The Butcher's Theatre

Another waste of time.

He returned to his office, suddenly exhausted, forced himself to call Gabi Weinroth, the Latam man stationed atop the law building at the Scopus Hebrew U. campus with an infrared telescope focused on the Amelia Catherine.

"Scholar," answered Weinroth, in code.

"Sharavi," said Daniel, eschewing the name game. "Anything new?"

"Nothing."

The fifth "nothing" of the day. He reiterated his home number to the undercover man, hung up, and left for the place that matched it.

He drove around Talbieh and the neighboring German Colony, looking for Dayan, seeing only the luminescent eyes of stray cats, part of nocturnal Jerusalem for centuries.

After three go-rounds, he gave up, went home, opened the door to his flat expecting family sounds, was greeted by silence.

He entered, closed the door, heard a throat clear in the studio.

Gene was in there, using Laura's drawing table for a desk, surrounded by stacks of paper. The stretched canvases and palettes and paint boxes had been shoved to one side of the room. Everything looked different.

"Hello, there," said the black man, removing his reading glasses and getting up. "The Arizona and Oregon files came this morning. I didn't call you because there's nothing new in them-the local investigations didn't get very far. Your boys are sleeping over at your dad's. The ladies are catching a late movie. I just got a call from the night manager at the Laromme, very dependable fellow. Another package arrived for me. I'm going to run down and pick it up."

"I'll go get it."

"No way," said Gene, looking him over. "Take some time to clean up. I'll be right back-don't argue."

Daniel acquiesced, went into his bedroom, and stripped naked. When the front door closed, he gave an involuntary start, realized his nerves were frayed raw.

His eyes felt gritty; his stomach sat like an empty gourd in its abdominal basket. But he felt no desire for food. Coffee, maybe.

He put on a robe and went into the kitchen, brewed some Nescafe double-strength, then padded to the bathroom and took a shower, almost falling asleep under the spray. After dressing in fresh clothes, he returned to the kitchen, poured himself a cup, and sat down to drink. Bitter, but warming. After two sips, he put his head down on the table, awoke in the midst of a confusing dream-bobbing in a rowboat, but no water, only sand, a dry dock

"Hello, sweetie."

Laura's face smiling down at him. Her hand on his shoulder.

"What time is it?"

"Eleven-twenty."

Out for half an hour.

"Gene found you this way. He didn't have the heart to wake you up."

Daniel got up, stretched. His joints ached. Laura reached out, touched his unshaven face, then put her arms around his waist.

"Skinny," she said. "And you can't afford it."

"I didn't find the dog," he said, hugging her tightly.

"Hush. Hold me."

They embraced silently for a while.

"What movie did you see?" he asked.

"Witness."

"Good?"

"A police story. Do you really want to hear about it?"

He smiled. "No."

Finally they pulled apart and kissed. Laura tasted of peanuts. Cinema peanuts. Daniel reminded himself of the reason for the movie distraction, asked, "Where's Shoshi?"

"In her room."

"I'd better go talk to her."

"Go ahead."

He walked through the living room, down the hall toward the rear bedroom, and passed by the studio. Gene sat hunched over the table/desk, eating and working. With a pen in one hand and a sandwich in the other, he looked like a student cramming for exams. Luanne reclined, shoeless, on the couch, reading a book.

Shoshi's door was closed. He knocked on it softly, got no response, and knocked louder.

The door opened. He looked into green eyes marred by swollen lids.

"Hello, motek."

"Hello, Abba."

"May I come in?"

She nodded, opened the door. The room was tiny, barely room to walk, plastered with rock-star posters and photos cut out of tabloids. Above the bed was a bracket shelf crammed with rag dolls and stuffed animals. The desk was piled high with schoolbooks and mementos-art projects, a cowrie shell from Eliat, his red paratrooper's beret and '67 medals, a Hanukah menorah fashioned from empty rifle shells.

Incredible clutter, but neat. She'd always been a neat child-even as a toddler she'd tried to clean up her crumbs.

He sat on the bed. Shoshi leaned against a chair, looked down at the floor. Her curls seemed limp; her shoulders drooped.

"How was the movie?"

"Fine."

"Eema said it was a police story."

"Uh huh." She picked at a cuticle. Daniel restrained the impulse to tell her to stop."

"I know about the dog, motek. It wasn't your fault-"

"Yes, it was."

"Shoshi-"

She wheeled on him, beautiful little face suffused with rage. "He was my responsibility- you always said that! I was stupid, blabbing to Dorit-"

He got up and reached out to hold her. She twisted away. One of her bony knuckles grazed his rib.

She punched her thighs, "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"Come on," he said, and pulled her to him. She resisted for a moment, then went limp. Another rag doll.

"Oh, Abba!" she sobbed. "Everything's coming apart!"

"No, it's not. Everything will be fine."

She didn't answer, just continued to cry, drenching the front of his clean shirt.

"Everything will be fine," he repeated. As much for his benefit as hers.

Sunday noon, and all was quiet at the Amelia Catherine, medical activities suspended in honor of Christian Sabbath.

Up the road, at the Scopus campus, everything was business as usual, and Daniel made his way unnoticed through throngs of students and professor, up the serpentine walkway, and through the front door of the Law Building. He traversed the lobby, took the stairs to the top of the building, walked to an unmarked door at the end of the hall, and gave a coded knock. The door opened a crack. Suspicious eyes looked him over; then the crack widened sufficiently to admit him. Gabi Weinroth, in shorts and T-shirt, nodded hello and returned to his position across the room, sitting at the window. Daniel followed him.

Next to the Latam man's chair was a metal table bearing a police radio, a pair of walkie-talkies, a logbook, three crushed, empty cola cans, a carton of Marlboros, an ashtray overflowing with butts, and greasy wax paper wrapped around a half-eaten steak pita. Under the table were three black hard-shell equipment cases. A high-resolution, wide-angle telescope equipped with infrared enhancement was set up almost flush with the glass, angled eastward so that it focused on the entire Amelia Catherine compound.

Weinroth lit a cigarette, sat back, and hooked a thumb at the telescope. Daniel bent to look through it, saw stone, wrought iron, chain link, pine trees.

He pulled away from the scope, said, "Anyone leave besides the watchman?"

The Latam man picked up the logbook, opened it, and found his place.

"The older doctor-Darousha-left fifty-three minutes ago, driving a white Renault with U.N. plates. He headed north-Border Patrol picked him up on the road to Ramallah. Our man Comfortes confirmed his arrival back home. The watchman showed up a few minutes later. Both of them went into Darousha's house and closed the shutters-probably planning a midday tryst. These U.N. types don't work too hard, do they?"

"Anything else?"

"A couple of brief in-and-outs," said Weinroth. "More romance: Al Biyadi and Cassidy jogged for half an hour- eleven-eleven to eleven forty-three. Down the Mount of Olives Road and back up again past the hospital and all the way to the east campus gate. I was tilted almost straight down-lost them for a bit, but picked them up again as they headed back for the Amelia Catherine. Short run, about five and a half kilometers, then back inside. Haven't seen them since. She's a better runner than he is, good strong calves, barely breathing, but she holds herself back-probably doesn't want to break his balls. The administrator, Baldwin, took a stroll with the Arab secretary, more Romeo and Juliet stuff. If you would have let us plant some audio surveillance, I might have picked up some sweet talk."

Daniel smiled at the Latam man, who smiled back pleasantly and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Weinroth had pressed him on the microphones-hi-tech types loved to use their toys. Codes and toys. But Daniel had judged the risk too high: If the killer/killers caught on to the surveillance, there'd be a pullback, stalemate. The madness had to end.

"Want me to videotape any of it?" asked Weinroth between puffs. "I can easily interface the recorder with the scope."

"Sure. Anything else? Any sign of Carter or Hauser?"

Weinroth shook his head, simulated snoring.

"Pleasant dreams," Daniel told him. By the time he reached the door, the Latam man was up and fiddling with latches on one of the equipment cases.

Sunday, eight P.M., and the old man was dead, Shmeltzer was sure of it. He could tell by the nurse's tone of voice over the phone, the failure resonating from every word, the angry way she'd refused to let him talk with Eva, insisted Mrs. Schlesinger was in no condition to speak with anyone. Telling him without telling him.

"She'll speak with me," he'd insisted.

"Are you family?"

"Yes, I'm her brother." Not really that much of a lie, considering what he and Eva had established between them.

When the goddamned nurse said nothing, he repeated: "Her brother-she'll want to speak with me."

"She's in no condition to speak with anyone. I'll tell her you called, Adon Schnitzer."

"Shmeltzer." Idiot.

Click.

He'd wanted to call the bitch back, scream: Don't you know me? I'm the shmuck always with her, every free moment I've got. The one waiting out in the hall while she kisses a cold cheek, wipes a cold brow.

But the nurse was just another pencil pusher, wouldn't give a damn. Rules!

He hung up the phone and cursed the injustice of it all. Since the first time they'd met, he'd stuck with Eva like paste on paper, absorbing her pain like some kind of human poultice. Holding, patting, drinking it in. So much crying on his shoulders, his bones felt permanently wet.

Faithful Nahum, playing big strong man. Rehearsing for the inevitable.

And now, now that it had finally happened, he was cut off. They were cut off from each other. Prisoners. She, chained to the goddamned deathbed. He, shackled to his assignment.

Keep an eye on the fucking sheikh and his fucking dog-faced girlfriend. Down from the hospital in his big green fucking Mercedes, a shopping trip at the best stores in East Jerusalem. Then watch them enjoy a late supper at their fucking sidewalk table at Chez Ali Baba.

Stuffing their bellies along with all the rich Arabs and tourists, ordering the waiters around as if they were a couple of monarchs.

Two tables away, the Latam couple got to eat too. Charcoal-broiled kebab and shishlik, baked lamb and stuffed lamb, platters of salads, pitchers of iced tea. A flower corsage for the lady

Meanwhile, Faithful Shmuck Nahum dresses as a beggar, wears false sores, and sits on the sidewalk just out of sniffing range from the restaurant. Sniffing garbage fumes from the restaurant's refuse bins, absorbing curses in Arabic, an occasional kick in the shins, a rare donation-but even the few goddamned coins he'd earned by looking pathetic would be returned to the department, cost him a half hour of paperwork logging the money.

Any other case, he'd say fuck it, time to retire. Run to Eva.

Not this one. These bastards were going to pay. For everything.

He turned his attention back to the restaurant.

Al Biyadi snapped his fingers at the waiter, barked an order when the man approached. When the waiter left, he looked at his watch. Big gold watch, same one as at the hospital-even from here Shmeltzer could see the gold. Bastard had been checking the time a lot during the last half hour. Something up?

The Latam couple ate on, didn't seem to notice, but that was their job, noticing without being noticed. Both were young, blond, good-looking, wearing high-priced imported clothes. Looking like a rich honeymoon couple absorbed in each other.

Would he and Eva ever have a honeymoon?

Would she have anything to do with him after being abandoned at the Crucial Moment? Or maybe he was sunk anyway-abandonment had nothing to do with it. She'd suffered with an old guy through terminal illness. Now that he was dead she'd be ready to put her life together-last thing she'd want was another old guy.

She was a fine-looking woman; those breasts were magnets designed to pull men in. Younger men, virile.

No need for bony wet shoulders.

The waiter brought some sort of iced drink to Al Bayadi's table. Big, oversized brandy snifter filled with something green and frothy. Pistachio milk, probably.

Al Biyadi lifted the snifter, Cassidy hooked her arm around his, they laughed, drank, nuzzled like high school kids. Drank again and kissed.

He could have killed them both, right then and there.

At eleven P.M., Gabi Weinroth completed his shift at the top of the Law Building and was replaced by a short, gray-haired undercover man named Shimshon Katz. Katz had just been pulled off a three-month foot surveillance of the Mahane Yehuda market and sported a full Hassid's beard. Twelve weeks of playing rabbi and looking for suspicious parcels-he felt pleased that nothing had turned up but was drained by the boredom.

"This isn't likely to be any better," Weinroth assured him, gathering up his cigarettes and pointing at the telescope. "Mostly blank space, and if you see anything sexy, you broadcast it on the security band-the other guys take it from there."

Katz picked up a stack of photographs from the table and shuffled through it. "I'm supposed to commit all of these to memory?"

"These eight are the main ones," said Weinroth, taking the stack and pulling out the permanent Amelia Catherine staff members. He placed them faceup on the table. "The rest are volunteers.] haven't seen one of them come near the place yet."

Katz studied the seven, lingering on a candid of Walid Darousha, whom the camera had caught scowling.

"Nasty-looking character," he said.

"He's in Ramallah with his boyfriend, and according to Major Crimes, he's low priority. So don't play psychoanalyst -just look and log."

"Up yours," said Katz jovially. "Which ones are high priority?"

Weinroth jabbed the photos. "These, for what it's worth."

Katz stared at the pictures, drew a line across his forehead. "Etched permanently on my mind."

"For what that's worth," said Weinroth. "I'm off." He took two steps, turned, and leered. "You want me to look in on your wife and comfort her?"

"Sure, why not? Yours has already been taken care of."

Avi sat low in the unmarked car, strained his eyes, and watched the front door of Wilbur's apartment building on Rehov Alharizi. The moon was a low white crescent, the dark street blinded further by the hovering bulk of the tall buildings that rose from the east. The Chief Rabbinate, the Jewish Agency, Solel Boneh Builders, the Kings Hotel. Important buildings-official buildings.

As a child he'd spent plenty of summer days in official buildings, harbored dim memories of official visits perceived from a waist-high perspective: shiny belt buckles, rippling paunches, jokes he didn't understand. His father convulsing with laughter, his big hand tightening with amusement, threatening to crush Avi's small one

Forget that crap and concentrate.

The hum of an automobile engine, but no headlight flash, no movement up and down the block.

Nothing suspicious in the mailbox or at Wilbur's office at Beit Agron-the latter he could personally verify because he'd delivered the office mail himself, covered the entire press building. No one but the janitor had approached Wilbur's suite all day. At six the reporter left, in shirtsleeves, with no briefcase, and walked toward Fink's for his usual soak. By eight he hadn't returned, and, following the plan, Avi was relieved by one of two Latam men who'd been watching the reporter's flat. He drove to Alharizi and parked half a block down from Wilbur's building, a nicely kept, two-story fourplex. Then he waited.

And waited. For all he knew, the bastard wasn't even coming home tonight, had picked up some chick and was sacking out at her place.

The street was deserted, which meant none of his daytime identities-street cleaner, postman, sausage vendor, yeshiva boy-were of any use; the costume changes lay tangled and unused in the trunk of the unmarked car.

