The Butcher's Theatre

No, he was sure. The girl had been one of the washers. Her origins were here.

He trudged forward.

A spiraling, single-lane road provided access to the lowest level of the village. Narrow, jerry-built pathways and dirty alleys led to some of the upper houses; others could be reached only by donkey or on foot. He found it easiest to park the Citroen in an empty lot and walk most of the way.

It had been the same at Abu Tor, except that the Jews were starting to take over there, buying the biggest houses, renovating, settling in.

He'd concentrated on the poorer houses. Spent hours hiking and climbing, his thin-soled shoes steadily corroded by gravel and rock. The beige suit he'd worn to look good at the meeting, wilted and stained.

You couldn't talk to everyone, so his strategy had been to seek out the central meeting places, which, in a village, meant a cubbyhole cafe or soda stand on wheels. But Friday was Muslim Sabbath and everything was closed. The men were at the mosque or napping; in either event he couldn't interrupt and hope to get cooperation. And the women wouldn't speak to him without their husbands' permission. So he contented himself with stopping the occasional pedestrian, showing the girl's picture, asking his questions.

For the most part he encountered children or young men, walking in pairs and trios, aimless, with hungry eyes. The children giggled and scampered away. The young men responded to his greetings with curiosity and distrust, refused to believe he was a policeman until he showed his credentials; once they'd seen the badge, read his name, disbelief turned to instant hostility.

In and of itself, hostility was tolerable-he'd grown up in a Muslim neighborhood and throughout his childhood had been labeled an infidel. Joining the police force had brought forth further accusations of infidelity from some of those he'd considered friends. Yet his faith in Christ the Savior and his ambition remained unshaken and he truly believed that he'd grown inured.

But hostility led to silence, and silence, to a detective, meant failure. Which was something he refused to tolerate. The case was important and he was determined to push himself. To prove himself to the Jews. Working under Sharavi was a stroke of good luck. The Yemenite had a reputation as a fair one, basing his decisions on merit, not religion. If a guy produced, it would be worth something. But there would be obstacles-the old guy, Shmeltzer, who'd be dogging him, waiting for a chance to show he was inferior. No way would Daoud give him anything to work with.

And the hostility of the Muslims.

Walking the tightrope, as usual.

As evening approached he was sour with impatience, bathed in his own sweat, marching forward on swollen feet, but remembering the girl's face as she washed clothes, then the death photo, knowing he had to continue.

An hour into Silwan he received his first smile of the day.

He'd just spent a fruitless five minutes with a gang of youths loitering near a disabled tractor and had climbed to the middle level of the village, walking along a dirt path barely wide enough for two people to pass. All the houses he passed were locked and quiet, the only sound the clucks of chickens and brays of goats. But at the end of the path he saw human movement on the steps of a tiny box of a building with turquoise shutters. A man sitting, swaying back and forth.

He walked toward the house and saw that it was cell-like, with a single window to the right of the door. The shutters were splintering and in need of paint, the steps framed by a rusty pipe arbor wrapped with the stiff brown tendrils of a dead grapevine. And the man was a boy. About seventeen, swaying as he peered closely at a book in his lap. Another surly one, no doubt.

But then he noticed that this boy looked different. Soft and slovenly. Hunched over, as if his spine were made of some pliable material. An undersized bullethead shaved to bristle length, sooty smears of peach fuzz on cheeks and chin. A weak chin. Moist, drooping, sheeplike eyes. The swaying, stiff and arrhythmic, punctuated by random finger flutters.

The boy continued reading, unresponsive to the presence of a stranger. Puzzled, Daoud stepped forward and cast a shadow over the book. The boy looked up and smiled. A smile of such innocence and warmth that the detective found himself smiling back.

"Good afternoon." Daoud's fingers drummed against the envelope that held the photo of the murdered girl.

More smiles, no answer. Thinking the boy hadn't heard, he repeated himself.

A blank stare. Another smile. Loose-lipped and gap-toothed.

Daoud looked at the book in the boy's spreading lap. The Arabic alphabet. A child's primer. Filthy, fluttering fingers held it awkwardly. A smell arose from the boy's homemade clothing. The stink of someone who didn't know how to wipe his ass properly.

An idiot. Figured.

"See you later," Daoud said, and the boy continued to stare, intensely, as if committing the detective's face to memory. But when Daoud stepped away the boy suddenly grew alarmed. Dropping the primer, he pulled himself clumsily to his feet and held on to the pipe arbor for support. Daoud saw that he was a tall one, with heavy, sloping shoulders, and wondered if he was dangerous. He tensed in anticipation of trouble, but the boy showed no signs of aggression, only frustration. Eyes rounding, he moved his lips furiously, churning soundlessly, until finally a croak emerged, followed by garbled noise that Daoud had to strain to understand:

"Hellosir. Nie-niceday!"

"An idiot who could speak. A meager blessing, but maybe the poor guy had enough sense to be of some help.

"Good book?" he asked, looking at the fallen primer, shielding his nose with his hand to block out the stink. Trying to make conversation, establish rapport.

The boy was silent, staring at him, uncomprehending.

"Learning the alphabet, my friend?"

More blank stares.

"Want to look at something?" Daoud tapped the envelope. "A picture?"

The boy craned his neck, gawked at him. Rolled his eyes. Idiotically.

Enough of this, thought Daoud. He turned to leave.

The boy rocked on his feet and started gurgling and gesturing wildly. He pointed to his eyes, then to Daoud's lips, reached out suddenly to touch those lips with a grubby finger.

Daoud stepped nimbly away from the contact and the boy pitched forward, adding shouts to his gestures, slapping his own ears so hard it had to hurt.

Definitely trying to communicate, thought Daoud. He strained to understand.

"Seedwords! Seedwords! No ear, no ear!"

As the boy kept up his singsong, Daoud played it back in his head. Seedwords? Words? See dwords. See the words. No hear-

"You're deaf."

The boy's smile lit up his face. Gapping his hands, he jumped up and down.

Who was the real idiot? Daoud castigated himself. The poor kid could read lips but he-the brilliant detective-in his attempt to keep his nostrils unsullied had been hiding his nose and mouth when he talked.

"Seedwords, seedwords!"

"Okay." Daoud smiled. He came closer, made sure the boy had a clear view of his lips. Overenunciated: "What's your name, my friend?"

Straining neck cords, a moment's delay, then: "Ahmed." Muddily.

"Your family name, Ahmed."

"Nsif."

"Nasif?"

Smiles and nods.

"Hello, Mr. Ahmed Nasif."

"H'lo."

The effort of speaking made the boy's body go tense. Words were accompanied by the flapping of hands, the strange finger flutters.

This is more than just deaf, thought Daoud. Some sort of spastic condition. And mentally defective, just as he'd first thought. Speak to him as if to a child.

"I am Sergeant Daoud. I am a policeman."

More smiles. The crude pantomime of shooting a gun. "Boom boom." The boy laughed, and drool trickled down a corner of his mouth.

"That's right, Ahmed. Boom, boom. Would you like to look at a picture?"

"Boom, boom!"

Daoud pulled the photo out of the envelope, held it close enough for the sheep-eyes to see, not so close that the flapping hands could grab out and maul it.

"I'm looking for this girl, Ahmed. Do you know her?"

An emphatic nod. Eager to please.

"You do?"

"Did, dirl!"

"Yes, a girl. Does she live here in Silwan, Ahmed?"

The boy said "dirl" again, the word preceded by something Daoud couldn't make out.

"Say that again, Ahmed.".

The boy pawed at the photo. Daoud pulled it back.

More pawing, as if he were trying to hit the picture.

"What's her name, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

"She's a bad girl?"

"Badirl!"

"Why is she a bad girl, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

"What had she done wrong?"

"Badirl!"

"Do you know her name, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

"All right, Ahmed. She's a bad girl. Now tell me her name, please."

"Badirl!"

"Where does she live, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

Sighing, Daoud put the picture away and started leaving. Ahmed gave a loud shriek and came after him, putting a padded hand on his shoulder.

Daoud reacted swiftly, turning and pushing the boy away. Ahmed stumbled and landed in the dirt. He looked up at Daoud, pouted and burst into loud sobs. Daoud felt like a child abuser.

"Come on, Ahmed. Settle down."

The door to the house opened and a small woman stepped out, bosom drooping, round dark face emerging like a hickory nut from within the folds of her melaya.

"What is it?" she said in a high, sharp voice.

"Mama, Mama, Mama!" wailed the boy.

She looked at the fruit of her loins, then over at Daoud with a combination of sadness and muted anger. A look that said she'd been through this many times before.

The boy reached his hands out, cried "Mama." Daoud felt like apologizing but knew it was the wrong approach for someone like her. To the traditional ones, raised on beating by fathers and husbands, kindness was interpreted as weakness.

"I'm Police Sergeant Daoud of the Kishle Substation," hesaid, stiffly. "I'm searching for someone who knows this girl." A wave of the photo. "Your son said he did and I was attempting to learn what he knew."

The woman snorted, came forward and glanced at the photo. Looking up without expression, she said, "He doesn't know her."

"Badirl!" said Ahmed, clucking his tongue.

"He said he did," said Daoud. "Seemed quite sure of it."

"Lessano taweel" snapped the woman. "He has a long tongue." She chattered rapidly: "His talk is like dung. Can't you see he's a fool?" Coming down the steps, she walked to the boy, slapped him sharply on the head, and took hold of his shirt collar.

"Up, you!"

"Mama, Mama!"

Slap, drag, slap. The boy got halfway to his feet and the woman, breathing hard, pulled him up the stairs toward the door.

"Badirl!" shouted the boy.

"One moment," said Daoud.

"A fool," said the woman, and she yanked the boy into the house and slammed the door.

Daoud stood alone on the steps and considered his options: He could knock, pursue the matter. But to what end? The picture had elicited no response from the woman, which meant the idiot son probably didn't know her either. A long-tongued idiot, as she'd said. Shooting off his mouth. A waste of time.

He took a deep breath and noticed that the skies had begun to darken. His job was far from done-covering the rest of the village would take hours. But the chance for human contact diminished with every degree the sun dropped. Better to wait until morning, a workday, with men on the streets. In the meantime he'd be better off asking his questions around more populated areas: the bus depot, the train station. Chasing shadows into the small hours.

It was decided, then. He'd leave Silwan, work Jerusalem until he couldn't keep his eyes open, come back tomorrow. First thing in the morning.

The collision of fist with face, firecracker-sharp.

The Chinaman sat in the tent, watching the movie. Waiting for Charlie Khazak to finish with the truck driver.

Bruce Lee on a big TV screen, surrounded by seven masked bad guys in black pajamas. Bare-chested and sweating, unarmed against the bad guys' knives and clubs. The bad guys moving in. A closeup of Bruce grimacing, screaming, a storm of lightning kicks and all the bad guys are down.

Not likely.

Applause and hoots came from some of the tables. Greasy-haired pooshtakim slouched with their arms around the bare shoulders of dumb, adoring girlfriends. Staring at the TV on the ladder as if it were some kind of god on a pedestal. Chain-smoking and drinking Turkish coffee, eating shishlik and watermelon, open-mouthed, spitting the seeds onto the dirt floor. Snotty little punks, laughing too loud. At this hour they should all be in bed. He picked out at least three or four he'd busted in the last year, probably others he couldn't remember. A couple of them met his eyes, tried to give him a little shit with defiant looks, but turned away when he held the stare. •

A hot night, and he was overdressed for it-jeans, boots, a body shirt, a loose cotton sport coat to cover his shoulder holster. Tired and grumpy from walking all night through the Arab neighborhoods, showing the girl's picture and getting blank stares. Five hookers working the entire Green Line, all of them fat and ugly. Having to wait for one of them to finish blowing an Arab in the back of her car before he could question her; the other ones available but semiretarded. None of them knew the girl; none of them seemed to care, even after he'd warned them, even after Gray Man. Now, here he was, waiting again, for a shit like Charlie Khazak.

On the screen, Bruce had walked into a garden and encountered a fat bald guy with the body of a sumo wrestler. Was there a plot to this one? Bruce's footwork didn't seem to impress Fatso. Close-up of his ugly puss grinning. Bruce getting slammed around; then a neck chop and a two-hander to the back of the head turned the tables. More cheers and hoots. Someone had told him the guy had died from a brain tumor or something like that. Too many kicks to the head.

He took a cube of melon from his plate, let it melt in his mouth, looked around the tent, got restless, and walked outside. Charlie Khazak was still talking to the driver, standing next to the melon truck, playing dickering games.

The Chinaman kept his eye on the flow out of the Damascus Gate, watched a group of soldiers pass under the arch, patting one another on the back, looking like the teenagers they were. A couple of Arabs, emerged, dressed in long white jallabiyahs. Another Arab, older, carrying a prayer rug. A solitary Hassid, tall, thin, wearing a wide mink hat. Like some black-garbed scarecrow, earlocks swinging as he walked. Where was a guy like that coming from at one in the morning on Shabbat-didn't they screw their wives on Friday night? What was his game-a late wrestle with the Talmud? Or some other kind of wrestle? During the stakeouts on Gray Man he'd learned about the righteous ones

Shouts of laughter poured out of Charlie's tent. No doubt Bruce had polished off someone else. As if in competition, the tent next door erupted in guffaws, backed by bass-heavy rock music.

Midnight party time at The Slave Market, every Friday, like clockwork. No party for Yossi Lee, walking through the tents, showing the picture to sleazy types and getting nothing.

By daybreak the tents would be down, the entire area just a dirt lot again, crowded with ten-dollar-a-day laborers waiting to be picked up by contractors. The only evidence of the party scene, the garbage: piles of broken bamboo shishlik skewers and melon rind, seeds dotting the dirt like dead bugs.

A Border Patrol jeep drove down Sultan Suleiman, stopped, and flashed blue lights over the walls, striping the Damascus Gate and driving on. Belly-dancing music came from one of the coffeehouses just inside the gate. A hangout for older Arabs-men only; the women were stuck at home. Card games and backgammon, the air a fog of tobacco smoke filtered through rosewater narghilas. Scratchy recordings of finger cymbals and whining violins, the same love song played for an hour-what use was all that romance, with no women around? Maybe they were ail queer-the way they sucked on their narghilas, you could hear the gurgle.

Charlie Khazak paid the driver. Two boys materialized from behind the truck and started unloading the melons, carrying five, six at a time, back to the tent. Hot night like this, they'd sell faster than they came in.

The Chinaman stretched impatiently, walked over to Charlie, and said, "Come on."

"Patience." Charlie smiled and turned back to the Arab, who was counting his money with a tongue-moistened finger. Charlie smiled again, a vulture smile on a vulture face. Skinny, dark. Pocked, sunken cheeks, Iraqi beak nose, and one dark line of eyebrow. Bald on top with pointy sideburns and a long fringe of hair on the sides that ran over onto his collar. A purple and green paisley shirt with balloon sleeves, tight black pants, needle-toed patent-leather shoes. A pooshtak all grown up. The guy's father had been a rabbi in Baghdad; the wages of righteousness, a punk son.

"Patience, nothing," said the Chinaman and put his hand heavily on Charlie's shoulder. All bones. One good squeeze and the guy would be out of commission.

He exerted the tiniest bit of pressure and Charlie said goodbye to the Arab.

The two of them walked back to the tent, past the tables with pooshtakim greeting Charlie as if he were some sort of pop star, to the rear, where shishlik and skimpy hamburgers sizzled on charcoal grills and a sleepy-looking bartender filled orders behind a makeshift bar of melon cartons piled one on top of the other. Charlie grabbed a bottle of Coke from the ice bucket and offered it to the Chinaman, who took it and dropped it back in the bucket. Charlie shrugged, and the Chinaman motioned him into a dark corner next to a pyramid of melons, away from the eyes of the others.

"Look at this," he said, pulling out the picture. "Know her?"

Charlie took the photo, furrowed his forehead so that the single eyebrow dipped in the center.

"Cute. Is she sleeping or dead?"

"Ever sell her?"

"Me?" Charlie feigned hurt feelings. "I'm a restaurateur, not a flesh peddler."

A roar of approval rose from the crowd at the tables. Bruce Lee had just finished vanquishing a small army of bad guys.

"The mysteries of the Orient," said Charlie, watching the film. "Right up your alley."

"Cut the shit. I'm tired."

Something in the detective's voice wiped the smile off

Charlie's face. Handing the photo back, he said: "Don't know her."

"Ever seen her around?"

The faintest hesitation, but the Chinaman picked up on it.

"No."

The Chinaman inched closer to Charlie, so that they could smell each other. "If you're holding out on me, I'll find out, shmuck. And I'll come back and jam one of those melons up your ass."

The bartender looked up. Smiling faintly, enjoying the sight of the boss being bossed.

Charlie put his hands on his hips. Raised his voice for the benefit of the bartender: "Get the hell out of here, Lee. I'm busy."

The Chinaman lifted a melon from the pyramid, knocked on it as if testing for freshness, then let it roll off his palm and fall to the ground. The melon landed with a dull thud and exploded, pink pulp and juice splattering in the dust. The barman looked up, remained in his place. No one else seemed to have noticed. All locked in on Bruce.

"Oops." The Chinaman smiled.

Charlie started to protest, but before he could say anything the Chinaman placed his right boot heel on the tent-keeper's right instep, leaned in, and put a little weight on it. Charlie's eyes opened wide with pain.

"What the-" he said, then forced himself to smile. The grand-daddy pooshiak, toughing it out, not wanting to look like a pussy in front of his fans. Not that they had eyes for anyone but Bruce.

"Tell me what you know." The Chinaman smiled back.

"Off my foot, you baboon."

The Chinaman continued smiling. Pressed down harder and talked nonchalantly, as if the two of them were buddies. Having a chat about sports or something.

"Listen, Adon Khazak," he said, "I've no interest in finding out what naughtiness you've been up to. Tonight." More pressure. "Just tell me about this girl."

Charlie gasped and the bartender came closer, bottle of Goldstar in one hand. "Charlie-"

"Get the hell out of here, stupid! Do your job!"

The bartender cursed under his breath, went back to washing glasses.

"Like I told you," Charlie said between his teeth. Sweat ran down his nose, beading at the tip of the beak, rolling off into the dirt. "I don't know her. Now get the hell off my foot before you break something."

"You've seen her around."

"What of it? She's a face, a nothing."

"Where and when," said the Chinaman.

"Get off and I'll tell you."

The Chinaman gave a good-natured shrug and broke contact. Charlie spat into the ground, did a sneaky little dance. Concealed his pain by pulling out a pack of Marlboros and a box of matches, jamming a cigarette between his lips, and making a show of lighting a match against his thumbnail. He sucked in smoke, blew it out though his nostrils. Repeated the gesture. Formed his features into a tough-guy grimace.

"Very impressive," said the Chinaman. "The girl."

"She's been around once or twice, okay? That's all."

"On a Friday?"

"That's the only time we're here, Lee." A kick at a stray chunk of pulp.

"Was she alone or with someone?"

"I saw her with a guy."

"What kind of guy?"

"An Arab."

"Name."

"How the hell should I know? They never came in. I just saw them hanging around. It was a long time ago."

"How long?"

"Month, maybe two."

"How do you know he was an Arab?"

"He looked like one. And he was talking Arabic." As if explaining to a moron.

"What did this Arab look like?"

"Skinny, lots of hair, mustache. Cheap clothes."

"How tall?"

"Medium."

