featured and freckled, devoid of makeup. She wore a sleeveless white stretch top over blue jeans, and low-heeled sandals. Her hair was thin, straight, medium-brown. It hung to her shoulders and was pulled back behind her ears with white barrettes. Her eyes were large and round and matched her hair in hue. They glided inquisitively over Daniel's face, then clouded in confusion at the sight of his kipah.

"Police," said Al Biyadi. "There's been some sort of crime and I'm being interrogated like a common criminal."

The woman absorbed his hostility, as if by osmosis. Imitated his crossed-arms posture and glared at Daniel as if to say Now you've upset him. I hope you're happy.

"Miss Cassidy?"

"That's right."

"I'm Chief Inspector Sharavi. Please sit down. You, Doctor, are free to go."

Being dismissed so quickly seemed to anger Al Biyadi as much as had being detained. He bounded out of his chair and stamped out of the room.

"You people," said Peggy Cassidy. "You think you can push everyone around."

"By people, you mean…?"

The young woman smiled enigmatically.

"Please sit," Daniel repeated.

She stared at him, then lowered herself into the chair.

"Would you like some coffee, Miss Cassidy?"

"No, and can we get on with whatever it is you want?"

"What I want," said Daniel, "is to know if you heard or saw anything unusual last night, or during the early hours of the morning."

"No. Should I have?"

"A crime was committed just up the road. I'm searching for witnesses."

"Or scapegoats."

"Oh?"

"We know how you feel about us, about those who want to help the Palestinian people."

"This isn't a political matter," said Daniel.

Peggy Cassidy laughed. "Everything's political."

Daniel took a few moments to write in his pad.

"Where in the States are you from, Miss Cassidy?"

"Huntington Beach, California."

"How long have you lived in Israel?"

"A year."

"And how long in Detroit?"

The question surprised her, but only for a moment. The look she gave Daniel bore the scorn reserved for a magician whose illusions have failed. "Three years; And yes, that's where I met Hassan."

"At Wayne State University?"

"At Harper Hospital, which is affiliated with Wayne State University. If you must know."

"When did the two of you meet?"

"Four years ago."

"Have you been… have you had a relationship since that time?"

"I don't see that that's any of your business."

"If I presumed too much, I apologize," said Daniel.

She studied him, searching for sarcasm.

"Hassan's a wonderful man," she said. "He didn't deserve what you did to him."

"And what was that?"

"Oh, come on."

Daniel sighed, rested his chin on one hand, and looked at her.

"Miss Cassidy, as I told you, a crime was committed in the vicinity of this hospital. A serious crime. My interest in you or Dr. Al Biyadi is limited to what either of you can tell me about that crime."

"Fine," she said, rising. "Then you have no interest in us at all. Can I go now?"

He left the Amelia Catherine at nine. Several blue-and-whites were parked near the eastern slope-the grid search of the hillside had begun-and he drove the Escort near the cliff and asked the uniforms if anything had turned up in Schlesinger's trunk.

"Just a spare tire, Pakad."

"What about on the slope?"

"A Coke bottle with no fingerprints-nothing else yet."

Daniel spun the car around, descended Shmuel Ben Adayah and, when he reached the northeast tip of the Old City, turned left on Derekh Yericho, driving along the walls until he came to the parking lot just outside the Dung Gate. Swinging the Escort into a free space, he turned off the engine, got out, and opened the trunk. Inside were two black velvet bags that he removed and tucked under his left arm, next to his heart. The larger, about a foot square, was embroidered with gold and silver almond blossoms encircling a good filigree Magen David. Half its size, the smaller bag was encrusted with a busy motif of gold curlicues and teardrops and studded with sequins.

Locking the trunk, he began walking toward the guard post just inside the Dung Gate, to his back the peaceful southern valley that had served as ancient Jerusalem's refuse dump. He passed the guards, walked under the graceful, scalloped arch, and stepped into the flow of people headed toward HaKotel Hama'aravi-the Western Wall.

The skies were a canopy of spring blue, cloudless and pure as only Jerusalem skies could be, so free from blemish that staring up at them could cause one to lose perspective. A cool, serene blue that belied the blanket of heat that had descended upon the city. By the time he reached the Wall, he was sticky with sweat.

The prayer plaza fronting the Kotel was uncrowded, the women's section occupied by only a few hunched figures in dark clothing-righteous grandmothers praying on behalf of barren women, scrawling messages to the Almighty on scraps of paper and slipping them in the cracks between the stones. It was late, nearing the end of the shaharit period and the last of the Yemenite minyanim had ended, though he did see Mori Zadok reciting psalms. He stood facing the Wall, a tiny, white-bearded, ear-locked wisp, rocking back and forth in a slow cadence, one hand over his eyes, the other touching the golden stone. Other elders-Yemenite, Ashkenazi, Sephardi-had taken their customary places of meditation in the shadow of the Wall; their solitary devotions merged in a low moan of entreaty that reverberated through the plaza.

Daniel joined the only minyan still forming, a mixed quorum of Lubavitcher Hassidim and American Jewish tourists whom the Lubavitchers had corralled into praying. The tourists carried expensive cameras and wore brightly colored polo shirts, Bermuda shorts, and paper kipot that rested upon their heads with the awkwardness of a foreign headdress. Affixed to some of their shirts were tour group identification labels (Hi! im barry siegel), and most seemed baffled as the Hassidim wound phylactery straps around their arms.

Daniel's own phylacteries lay in the smaller of the velvet bags, his tallit in the larger. On a typical morning he'd recite the benediction over the tallit and wrap himself in the woolen prayer shawl, then draw out the phylacteries and unwrap them. Following a second benediction, the black cube of the arm phylactery would be placed on his bicep, its straps wound seven times around his forearm, over the scar tissue that sheathed his left hand, and laced around his fingers. After uttering yet another braha, he would center the head phylactery over his brow, just above the hairline. The placement of the cubes symbolized commitment of both mind and body to God, and thus consecrated, he would be ready to worship.

But this morning was different. Laying the bags down on a chair, he pulled the drawstring of the larger and drew out not the tallit but a siddur bound in silver. Taking up the prayer book, he turned to the Modeh Ani, the Prayer of Thanks Upon Rising, which Laufer's call had prevented him from reciting at bedside. Facing the Kotel, he chanted:

Modeh ani lefaneha, melekh hai v'kayam,

"I offer thanks to Thee, O Everlasting King."

Sheh hehezarta bi nishmati b'hemla.

"Who hast mercifully restored my soul within me."

To the Hassidim and tourists standing near him, the prayers of the small dark man seemed impassioned; his rhythmic cantillation, timeless and true. But he knew otherwise. For his devotion was encumbered by faulty concentration, his words baffled by an unwelcome hailstorm of memories. Of other souls. Those that hadn't been restored.

At ten he drove up El Muqaddas to French Hill, past the cluster of towers where Yaakov Schlesinger lived, and down to National Headquarters. The building was half a kilometer southeast of Ammunition Hill, a crisp, six-story cube of beige limestone, banded by windows and bisected by a flag tower. To the front sprawled an expensive apron of parking lot, half-filled; the entire property was hemmed by an iron fence. At the center of the fence was an electric gate controlled by a uniform inside a guard station. Daniel pulled up next to the observation window.

"Morning, Tzvika."

"Morning, Dani."

The gate opened like a yawn.

A steel revolving door provided access to the lobby. Inside, all was cool and quiet, the white marble floors spotless. A solitary woman in jeans and T-shirt sat on a bench kneading her fingers and waiting. Three uniforms stood behind the shiny black reception counter, joking and laughing, nodding at him without interrupting their conversation. He walked past them quickly, past the bomb display and the burglary prevention exhibit, ignored the elevators, swung open the door to the stairs, and bounded up to the third floor.

He stepped out into a long hallway and turned right, stopping at a plain wooden door. Only a strip of tape with his name on it distinguished it from the dozens of others that checkered the corridor. Ringing telephones and the white noise of conversation filtered through the hall in tidelike waves, but at a discreet level. Businesslike. He might have been in a law firm.

So different from the old Russian Compound, with its green copper domes and cold, dingy walls, the ancient plaster crackled like eggshell. The constant press of bodies, the eternal human parade. His cubicle had been noisy, cramped, bereft of privacy. Suspects rubbing elbows with policemen. Vine-laced leaded windows offering views of manacled suspects escorted across the courtyard, bound over for hearing at the Magistrates Hall, some shuffling, others fairly dancing to judgment. The bitter smell of sweat and fear, voices raised in the same old cantata of accusation and denial. The working space of a detective.

His Major Crimes assignment had meant a move to National Headquarters. But National Headquarters had been built with administrators in mind. Paper blizzards and the high technology of contemporary police work. Basement labs and banks of computers. Well-lit conference rooms and lecture halls. Clean, respectable. Sterile.

He turned the key. His office was spanking-white and tiny-ten by ten with a view of the parking lot. His desk, files, and shelves filled it, so that there was barely space for a single guest chair; more than one visitor meant a move to one of the interrogation rooms. On the wall was a framed batik Laura had done last summer. A pair of old Yemenite men, brown figures on a cream-colored background, dancing in ecstasy under a flaming orange swirl of sun. Next to it, a pictorial calendar from the Conservation League, this month's illustration a pair of young almond trees in full snowy blossom against a backdrop of gray rolling hills.

He squeezed behind the desk. The surface was clear except for a snapshot cube of Laura and the children and a stack of mail. At the top of the stack was a message to call Laufer if he had anything to report, some Research and Development questionnaires to be filled out as soon as possible, a memo explaining new regulations for submitting expense vouchers, and a final death report from Abu Kabir on the Dutch tourist who'd been found dead three days ago in the woodlands just below the Dormition Abbey. He picked up the report and put the rest aside. Scanning the stiff, cruel poetry of the necropsy protocol ("This is the body of a well-developed, well-nourished white male…"), he dropped his eyes to the last paragraph: Extensive atherosclerotic disease including blockage of several main blood vessels, no sign of toxins or foul play. Conclusion: The man had been a heart attack waiting to happen. The steep climb to the abbey had done him in.