And what an unmarked! His own wheels were out of the question-the red BMW stood out like a fresh bloodstain. In it's place Latam had dredged up a terminally ill Volkswagen, oppressive little box, the gears protesting every nudge of the shift lever, stuffing coming out of the seats in rubbery tufts, the interior smelling of spoiled food, leaking petrol, and stale cigarette smoke.

Not that he could smoke-the glow would give him away. So he sat doing nothing, his only company a plastic two-liter Coke bottle to piss in. Each time he was through with it he emptied it in the gutter.

Sitting for almost four hours, his ass had fallen asleep; he had to pinch himself to get the feeling back.

Nash, the Latam guy at the back of the building, had the better deal: run a dry mop up and down the hallway, then stake out the alley. Fresh air, at least. Exercise.

Every half hour the two of them checked in with each other. The last check had been ten minutes ago.

Aleph, here..

Bet, here. Grunt.

Not a very social guy, Nash, but he supposed most undercover types weren't picked for their conversational skills. The opposite, even: They were to be seen and hot heard.

He checked his watch. Eleven-forty. Reached for the Coke bottle.

Midnight, Talbieh, the Sharavi household was silent, the women and children all asleep.

Rather than return to the hotel alone, Luanne had chosen to stay for the night, sleeping in the master bedroom, on Daniel's side of the bed. She and Laura came into the studio, nightgowned and cold-creamed-the borrowed gown half a foot too short on Luanne-and gave their husbands quick kisses before trundling off together. Daniel heard little-girl giggles, conspiratorial whispers through the thin bedroom door before they fell asleep.

A pajama party. Good for them. He was glad they were coping by keeping occupied, had never seen Laura so busy: museum outings, shopping trips to the boutiques on Dizengoff Circle and Jaffa flea-market stalls, lectures, late movies-now that was a change. She'd never been much of a cinema buff, rarely stayed up past ten.

Changes.

And why not? No reason for her to give up her life because the case had turned him into a phantom. Still, a small, selfish part of him wanted her to be more dependent. Need him more.

He finished chewing one of Shoshi's chicken sandwiches- dry, but an architectural masterpiece, so lovingly prepared: the bread trimmed, the pickles quartered and individually wrapped. He'd felt guilty biting into it.

He wiped his mouth.

"Whoa," said Gene. "Whoa, look at this."

Daniel got up and walked to the black man's side. Next to three sandwich wrappers and the Sumbok roster was the newly arrived homicide file on Lilah "Nightwing" Shehadeh, spread out on the table/desk, opened to one of the back pages. The file was thick, stretching the limits of the metal fasteners that bound it to the manila folder, and anchored to the desk top by Gene's large thumb.

"What do you have? Daniel leaned over, saw a page of photocopied murder photos one side, a poorly typed report on the other. The quality of the photocopy was poor, the pictures dark and blurred, some of the printed text swirling and bleeding out to white.

Gene tapped the report. "Hollywood Division never figured it for a serial because there was no follow-up murder. Their working assumption was that it was a phony sex-killing aimed at covering up a power struggle between Shehadeh's pimp and a competitor. The pimp, guy named Bowmont Alvin Johnson, was murdered a few months before Shehadeh; bunch of other fancy boys were interviewed-all had supposed alibis. Shehadeh and Johnson had split up before he was killed, but the same detectives handled both cases and they remembered finding a purse at his apartment that his other girls identified as once belonging to Shehadeh. The purse was stored in the evidence room; after she turned up dead, they took that with her when she left-but the next-best thing: some scraps of paper with names that they figured to be either her dope suppliers or customers. Twenty names. Eight were never identified. One of them was a D.

Terrif. There were also several D.T.'s. Now the punch line. Look at this."

He lowered his index finger to a spot at the center of the Sumbok page.

Terrif, D.D.

Daniel remembered the name. One of the three he'd thought might be Arabic.

His hands were trembling. He put one on Gene's shoulder, said, "Finally."

"Bingo." Gene smiled. "That's American for 'we done good.'"

A Latam detective named Avram Comfortes sat in the soft mulch beneath the orange trees that surrounded Walid Darousha's large, graceful Ramallah villa, inhaling citrus fragrance, shooing away mice and the night moths that alighted upon the trees and sucked nectar from the flowers.

At fifteen minutes past midnight, the metal shutters to Darousha's bedroom window craoked open. They'd been sealed shut for an hour, since Darousha and the watchman had finished a late supper, the doctor cooking, the watchman eating.

An hour. Comfortes had a good idea what had been going on inside, was glad he didn't have to look at it.

The window was small, square, laced with grillwork-the old-fashioned kind, ornate enough for a mosque. Framed inside was a clear view of the doctor's bedroom. A large room, painted blue, the ceiling white.

Comfortes lifted his binoculars and saw a sepia-tone family portrait on the far wall, next to an old map of pre-'48 Palestine-they never gave up. Under the map was a high, wide bed covered with a while chenille spread.

Darousha and Zia Hajab sat under the spread, side by side, naked to the waist, propped up by wildly cotored embroidered pillows. Just sitting there, not talking, until Hajab finally said something and Darousha got up. The doctor was wearing baggy boxer shorts. His body was soft, white, and hairy, generous love handles flowing over the waistband of the underpants, breasts as soft as a woman's, quivering when he moved.

He left the bedroom. Alone, Hajab fingered the covers, wiped his eyes, stared straight in Comfortes's direction.

Seeing, the undercover man knew, only darkness.

What did guys like that think about?

Darousha came back with two iced drinks on a tray, Tall glasses filled with something clear and golden, next to a couple of red paper napkins. He served Hajab, leaned over and kissed the watchman on the cheek. Hajab didn't seem to notice, was already gulping.

Darousha said something. Hajab shook his head, emptied the glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Darousha handed him a napkin, took the empty glass and gave him the second one, went back to his side of the bed and just sat there, watching Hajab drink. Looking happy to serve.

Funny, thought Comfortes, he would have expected the opposite, the doctor in charge. Then again, they were deviates. You couldn't expect them to be predictable.

Which made them well worth watching.

He picked up his logbook, made a notation. Writing in the dark, without benefit of seeing the letters. But he knew it would be legible. Plenty of practice.

At twelve-thirty, from his perch atop the Law Building, Shimshon Katz saw movement through his telescope. Human movement, originating at the rear of the Amelia Catherine, then hooking around to the front of the hospital and continuing southeast on the Mount of Olives Road.

A man. Swinging his arms and walking in a long, loose stride. The relaxed stride of someone without a care in the world.

The man stopped, turned. Katz saw him quarter-face, enough to match him with his photo. He resumed walking and Katz followed him through the scope, using one hand to switch on the videotape interface. Hearing the whir of the camera as it began to do its job.

Probably nothing, just a walk before bedtime. The administrator, Baldwin, had done one of those twenty minutes ago, along with his cute little Lebanese girlfriend: a stroll along the ridge, stopping for a couple of minutes to look out at the desert, then, back inside. Lights out.

But this nightwalker kept going, toward the city. Katz matched the silhouette grow smaller, turned up the magnification on the scope, and nudged it gently in order to keep the departing figure in his sights.

He continued following and filming until the road dipped and the figure dropped from view. Then he got on the police radio, punched in the digital code for the security band, and called Southeast Team Sector.

"Scholar, here. Progress."

"Relic speaking. Specify."

"Curly, on foot down the Mount of Olives Road, coming your way."

"Clothing and physicals."

"Dark sport coat, dark pants, dark shirt, dark shoes. No outstanding physicals."

"Curly, no vehicle, all dark. That it, Scholar?"

"That's it."

"Shalom."

"Shalom."

The communication was monitored by Border Patrol units stationed in the desert above Mount Scopus and near the Ras El Amud mosque, where the Jericho Road shifted suddenly to the east. The man who'd answered the call was a Latam man, code-named Relic, stationed near the entry to the Rockefeller Museum at the intersection of that same road and Sultan Suleiman, the first link in the human chain that made up Southeast Team Sector. The second and third links were undercover detectives positioned on Rehov Habad at the centre of the Old City, and the Zurich garden at the foot of Mount Zion.

The fourth was Elias Daoud, waiting nervously at the Kishle substation for word that a suspect was headed due west of the city walls.

The radio call came in at Daniel's flat when he was on the phone to the American Medical Association offices in Washington, D.C., trying to find out if a Dr. D. Terrif was or had ever been a member of that organization. The secretary had put him on hold while she consulted with her superior; he handed the phone to Gene and listened closely to what Katz was saying.

Wondering, along with the rest of them, if Dr. Richard Carter had anything else in mind tonight, other than a casual stroll.

A miracle, thought Avi, watching Wilbur stumble toward his front door, carrying something in a paper bag. Amount of liquor the shikur had inside of him, it was a miracle he hadn't ended up in some gutter.

One forty-three in the morning-late-ending party or an all-nighter cut short?

Through his binoculars he saw the reporter fumble with his keys, finally manage to find the right one, scratch around the front-door lock.

Put a little hair around it. Though from the looks of this jerk, even that wouldn't help.

Wilbur finally got the key in and entered the fourplex. Avi radioed the Latamnik in back to let him know the subject was home.

"Aleph here."

No answer.

Maybe the reporter had walked through the building straight to the back alley-to throw up or get something from his car-and the undercover man couldn't give himself away by answering. If that was the case, any transmission would be a betrayal.

He'd wait a while before trying again, watch for some sign that Wilbur was up in his room.

For ten minutes he sat impatiently in the Volkswagen; then the lights went on in the reporter's second-story window.

"Aleph here."

The second radio call went unanswered, as did a third, five minutes later.

Finally, Avi got out of the car, jogged the half block to Wi'bur's building on brand new Nikes, and tried the radio again.

Nothing.

Maybe Nash had seen something, followed Wilbur into the building, and he should hold back.

Still, Sharavi's clear instructions had been to stay in regu-lar contact.

Follow orders, Cohen. Stay out of trouble.

He was in front of the fourplex, enveloped by darkness. The light in the reporter's flat was still on, a dim amber square behind blackout shades.

Avi looked up and down the street, pulled out his flashlight, and insinuated himself in the narrow space between Wilbur's building and its southern neighbor. He walked over wet grass, heard a crunch of broken glass, stopped, listened, and inched forward until he'd slipped completely around the building and was standing in the alley.

The back door stood partially open. The section of cor-fidor it revealed was black as the night. Wilbur's leased AlfaSud was parked in the small dirt lot along with three other cars. Avi made a mental note to record their license plates, continued slowly toward the door.

He smelled something foul. Shit. Really ripe shit, had to be close by-he wondered if he'd gotten any on the Nikes or his pants. Wouldn't that be wonderful!

He took a step closer; the shit smell was really strong now. He had visions of it coating the bottom of his cuffs, clicked on the low beam of the flashlight, ran it over his trousers, then onto the ground in front of him.

Dirt, a bottle cap, something odd: shoes.

But vertical, pointing up at the sky. A pair of running shoes attached to white ankles-someone else's trouser legs. A belt. A shirt. Splayed arms.

A face.

In a split second he made sense of it: the body of the Latamnik, some sort of cord drawn tight around the poor guy's neck, the eyes open and bulging, the tongue distended and sticking out from between thickened lips.

A froth of saliva.

The smell.

Suddenly his homicide course came to mind, the English-language textbook that had made him sweat. Suddenly he understood the shit smell: death by strangulation, the reflexive opening of the bowels

He turned off the flashlight at once, reached frantically under his shirt for his Beretta; before he could get it out, felt stunning, electric pain at the base of his skull, a cruel flash of insight.

Then nothing.

Bitter-mouthed and queasy, Wilbur dragged himself out of the shower, made a halfhearted attempt at drying himself off, and struggled into his robe.

What a night-crap topping off crap.

They'd gotten to him, the Chosen People had.

CP: l.MW:0.

No more Butcher stories, not a single sentence since Sharavi and his storm troopers had put him through their Gestapo

Jesus, his head hurt, he felt feverish, sick as a dog. Stupid broad and her cheap brandy-thank God he'd had the presence of mind to pick up the bottle of Wild Turkey.

Thank God he hadn't wasted it on her. The bottle was waiting, still sealed, on his nightstand.

Ice cubes in the freezer; he'd filled the tray this morning-or was it yesterday morning? No matter. Important thing was, there was ice. And Turkey. Pop the seal-deflower the seal-and get some good stuff in his system.

A single, solitary cheerful thought at the end of a very crappy day.

Several crappy days.

Wiring his stories and watching for pickups, but not a single goddamned line in print. Good stories, too: human-interest follow-up on the Rashmawis, most of it made up but poignant-goddamned poignant. He knew poignant when he saw it. Another one with a Tel Aviv U. shrink armchair-analyzing the Butcher. And an interview with a disgruntled former Gvura creep exposing how Kagan cadged funds out of rich, respectable American Jews, silk-stocking types who insisted their names be kept secret. The piece h'd written had busted the secret wide open, listing names along with dollar amounts. He'd tacked on a tasty little summary tying the whole thing in with a Larger Social Issue: the conflict between the old Zionist idealism and the new militaristic

Big fucking deal. Not a word of it picked up.

Nada. They'd erased his identity-for all practical purposes, murdered him.

At first he'd thought it was a delay, maybe an oversupply of stories holding up his. But after four days he knew it was something else, grabbed the phone and called New York. Making noise about state censorship, expecting outrage, backup, some Freedom of the Press good fellowship, we're behind you, Mark, old buddy, will get right on it, yessir.

Instead: hemming and hawing, the kind of talking without saying anything politicians did when they wanted to avoid a. cutting question.

New York was part of it.

He'd been laid out on the altar for sacrifice.

Just like the Butcher victims: the unsung victim-how long before they buried him?

Nebraska. Or Cleveland. Some dead-end desk job purgatory. Meanwhile all he could do was bide his time, work on his screenplay, send letters to L.A. agents-if that panned out, fuck 'em, he'd be eating duck pizza at Spago

Until then, though, a cycle of wretched, empty days. A good romp would have eased the pain.

Romp and Turkey.

Thank God he hadn't wasted the good stuff on her, the phony.

Australian reporter, shoulders on her like a defensive lineman. But a nice face-no Olivia Newton-John, but good clean features, nice blond hair, good skin. All those buttermilk freckles on her neck and chest-he'd been curious as hell to know how far down they went.

Way she came on at Fink's, he was sure he'd find out. He'd bought the Wild Turkey from the bartender-double retail plus tip, on his expense account. He sat down at her table. Five minutes later, her hand was on his knee.

Wink and a whistle, my place or your place?

Her place.

Dinky single, just a couple of blocks from his, almost no furniture-she'd just arrived from kangaroo land. But the requisite party toys: stereo, soft-rock cassette collection. A futon mattress on the floor, candles. Bottles.