"Be more specific."

"Not tall, not short. In the middle-maybe a meter eight."

"How old?"

"Eighteen or nineteen."

"What else about him do you remember?"

"Nothing. He looked like a million others."

"What'd you mean, lots of hair?"

"What does it mean to you?"

"Charlie," said the Chinaman, meaningfully.

"Thick, bushy, okay?"

"Straight or curly?"

"Straight, I think. Like yours." A smile. "Maybe he's your cousin. Lee."

"What style?"

"Who the hell remembers?"

"She an Arab too?"

"Who else would hang around with an Arab, Lee?"

"One of your cousins."

Charlie spat again. Inhaled his cigarette and ordered the bartender to clean up the mess.

"Street girl?" asked the Chinaman.

"How would I know that?"

The Chinaman cracked the knuckles of one hand.

"You're a cunt peddler is how, Charlie."

"I'm not into that shit anymore, Lee. I sell melons, that's all. Maybe this guy was pimping her, but all I saw was them hanging out. Once or twice."

"Ever see her with anyone else?"

"No. Just the two of them, hanging around-it was over a month ago."

"But you remember her."

Charlie grinned and patted his chest.

"I'm a connoisseur of beauty, you know? And she was good-looking. Big round ass, nice tits for someone that young. Even in those stupid clothes she was all right."

"She wore cheap clothes too?"

"Both of them. He was a nothing, a farmer. Give her a makeover, she'd be a fine piece."

"Tell me what else you know," said the Chinaman, restraining an urge to slap the little shit.

"That's it."

"Sure about that?"

Charlie shrugged, took a drag on his cigarette.

"Step on my foot again, Lee. From here on in, anything I tell you will be fairy tales."

"Ever see this Arab without her?"

"I don't look at boys. Do you?"

The Chinaman lifted his hand. Charlie recoiled, stumbling backward, and the Chinaman caught him before he fell. Lifted him by the scruff, like a rag doll.

"Tsk, tsk," he said, patting the tent-keeper's face gently. "Just a love pat."

"Goto hell, Lee."

"Shabbat shalom."

Back on his Vespa, he processed what he'd learned. Charlie's recognition had turned the girl from a picture into someone real. But when you got right down to it he didn't know much more than when he'd started.

She was loose, hung around with an Arab guy, which meant she was probably an Arab. Maybe a Christian-some of them were a little more modern. No way would a Muslim daddy allow his girl out at night, unchaperoned, least of all at The Slave Market.

Unless she was an orphan or a whore.

No one at the orphanages had known her.

A whore, probably. Or an unwanted daughter sold by her family-it was against the law, but some of the poorer families still did it. The girls, unwanted baggage, traded for cash to rich families in Amman or one of the oil states. The real slave market. Charlie had said her clothes were cheap

He kicked in the scooter's engine, flipped it around, drove south around the Old City. Past the Border Patrol jeep, which had stopped for a cigarette break near the Jaffa Gate. Swinging away from the walls, up to Keren Hayesod, zipping through the Rehavya district. Toward his flat on Herzl on the west side of town.

A lead, but pitiful. Good-looking, poor Arab girl with a poor Arab boyfriend. Big deal.

It was too late to knock on any more doors-not that that approach was worth much anyway. A day of it had brought him dumb stares, shakes of the head. Some of them pretending his Arabic was too poor to understand-pure crap; he was plenty fluent. Others simply shrugging. Know-nothing Ahmeds. For all he knew, he'd already talked to the right person and had been lied to.

If she had a family, they should have claimed her.

Probably a whore. But none of the pimps or the street girls knew her. Maybe a rookie. Short career.

Maybe the long-haired boyfriend was the killer, or maybe he was just a guy who'd screwed her once or twice, then went on to something else. Thin, medium-sized, with a mustache. Like saying a guy with two arms, two legs. Nothing worth reporting to Dani.

Yossi Lee, ace investigator. He'd been on his feet for twelve hours, with little to show for it. Had gulped down greasy felafel that sat undigested in his stomach. Aliza had said she'd try to wait up for him, but he knew she'd be sleeping, little Rafi curled in the crib by the bed. Yesterday the kid had said "apple," which seemed pretty good for sixteen months. Muscles on him, too; ready for soccer before you knew it. Maybe he'd get a chance to bounce him around a little before hitting the street again. No walk in the park this Saturday, though. Shit.

The wind in his face felt good. He liked the city this way, sweet and empty. As if all of it belonged to him. King Yossi, the Jewish Genghis.

He'd drive around a little more. Give himself time to wind down.

Daniel awoke at three in the morning, troubled by vague remembrances of dark, bloody dreams. Metal through flesh, his hand severed, floating through space, out of reach. Crying like a child, mud-soaked and feeble

He changed positions, hugged the pillow, wrapped himself in the top sheet and tried to relax. But instead, he grew edgier and rolled over again, facing Laura.

She was covered to her chin, breathing shallowly through barely parted lips. A wave of hair fell over one eye; a hint of tapered fingernail extended from beneath the sheet. He touched the nail, brushed away the hair. She stirred, made a throaty, contented sound, and stretched so that the sole of one foot rested on his ankle. He inched closer, kissed her cheeks, her eyes, dry lips tasting faintly of morning.

She smiled in her sleep and he moved up against her and kissed her chin. She opened her eyes, looked at him with confusion, and closed them again. Her body tensed, and she turned away from him. Then her eyes opened again. She mouthed the word oh and wrapped her arms around him.

They embraced, lying on their sides, face to face, kissing, nuzzling, rocking in a tangle of sheets. She raised one leg and rested it on his thigh, took him and guided him inside of her. They made love that way, slowly, sleepily, until climax brought them wide awake.

Afterward, they lay connected for a while. Then Laura said, "Daniel… I'm thirsty," with mischief in her voice.

"AH right," he said, extricating himself.

He got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and filled a glass with cold mineral water. When he returned she was sitting up, bare above the waist, her hair pinned up. He handed her the glass and she emptied it in two long drafts.

"Want more?" he asked.

"No, this is fine." She moistened her finger on the rim of the glass, brushed it across her lips.

"Sure?" He smiled. "There's a half-gallon bottle in the refrigerator."

"Tease!" Fanning wet fingers, she splashed him lightly. "Can I help it if I get thirsty? That's the way my body works."

"Your body works just fine." He lay down beside her, put his arm around her shoulder. She set the glass on the nightstand, looked at the clock that rested there, and gave a low moan.

"Oh, no. Three-twenty."

"Sorry for waking you."

She reached beneath the covers, touched him lightly, and laughed. "All's well that ends well. Have you been up long?"

"A few minutes."

"Anything the matter?"

"Just restless," he said, feeling the tension return.

"I'll get up and let you rest."

He began to move away but she touched his wrist and restrained him.

"No. Stay. We've hardly talked since you got that call."

She rested her head on his shoulder, made circles with her palm across his hairless chest. They sat without speaking, listening to night sounds-a faint whistle of wind, the hum of the clock, the synchrony of their heartbeats.

"Tell me about it," she said.

"About what?"

"What you avoided talking about by going to bed at nine."

"You don't want to hear about it."

"Yes, I do."

"It's horrible, believe me."

"Tell me, anyway."

He looked at her, saw the will in her eyes. Shrugged and began talking about the murder, reporting dispassionately, professionally. Leaving out as much as he could without patronizing her. She listened without comment, flinching only once, but when he finished her eyes were moist.

"My God," she said. "Fifteen."

He knew what she was thinking: not much older than Shoshi. He allowed himself to share the thought, and a stab of anxiety pierced him to the core. He defended against it the way he'd been taught to block out pain. Forcing pleasant images into his mind. Fields of wild poppies. The fragrance of orange blossoms.

"Heroin, sex murder, it doesn't… fit," Laura was saying. "We're not supposed to have that kind of thing here."

"Well, now we do," he said angrily. A second later: "Sorry. You're right. We're out of our element."

"That's not what I meant. I'm sure you'll solve it."

"Twenty-four-hour shifts until we do."

"It's just…" She groped for words. "When I was growing up, I heard about those kinds of things alt the time. It wasn't that we accepted them, but… Oh, I don't know. Here, it just seems a heresy, Daniel. Demonic."

"I understand," said Daniel, but to himself he thought: That's exactly the kind of thing I have to avoid. Devils and demons, religious symbolism-the city makes you think that way. It's a crime, no more, no less. Perpetrated by a human being. Someone sick and fallible

"What time will you be leaving?" Laura asked. "Seven. I have to walk down to the Katamonim. If I'm not back by twelve-thirty, start lunch without me."

"The Katamonim? I thought you said she was an Arab."

"Daoud thinks she is. We won't know until we ID her." She unpinned her hair, let it fall to her shoulders. "The brass wants it kept quiet," he said. "Which means meetings away from Headquarters. If we get any leads, we'll be meeting here, Sunday evening. Don't prepare anything. If we're out of soda, I'll pick some up."

"What time in the evening?"

"Between five and six."

"Do you want me to pick up Luanne and Gene?" Daniel slapped his forehead. "Oh, no, how could I forget. When are they corning in?"

"Seven P.M. if the flight's on schedule."

"Perfect timing. So much for grand hospitality."

"They'll be fine, Daniel. They'll probably be exhausted for the first day or so. I've arranged a walking tour of the Old City churches and Bethlehem on Tuesday, and I'll book them on an all-day trip to Galilee with an emphasis on Nazareth. That should keep them busy for a while."

"I wanted it to be personal, the way they treated us."

"There'll be plenty of time for that-they're here for four weeks. Besides, if anyone should be able to understand, it's them. Gene probably sees this kind of thing all the time."

"Yes," said Daniel, "I'm sure he does."

At four Laura fell back asleep and Daniel drifted into a somnolent state, neither slumber nor arousal, in which dream-images flitted in and out of consciousness with a randomness that was unsettling. At six he got up, sponged off in the bathroom, dressed in a white shirt, khaki trousers, and rubber-soled walking shoes, and forced himself to swallow a glass of orange juice and a cup of instant coffee with milk and sugar. He took his tallit out on the balcony, faced the Old City, and prayed. By seven he was out the door, beeper on his belt, the envelope containing pictures of the dead girl in hand.

As on every other Shabbat, two of the elevators in the building were shut down, the third set automatically, stopping at every floor, so that religiously observant tenants could ride without having to push buttons-the completion of electric circuits was a violation of the Sabbath. But religious convenience also meant agonizingly slow progress, and when he saw that the car had just reached the ground floor, he took the stairs and bounded down four flights.

A man was in the lobby, leaning against the mailboxes, smoking. Young, twenty-two or -three, well built and tan, with dark wavy hair and a full clipped beard highlighted with ginger, wearing a white polo shirt with a Fila logo, American designer jeans, brand-new blue-and-white Nike running shoes. On his left wrist was an expensive-looking watch with a gold band; around his neck, a gold Hai charm. An American, thought Daniel. Some kind of playboy, maybe a rich student, but he doesn't belong here-everyone in the building was religious, no one smoked like that on Shabbat.

The young man saw him and ground out his cigarette on the marble floor. Inconsiderate, thought Daniel. He was about to ask him what his business was, in English, when the young man began walking toward him, hand extended, saying, in fluent, native Hebrew: "Pakad Sharavi? I'm Avi Cohen. I've been assigned to your team. I got the message late last night and thought I'd come over and check in personally."

Sophisticated rich kid, thought Daniel, irritated that his intuition had been wrong. North Tel-Avivnik. Politician's son with plenty of travel experience. Which explained the foreign threads. He took the hand and let go of it quickly, surprised at how much instant dislike he'd built up for the new hire.

"The briefing was yesterday," he said.

"Yes, I know," said Cohen, matter-of-factly, without apology. "I was moving into a new flat. No phone. Tat Nitzav Laufer sent a messenger over but he got lost."

A smile, full of boyish charm. No doubt it had worked wonders with Asher Davidoff's blonde. A samal connected to the deputy commander-what was a rich kid like this doing as a policeman?

Daniel walked toward the door.

"I'm ready, now," said Cohen, tagging along.

"Ready for what?"

"My assignment. Tat Nitzav Laufer told me it's a heavy case."

"Did he?"

"Sex cutting, no motive, no suspect-"

"Do you and Tat Nitzav Laufer confer regularly?"

"No," said Cohen flustered. "He… my father-"

"Never mind," said Daniel, then remembered that the kid's father had died recently, and softened his tone.

"I was sorry to hear about your father."

"Did you know him?" asked Cohen, surprised.

"Just by reputation."

"He was a tough guy, a real ball-breaker." Cohen uttered it automatically, without emotion, as if it were a psalm that he'd recited hundreds of times before. Daniel felt his hostility toward the new hire rise again. Pushing the door open, he let it swing back for Cohen to catch and stepped out into the sunlight. There was an unfamiliar car in the parking lot. A red BMW 330i.

"My assignment, Pakad?"

"Your assignment is to be present for all meetings at precisely the time they're called."

"I told you, my flat-"

"I'm not interested in excuses, only results."

Cohen's eyebrows lowered. His icy blue eyes clouded with anger.

"Is that understood, Samal Cohen?"

"Yes, Pakad." The right thing to say, but with a hint of arrogance in the tone. Daniel let it pass.

"You'll be assigned to Mefakeah Nahum Shmeltzer. Call him at eight tomorrow morning and do what he tells you to do. In the meantime, there are some files I want you to go through. At National Headquarters-the computer boys are getting them ready." He reached into the envelope, drew out a photo, and handed it to Cohen. "Go through each file and see if you can find a match with this one. Don't look only for exact matches-take into account that she may have changed her hair style or aged a bit since the file was opened. If there's any sort of resemblance, set it aside. Keep meticulous records, and when in doubt, ask questions. Got it?"

"Yes." Cohen looked at the picture and said, "Young."

"A very astute observation," said Daniel. Turning his back, he walked away.

He covered the three-kilometer walk quickly, with little regard for his surroundings, walking southwest, then west on Yehuda HaNasi, where he entered the Katamonim. The neighborhood started deteriorating when he came to Katamon Eight. Some evidence of renewal was visible: a newly painted building here, a freshly planted tree there. The government had been pushing it until the recession hit. But for the most part it was as he remembered it: curbless streets cracked and litter-strewn; what little grass there was, brown and dry. Laundry billowed from the rust-streaked balconies of decaying cinder-block buildings, the bunkerlike construction harking back to pre-'67 days, when south Jerusalem faced Jordanian guns, the sudden, murderous sniping attributed by the Arabs to a soldier "gone berserk."

Berserk marksmen. Lots of shootings. Bitter jokes had arisen: The psychiatric wards of Amman had been emptied in order to staff Hussein's army.

The change of borders in '67 had brought about a shift in character in other poor districts-Yemin Moshe with its cobbled alleys and artists' studios, so inflated now that only foreigners could afford it; even Musrara had begun looking a little better-but the lower Katamonim remained a living monument to urban blight.

During his rookie days, he'd driven patrol here, and though his own origins had been anything but affluent, the experience had depressed him. Prefab buildings knocked up hastily for tides of Jewish immigrants from North Africa, strung together like railroad cars and sectioned into dreary one-hundred-square-meter flats that seemed incurably plagued with mildew and rot. Tiny windows built for safety but now unnecessary and oppressive. Rutted streets, empty fields used for garbage dumps. The flats crammed with angry people, boiling in the summer, clammy and cold in the winter. Fathers unemployed and losing face, the wives easy targets for tirades and beatings, the kids running wild in the streets. A recipe for crime-just add opportunity.

The pooshtakim had hated him. To them, the Yemenites were an affront, poorer than anyone, different-looking, regarded as primitives and outsiders. Smiling fools-you could beat them and they'd smile. But those smiles reflected an unerring sense of faith and optimism that had enabled the Yemenites to climb up the economic ladder with relative haste. And the fact that their crime rate was low was a slap in the face to the poverty excuse.

Where else could that lead but to scapegoating? He'd been called Blackie more times than he could count, ridiculed and ignored and forced to come down hard on defiant punks. A hell of an initiation. He'd endured it, gradually ingratiated himself with some of them, and done his job. But though it had been his idea to work there in the first place, he'd welcomed the completion of his assignment.

Now he was back, on a Shabbat, no less, embarking on an outing that was a long shot at best.

On the surface, coming down here did have a certain logic to it. The girl was poor and Oriental, maybe a street girl. Though other neighborhoods bred that type, too, Eight and Nine were the right places to start.

But he admitted to himself that a good part of it was symbolic-setting a good example by showing the others that a pakad was still willing to work the streets. And laying to rest any suspicions that a religious pakad would use Shabbat as an excuse to loaf.

He despised the idea of disrupting the Sabbath, resented the break in routine that separated him from family and ritual. Few cases made that kind of demand on him, but this one was different. Although the dead girl was beyond help, if a madman was at work, he wouldn'd stop at one. And the saving of a life overrode Shabbat.

Still, he did what he could to minimize the violation- wearing the beeper but carrying no money or weapon, walking instead of driving, using his memory rather than pen and paper to record his observations. Doing his best to think of spiritual things during the empty moments that constituted so much of a detective's working life.

An elderly Moroccan couple approached him, on their way to synagogue, the husband wearing an outsized embroidered kipuh, mouthing psalms, walking several paces ahead of his wife. In Eight and Nine, only the old ones remained observant.

"Shabbat shalom," he greeted them and showed them the picture.

The man apologized for not having his glasses, said he couldn't see a thing. The woman looked at it, shook her head, and said, "No. What happened? Is she lost?"

"In a way," said Daniel, thanking them and moving on.

The scene repeated itself a score of times. On Rehov San Martin, at the southern tip of Nine, he encountered a group of muscular, swarthy young men playing soccer in a field. Waiting until a goal had been scored, he approached them. They passed the photo around, made lewd comments, and giving it back to him, resumed their game.

He continued on until eleven, eating a late breakfast of shrugs, ignorance, and bad jokes, feeling like a rookie again. Deciding that he'd been stupid to waste his time and abandon his family in the name of symbolism, he began the return trip in a foul mood.

On his way out of Eight, he passed a kiosk that had been closed when he'd entered the district, a makeshift stand where children stood in line for ice cream and candy bars. Approaching, he noticed that a particularly sickening-looking blue ice seemed to be the favorite.

The proprietor was a squat Turk in his fifties, with black-rimmed eyeglasses, bad teeth, and a three-day growth of beard. His shirt was sweat-soaked and he smelled of confection. When he saw Daniel's kipah, he frowned.

"No Shabbat credit. Cash only."

Daniel showed him his ID, removed the photo from the envelope.

"Aha, police. They force a religious one to work today?"

"Have you seen this girl?"

The man took a look, said casually, "Her? Sure. She's an Arab, used to work as a maid at the monks' place in the Old City."

"Which monks' place?"

"The one near the New Gate."

"Saint Saviour's?"

"Yeah." The Turk peered closely at the photo, turned serious. "What's the matter with her? Is she-"

"Do you know her name?"

"No idea. Only reason I remember her at all is that she was good-looking." Another downward glance: "Someone got her, right?"

Daniel took the picture away from him. "Your name, please, adoni."

"Sabhan, Eli, but I don't want to get involved in this, okay?"

Two little girls in T-shirts and flowered pants came up to the counter and asked for blue ice bars. Daniel stepped aside and allowed Sabhan to complete the transaction. After the Turk had pocketed the money, he came forward again and asked, "What were you doing at the Saint Saviour's monastery, Adon Sabhan?"