He put the report aside, picked up the phone, dialed the main switchboard, and got put on hold. After waiting for several moments, he hung up, dialed again, and was answered by an operator with a cheerful voice. Identifying himself, he gave her three names and left messages for them to contact him as soon as possible.

She read the names back to him and he said, "Perfect. There's one more, a Samal Avi Cohen. New hire. Try Personnel and if they don't know where he can be reached, Tat Nitzav Laufer's office will. Give him the same message."

"Okay. Shalom."

"Shalom."

The next number he tried was busy. Rather than wait, he left and climbed to the fourth floor.

The office he entered was one-third larger than his, but it housed two people. A pair of desks had been placed in an L. On the wall behind them, a single shelf held books, a collection of straw dolls, and a sachet that emitted a light aroma of patchouli.

Both youth officers were on the phone, talking to bureaucrats. Both wore pastel short-sleeved blouses over jeans.

Otherwise, physically and stylistically, they were a study in contrasts.

Hanna Shalvi sat nearer to the door, diminutive, dark, be-spectacled; baby-faced, so that she didn't look much older than the children she worked with. She asked a question about a family's fitness, nodded as she listened, said "yes" and "hmm" several times, repeated the question, waited, repeated.

A few feet away, Alice Yanushevsky hunched over her desk, jabbing her pencil in the air and smoking like a chimney. Tall and moon-faced, with straw-colored hair cut in a Dutch-boy, she demanded fast action from a recalcitrant pencil-pusher in a voice tight with impatience.

"This is a girl in jeopardy! We'll have no more delays! Am I understood?" Slam.

A sweet smile for Daniel. A drop in vocal pitch: "Good morning, Dani." She picked up a cardboard tube, opened it, and unfolded the contents. "Like my new poster?"

It was a blowup of the American rock band Fleetwood Mac.

"Very nice."

"Avner gave it to me because he says I look like one of them"-she swiveled and pointed-"the English girl, Christine. What do you think?"

"A little," he conceded. "You're younger."

Alice laughed heartily, smoked, laughed again.

"Sit down, Pakad Sharavi. Just what is it that you need?"

"Photographs of missing girls. Brunettes, probably fifteen or sixteen, but let's play it safe and go twelve to nineteen."

Alice's green eyes jumped with alarm.

"Something happened to one of them?"

"Possibly."

"What?" she demanded.

"Can't say anything right now. Laufer's put a gag on."

"Oh, come on."

"Sorry."

"All take, no give, eh? That should make your job easy." She shook her head scornfully. "Laufer. Who does he think he's kidding, trying to keep anything quiet around here?"

"True. But I need to humor him."

Alice stubbed out her cigarette. Another shake of the head.

"The girl in question has dark skin, dark hair," said Daniel. "Roundish face, pretty features, chipped teeth, one missing upper tooth. Anyone come to mind?"

"Pretty genera! except for the teeth," said Alice, "and that could have happened after the disappearance." She opened one of her desk drawers, pulled out a pile of about a dozen folders, and thumbed through them, selecting three, putting the rest away.

"All our open cases are being entered into the computer, but I have a few here that just came in recently. All runaways-these are the ones in your age range."

He examined the photographs, shook his head, gave them back.

"Let's see if she has any." said Alice. Rising, she stood over Hanna, who was still nodding and questioning. Tapping her on the shoulder, she said: "Come on, enough."

Hanna held up one hand, palm inward, thumb touching index finger. Signaling savlanul. Patience.

"If you haven't convinced them yet, you never will," said Alice. She ran her fingers through her hair, stretched. "Come on, enough."

Hanna conversed a bit more, said thank you, and got off the phone.

"Finally," said Alice. "Take out your recent files. Dani needs to look at them."

"Good morning, Dani," said Hanna. "What's up?"

"He can't tell you but you have to help him anyway. Laufer's orders."

Hanna looked at him, dark eyes magnified by the lenses of her glasses. He nodded in confirmation.

"What do you need?" she asked.

He repeated the description of the murdered girl and her eyes widened in recognition.

"What?"

"Sounds like a kid I processed two weeks ago. Only this one was only thirteen."

"Thirteen is possible," said Daniel. "What's her name?"

"Cohen. Yael Cohen. One second." She went into her files, talking as she sorted. "Musrara girl. Fooling around with twenty-two-year-old pooshtak. Papa found out and beat her. Next day she didn't come home from school. Papa went looking for her, tried to beat up the boyfriend, too, got thrashed for his efforts. Ah, here it is."

Daniel took the file, homed in on the photograph, felt his spirits sink. Yael Cohen was curly-haired, bovine, and dull-looking. A missing tooth, but that was the extent of the resemblance.

"Not the one," he said, giving it back to Hanna. "The rest are in the computer?"

"In the process of being entered," said Alice.

"How many cases are we talking about?"

"Missing girls in that age range? About four hundred nationally, sixty or so from Jerusalem. But the files are classified alphabetically, not by age or sex, so you'd have to go through all of them-about sixteen hundred."

Tedious but workable.

"How can I get hold of them?"

"Go down to Data Processing and pull rank."

He spent the next two hours on the phone, phoning Dr. Levi at Abu Kabir and being told by an assistant that the pathologist was out of the office; requesting a copy of Schlesinger's service record from Civil Guard Headquarters; getting a records clerk to search for any sort of priors on the Amelia Catherine staff; attempting, without success, to find out if any of the three detectives had received his message. Letting Data Processing know that someone would be down to examine the missing-juvenile files. Filling out the mountain of requisition forms that legitimized each of the requests. Hampered at every step by his inability to satisfy the curiosity of the people whose cooperation he needed.

At twelve-fifteen, Levi called.

"Shalom, Pakad. I've finished the preliminary on the young one from this morning. I know it's priority so I'll read from my notes: Well-developed, well-nourished mid-adolescent female of Eastern descent. Multiple stab wounds, shock from voluminous loss of blood-she was drained."

"How?"

"Gravity, probably. Tipped over so that it flowed through the throat wound."

Like a butchered animal, thought Daniel. One hand tightened around the receiver. The other scrawled hastily as the pathologist continued to recite his findings:

"The ear pierces were old. Inside the hole was some blackening, which turned out to be steel oxide on the specto-graph-non-gold wire, which means the earrings themselves probably weren't gold and they may have been removed recently."

"Could the wire have been gold-plated?"

"Possibly, or gold paint. Let me continue. There were no defense cuts or ligature marks, so she didn't resist and she wasn't tied up. Which would indicate lack of consciousness during the actual cutting, but there was no evidence of head trauma. However, I did find two fresh needle marks on the arms and the gas chromatography came up with opiates. Heroin. Not enough to kill her unless she had an idiopathic sensitivity, but enough to sedate her."

"Was she cut up before or after sedation?"

"From the lack of resistance, I'd say after. For her sake, I hope so."

"Anesthesia," said Daniel. "Considerate of the bastard, eh?"

"Any sign that she was an addict?"

"On the contrary: The organs were clean, mucosa clear. No other marks besides the two fresh ones. All in all, a healthy young lady."

"What about sexual assault?"

"The whole damned thing was a sexual assault," said Levi. "You saw the genitalia. If you mean was there semen, no visible patches, but the region was too torn up for a complete analysis. The tests we ran were negative. Let's see what else… oh, yes, the wounds were caused by more than~ one instrument. At least two, maybe more."

"What kinds of instruments?"

"Knives. Very sharp. One with a curved blade, the other larger, straight-edged. The larger one was used on the throat. One strong slash from left to right, so we're probably dealing with a right-handed person, which doesn't help you much."

"Any similarity to the Gray Man homicides?"

"None whatsoever. Gray Man used a serrated blade, relatively dull-we hypothesized a kitchen knife, remember? Whoever did this used something finely honed."

"Like a razor?"

"Razor sharp but definitely larger than your standard safety blade."

"What about a straight razor?"

Levi's pause implied contemplation.

"From my inspection of the wound," he said, "I'd say the big one's larger than your average straight razor. There was little or no sawing-the initial cut went right through. Though I suppose it could be one of those old-fashioned heavy ones the barbers used to shave people with."

"What about the curved one?"

"Short-bladed. First thing I thought of was a curved scalpel, but I checked all of mine against the wounds and none of them fit. Which doesn't mean there isn't some kind of surgical knife that would. But it could just as easily be something else: wood-carver's tool, linoleum cutter, even a ohe-of-a-kind-anyone can buy a knife, shape it, and sharpen it. I took wound casts. If you bring me a weapon I can tell you if it fits."

"I'll keep that in mind. What about the sheet?"

"We're not finished with it but it looks like standard domestic issue so I doubt you'll get anywhere pursuing that line of inquiry. Same for the soap and shampoo she was washed with. Neka Sheva Green."

"What do you make of the fact that she was washed?"

"Someone was trying to get rid of physical evidence. And did a damned good job of it-so far we've come up with no fibers except for those from the sheet, no foreign secretions or residue other than a few grains of garden-variety silica sand. It took a lot of care to get her that clean."

"I was thinking more in terms of psychology," said Daniel. "A symbolic gesture. Washing away guilt."

"Lady Macbeth?" said Levi doubtfully. "I suppose any-thing's possible when you're dealing with twisted minds."

"You see this as the work of a madman?"

"Not a drooling, raving lunatic-too much planning and precision for that. But twisted, nonetheless. A sadistic psychopath."

"Any ideas about the ethnicity of the girl?"

"Eastern is as far as I'll go. I checked for clitorectomy but there was too much tissue damage to tell. Not that it's the marker it used to be-many of the Arabs have stopped circumcising their women. The only ones you can count on to do it routinely are the Bedouins, and this one's no Bedouin."

"Why do you say that?"