Lots of bottles: cheap brandy, ten varieties, every fruit you could think of. A cheap-brandy freak.

They'd tossed back shot after shot, sharing a jam jar. Then her little secret: little chocolate-colored hashish crumbs inserted into a Dunhill filter tip-an interesting buzz, the hash softening the edges of the bad booze.

Mind candy, she'd whispered, tonguing his ear.

Soft lights, soft rock on the tape deck.

A tongue duel, then lying back. Ready to dive into their own personal Down Under. Nice, right?

Wrong.

He let the towel fall to the floor, felt the cold tile under his soles, shivered, and swayed unsteadily. Vision blurred, nausea climbed up to his throat.

God, he felt like heaving his guts out-how much of that swill had he ingested?

He leaned over the sink, closed his eyes and was hit by an attack of the dry heaves that left him weak and short of breath, needing to hold on to the sink for support.

Pure swill-he didn't want to think about what it was doing to his intestinal tract. And had the hash been anything other than hash? He recalled a night in Rio, Mardi Gras craziness. Weed laced with some kind of hallucinogen, he'd walked on rubber sidewalks for three days.

But she'd put away an entire bottle by herself, not even blinking.

Australians-they were bottomless pits when it came to booze and dope. Descended from criminals, probably something in the genes

He felt his heart pounding. Irregularly. Brushed aside heart-attack terror, closed the commode and sat down on the lid, having trouble getting a good deep breath. Trying not to think of tonight's disaster, but the more he tried, the more the memories forced themselves into his muddy consciousness.

The two of them lying side by side on the futon, his hand on her thigh-hefty, freckled thigh. Tossing back swill and smoking hash and tossing back more swill, his hand in her blouse, she, letting him, smiling goofy-eyed and saying cheers and burping and putting it away as if it were Perrier.

Everything going well, goddamned salvation after all those shitty days. Then she suddenly get the talkies-all she wants to do is jabber.

Off goes the blouse-big girl, big freckled tits to make a centerfold jealous, just like he'd imagined. Big brown nipples; she let him suck on them, play with her-we're heading home, Marko-but she kept right on talking.

Dope-talk. Fast and furious, with an undercurrent of hysteria that made him nervous, as if one wrong move and she'd be sobbing uncontrollably, screaming rape or something.

Crazy-talk. Sliding from one topic to the next without benefit of logical association.

Her ex-husband. Exotic birds. Her parents' taste in furniture. High school drinking parties. A cactus collection she'd had in kindergarten. Homesickness. An abortion in college. Her brother, the sheep shearer.

Then lots of weird stuff about sheep: shearing sheep.

Dipping sheep. Watching sheep fuck. Castrating sheep-not exactly the lexicon from which erotic alphabet soup sprang

What the hell was he talking about? Her craziness was catching.

His head felt ready to split open. After several attempts he finally got to his feet, lurched into the bedroom, and made for the Turkey bottle. The ice could wait.

The light was off. Funny, he thought he'd left it on.

The mind gone, memory cells blasted to hell-he was sure she'd put something in the hash. Or the rotgut.

The darkness better anyway. His eyeslids felt crammed with gravel, the darkness more soothing, just a little soft glow from the foyer highlighting outlines

He went for the Turkey on the nightstand, groped air.

It wasn't there.

Oh, shit, he'd put it somewhere else and forgotten about it. He was really blasted, had really done it this time. The stupid broad had poisoned him with her blackberry-peach-pear rotgut. Jerked him around and poisoned him.

And how he'd been jerked. She'd let him do anything, everything, allowing him into her pants, passive as a coma victim. Letting him spread her big freckled legs, accommodating him as he slipped in it like a finger in a greased glove. So accommodating he wondered if she felt it-was she used to something bigger? He moved to make her feel it, stroked her, used every trick she knew, but all she did was lie there staring at the ceiling and talking, as if he were doing it to someone else, she wasn't even a part of it, was in some talktalk twilight zone.

Putting up no resistance, but jabbering until he lost his hard-on, pulled out, stood up.

Jabbering, spread-eagled, even as he put his clothes on, grabbed the unopened Turkey bottle. He could still hear her jabbering as he closed the door to her apartment

He stumbled around the room, feeling for the Turkey.

Where the hell was the goddamned bottle?

Mind, gone; memory, gone. He stomped around the room, checking the floor, the bed, his dresser, the closet, feeling the panic starting to rise-

"Looking for this?" said someone.

His heart shot up into his chest, collided with the roof of his mouth. Unexpelled breath stagnated painfully in his chest.

Outline in the doorway, backlit by the foyer bulb. Some guy, hat, long coat. The light glinting off eyeglasses. The fuzz of a beard.

The guy came closer. Smiling. Grinning.

"What the hell-"

"Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific. What seems to be the problem?"

He could see teeth. A grin.

Too weird.

Oh, shit, Dr. Terrific: D.T. The D.T.'s.

A Delirium Tremens Demon. You always heard about it hitting some other guy, never thought it would happen to you. He remembered the warning of the Brazilian doctor with the soft, wet hands: Your liver, Mr. Wilbur. Easy on the daiquiris.

Off the sauce, he promised himself, first thing tomorrow morning. Three squares a day, more B vitamins

"Looking for this, Mark?" repeated the D.T. Demon, extending the Turkey bottle.

Definitely hallucinating.

Poisoned hash. Laced with something-LSD… The demon in the hat grinned wider. Looking awfully goddamned real for a hallucination

Wilbur sat down on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes, rubbed them, opened them again, hoping to find himself alone.

He didn't.

"What the hell-"

The demon/man shook his head. "Talk respectfully, Mark."

Using his name, as if he knew him intimately, were part of him. Like one of those cartoons he'd watched as a kid. This is your conscience speaking, Mark.

He waved it away. "Up yours."

The demon reached into his coat, pulled out something long and shiny. Even in the dimness, Wilbur knew right away what it was.

Knife. Biggest goddamned knife he'd ever seen-blade had to be close to a foot long, maybe longer. Gleaming metal Made, pearl handle.

"Respectfully, Mark."

Wilbur stared at the knife glinting light. Cold and clean and cruel and real… Could this be real? Oh, God-

"I've missed your stories about me, Mark. I feel as if you've abandoned me."

And then he knew.

"Listen," he forced out, "I wanted to. They wouldn't let me."

The man kept grinning, listening.

A hundred shrink interviews reeled through his head: Buy time, goddammit. Establish a bond. Empathy.

"Censorship-you know what it's like," he said. Forcing a smile-oh, Jesus, how it hurt to smile. That knife… "I did several stories-you want to see them, I can show them to you-out in my desk in the living room." Slurring his words, sounding like a drunk. Be dearer!

"In the living room," he repeated. Front room, make a lunge for the door

"Another thing, Mark," said the grinning bastard, as if he hadn't heard a word. "You called me a butcher. That implies sloppiness. Crudeness. I'm a professional. A real scientist. I always clean up afterward."

No, no, no, make this go away-got to get out of this room, this goddamned room, make a run for it

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Despite that, I've really missed those stories, Mark. We had a relationship. You had no permission to end it without consulting me."

The man in the hat and long coat came closer. What a weird face, something wrong with it-off kilter, he couldn't place it… Hell with that-don't waste time wondering about stupid things.

Buy time.

"I know what you mean. I'd feel the same way if I were you. But the system stinks, it really does." Now he was jabbering. Going on about New York, the Chosen People, how both of them were victims of Zionist censorship. The grinning man just standing there, bottle in one hand, knife in the other. Listening.

"We can work together, Doctor. Tell your story, the way you want it told, a big book, no one will ever know who you are, I'll protect you, once we're out of this stinking country no more censorship, I can promise you that. Hollywood's crazy for the idea…"

The grinning man didn't seem to be listening anymore. Distracted. Wilbur moved his aching eyes down from the off-kilter face to the asshole's hands: the Turkey bottle in one hand, the knife in the other. He decided to go for broke, wondered which one to grab.

The knife.

He readied himself. A long moment of silence. His heart was racing. He couldn't breathe, was suffocating on his own fear… Stop that! No negative thinking-buy time.

Distract the asshole again.

"So," he said, "tell me a little about yourself."

The grinning man came closer. Wilbur saw his eyes and knew it was useless. Over.

He tried to scream. Nothing came out. Struggled to get up off the bed and fell backward, helpless.

Paralyzed with fear. He'd heard that animals about to be ripped to shreds by predators slipped into protective paraly-

The mind shut off. Anesthesia-oh, Lord, he hoped so. Make me an animal, numb me, take away these thoughts, the waiting

The bearded face hovered over him, grinning.

Wilbur choked out a feeble squeak, covered his face so as not to see the knife, scrambled to fill his mind with thoughts, images, memories, anything that could compete with the pain of waiting.

God, how he hated knives. So unfair-he was an okay guy.

The hand with the knife never moved.

The one with the bottle did.

The Ali Baba closed at midnight, but Al Biyadi slipped the waiter some dollars and he and Cassidy were allowed to sip another pistachio milk as the lights went out around them.

Quite a few dollars, thought Shmeltzer, as he watched the waiter bring them a plate of cookies topped off by a sonata of bows and scrapes.

Cassidy took a cookie and nibbled on it. She seemed bored, no expression in the sexless face. Al Biyadi drank, consulted his watch. Just another couple out on a date, but Shmeltzer's instincts told him something was up-the shmuck had looked at the watch fourteen times during the last hour.

The more he studied them, the more mismatched they seemed-the sheikh in his tailored dark suit and shiny shoes, Cassidy trying to feminize herself with that upswept hairdo, the dangling earrings and lacy dress, but ending up far short of success. Touching the sheikh's arm from time to time but getting only half-smiles or less.

Shmuck was definitely nervous, his mind somewhere else.

A young dark-haired woman dressed in white work clothes and equipped with a mop and pail emerged from the back of the restaurant, knelt, and began cleaning off the sidewalk.

Al Biyadi and Cassidy ignored her, kept playing out their

, little scene.

Waiting? For what?

The Latam couple had paid their check and left the restaurant ten minutes ago, conferring briefly with Shmeltzer before walking off hand in hand, north on Salah E-Din. To the casual observer a goyische twosome, headed for fun in a suite at the American Colony Hotel.

Al Biyadi looked at his watch again. Almost a nervous tic. Cassidy put the cookie down, placed her hands in her lap.

The scrubwoman dragged her mop closer to their table, making soapy circles, then right up next to them.

She knelt, kept her hands moving, her narrow white back to Shmeltzer. He half-expected Al Biyadi to say something nasty to her-guy was class-conscious.

But instead he looked down at her, seemed to be listening to her. Tensing up. Nodding. Cassidy making a grand show of looking off in the distance.

The scrubwoman dragged her pail elsewhere, scrubbed for a few seconds, then disappeared back into the restaurant. Half the sidewalk was still dirty. Al Biyadi slapped down more bills, pinned them under the candle glass, got up, and brushed off his trousers.

Cassidy stood too, took his arm. Squeezed it-through his binoculars, Shmeltzer could see her fingers tightening like claws around the dark fabric.

Al Biyadi peeled them off, gave her a tiny shake of the head, as if to say not now.

Cassidy dropped her hands to her sides. Tapped her foot.

The two of them stood on the sidewalk.

Moments later, Shmeltzer heard sounds from the back door of the restaurant. The door opened, freeing a beam of ocher light and kitchen clatter. He pressed himself into a dark corner and watched as the scrubwoman, now dressed in a dark dress, walked out and fluffed her hair. Short girl-petite. Pretty profile.

She began heading north on Salah E-Din, duplicating the Latam couple's route.

Shmeltzer could see she was a bit flatfooted, could hear her shuffle. When her footsteps had died, he moved forward, looked at her, then back at the Ali Baba.

The restaurant's front lights had been turned off. The waiter was folding up tablecloths, extinguishing candles, collapsing tables.

Al Biyadi and Cassidy began walking north, too, following the scrubwoman.

They passed within two meters of him, keeping up a good pace, not talking. Shmeltzer radioed the Latam couple. The woman answered.

"Wife, here."

"They just left, followed a short woman in a dark dress, shoulder-length dark hair, early twenties. Ali three of them coming your way on Salah E-Din. Where are you?"

"Just past Az-Zahara, near the Joulani Travel Agency."

"Stay there. I'll take up the rear."

He put the radio under his beggar's robes, back in the pocket of his windbreaker, cursed the heat and all those layers of clothes, and followed a block behind.

Goddamned caravan.

Sheikh and girlfriend kept walking fast. A few stragglers were still out on the streets-lowlife, porters and kitchen help from the Arab hotels going off-shift-but he found it easy to keep an eye on his quarry: Look for a female head bobbing next to a male. You didn't see many men and women walking together in East Jerusalem.

They passed Az-Zahara Street, walked right by the Joulani Agency where the Latam couple was waiting, invisibly, and the American School for Oriental Research, and continued toward the Anglican Cathedral of Saint George and its four-steepled Gothic tower.

Just above the cathedral they reunited with the scrubwoman, exchanged words that Shmeltzer couldn't hear, and made their way-a strange threesome-east, then south, down Ibn Haldoun. The street was narrow and short, dead-ending at Ibn Batuta and the front facade of the Ritz Hotel.

But they stopped short of the dead end, walked through a wrought-iron gate into the courtyard of an elegant old walled Arab house, and disappeared.

Shmeltzer waited across the street for the Latam couple to arrive, saw them enter the mouth of Ibn Haldoun and trotted up the street to greet them. The three of them retreated twenty yards up Ibn Haldoun, away from the glare of street lamps.

"All three of them in there?" asked the man.

Shmeltzer nodded. "They entered just a minute ago. Do you know anything about the building?"

"Not on any list I've seen," said the woman. "Nice, for a street scrubber."

"She resembles the first three Butcher victims," said Shmeltzer. "Small, dark, not bad-looking. We've been thinking they plucked their pigeons right out of the hospital, but maybe not. Maybe they make contact during medical visits, arrange to meet them later-money for sex." He paused, looked back at the house. Two stories, fancy, carved stone trim. "Be nice to know who owns the palace."

"I'll call in, put in for a Ministry of Housing ID," said the woman, removing her radio from her purse.

"No time for that," said Shmeltzer. "They could be doping her up right now, laying her out for surgery. Call French Hill, tell them the situation and that we're going in. And ask for backup-have an ambulance ready."

He looked at the man. "Come on."

They sprinted to the house, opened the gates, which were fuzzy with rust, entered the courtyard, Berettas drawn.