The Turk waved his hand around the interior of the kiosk and gave a disgusted look.

"This is not my career. I used to have a real business until the fucking government taxed me out of it. Painting and plastering. I contracted to paint the monks' infirmary and finished two walls before some Arabs underbid me and the so-called holy men kicked me off the job. All those brown-robes-fucking anti-Semites."

"What do you know about the girl?"

"Nothing. I just saw her. Scrubbing the floor."

"How long ago was this?"

"Let's see-it was before I went bust, which would be about two weeks."

Two weeks, thought Daniel. Poor guy's just gone under. Which could explain all the anger.

"Did you ever see her with anyone else, Adon Sabhan?"

"Just her mop and pail." Sabhan wiped his face with his hand, leaned in, and said conspiratorially: "Ten to one, one of the brown-robes did her in. She was raped, wasn't she?"

"Why do you say that?"

"A guy has needs, you know? It's not normal, the way they live-no sex, the only women in sight a few dried-up nuns. That's got to do something to your mind, right? Young piece like that comes around, no bra, shaking like jelly, squatting down, someone gets heated up and boom, right?"

"Did you ever observe any conflict between her and the monks?"

Sabhan shook his head.

"What about between her and anyone else?"

"Nah, I was busy painting," said Sabhan, "my face to the wall. But take my word for it, that's what happened."

Daniel asked him a few more questions, got nothing more, and examined the Turk's business license. On it was listed a Katamon Two home address. He committed it to memory and left the kiosk, heart pounding. Quickening his pace to a jog, he retraced his path but turned east onto Ben Zakai, then northeast, making his way up toward the Old City.

He'd reached the David Remez intersection, just yards from the city walls, when his beeper went off.

"What's he like?" Avi Cohen asked Shmeltzer.

"Who?"

They were sitting in a gray, windowless room at Headquarters, surrounded by file folders and sheaves of computer print-out. The room was freezing and Cohen's arms were studded with goose bumps. When he'd asked Shmeitzer about it, the old guy had shrugged and said, "The polygraph officer next door, he likes it that way." As if that explained it.

"Sharavi," said Cohen, opening a missing-kid file. He gazed at the picture and put it atop the growing mounting of rejects. Donkey work-a cleaning woman could do it.

"What do you mean, what's he like?"

Shmeitzer's tone was sharp and Cohen thought: Touchy bastards, all them in this section.

"As a boss," he clarified.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. Forget I asked."

"Curious, eh? You generally a curious fellow?"

"Sometimes." Cohen smiled. "It's supposed to be a good quality in a detective."

Shmeitzer shook his head, lowered his eyes, and ran his index finger down a column of names. Sex offenders, hundreds of them.

They'd been working together for two hours, collating, sorting, and for two hours the old guy had worked without complaining. Hunched over the list, making subfiles, cross-referencing, checking for aliases or duplicates. Not much of a challenge for a mefakeah, thought Cohen, but it didn't seem to bother him. Probably a burnout, liked playing it safe.

His own assignment was even more tedious: going through more than 2,000 missing-kid files and matching them up with the photo of the cutting victim. Only 1,633 were open cases, the computer officer had assured him. Only. But someone had mistakenly left more than 400 solved ones mixed in.

He'd made a remark about clerical incompetence to Shrneltzer, who replied, "Don't gripe. You never know where your next lead will come from. She could be one who'd been found, then ran away again-wouldn't hurt to look at all the closed ones." Great.

"He's a good boss," Shmeitzer. "You hear any different?"

"No." Cohen came across a photo of a girl from Romema who resembled the dead girl. Not exactly, but close enough to put aside.

"Just curious, eh?"

"Right."

"Listen," said the old man, "you're going to hear stuff- that he made it because of protekzia or because he's a Yemenite. Forget all that crap. The protekzia may have gotten him started but"-he smiled meaningfully-"nothing wrong with connections, is there, son?"

Cohen blushed furiously.

"And as far as the Yemenite stuff goes, they may very well have been looking for a token blackie, but by itself that wouldn't have done the trick, understand?"

Cohen nodded, flipped the pages of a file.

"He got to where he is because he does his job and does it well. Which is something, Mr. Curious, that you might consider for yourself."

Daoud looked terrible. One glance told Daniel that he'd been up all night. His tan suit was limp and dirt-streaked, his white shirt grayed by sweat. Coppery stubble barbed his face and made his wispy mustache seem even more indistinct. His hair was greasy and disordered, furrowed with finger-tracks, his eyes swollen and bloodshot. Only the hint of a smile-faintest upturning of lips-which he struggled manfully to conceal-suggested that the morning had been other than disastrous.

"Her name is Fatma Rashmawi," he said. "The family lives up there, in the house with the arched window. Father, two wives, three sons, four daughters, two daughters-in-law, assorted grandchildren. The men are all masons. Two of the sons left for work at seven. The father stays home-injured."

"The pools," said Daniel. "Your hunch was right."

"Yes," said Daoud.

They stood near the top of Silwan, concealed in a grove of olive trees. The residence Daoud indicated was of intermediate size, sitting at the edge of a dry white bluff, set apart from its neighbors. A plain house, ascetic even, the masonry arch above the front window the sole decorative detail.

"How did you find them?"

"An idiot helped me. Deaf kid name of Nasif, lives down there, with a widowed mother. I came across him yesterday and he seemed to recognize the picture, kept calling her a bad girl, but he was too stupid for me to believe it meant anything. Then the mother came out, showed no sign of recognition, and claimed the boy was talking nonsense. So I left and went to the Old City, did a little work in the Muslim Quarter. But it kept bothering me-I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen the girl at the pools. So I came back this morning and leaned on her for a while and finally she told me. After pleading with me not to let on that she'd talked-apparently the Rashmawis are a hotheaded bunch, old-fashioned. Father's the king; the kids stay under his thumb even after they marry. Fatma was the youngest and somewhat of a rebel-pop music, an eye for the boys. There were quarrels, the father and brothers beat her, and she ran away or was kicked out about two months ago-at least that's what Mrs. Nasif says. According to her, no one's seen Fatma since then and she claims no one has any idea where she went. But she may be lying, still holding back. She was frightened-the message between the lines was that the Rashmawis were capable of doing violence to the girl or anyone else who broke their rules."

Families, thought Daniel. The same old story? He found it hard to reconcile what had been done to Fatma Rashmawi with a family squabble. Still, the case was starting to take form. Names, places, the signposts of reality.

"I have an idea where she went," he said, and told Daoud the Turk's story about Saint Saviour's.

"Yes, that would make sense," said Daoud, green eyes sparkling from beneath thickened lids.

"You did excellent work," said Daniel. "Absolutely first-rate."

"Just following procedure," Daoud insisted, but he stood up straight, threw back his shoulders with pride.

A cock crowed and a warm breeze rustled the leaves of the olive trees. The ground was soft with fallen olives, the air marinated with the salt smell of rotting fruit.

Daniel looked up at the Rashmawi house.

"We'll go together and talk to them," he said. "But not right now. Drive over to Kishle and phone the others. Shmeltzer should be at French Hill, in Records. Tell him what we've learned and have him do background checks on the Rashmawis and any of their kin. Find out, also, if a file's ever been opened on Fatma. The Chinaman will probably be on beeper-have him come here and meet me. You go home, wash up, eat something, and come back at two. We'll proceed from there."

"Yes, sir," said Daoud, writing it all down.

The front door of the Rashmawi house opened and a young pregnant woman came out, carrying a rolled-up rug. A swarm of small children tumbled out behind her. The woman unfurled the rug, held it with one hand, and began beating it with a stick. The children danced around her as if she were a maypole, squealing with delight as they tried to grab hold of dissolving dust swirls.

"Anything else, Pakad?" asked Daoud.

"Nothing until two. Go home, spend some time with your family."

Daniel waited in the grove for the Chinaman to arrive, observing the comings and goings of the village, keeping one eye fixed upon the Rashmawi house. At twelve-thirty, a woman-not the rug beater-came out and purchased eggplant and tomatoes from a peddler who'd managed to wheel his cart to the upper level. By twelve thirty-nine she was back in the house. The kids ran in and out of the door, teasing and chasing each other. Other than that, no activity.

The case seemed to be drawing him back in time. This morning in the Katamonim, and now, Silwan.

He scanned the village, wondered which of the houses was the one where his great-grandfather-the man whose name hbe bore-had grown up. Strange, he'd heard so many stories about the old days but had never bothered to check.

Dinner table stories, recited like a liturgy. Of how hundreds of the Jews of San'a had fled the Yemenite capital, escaping from rising levels of Muslim persecution. Crossing the mountains and setting out in search of the Holy Land, Of how the first Daniel Sharavi had been one of them, arriving in Jerusalem in the summer of 1881, an undernourished ten-year-old in the company of his parents. Of how the Jews of San'a hadn't been welcomed with open arms.

The other residents of Jewish Jerusalem-the Sephardim and Ashkenazim-hadn't known what to make of these small, brown, kinky-haired people who stood at their doorsteps, near-naked and penniless but smiling. Speaking Hebrew with a strange accent and claiming to be Jews who had braved storm and pestilence, climbing mountains on foot, walking through the desert from Arabia, subsisting on seeds and honey.

Jerusalem, in those days, hadn't spread beyond the Old City walls-two square kilometers stuffed with ten thousand people, a third of them Jewish, almost all of them poor, living on donations from the Diaspora. Sanitation was primitive, raw sewage flowing through the streets, the cisterns polluted, epidemics of cholera and typhoid a way of life. The last thing the residents of the Jewish Quarter needed was a band of pretenders leeching off their beleaguered communities.

After much head scratching, a test of Jewishness had been devised, the leaders of the Yemenities whisked into synagogue and tested on the finer points of Scripture by Sephardic and Ashkenazic rabbis.

Great-great-grandfather Sa'adia, so the story went, had been the first to be quizzed. A goldsmith and teacher, a learned man with a fine, pure nature. When called upon, he'd begun reciting rapidly from the Book of Genesis, letter-perfect, without pause. Questions regarding the most obscure tractates of Talmud elicited an identical response-text and commentaries recited fluently, the finer points of jurisprudence explained concisely and clearly.

The rabbis excused Sa'adia and called upon another man, who performed similarly. As did the next man, and the next. Yemenite after Yemenite knew the Torah by heart. When questioned about this, the little brown people explained that books were scarce in San'a, forcing everyone to use his head. In many cases a single volume was shared around the table, with one person learning to read conventionally, another upside down, still others from the left or right side. Happily, they demonstrated those talents, and the rabbis observed, astonished. The issue of Jewishness was laid to rest, the new arrivals allowed to share the poverty of their brethren.

In the beginning they settled just outside the walls, in the spot called Silwan, near the Siloam Pool, working as masons and laborers, living in tents while they built stone houses, moving, over the years, back into the Old City, into the Jewish Quarter the Arabs called Al Sion, in order to be nearer to the Wailing Place, a stone's throw from the Tomb of David.

It was there, within the walls, that Daniel's grandfather and father had been born, and from where he himself had been carried off as an infant in '48, rescued by strangers, squalling in terror under the thunder of gunfire.

My origins, he thought, gazing out at the village. But he felt no pangs of nostalgia, saw only the origins of a dead girl.

Warm beer, thought the Chinaman, quickening his pace. He'd been prepared to report his information on the girl, thought he'd done a pretty good job for one night out, until the Arab had called and told him of the ID. Sharp guy, Daoud. Still, the boyfriend angle was a contribution.

The village had come alive, shutters spreading, doors nudged open, a buzz of mutters and whispers trailing the detectives' footsteps. The corneal glint of the curious sparkled from grated windows, receding into the shadows at the hint of eye contact with the strangers.

"Probably looks like a raid to them," said the Chinaman.

Neither Daniel nor Daoud responded. Both were concentrating on walking quickly enough to keep up with the big man's stride.

They reached the Rashmawi house and climbed the front steps. The arched window was open but covered with a bright floral drape. From inside came a drone of Arabic music and the aroma of coffee laced with cardamom.

Daniel knocked on the door. There was no immediate answer and he knocked again, louder. At once the volume of the music lowered and was overriden by conversation. The sound of shuffling feet grew louder and the door opened. A young man stood in the doorway-eighteen or nineteen, slender, and round-faced with a prematurely receding hairline. A pair of heavy tortoise-shell eyeglasses dominated a mild face pitted with acne scars. He wore a cheap gray shirt, beltless gray trousers a size too large, and black bedroom slippers. Looking over his shoulder, he came out to the top step, closed the door behind him, and stared at each of them, dark eyes swimming behind thick lenses.

"Yes?" His voice was soft, tentative.

"Good afternoon," said Daniel, in Arabic. "I'm Chief Inspector Sharavi of the Police Department. This is Sub-inspector Lee and this is Sergeant Daoud. Your name, please?"

"Rashmawi, Anwar."

"What's your relationship to Muhamid Rashmawi?"

"He's my father. What's this about, sir?" There was a curious lack of surprise in the question. The flat, sad nuance of anticipated misfortune.

"We'd like to come in and talk with your father."

"He's not a well man, sir."

Daniel took out the photo of Fatma and showed it to him. The young man stared at it, lips trembling, eyes blinking rapidly. For a moment it seemed as if he would break into tears. Then he wiped his face clean of expression, held the door open for them, and said, "Come in, sirs."

They entered a long, narrow, low-ceilinged room, freshly whitewashed and surprisingly cool, its stone floor covered by frayed, overlapping Oriental rugs and mattresses draped with embroidered coverlets. A rug hung also from the rear wall, next to a row of coat hooks and a framed photograph of Gamal Abdel Nasser. All the other walls were bare.

Directly under Nasser's portrait was a portable television on an aluminium stand. The coffee aroma came from a small cooking area to the left: wood stove, hot plate, homemade shelves bearing pots and utensils. A battered iron saucepan sat on the stove, sizzling over a low fire. The stove's exhaust conduit rose and pierced the ceiling. Across the room, to the right, was a flimsy-looking wooden door and from behind it came female voices, the cries and laughter of children.

An old man sat on a mattress in the center of the room, thin, sun-baked, and wrinkled as an old shopping bag. His bare head was bald and conspicuously pale, his mustache a grizzled rectangle of white filling the space between nose and upper lip. He wore a pale-gray jallabiyah striped faintly with darker gray. An unfurled kaffiyah headdress and coil lay in his lap. To his right was a small carved table upon which sat an engraved brass pitcher and matching demitasse cup, a pack of Time cigarettes, and a string of worry beads. His left hand held a red plastic transistor radio. One of his feet was curled under him; the other extended straight out and was wrapped in bandages. Next to the ankle was an assortment of vials and ointments in squeeze-tubes. Just behind the medicines, another carved table held a well-foxed copy of the Quran within arm's reach.

He stared downward, as if studying the pattern of the rug, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The sound of the detectives' entry caused him to look up, squinting. Expressionless. It was then that Daniel noticed the resemblance to Fatma-the same synchrony of features, the handsome crispness lacking in the brother.

"Father," said Anwar, "these men are with the police."

Rashmawi gave his son a sharp look and the youth rushed over and raised him to tottering feet. Once upright, the old man gave a small head bow and said, in a low, rasping voice, "Marhaba." Welcome. "Ahlan Wa Sahlan." You've found in our home a wide valley.

The hospitality ritual. Daniel looked at the hard, weathered face, like a carved mask with its hollowed cheeks and deep eye sockets, unsure if the man behind it was victim or suspect.

"Ahlan Bek," he replied. The same welcome will be extended to you when you visit my home.

"Sit, please," said Rashmawi, and he allowed his son to lower him.

The detectives settled in a semicircle. The old man barked an order and Anwar crossed the room, opened the wooden door, and spoke into the opening. Two young women hurried out, dressed in dark robes, their hair covered, their feet bare. Averting their faces, they padded quickly to the cooking area and began a rapid ballet of pouring, scooping, and filling. Within moments the men were presented with demitasses of sweet, muddy coffee, platters laden with dishes of olives, almonds, sunflower seeds, and dried fruit.

Rashmawi waved his hand and the women danced away, disappearing into the room on the right. Another wave sent Anwar back with them. Almost immediately, an insectile buzz of conversation filtered through the thin wood of the door.

"Cigarette," said Rashmawi, holding out his pack. The Chinaman and Daoud accepted and lit up.

"You, sir?"

Daniel shook his head and said, "Thank you for your kind offer, but today is my Sabbath and I don't handle fire."

The old man looked at him, saw the kipah on his head, and nodded. He raised a dish of dried figs from the platter and waited until Daniel was chewing enthusiastically before settling back on the mattress.

"To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

"We're here to talk about your daughter, sir," said Daniel.

"I have three daughters," said the old man casually. "Three sons as well, and many fat grandchildren."

One daughter less than Daoud had mentioned.

"Your daughter Fatma, sir."

Rashmawi's face went blank, the dry, well-formed features settling into paralytic stillness.

Daniel put down his demitasse, took out the picture, and showed it to Rashmawi, who ignored it.

"She was found yesterday," said Daniel, watching the old man's reaction.

Rashmawi made a tent of his fingers. Picked up his demi-tasse but put it down without drinking.

"I have three daughters," he said. "Sahar, Hadiya, and Salway. None are idle. Three sons as well."

The buzz behind the door had grown louder, solidifying into conversation-urgent, frightened female chatter. A tentative male response. Then a low moan rising steadily in pitch.

"How long has she been missing?" Daniel asked.

Rashmawi dragged deeply on his cigarette, drank coffee, and cracked an almond with long, knobby fingers. Removing the nut, he put it in his mouth and chewed slowly.

The moan behind the door escalated to a high-pitched wail.

"Silence!" thundered the old man and the wail dissipated into an artificial hush, broken once by a muffled sob.

Daniel showed him the photo again, caught his eye, and for a moment thought he saw something-pain, fear-pass across the weathered face. But whatever it was vanished instantaneously and Rashmawi folded his arms across his chest and stared past the detectives, as silent and unmoving as a stone idol.

"Sir," said Daniel, "it pains me to be the one to tell you this, but Fatma is dead."

Nothing.

Smoke from three untouched cigarettes ribboned lazily toward the ceiling.

"She was murdered, sir. Violently."

A long, maddening silence, every creak and exhalation, thunderous. Then:

"I have three daughters. Sahar, Hadiya, and Salway. None are idle. Three sons as well. Many grandchildren."

The Chinaman swore softly and cleared his throat. "It was a very brutal murder. Multiple stab wounds."

"We want to find the person who did it," said Daniel.

"To avenge her," added the Chinaman.

The wrong thing to say, thought Daniel. Revenge was the prerogative of the family. To suggest that an outsider could accomplish it was at best ignorant, at worst an insult. He looked at the Chinaman and gave his head a barely perceptible shake.

The big man shrugged and started gazing around the room, restless and eager for action.

Rashmawi was smiling strangely. He'd placed His hands on his knees and had started to sway, as if in a trance.

"Any information you can provide is essential, sir," said Daniel. "About anyone who could have done this to Fatma. Why anyone would have wanted to hurt her."

Anyone other than you or your sons

"A bad influence, perhaps," said Daoud. "Someone who tried to corrupt her."

That, too, seemed the wrong thing to say, for the old man's face compressed with anger and his hands began to shake. He pushed down harder on his knees to avoid the appearance of feebleness. Clamped his eyes shut and continued swaying, further out of reach than ever.