"No tattoos. The soles of her feet were too soft. And when they kill their own, they bury them in the desert. Besides, a Bedouin girl of this age would have been married already and not allowed far enough out of the tent to get into trouble." Levi paused. "Says something for primitive culture, eh?"

At one o'clock Daniel went down to the Forensics lab and received confirmation of Levi's assessment of the sand: nothing unique. Steinfeld had just begun developing photographs of the dead girl. One was a head shot, which revealed none of the wounds. Her face was placid and she could have been asleep. Daniel got the tech to print two dozen. Slipping the pictures in a large envelope, he left Headquarters and-drove to the center of town.

Traffic was slow on Rehov King George, streets and sidewalks crammed with Sabbath shoppers, the babble of vendors and hawkers blending discordantly with diesel rumble, brake squeals, and the earsplitting blasts of auto horns. He got stuck at a red light behind an Egged bus and had to breathe in rancid exhaust mixed with wafts of hot grease from a nearby food stand. Melekh HaFelafel. "The Felafel King." Down the block was The Juice King, just around the corner The Emperor of Hamburgers. A nation of mon-archs

The bus moved and he sped forward, hooking a sharp left into the mouth of Rehov Ben Yehuda and parking illegally at the top of the street. Placing a police identification card on the dash of the Escort, he locked the car and left, hoping some under-observant rookie wouldn't clamp a Denver Boot on his tires.

The front door of The Star Restaurant was open, but he was early, so he walked past the restaurant and down the sloping street toward his father's shop.

Once just another auto-choked Jerusalem thoroughfare, Ben Yehuda had been closed to cars several years ago and transformed into a walking mall all the way to the big clock at Zion Square. He made his way through a wash of people-lovers holding hands as they window-shopped and traded dreams; children clinging to parental hands, their buttery faces smeared with pizza and ice cream; soldiers on leave; and artsy types from the Bezalel Institute, drinking iced coffee and eating paper-cradled napoleons at the parasoled tables of sidewalk cafes.

He walked past a shwarma stand, saw customers waiting eagerly as a counterman shaved juicy slices from a spinning, fat-topped cone of spiced lamb. Nearby, long-haired street musicians strummed American folk songs without passion, huddled like empty-eyed scarecrows over open instrument cases speckled with coins. One, a pale, skeletal, lank-haired woman, had brought a battered upright piano on wheels and was pounding out bad Chopin to a derisively grinning audience of taxi drivers. He recognized a Latam officer, Wiesel, at the rear of the group, avoided even momentary eye contact with the undercover man, and walked on.

The sign in his father's window said CLOSED, but he peered in through the front door and saw movement from the back room. A rap on the glass brought his father to the front, and when he saw Daniel, his face lit up and he unlocked it quickly.

"Shalom, Abba."

"Shalom, son! Come in, come in."

Standing on tiptoes, the older man embraced him, kissing both his cheeks. In the process, his beret came loose and Daniel caught it for him. His father placed the hat atop his shiny dome and thanked him, laughing. Arm in arm, they entered the shop.

The odor of silver solder permeated the air. An elaborate filigree brooch lay on the workbench. Threadlike wire of silver looped around teardrop-shaped freshwater pearls, the outer perimeter of each loop a delicate braid of gold wire. Wire that seemed too thin to work with, but which his father's hands transformed to objects of strength and beauty. Angel hair, his Uncle Moshe had told him when he was a child. Your abba spins the hair of angels into wondrous forms.

Where does he get it, Dod Moshe?

From the heavens. Like manna. Special manna granted by Hakadosh Baruch Hu to those with magic hands.

Those same hands, nut-brown and hard as olive wood, cupped his chin now. More kisses, the momentary abrasion of the old man's beard. A flash of white-toothed smile through steel-wool whiskers. Black eyes flashing mischievously from a saddle-leather face.

"Something to drink, Daniel?"

"Just some water, please, Abba. I'll get it."

"Sit." Staying him with a finger, his father moved quickly to the back room and returned with a bottle of orange juice and two glasses. Taking a stool next to Daniel's, he filled both glasses, recited the shehakol blessing, and the two of them drank, his father sipping, Daniel emptying the glass in three swallows.

"How are Laura and the children?"

"Terrific, Abba. And you?"

"Couldn't be better. Just received a lovely commission from some tourists staying at the King David." He pointed at the brooch. Daniel picked it up gingerly, ran his index finger over the elaborate ridges and swirls. As fine and unique as fingerprints

"It's beautiful, Abba."

His father shrugged off the compliment. "Wealthy couple from London. They saw something like it in the hotel gift shop, asked me what I would charge to make it up, and made their decision on the spot."

Daniel smiled, placed his hand on the old man's bony shoulder.

"I'm sure the decision was based on more than cost, Abba."

His father looked away, embarrassed. Busied himself with refilling Daniel's glass.

"Have you eaten? I have pita, hummus, and tomato salad in the refrigerator-"

"Thanks anyway, but I have a lunch appointment at The Star."

"Business?"

"What else. Tell me, Abba, has anyone tried to sell you a pair of cheap earrings recently?"

"No. The American longhairs try from time to time, but nothing recently. Why?"

"It's not important."

They drank in silence for several moments. His father was the first to speak.

"You're caught up in something ugly." A half-whisper. "Extreme violence."

Daniel stared at him, astonished.

"How did you know that?"

"It's not difficult. Your face has always been a mirror. When you came into the shop you looked burdened. Mournful. As if a cloud had settled over your brow. The way you looked when you came home from war."

Daniel had placed the brooch in his bad hand in order to drink; suddenly he felt his fingers close around it. The clumsy press of numbed flesh against frail filament. Stupidly destructive. Alarmed, he uncurled his fingers and placed the jewelry back upon the worktable. Looking at his watch, he stood.

"Have to be going."

His father climbed down from the stool, took his son's hands in his.

"I'm sorry if I've upset you, Daniel."

"No, no. I'm fine."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of it. You're the best."

"Thank you, Abba."

They walked to the door. Daniel pushed it open and let in the heat and noise of the plaza.

"Will you be praying with Mori Zadok tomorrow?" he asked.

"No," said his father sheepishly. "I have an… engagement."

"On Rehov Smolenskin?"

"Yes, yes."

Daniel couldn't suppress his grin. "Regards to Mrs. Moscowitz," he said.

The old man's eyebrows rose in exasperation.

"She's a nice woman, Abba."

"Very nice. The nicest. But not for me-that's no sin, is it?" A hand went up and adjusted the beret. "Now she's decided that the way to my heart is through my stomach-a Hadassah course in Yemenite cooking. Bean soup and kubaneh and kirshe every Shabbat. In addition to all her Ashkenazi food. I eat until I ache, for fear of hurting her feelings. Which is also why I haven't been able to tell her we're not a destined match." He smiled balefully at Daniel. "Can the police help in such matters?"

"Afraid not, Abba."

Shared laughter followed by an expectant silence.

"Shabbat shalom, Abba."

"Shabbat shalom. It was good to see you."

His father continued to hold his hands. Squeezing. Lingering. Suddenly, the old man brought the damaged hand to his lips, kissed the scar tissue, and let go.

"What you do is also an art," he said. "You must remember that."

On the way back up to The Star, he passed close to the shwarma stand, caught a glint of metal, and stopped: a long bladed knife, flashing like a silver minnow in the hands of the counterman. Assaulting the meat as it turned slowly on the spit, the lamb splitting open and crackling with surrender as layer after layer fell from the cone. An everyday thing; he'd seen it thousands of times without noticing.

The counterman was a lanky Moroccan Jew, face wet with perspiration, apron dotted with gravy. He finished preparing a sandwich for a customer, saw Daniel staring, shouted out that the shwarma was fresh, and offered to cut the detective a juicy one. Shaking his head no, Daniel resumed his climb.

The door to The Star was wide open, leading to a small, dim entry hall backed by a curtain of painted wooden beads. Parting the beads, he walked in.

Luncheon business was brisk, the cedar-paneled front room fan-cooled and filled with a comfortable mix of tourists and regulars, the robust chorus of laughter and conversation competing with a background tape of French and Italian pop songs.

The walls of the restaurant were hung generously with pictures and figurines, all rendered in a stellar motif. Over the bar was an oil portrait of a younger David Kohavi, darkly fierce in his general's uniform. Just beneath the painting was a Star of David hewn from Jerusalem stone, at its center the word HaKohav-"the star"-and a dedication from the men of Kohavi's battalion in raised bronze letters. The fire-burnished bronze of melted bullet shells.

Emil the Waiter was washing glasses behind the bar, stooped and gnarled in a billowing starched shirt and black bow tie. When he saw Daniel he came forward and escorted the detective toward an unmarked door at the rear of the restaurant. Just as the waiter's hand settled on the doorknob, Kohavi himself emerged from the kitchen, dressed, despite the season, in dark suit and tie, a white-haired version of the man in the painting. Bellowing a greeting, he shook Daniel's hand and motioned Emil back to the bar.

"I've set up a table for you. Five, right?"

"If they all show up."

Kohavi pushed the door open. "One already has."

The rear banquet room was almost empty. Papered in a burgundy print and lit by crystal lamps in sconces, it sported a raised wooden stage at the far end and accommodated two dozen tables, all but one of them bare and unoccupied. A tablecloth of burgundy linen had been spread across a round table next to the stage. At it sat a nondescript man reading

Ha'aretz. The sounds of footsteps caused him to glance up briefly from his paper before resuming his perusal.

"The fish is good today," said Kohavi, stopping midway. "So are the filet steal and the shishlik. I'll send the others back as they arrive."

"One of them's never been here," said Daniel. "Elias Daoud." He described Daoud physically.

"Daoud," said Kohavi. "The Arab involved in breaking up the Number Two Gang?"

"That's him."

"Nice piece of work. I'll see to it he doesn't get lost."

"Thanks."

The restaurateur left and Daniel walked to the newspaper reader and sat opposite him, propping the envelope of photos against one leg of his chair.