A front-door back-door approach was called for but access to the rear of the house was blocked on both sides by Italian cypress growing together in dense green walls. Returning their attention to the front, they took in details: a single door, at the center; grated windows, most of them shuttered. Two front balconies, the courtyard planted nicely with flower beds. Maybe a subdivision into flats-most of the big houses in Jerusalem had been partitioned-but with only one door there was no way to know for certain.

Shmeltzer waved his gun toward the door. The Latam man followed him.

Locked. The Latam guy took out picks. This one was fast; he had it open in two minutes. He looked at Shmeltzer, waiting for the signal to push the door open.

Shmeltzer knew what he was thinking. A place this fancy could have an alarm; if it were the kill spot, maybe even a booby trap.

Too old to be doing this, he thought. And to save an Arab, yet. But what could you do-the job was the job.

He gave the door a push, walked into the house, the Latam man at his heels. No ringing bells, no flurry of movement. And no shrapnel tearing through his chest. Good. Saved for another day of blessed existence.

A square entry hall, round Persian rug, two more doors at the end. Shmeltzer and the Latam man pressed themselves against opposite walls, took one door each, jiggled the handles.

The Latam guy's was open. Inside it was a spiral staircase, uncarpeted stone.

Shmeltzer walked up it, found the landing at the top boarded up, the air dust-laden and smelling of musty neglect. He tried the boards. Nailed tight, no loose ones. No one had come up here tonight.

Back down to the ground floor, signal to the Latam guy to try the second door. Locked. Two locks, one on top of the other. The first one yielded quickly to the pick; the second was stubborn.

The minutes ticked away, Shmeltzer imagined drops of blood falling in synchrony with each one. His hands were sweat-slick, the Beretta cold and slippery. He waited as the

Latam man potchked with the lock, thought of the scrubwoman, naked on some table, head down, dripping into a rug

Too damned old for this shit.

The Latam guy worked patiently, twisting, turning, losing the tumblers, finally finding them.

The door swung open silently.

They stepped into a big dark front room, gleaming stone floors, heavy drapes blocking rear windows, swinging Dutch doors leading to a corridor on the right. A low-wattage bulb in a wall sconce cast a faint orange glow over heavy, expensive-looking furniture-old British-style furniture, stiff settees and bowlegged tables. Lace doilies. More tables, inlaid Arab-style, an oversized inlaid backgammon set, a potbellied glass-doored breakfront full of silver, dishes, bric-a-brac. A guitar resting on a sofa. Ivory carvings. Lots of rugs.

Rich. But again, the senile, old-clothes smell of neglect. Set up like props on a theater stage, but not lived in. Not for a long time.

The front room opened to a big old-fashioned kitchen on the left. The Latam man peeked his head into it, came back signaling nothing.

The Dutch doors, then. The only choice.

Damned things squeaked. He held them open for the Latam man. The two of them stepped onto an Oriental runner. Doors, four of them. Bedrooms. A hyphen of light under one on the left. Muted sounds.

They approached the door, held their breath, listened. Conversation, Al Biyadi's voice rising in excitement. Talking Arabic, a female replying, the words unclear.

Shmeltzer and the Latamnik looked at each other. Shmeltzer motioned him to go ahead. The guy was younger -his legs could take the punishment.

The Latam man kicked in the door and the two of them jumped in, pointing their Berettas, screaming: "Police! Drop down! Drop! Dropdown! Police!"

No murder scene, no blood.

Just Al Biyadi and two women standing open-mouthed with astonishment in a bright, empty room full of wooden crates. Most of the boxes were covered by canvas tarpaulins; a few were bare. Shmeltzer saw the words farm machinery stenciled on the wood in Hebrew and Arabic.

A crowbar lay on the floor, which was littered with packing straw. A crate in the center of the room had been pried open.

Filled to the brim with rifles, big, heavy Russian rifles. Shmeltzer hadn't seen so many at one time since they'd taken the weapons off the Egyptians in '67.

Al Biyadi was holding one of the rifles, looking like a child caught with his hand in the biscuit bin. The women had dropped to the floor, but the shmuck remained standing.

"Drop it!" Shmeltzer screamed, and pointed the Berettaat his snotty, sheikh face.

The doctor hesitated, looked down at the rifle and up again at Shmeltzer.

"Put it down, you fucking little rat!"

"Oh God," said Peggy Cassidy from the floor.

Al Biyadi dropped the rifle, a second short of dying.

"On the ground, on your belly!" ordered Shmeltzer. Al Biyadi complied.

Shmeltzer kept his gun trained on Al Biyadi's spine, advanced carefully, and kicked the rifle out of the bastard's reach. He was to find out, moments later, that the weapon had been unloaded.

So pretty, thought the Grinning Man, eyeing the young cop's body laid out naked on the table.

Every muscle outlined in relief, like fine sculpture, the skin firm and smooth, the facial features perfectly formed.

Adonis. No hook-nose.

Hard to believe this one was kikeshit. He'd searched the dumbfuck's pockets, hoping to find a non-kike ID, something indicating he was an Aryan who'd somehow been duped into working for the kikes.

But there was no wallet, no papers. Just a Star of David on a thin gold chain stuffed into one of the pockets.

Hiding the kikeness. The dumbfuck was kikeshit.

It was wrong, an insult.

The dumbfuck was a genetic fluke, sneak thief of Aryan genes.

But pretty. The last time he'd seen anything male that looked this good was years ago, back in stinkhole Sumbok. Fourteen-year-old Gauguin Boy brought in dead to the Gross Anatomy Lab-sold for small change by his family, ninety pounds of medical research material.

Ninety pounds of prime protoplasm: coppery skin, smoky long-lashed eyes, glossy black hair. Little slant had died from acute bacterial meningitis; once he'd sawed open the skull and exposed the cerebral cortex, the damage was obvious, all that yellow-green mucus clogging the meninges.

But, despite the brain-rot, the body remained beautiful, firm, smooth as a girl's. Smooth as Sarah. Hard to believe he was a hundred percent slant-hard to believe he was male.

But rotten to the core, even in death:

The little slant bastard had ruined his plans!

It reaffirmed his.code:

Males were to be finished fast: the kill-blow to the face or a tracheal-rupture death-choke. The power-jolt, that final look of surprise before the lights went out.

Now you know who's in charge.

Bye-bye.

Females were to be savored. Saved. For real science.

But this one on the table was pretty. Near-female.

Female enough?

His first impulse after cold-cocking the dumbfuck had been to finish him off as he lay there, one good boot-stomp to the face, leaving him behind the reporter's building along with the other kikeshit.

Then he looked at the face, the body, saw something that made him shake.

So pretty.

He got hard.

Disturbing thoughts, as painful as bee stings, darted around in his head:

Pretty as a faggot?

Girl or boy?

He swatted away the thoughts, concentrated on the dumbfuck lying inert, under his control.

Dumbfuck was a faggot.

The SS had known what to do with faggots.

Grandpa Hermann had known what to do with faggots.

Real science. The prospect of adventure: That's what had made him hard.

He took a deep breath, held it; the bee-sting thoughts flew away. Quickly, he went through the pockets of the faggot's designer jeans, found car keys, confiscated them along with the gun the faggot had dropped, then gave the faggot a nighty-night shot of H to keep him qujet. Then, out front to the street, trying car doors until he found the lock that matched the keys.

Taking risks but enjoying the endocrine-rush. His Mideast safari almost over, why not squeeze out every bit of pleasure before moving on to the next project?

He found the car soon enough: beat-up VW bug-faggot had left it unlocked. He drove it back to the alley, dumped the faggot's unconscious body in the trunk. Found costume changes, identity changes-dumbfuck thought he knew how to play that game! Then a five-minute drive to the German

Hans,the VW stashed in the garage next to his Mercedes.

Another five-minutes and Faggot Adonis was stretched out and tlied up on the dining room table.

Kike Adonis. Too pretty-very wrong. An affront to the Schwann-code, it was up to him to avenge it.

Improvise.

And why not? Improvisation was fine if you did it with style. After all, his final act would be a grand improvisation, the ultimate fuel-jolt that really got Project Untermensch off the ground.

Surprise, surprise. Let the games begin.

The dumbfuck stirred on the table, made a clicking sound from deep in his throat.

He reached over, checked the faggot's pulse and respiration, made sure he wasn't about to vomit and choke on it.

All systems functioning normally.

Dumbfuck was quiet again. Pretty.

Yes, definitely pretty enough for a real science excursion.

Exploring the faggot cavity-Grandpa Hermann would approve.

Expand the boundaries: males, females, dogs, cats, rats, reptiles, Arachnida, Coelenterata -all soft tissue and pain receptors. The differences were minor when you got right down to it. Arbitrary. When you opened a body, looked into the welcome hole, the visceral mural, you realized the sameness. Everyone was the same.

In terms of meat.

Not mind

A fine Aryan Schwann-mind was in a different cognitive sphere from untermensch hollow-head brainscum.

And this young, naked one on his table was ikey-kikey faggot kikeshit, wasn't he?

Pretty.

But male.

More bee stings:

He'd explored a male before. It had ruined his plans.

Since then he'd been disciplined. The males finished lightning-fast, the females for exploration.

But he'd come a long way since then. Learned how to be careful, how to clean up perfectly.

Sting.

Swat.

Fuck it! He was in charge; no need to be hemmed in any longer by what Gauguin Boy had done to him.

Just the opposite: He needed to break free of constraints. Liberate himself. Dieter Schwann and Grandpa Hermann would want that, would be proud of his creativity.

Suddenly he knew why the young cop had been delivered to him: The dumbfuck was there to save him, to be savored by him. Dessert after the final act. A bouquet of roses tossed onstage after a bravura performance.

Roses from Dieter, a message: Free thyself.

His decision was clear.

Keep the dumbfuck tied up nice and snuggly-wuggly; pump him with enough H to keep him calm; then, after the final curtain had fallen, come back, wake him up, give him some more H-no, curare, just like the dog. Motor paralysis accompanied by total mental awareness!

Lying frozen on ice, corpse-helpless, but hearing and seeing and smelling. Knowing!

Exactly what was going on.

Exactly what was being done to him.

The terror all in the eyes.

Bow wow wow.

A superb plan. He finalized it in his head, started preparing a batch of new needles, thinking:

This will free me forever from Sumbok memories.

But as he thought about it, Sumbok memories bore through his mind, making high-pitched bad-machine noises, like termites crunching through masonry.

He touched himself, stroked himself, trying to get past the noise. Dropped a glass syringe on the floor and barely heard it shatter as he grappled with images. Doctor's smug, puffy face:

Well, I finally found a place for you. Not much of a med school, but a med school. Cost me a fortune to convince them to take you. If you manage somehow to g't? through four years and pass the foreign graduate exam, you might be able to find an internship somewhere.

Fucking smugsmile. Translate: You'll never do it, stupid.

Showed how much he knew, the lame fuck. For all practical purposes, he was already a doctor; all that was left was to make it legal by matching his Dr. Terrific hands-on experience with boring books, paper formalities. Then, claim his birthright:

Dieter Schwann, II., M.D., Ph.D., Aryan conqueror of the welcome hole. Mengele-magician-artisan, painting the visceral mural.

The seed preserved!

He'd filled out the application forms with a sense of joy and purpose, readied himself for the adventure, masturbating to happy graduation pictures: himself ten feet tall, in black satin doctor's robes collared with velvet, a satin mortarboard tilted with just the right cockiness. Collecting certificates of honor, delivering the valedictory, then dedicating the Dieter Schwann, M.D., Chair in Surgical Pathology and Visceral Exploration at the University of Berlin.

Bravo.

Living off those pictures for two butt-numbing days of air travel to Djakarta, only to feel the joy die inside of him as the rattling shuttle prop landed on that putrid, humid shithole of an island.

A lumpy brown patch. Water all around, like some cartoon. Sand and mud and droopy trees.

Where are we?

The pilot, a rotten-toothed half-breed, had turned off the engine, opened the door, and tossed his luggage out onto the landing strip.

Welcome to Sumbok, Doc.

Reality: mosquitoes and swamps and grass huts and pockmarked Gauguin-scum hobbling around in loincloths and T-shirts. Pigs and goats and ducks living in the huts, mounds of shit everywhere. On the south side of the island, a muck-filled stagnant bay, jellyfish and sea slugs and other disgusting things washing up on the beach, putrefying, sliming the sand. The rest of it jungle: snakes, nightmare bugs as big as rats, rats as big as dogs, hairy things that gibbered and shrieked in the night.

The so-called school: a bunch of rusting Quonset huts, cement-floored wooden cabins for dormitories, the bunks hooded with mosquito netting. One big, crumbling stucco building for classrooms. In the basement, the Gross Anatomy Lab.

A hand-painted tin sign over the front door: The Grand Medical Facility of St. Ignatius.

Big joke, ha ha.

Except that he was living it.

The so-called students: a bunch of losers. Morons, dopers, chronic complainers, perverts of sullied ethnic origin. The faculty: slant creeps with M.D.'s from dubious places. Delivering their lectures in pidgin accents no normal person could understand, taking delight in insulting the students, insisting on being addressed as Professor. He felt like hate-beaming into their slant-eyes, smiling:

Heavy starch in the shirts, One Hung Low.

Total scam, no one gave a shit. Most of the students gave up and went home after a few months, forfeiting two years' tuition paid in advance. The others got the energy leeched out of them and turned into bums-pissing away days sunning themselves on the beach, nights given over to smoking dope, jerking off under the mosquito netting, wandering the island trying to seduce twelve-year-old Gauguin-girls.

Depraved. He knew if he let himself be sucked into their apathy, he'd be sidetracked from the Schwann mission. Wondered how to insulate himself, decided an identity change was in order-identity changes always cleansed the mind, renewed the spirit.

And he knew which identity to assume, the only one that would enable him to float above it all.

He went and talked to the dean. Slantiest slant of all, nasty little shit with greasy Dracula hair, oily yellow skin, pig eyes, pencil-line mustache, potbelly as if he'd swallowed a melon. But with a fancy Dutch name: Professor Anton Bromet Van der Veering, M.D., D.Sc.

Pretentious little scrotebag.

Sitting behind a big, messy desk, surrounded by books he never read. Smoking a meerschaum pipe carved in the shape of a naked woman.

Slant took a long time to light the pipe, made him stand there for a while before acknowledging his presence. He filled the time by visualizing smashing the scrote's face, meerschaum chips atop the bloody yellow pulp like confectioners' sugar on a lemon tart

Yes, what is it?

I want to change my name, Dean.

What? What are you talking about?

I want to change my name.

Surely this is a legal matter, to be taken up with-

Legal matters don't concern me. Dean. This is a personal issue.

Talking low and serious, one doctor to another, the way he'd seen Doctor confer with his associates while discussing a case.