"Mr. Rashmawi," said Daniel, more forcefully. "No young girl should have to come to such an end."

Rashmawi opened his eyes and Daniel examined them closely. Irises the color of the coffee in his demitasse, the whites soiled an unhealthy shade of gray. If eyes were the mirror of the soul, these mirrors reflected a weary soul beset by illness, fatigue, the pain of remembrance. Or was it guilt he was seeing, Daniel wondered-segregated from the heart by a fortress of silence?

Eloquent eyes. But you couldn't work a case based on unspoken eloquence.

"Tell us what you know, sir," said Daniel, fighting back impatience. "What she was wearing when she left, her jewelry."

Rashmawi's shoulders rounded and his head drooped, as if suddenly too heavy for his neck to support. He covered his face with his hands, swayed some more, then raised himself up, fueled by defiance.

"I have three daughters," he said. "Three."

"Hard-assed old bastard," said the Chinaman. "Didn't so much as look at the picture. Our best bet is to talk to the women."

They stood by the side of the dirt pathway, several yards from the house. The wailing had resumed and was audible at that distance.

"We could try," said Daniel, "but it would be a violation of their family structure."

"To hell with family structure. One of them may have sliced her, Dani."

"The point is, Yossi, that the family structure makes it impossible for us to get information. Without the father's permission, none of them is going to talk to us."

The big man spat in the dirt, pounded his fist into his hand.

"Then haul them in! A few hours in a cell and we'll see about their goddamned family structure."

"That's your plan, is it? Arrest the bereaved."

The Chinaman started to say something, then sighed and smiled sheepishly.

"Okay, okay, I'm talking shit. It's just that it's weird. The guy's daughter is butchered and he's as cold as ice, making like she never existed." He turned to Daoud: "That culturally normal?"

Daoud hesitated.

"Is it?" pressed the Chinaman.

"To some extent."

"Meaning?"

"To the Muslims, virginity is everything," said Daoud. "If the father thought Fatma lost hers-even if he just suspected it-he might very well expel her from the family. Excommunicate her. It would be as if she didn't exist."

"Killing her would accomplish the same thing," said the Chinaman.

"I don't see this as a family affair," said Daniel. "That old man was in pain. And after seeing the way they live, the factors I mentioned yesterday seem stronger-the Rashmawis are old-school, by the book. Had they chosen to execute a daughter, it would have taken place in the village-a swift killing by one of the brothers, semi-publicly in order to show that the family honor had been restored. Removing the body and dumping it for outsiders to find would be unthinkable. So would mutilating her."

"You're assuming," said the Chinaman, "that culture overrides craziness. If that was the case, they would have replaced us long ago with anthropologists."

The door to the Rashmawi house opened and Anwar came out, wiping his glasses. He put them back on, saw them, and went hastily inside.

"Now, that's a strange one," said the Chinaman. "Home when his brothers are working. Father banishes him to be with the women."

"I agree," said Daniel. "You'd expect him to be allowed to remain in the background-if for no other reason than to wait on the old man. Sending him in with the women-it's as if he's being punished for something. Any ideas about that, Elias?"

Daoud shook his head.

"A punitive family," Daniel reflected out loud.

"He wasn't surprised when you showed him the picture," said the Chinaman. "He knew something had happened to Fatma. Why don't we ask him about the earrings?"

"We will, but first let's watch him for a while. And keep our ears open. Both of you, circulate among the villagers and try to learn more about the family. See if you can find out whether Fatma ran away or was banished. And the specific nature of her rebellion. Find out what she was wearing, if anyone can describe the earrings. What about the Nasif woman, Elias? Do you think she's still holding back?"

"Maybe. But she's in a difficult position-a widow, socially vulnerable. Let me see what I can get from others before I lean on her again."

"All right, but keep her in mind. If we need to, we can arrange an interview away from prying eyes-a shopping trip, something like that."

A loud cry came from the Rashmawi house. Daniel looked at the unadorned building, noticed the empty land surrounding it.

"No neighbors," he said. "They keep to themselves. That kind of isolation breeds gossip. See if you can tap into any of it. Call Shmeltzer and find out if any family member has popped up in a file. Keep an eye out, also, for the other two brothers. Far as we know they're on a job and should be getting back before sundown. Get to them before they reach home. If Anwar leaves the house, have a chat with him too. Be persistent but respectful-don't lean too heavily on anyone. Until we know any different, everyone's a potential source of help. Good luck, and if you need me, I'll be at Saint Saviour's."

Daniel walked west along the southern perimeter of the Old City, passing worshippers of three faiths, locals, tourists, hikers, and hangers-on, until he reached the northwest corner and entered the Christian Quarter through the New Gate.

The Saint Saviour's compound dominated the mouth of the quarter, with its high walls and green-tiled steeple. Double metal doors decorated with Christian symbols marked the service entry on Bab el Jadid Road; the arch above the door was filled by a blood-red crucifix; below the cross strong black letters proclaimed: terra sancta. Above the doors the steeple topped a four-sided pastry-white tower, exquisitely molded, ringed doubly with iron balconies and set with marble-faced clocks on all sides. As Daniel entered, the bells of the monastery rang out the quarter hour.

The courtyard within was modest and quiet. Inset into one of the inner walls was a nook housing a plaster figurine of a praying Madonna against a sky-blue background speckled with gold stars. Here and there were small plaques, repetitions of the Terra Sancta designation. Otherwise the place could have been a parking lot, the back door of any restaurant, with its trash bags and garages, functional metal stairs, pickup trucks, and jumble of overhead power lines. A far cry from the visitors' center on St. Francis Street, but Daniel knew that the plain-faced buildings housed a treasure trove: Travertine marble walls set off by contrasting columns of inlaid granite, statuary, murals, gold altars and candlesticks, a fortune in gold relics. The Christians made a grand show of worship.

A trio of young Franciscan monks exited the compound and crossed his path, brown-robed and white-belted, their lowered hoods exposing pale, introspective faces. He asked them, in Hebrew, where Father Bernardo could be found, and when they looked perplexed, thought: new arrivals, and repeated the question in English.

"Infirmary," said the tallest of the three, a blue-chinned youth with hot dark eyes and the cautious demeanor of a diplomat. From the sound of his accent, a Spaniard or Portuguese.

"Is he ill?" asked Daniel, aware now of his own accent. A Babel of a conversation

"No," said the monk. "He is not. He is… caring for those who are the ill." He paused, spoke to his comrades in Spanish, then turned back to Daniel. "I take you to him."

The infirmary was a bright, clean room smelling of fresh paint and containing a dozen narrow iron beds, half of them occupied by inert old men. Large wood-framed windows afforded a view of Old City rooftops: clay domes, centuries old, crowned by TV antennas-the steeples of a new religion. The windows were cranked wide open and from the alleys below came a clucking of pigeons.

Daniel waited by the doorway and watched Father Bernardo tend to an ancient monk. Only the monk's head was visible above the covers, the skull hairless and veined with blue, the face sunken, near-translucent, the body so withered it was barely discernible beneath the sheets. On the nightstand next to the bed were a set of false teeth in a glass and a large, leather-bound Bible. On the wall above the headboard Jesus writhed on a polished metal crucifix.

Father Bernardo bent at the waist, wet a towel with water, and used it to moisten the monk's lips. Talking softly, he rearranged the pillows so that the monk could recline more comfortably. The monk's eyes closed, and Bernardo watched him sleep for several minutes before turning and noticing the detective. Smiling, he walked forward, bouncing silently on sandaled feet, the crucifix around his neck swinging in counterpoint.

"Pakad Sharavi," he said in Hebrew, and smiled. "It's been a long time."

Bernardo's waist had thickened since they'd last met. Otherwise he looked the same. The fleshy pink face of a prosperous Tuscan merchant, inquisitive gray eyes, large, rosy, shell-like ears. Snowy puffs of white hair covered a strong, broad head, the snowfall repeating itself below-in eyebrows, mustache, and Vandyke beard.

"Two years," said Daniel. "Two Easters."

"Two Passovers," Bernardo said with a smile, ushering him out of the infirmary into a dim, quiet corridor. "You're in Major Crimes now-I read about you. How have you been?"

"Very well. And you, Father?"

The priest patted his paunch and smiled. "A little too well, I'm afraid. What brings you here on a Shabbat?"

"The girl," said Daniel, showing him the photo. "I've been told she worked here."

Bernardo took the picture and examined it.

"This is little Fatma! What's happened to her!"

"I'm sorry, I can't discuss that, Father," said Daniel. But the priest heard the unspoken message and his thick fingers closed around the crucifix.

"Oh, no, Daniel."

"When's the last time you saw her, Father?" asked Daniel gently.

The fingers left the crucifix, floated upward, and began twisting white strands of beard.

"Not long ago, at all-last Wednesday afternoon. She didn't show up for breakfast Thursday morning and that's the last we saw of her."

A day and a half before the body had been found.

"When did you hire her?"

"We didn't, Daniel. One night, about three weeks ago, Brother Roselli found her crying, sitting in the gutter just inside the New Gate, on Bab el Jadid Road. It must have been in the early morning hours, actually, because he'd attended midnight mass at the Chapel of the Flagellatioft and was returning home. She was unwashed, hungry, generally knocked about, and sobbing. We took her in and fed her, let her sleep in an empty room at the hospice. The next morning she was up early, before sunrise, -scrubbing the floors, insisting that she wanted to earn her keep."

Bernardo paused, looking uncomfortable.

"It's not our practice to bring in children, Daniel, but she seemed like such a sad little thing that we allowed her to stay, temporarily, taking meals and doing little jobs so that she wouldn't feel like a beggar. We wanted to contact her family but any mention of it terrified her-she'd break out into heart-rending sobs and beg us not to. Perhaps some of it was adolescent drama, but I'm certain that a good deal of it was real. She looked like a wounded animal and we were afraid she'd run away and end up in some Godless place. But we knew she couldn't stay with us indefinitely and Brother Roselli and I had discussed transferring her to the Franciscan Sisters' Convent." The priest shook his head. "She left before we had a chance to bring it up."

"Did she tell you why she was afraid of her family?"

"She said nothing to me, but my feeling was that some kind of abuse had taken place. If she told anyone, it would have been Brother Roselli. However, he never mentioned anything to me."

"So she stayed with you a total of two and a half weeks."

"Yes."

"Did you ever see her with anyone else, Father?"

"No, but as I said, my contact with her was minimal, other than to say hello in the hallway, or suggest that she take a break-she was a hard worker, ready to scour and scrub all day."

"What was she wearing the day before she left, Father?"

Bernardo laced his fingers over his paunch and thought.

"Some sort of dress, I really don't know."

"Did she wear any jewelry?"

"Such a poor child? I wouldn't think so."

"Earrings, perhaps?"

"Perhaps-I'm not sure. Sorry, Daniel. I'm not good at noticing that kind of thing."

"Is there anything else you can tell me, Father? Anything that could help me understand what happened toher?"

"Nothing, Daniel. She passed through and was gone."

"Brother Roselli-have I met him?"

"No. He's new, been with us for six months."

"I'd like to speak to him. Do you know where he is?"

"Up on the roof, communicating with his cucumbers."

They climbed a stone stairway, Daniel sprinting, light-footed and energetic despite the fact that he hadn't had a real meal all day. When he noticed that Bernardo was huffing and pausing to catch his breath, he slowed his pace until it matched that of the priest.

A door at the top of the stairs opened to a flat area on the northeast quadrant of the monastery roof. Below was an Old City quilt of houses, churches, and vest-pocket courtyards. Just beyond the melange rose the plateau of Moriah, where Abraham had bound Isaac and where two Jewish temples had been built and destroyed, now called the Haram esh-Sharif and subjugated by the Mosque of the Rock.

Daniel looked out past the mosque's gold-leaf dome, toward the eastern city walls. From up here everything looked primitive, so vulnerable, and he was stabbed by a cruel, fleeting memory-of passing under those walls, through the Dung Gate. A walk of death, maddeningly endless-though the shock from his wounds provided a kind of sedation-as those in front of him and to his back fell under sniper fire, crumpling soundlessly, corsages of scarlet bursting through the olive-drab of battle-rancid uniforms. Now, tourists strolled along the ramparts, carefree, enjoying the view, the freedom

He and Bernardo walked toward the corner of the roof, where wine casks had been filled with planter's soil and set down in a long row within the inner angle of the rim. Some were empty; from others the first sprouts of summer vegetables nudged their way upward through the dirt: cucumbers, tomatoes, egg plant, beans, marrow. A monk held a large tin watering can and sprinkled one of the most productive casks, a large-leafed cucumber plant coiled around a stake, already abloom with yellow flowers and heavy with fuzzy fingers of infant vegetable.

Bernardo called out a greeting and the monk turned. He was in his forties, tan and freckled, with a tense foxlike face, pale-brown eyes, thin pinkish hair, and a lied beard cropped short and carelessly trimmed. When he saw Bernardo he put down the watering can and assumed a position of deference, head slightly lowered, hands clasped in front of him. Daniel's presence didn't seem to register.

Bernardo introduced them in English, and when Roselli said "Good afternoon, Chief Inspector," it was with an American accent. Unusual-most of the Franciscans came from Europe.

Roselli listened as Bernardo summarized his conversation with Daniel. The priest ended with: "The chief inspector isn't at liberty to say what's happened to her, but I'm afraid we can assume the worst, Joseph."

Roselli said nothing, but his head dipped a little lower and he turned away. Daniel heard a sharp intake of breath, then nothing.

"My son," said Bernardo, and placed a hand on Roselli's shoulder.

"Thank you, Father. I'm all right."

The Franciscans stood in silence for a moment and Daniel found himself reading the wooden tags: cornichon de

BOURBON, BIG GIRL HYBRID, AQUADULCE CLAUDIA (WHITE SEEDED), TRUE GHERKIN

Bernardo whispered something to Roselli in what sounded like Latin, patted his shoulder again, and said to Daniel: "The two of you speak. I've chores to attend to. If there's anything else you need, Daniel, I'll be across the way, at the College."

Daniel thanked him and Bernardo shuffled off.

Alone with Roselli, Daniel smiled at the monk, who responded by looking down at his hands, then at the watering can.

"Feel free to continue watering," Daniel told him. "We can talk while you work."

"No, that's all right. What do you need to know?"

"Tell me about the first time you saw Fatma-the night you took her in."

"They're not the same, Inspector," said Roselli quietly, as if admitting a transgression. His eyes looked everywhere but at Daniel.

"Oh?"

"The first time I saw her was three or four days before we took her in. On the Via Dolorosa, near the Sixth Station of the Cross."

"Near the Greek Chapel?"

"Just past it."

"What was she doing there?"

"Nothing. Which was why I noticed her. The tourists were milling around, along with their guides, but she was off to the side, not trying to beg or sell anything-simply standing there. I thought it was unusual for an Arab girl of that age to be out by herself." Roselli hid the lower part of his face behind his hand. It seemed a defensive gesture, almost guilty.

"Was she soliciting for prostitution?"

Roselli looked pained. "I wouldn't know."

"Do you remember anything else about her?"

"No, it… I was on a… meditative walk, Inspector. Father Bernardo has instructed me to walk regularly, in order to cut myself off from external stimuli, to get closer to my… spiritual core. But my attention wandered and I saw her."

Another confession.

Roselli stopped talking, eyed the casks, and said, "Some of these are getting wilted. I think I will water." Lifting the watering can, he began walking along the row, probing, sprinkling.

The Catholics, thought Daniel, tagging along. Always baring their souls. The result, he supposed, of living totally in the head-faith is everything, thoughts equivalent to actions. Peek at a pretty girl and it's as bad as if you slept with her. Which could make for plenty of sleepless nights. He looked at Roselli's profile, as grim and humorless as that of a cave-dwelling prophet. A prophet of doom, perhaps? Tormented by his own fallibility?

Or did the torment result from something more serious than lust?

"Did the two of you talk, Brother Roselli?"

"No," came the too-quick answer. Roselli pinched off a brown tomato leaf, turned over several others, searching for parasites. "She seemed to be staring at me-I may have been staring myself. She looked disheveled and I wondered what had caused a young girl to end up like that. It's an occupational hazard, wondering about misfortune. I was once a social worker."

A zealous one, no doubt.

"Then what?"

Roselli looked puzzled.

"What did you do after you exchanged stares, Brother Roselli?"

"I returned to Saint Saviour's."

"And the next time you saw her was when?"

"As I said, three or four days later. I was returning from late Mass, heard sobs from the Bab el Jadid side, went to take a look, and saw her sitting in the gutter, crying. I asked her what the matter was-in English. I don't speak Arabic. But she just continued to sob. I didn't know if she understood me, so I tried in Hebrew-my Hebrew's broken but it's better than my Arabic. Still no answer. Then I noticed that she looked thinner than the first time I'd seen her-it was dark, but even in the moonlight the difference was pronounced. Which made me suspect she hadn't eaten for days. I asked her if she wanted food, pantomimed eating, and she stopped crying and nodded. So I gestured for her to wait, woke up Father Bernardo, and he told me to bring her in. The next morning she was up working, and Father Bernardo agreed to let her stay on until we found her more suitable lodgings."

"What led her to drift through the Old City?"

"I don't know," said Roselli. He stopped watering, examining the dirt beneath his fingernails, then lowered the can again.

"Did you ask her about it?"

"No. The language barrier." Roselli flushed, shielded his face with his hand again, and looked at the vegetables.

More to it than that, thought Daniel. The girl had affected him, maybe sexually, and he wasn't equipped to deal with it.

Or perhaps he'd dealt with it in an unhealthy way.

Nodding reassuringly, Daniel said, "Father Bernardo said she was frightened about having her family contacted. Do you know why?"

"I assumed there'd been some sort of abuse."

"Why's that?"

"Sociologically it made sense-an Arab girl cut off from her family like that. And she reminded me of the kids I used to counsel-nervous, a little too eager to please. Afraid to be spontaneous or step out of bounds, as if doing or saying the wrong thing would get them punished. There's a look they all have-maybe you've seen it. Weary and bruised."

Daniel remembered the girl's body. Smooth and unblemished except for the butchery.

"Where was she bruised?" he asked.

"Not literal bruises," said Roselli. "I meant it in a psychological sense. She had frightened eyes, like a wounded animal."

The same phrase Bernardo had used-Fatma had been a subject of discussion between the two Franciscans.

"How long were you a social worker?" Daniel asked.

"Seventeen years."

"In America?"

The monk nodded. "Seattle, Washington."

"Puget Sound," said Daniel.

"You've been there?" Roselli was surprised.

Daniel smiled, shook his head.

"My wife's an artist. She did a painting last summer, using photographs from a calendar. Puget Sound-big boats, silver water. A beautiful place."

"Plenty of ugliness," said Roselli, "if you know where to look." He extended his arm over the rim of the roof, pointed down at the jumble of alleys and courtyards. "That," he said, "is beauty. Sacred beauty. The core of civilization."

"True," said Daniel, but he thought the comment naive, the sweetened perception of the born-again. The core, as the monk called it, had been consecrated in blood for thirty centuries. Wave after wave of pillage and massacre, all in the name of something sacred.

Roselli looked upward and Daniel followed his gaze. The blue of the sky was beginning to deepen under a slowly descending sun. A passing cloud cast platinum shadows over the Dome of the Rock. The bells of Saint Saviour's rang but again, trailed by a muezzin's call from a nearby minaret.