"Shalom, Nahum."

The paper lowered and the man gave a brief nod. "Dani."

He was in his mid-fifties, bald and thin, with features that had been cast with an eye toward anonymity: the nose slightly aquiline but unmemorable, the mouth a tentative hyphen of intermediate width, the eyes twin beads of neutral brown, their lack of luster suggesting sleepiness. A forgettable face that had settled into repose-the serenity of one who'd vanquished ambition by retreating from it. He wore reading glasses, a cheap digital watch on one hairless forearm, and a pale-blue sport shirt with a faint windowpane check, its pocket sagging with ballpoint pens. A navy-blue windbreaker had been folded neatly over the chair next to him. Over it was slung a shoulder holster bearing a 9 mm Beretta.

"Mice in the Golan are committing suicide," he said, tapping the newspaper and putting it down. "Jumping off cliffs, hundreds at a time. An instinctive reaction to overpopulation, according to the scientists."

"Noble," said Daniel.

"Not really," said the thin man. "Without a sufficient supply of mice, the owls who prey on them will die." He smiled. "If the owls complain to the U.N., we'll be brought up on cruelty-to-animal charges."

The door to the kitchen swung open and Emil the Waiter came to the table with a platter of salads-hummus, tehina, two kinds of eggplant, pickled cucumbers, bitter Greek olives-and a stack of pita for dipping. He set down a plate next to each of them and bowed formally.

"Something to drink, Pakad Sharavi?"

"Soda water, please."

"For you, Mefakeah Shmeltzer?"

"Another cola, no lime this time."

When he was gone, Daniel said, "Speaking of the U.N., I was up at the Amelia Catherine this morning. It relates to our new one."

"So I've heard," said Shmeltzer, rolling an olive between his fingers. "Bloody cutting on Scopus."

"Are tongues flapping that energetically?" asked Daniel.

The edge in his voice made Shmeltzer look up.

"Just the usual grapevine stuff from the uniforms. You called for an extra car to search the hillside-people wanted to know why. What's the big deal?"

"No big deal. Laufer wants it kept quiet."

"I want world peace and harmony," said Shmeltzer. "Care to take bets on either?"

"What did you hear, exactly, Nahum?"

"Maniac homicide, maybe a whore, maybe another Gray Man. Does it match?"

Daniel shook his head. "Doubtful." He related what he'd learned about the case. The account seemed to subdue Shmeltzer.

"Insane," he said quietly. "We never used to see that kind of thing."

Emil returned with the drinks and, eyeing the untouched food, asked if everything was all right.

"Everything's fine," said Daniel. Rising, he went to a sink across the room and used a copper cup to wash both hands. Upon returning, he sat down, said the blessing over bread, broke off a piece of pita, salted it, and ate it. Dipping another piece into the hummus, he put it in his mouth, the pungency of-cumin and garlic a pleasant shock upon his tongue. Emil nodded approvingly and turned on his heel.

"Get anything at the hospital?" asked Shmeltzer.

"Typical U.N. situation. Lip service and hostility."

"What do you expect? They live like little princes, the assholes-duty-free Mercedes, villas, diplomatic immunity. What do they pay their pencil-pushers now-forty, fifty thousand a year?"

"Ninety."

"Shekels or American dollars?"

"Dollars," said Daniel. "Tax-free."

"Shit," said Shmeltzer. "Ten years' worth of wages for you and me. And for doing nothing." He dipped pita in eggplant salad, managed to frown while chewing. "I remember one guy I questioned in a burglary case. Nigerian, looked just like Idi Amin. Safari suit, ivory-tipped walking stick, and an engraved calling card with a title you could eat for lunch: Executive Regional Director of the Sinai Border Commission, supposed to count how many Egyptians we kill and vice versa. No matter that we gave it all back at Camp David and there's no border anymore-this guy's job was to administer it because the hard-liners at the U.N. never recognized Camp David. Far as they're concerned it's still a war zone."

He sipped his cola, popped an olive in his mouth, removed the pit, and put it on his plate. Nibbling on another, he asked, "Anyone at the Amelia look like a suspect?"

"Nothing glaring," said Daniel. "Two of them were especially jumpy. Doctor named Al Biyadi and his girlfriend-an American nurse. She implied we've been persecuting him. Seemed to be a typical case of sheikh fever."

"Sure," said Shmeltzer. "Madly in love with Ahmed until he puts a bomb in her suitcase and sends her off on El Al. Where'd she meet him?"

"In America. Detroit, Michigan. Lots of Arabs there. Lots of PLO sympathy."

"What is it we're supposed to have done to Lover Boy?"

"Don't know yet," said Daniel. "Probably some kind of immigration problem. Records is running a check on both of them and on the other hospital people as well." He took a drink of soda, felt the bubbles dance against the back of his teeth. "Think this one could be political?"

Shmeltzer shrugged. "Why not? Our sweet cousins keep searching for new approaches."

"Levi said it's likely she was anesthetized," said Daniel. "Sedated with heroin."

"Kindly killer," said Shmelzer.

"It made me think of a doctor, but then I thought a doctor would have access to all kinds of sedatives-no need to use something illegal."

"Unless the doctor was an addict himself. Maybe he and the girl had a heroin party. She overdosed. When he saw her he panicked, cut her up."

"I don't think so," said Daniel. "Levi says the dose wasn't fatal, and she was injected twice." He paused. "The way it was done, Nahum-the cutting was deliberate."

The door opened and Kohavi came in with another man.

Shmeltzer looked at the newcomer, then sharply back at Daniel.

"Speaking of sweet cousins," he said.

"He's first-rate," said Daniel. "If the girl's an Arab he'll be valuable."

Kohavi had slipped back to the front room and the new man walked toward them alone. Medium-sized, dark-complexioned, and in his twenties, he wore a tan suit, white shirt, and no tie. His face was long and big-boned, terminating in a heavy square chin. His hair was light reddish-brown and combed straight back, his mustache a faint ginger wisp over a wide, serious mouth. Narrow-set green eyes stared straight ahead, unwavering. When he reached the table he said, "Good afternoon, Pakad."

"Good afternoon, Elias. Please sit down. This is Mefakeah Nahum Shmeltzer of National Headquarters. Nahum, Samal Rishon Elias Daoud, of the Kishle Station."

"Elias." Shmeltzer nodded.

"The privilege is mine, sir." Daoud's voice was thin and boyish, his Hebrew fluent but accented-the rolling Arabic "r," the substitution of "b" for "p." He sat down and folded his hands in his lap, docile but inquisitive, like a schoolboy in a new class.

"Call me Nahum," said Shmeltzer. '"Sirs' are fat guys who wear their medals to bed."

Daoud forced a smile.

"Have something to drink, Elias," said Daniel.

"Thank you. The proprietor is bringing me a coffee."

"Something to eat?"

"Thank you." Daoud took a pita and ate it plain, chewing slowly, looking down at the tablecloth, ill at ease. Daniel wondered how many Jewish restaurants he'd been to-how often, for that matter, did he come over to the western side of town?

"We're all impressed," he said, "with your work on the Number Two Gang case. All those creeps behind bars, the drugs kept off the street."

"I did my job," said Daoud. "God was with me."

Shmeltzer took a pickle and bit off the tip. "Here's hoping He stays with you. We've got a tough one. A maniac murderer."

Daoud's eyes widened with interest.

"Who was killed?"

"A young girl," said Daniel. "Mutilated and dumped on Scopus across from the Amelia Catherine. No ID. Here."

He picked up the envelope, drew out photos of the dead girl, and distributed copies to both detectives.

"Ring any bells?"

Shmeltzer shook his head. "Pretty," he said in a tight voice, then turned away.

Daoud continued to examine the picture, holding the edges with both hands, concentrating, grim.

"I can't place her," he said finally. "But there's something familiar about the face."

"What?" asked Daniel.

Daoud stared at the photo again. "I don't know why, but one of the villages keeps coming to mind. Silwan, perhaps. Or Abu Tor."

"Not Bethlehem?"

"No, sir," said Daoud. "If she were from Bethlehem, I'd know her."

"What about the other villages?" asked Shmeltzer. "Sur Bahir, Isawiya."

"Maybe," said Daoud. "For some reason Abu Tor and Silwan come to mind."

"Perhaps you've seen her in passing," said Daniel. "A brief glimpse through the car window."

Daoud thought for a while. "Perhaps."

He's worried, thought Daniel. About having spoken too soon with nothing to back it up.

"So you're saying she's an Arab," said Shmeltzer.

"That was my first impression," said Daoud. He tugged at his mustache.

"I've got a requisition in for all the missing-kid files," said Daniel. "Sixteen hundred of them. In the meantime, we'll be knocking on doors. The villages are as good a place to start as any. Take Silwan first, Elias. Show the picture around. If nothing clicks, go on to Abu Tor."

Daoud nodded and put the photo in his jacket pocket.

A shout came from across the room:

"All recruits at attention!"

A striking-looking man swaggered toward the table. Well over six feet, bulging and knotted with the heavy musculature of a weight lifter, he wore white shorts, rubber beach sandals, and a red sleeveless mesh shirt that exposed lots of hard saffron skin. His hair was blue-black, straight, parted in the middle and styled with a blow-dryer, his face wholly Asian, broad and flat like that of a Mongolian warrior. Eyes resting on high shelflike cheekbones were twin slits in rice paper. A blue shadow of beard darkened his chin. About thirty years old, with five years latitude on either side of the estimate.

"Shalom, Dani. Nahum." The man's voice was deep and harsh.

"Chinaman." Shmeltzer nodded. "Day off?"

"Till now," said the big man. He looked at Daoud apprais-ingly, then sat down next to him.

"Yossi Lee," he said, extending his hand. "You're Daoud, right? The ace of Kishle."

Daoud took the hand tentatively, as if assessing the greeting for sarcasm. Lee's shake was energetic, his smile an equine flash of long, curving white teeth. Releasing the Arab's hand, he yawned and stretched.