Scrote was confused. Dense. I really don't see what-

From now on I want to be known as Dieter Terrif.

Spelling it.

Confusion in the pig eyes: This your real name? Terrif?

In a manner of speaking.

I don't-

It's my real name.

Then why did you enroll as-

A long story, Dean.

Charming smile: And for our purposes, irrelevant. The important thing is from now on I want to be known as Dieter Terrif. When I graduate, the diploma will say Dieter Terrif, M.D.,Ph.D.

A slip. The scrote caught it, pounced on it:

We don't grant Ph. D.'s, Mister-

I realize that. I'm planning on continuing my studies past the M.D. Surgical pathology, histological research.

Scrote was definitely confused. That was the problem with dealing with inferior types.

Really, now, this is highly irregular.

Scrote fondled the breasts of the meerschaum lady, pig eyes widening as he watched the money land on his desk.

One, two, three, four, five hundred-dollar bills, fanned out like a green poker hand.

Will this help regularize it?

A greedy hand reaching out. Then, hesitation. More greed.

Five hundred more landed on the desk.

What do you say, Dean?

Well, I suppose

Little shit held a grudge against him after that, looked at him strangely every time they passed each other.

No matter. His new identity cleansed him. Six months of medical studies went by fast, despite tropical storms and heavy rains that brought more mosquitoes to the island; a plague of hairy spiders, spiny lizards, and other creepy-crawlies making their way into the dormitories, scuttling across night sheets, melding bad dreams with reality.

His fellow students woke up screaming. More morons started dropping out, talking about pharmacy school, chiropractic.

None of that second-rate bullshit for him.

He floated above it, cracking the books. Filling his head with doctor-words, taking special pleasure in Gross Lab, spending extra time there. Alone in the basement.

He had little use for food or sleep, was preparing himself for his rightful role as prizewinning pathologist on the staff of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

Then came the day they wheeled Gauguin Boy into the lab, brain-ravaged, but the body so beautiful.

The cadaver got assigned to another student. He bribed the moron, exchanged a disgusting, shriveled old man, plus cash, for the boy.

Came back late at night to study. And cut. Lit the lamp over his dissecting table, left the rest of the room dark. Opened the black leather case, took out a dancer and made a real science Y incision. Cracked the sternum, pinned back the skin flaps.

And saw the internal beauty.

He wanted to dive in, swim among the colors, unite with the cells, the structure, the primal soup of life.

Be as one.

And why not?

Moving automatically, without thinking, he was stripping off his clothes, his nakedness delicious and holy. The lab, hot and humid and reeking of formaldehyde and rot, crickets chirping inside and out. But he wasn't afraid, wasn't sweating, so cool with purpose, floating above it all.

Then descending. On top of the boy, the hole a window to beauty, welcoming him.

Merge.

Coolflesh.

A moment of indescribable ecstasy, then betrayal:

Pidgin curses. The lights sharp and blinding.

Professor Anton Bromet Van der Veering, M.D., D.Sc, standing in the doorway, pipe in hand, the naked-lady meerschaum resembling a tiny female victim struggling in his slimy yellow fingers.

Staring, the piggy-slant eyes so bugged out they'd become round.

Fucker expelled him that night, gave him three days to leave the island. Remained resolute, beyond the lure of more money.

The first time in St. Ignatius history. Hot death-shame took hold of him and made him tremble as he packed. He considered letting a dancer jitterbug along his own wrists, ending it all, then realized it was an honor to be expelled.

He was lucky: set free from a shitpile, separated from stink. Too clean and noble for this place. It was all part of a plan-of Schwann's plan.

Dieter-Daddy had better things in mind for him. Cleaner things.

He put aside failure-thoughts and gave himself a bon voyage party. Gauguin Girl down by the river, washing clothes. Exchange of smiles. Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific. The sweet bliss of real science, in the creamy green silence of the jungle.

He used her bucket and river water to wash her. Left her lying under an enormous mango tree-more bloody fruit to match the soft, festering ones that had fallen to the ground.

Bye-bye, stinkhole.

A stopover in Amsterdam, sluts in windows-he would have loved to play real science with them, but no time.

Back home, he went to see Doctor in his office at the hospital. Kikefuck said nothing, shot him I-told-you-so taunt-beams with his silence.

You'll find me another school. A real one.

Oh, sure, just like that.

Bet on it. Knowing he had the fucker's balls in his pocket.

But a week later the fucker was history. Keeled over in the operating room, dropped dead right on top of a patient.

First-class joke: Famous heart surgeon dies of heart attack. Raking in big bucks bypassing other people's arteries; meanwhile, his own were sludging up.

Funny, but not funny. In death, the fucker got in his last licks: left him out of the will. Everything signed over to Sarah.

As if she needed it, out of Harvard, Mass General, a psychiatrist with a brand-new Boston practice. And married to that fat little hook-nosed kikeshit, also a shrink; on top of everything else, his family was filthy rich. The two of them raking it in, with their Beacon Hill town house, summer home "on the Cape," Mercedes, good clothes, theater tickets.

He and Sarah barely noticed each other at the funeral. He stared at her tits, but kept to himself, talked to no one. She interpreted it as heavy-duty grief, wrote him a letter stinking of phony sympathy, signing over the deed to the pink Haus to him.

Throw a bone to stupid little brother.

One day he'd kill her for it.

Deprived of his ball-hold on Doctor, he took time to reassess his situation: He owned his cars. The portfolio was doing nicely-couple of hundred thou. The savings account had forty-two thou-money he'd saved up over the years from his hospital job, pill profits. His clothes, his costumes. The books in the library. The big green book. The Schwann bible. The dancers in their velvet leather crib.

He sold the pink house cheap and fast, took in another four hundred thousand. After taxes and commission, two hundred thirty thou was left.

He put it all in the bank. Boxed the books, stashed them in the Plymouth, drove around looking for a place to live, and found an apartment near Nasty: two bedrooms, two baths, clean and cheap. Twenty bucks a month extra for two parking spaces.

He spent two days scrubbing the place from floorboard to ceiling, set up bedroom number two as a lab. Went back to the hospital and got his mail-delivery job back, stole more pills than ever, and sold them for higher profit margins. Added to his fortune, spent his free time in the library.

His vacation time was set aside for travel. Medical conventions, pleasure trips, using interesting identities, becoming new people.

Travel was fun. Trapping and hunting.

Now, he'd really expanded his vistas, was an international hunter.

Back in Europe: nightwork in Amsterdam. After all those years, he'd gotten back there, found a slant window-slut, took her down to the docks, and initiated her into the world of real science.

Bought H from a diamond-eared nigger on Kalverstraat near the Dam Square, packed it without worry-U.N. luggage got V.I.P. treatment. Besides, who would think of bringing the stuff into the Middle East?

Then on to Kikeland.

A German Haus in Kikeland.

So real, so right.

While drawing up his safari plan in New York, he'd known he wanted a second place, his own place, away from the others. There was an all-night newsstand on Broadway, near Times Square. He went to it one Friday night and bought The Jerusalem Post, U.S. edition. Took it home and checked the classifieds under Dwellings, Jerusalem-rentals and read magic words:

VILLA, GERMAN COLONY, 3 RMS. AMENITIES, FURN, 1 YR. MIN.

A phone number in New York.

The German Colony. He looked it up at the main branch of the New York Public Library, in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Old southern Jerusalem neighborhood named after the German Templar sect that had lived there from the 1870's until the Fuhrer's Holy War, when they were kicked out by the British for distributing Nazi literature.

Aryans in Kikeland, brothers in spirit! So real, so right!

The kikefuck who'd run the ad was a professor named Gordon, on sabbatical at City University of New York. More than happy to rent him the place, especially after he offered a year's rent up front in cash, plus damage deposit.

Phony name, Manhattan post office box as an address.

Everything conducted over the telephone.

Cash in the mail, keys mailed to the box three days later.

A month later he was walking through the place, knowing it was rightfully his.

Old, dark, tile-roofed Haus, shadowed by big trees, hidden from the road. A main entrance in front and another through the back. A closed double garage. And a bonus he learned about months later: just south of Liberty Bell Park, hop, skip, and jump to the tower where the nigger-kike Sharavi lived.

A clear view of the tower.

Him and his dog and his nigger friends and his kikey-ikey family.

Had to be fate, everything coming together.

He'd made himself comfy in his German Haus. Would have given anything to see the look on Gordon's hooked-nose face when he returned next year and found out what had been done to his little kikenest, the trade he'd made for the fucking damage deposit.

But Doctor Terrific would be long gone, by then. On to new adventures.

The faggot-cop on the table stirred again, pretty eyelashes fluttering, lips parting as if for a kiss.

He filled a syringe with H, then decided to hold off.

Let him wake up, see the swastikas on the walls, the heads and pelts and messages from Dieter. Then put him back under.

Faggot opened his eyes wide. Then his mouth, which was quickly filled with a wadded-up cloth.

Taking in the room, gulping and thrusting and straining against the ropes.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific. What seems to be the problem?"

Monday, two a.m. The cries and pleadings of Margaret Pauline Cassidy still filled Daniel's ears as he left the interrogation room.

A Mossad guard man handed him the message slip: Rav Pakad Harel needed to speak to him immediately. He left the subground interrogation suite, took the stairs up to the third floor, and wondered what the Latam chief had come up with. As he climbed, his thoughts returned to Cassidy.

Pathetic young woman. She'd entered the session spitting defiance, still believing Al Biyadi intended to marry her, that their relationship had something to do with love.

Shmeltzer had torn into her, stripped away those fantasies in no time at all.

It opened her up fast. The tape recorder was gorging itself on names, dates, and numbers by the time the brass stormed in. Laufer, his boss, high-ranking tight-lipped boys from Mossad and Shin Bet. Taking over. The case was now national security, Shmeltzer and Daniel allowed to stay but relegated to observer status.

Priorities were clear, Laufer's attitude an excellent barometer. Since the Amelia Catherine covert, the deputy commander had abandoned his hands-off stance, insisted upon receiving daily progress reports, copies of the medical charts, the Sumbok list, the logs of the surveillance from the law building. But this morning he had no time for any of it, showed not the slightest curiosity about the case.

Fine, fine, Sharavi. Rushing past Daniel in order to question the terrorists.

Daniel watched, too, sitting behind one-way glass, as a Mossad investigator walked the soil Shmeltzer had plowed.

Three interrogations proceeded simultaneously. A marathon.

Al Biyadi in one room; next door his cousin, the phony charwoman. Both of them toughing it out, silent as dust.

But Cassidy had spilled to Nahum. He'd ignored her insults, the anti-Semitic slurs, kept picking and tearing at her resistance until he made her see that she'd been used and demeaned.

When the insight hit her, she did an immediate about-face, turning her wrath upon Al Biyadi, vomiting out her shame and hurt, talking so fast they'd had to slow her down, tell her to speak so that the recorder picked up more than mush.

And talk she did: How Hassan Had seduced her, strung her along with promises of matrimony, a big house back in America, back in Huntington Beach, California. Children, cars, the good life.

Just one more assignment before settling down to eternal domestic bliss. A dozen one mores; a score.

She'd started by composing and distributing PLO literature for him in Detroit, typing and proofreading the English versions, delivering boxfuls at out-of-the-way night drops. Meeting men in cafes, smiling Arab men. In retrospect she realized they'd had no respect for her, had been mocking her. At the time she'd thought them mysterious, charming.

Running errands. Picking up parcels at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Making coded phone calls and taking down incomprehensible messages. Side trips up to Canada, delivering packages to a row house in Montreal, returning with other packages to Michigan. Serving coffee and donuts to Hassan's friends as they met in the basement of a Black Muslim mosque. All of it in her spare time-going off shift at Harper Hospital and heading straight for her unpaid second job. But reimbursed by love, freeing her lover to complete his medical studies. The lack of romance sometimes painful. But telling herself that he was a patriot with more important things on his mind than movies and dinner dates. A patriot in jeopardy-the Zionists were watching him; he needed to maintain an apolitical stance.

He made love to her infrequently, told her she was a warrior-heroine, the kind of woman he wanted as mother of his children.

They signed up for the U.N. job together, planned to carry their activism to Palestine. Here, too, he doctored while she did the dirty work.

She composed twenty different propaganda pamphlets, found a printer in Nablus who could make them up in English, French, and Arabic. Made contact with the PLO operatives who came to the Amelia Catherine disguised as patients, growing close to one of them-Hassan's cousin, Samra. A pretty, dark girl, also trained as a nurse but working full-time for the liberation of Palestine. Hassan introduced them to each other in one of the examining rooms; an easy bond of friendship followed soon. The two women became confidantes, tutor and student.

Samra coached, Peggy performed well.

In February she was promoted to more important functions: serving as a conduit between Hassan and arms smugglers in Jordan, making payoffs, overseeing early morning transfers of the wooden crates to the big house on Ibn Haldoun.

Samra lived in a flat in Sheikh Jarrah, but the house was hers, deeded to her family-a rich family, like Hassan's. Her father had been a judge in East Jerusalem before escaping to Amman in '

Good friend, Cousin Samra.

In reality she was no cousin at all, but a wife. The one and only Mrs. Hassan Al Biyadi. A Jordanian marriage certificate found in her purse proved it, complete with signature by her father the judge.

Shmeltzer had waved the dogeared piece of paper in Cassidy's face, told her she was a gullible idiot, a stupid, stupid girl who deserved to be deceived.

She screamed denial. The old detective slapped her out of her hysteria and continued to attack her verbally, savagely, to the point where Daniel thought of intervening. But he didn't and finally the denial gave way to a new grasp on reality. Peggy Cassidy sat in her chair, shaking, gulping water, bubbling at the mouth, unable to spill her guts fast enough.

Yes, she'd known the first two Butcher victims were Amelia Catherine patients-Hassan's patients. Had wanted to tell someone-Mr. Baldwin, at least. But Hassan forbade it, said their cover was more important, they couldn't afford police probing around the hospital.

She began weeping: "Those poor women!" Hassan hadn't cared, didn't care about anyone! He was a pig-the Arabs were all pigs. Filthy, sexist pigs, she hoped they all rotted in hell, hoped the Jews killed every single one of them.

One extreme to the other.

An unstable girl. Daniel wondered how she'd cope with prison.

Amos Harel was waiting outside his office, pacing and smoking. Unlike him to show nervousness; something was wrong.

Gauloise butts littered the floor. The door was closed. As Daniel came closer, he saw the look on the Latam chief's face and a flame ignited in his belly.