Daniel pulled himself away, returned to his questions.

"Do you have any idea how Fatma ended up in the Old City?"

"No. At first I thought she may have gravitated toward The Little Sisters of Charles Foucauld-they wipe the faces of the poor, and their chapel is near where I saw her. But I went there and asked and they'd never seen her."

They'd come to the last of the casks. Roselli put down the watering can and faced Daniel.

"I've been blessed, Inspector," he said, urgently. Eager to convince. "Given the chance for a new life. I try to do as much thinking and as little talking as possible. There's really nothing more I can tell you."

But even as he said it, his face seemed to weaken, as if buckling under the weight of a burdensome thought. A troubled man. Daniel wasn't ready to let go of him just yet.

"Can you think of anything that would help me, Brother Roselli? Anything that Fatma said or did that would lead me to understand her?"

The monk rubbed his hands together. Freckled hands, the knuckles soil-browned, the fingernails yellowed and cracked. He looked at the vegetables, down at the ground, then back at the vegetables.

"I'm sorry, no."

"What kind of clothes did she wear?"

"She had only one garment. A simple shift."

"What color?"

"White, I believe, with some kind of stripe."

"What color stripe?"

"I don't remember, Inspector."

"Did she wear jewelry?"

"Not that I noticed."

"Earrings?"

"There may have been earrings."

"Can you describe them?"

"No," said the monk, emphatically. "I didn't look at her that closely. I'm not even sure if she wore any."

"There are many kinds of earrings," said Daniel. "Hoops, pendants, studs."

"They could have been hoops."

"How large?"

"Small, very simple."

"What color?"

"I have no idea."

Daniel took a step closer. The monk's robe smelled of topsoil and tomato leaves.

"Is there anything else you can tell me, Brother Roselli?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all?" pressed Daniel, certain there was more. "I need to understand her."

Roselli's eye twitched. He took a deep breath and let it out.

"I saw her with young men," he said, softly, as if betraying a confidence.

"How many?"

"At least two."

"At least?"

"She went out at night. I saw her with two men. There may have been others."

"Tell me about the two you saw."

"One used to meet her there." Roselli pointed east, toward the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, with its grape arbors and fruit trees espaliered along the walls. "Thin, with long dark hair and a mustache."

"How old?"

"Older than Fatma-perhaps nineteen or twenty."

"An Arab?"

"I assume so. They talked to each other and all Fatma spoke was Arabic."

"Did they do anything other than talk?"

Roselli reddened.

"There was some… kissing. When it got dark, they'd go off together."

"Where to?"

"Toward the center of the Old City."

"Did you see where?"

The monk looked out at the city, extended his hands palms-up, in a gesture of helplessness.

"It's a labyrinth, Inspector. They stepped into the shadows and were gone."

"How many of these meetings did you witness?"

The word witness made the monk wince, as if it reminded him that he'd been spying.

"Three or four."

"During what time of day -did the meetings occur?"

"I was up here, watering, so it had to be close to sunset."

"And when it got dark, they left together."

"Yes."

"Walking east."

"Yes. I really didn't watch them that closely."

"What else can you tell me about the man with the long hair?"

"Fatma seemed to like him."

"Like him?"

"She smiled when she was with him."

"What about his clothing?"

"He looked poor."

"Ragged?"

"No, just poor. I can't say exactly why I formed that impression."

"All right," said Daniel. "What about the other one?"

"Him I saw once, a few days before she left. This was at night, the same circumstances as the time we took her in. I was returning from late Mass, heard voices-crying-from the Bab el Jadid side of the monastery, took a look, and saw her sitting, talking to this fellow. He was standing over her and I could see he was short-maybe five foot five or six. With big glasses."

"How old?"

"It was hard to tell in the dark. I saw the light reflect off his head, so he must have been bald. But I don't think he was old."

"Why's that?"

"His voice-it sounded boyish. And the way he stood-his posture seemed like that of a young man." Roselli paused. "These are just impressions, Inspector. I couldn't swear to any of them."

Impressions that added up to a perfect description of Anwar Rashmawi.

"Were they doing anything other than talking?" Daniel asked.

"No. If any… romance had ever existed between them, it was long over. He was talking very quickly-sounded angry, as if he were scolding her."

"How did Fatma respond to the scolding?"

"She cried."

"Did she say anything at all?"

"Maybe a few words. He was doing most of the talking. He seemed to be in charge-but that's part of their culture, isn't it?"

"What happened after he was through scolding her?"

"He walked away in a huff and she sat there crying. I thought of approaching her, decided against it, and went into the monastery. She was up working the next morning, so she must have come in. A few days later she was gone."

"Following this meeting, what was her mood like?"

"I have no idea."

"Did she look frightened? Worried? Sad?"

Roselli blushed again, this time more deeply.

"I never looked that closely, Inspector."

"Your impression, then."

"I have no impression, Inspector. Her moods were none of my business."

"Have you ever been in her room?"

"No. Never."

"Did you see anything indicating she used drugs?"

"Of course not."

"You seem very sure of that."

"No, I'm… she was young. A very simple little girl."

Too pat a conclusion for a former social worker, thought Daniel. He asked the monk: "The day before she left she was wearing the striped white shift?"

"Yes," said Roselli, annoyed. "I told you she only had the one."

"And the earrings."

"If there were earrings."

"If," agreed Daniel. "Is there anything else you wish to tell me?"

"Nothing," said Roselli, folding his arms across his chest. He was sweating heavily, gripping one hand with the other.

"Thank you, then. You've been very helpful."

"Have I?" asked Roselli, looking perplexed. As if trying to decide whether he'd been virtuous or sinful.

An interesting man, thought Daniel, leaving the monastery. Jumpy and troubled and something else-immature.

When Father Bernardo had spoken about Fatma, there had been a clearly paternal flavor to his concerns. But Roselli's responses-his emotional level-had been different. As if he and the girl were on a peer level.

Daniel stopped on Bab el Jadid Road, near the spot where Roselli had twice seen Fatma. He tried to put his impressions of the monk into focus-something was cooking inside the man. Anger? Hurt? The pain of jealousy-that was it. Roselli had spoken of Fatma being wounded, but he seemed wounded himself. A spurned lover. Jealous of the young men she met at night.

He wanted to know more about the redheaded monk. About why Joseph Roselli, social worker from Seattle, Washington, had turned into a brown-robed roof-gardener unable to keep his mind on sacred meditation. And his thoughts off a fifteen-year-old girl.

He'd put one of the men-Daoud-on a loose surveillance of the monk, run a background check himself.

There were other matters to be dealt with as well. Who was Fatma's long-haired boyfriend and where did she go with him? And what of Anwar the Punished, who knew where his sister had found sanctuary. And had scolded her shortly before she disappeared.

Words, thought Avi Cohen. A flood of words, clogging him, choking him, making his head reel. And on Saturday night, no less. His heavy date: the goddamn files.

Looking at the missing-kid pictures had been tedious but tolerable-pictures were okay. Then Shmeltzer had gotten the phone call and announced that it had all been for nothing. That his job had changed; there was a new assignment: Go back over the same two thousand files and search for a name-a hell of a lot more complicated than it sounded, because the computer boys had scrambled the folders, and nothing was alphabetized. Pure hell. But the old guy hadn't seemed to notice his slowness-too caught up in his own work.

Finally he finished, having found no Rashmawis, and told Shmeltzer, who didn't even bother to look up as he gave him a new assignment: Go up to the Record Room and look for the same name in all the crime files. All of them. Rashmawi. Any Rashmawi.

The Records officer was a woman-nothing more than a clerk, but her three stripes outranked him. A hard-ass, too; she made him fill out a mountain of forms before giving him the computer lists, which meant writing as well as reading. More words-random assortments of lines and curves, a whirlpool of shapes that he could drown in unless he forced himself to concentrate, to use the little tricks he'd learned over the years in order to decipher what came so easily to others. Sitting at a school desk in a corner, like some overgrown retarded kid. Concentrating until his eyes blurred and his head hurt.

Exactly the kind of thing he'd joined the police to avoid.

He started with Offenses Against Human Life, the juiciest category and one of the smallest. At least this stuff was alphabetized. First step was locating the names in each subcategory that began with the letter resh-which could be confusing because resh and dalet looked similar, and even though dalet was at the beginning of the alphabet and resh toward the end, his damned brain seemed to keep forgetting that. Yud could be a problem, too-same shape as resh-if you looked at it in isolation from the other letters around it and forgot that it was smaller. Several times he got flustered, lost his place, and had to start all over again, following his fingertip down columns of small print. But finally he managed to cover all of it: Murder, Attempted Murder, Manslaughter, Death by Negligence, Threats to Kill, and the Other Offenses listing that was always tagged on at the end. In 263 files, no Rashmawis.

Offenses Against the Human Body was absolute torture-10,000 Assault files, several hundred under resh-and his head hurt a lot more when he finished, hot pulses in his temples, a ring of pain around his eyes.

Offenses Against Property was even worse, a real nightmare; burglary seemed to be the national pastime, all those two-wage-earner homes easy pickings, over 100,000 files, only some of it computerized. Impossible. He put it aside for later. Shmeltzer had the Sex Offenses printout, which left Security, Public Order, Morals, Fraud, Economic, and Administrative crimes.

He began with Security crimes-the Rashmawis were Arabs. Of 932 cases, half had to do with violations of emergency laws, which meant the territories. No Rashmawis in the territories. No Rashmawis in the entire category. But wrestling with the words had caused the pain in his head to erupt into a giant, throbbing headache-the same hot, sickening pain he'd experienced all through school. Brain strain had been his secret name for it. His father had called it faking. Even after the doctors had explained it. Bullshit. If he's strong enough to play soccer, he's strong enough to do his homework

Bastard.

He got up, asked the Records officer if there was any coffee. She was sitting behind her desk reading what looked like the Annual Crime Report and didn't answer.

"Coffee," he repeated. "Do I have to fill out a form to get some?"

She looked up. Not a bad-looking girl, really. A petite brunette, with braided hair, a cute little pointed face. Moroccan or Iraqi, just the type he liked.

"What was that?"

He turned on the smile. "Do you have any coffee?"

She looked at her watch. "You're not finished yet?"

"No."

"I don't know what's taking you so long."

Cunt. He held on to his temper.

"Coffee. Do you have any?"

"No." She returned to the report. Started reading and shut him out. Really into the charts and statistics. As if it were some kind of romantic novel.

Cursing, he returned to his lists. Offenses Against Morals: 60 Pimping cases. Nothing. Soliciting: 130 cases. Nothing. Maintaining a Brothel, Seduction of Minors, Dissemination of Indecent Material, nothing, nothing, nothing.

The Loitering for the Purpose of Prostitution subcategory was tiny: 18 cases for the year. Two under resh:

Radnick, J. Northern District Rashmawi, A. Southern District

He copied down the case number, laboring over each digit, double-checking to make sure he had it perfect. Getting up again, he walked to the counter and cleared his throat until the Records officer looked up from her goddamned report.

"What is it?"

"I need this one." He read off the numbers.

Frowning with annoyance, she came around from behind the desk, handed him a requisition form, and said, "Fill this out."

"Again?"

She said nothing, just gave him a snotty look.

Grabbing up the paper, he moved several feet down the counter, pulled out a pen, and sweated with it. Taking too long.

"Hey," said the girl, finally. "What's the problem?"

"Nothing," he snarled and shoved it at her.

She inspected the file, stared at him as if he were some kind of freak, goddamn her, then took the form, went into the Records Room, and returned several minutes later with the rashmawi, A., file.

He took it from her, went back to the school desk, sat down, and read the name on the tag: Anwar Rashmawi. Flipping it open, he sloughed through the arrest report: The perpetrator had been busted three years ago on the Green Line, near Sheikh Jarrah, after he and a whore had gotten into some kind of shoving match. A Latam detective had been on special assignment nearby-hidden in some bushes looking for terrorists- and had heard the noise. Tough luck for Anwar Rashmawi.

The second page was something from Social Services, then what looked like doctors' reports-he'd seen enough of those. Words, pages of them. He decided to scan the whole file, then go back over it, word by word, so that he'd be able to make a good presentation to Shmeltzer.

He turned another page. Ah, now here was something he could deal with. A photograph. Polaroid, full color. He smiled. But then he looked at the picture, saw what was in it, and the smile died. Shit. Look at that. Poor devil.

Sunday, nine a.m., and the heat was punishing.

The Dheisheh camp stunk sulfurously of sewage. The houses-if you cou'td ca't't them that-were mud-brick hovels wounded by punch-through windows and roofed with tarpaper; the paths between the buildings, boggy trenches.

A shithole, thought Shmeltzer, as he followed the Chinaman and the new kid, Cohen, brushing away flies and gnats and walking toward the rear of the camp, where the little pisser was supposed to live.

Issa Abdelatif.

The way the Chinaman told it, the villagers of Silwan had been less than talkative. But Daoud had leaned on an old widow and finally gotten a name for Fatma's long-haired boyfriend. She'd overheard the Rashmawis talking about him. A lowlife type. She had no idea where he came from.

The name cropped up again, in the Offenses Against Property files, subcategory: Theft by Employee or Agent. He'd sent Cohen looking for it and the kid had stayed away so long Shmeltzer wondered if he'd drowned in the toilet or walked off the job. He'd gone looking for him, ran into him jogging up the stairs. Grinning ear to ear, with a look-at-me expression on his pretty-boy face. Dumb kid.

The file itself was petty stuff. Abdelatif had worked the previous autumn as a ditch digger at a construction site in Talpiyot, and whenever he was around, tools started disappearing. The contractor had called in the police, and a subsequent investigation revealed that the little punk had been stealing picks, trowels, and shovels and selling them to residents of the refugee camp where he lived with his brother-in-law and sister. Following his arrest, he led the police to a cache at the rear of the camp, a hole in the ground where many of the tools were still hidden. The contractor, happy at getting most of his goods back and wanting to avoid the nuisance of a trial, refused to press charges. Two days in the Russian Compound jail, and the punk was back on the streets.

A rat-faced little pisser, thought Shmeltzer, recalling the arrest photo. Long stringy hair, a weak chin, a pitiful mustache, rodent eyes. Nineteen years old and no doubt he'd been stealing all his life. Forty-eight hours behind bars wasn't what lowlifes like that needed. A little hard time-getting his ass battered at Ramie-and he would have thought twice about misbehaving. Then maybe they wouldn't be trudging through donkey shit looking for him

All three of them carried Uzis, in addition to the 9 mms. Armed invaders. An army truck was stationed outside the entrance to the camp. Establishing a strong presence, showing who was in charge. But still they had to look over their shoulders as they sloshed through the muck.

He hated going into these places. Not just the poverty and the hopelessness, but the fact that it made no damned sense at all.

All that crap about the Arabs and their strong sense of family, and look how they treated their own.

Fucking King Hussein. In the nineteen years he'd occupied Judea and Samaria, he hadn't done a goddamned thing in the way of social welfare. Too busy building himself that goddamned palace on the Hebron road and knocking up his goddamned American wife-no, back then it was still one of the Arab ones.

Once a year the refugees sent letters to the Welfare and Labor Ministry in Amman, and if they were lucky, each family received a few dinars or nine kilograms of flour three months later. Thank you, King Shit.

But the do-gooders-the private agencies-were all over the place, or at least their offices were. Air-conditioned places on the nicer streets of Bethlehem and East Jerusalem. The Saint Victor's Society, the American Friends Services Committee, the Lutherans, AMIDEAST, UNIPAL, ANERA, with all that American oil money behind it. And the U.N., with its big white sign plastered across the the front of the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the camp. ADMINISTERED BY THE UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY. Administered. What the hell did that mean?

Not to mention the Saudis and the Kuwaitis. And the fucking PLO, big business with its banks and factories and farms and its airports in Africa-a report he'd just seen estimated the bastards' net worth at 10 billion. Abu Mussa got a hundred grand American each month just for entertainment expenses.

All that money, all the goddamned do-gooders, and the people in the camps still lived like wretches. Where the hell did all of it go? The U.N. guy's Mercedes parked right in front of the camp was a partial answer-they got them subsidized for $4,000 American-but Mercedes alone didn't start to explain it.

A big scam-the kind of theft he would have loved to investigate.

The U.N. guy was a sour-looking Norwegian with a kaffiyah hanging around his neck. Playing Great White Father, with his clipboard and pen on a chain, gazing down on the sixty or seventy people queuing up in front of him for some sort of privilege. When the three of them came in he'd looked down his nose at them, as if they were the bad guys. Gave them a hassle even though he had no legal jurisdiction over anything. But Dani had said not to make waves, so they put up with it for a while, watching the bastard fill out forms, screw around, and give them lemon-sucking looks before coming up with Abdelatifs address. Meanwhile the people in the queue had to wait for whatever morsel the Norwegian was doling out. Typical.

As if it were up to the Jews to solve the problem the Arabs had created-to eat the shit that nobody else had an appetite for. And the goddamned government fell into it, playing the liberal game-putting the refugees on the Israeli welfare rolls, giving them houses, schooling, free medical care. Since '67 their infant mortality had dropped way down. More little pissers to contend with.

Far as he was concerned, the people in the camp were cowards and the descendants of cowards. They'd run away from Jaffa and Lod and Haifa and Jerusalem because the Arab Legion had scared the shit out of them with those hysterical radio broadcasts back in '48. He'd been a wet-eared kid of eighteen, remembered it well. Harsh voices screaming that the Jews ate babies alive, would cut the tits off their women, grind their bones, fuck their eye sockets, and drink their blood.

Jihad had begun, the voices promised. A Holy War to end all wars. The infidels have been attacked and will soon be routed and driven into the Mediterranean. Leave at once and return soon with the victorious forces of the United Arab Armies. Not only will you reclaim your homes, noble brothers, but you will be privileged to confiscate everything the filthy Zionists have accumulated.

Thousands of them listened and believed, falling over one another to escape. Swarming up into Syria and Lebanon and Gaza, pouring into Jordan in such numbers that the Allenby Bridge sagged under their weight. And when they got there, what did their Arab brethren with the strong family ties to do for them? Built camps and locked them up. Just temporary, Ahmed. Wait in your nice little tent. Paradise is coming soon-dead Jews and endless virgins to fuck.

Still waiting, he thought, eyeing a shriveled old woman sitting in the dirt and pounding chickpeas in a bowl. The door to her hovel was open; inside was an equally shriveled old man, lying on a mattress, smoking a narghila. Fucking political footballs.

The educated ones had found jobs, settled all over the world. But the poor ones, the defective and stupid ones, stayed in the camps. Living like barnyard animals-breeding like them too. There were 400,000 of them still penned up in Lebanon and Jordan and Syria, another 300,000 dumped in Israel's lap after '67, with 230,000 in Gaza alone. Far as he was concerned, you build a wall around the Strip, stash them all there, and call it Palestine.

Three hundred thousand wretches. The spoils of victory.

The location the Norwegian had given them was midway through the camp, a mud house that looked as if it were melting. Empty oil drums were stacked along one side. Lizards ran over them, chasing insects.

Maksoud, the brother-in-law, sat at a card table in front of the house in a greasy white shirt and snot-shiny black pants, playing sheshbesh with a kid of about twelve. The firstborn son. Privileged to sit with the old man and piss his life way.

Not that the old man was so old. A sleepy-looking guy, pasty-faced, maybe thirty, with a ratty-looking mustache no better than Abdelatif's, skinny arms, and a potbelly. A livid worm of scar tissue ran the length of his left forearm. Nasty-looking.