"What do they have to eat in this dump? I'm starved."

"Better this dump than somewhere else," said Shmeltzer.

"Somewhere else would be free," said Lee. "Free always tastes terrific."

"Next time, Chinaman," promised Daniel. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes late and the new man hadn't arrived.

Emil came in with menus.

"A beer," said the Chinaman.

"Goldstar or Maccabee?" asked Emil.

"Goldstar."

The waiter started to leave.

"Stick around," said Daniel. "We'll order now."

Shmeltzer and the Chinaman ordered stuffed marrow appetizers and a double mixed grill each. Daniel noticed Daoud examine the menu, shift his eyes to the price column, and hesitate. Wondering, no doubt, how far a brand-new sergeant's salary would carry him. Daniel had visited Daoud's home in Bethlehem shortly after the bust of the Number Two Gang, bringing news of the promotion and a gift of dried fruit. The poverty had surprised him, though it shouldn't have-most cops had serious money problems. The papers had just run a story about a bunch of new hires applying for welfare. And before joining the force Daoud had worked as a box boy in a souvenir shop, one of those cramped, musty places that sold olive-wood crucifixes and straw mockups of the Nativity to Christian tourists. Earning what-a thousand a year?

Now, watching the Arab scan the menu, the memory of that poverty returned: the Daoud household-three closet-sized rooms in an ancient building, mattresses on the floor, a charcoal stove for heat, prints of Jesus in agony on whitewashed walls. Children everywhere-at least half a dozen, toddling and tripping, in various stages of undress. A shy young wife gone to fat, a crippled mother-in-law knitting silently. Cooking smells and baby squalls.

Putting his own menu down, he said: "I'll have a mint salad."

"Mint salad." said Emil the Waiter, copying. "What else, Pakad?"

"That's it."

The waiter's eyebrows rose.

"Dieting?" said the Chinaman.

"Shabbat tonight," said Daniel. "Big meal."

Daoud handed his menu to Emil the Waiter.

"I'll have a mint salad too," he said.

"What else for you?"

"A coffee."

Emil grew wary, as if expecting to be the butt of a joke.

"Don't tell me," said the Chinaman. "You're eating at his house."

Daoud smiled.

"That'll be all," said Daniel to the waiter, who departed, muttering, "Salads, salads."

Daniel began laying out the case before the food came and continued after its delivery, ignoring his salad and talking while the others ate. Handing a photo of the dead girl to Lee, he placed another in front of the empty chair, and passed on what he'd learned so far. The detectives took notes, holding pens in one hand, forks in the other. Chewing, swallowing, but mechanically. A silent audience.

"Three possibilities come to mind immediately," he said. "One, a psychopathic murder. Two, a crime of passion-in that I include blood revenge. Three, terrorism. Any other suggestions?"

"Gang murder," said Shmeltzer. "She was someone's girl and got in the middle of something."

"The gangs use bullets and they don't kill women," said the Chinaman. He slid cubes of shishlik off a skewer, stared at them, ate one.

"They never used to kill anyone," said Shmeltzer. "There's always a first time."

"They hide their corpses, Nahum," said Lee. "The last thing they want is to make it public." To Daoud: "You guys never found any of the ones The Number Two boys hit, did you?"

Daoud shook his head.

"Any gang wars brewing that you know of?" Daniel asked Lee.

The Chinaman took a swallow of beer and shook his head. "The hashish gangs are stable-heavy supply down from Lebanon with enough to go around for everyone. Zik and the Chain Street Boys have a truce going on stolen goods. Zik's also cornered the opium market but for now it's too small for anyone to challenge him."

"What about the melon gangs?" asked Shmeltzer.

"The crop will be small this summer so we can expect some conflict, but that's a while off and we've never had a melon murder yet."

"All in due time," said the older detective. "We're growing civilized at an alarming rate."

"Look into the gangs, Chinaman," said Daniel. "And investigate the possibility of a pimp-whore thing-that she was a street girl who betrayed her sarsur and he wanted to make an example of her. Show her picture to the lowlifes and see if anyone knew her."

"Will do," said Lee.

"Any other hypotheses?" asked Daniel. When no one answered he said, "Let's go back to the first three, starting with terrorism. On the surface it doesn't look political-there was no message attached to the body and no one's claimed credit. But that may still be coming. We know they've been trying out street crime as a strategy-the one who stabbed Shlomo Mendelsohn shouted slogans, as did the punks who shot at the hikers near Solomon's Pool. Both of those cases were semi-impulsive-opportunistic-and this one looks more premeditated, but so was the job Tutunji's gang did on Talia Gidal, so let's keep our minds open. Nahum, I want you to liaison with Shin Bet and find out if they've picked up word of a sex murder strategy from overseas or any of the territories. Elias, have you heard anything along those lines?"

"There's always talk," said Daoud cautiously.

Shmeltzer's face tightened. "What kind of talk?" he asked.

"Slogans. Nothing specific."

"That so?" said the older detective, wiping his glasses. "I saw something specific the other day. Graffiti near the Hill of Golgotha. 'Lop off the head of the Zionist monster.' Could be someone followed instructions."

Daoud said nothing.

"When you get right down to it," Shmeltzer continued, "there's nothing new about Arabs mixing mutilation and politics." He jabbed his fork into a piece of grilled kidney, put it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. "In the Hebron massacre they sliced the breasts off all the women. Castrated the men and stuffed their balls in their mouths. The Saudis still dismember thieves. It's part of the Arabic culture, right?"

Daoud stared straight ahead, tugging at his mustache until the skin around it reddened.

Daniel and the Chinaman looked at Shmeltzer, who shrugged and said, "This is Jerusalem, boys. A historical context is essential."

He returned his attention to his food, cutting into a baby lamb chop, masticating with exaggerated enthusiasm.

The silence that followed was ponderous and cold. Daoud broke it, speaking in a near murmur.

"For this murder to be political, the girl would have to be Jewish-"

"Or a member of an Arab family viewed as collaborationist," said Shmeltzer.

Daoud lowered his glance and pushed salad greens around his plate.

"All possibilities will be considered," said Daniel. "Let's move on to the second possibility. Crime of passion-unrequited love, an affair gone sour, soiled honor, blood revenge. Any of you know of family conflicts that could get nasty?"

"A couple of Moroccan families over in Katamon Tet have been punching each other out for the last few months," said the Chinaman. "Something about where the laundry should hang. Last I heard it'd cooled down. I'll check."

"Two betrothed families from Surif are feuding over a dowry," said Daoud. "It's been all words so far but the words are growing stronger and it may very well boil over into violence. But I know all the family members on both sides and she's not of them. The only other thing I can think of is that Druze sheikh who was murdered last year."

"Hakim al Atrash," said Daniel.

"Yes. Common belief is that it was a land dispute and the Janbulat clan was behind it. It's an open situation-vengeance has yet to be accomplished. But when they kill someone it will be another man, not a young girl."

"Another remote possibility," said Daniel, "is Bedouins. They'd be quick to execute a lapsed virgin or an adulteress and a Bedouin girl this age could very well have been married or engaged. But the pathologist is certain that this one wore shoes and he made another good point: Bedouins bury their dead in the desert, away from prying eyes. There'd be no reason to bring her up into the city."

He took a drink of soda water, ate salad without tasting it, drank again, and said, "My intuition tells me this was no honor killing-all the ones I've seen or heard about have been done with a single throat-cut or a bullet to the head. Swift and clean. No body wounds or hacking of the genitals. No washing the corpse. I saw what had been done to her-the pictures don't capture it." He paused, chose his words. "It was butchery, ritualistic. Lots of rage, but calculated."

"A sex murder," said the Chinaman.

"It's our best working hypothesis."

"If it's a sex murder, we're out of our element," said Shmeltzer."Working from textbooks again. Like goddamned rookies."

The remark angered Daniel, partly because it was true. A junior grade detective in any American city saw more in one year than he'd encounter in a lifetime. Serial killings, demonic rituals, child murders, back alley mutilations. A dark, ugly world that he'd read about but had never encountered. Until eight months ago, when Gray Man had come along. A welcome-back from vacation. Four slashings in two months. A one-man crime wave in a city that hosted nine or ten killings in a bad year, most of them the bloody offspring of family squabbles. Four dead women, victimized for selling phony love

"Things are changing, boys." Shmeltzer was lecturing the Chinaman and Daoud. "And we're not equipped for it. Drug fiends, psychopaths-nut-case foreigners in rags. You never used to see them. Now they're all over the city. On the way here I saw one meshuggener lurching across Herzl, muttering to himself, frothing at the mouth, nearly got himself run over. Go into Independence Park and they're lying under the trees like mounds of dog shit."

"That's not the type we're looking for, Nahum," said Daniel. "Too disorganized, unable to plan. Dr. Ben David's profile of the Gray Man was a social misfit, withdrawn but outwardly normal."

"Terrific," said Shmeltzer. "Very scholarly guy, Dr. Ben David. Did us a hell of a lot of good."

What, Daniel wondered, was eating at him? Shmeltzer had always played the part of devil's advocate; Daniel didn't mind it-it kept him thinking. But today it seemed different, less constructive, as if the older man no longer had any interest in work. Perhaps Laufer had been right: The dray horse had outlived his usefulness. On a case like this he needed a rock-solid number two man-the type of detective Shmeltzer had always been before. Not the nay-saying cynic across the tabie. He looked at Shmeltzer drinking cola, face half-hidden by the glass; considered dealing with it right then and there, decided against it.

"Nahum," he said, "get the computer guys to update the list of sex offenders we pulled on Gray Man, subclassify again in terms of tendencies toward violence and use of a knife. Fondness for young girls and drug use are other variables to look for. Most of them are going to be guys we've already talked to, but they deserve going over again. A new samal named Avi Cohen will help you with the preliminary screening and I can get you a clerk for tabulation if you need one. Once we've established a good sublist, we'll start pulling them in for interviews. While you're waiting for the data, check the Scopus campus, see if anyone was working late, if any of the locks on the gates were tampered with.