"One of my men is dead," said Harel hoarsely. "Itzik Nash, strangled in the alley behind the reporter's building. Your man, Cohen, is missing-no trace of the car we gave him. We found his radio near Itzik's body. They were supposed to maintain regular contact-Cohen was probably checking up on Itzik when he got hit. The reporter's also dead, bludgeoned to pulp up in his flat, swastikas painted in blood all over his bedroom walls-his own blood, according to Forensics. They're still there swabbing and dusting. The Canadian, Carter, is the only suspect who was out last night. No one knows where the fuck he is."

Daniel knew Itzik Nash-they'd attended Police School together. A roly-poly guy with a ready arsenal of lewd jokes. Daniel visualized him wearing the thick-tongued idiot's yawn of the strangulation victim. Thought of Avi in the Butcher's hands and found himself trembling.

"God. What the hell happened!"

Harel took hold of the doorknob, twisted savagely, and shoved the door open. Inside his office sat a Latamnik-the man who'd broadcast as Relic. He was staring at the floor. Harel's throat-clearing raised his face, and Daniel saw that his eyes were lifeless, filmed over. He looked withered, a husk of himself. The code name strangely apt.

"Get the hell out here and tell him what happened," ordered Harel.

"He faked us out," said the Latamnik, coming to the doorway.

Harel put his face close to his man's, sprayed Relic with spittle as he talked: "No vidduy, just facts."

Relic licked his lips, nodded, recited: "Carter took the predictable path, Ben Adayah to Sultan Suleiman, walked right by me. I picked up his trail the moment he passed the Rockefeller, followed him up Nablus Road and into the Pilgrim's Vision Hotel. Place was empty, just the night clerk. Carter registered, went up the stairs. I leaned on the clerk; he told me the room number-three-oh-two-and that Carter had ordered a whore. I asked if Carter had ever stayed there before-did he have any particular whore in mind? The clerk said no to both. There was only one roundheels working this late-she was up in one of the other rooms, would be free in fifteen minutes. He was planning to send her up then. I warned him not to let on anything was up, took a house key, and waited in the room behind the desk. When the whore showed up and picked up the key, I followed her to three-oh-two, let her go in, waited maybe fifteen seconds, then went in myself."

The Latamnik shook his head, still unbelieving. "She was all alone, Pakad, sitting on the bed reading a comic book. Not a trace of Carter. The window was bolted, dusty-it hadn't been opened recently. I looked everywhere for him, tried other rooms, the communal lavatory. Nothing. He must have slipped out the back way-there's a rear stairway leading out to Pikud Hamerkaz."

"Didn't you call for backup?" demanded Daniel. His hands were clenched at his sides, his abdomen searing. His body so tense the muscles threatened to burst through the skin.

"Sure, sure. I know the layout of the hotel-we watched it last winter on a dope surveillance. I radioed for help first chance I had-while waiting for the whore to show up, maybe, three minutes after Carter arrived. The closest guy was one of ours, Vestreich on Habad Street, but if he left, it meant no coverage for the Old City. So your Arab, Daoud, came over from Kishle, maybe five, six minutes later, and stationed himself out back."

"Could Carter have known you were following him?"

"No way. I stayed twenty meters behind, always in the shadows. God wouldn't have spotted me."

"Could anyone have warned Carter about you?"

Relic pressed himself against the corridor wall, as if trying to shrink. "No way. I had my eye on the clerk at all times; no one else around. I wanted to have him phone Carter's room to confirm the bastard was up there, but the Palace is a shithole, half a star, no phone service to the rooms, no way to send a message. I tell you, Daoud was out back in five minutes-he didn't see him leave."

"Plus the three minutes before you called makes eight," said Daniel. "Plenty of time."

"Four wouldn't have been enough-bastard never went up to the room in the first place! Never made it to the third floor, at all. He probably climbed one flight, walked through to the back stairs, and slipped out before Daoud arrived. He used the goddamned hotel as a tunnel."

"Where's Daoud now?"

"Looking for Cohen," said Relic. "If Carter had gone south, back on Sultan Suleiman, Daoud would have run right into him, so he must have headed north, up Pikud Hamerkaz, maybe west to Mea She'arim or straight up to Sheikh Jarrah. We alerted Northwest and Northeast Sectors-no one's seen a damn thing."

The Latamnik turned to his boss. "Fucking bastard faked us out, Amos. We were told he was probably unaware of the surveillance, but that's bullshit. The way he acted, he had to suspect something was up-he paid cash, didn't register in his own name-"

"Terrif," muttered Daniel. "He registered as D. Terrif."

"Yes," said Relic, feebly, as if another surprise would tax his heart. "How'd you know?"

Daniel ignored him, dashed away.

He ran down the four flights to subground, insisted, over the protests of the Mossad guard, that Deputy Commander Laufer be pulled out of the interrogation.

Laufer came out flushed and indignant, ready to do battle. Before he could open his mouth, Daniel said, "Be quiet and listen. Harel's itzik Nash is dead. Avi Cohen may be dead too." As he related the details of the surveillance disaster, Laufer deflated like a punctured tire.

"Shit, Cohen. Was the kid ready for something like this?"

Stupid bastard, thought Daniel. Even now, he's looking to pin blame. "Carter's out there somewhere," he said, ignoring the question. "Cohen's car is nowhere in sight, which could mean it's garaged. It supports our suspicion of a second place-a second kill spot, away from the hospital. I want authorization to go into the Amelia Catherine, go through Carter's room and see if we can come up with an address. And a release of the bastard's picture to the press in time to make tomorrow's editions."

Laufer shifted his weight from one foot to another. "I don't know."

Daniel restrained himself from grabbing the idiot's collar. "What's the problem!"

"The timing's bad, Sharavi."

Daniel curled the fingers of his bad hand, raised the ravaged flesh in front of the deputy commander's face. "I've got a maniac on the loose, a new hire in danger of being slaughtered-what does it take!"

Laufer stepped back, looking sad, almost sympathetic. ''Wait," he said, and went back into the interrogation room. Daniel waited while the minutes flowed slowly as honey, drowning in inertia, chafing to be doing something. Despite the frigid air-conditioning, the sweat was pouring out of him in cold rivulets; he caught a whiff of his body odor. Acrid. Toxic with rage.

The D.C. came back shaking his head.

"Not yet. Mossad wants no attention drawn to the hospital-no tip-offs-until all the members of Al Biyadi's terrorist cell are in custody. Most are local assholes-they're being round-up right now. But the big boss-the one directing Al Biyadi-left for Paris through Damascus, last week. We're waiting for confirmation that our French operatives have him."

"What about my operative, damn you! What about Cohen laid out on some table for dissection!"

The D.C. ignored the insubordination, talked softly and rhythmically, with the exaggerated patience reserved for mental defectives and hostage-takers. "We're not talking about a long delay, Sharavi. A few hours until the local busts are accomplished. The Paris data could arrive any minute-a day at the longest."

"A day!" Daniel spat on the floor, pointed toward the closed door of the interrogation room. "Let me go in there and talk to them. Let me show them pictures of what this monster does."

"Pictures won't impress them, Sharavi. They have a nice scrapbook of their own: the Japs mowing down pilgrims at Ben Gurion, the Ma'alot school bus, Qiryat Shemona, Nahariya. That house was a fucking arsenal-pistols, Kalash-nikovs, fragmentation grenades, a fucking rocket launched. They had plans to shoot up the Western Wall during Shab-bat shaharit services-preferably during a big tourist Bar Mitzvah. Schematics of the best places to place bombs at the Rabinovitz Playground, the Tiferet Shlomo Orphans' Home, the zoo, Liberty Bell Park-think of the pictures that would create, Sharavi. Hundreds of dead kids! Cassidy says there are two other arms storehouses-in Beit Jalla and Gaza. Cleaning up a mess of that magnitude is more important than one maniac." He stopped, hesitated. "More important, even, than one detective, who's probably dead already."

Daniel turned to go.

Laufer grabbed his arm.

"You're not being fucked over totally. As of this moment, finding Carter is top departmental priority-as a covert. The hospital is being watched-asshole shows his face, he's in custody before his heart takes another beat. You want men, you've got them, the entire goddamned Latam, the Border Patrol, airplanes, whatever. Every cruise car will have a picture of Carter-"

"Six cars," said Daniel. "One's in the shop."

"Not just Jerusalem," said Laufer. "Every city. You're worried five cars can't cover our streets-take my goddamned Volvo. I'll put my goddamned driver out on patrol, okay? You want an address on Carter? Check housing records, utility bills, the goddamned phone bills-every clerk and computer in the goddamned city is at your disposal. The slightest whiff of bullshit, call me immediately. The moment the cell's been busted, the hospital's open territory."

"I want access to U.N. records."

"You'll have to wait on that," said Laufer. "One of Al Bayadi's terrorist chums is a secretary at U.N. headquarters on the Hill of Evil Counsel. No surprise, eh?"

Laufer's fingers were moist on his arm. Daniel pried them loose.

"I've got work to do."

"Don't fuck up," said Laufer. "This is serious."

"See me smiling?" Daniel turned and began walking away.

"You and Shmeltzer will get credit for the armory bust," Laufer called after him. "Service medals."

"Terrific," said Daniel, over his shoulder. "I'll give them to Cohen's mother."

He reached the Chinaman by radio at three o'clock, Daoud five minutes later. Both had been cruising the city for signs of Avi or the Volkswagen. He called them in, convened a meeting with his three remaining detectives and Amos Harel.

"Goddamned kid," said the Chinaman. "God damn him. Probably pulled some John Wayne stunt before he got hit."

"Everything indicates he was playing by the rules," said Daniel. But Laufer's question had come back to haunt him: The kid was less than dependable. Had he been ready?

"Whatever," said the Chinaman. "What now, pictures of the bastard in all the papers?"

"No." He informed them of the Mossad restriction, felt the anger in the room harden into something dark and menacing.

Daoud expelled breath, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, as if in great pain. Shmeltzer got up and circled the room like and old jackal. Harel took out a Gauloise and crushed it, unlit, between his fingers.

"Goddamned cloak-and-dagger mothercunts!" exploded the Chinaman. "I tell you-"

"No time for that, Yossi." Daniel cut him off. "Let's get organized, make sure he doesn't get away this time. Amos is giving us every man we need-he'll be coordinating lookouts along the Jerusalem to Tel Aviv Road and up the coastal road, train stations, bus stations, Ben Gurion, every harbor including the freighter docks at Eilat. When I'm through, he'll give you the details.

"The army's on alert in the territories-Marciano's in charge in Judea; Yinon in Samaria, Barbash in Gaza. The Border Patrol's conducting individual searches at the Allenby Bridge and Metulla, tightening things up along all perimeters and within the Old City. They're also staking out forested areas and are stationed near the murder cave. Telescopic surveillance of the Amelia Catherine has been expanded to another infrared from the desert aimed at the rear of the compound."

He unfolded several sheets of paper. "These are the home numbers of records clerks and their bosses at the phone company, the Licensing Office, the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Ministry of Energy, all the banks. We'll divide them up, start waking people, try and find the home away from home. Look for Carters and Terrifs-include all spelling variations. Now that we know who he is, he won't be able to get far."

But to himself he thought: Why should catching a madman be easier than finding my own dog.

He worked until six, setting up and monitoring the search for Richard Carter, before allowing himself a cup of coffee which his dry throat and aching stomach rejected. At six-ten he went back to his office and pulled out the notes he'd taken during his first and only meeting with Carter. Read them for the twentieth time and watched Carter's face materialize before his mind's eye.

An unremarkable face, no monster, no devil. In the end it was always like that. Eichmanns, Landrus, Kurtens, and Barbies. Disappointingly human, depressingly mundane.

Amira Nasser had supposedly talked about mad eyes, empty eyes. A killer's grin. All he remembered about Carter's eyes were that they were narrow and gray. Gray eyes behind old-fashioned round eyeglasses. A full ginger beard. The shambling, careless carriage of a backpacker.

Former hippie. A dreamer.

Some dreams: a nightmare machine.

He forced coffee down his throat and recalled something else-incongruous chuckling in response to his questions.

Something amusing. Dr. Carter?

Big fingers running through the beard. A smile-if there had been something evil about the smile, it had eluded him.

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

The bastard had seemed so casual, so relaxed.

Daniel punished himself with self-scrutiny. Had he been careless, missed something? A psychopathic glint in the gray eyes? Some near-microscopic evidence of evil that he, as a detective, was expected to pick up on?

He replayed the mental movie of the interview. Reviewed his notes again. Questions, answers, the smiles.

Where were you on the night and all that.

And where are you tonight, Richard Carter, you murderous scum?

At seven A.M. Shmeltzer brought him a list of names gleaned from phone books, utility bills, and housing files. Two Carters in Jerusalem, five in Tel Aviv, including a senior officer at the American Embassy. One in Haifa, three more scattered throughout the Galilee. No Richards. Three Trifs, four Trif-uses, none of them Richards or initial D's. No Tarrifs or Terrifs. All old listings. He dispatched men to check out the local ones anyway, had the other divisions do the same with the people in their bailiwicks.

At seven-twenty he called home. Laura answered. He heard the boys hollering in the background, music from the radio.

"Good morning, Detective."

"Hello, Laura."

"That bad?"

"Yes."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

Pause. "Okay."

He felt impatient with her, intolerant of any problem short of life and death. Still, she was his lover, his best friend, deserved better than to be dismissed like a subordinate. He tried to soften his voice, said, "I'm sorry. I really can't get into it."

"I understand," she said. Automatically.

"I don't know when I'll be home."

"Don't worry. Do what you have to do. I'll be busy all morning with straightening up and finishing the painting for Lu and Gene. After school, Lu and I are taking the boys to the zoo, then to dinner. Shoshi didn't want to go. She's sleeping over at Dorit Shamgar's house-the number's on the refrigerator."

Daniel thought of Mikey and Benny frolicking at the zoo, remembered what Laufer had said about the schematics found in the house on Ibn Haldoun. Horrific bomb-blast visions filled his head. He chased them away-a steady diet of those kinds of thoughts could drive a man crazy.

"Why didn't she want to go to the zoo?" he asked.

"It's for babies; she and Dorit have more important things to do-she wants to be on her own, Daniel. Part of establishing her identity."

"It's not because she's still upset over the dog?"

"Maybe a little of that too. But she'll work it through- Here's Gene. He worked most of the night, refuses to go home and get some rest."

"Okay, put him on. Bye."

"Bye."

"Danny," said Gene. "I've been following up this Terrif thing and-"

"Terrifs a name used by Richard Carter," said Daniel. He filled Gene in on the night's events. Talking to a fellow policeman after excluding his wife.