He shook the dice, looked at their Uzis, rolled, and said, "He's not here."

"Who's not here?" asked Shmeltzer.

"The pig, the leech."

"Does the pig have a name?"

"Abdelatif, Issa."

A thick-skinned lizard ran up the side of the building, stopped, bobbed its head, and climbed out of sight.

"What makes you think we're looking for him?" asked the Chinaman.

"Who else?" Maksoud moved two backgammon discs. The kid picked up the dice.

"We'd like to look inside your home," said Shmeltzer.

"I have no home."

Always polemics.

"This house," said Shmeltzer, letting him know by the tone of his voice that he was in no mood to take any shit.

Maksoud looked up at him. Shmeltzer looked right back, kicked the side of the house. Maksoud gave a phlegmy cough and yelled, "Aisha!"

A short, thin woman opened the door. In her hand was a grimy dish towel.

"These are police. They're looking for your pig brother."

"He's not here," said the woman, looking scared.

"They're coming in to see bur home."

The boy had rolled double sixes. He moved three discs into his home zone and removed one from the board.

"Ahh," said Maksoud, and he rose from the table. "Put it away, Tawfik. You learn too well."

There was an overtone of threat in his voice, and the boy complied, looking frightened, just like his mother.

"Get out of here," said Maksoud and the boy ran off. The brother-in-law pushed the wife out of the way and went inside. The detectives followed him.

Just what you'd expect, thought Shmeltzer. Two tiny rooms and a cooking area, hot, filthy, smelly. A baby on the floor wearing a skullcap of flies, a chamber pot that needed emptying. No running water, no electricity. Crawling bugs decorating the walls. Administered.

The wife busied herself with drying a dish. Maksoud sat down heavily on a torn cushion that looked as if it had once been part of a sofa. His paleness had taken on a yellowish cast. Shmeltzer wondered it it was the light or jaundice. The place felt dangerous, contagious.

"Have a smoke," he told the Chinaman, wanting something to burn away the smell. The big man pulled out his pack of Marlboros, offered it to Maksoud, who hesitated, then took one and let the detective light it for him.

"When's the last time you saw him?" Shmeltzer asked when the two of them were puffing away.

Maksoud hesitated and the Chinaman didn't seem interested in waiting for an answer. He started walking through the room, looking, touching things, but lightly, without seeming intrusive. Shmeltzer noticed that Cohen seemed lost, not knowing what to do. One hand on the Uzi. Scared shitless, no doubt.

Shmeltzer repeated the question.

"Four or five days," said Maksoud. "Insha'Allah, it will stretch to eternity."

The woman gathered enough courage to look up.

"Where is he?" Shmeltzer asked her.

"She knows nothing," said Maksoud. A glance from him lowered her head just as surely as if he'd pushed it down with his hands.

"Is it his habit to leave?"

"Does a pig have habits?"

"What did he do to piss you off?"

Maksoud laughed coldly. "Zaiyel mara," he spat. "He is like a woman." The ultimate Arabic insult, branding Abdelatif as deceitful and irresponsible. "For fifteen years I've been putting him up and all he creates is trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"From the time he was a baby-playing with matches, almost set the place on fire. Not that it would be a great loss, eh? Your government promised me a house. Five years ago and I'm still in this shithole."

"What else besides the matches?"

"I told him about the matches, tried to knock sense into him. Little pig kept doing it. One of my sons got burned on the face."

"What else?" Shmeltzer repeated.

"What else? When he was about ten he started to knife rats and cats and watch them die. Brought them inside and watched. She didn't do a thing to stop him. When I found out about it I beat him thoroughly and he threatened to use the knife on me."

"What did you do about that?"

"Took it away from him and beat him some more. He didn't learn. Stupid pig!"

The sister suppressed a sniffle. The Chinaman stopped walking. Shmeltzer and Cohen turned and saw the tears flowing down her cheeks.

Her husband stood up quickly and turned on her, screaming. "Stupid woman! Is this a lie? Is it a lie that he's a pig, descended from pigs? Had I known what lineage and dowry you brought I would have run from our wedding all the way to Mecca."

The woman backed away and bowed her head again. Wiped a dish that had dried long ago. Maksoud swore and settled back down on the cushion.

"What kind of knife did he use on the animals?" asked the Chinaman.

"All kinds. Whatever he could find or steal-in addition to his other fine qualities he's a thief." Maksoud's eyes scanned the putrid house. "You can see our wealth, how much money we have to spare. I tried to get hold of his U.N. allotment, to force him to pay his share, but he always managed to hide it-and steal mine as well. All for his stinking games."

"What kinds of games?" asked Shmeltzer.

"Sheshbesh, cards, dice."

"Where did he gamble?"

"Anywhere there was a game."

"Did he go into Jerusalem to play?"

"Jerusalem, Hebron. The lowest of the coffeehouses."

"Did he ever make any money?"

The question enraged Maksoud. He made a fist and shook one scrawny arm in the air.

"Always a loser! A parasite! When you find him, throw him in one of your prisons-everyone knows how Palestinians are treated there."

"Where can we find him?" asked Shmeltzer.

Maksoud shrugged expansively. "What do you want him for anyway?"

"What do you think?"

"Could be anything-he was born to steal."

"Did you ever see him with a girl?"

"Not girls, whores. Three times he brought home the body lice. All of us had to wash ourselves with something the doctor gave us."

Shmeltzer showed him the picture of Fatma Rashmawi.

"Ever seen her?"

No reaction. "Nah."

"Did he use drugs?"

"What would I know of such things?"

Ask a stupid question

"Where do you think he's gone?"

Maksoud shrugged again. "Maybe to Lebanon, maybe to Amman, maybe to Damascus."

"Does he have family connections in any of those places?"

"No."

"Anywhere else?"

"No." Maksoud looked hatefully at his wife. "He's the last of a stinking line. The parents died in Amman, there was another brother left, lived up in Beirut, but you Jews finished him off last year."

The sister buried her face and tried to hide herself in a corner of the cooking area.

"Has Issa ever been up to Lebanon?" asked Shmeltzer- another stupid question, but they'd walked through shit to get here, why not ask? His Sheraton companion had turned up nothing political, but it had been short notice and she had other sources yet to check.

"What for? He's a thief, not a fighter."

Shmeltzer smiled, stepped closer, and looked down at Maksoud's left forearm.

"He steal that scar for you?"

The brother-in-law covered the forearm, hastily.

"A work injury," he said. But the belligerence in his voice failed to mask the fear in his eyes.

"A knife man," said the Chinaman, as they drove back to Jerusalem.

The unmarked's air conditioning had malfunctioned and all the windows were opened. They passed an army halftrack and an Arab on a donkey. Black-robed women picked fruit from the huge, gnarled fig trees that lined the road. The earth was the color of freshly baked bread.

"Very convenient, eh?" said Shmeltzer.

"You don't like it?"

"If it's real, I'm in love with it. First let's find the bastard."

"Why," asked Cohen, "did the brother-in-law speak so freely to us?" He was behind the wheel, driving fast, the feel of the auto giving him confidence.

"Why not?" said Shmeltzer.

"We're the enemy."

"Think about it, boychik," said the older man. "What did he really tell us?"

Cohen sped up around a curve, felt the sweat trickle down his back as he strained to remember the exact wording of the interview.

"Not much," he said.

"Exactly," said Shmeltzer. "He brayed like a goat until it came down to substance-like where to find the pisser. Then he clammed up." The radio was belching static. He reached over and turned it off. "The end result being that the bastard got a bunch of shit off his chest and told us nothing. When we get back to Headquarters, I'm sending him a bill for psychotherapy."

The other detectives laughed, Cohen finally starting to feel like one of them. In the back the Chinaman stretched out his long legs and lit up a Marlboro. Taking a deep drag, he put his hand out the window and let the breeze blow off the ashes.

"What about the Rashmawi brothers?" asked Shmeltzer.

"The defective one never came out of the house all night," said the Chinaman. "The two older ones were hard-asses. Daoud and I questioned them before they got home and they didn't even blink. Tough guys, like the father. Knew nothing about anything-not an eye-blink when we told them Fatma was dead."

"Cold," said Avi Cohen.

"What's it like," asked Shmeltzer, "working with the Arab?"

The Chinaman smoked and thought.

"Daoud? Like working with anyone else, I guess. Why?"

"Just asking."

"You've got to be tolerant, Nahum," the Chinaman said, smiling. "Open yourself up to new experiences."

"New experiences, bullshit," said Shmeltzer. "Theold ones are bad enough."

On Sunday at six P.M., Daniel came home to an empty apartment.

Twenty-four hours ago he'd left Saint Saviour's and gone walking through the Old City, down the Via Dolorosa and through the Christian Quarter with its mass of churches and rest spots commemorating the death walk of Jesus, then over through El Wad Road to the covered bazaar that filled David Street and the Street of the Chain. Talking to Arab souvenir vendors hawking made-in-Taiwan T-shirts aimed at American tourists (l LOVE ISRAEL with a small red heart substituted for the word love; KISS ME, I'M A JEWISH PRINCE above a caricature of a frog wearing a crown). He entered the stalls of spice traders presiding over bins of cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, and mint; talked to barbers deftly wielding straight razors; butchers slicing their way through the carcasses of sheep and goats, viscera hanging flaccidly from barbed metal hooks affixed to blood-pinkened tile walls. Showed Fatma's picture to metalsmiths, grocers, porters, and beggars; touched base with the Arab uniforms who patrolled the Muslim Quarter, and the Border Patrolmen keeping an eye on the Western Wall. Trying, without success, to find someone who'd seen the girl or her boyfriend.

After that, there had been a quick break for prayer at the Kotel, then the conference with the other detectives in a corner of the parking lot near the Jewish Quarter. What was supposed to have been a brief get-together had stretched out after Daoud had reported pulling Abdelatifs ID out of Mrs. Nasif, and Shmeltzer had arrived with the arrest information on both the boyfriend and Anwar Rashmawi. The five of them had traded guesses, discussed possibilities. The case seemed to be coming together, taking form, though he was far from sure what the final picture would look like.

By the time he'd gotten home last night, it had been close to midnight and everyone was asleep. His own slumber was fitful and he rose at five thirty, full of nervous energy. Abdelatifs family had been located in the Dheisheh camp, and he wanted to reconfirm the trip with the army, to make sure that everything went smoothly.

He'd traded sleepy good-byes with Laura and kissed the kids on their foreheads while buttoning his shirt. The boys had rolled away from him, but Shoshi had reached out in her sleep, wrapped her arms around him so tightly that he'd had to peel her fingers from his neck.

Leaving that way had made him feel wistful and guilty- since the case had begun he'd barely had time for any of them, and so soon after Gray Man. Foolish guilt, really. It had been only two days, but the nonstop pace made it seem longer, and the loss of Shabbat had disrupted his routine.

As he walked out the door, the image of his own father filled his childhood memories-always there for him, ready with a smile or words of comfort, knowing exactly the right thing to say. Would Shoshi and Benny and Mikey feel the same way about him in twenty years?

Those feelings resurfaced as he arrived home on Sunday evening, weary from empty hours of surveillance and hoping to catch Laura before she left to pick up Luanne and Gene. But all was quiet except for Dayan's welcoming yips.

He petted the dog and read the note on the dining room table: ("Off to Ben Gurion, love. Food's in the refrig., the kids are at friends.") If he'd known which friends, he could have dropped by, but they had so many, there was no way to guess.

He stayed just long enough to eat a quick dinner-pita and hummus, leftover Shabbat chicken that he'd never had a chance to eat hot, a handful of black wine grapes, two cups of instant coffee to wash it all down. Dayan kept him company, begging for scraps, the black patch surrounding the little spaniel's left eye quivering each time he cried.

"Okay, okay," said Daniel. "But just this little piece." Finishing quickly, he wiped his face, said grace after meals, changed his shirt, and was out the door at six twenty-five, behind the wheel of the Escort and speeding back toward Silwan.

Sunday night. The end of Christian Sabbath and all the church bells were ringing. He parked on the outskirts of the village and covered the rest of the journey on foot. By seven he was was back in the olive grove, with Daoud and the Chinaman. Watching.

"Why don't we just go in there and lay it on the line with them?" said the Chinaman. "Tell them we know about Abdelatif and ask them if they took care of him?" He picked up a fallen olive, rolled it between his fingers, and tossed it aside. Ten forty-three, nothing had happened, and he couldn't even smoke in case someone saw the glow. The kind of night that made him think about another line of work.

"They're hardly likely to tell us," said Daniel.

"So? We're not finding out anything this way. If we confront them, at least we've got the element of surprise working for us."

"We can always do that," said Daniel. "Let's wait a while longer."

"For what?"

"Maybe nothing."

"For all we know," persisted the Chinaman, "the guy's still alive, flown off to Amman or Damascus."

"Looking into that is someone else's job. This is ours."

At eleven-ten, a man out of the Rashmawi house, looked both ways, and walked silently down the pathway. A small dark shadow, barely discernible against a coal-black sky. The detectives had to strain to keep him in their sights as he made his way east, to where the bluff dipped its lowest.

Climbing gingerly down the embankment, he began walking down the hill, in the center of their visual field. Merging in the darkness for stretches of time that seemed interminable, then surfacing briefly as a moonlit hint of movement. Like a swimmer bobbing up and down in a midnight lagoon, thought Daniel as he focused his binoculars.

The man came closer. The binoculars turned him into something larger, but still unidentifiable. A dark, fuzzy shape, sidling out of view.

It reminded Daniel of '67. Lying on his belly on Ammunition Hill, holding his breath, feeling weightless with terror, burning with pain, his body reduced to something hollow and flimsy.

The Butcher's Theater, they called the hills of Jerusalem. Terrain full of nasty surprises. It carved up soldiers and turned them into vulture fodder.

He lowered the binoculars to follow the shape, which had grown suddenly enormous, heard the Chinaman's harsh whisper and abandoned his reminiscence:

"Shit! He's headed straight here!"

It was true: The shape was making a beeline for the grove.

All three detectives shot to their feet and retreated quickly to the rear of the thicket, hiding behind the knotted trunks of thousand-year-old trees.

Moments later the shape entered the grove and became a man again. Pushing his way through branches, he stepped into a clearing created by a tree that had fallen and begun to rot. Cold, pale light filtered through the treetops and turned the clearing into a stage.

Breathing hard, his face a mask of pain and confusion, the man sat down on the felled trunk, put his face in his hands, and began to sob.

Between the sobs came gulping breaths; at the tail end of the breaths, words. Uttered in a strangulated voice that was half whisper, half scream.

"Oh, sister sister sister… I've done my duty… but it can't bring you back… oh sister sister… we of the less flavored wife… sister sister."

The man sat for a long time, crying and talking that way. Then he stood, let out a curse, and drew something from his pocket. A knife, long-bladed and heavy-looking, with a crude wooden handle.

Kneeling on the ground, he raised the weapon over his head and held it that way, frozen in ceremony. Then, crying out wordlessly, he plunged the blade into the earth, over and over again. Unleashing the tears again, snuffling wetly, sobbing sister sister sister.

Finally he finished. Pulling out the knife, he held it in his palms and stared at it, tearfully, before wiping it on his trouser leg and placing it on the ground. Then he lay down beside it, curled fetally, whimpering.

It was then that the detectives came toward him, guns drawn, stepping out of the shadows.

Daniel kept the interrogation simple. Just him and the suspect, sitting opposite one another in a bare, fluorescent-bright room in the basement of Headquarters. A room wholly lacking in character; its normal function, data storage. The tape recorder whirred; the clock on the wall ticked.

The suspect cried convulsively. Daniel took a tissue out of a box, waited until the man's chest had stopped heaving, and said, "Here, Anwar."

The brother wiped his face, put his glasses back on, stared at the floor.

"You were talking about how Fatma met Issa Abdelatif," said Daniel. "Please go on."

"I…" Anwar made a gagging sound, placed a hand on his throat.

Daniel waited some more.

"Are you all right?"

Anwar swallowed, then nodded.

"Would you like some water?"

A shake of the head.

"Then please go on."

Anwar wiped his mouth, avoided Daniel's eyes.

"Go on, Anwar. It's important that you tell me."

"It was a construction site," said the brother, barely audible. Daniel adjusted the volume control on the recorder. "Nabil and Qasem were working there. She was sent to bring food to them. He was working there also and he snared her."

"How did he do that?"

Anwar's face constricted with anger, the pockmarks on his pale cheeks compressing to vertical slits.

"Pretty words, snake smiles! She was a simple girl, trusting-when we were children I could always fool her into thinking anything."

More tears.

"It's all right, Anwar. You're doing the right thing by talking about it. What was the location of this site?"

"Romema."

"Where in Romema?"

"Behind the zoo… I think. I was never there."

"How, then, do you know about Fatma meeting Abdelatif?"

"Nabil and Qasem saw him talking to her, warned him off, and told Father about it."

"What did your father do?"

Anwar hugged himself and rocked in the chair.

"What did he do, Anwar?"

"He beat her but it didn't stop her!"

"How do you know that?"

Anwar bit his lip and chewed on it. So hard that he broke skin.

"Here," said Daniel, handing him another tissue.

Anwar kept chewing, dabbed at the lip, looked at the crimson spots on the tissue, and smiled strangely.

"How do you know Fatma kept seeing Issa Abdelatif?"

"I saw them."

"Where did you see them?"

"Fatma stayed away too long on errands. Father grew suspicious and sent me to… watch them. I saw them."

"Where?"

"Different places. Around the walls of Al Quds." Using the Arabic name for the Old City. "In the wadis, near the trees of Gethsemane, anywhere they could hide." Anwar's voice rose in pitch: "He took her to hidden places and defiled her!"

"Did you report this to your father?"

"I had to! It was my duty. But…"

"But what?"

Silence.

"Tell me, Anwar."

Silence.

"But what, Anwar?"

"Nothing."

"What did you think your father would do to her once he knew?"

The brother moaned, leaned forward, hands outstretched, eyes bulging, fishlike, behind the thick lenses. He smelled feral, looked frantic, trapped. Daniel resisted the impulse to move away from him and, instead, inched closer.

"What would he do, Anwar?"

"He would kill her! I knew he would kill her, so before I told him I warned her!"

"And she ran away."

"Yes."

"You were trying to save her, Anwar."

"Yes!"

"Where did she go?"

"To a Christian place in Al Quds. The brown-robes took her in."

"Saint Saviour's Monastery?"

"Yes."

"How do you know she went there?"

"Two weeks after she ran away, I took a walk. Up to the olive grove where you found me. We used to play there, Fatma and I, throwing olives at each other, hiding and looking for each other. I still like to go there. To think. She knew that and she was waiting for me-she'd come to see me."

"Why?"

"She was lonely, crying about how much she missed the family. She wanted me to talk with Father, to persuade him to take her back. I asked her where I could reach her and she told me the brown-robes had taken her in. I told her they were infidels and would try to convert her, but she said they were kind and she had nowhere else to go."

"What was she wearing, Anwar?".

"Wearing?"

"Her clothing."

"A dress… I don't know."

"What color?"

"White, I think."

"Plain white?"

"I think. What does it matter?"

"And which earrings was she wearing?"

"The only ones she had."

"Which are those?"

"Little gold rings-they put them on her at birth."

Anwar began to cry.