"Our first priority," he said, picking up a photo, "will be identifying her. It's twenty-four-hour shift time. The earrings are a possible link-the killer may have taken them, but until we know what they look like, a jewelry store canvass isn't worthwhile. In addition, Dr. Levi said they weren't gold, so it's doubtful a professional jeweler would buy them. Still, if you come across someone who buys trinkets, ask them if anyone's tried to palm some earrings off on them."

He turned to Daoud. "Elias, take the villages-you can follow your hunch and start with Abu Tor and Silwan. If they don't pan out, do the others as well. Isawiya, in particular, is of interest, because you can walk across the desert and up to Scopus without traversing the rest of the city. The Border Patrol says everything's been quiet, but they're not infallible. If you learn nothing in any of the villages, start scouring the

Old City up to the Damascus Gate, Sultan Suleiman, the area around the Arab bus station and the train station. Visit the orphanages. Talk to drivers, ticket clerks, porters, anyone who might have seen a young girl come in. I'll hit the main bus station this afternoon and do the same. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Chinaman," Daniel continued, "cover the neighborhoods to the south of the crime scene-Sheikh Jarrah, the American Colony, Wadi el Joz, then Musrara and along the Green Line. I assume you'll be visiting the Watermelon Tents to do your gang check."

"Tonight, after midnight," said the Chinaman. "When the fun's in full bloom."

"If you don't get any leads there, go to the Green Line and talk to the whores. Find out if any strange customers have been hanging around. Don't hassle anyone but take note of weird ones. Warn the girls too, while you're at it-talk in general terms, no details."

"How general?" asked the Chinaman.

"Tell them they're in danger. Say nothing specific about the murder-that goes for all of us. Laufer wants this thing kept quiet-the tourist situation. So talk in terms of a missing girl, nothing more. The same thing applies to communications with other police personnel, which is why we're meeting away from Headquarters."

The Chinaman picked up an an empty skewer, used it like a classroom pointer. "I'm supposed to tell the whores they're in danger. Then I show them the picture of the missing girl. You don't have to be the Chief Rabbi to put it together."

"There's no way to keep it under wraps for any significant length of time," agreed Daniel. "What the brass is hoping is that we jam lip the grapevine for a while, get lucky, and wrap up the case quickly enough to feed the papers a three-line closed-file piece."

"Hope springs eternal," mumbled Shmeltzer.

"I'll be on beeper all through Shabbat," continued Daniel. "If any of you get anything of substance, call me immediately. Tomorrow I'll be walking down to the lower Katamonim and knocking on doors-if she's poor and Jewish it seems the best place to start. I've got Records doing research into some people at the Amelia Catherine and the Civil Guardsman who discovered the body. Where I go from there depends on what they find. Anyone beep me if you get something good. If there's something worth sharing we'll call a meeting at my place, Sunday afternoon. Now, let's pay and get going."

After the bill had been settled, he instructed Daoud to remain at the table and walked Lee and Shmeltzer out of The Star. The Chinaman got onto a Vespa scooter he'd parked in front of the restaurant, thick thighs flaring, looking like a kid on a toy bicycle. He revved up, sputtered to King George, turned left, and sped away. Next to The Star was a three-story building whose ground floor housed an El Al agency and a children's clothing store. On the upper floors were lawyers' offices, all closed for the midday lunch break; to the right of the storefronts, a dark, tiled entrance leading to the stairs.

Daniel took Shmeltzer by the elbow, propelled him through the doorway, and said, "What's going on, Nahum?"

Shmeltzer's expression was innocent.

"Going on about what?"

"Your attitude. That little speech about Hebron, the side comments."

"Don't worry," said Shmeltzer, "I'll do my job."

"That's no answer," snapped Daniel. "If something's eating at you I want to know it."

Shmeltzer smiled placidly.

"What should be eating at me? I'm just a guy who likes to tell it straight."

"An irrelevant lecture on Arabic culture is telling it straight?"

A tremor of anger floated across the older man's face. He compressed his mouth and a ring of white encircled his lips.

"Look, Dani, you want to use him, that's your prerogative. You think he's hot, fine, maybe he is. But the hell if I'm going to change his diapers." Shmeltzer's glasses had slipped down a nose slippery with sweat, and he pushed them up. "That's the thing that pisses me off the most about them. They talk around things, using pretty words, sir this, sir that, welcome to my tent. Turn your back and there's a fucking knife in it. I tell it straight, the rest of us tell it straight, arid he's going to damn well have to live with that or go back to selling rosaries."

"I have no interest in protecting him," said Daniel. "He does his job or he's out. It's your frame of mind I want to be sure of. So we can get the job done."

"Have you ever know me to fuck up?"

"No. I brought you on because I thought you were the best.".

For a moment Shmeltzer's face seemed to soften. Then his eyes grew strangely fierce before fading to neutrality.

"I'll give you no reason to change your mind."

"That's what I wanted to hear."

"You heard it," said Shmeltzer. "Now, if it's okay with you, I'd like to get to work." He put his hands in his pockets and slouched against the wall. A rubber ball bounced into the entry hall, followed by a child-a boy, six or seven-who scooped it up, stared at them, and ran back out to the mall.

"Go," said Daniel. "Shabbat shalom."

Shmeltzer straightened his windbreaker, adjusted his holster, and walked out of the entry. Daniel followed him and watched his thin form recede in the distance. Within moments he'd disappeared into the throng that streamed down Ben Yehuda.

When he got back to the banquet room, Emil the Waiter was clearing the table, working around Daoud, who sat staring at the picture of the girl, a demitasse of Turkish coffee in one hand. Daniel pulled out the chair next to him, sat, and waited until they were alone.

"I have one goal," he said. "Find the monster who killed her, prevent him from doing it again. I have no time for internal politics or bickering."

"I understand, Pakad."

"You took some garbage today. You'll probably take more in the future. You're a professional and I assume it won't disturb your sleep."

Daoud smiled faintly. "I'm a heavy sleeper."

"Good. If something gets in the way of your doing your job, tell me. Anything else, I don't want to hear about."

"Yes, sir."

They left the restaurant. Daoud walked to a tiny old gray Citroen that appeared to be held together with rope and baling wire. A blue Occupied Territories plate dangled crookedly from the battered front fender, embossed with the letter bet for Bethlehem, and an iron crucifix hung from the rearview mirror. Despite the police ID on top of the dash it looked like a perfect bomb crib, and Daniel wasn't surprised to see Wiesel, the undercover man, observing the car from a table at an adjacent cafe. When he saw Daniel he called for his check.

Friday, four P.M., Daniel exited the central bus station having learned nothing. No one had seen the girl. No one had looked at her photograph with even a hint of recognition.

A blind beggar was huddled on the sidewalk just outside the entrance to the depot, begrimed and toothless, his dry, sunken eyeholes raised to the sun. When Daniel passed, he held out a quaking clawlike hand and started to chant, a rhythmic keen not unlike prayer. Kind sir, kind sir, the good deed of charity takes on special value as the Sabbath approaches, a good deed, kind sir, kind sir, amen, amen

Daniel reached into his pocket, drew out a handful of coins, and dropped them into the filthy palm without counting. The beggar began blessing him in a high-pitched wail. The bony hand continued to shake, sifting the money as if it were grain, probing, hefting, decoding its value. A mental total was reached; the beggar's mouth twisted into a gaping, black-gummed smile. The blessings increased in volume and vigor: Daniel and his offspring for ten generations would be graced with good health and riches for time immemorial

Suddenly a group of six other paupers appeared from nowhere. Hunched, lame, snaggletoothed, and twisted, they shuffled and limped toward the detective, proclaiming individual litanies of despair that merged to a toneless, mournful dirge. Before he could get to the Escort, they'd reached him. Forming a circle around him, they began chanting louder, beseeching the kind sir. Emptying his pockets, he gave something to each of them, compressing his nostrils to avoid their stench.

Finally he got away and into the Escort. The Middle Ages, he thought, driving off to the accompaniment of their phlegmy benedictions. For years the government had offered the beggars jobs, welfare, anything to rid the station of their presence. But they were the descendants of generations of beggars who regarded themselves as trained specialists, plying an honorable family trade. Many of them, it was said, made an excellent living-more than that of a policeman-so perhaps he was a fool to have donated. Still, one needed any blessings one could get.

A stop back at Headquarters produced meager rewards: the information on Schlesinger hadn't come in. The troubled watchman, Hajab, had no criminal record, nor had he been treated at any mental institution. Of the other Amelia Catherine people, only Dr. Al Biyadi was known to Records. That knowledge was summed up in four typewritten pages marked official access only and placed on his desk in a sealed envelope. The data within were uninspiring.

It had been, as he'd suspected, a case of immigration complications. After seven years in Detroit, Al Biyadi had applied for and been granted American citizenship. After becoming an American, he'd attended two pro-PLO demonstrations at Wayne State and gotten his name in the FBI computer. The FBI had informed Mossad, and when Al Biyadi had applied for permission to reenter Israel and for a work permit to practice medicine, the computer had spat his name back out. Both requests had been refused pending a background investigation.

The usual paper storm had followed-an exchange of stiffly worded consular letters, U.N. protests, letters of support from Al Biyadi's congressman, and endorsements from medical school professors with Jewish surnames, all assuring the government that Dr. Hassan Al Biyadi was a man of sterling character. Some local newspaper coverage, as well, Daniel noted-personality pieces portraying the young physician as an idealist and a victim of discrimination.

In the end, the summary concluded, Al Biyadi had been determined to be "relatively apolitical," his involvement in PLO affairs confined to attendance at rallies, his primary life interests listed as "expensive sports cars and haberdashery; expensive stereo equipment and electronic gadgetry; amorous relationships with a series of young American women, all of them nurses." Hardly a firebrand. Four months after applying, he'd been granted his papers.