Gene listened, said, "What a mess. Terrible about your man." Silence. "Carter, huh? Sonofagun. Everything I've got on him spells clean. The records from McGill check out-the med school transcripts clerk said the guy was an honor student there, did very good research on tropical diseases. The Peace Corps said he continued that research with them, saved plenty of lives. With the exception of a bust for marijuana when he was in high school, no one has a bad word to say about him."

"I do," said Daniel. "The records are probably falsified. It would be the least of his sins."

"True. I've got more info for you. Got a minute?"

"Sure."

"I started thinking about the American murder sites-your point about nice weather, vacation spots. Vacation cities are also popular with organizations when it comes to locating their conventions-as in medical conventions. I've managed to get through to the chambers of commerce in New Orleans and Miami, convinced them to go through their '73 and '78 convention records, respectively, and found one common thread: The Society for Surgical Pathology held conventions in both. It's a relatively small group of hotshot doctors, but the conventions are attended by lots of people-scientists, technicians, students. I called their headquarters in Washington, D.C. The 73 roster had been tossed out, but they still had the one from August 78. Sure enough, a D. Terrif attended the Miami convention, registered as a student. The convention began two days prior to the murder and ended five days after. My info on Richard Carter is that he was still a student in 78-got his M.D. in 79. But he was doing his first Peace Corps bit in Ecuador that summer."

"How do we know he didn't leave Ecuador and fly to Miami for a week? Used the Terrif name to conceal his identity, then returned to doing good deeds as Carter."

"Dr. Carter, Mr. Terrif. Split personality?"

"Or just a clever psychopath."

"Yeah, it would fit with something else I came up with. After we found that D. Terrif reference in the Shehadeh file, I called one of my buddies at Parker Center, asked him to check all the files for someone by that name. He came up empty, even in the social security files. No such person ever received a card-which is just about every adult who pays taxes in America. Now, Carter's a Canadian, so it wouldn't apply to him, but my buddy said something interesting: that Terrif didn't even look like a bona fide name, that the first thing he thought of was that it was an abbreviation for Terrific."

Daniel thought about it. The kind of linguistic nuance that he'd fail to catch, working in a foreign language.

"D. Terrific," said Gene. "Maybe the D stands for some other name or maybe it stands for Doctor."

"Doctor Terrific."

"Like a superhero. Scum takes on an alter ego when he goes out to kill."

"Yes," said Daniel. "It feels right."

"Doesn't seem immediately helpful,"said Gene, "but when you get him to trial, it could be." He started to yawn, stifled it.

"Absolutely," said Daniel. "Thanks for doing all of this, Gene. Now please go back to the hotel and get some sleep."

"Soon. First I want to look into Canadian Terrifs, then see if I can find an old Ecuador-to-Miami plane reservation made out to any Carters or Terrifs. A very long shot, because it was seven years ago, but you never know what pays off. Where you going to be?"

"In and out," said Daniel. "I'll check in with you at the end of the day, if not before."

"Okay. Good luck. And be sure to call me when you catch the scum."

Monday, five P.M. One of the local members of Al Biyadi's terrorist cell continued to avoid capture, no word from Paris, and Mossad was still stalling.

Richard Carter had been spotted sixteen times throughout the state of Israel, as far north as Quneitra, as far south as Eilat. Sixteen fair-haired, ginger-bearded men were pulled off the streets for questioning, all eventually released: five Israelis, four Americans, two Britons, two Germans, a Swede, a Dane, and one unfortunate Canadian tourist detained for five hours by Tel Aviv detectives and left behind by his tour group as they boarded an excursion flight to Greece.

Two Volkswagens matching the one Avi Cohen had driven were located and impounded, one on Kibbutz Lavi, the other in Safed. Both owners were interviewed intensively. The Safed car belonged to an artist of wide reputation and mediocre talent who protested loudly that he was being harassed because of left-wing political views. Verification of ownership and registration of both vehicles was obtained.

At six, Daniel and Amos Harel reviewed the written logs of the Amelia Catherine surveillance:

Six-thirteen A.M.: A blue Renault panel truck from the Al Aswadeh Produce Company in East Jerusalem drove around to the rear of the hospital. The chain-link gate was locked. One man got out, walked to the front. Sorrel Baldwin's secretary, Ma'ila Khoury, came out, spoke to him, went back inside. Minutes later, Khoury unlocked the gate and signed for the groceries. Delivery completed, the truck departed six twenty-eight A.M. License plate number recorded and verified as registered to Al Aswadeh.

Seven-ten a.m.: Zia Hajab arrived at the East Jerusalem bus station on the Ramallah-to-Jerusalem bus. He bought a cold drink from a street vendor, walked from the station to the hospital. By eight a.m. he was sitting at his post.

Nine-twenty A.M.: Dr. Walid Darousha returned from Ramallah in his Peugeot, parked in back, entered the hospital.

Ten-fifteen a.m.: Ma'ila Khoury left the hospital in Sorrel Baldwin's black Lancia Beta and drove to Hamashbir Letzarkhan on King George Street. Spent two hours in the department store, purchasing panty hose, a negligee, and a foam-rubber pillow. Paid for the merchandise with Sorrel Baldwin's U.N. Visa card. Serial number recorded and verified. Ate lunch at Cafe Max and returned to the hospital at one forty-three P.M.

Eleven a.m.: Fourteen male patients lined up at the entrance to the hospital. Zia Hajab kept them waiting for twenty-two minutes, then let them in. All were gone and accounted for by two forty-five P.M.

Three-eleven p.m.: A Mercedes truck with green cab and metal van painted with the name, address, and phone number of the Bright and Clean Laundry Service of Bethlehem drove around to the back of the hospital. Ten sacks removed, six delivered, along with numerous folded tablecloths and sheets. Some of the sacks were judged large enough to hold a human body. Enlarged photographs of the delivery men revealed all of them to be Arabs, none bearded, none bearing the slightest resemblance to Carter. The truck departed three twenty-four P.M. License plates recorded and verified as registered to Bright and Clean.

Four forty-two P.M.: A new Mercedes glass-top bus brought a group of Christian tourists from the Intercontinental Hotel on the Mount of Olives to the Amelia Catherine. Twenty-three tourists. Nine men, excluding the driver and the guide. No male tourists under the age of sixty. The driver and guide were both Arabs, not tall, dark-haired; one was bearded. Their heights estimated at a meter seven, each. Zia Hajab was given money by the guide, the tourists permitted to enter the courtyard of the hospital, take pictures. The bus departed at four fifty-seven. License plate recorded and verified to Mount of Olives Tour Company, East Jerusalem.

Five forty-eight: A white Mercedes-Benz diesel sedan with United Nations plates drove around to the back of the hospital. A man wearing a kaffiyah and Arab robes removed several cardboard boxes labeled RECORDS in Arabic and delivered them to the hospital. Two of the boxes were judged possibly large enough to conceal a human body if the body was bent to the point of contortion. The man was estimated to be approximately the same height as Richard Carter. Several photographs were taken and enlarged. Headdress and position of subject prevented a full-face photo. A partial profile shot revealed a hairless chin and small dark mustache, no spectacles, no resemblance to a computer-enhanced portrait of Richard Carter minus his beard. License plate recorded and verified to U.N. Headquarters at Government House.

"It doesn't say he left," said Daniel.

"He arrived fifteen minutes ago, Dani," said Harel, pointing to the time. "You got this hot off the press. If he spends the night, you'll be the first to know."

At six-fifteen, Daniel drove home for a shower and change of clothes, parked the Escort near the entrance to his building. A faint breeze blew, causing the jacaranda trees to shudder.

He walked to the pebbled-grass exterior door and found it locked. Had the dog returned?

As he fitted his key in the lock, he heard shouts, turned, and saw rotund figure half a block away, trotting toward him and waving. A white apron flapping in the breeze.

Lieberman, the grocer. Probably a pickup Laura had forgotten.

He waved back, waited. The grocer arrived moments later, breathing hard, wiping his forehead.

"Good evening, Mr. Lieberman."

"Pakad," huffed the grocer, "this… is probably nothing, but… I wanted to tell you… anyway."

"Easy, Mr. Lieberman."

The grocer took a deep breath, patted his chest.

"Football days… long gone." He smiled.

Daniel smiled back. He waited until the grocer's breathing had slowed, then said, "What's on your mind, Mr. Lieberman?"

"Probably nothing. I just wanted to keep you in touch- you know how much I see, sitting behind the counter: the human parade. I figure it's my duty to let you know."

"Absolutely, Mr. Lieberman."

"Anyway, about an hour ago, your daughter went off with a guy. Big blackie, said he'd found her dog."

"My American guest is black," said Daniel. Thinking: Good for Gene. The ultimate detective.

"No, no. I've met Mr. Brooker. Not a shvartze-a blackie, a fanatic-long black coat, black hat, big beard."

"A Hassid? Shoshi went off with a Hassid?"

"That's what I'm telling you. She'd just come by the grocery. She and her friend were baking cookies, they ran out of chocolate, and Shoshi came by to get some. After I rang her up, she left, had gone maybe five meters and this blackie steps out of a parked car and starts to talk to her. I figured maybe he was one of her teachers or some friend of the-"

"What kind of car?"

"White Mercedes diesel, made a lot of noise-"

Daniel's heart stopped. "Did you see the plates?"

"No, sorry, I-"

"Go on. What happened?"

"This blackie said something about finding the dog. It was injured-he'd take her to it. Shoshi thought about it for a moment. Then she got into the Mercedes and the two of them drove off. A few minutes later I started wondering about it-the guy was religious, but she hadn't seemed to know him. I called your wife-no one answered. I thought maybe I should-"

A voice inside Daniel screamed no. no. no! He gripped

Lieberman's soft shoulders. "Tell me what this Hassid looked like."

"Big, like I told you. About your age, maybe older, maybe younger. Full red beard, glasses. Big grin, like a politician. Let me see, what else-"

Daniel's grip tightened. "Which way did they go?"

The grocer winced. "That way. "Pointing north."She's okay, isn't she?"

Daniel let go of him and raced toward the Escort.

No! Please God. Pleasegod, pleasegod.

I should haves, I could haves. Prayers shrieked through a deafening nightmare storm. His right leg pushed the gas pedal to the floorboard; his hands were welded to the steering wheel.

Not my baby, my first baby, my little mongrel.

Precious, precious. No, not her. Anyone else.

Unreal. But too real.

Nightmares, the nightmare machine.

Silence it!

Tears flowed from his eyes like blood from a mortal wound. He forced himself to stop crying, keep his head clear.

Keep speeding, stretch the minutes.

Please, God.

A red light came on at the King David intersection; the boulevard was congested with traffic. Opposing traffic beginning to move, turning directly in his path.

He leaned on the horn. No one moved. Steered the

Escort onto the sidewalk, swerving to avoid hitting terrified pedestrians. Waddling tourists in peacock clothes. A mother and a baby carriage.

Out of the way.

Got to save my baby!

Whistles and screams, a fury of horns. Hitting the rim of the central island, then over the curb and on it.

Scraping the underside of the Escort, ripping metal, hubcaps spring loose..

More screams. Maniac! Asshole!

Off the island, skidding, swinging left, dodging cursing motorists. Filthy-mouthed taxi drivers.

Fuck you-not your baby on the altar.

A shouting, gesticulating traffic officer near the King David Hotel tried to block his passage.

Move or die, idiot.

Not your baby.

The idiot moved at the last moment.

Please God, please God.

Speed.

Making deals with the Almighty:

I'll be a better person. Better husband daddy Jew human being.

Let her be-

More traffic, endless ribbons of it, a plague of metal locusts.

Can't slow down.

Weaving through it, around it, up sidewalks, off, knocking trash baskets into the streets.

Brake squeals. More curses.

Careering, wrestling with a wild animal steering wheel.

Fighting for control.

No time to put on the magnetic flasher.

No time to phone for backup-he wouldn't do it even if there were.

Another fuck-up: Sorry, Pakad, we lost him.

Not with my baby.

Oh, God, no.

He emptied his mind, chilled it, shut out time, space, everything. Even God.

The city a glacial wasteland. Speeding through layers of dirty ice, the Escort a power-sled.

Smooth. No risks.

Onto Shlomo Hamelekh, downhill full-speed ahead.

More red lights to defy, swooshing by, oblivious to cause and effect.

Only my baby.

Coming for you, motek.

A steep drop. Up through the air and down so hard the impact sent electric currents through his spine.

Good pain, welcome pain.

Alive. Let her be alive. Abba's coming, motek, sweet little mongrel.

Willing the Escort to be an airplane, a jet fighter, flying north, retracing the early morning ride of a month ago.

Fatma's body in the white sheet.

Shoshana.

Prettiness. Innocence.

Pretty faces, bodies juxtaposed, blood sisters-No, back to the glacier!

Uphill. The Escort struggled. Go faster, fucking damn fucking car, go faster or I'll rip you apart-

Rip him apart.

Fueling himself with boiling blood. Weapons assessment: only the 9 mm. The Uzi back at Headquarters.

He had his hands.

One good one.

Speeding past Zahal Square, more close calls, hateful shouts from the ignorant. If they knew the truth, they'd cheer him on.

Only Sultan Suleiman through a scatter of frightened faces.

The Old City. Not beautiful anymore. A bloody city. Conquest upon conquest, graveyard upon graveyard.

Jeremiah lamenting.

Mothers eating babies as the Romans besieged the walls.

Blood running down limestone. Altars.

Christian Crusaders wading knee-deep in blood, slaughtering the innocence-

Not my innocent.

Shoshi.

Fatma. Shoshi. Fatmashoshi.

Torturing himself with policeman's knowledge that cracked the glacier:

His motek. Number Four-no! Amsterdam, a dry run.

The Israeli butchery replicating the American butchery. American Number Four.

Gene's voice: This one was very messy, Danny… all the internal organs-No! Abba's coming, angel.

Motek, motek, hold on, hold on. Make yourself live. Force it.

Literally skin and bones- No!

Should have been there, should have been a better daddy. Promise to be better. God allowed back: making deals.

An old Arab man wheeled a barrowful of melons across the street. Daniel sped by. A bus coming from the opposite direction kept him from swerving far enough, and his rear bumper nicked the front end of the barrow.

Rearview mirror story: Melons rolling down Sultan Suleiman. Old man lying flat, then rising, shaking his fists.

Fuck your melons. My fruit is precious. Let her be alive.

Ben Adayah empty, a clear climb: God responding. A single tour bus bumping its way down the Mount of Olives Road.

Dodging to avoid him. Idiots pointing, chattering. Fly by them, fly! Onto Scopus.

Bloody eye of a bloody city. Abba's coming!

The fucking slaughterhouse of a hospital, rosy pink, the pink of diluted blood.

He aimed the Escort at the entrance, screeched to a halt, blocking it. Took hold of the Beretta, checked the clip, and jumped out.