"Solid gold?" asked Daniel.

"Yes… no… I don't know. They looked gold. What does it matter!"

"I'm sorry," said Daniel. "These are questions I have to ask."

Anwar slumped in his chair, limp and defeated.

"Did you talk to your father about taking her back?" asked Daniel.

A violent shake of the head, trembling lips. Even at this point, the fear of the father remained.

"No, no! I couldn't! It was too soon, I knew what he would say! A few days later I went to the monastery to talk to her, to tell her to wait. I asked her if she was still seeing the lying dog and she said she was, that they loved each other! I ordered her to stop seeing him but she refused, said I was cruel, that all men were cruel. All men except for him. We… argued and I left. It was the last time I saw her."

Anwar buried his face.

"The very last?"

"No." Muffled. "One more time."

"Did you see Abdelatif again, as well?"

The brother looked up and smiled. A wholehearted grin that made his ravaged face glow. Throwing back his shoulders | and sitting up straighter, he recited in a clear, loud voice: "He who does not take revenge from the transgressor would better be dead than to walk without pride!"

Reciting the proverb seemed to have infused new life into him. He balled one hand into a fist and recited several other Arabic sayings, all pertaining to the honor of vengeance. Took off his glasses and stared myopically into space. Smiling.

"The obligation… the honor was mine," he said. "We were of the same mother."

Such a sad case, thought Daniel, watching him posture. He'd read the arrest report, seen the reports from the doctors at Hadassah who'd examined Anwar after the assault arrest, the psychiatric recommendations. The Polaroid pictures, like something out of a medical book. A fancy diagnosis-congenital micropenis with accompanying epispaedia-that did nothing but give a name to the poor guy's misery. Born with a tiny, deformed stump of a male organ, the urethra nothing more than a flat strip of mucous membrane on the upper surface of what should have been a shaft but was only a useless nub. Bladder abnormalities that made it hard for the guy to hold his water-when they'd stripped him before booking him he'd been wearing layers of cloth fashioned into a crude homemade diaper.

One of God's cruel little jokes? Daniel had wondered, then stopped wondering, knowing it was useless.

Plastic surgery could have helped a little, according to the Hadassah doctors. There were specialists in Europe and the United States who did that kind of thing: multiple reconstructive surgeries over a period of several years in order to create something a bit more normal-looking. But the end result would still be far from manly. This was one of the severest cases any of them had ever seen.

The whore had thought so too.

After years of conflict and deliberation, propelled by cloudy motivations that he ill understood, Anwar had walked, late one night, toward the Green Line. To a place near Sheikh Jarrah where his brothers said the whores hung out. He'd found one leaning against a battered Fiat, old and shopworn and coarse, with vulgar yellow hair. But warm-voiced and welcoming and eager.

They'd come quickly to terms, Anwar unaware that he was being blatantly overcharged, and he'd climbed into the backseat of her Fiat. Recognizing the terror of inexperience, the whore had cooed at him, smiled at him, and lied about how cute he was, stroking him and wiping the sweat from his brow. But when she'd unbuttoned his fly and reached for him, the smiling and cooing had stopped. And when she'd pulled him out, her shock and revulsion had caused her to laugh.

Anwar had gone crazy with rage and humiliation. Lunging for the whore's throat, trying to strangle the laughter out of her. She'd fought back, bigger and stronger than he, pummeling and gouging and calling him freak. Screaming for help at the top of her lungs.

An undercover cop had heard it all and busted poor Anwar. The whore had given her statement, then left town. The police had been unable to locate her. Not that they'd tried too hard. Prostitution was a low-priority affair, the act itself legal, solicitation the offense. If the whores and their customers kept quiet, it was live and let live. Even in Tel Aviv, where three or four dozen girls worked the beaches at night, making plenty of noise, busts were rare unless things got nasty.

No complaint, first offense, no trial. Anwar had walked free with a recommendation that his family obtain further medical consultation and psychiatric treatment. Which the family was about as likely to accept as conversion to Judaism.

Pathetic, thought Daniel, looking at him. Denied the things other men took for granted because of missing centimeters of tissue. Treated as something less than a man by family and culture-any culture.

Sent in with the women.

"Would you like something to eat or drink now?" he asked. "Coffee or juice? A pastry?"

"No, nothing," said Anwar, with bravado. "I feel perfect."

"Tell me, then, how you avenged Fatma's honor."

"After one of their… meetings, I followed him. To the bus station."

"The East Jerusalem station?"

"Yes." There was puzzlement in the answer. As if there was any other station but the one in East Jerusalem. To him the big central depot on the west side of town-the Jewish station-didn't exist. In Jerusalem, a kilometer could stretch a universe.

"What day was this?"

"Thursday."

"What time of day?"

"In the morning, early."

"You were watching them?"

"Protecting her."

"Where was their meeting?"

"Somewhere behind the walls. They came out of the New Gate."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know. That was the last time."

Anwar saw Daniel's skeptical look and threw up his hands.

"It was him I was interested in! Without him she'd come back, be obedient!"

"So you followed him to the station."

"Yes. He bought a ticket for the Hebron bus. There was some time before it left. I walked up to him, said I was Fatma's brother, that I had money and was willing to pay him to stop seeing her. He asked how much money and I told him a hundred dollars American. He demanded two hundred. We haggled and settled on a hundred and sixty. We agreed to meet the next day, in the olive grove, before the sun rose."

"Wasn't he suspicious?"

"Very. His first reaction was that it was some kind of trick." Anwar's face shone with pride. His glasses slid down his nose and he righted them. "But I played him for a fool. When he said it was a trick, I said okay, shrugged, and started to walk away. He came running after me. He was a greedy dog-his greed got the better of him. We had our meeting."

"When?"

"Friday morning, at six-thirty."

Just shortly after Fatma's body had been discovered.

"What happened at the meeting?"

"He came ready to rob me, with the knife."

"The knife we found you with tonight?"

"Yes. I arrived first and was waiting for him. He pulled it out the minute he saw me."

"Did you see from which direction he'd come?"

"No."

"What did he look like?"

"A thief."

"His clothes were clean?"

"As clean as they'd ever be."

"Go on."

"He had the knife, ready to do me harm, but I'd come armed too. With a hammer. I kept it hidden behind the trunk of the tree that had fallen. I pulled out ten dollars. He grabbed it out of my hands and demanded the rest. I said the rest would come in installments. Five dollars a week for every week he stayed away from her. He started adding it up in his head. He was slow-witted-it took him a while. 'That's thirty weeks,' he said. 'Exactly,' I answered. There's no other way to deal with a thief.' That made him crazy. He started to walk toward me with the knife, saying I was dead, just like Fatma. That she was nothing to him, garbage to be dumped. That all the Rashmawis were garbage."

"Those were his words? That she was dead? Garbage to be dumped?"

"Yes." Anwar started crying again.

"Did he say anything else?"

"No. From the way he said it I knew he'd… hurt her. Id come up there with intentions of killing him and knew now that the time had come. He was coming closer, holding the knife in his palm, his eyes on me, beady, like those of a weasel. I started laughing, playing the fool, saying I was only joking and that the rest of the money was right there, behind the tree stump.

"'Get it,' he ordered, as if talking to a slave. I told him it was buried under the stump, that it was a job for two men to roll it away."

"You took a chance," said Daniel. "He could have killed you and come back later for the money."

"Yes, it was risky," said Anwar, clearly pleased. "But he was greedy. He wanted everything right then and there. 'Push,' he ordered me. Then he knelt down beside me, holding the knife in one hand, using the other to try to roll the stump. I pretended to roll, too, reached out and pulled hard at his ankles. He fell, and before he could get up I grabbed the hammer and hit him with it. Many times."

A dreamy look surfaced behind the eyeglasses.

"His skull broke easily. It sounded like a melon breaking on a rock. I took his knife and cut him. Kept it for a memorial."

"Where did you cut him?" asked Daniel, wanting a wound match on tape, all the details taken care of. The body had been dug up and sent to Abu Kabir. Levi would be calling within a day or so.

"The throat."

"Anywhere else?"

"The… the male organs."

Two out of the three sites where Fatma had been butchered.

"What about his abdomen?"

"No." Incredulity, as if the question were absurd.

"Why the throat and genitals?"

"To silence him, of course. And prevent further sin."

"I see; What happened after that?"

"I left him there, went to my house, and returned with a spade. I buried him, then used the spade to roll the log over his grave. Right where I showed you."

Abdelatif's remains had been lifted from a deep grave. It must have taken Anwar hours to dig it. The trunk hiding the excavation. Which made Daniel feel a little less foolish about sitting for hours, just a couple of meters away. Watching the house, keeping a dead man company.

"The only money you paid him was ten dollars," said Daniel.

"Yes, and I took it back."

"From out of his pocket?"

"No. He had it clenched in his greedy hand."

"What denomination?" asked Daniel.

"A single American ten-dollar bill. I buried it with him."

Exactly what had been found on the corpse.

"Is that all?" asked Anwar.

"One more thing. Was Abdelatif a drug user?"

"It wouldn't surprise me. He was scum."

"But you don't know it for a fact."

"I didn't know him," said Anwar. "I merely killed him."

He wiped the tears from his face and smiled.

"What is it?" asked Daniel.

"I'm happy," said Anwar. "I'm very happy."

Like a suite at the King David, thought Daniel, walking into Laufer's office. Wood-paneled and gold-carpeted, with soft lighting and a fine desert view. When it had been Gavrieli's, the decor had been warmer-shelves overflowing with books, photos of Gorgeous Gideon's equally gorgeous wife.

In one corner stood a case full of artifacts. Coins and urns and talismans, just like the collection he'd seen in Baldwin's office at the Amelia Catherine. Bureaucrats seemed to go in for that kind of thing. Were they trying to dress up their uselessness with imagined links to the heroes of the past? Over the case hung a framed map of Palestine which appeared to have been taken from an old book. Signed, inscribed photographs of all the Prime Ministers, from Ben Gurion on down, graced the walls-the pointed suggestion of friends in high places. But the inscriptions on the photos were noncommital, none of them mentioned Laufer by name, and Daniel wondered if the pictures belonged to the deputy commander or had been pulled out of some archive.

The deputy commander was in full uniform today, sitting behind a big Danish teakwood desk and drinking soda water.

An olive-wood tray holding a Sipholux bottle and two empty glasses sat near his right arm.

"Sit down," he said, and when Daniel had done so, pushed a piece of paper across the desk. "We'll be releasing this to the press in a couple of hours."

The statement was two paragraphs long, stamped with today's date, and entitled POLICE SOLVE SCOPUS MURDER AND RELATED REVENGE KILLING.

POLICE DEPUTY COMMANDER AVIGDOR LAUFER ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT THE MAJOR CRIMES DIVISION. SOUTHERN DISTRICT, HAS SOLVED THE CASE OF A YOUNG GIRL FOUND STABBED TO DEATH FOUR DAYS AGO ON MOUNT SCOPUS, THE INVESTIGATION HAS REVEALED THAT FATM A RASHMA Wl, 15, A RESIDENT OF SILWAN, WAS KILLED BY ISSA QADER ABDELATIFAL AZZEH. 19, RESIDENT OF THE DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP WHO WAS KNOWN TO THE POLICE BECAUSE OF A HISTORY OF THIEVERY AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR. ABDEL-ATIF'S BODY WAS FOUND IN A GROVE NEAR SILWAN WHERE IT HAD BEEN BURIED BY ONE OF THE VICTIM'S BROTHERS. ANWAR RASHMAWI, 20. RASMAWI, WHO ALSO HAS A POLICE RECORD, CONFESSED TO MURDERING ABDELATIF IN ORDER TO AVENGE THE HONOR OF HIS SISTER. HE IS CURRENTLY IN POLICE CUSTODY.

THE INVESTIGATION WAS TECTIVES FROM MAJOR CRIMES, DANIEL SHARAVI AND SUPERVISED LAUFER.

CARRIED OUT BY A TEAM OF DE-HEADED BY CHIEF INSPECTOR BY DEPUTY COMMANDER

Public relations, thought Daniel. Names on paper.

He put the statement on the desk.

Worlds removed from the streets and the stakeouts. From the Butcher's

Theater. He put the statement on the desk.

'So? demanded Laufer.

'It's factual.'

He sat back in his chair and stared at Daniel, waiting for more.

'It's a good statement. Should make the press happy.'

'Does it make you happy, Sharavi?'

'I still have reservations about the case.'

"The knife?"

"For one." Abdelatif's weapon was thick-bladed and dull. Not even remotely similar to the wound molds taken from Fatma's body.

"He was a knife man," said Laufer. "Carried more than one weapon."

"The pathologist said at least two had been used on Fatma, which means he would have had to carry three. No others have turned up, but it's a discrepancy I can live with-he hid the murder weapons or sold them to someone. What really bothers me is the foundation of the case: We're depending exclusively on the brother's story. Apart from what he's told us, there's no real evidence. Nothing placing Abdelatif near or around Scopus, no explanation for how he got up there-for why he dumped her there. At least twenty hours passed between Fatma's leaving the monastery and the discovery of the body. We have no idea what they did during that time."

"He cut her up is what they did."

"But where? The brother said he bought a ticket for the Hebron bus. The girl went somewhere on her own. Where? On top of that, we've got no motive for why he killed her in the first place. Anwar said they parted after a tryst, with no signs of hostility. And there's the physical context of the murder to consider-the washing of the body, the way it was prepared, the hair combed out, the sedation with heroin. We didn't find a single fiber, footprint, or fingerprint. It indicates calculation, intelligence-a cold type of intelligence-and nothing we've learned about Abdelatif makes him sound that bright."

The deputy commander leaned back in his chair. Laced his hands behind his head and spoke with deliberate casualness.

"Lots of words, Sharavi, but what it boils down to is that you're searching for answers to every little detail. It's not a realistic attitude."

Laufer waited. Daniel said nothing.

"You're overreacting," said the deputy commander. "Most of your objections can be easily understood given the fact that Abdelatif was a thief and a lowlife psychopath-he tortured animals, burned his cousin, and cut up his uncle. Is murder that far removed from that kind of crap? Who knows why he killed or why he chose to dump her in a certain way? The head doctors don't understand those types and neither do you or I. For all we know he was intelligent-a damned genius when it came to murder. Maybe he's cut up and washed other girls and never been caught-the people in the camps never call us in. Maybe he carried ten knives, was a damned knife fanatic. He stole tools-why not blades? As far as where he did it, it could be anywhere. Maybe she met him at the station, he took her home, carved her up in the camp."

"The driver of the Hebron bus is reasonably certain Abdelatif was on it and Fatma wasn't."

Laufer shook his head scornfully. "The number of people they stuff in, all those chickens, how the hell could he notice anything? In any event, Rashmawi did the world a favor by polishing him off. One less psycho to worry about."

"Rashmawi could just as easily be our culprit," said Daniel. "We know he's psychologically disturbed. What if he killed both of them-out of jealousy or to impress his father-then concocted the story about Abdelatif in order to make it sound honorable?"

"What if. Do you have any evidence of that?"

"I'm only raising it as an example-"

"During the time his sister was murdered, Rashmawi was home. His family vouches for him."

"That's to be expected," said Daniel. Anwar's confession had turned him from freak to family hero, the entire Rashmawi clan marching to the front gate of the Russian Compound, making a great show of solidarity at the prison door. The father beating his breast and offering to trade his own life for that of his "brave, blessed son."

"What's expected can also be true, Sharavi. And even if the alibi were false, you'd never get them to change it, would you? So what would be the point? Leaning on a bunch of Arabs and getting the press on our asses? Besides, it's not as if Rashmawi will be walking the streets. He'll be locked up at Ramie, out of circulation." Laufer rubbed his hands together. "Two birds."

"Not for long," said Daniel. "The charge is likely to be reduced to self-defense. With psychiatric and cultural mitigating factors. Which means he could be walking the streets in a couple of years."

"Could be's and maybe's" said Laufer. "That's the prosecutor's problem. In the meantime we'll proceed based on the facts at hand."

He made a show of shuffling papers, squirted soda from the injection bottle into a glass, and offered a drink to Daniel.

"No, thanks."

Laufer reacted to the refusal as if it were a slap in the face.

"Sharavi," he said tightly. "A major homicide has been solved in a matter of days and there you sit, looking as if someone had died."

Daniel stared back at him, searching for intentional irony in his choice of words, the knowledge that he'd uttered a tasteless joke. Finding only peevishness. The resentment of a drill major for one who'd broken step.

"Stop searching for problems that don't exist."

"As you wish, Tat Nitzav."

Laufer sucked in his cheeks, the flab billowing as he exhaled.

"I know," he said, "about your people walking across the desert from Arabia. But today we have airplanes. No reason to do things the hard way. To wipe your ass with your foot when a hand is available."

He picked up the press release, initialed it, and told Daniel he was free to leave. Allowed him to reach the doorknob before speaking again: "One more thing. I read Rashmawi's arrest report-the first one, for throttling the whore. The incident took place some time before Gray Man, didn't it?"

Daniel knew what was coming.

"Over two years before."

"In terms of a Major Crimes investigation, that's not long at all. Was Rashmawi ever questioned in regard to the Gray Man murders?"

"I questioned him about it yesterday. He denied having anything to do with it, said except for the incident with the prostitute, he never went out of the house at night. His family will vouch for him-an unassailable alibi, as you've noted."

"But he wasn't questioned originally? During the active investigation?"

"No."

"May I ask why not?"

The same question he'd asked himself.

"We were looking at convicted sex offenders. His case was dismissed before coming to trial."

"Makes one wonder," said Laufer, "how many others slipped by."

Daniel said nothing, knowing any reply would sound mealy-mouthed and defensive.

"Now that the Scopus thing has been cleared up," continued the deputy commander, "there'll be time to backtrack-go over the files and see what else may have been missed."

"I've started doing that, Tat Nitzav."

"Good day, Sharavi. And congratulations on solving the case.

On Wednesday night, hours after the Scopus case closed, the Chinaman celebrated by taking his wife and son out for a free dinner. He and.Aliza smiled at each other over plates heaped high with food-stir-fried beef and broccoli, sweet and sour veal, lemon chicken, crackling duck-holding hands and sipping lime Cokes and enjoying the rare chance to be alone.

"It's good that it's over," she said, squeezing his thigh. "You'll be home more. Able to do your share of the housework."

"I think I hear the office calling."

"Never mind. Pass the rice."

Across the room, little Rafi sucked contentedly on a bottle of apple juice, cradled in his grandmother's arms, receiving a first-class guided tour of the Shang Hai as she took him from table to table, introducing him to customers, announcing that he was her tzankhan katan-"little paratrooper." At the rear of the restaurant, near the kitchen door, sat her husband, black silk yarmulke perched atop his hairless ivory head, playing silent chess with the mashgiah-the rabbi sent by the Chief Rabbinate to ensure that everything was kosher.

This mashgiah was a new one, a youngster named Stolinsky with a patchy dark beard and a relaxed attitude toward life. During the three weeks since he'd been assigned to the Shang Hai, he'd gained five pounds feasting on spiced ground veal pancakes with hoisin sauce and had been unable to capture Huang Haim Lee's king.

The restaurant was lit by paper lanterns and smelled of garlic and ginger. Chinese watercolors and calendars hung on red-lacquered walls. A rotund, popeyed goldfish swam clumsily in a bowl next to the cashier's booth. The register, normally Mrs. Lee's bailiwick, was operated tonight by a moonlighting American student named Cynthia.