Not bad, thought Daniel. Getting a phone installed in Jerusalem could take twice as long.

He put the envelope in the file he'd begun on the murder, left the office, and tried to put himself in a Sabbath frame of mind.

Five minutes after five and the shops were closing.

It was his custom every Friday to buy the wine, bread, and sweetmeats for Shabbat, and he hadn't called Laura to tell her this Friday would be any different. He sped down Rehov Sokolov toward Lieberman's grocery, got caught in traffic, and sat frustrated, hoping the store would still be open. The other drivers shared his frustration and reacted predictably: The air filled with a storm of curses and klaxon bursts before the jam cleared.

When he pulled to the curb, Lieberman was locking up, a shopping bag at his feet. The grocer saw him, pointed at his watch reproachfully, then smiled, brought the bag to the passenger side, and handed it to Daniel before the detective could get out of the car.

Daniel thanked him and put the groceries on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Lieberman rubbed his paunch and stuck his face into the car.

"I just called your wife and told her you hadn't come by. One of your kids is on the way over here to get it."

"Which one?"

"She didn't say." Laughing: "I could call and ask her."

"Not necessary, Mr. Lieberman. Thank you for saving it for us."

The grocer winked conspiratorially. "Caught up with work?"

"Yes."

"Hot case, eh?"

"The hottest." A longstanding routine. Daniel started the engine, looked down the street for sign of one of his children.

"Anything you want me to look out for, you tell me. Shady characters, saboteurs, anything."

"Thanks for the offer, Mr. Lieberman. If something comes up, I'll let you know."

"Always happy to help," said Lieberman, saluting. "I see a lot sitting behind the counter. The human parade, if you know what I mean."

"I do, Mr. Lieberman. Shabbat shalom."

"Shabbat shalom."

Daniel guided the Escort back onto Sokolov and cruised slowly. A block later he spotted Shoshana, wearing a peach-colored Shabbat dress, half walking, half skipping. Singing to herself, as always.

He knew, without having to listen, what tunes danced across her lips: an odd mixture of pop songs and rope-jumping children's rhymes. An indication, according to Laura, of what it was like to be a twelve-year-old girl-the jumble of needs, the changing body. She'd been there herself, so he supposed she knew. His own memories of twelve were of simple times: lessons at the yeshiva. Playing ball in the alley behind the study hall. Hiding the soccer scores between pages of Talmud. Perhaps for boys it was different

He watched her for a few moments, smiling. Lost in her fantasies. Gazing dreamily at the sky, unaware of her surroundings. He coasted to a stop, gave a gentle honk that lowered her eyes. Initially confused, she looked around, saw him, and her face came alive with glee.

So beautiful, he thought, for the thousandth time. The oval face and brassy golden waves endowed by Laura. The dark skin, his. So, he'd been told, were her facia) features, though it was hard for him to reconcile that kind of delicacy with anything that could have emanated from him. Her eyes were wide with delight-gray-green, enormous, filled with a light of their own. Totally original. In the delivery room, Laura had laughed over her tears: We've created a mongrel, Daniel. A beautiful little mongrel. Daniel had surprised himself by bursting into tears also.

"Abba! Abba!" She ran toward the car on stick-legs, opened the door, and flew in. Throwing her arms around him, she rubbed his chin and laughed. "You need a shave, Abba."

"How's my sweetie?" He nuzzled her, kissed her cheek.

"Terrific, Abba. I helped Eema cook, bathed Dayan, and took the boys to the park."

"Great. I'm proud of you."

"They were wild animals."

"Dayan and the boys?"

"Just the boys. Dayan was a gentleman." She gave a martyr's sign and threw up her hands.

Like a beleaguered parent, thought Daniel; he suppressed a smile so she wouldn't think he was mocking her.

Not that her predicament was laughable. Five and a half years-three miscarriages-between her and Mikey; Benny's birth a year later adding to the insult. Five and a half years of only-childhood shattered by double windstorms. Too much age difference for friendship. She fancied herself a junior mother, demanded respect she never received.

"Wild animals," she repeated.

Daniel nodded and moved the bag of groceries to the rear of the car.

"Is that the stuff from Lieberman's?" she asked.

"Yes. I got there just in time. Thanks for going to pick them up."

"No problem, Abba." She got on her knees, stretched over the seat, and inspected the contents of the bag. "Yum. Chocolate."

She sat back down and fastened her seat belt, and Daniel began driving. When they'd traveled a block she asked, "Can we play poker tonight after dinner?"

"Gambling, Shoshi?" He mock-frowned. "On Shabbat?"

"Not for money. For raisins."

"And if you clean me out of raisins the way you cleaned me out of almonds last week, I'll have nothing to eat all Shabbat and I'll starve."

Shoshana giggled, then burst into laughter.

"Then I'll sell some back to you! At a discount!"

He clucked his tongue, gravely. "Aha! First gambling, now commerce on Shabbat. The sages were right: One sin leads to another."

"Oh, Abba!"

"Your Grandpa Al teaches you a few card games," he continued, "and next thing I know I've got a little gangster on my hands." Reaching across, he chucked her chin.

"Gangster," he repeated.

"Ten games, okay? After dinner."

"I'll have to check with Eema."

"Eema said it was okay. Ten games."

"Five."

"Twelve!"

"Ten. But go easy on me."

She sidled closer, wrapped one skinny arm around his bicep.

"You're the nicest, Abba. A superstar."

He lived in the Talbieh district, southwest of the Old City, across the Valley of Hinnom. A quiet neighborhood of narrow, sloping, tree-lined streets and solid old two-story houses of golden meleke limestone, the stone veined with rust and rose and embraced by magenta tides of bougainvil-lea. Citrus, fig, and loquat trees sprouted from vest-pocket gardens; tendrils of honeysuckle clung to sculpted balconies. Most of the houses had been converted to apartments. A few of the grandest were leased to foreign governments as consulates and sat mutely behind high wrought-iron gates.

Home was a fourth-floor flat in a ten-year-old high-rise at the southern edge of the district. The building was a stylistic oddity-a sleek, bone-white projectile, devoid of architectural detail. Fifteen stories overlooking the flowered pergolas of Liberty Bell Park, with a long view of the Old City and the Mount of Olives beyond. Faced with limestone, in accordance with Jerusalem zoning laws, but a limestone so pale and unmarked by time that it stood out like a scar in the amber flesh of the hillside.

Between the building and the park was a large, sloping, vacant field. At the rear of the building was a gravel parking lot, three-quarters empty as usual. Modest but well-tended beds of grass and perennials ran along the border of the property, nourished by automatic sprinklers. Near the entrance to the high-rise was a stand of jacaranda trees, their lacy foliage shockingly purple. Pebbled-glass doors led to a marble entry hall. Inside, to the immediate right, was a small synagogue; to the left, three elevators that worked most of the time. The flats were large-six rooms and a generous terrace. To Daniel, luxury of the first degree, so different from how he'd been raised, from how his colleagues lived-though he'd been made to understand that in America it would be considered nothing out of the ordinary.

He'd come to live there through the good graces of others, and from time to time, especially when he remembered his origins, he felt like an interloper. A squatter in someone else's dream.

Today, though, it felt like home.

The radio was playing full blast and the boys were chasing each other around the living room, naked, Dayan at their heels. When he saw Daniel, the little spaniel left the fray and leaped toward him, tail wagging, panting, yipping with joy. Daniel patted the dog's head, allowed himself to be licked, and called out a greeting to his sons. They looked up, shouted "Abba" in unison, and ploughed into him, their stocky little bodies as dense as sacks of flour. He kissed them, wrestled with them, threw them in the air, and let them wriggle free to resume their play.

"Monsters," said Shoshi, and went to her room. Dayan trotted after her.

Daniel walked through the dining area into the kitchen, where he placed the groceries on the counter. Pots simmered and hissed on the stove; a chicken baked in the oven. From the adjoining service porch came the whine and rumble of the washing machine. The room was hot, the air steamy and heavy with spices.

Laura stood at the sink with her back to him, the running water and kitchen noises obscuring the sound of his entry. She wore paint-stained jeans and a dark green T-shirt. Her soft blond hair had been pinned up but several wavy strands had come loose and created a lacy aura around her neck. He said shalom softly, so as not to frighten her, and when she turned around, took her in his arms.

"Hello, detective." She smiled. Drying her hands on her pants, she stood on tiptoes, held his face, and raised her own for a kiss. It began chastely enough, then deepened, and for a moment Daniel lost himself in it. Then she pulled away and said, "I sent Shoshi over to Lieberman's. Did you see her?"

"I got there first." He pointed to the bag. "Picked her up along the way. She's in her room, with the dog."

"Have you eaten at all today?" she asked.

"Business lunch."

"The same business that got you out of bed?"

"The same."

"Would you like a little something before dinner?"

"No, thanks. I'll wait for Kiddush."

"Drink something," she said, and went to the refrigerator.

He unbuttoned his shirt and sat down at the kitchen table. Laura fixed a glass of iced coffee and brought it to him. She filled a half a cup for herself and stood next to him sipping, with her hand on his shoulder. He swallowed a mouthful, closed his eyes, and exhaled. The coldness and sweetness of the coffee made his palate ache pleas-urably.

Her hand took flight. He opened his eyes and saw her step away, adjust the dials on the stove, peer under the lid of a pot, swab her forehead with a paper towel. Without makeup she looked like a young girl, the fair skin heat-flushed and moist, the blue eyes open and curious. Returning to his side, she kissed the top of his head, took his bad hand, massaged the knuckles absently.

"When Lieberman called and said you hadn't made it over, I knew you'd had a wonderful day."

He nodded, finished the coffee, and asked, "How much time do I have until Shabbat?"

"Half an hour." She unbuttoned his cuffs, pulled his shirt off, and put it over a chair. "Go shower and shave. The boys were playing submarine in the bath but I've cleaned it up for you."

He stood, gave her hand a squeeze, left the kitchen, and walked back into the living room, stepping over an obstacle course of toys and books. As he passed the glass doors leading to the balcony he caught a glimpse of sunset: feathery streaks of coral and blue-the colors of a sailor's tattoo-sectioning the sky like layer cake. Detouring, he walked out on the balcony, placed his hands on the railing, and looked eastward.

An Arab boy herded a flock of goats through the open field that separated the building from Liberty Bell Park. Daniel watched the animals step nimbly through the weeds and rocks, then cast his gaze outward, past the artist apartments of Yemin Moshe and across Hinnom. Toward the Old City perched on its ridge-towers, ramparts, and parapets, like something out of a storybook.

His birthplace.

Behind him, the sun dropped and the ancient stone surfaces of the city within a city seemed to recede, dreamlike, into the Judean dusk. Then, all at once, electric lights came on, illuminating the crenellated walls. Spotlighting frieze and fissure, drawing forth the outlines of domes, turrets, and spires in brazen auric relief.

As if on cue, the surrounding villages began twinkling like nests of fireflies and he became conscious of encroaching darkness, aware that he was far from ready for Shabbat. He allowed himself a few more seconds of indulgence, closing his eyes and tuning in the smells and sounds of the city below. Petrol and chicken soup. Laughter and playground shouts rising from Liberty Bell Park. A hum of traffic from the King David intersection. The air, warm and sweet, bathed in a piney fragrance borne on puffs of desert breeze.

He breathed it all in, felt serene, then started thinking about the dead girl and was gripped with tension. When he opened his eyes, all was chaos. Lights and colors, shadows and secrets, the boundaries blurred, everything stirred up like some crazy broth.

Feeling overwhelmed and impotent, he quickly left the balcony, went to the bathroom, and stripped himself naked.

Standing under the needle spray of the shower, the water slapping him full-face, so hot he could barely stand it, he lathered himself and scrubbed his skin until it hurt.

Wondering who'd washed her, transformed her to a bloodless shell, like some horrible molt.

What kind of monster killed and then scrubbed up afterward, as if the victim were a dirty dish to be scoured and cast aside. As if the filth of the crime could ever be erased.

What kind of mind could celebrate such butchery?

He stepped out of the shower, clean but not cleansed.

He took all three children to the synagogue in the building, prayed with as much concentration as he could muster, and returned home to quiet order-Laura in a midnight-blue velvet gown, her hair covered by a white silk kerchief, curled on the couch with Dayan on her lap, turning the pages of an art book. The wine poured, the table set with white linen and Shabbat silver, the room dancing with the orange flicker of candlelight.

The five of them went to the table and sang "Shalom Aleichem," the poem that welcomed the Sabbath angels. Then he took Laura's hand and chanted "Woman of Valor" in a ancient Yemenite melody. After they'd embraced, he blessed the children, placing his hand on each of their heads, lingering on the words a little longer than usual.

In another part of the city, a ceremony of a different type unfolded. A consecration of the knives, as the grinning man liked to think of it. He'd played memory games and masturbated three times, which had relaxed him physiologically, though it hadn't slowed down the freight train that roared through the tunnels in his head.

How cozy, he thought, grinning, pushing past the roar. Domestic, yet self-sufficient. Soft music, a sandwich, a beer, his favorite reading material on the nightstand. The semen-soaked tissues, pleasantly ammoniac, crumpled in the waste-basket. And his little beauties, resting peacefully in their cozy velvet bed.

Carefully, tenderly, he unlatched the case, opened the lid. Stared at each of them. Lovingly.

Beauties.

Removing the smallest scalpel, he turned it in his fingers, thrilling at the buttery smoothness of the handle, the cold, sweet sting of the blade. Touching the cutting edge to one knuckle, barely grazing the skin, watching as a droplet of blood arose painlessly, then filled the knuckle-lines before flowing ticklishly down his finger. Lowering his tongue to the wound and drinking himself. Sperm out, blood in. Efficient. Self-sufficient.

He looked in the mirror above the bureau. Picked up the earrings and stared at them-cheap shit, but precious to him. He shuddered, put them down, took the scalpel and drew the blade across his throat, a millimeter short of contact. Pretending. A lovely pantomime. Feeling his erection return. Touching the handle of the scalpel to his cock, probing his balls, twiddling the short hairs around his anus.

"Little Dancer," he said, out loud, surprised at the hoarseness of his voice. Dry mouth. Another beer would taste good. In a minute.

He looked at the knife again, kissed the blunt edge. Laid it on his thigh and shivered.

Little Dancer. How it loved to waltz lightly on ballroom floors of flesh, tracing its progress in frothy scarlet. Dipping deeper and uncovering the mysteries within. Dance and skip, slice and delve.

Real science, the ultimate blend of real science and art.

Last night's dance party had gone well, so clean, so orderly.

A lovely affair. Lovely.

Nahum Shmeltzer walked unnoticed through the lobby of the King Solomon Sheraton, made his way through a gaggle of tourists, and went down the stairs, past the Japanese restaurant and into the American one. Blond oak, dark-green upholstery and mirrored panels, plastic-coated menus, glass cases holding fake antiquities. Cute. The woman liked American food.

As usual, he was early and he expected to wait for her. But she'd arrived already and was sitting in a booth in a mirrored alcove, reading the menu-though she probably knew it by heart-a cup of coffee at her fingertips.

She saw him and waved. Smiling prettily.

Not bad for someone her age.

Though he knew the smile was contrived, he enjoyed looking at her. A lot more pleasant than the two hours of paperwork to get the sex offender programs run.

A hostess offered to seat him. He told her he was joining madame and walked to the booth. She greeted him with obvious warmth, held out a fine-boned hand, and said it had been a long time since they had seen each other.

"Too long," said Shmeltzer. "Must be three or four months." Three months since the last liaison. Ten months since that night in Eilat.

"Exactly. Please sit, dear."

A waiter came. Blond with a Yankee accent. Handed him a menu, took his order for hot tea with lemon, and left.

"You look well," Shmeltzer told her, meaning it, though it was part of the speech. She'd tinted her hair a dark chestnut-brown, but had allowed a few gray strands to remain. Her tailored suit was beige linen and the topaz brooch on her lapel set off the brown specks in her eyes. She'd applied her makeup effectively-softening the wrinkles instead of trying to mask them.

All in all, a classy production. Terrific bone structure. The kind who'd look right at home in the fancy places in any major city. He'd heard stories: that she'd been widowed in '56, worked the black-tie-and-Beretta circuit overseas, from London to Buenos Aires, then New York for a long time. That she'd made a fortune on the American stock market. That she'd been involved in the Eichmann capture. That she'd used her own kids as cover. No way to know how much was true, how much was bullshit. Now Shin Bet had her and she stayed close to home, though Shmeltzer still had no idea where her real home was. He'd looked through the files once, trying to find her, wanting a follow-up to Eilat. No address, no number. Nobody by that name, adoni.

She smiled, folded her hands in front of her, and Shmeltzer imagined the kind of assignments she was pulling now: society matron nibbling canapes at consulate parties. Doting grandma on a park bench, feeding sweets to her aineklach, diapers sharing space with the 9 mm in her purse. Rich tourist lady lounging in the hotel suite adjoining that of a certain visiting dignitary, stethoscope to the wall, fancy machines whirling and humming. No paperwork-or garbage-bin stakeouts for her.

Too rich for his blood. Eilat had been a fluke, post-assignment tension release.

He looked around the restaurant. Across the room sat a group of American college kids. Three females, two males. Hebrew U., probably. Escaping dormitory cooking for a night out on the town. Nine-dollar hamburgers and Coca-Cola.

A young couple with two small children sat at the far end. The husband looked like a professor, bearded, with glasses; the wife, small, ginger-haired, a real looker. The kids were boys, one about six, the other younger. They drank milk, laughed, punched each other. He picked up scraps of conversation. American-accented English. All of them in brightly colored shorts and polo shirts. Probably exactly what they looked to be, though you could never be sure.

Otherwise, the place was dead-most of the tourists religious, taking their Shabbat meals at the King David or the Plaza where the setup was more traditional.

"Not much business," he said.

"Past the dinner hour," said the woman.

The waiter brought his tea and asked if they were ready.

She ordered a minute steak and scrambled eggs with chips-calling them french fries-and more coffee. Still full from the mixed grill at Kohavi's, he settled for a basket of rolls, margarine, and jelly.

They made small talk as they ate and she had apple pie for dessert. After the waiter removed the dishes, she put her purse on the table, took out a compact, and opened it. Looking into the mirror, she smoothed back nonexistent strands of hair. As she freshened up, Shmeltzer noticed that she'd left the purse open so that he could see the tape recorder within-a miniaturized Japanese model, voice-activated, the size of a cigarette pack. High-tech. Her people loved it.

"I'm going shopping tomorrow, dear," she said, touching his hand. The touch brought back memories, soft white skin under black silk. "Is there anything you need?"

Enunciating clearly, he told her.

As the sun began to sink, Elias Daoud crossed himself and prayed for progress.

The village suburb of Silwan was a dense honeycomb of flat-roofed, porridge-colored dwellings notched into the hillside just southeast of the Old City, segregated from the city walls by the Valley of Kidron. Just north of the village, at the foot of the eastern wall, ran the Gihon Spring that fed the Pool of Siloam-the water supply for ancient Jerusalem. Women still went there to wash their laundry, and on his way up, Daoud saw a group of them-laughing and joking as they dipped sodden garments into the still, green water. Telling tales no man would ever hear.

And then he knew. That was where he'd seen her, during the course of his Number Two Gang investigation, when he'd assumed the identity of a dusty-faced punk with a hunger for dope.

He'd shuffled past the pools on his way to meet a dealer near the city walls, had seen her with a group of other, older women. Squatting, washing, laughing. The pretty face marred by the missing tooth.

Or had it been another? Was his mind playing tricks on him? His drive to succeed distorting his memory?