The waiter was a tiny, hyperactive Vietnamese, one of the boat people the Israelis had taken in several years ago. He rushed in and out of the kitchen, bouncing from table to table carrying huge trays of food, speaking rapidly in pidgin Hebrew and laughing at jokes that only he seemed to understand. The large center table was occupied by a party of Dutch nuns, cheerful, doughy-faced women who chewed energetically and laughed along with Nguyen as they fumbled with their chopsticks. The rest of the customers were Israelis, serious about eating, cleaning their plates and calling for more.

Aliza took in the activity, the polyglot madness, smiled and stroked her husband's forearm. He reached out and took her fingers in his, exhibiting just a hint of the strength stored within the oversized digits.

It had taken her some time to get used to it. She'd grown up a farm girl, on Kibbutz Yavneh, a bosomy, big-boned redhead. Her first beaus, robust, tractor-'driving youths-male versions of herself. She'd always had a thing for big men, the muscular, bulky types who made you feel protected, but never had she imagined herself married to someone who looked like an oversized Mongol warrior. And the family: her mother-in-law your basic yiddishe mama, her hair in a babushka, still speaking Hebrew with a Russian accent; Abba

Haim an old Buddha, as yellow as parchment; Yossi's older brother, David, suave, always wearing a suit, always making deals, always away on business.

She'd met Yossi in the army. She'd worked in requisitions and had been attached to his paratrooper unit. He'd stormed into her office like a real bulvan, angry and looking ludicrous because the uniform that had been issued to him was three sizes too small. He started mouthing off at her; she mouthed back and that was it. Chemistry. And now little Rafi, straw-haired, with almond eyes and the shoulders of a working man. Who'd have predicted it?

As she'd gotten to know Yossi, she'd realized that they came from similar stock. Survivors. Fighters.

Her parents had been teenaged lovers who escaped from Munich in '41 and hid for months in the Bavarian forest, subsisting on leaves and berries. Her father stole a rifle and shot a German guard dead in order to get them across the border. Together they traveled on foot, making their way through Hungary and Yugoslavia and down to Greece. Catching a midnight boat ride to Cyprus and paying the last of their savings to a Cypriot smuggler, only to be forced off the boat at gunpoint, five miles from the coast of Palestine. Swimming the rest of the way on empty stomachs, crawling half-dead onto the shores of Jaffa. Avoiding the scrutiny of Arab cutthroats long enough to reach their comrades at Yavneh.

Yossi's mother had also escaped the Nazis by walking. In 1940. All the way from Russia to the visa-free port of Shanghai, where she lived in relative peace, along with thousands of other Jews. Then war broke out in the Pacific and the Japanese interned all of them in the squalid camps of Hongkew.

A tall, husky theology student named Huang Lee had been held captive there, too, suspected of collaborating with the Allies, because he was an intellectual. Dragged out periodically to endure public floggings.

Two weeks before Hiroshima, the Japanese sentenced Huang Lee to death. The Jews took him in and he evaded execution by hiding in their midst, being passed form family to family under the cover of darkness. The last family he stayed with had also taken in an orphan from Odessa, a black-haired girl named Sonia. Chemistry.

In 1947, Sonia and Huang came to Palestine. He converted to Judaism, took the name Haim-"life"-for he considered himself reborn, and they married. In '48 both of them fought with the Palmah in Galilee. In '49 they settled in North Jerusalem so that Huang Haim could study in Rabbi Kook's Central Yeshiva. When the children came-David in 1951, Yosef four years later-Huang went to work as a post-office clerk.

For twelve years he stamped packages, noticing all the while the enthusiasm with which his co-workers devoured the dishes he brought for lunch-food from his childhood that he'd taught Sonia to cook. After saving up enough cash, the Lees opened the Shang Hai Palace, on Herzl Boulevard, in back of a Sonol petrol station. It was 1967, when spirits were high, everyone eager to forget death and find new pleasures, and business was brisk.

It had remained brisk, and now Huang Haim Lee was able to hire others to wait on tables, free to spend his day studying Talmud and playing chess. A contented man, his sole regret that he hadn't been able to transmit his love for religion to his sons. Both were good boys: David, analytic, a planner-the perfect banker. Yossi, wholly physical, but brave and warmhearted. But neither wore a kipah, neither kept Shabbat nor was attracted to the rabbinic tractates that he found irresistible-the subtleties of inference and exegesis that captivated his mind.

Still, he knew he had little to complain about. His life had been a tapestry of good fortune. So many brushes with eternity, so many reprieves. Just last week he'd shoveled dirt over the bare roots of his new pomegranate tree, the last addition to his biblical garden. Experienced the privilege of planting fruit trees in Jerusalem.

Aliza saw him smile, a beautiful Chinese smile, so calm and self-satisfied. She turned to her husband and kissed his hand. Yossi looked at her, surprised by the sudden show of affection, smiled himself, looking just like the old man.

Across the room, Huang Haim moved his bishop. "Checkmate," he told Rabbi Stolinsky, and got up to take the baby.

Elias Daoud's wife had grown fatter each year, so that now it was like sharing a bed with a mountain of pillows. He liked it, found it comforting to reach out in the middle of the night and touch all that softness. To part thighs as yielding as custard, submerge himself in sweetness. Not that he would have ever expressed such sentiments to Mona. Women did best when they were keyed up, just a little worried. So he teased her about her eating, told her sternly that she was consuming his salary faster than he could earn it. Then silenced her tearful excuses with a wink and a piece of sesame candy he'd picked up on the way home.

Nice to be off-duty, nice to be in bed. He'd acquitted himself well, done an excellent job for the Jews.

Mona sighed in her sleep and covered her face with a sausage of an arm. He raised himself up on his elbows. Looked at her, the dimpled elbow rising with each breath. Smiling, he began tickling her feet. Their little game. Waking her gently, before climbing the mountain.

She was exactly the kind of girl his father would have hated, Avi knew. Which made her all the more attractive to him. Moroccan, to begin with, purely South Side. One of those working-class types who lived to dance. And young- not more than seventeen.

He'd spotted her right away, talking with two other chickies who were total losers. But no loser, this one-really cute, in an obvious look-at-me kind of way. Far too much makeup. Long hair dyed an improbable black and styled in a fancy, feathery cut-which made sense because she'd told him she cut hair for a living; it was only logical that she'd want to show it off. The face under the feathery bangs was sweet enough: glossy cherry lips, huge black eyes, at the bottom a little pointy chin. And she had a great body, slender, no hair on her arms-which was hard to find in a dark girl. Tiny wrists, tiny ankles, one with a chain around it. And best of all, big soft breasts. Too big for the rest of her, really, which played off against the slenderness. All of it packed into a skintight black jumpsuit of some kind of wet-looking vinyl material.

The fabric had give him his opening line.

"Spill your drink?" Giving her the Belmondo smile, curling it around the cigarette, putting his hands on his hips and showing off his tight physique under the red Fila shirt.

A giggle, the bat of an eyelash, and he knew she'd agree to dance with him.

He could feel the big breasts, now, as they did the slow dance to an Enrico Macias ballad, the discotheque finally quiet after hours of rock. Nice soft mounds flattening against his chest. Twin pressure points, the hardness in his groin exerting a pressure of its own. She knew it was there and though she didn't press back, she didn't back away from it either, which was a good sign.

She ran her hand over his shoulder and he let his fingers explore lower, caressing her tailbone in time with the music. One fingertip dared going lower, probing the beginnings of her gluteal cleft.

"Naughty, naughty," she said, but made no attempt to stop him.

His hand dipped lower again, moving automatically. Cupping one buttock, nice and rubbery, all of it fitting into his palm. He pinched lightly, went back to massaging her lower back in time with the music, humming in her ear and kissing her neck.

She raised her face, mouth half-open, kind of smiling. He brushed her lips with his, then moved in. There was a tangy taste to the kiss, as if she'd eaten spicy food and the heat had remained imbedded in her tongue. His breath, he knew, was bitter with alcohol. Three gin and tonics, more than he usually allowed himself. But working the murder case had made him nervous-all that reading, not knowing what he was doing, petrified of looking stupid-and now that it was over he needed the release. His first night back in Tel Aviv since the hassle with Asher Davidoff's blonde. It wouldn't be his last.

In the end it hadn't turned out bad. Sharavi had asked him to write up the final draft of the report, wanting him to be some damned secretary. The thought of all those words had made his knees go weak and he'd surprised himself by opening his mouth.

"I can't do it, Pakad."

"Can't do what?"

"Anything. I'm going to quit the police force." Blurted it out, just like that, though he hadn't come to a decision about it yet.

The little Yemenite had nodded as if he'd expected it. Stared at him with those gold-colored eyes and said, "Because of the dyslexia?"

It had been his turn to stare then, nodding dumbly, in shock, as Sharavi kept talking.

"Mefakeah Shmeltzer told me you take an extraordinary amount of time to read things. Lose your place a lot and have to start over again. I called your high school and they told me about it."

"I'm sorry," Avi had said, feeling stupid the moment the words left his lips. He'd trained himself long ago not to apologize.

"Why?" asked Sharavi. "Because you have an imperfection?"

"I'm just not suited for police work."

Sharavi held up his left hand, showed him the scars, a real mess.

"I can't box with bad guys, Cohen, so I concentrate on using my brains."

"That's different."

Sharavi shrugged. "I'm not going to try to talk you into it. It's your life. But you might think of giving yourself some more time. Now that I know about you, I could keep you away from paperwork. Concentrate on your strengths." Smiling: "If you have any."

The Yemenite had taken him for a cup of coffee, asked him about his problem, gotten him to talk about it more than anyone ever had. A master interrogator, he realized later. Made you feel good about opening up.

"I know a little bit about dyslexia," he had said, looking down at his bad hand. "After '67, I spent two months in a rehabilitation center-Beit Levinstein, near Ra'nana-working on getting some function back in the hand. There were kids there with learning problems, a few adults too. I watched them struggle, learning special ways to read. It seemed like a very difficult process."

"It's not that bad," Avi replied, rejecting the pity. "A lot of things are worse."

"True," said Sharavi. "Stick around Major Crimes and you'll see plenty of them."

The girl and he had been dancing and kissing for what seemed like hours but had to be only minutes because the Macias song had just ended.

"Anat," he said, escorting her off the dance floor, away from the crowd, away from her loser buddies, to a dark corner of the discotheque.

"Yes?"

"How about going for a drive?" Taking her hand.

"I don't know," she said, but coyly, clearly not meaning it. "I have to work tomorrow."

"Where do you live?"

"Bat Yam."

Deep south. Figured.

"I'll drive you home then." Her back was to the wall and Avi put his arm around her waist, leaned in and gave her another kiss, a short one. He felt her body go loose in his arms.

"Umm," she said.

"Would you like another drink?" Smile, smile, smile.

"I'm not really thirsty."

"A drive, then?"

"Uh… okay. Let me tell my friends."

Later, when she saw the BMW, she got really excited, couldn't wait to get in.

He switched off the alarm, held the door open for her, said, "Seat belt," and helped her fasten the harness, touching her breasts in the process, really feeling them, the nipples hard as pencil erasers. Giving her another kiss and then ending it abruptly.

Walking around to the driver's side, he got in, started up the engine, gave it gas so that it roared, slipped an Elvis Costello tape in the deck and drove away from Dizengoff Circle. He took Frischmann west to Hayarkon Street, then headed north on Hayarkon, parallel with the beach. Ibn Gvirol would have been a more direct route to the destination he had in mind, but the water-hearing the waves, smelling the salt-was more romantic.

Years ago Hayarkon had been Tel Aviv's red light district, actual scarlet bulbs glowing atop the entrances to sleazy sailor bars. Fat Romanian and Moroccan girls in hot pants and net stockings slouching in the doorways, the color of the light making them look like sunburnt circus clowns. Crooking their fingers and warbling bohena yeled! "Come here, little boy!" When he was in high school he'd gone there plenty, with his North Side friends, getting laid, smoking a little hash. Now Hayarkon was fast becoming respectable, the big hotels with their cocktail lounges and nightclubs, the cafes and bars that picked up the overflow crowd, and the hookers had moved on, farther north, to the dunes of Tel Baruch.

Avi shifted into fourth and drove quickly toward those dunes, Anat grooving to Costello, snapping her fingers and singing along with "Girl Talk," her hand resting casually on his knee, not even bothering to point out that Bat Yam was in the opposite direction.

He drove past the bathing beach, came to the entrance to the port, where Hayarkon ended. Speeding over the Ta'-Arukha Bridge, he crossed the Yarkon River and kept going until he reached a construction site just south of the dunes, but with a view of the cars parked in the sand.

Coming to a stop in the shadow of a crane, he turned off the engine and switched off the lights. From the dunes came the sound of music-drumbeats and guitars, the whores partying, sashaying in the sand, trying to create a mood for prospective customers. He visualized what was going on there, the action in each of the cars parked in the sand, and it turned him on.

He looked at Anat, took her hand in his, used the other to pull down the zipper of her jumpsuit, slide inside, and feel those amazing tits.

"What?" she asked. Which sounded silly, but he knew all about saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"Please," she said. Not making it clear if it was please go on or please stop.

It was all on the line now, time to go for it.

"I want you," he said, kissing each of her fingers. "I've got to have you." With just a touch of begging, the eagerness that he knew they all loved.

"Ohh," she sighed, as he began nuzzling her palm, licking, doing what he did best. What really made him feel important. Then sudden tension in that wonderful little body: "I don't know…"

"Anat, Anat." Slipping the jumpsuit off her shoulders, the vulnerability of sudden nakedness causing her to cling to him. "So beautiful," he said, taking a good look at the unfettered breasts, milky white in the night light. Not having to fake it.

He played with her, kissing each of the tiny, pebbly nipples, sucking on her tongue, and stroking her labia through the shiny black fabric. Taking her hand and guiding it to his erection.

When she didn't pull away he started to relax. When she began to wiggle and squirm, he smiled to himself. Mission accomplished.

Nahum Shmeltzer listened to scratchy Mozart and ate chickpeas from a can. On the arm of his easy chair was a plate containing slices of yellow cheese that had begun to stiffen, around the edges and a pool of unflavored yogurt. He'd mixed the instant coffee too weak, but it didn't matter. It was the heat he wanted-to hell with the taste.

His home was a single room on the street level of a building in Romema. A sorry structure that had been built during the Mandate and remained unmodified since that time. The landlords were rich Americans who lived in Chicago and hadn't been to Jerusalem in ten years. He mailed his rent check to an agency on Ben Yehuda each month and expected nothing in return but basics.

Once upon a time, he'd owned a farm. Five dunams in a quiet moshav not far from Lod. Peaches and apricots and grapes and a plot for vegetables. A tired old plow horse for Arik to ride, a flower greenhouse for Leah. A chicken coop that yielded enough eggs for the entire moshav. Fresh omelettes and dewy cucumbers and tomatoes each morning. Back when taste had been important.

The road to Jerusalem had been lousy back then, nothing like the highway you had today. But he hadn't minded the daily drive to the Russian Compound. Nor the double load-working the streets all day, coming home to break his ass farming. The work was its own reward, the good feeling that came when you sent into bed each night, aching and ready to drop, knowing you'd given it your best. That you were making a difference.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI the Nazis had put on the signs they hung in the death camps. Work creates freedom. Those fucking assholes had meant something different, but there was truth in it. Or so he'd believed then.

Now everything was all fucked up, the boundaries gone- the borders between sane and insane, worthwhile and worthless… He caught himself, stopped. Philosophizing again. Must mean he was constipated.

The record, stopped.

He' got up out of the chair, turned off the phonograph, then walked two steps to the kitchen area and dumped the uneaten food into a cracked plastic wastebasket. Lifting a bottle of hundred-proof slivovitz from the counter, he carried it back with him.

Slipping slowly from the bottle, he let the liquor run down his gullet, feeling it burn a pathway straight to his stomach. Internal erosion. He imagined the damage to his tissue, enjoyed the pain.

As he grew progressively intoxicated, he began thinking of the butchered girl, her crazy eunuch of a brother. The punk they'd dug up on the olive grove, the maggots already holding a convention on his face. The case stunk. He knew it and he could tell that Dani knew it. Too clean, too cute.

That crazy, dickless eunuch. Pathetic. But who gave a shit-fucking Arabs slicing each other up over crazy pseudo-cultural nonsense. Lumpen proletariat. How many countries did they have-twenty? Twenty-five?-and they whined like shit-assed babies because they couldn't have the few square kilometers that belonged to the Jews. All that Palestinian bullshit. Back when he was a kid, the Jews had been Palestinians too. He'd been a goddamned Palestinian. Now it was a fucking catch phrase.

If the government was smart it would use agents provocateurs to fuck all the Arab virgins, convince the families that Ahmed next door had done it, supply them all with big knives, and set off a wave of revenge killings. Let them wipe themselves out-how long would it take? A month? Then we Zhids could finally have peace.

A laugh. With the Arabs gone, how long would it take for the Jews to chew each other up? What was the joke-a Jew had to have two synagogues. One that he went to, one that he rejected. We're the princes of self-hatred, the standard-bearers of self-destruction; all you had to do was read the Torah-brothers fucking over brothers, raping their sisters, castrating their fathers. And murder, plenty of it, nasty stuff. Cain and Abel, Esau going after Jacob, Joseph's brothers, Absalom. Sex crimes, too-Amnon raping Tamar, the Concubine of Gilead gang-banged to death by the boys from Ephraim, then cut into twelve pieces by her master and mailed to all the other tribes, the rest of them taking revenge on Ephraim, wiping out all the men, capturing the women for you-know-what, enslaving the kids.

Religion.

When you got down to it, that was human history. Murder, mayhem, bloodlust, one guy fucking over another, like monkeys in a cramped cage. Generation after generation of monkeys dressed in people-suits. Screeching and cackling and scratching their balls. Pausing just long enough to cut one another's throats.

Which made him, he supposed, a fucking historian.

He raised the bottle to his lips and took a deep, incendiary swallow.

How he loathed humanity, the inevitable movement toward entropy. If there was a God, he was a fucking comedian. Sitting up there laughing as the monkey-men yammered and bit each other in the ass and jumped around in the shitpile.

Life was shit; misery the order of the day.

That's the way it was. That's definitely the way it was. He gave a boozy belch and felt a wave of acid pain rise in his esophagus.

Another belch, another wave. Suddenly he felt nauseated and weak. More pain-good, he deserved it for being such a weak, naive shmuck.

For understanding the way it was but being unable to accept it. Unable to throw out the pictures. Goddamned fucking framed snapshots on the table next to his cot. He woke up each morning and saw them first thing.

Starting the day off right.

Pictures. Arik in uniform, leaning on his rifle. To Abba and Eema, With Love. The kid had never been original. Just good.

Leah at the Dead Sea, in a flowered bathing suit and matching cap, covered to her knees with black mud. Rounded belly, lumpy hips-looking at the picture he could feel them under his fingertips.

Tomorrow morning he'd throw out the pictures. Right now he was too tired to move.

Bullshit. He was a coward. Trying to hold on to something that didn't exist anymore.

One year they were there; the next, gone, as if they'd never been real, only figments of his imagination.

A good year for death, 1974.

Eleven fucking years and he still couldn't deal with it.

Not only that, but it was getting to him more, working on Gray Man, now this one, the cruelty. The fucking stupidity.