The Arab watchman, Hajab, on his feet. Shaking a fist.

"Halt! You cannot park there!"

Ignore the idiot. Running, through the courtyard.

Hajab stepping in front of him, trying to block his way.

Idiot face flushed with indignation. Idiot mouth opening: "Halt! You are blocking the entrance! Trespassing on United Nations property!"

Charging the idiot.

Idiots arms spread to halt him.

"I am warning you, when Mr. Baldwin returns you'll be in big-"

Swinging the Beretta and hitting the idiot square in the face. Hearing bones crunch, the rustle and thud of collapse.

Running, flying, through the courtyard, trampling flowers. Gagging on sickly-sweet roses.

Funeral flowers.

No funeral today-coming, motek!

Through the door, mentally unfolding the Mandate-era blueprints.

West wing: servants' quarters. Staff quarters. Tagged doors.

The slaughterhouse, empty.

He ran, gun in hand.

Someone heard him, peaked a head out.

The old nurse Hauser, dressed in starched white, a white cap. Touching her hand to her lips in fear.

She shouted something. Ma'ila Khoury, the Lebanese secretary, stepped out into the corridor on awkward high heels. Saw his face and ran back into her office, slammed the door and locked it.

He transformed himself into a bullet. Shot round the corner.

Names on doors. Baldwin. DaroushaHajab. Blah blah blah. Carter.

Carter.

Nazi scum.

He turned the doorknob, expecting to find it closed, ready to aim the Beretta and blast the lock.

Open.

Carter in bed, blue pajamas. Under a top sheet.

Ghost-pale, propped on pillows, his mouth a dark hole in the beard, an elongated O.

No, Shoshi! Too late-oh, no, oh, God!

He pointed the gun at Carter. Screamed:

"Where is she!"

Carter's eyes opened wide. Yellow corneas around gray eyes. "Oh, shit."

Daniel came closer.

Carter covered his face with his arm.

Daniel took in the room as he ran to the bedside.

A real mess. Pig of a Nazi. Dirty clothes and papers everywhere. The nightstand crowded with pill vials, tubes. A plate of half-eaten food. A stethoscope.

The room reeked of medicine and flatulence and vomit.

Sickness-stench.

He forced Carter's arm down. -Ripped off the Nazi's eyeglasses and flung them across the room.

Shattering glass.

Carter blinking. Shaking. "Oh, God."

Nazis prayed too.

He put his knee on Carter's chest, pressed down. Nazi gasped.

Transferring his gun to his bad hand, he used the good one to grab Carter's neck. Big neck, but soft.

He squeezed.

"Where is she, damn you? Where is she! Damn you, tell me!"

Nazi gurgled. Made an unhealthy-sounding squeaking noise from deep inside of him.

He let go. Carter coughed, gulped air.

"Where is she?"

"Wh-Who?"

Slapping the monster hard. Handprints materializing like Polaroid images on the pale Nazi flesh.

Choking the monster again.

Carter's eyes rolled backward.

Daniel let go. "Where is she?"

Carter shook his head, tried to scream, produced more squeaks.

"Tell me or I'll blow your fucking head off!"

"Wh-"

"My daughter!"

"I don't kn-"

Slap.

Tears, gasps.

"Where is she!"

"I swear…"gasp-gulp… "I don't kn-know wh-what…" gasp… "you're talking about."

"My daughter! A beautiful girl! Green eyes!"

Carter shook his head frantically, began sobbing, coughing, retching.

"Cohen," said Daniel. "Nash. Fatma. Juliet. Shahin. All the others, you filth!"

Raising his hand.

Carter cried out, cowered, tried to slide under the covers.

Daniel grabbed his hair, pulled up hard. The Nazi's scalp hot, the hair greasy with sweat.

"Last chance before I blow your filthy head off."

An acid smell filled the room, a wet stain spread on the sheet near Carter's groin.

"Oh Guh-God,' croacked Carter. "I sw-swear it, please buh-believe me. Oh, shit-I do-don't know what you're ta-talking about."

Hand around the throat again.

"Tell me, you-"

A voice at his back, female, indignant: "What are you doing? Get off him, you!"

Hands pulling on his shirt. He shook them loose, kept his knee on Carter, put the gun against the monster's temple, and swiveled.

The movement knocked Catherine Hauser loose. The old nurse stumbled backward. She fell, legs spread, revealing tallowry thighs encased in white stockings. Sensible shoes.

She pushed herself up, brushed off her uniform. Her face was mottled. Her hands shook.

"Out of here," said Daniel. "Police business."

The old woman stood her ground. "What do you want with poor Richard?"

"He's a killer. He has my daughter"

Hauser started at him as if he were mad.

"Nonsense! He's killed no one. He's a sick man!"

"Out of here right now," Daniel barked.

"Gastroenteritis," said Hauser. "Poor man's been sick in bed for the last four days."

Daniel turned and looked at Carter. The Canadian made no effort to move. His breath was rapid, shallow.

Identities.

Stage actor. Manipulator.

"Not that sick," growled Daniel. "Early this morning he took a walk into the city and killed three men, then abducted my daughter."

"Ridiculous!" snapped Hauser. "What time this morning?"

"He left around midnight, stayed away all day, returned just before six."

"Absolute nonsense! Richard was in the room from eight until now-throwing up, diarrhea. I've been here myself, caring for him. I cleaned out the emesis basin at twelve-thirty, gave him sponge baths around two and four, and have been checking on him since then, every hour on the hour. I took his temperature twenty minutes ago. He's got a fever-feel his forehead. Dehydrated. He's taking antibiotics, can barely walk."

Daniel removed the gun from Carter's brow, touched the Canadian's face with the top of his hand.

Burning.

Carter shook with sobs.

Hauser looked at him, raised her voice to Daniel.

"The poor man can't walk two steps, let alone hike into the city. Now I'm warning you, Inspector Whatever-your-name-is: The U.N. authorities have been called. If you don't stop brutalizing him, you'll be in serious trouble."

Daniel stared at her, then at Carter, who was whimpering and breathing hard. His neck was red and raw, already starting to swell. He coughed, gurgled.

Daniel stepped away from the bed. Hauser moved between him and Carter.

"I'm sorry about your daughter, but you've tormented an innocent man."

A hard-faced old woman.

He stared at her, knew she was telling the truth. Carter was vomiting onto the sheets. Hauser brought a metal basin, held it under his chin, wiped him with a washcloth.

Sick as a dog. Four days in bed.

Not Carter on the nightwalk.

Shifting identities.

A manipulative psychopath.

Carter rocked and shook violently. Spit up clear mucus and groaned.

Not acting.

"Please leave, Inspector," said Hauser.

Not Carter. Then who?

Oh, God, who?

Then he thought of the watchman's warning: When Mr. Baldwin returns you'll be in big-

When Mr. Baldwin returns from where?

According to the surveillance log, the administrator hadn't left the Amelia Catherine since Sunday morning.

Shifting identities.

Exchanging identities.

Dr. Terrific.

Runs the place. Boss over the doctors.

Takes on an alter ego when he goes out to kill.

Carter on nightwalk-but not Carter.

False Hassid.

False Arab driving a white Mercedes diesel. Carrying cardboard boxes labeled records. No beard.

Judged possibly large enough to conceal a human body if the body was bent to the point of contortion.

Or small.

A child's body.

He granted Hauser her wish. Ran for the door labeled BALDWIN, S.T.

Locked.

He aimed the Beretta, shattered the lock, stepped in, ready to kill.

A large room, tile-floored and whitewashed, twice the size of Carter's

Blueprint recall; storage pantry.

Big, cast-iron bed. The covers drawn and tucked military tight. Neat and clean, everything in its place.

A Hassid's clothes folded neatly on the bed. False red beard, eyeglasses.

Something shiny and green.

A butterfly pin, silver filigree with malachite eyes.

Not a sign of the monster.

No Shoshi.

He followed the Beretta into the bathroom.

No one.

Luggage in the corner: three suitcases, packed tight and fastened.

A messy one, Danny.

Swallowing his fear, he opened them.

Only clothes in the two bigger ones, neatly folded. He scooped his hands under the garments, tossed them out, opened the smallest.

Toiletries, a shaving kit. False mustaches, wigs, more beards, bottle of hair dye, tubes of theatrical makeup.

In the shaving kit was a one-way ticket on a Greek-registered ship to Cyprus, leaving tomorrow from Eilat Harbor.

He faked us out, Pakad.

He searched the closet: empty.

Looked for attic passages, trapdoors.

Nothing.

Where? The cave? Border Patrol staked out down there- he would have been notified.

He sank to his knees, looked under the cast-iron bed. Silly ritual, like checking for ghosts.

Saw brass hinges, a rise in the tile. Wood.

Trapdoor in the floor.

Blueprint recall: the auxiliary wine Cellar.

Moving the bed.

The door a solid hardwood rectangle stretching from the center of the room to one wall. The doorknob had been removed, the hole plugged with wood.

Pry marks around the edges. A crowbar or something like it.

He looked for the tool. Nothing-bastard had taken it down with him.

He struggled to pry it open, lost his hold several times, mashing his nails and tearing skin from his fingers. Finally he managed to pull up hard enough. Open the door, then stepped back.

Darkness below.

He slipped into it.

Abba's coming!

He descended silently, frantically, on narrow stone stairs. A score of them, pitched steeply.

The darkness absolute, dizzying. Touching moist stone walls for support and orientation.

Please, God.

The passageway twisted, shifting direction, then more stairs, a dank chill rising from unseen depths.

He sped down blindly.

A deep cellar. Good-perhaps the sound of the gunshot hadn't penetrated.

Another twist. More steps.

Then the bottom, gripping the Beretta, extending his bad hand. Metal. He explored, flumbing with damaged fingers, holding his breath. A low metal door, rounded at the top. Sheet metal-he could feel the seams, the bolts. Took hold of a handle, turned, and pushed.

Opening. Silence. No monster.

But he was assailed by icy white light.

Momentarily sightless, he stepped back reflexively, shielding his eyes and blinking. His pupils constricted painfully.

When they were partially adjusted, he took a step forward, saw that he was in a small, cavelike room, empty save for a troughlike double sink and two floor drains encrusted with something unhealthy-looking.

The floors, walls, and ceilings were rough-hewn stone, the entire space scooped out of bedrock. Age-blackened rock streaked with greenish-blue mold and overlaid with a warped wooden exoskeleton-widely spaced pine laths laid cross-hatched over the walls; knotted overhead beams from which hung panels of fluorescent tubes on chains.

Dozens of fluorescent tubes-half a hundred, emitting an eye-searing flood of light.

He heard laughter, turned toward it.

At the end of the room, beyond the light, was another door-old, flimsy, wooden, banded with rusty iron. He ran to it, nudged it open, stepped into another room, somewhat larger than the first, the light brighter, tinted an odd silvery lavender.

Cold air, chemically bitter. Another trough, more drains.

At the center was a long steel-topped table on stout metal legs that had been bolted to the floor.

Daniel stood at its foot, looking down on soft whiteness, white buds-the soles of two small feet. Two fragile calves, a hairless pubis, spindle ribs, concave belly, flat chest.

His baby's naked body, the dusky skin blanched by the light.

She lay motionless in a nest of white sheeting, a pinpoint of red in the crook of one Jimp arm.

Her neck and shoulders had been propped up on several rolled pillows, thrusting the head back, chin upward, mouth open. Her lily-stem throat forced into the most vulnerable of convexities.

The sacrificial arch.

He yearned to rush to her, cover her, was stopped by the knife that caressed her trachea. Long-bladed, double-edged, pearl handled.

White on white.

So still. Oh, God, no-but no blood other than the needle mark, the body sculpture-perfect, not a wound. Her chest rose and left in a shadow, narcotized cadence.

The gift of time

Behind her, a mass of white. White hands-big hands, thick-fingered. One gripping the handle of the knife. The other submerged in her curls, entangled. Stroking, caressing

Ugly laughter.

Baldwin, standing at the head of the table-looming, naked, Shoshi's head shielding his chest, her life contingent upon the turn of a wrist.

Leering, confident.

The tabletop bisected him at the navel. What was visible of his upper torso was massive, armored with muscle, slathered with something oily.

The fluorescence had bleached him an unearthly lavender-gray. Despite the cold, he was sweating, his thin hair plastered in strands, like wet twine, across the bare gray crown.

His body was shaved girl-smooth and prickly with goose bumps, the flesh glowing moist, shiny, slick as some nocturnal burrowing grub.

He stood slightly right of table-center, left leg exposed. Swastika-shaped scars covered his thigh-malignant purple brands. A fresh swastika wound had been incised just above the knee, the surrounding skin rosy with smeared blood.

Staring at Daniel, the eyes cold, flat, twin peepholes into hell.

Laid out before him was a sparkling array of surgical instruments-knives, needles, scissors, clamps-on a precisely folded napkin of white linen. Next to the napkin was a hypodermic syringe half-filled with something milky.

Shoshi dead-still.

Abba's here.

A carotid pulse bounced bravely under the knife blade. Daniel aimed the Beretta.

Baldwin pulled Shoshi's head higher, so that her curls bearded his chin. He laughed again, unalarmed.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific. What seems to be the problem?"

All at once the knife began sawing across Shoshi's neck. Daniel stopped breathing, started to scream, pounce-but no blood.

Laughter. A game. The grin widening. More sawing.

"Like my fleshfiddle, kikefuck?"

The pearl handle of the knife caught the light and tossed it back in Daniel's face.

White on white.

On white.

A white swastika painted crudely on the dark stone floor. Painted words, familiar English block letters:

HEIL SCHWANN!! THE SCHWANN SEED LIVES!!!

Baldwin's face constricted with ecstasy. Drunk on the game, not noticing as Daniel shifted to the right. Took a step. Another.

"Don't move, kikefuck."

The warning uttered around that sickening grin. A harsh voice. Mechanical. No trace of the cowboy drawl.

Deep, yet topped by a strident tentativeness-echoes.

The echoing screams of abandoned, victimized women. Daniel swore he could hear them, wanted to cover his ears.

Baldwin's mouth spread the grin wider.

The fingers of his left hand fanned down over Shoshi's face, spatulate tips fondling her cheekbones, her lips, as the right one held the knife in place. Baldwin moved it back and forth in a horror-tease.

A giggle: "Never had one this tender."

Daniel moved another centimeter to the right.

"Drop the bang-bang or I'll whittle on her." Grin. Long white teeth. Purple tongue. Lavender lips.

Daniel lowered the Beretta slowly, watched Baldwin's eyes follow the weapon down-poor concentration. He pushed forward with his toes. Another quarter-step, and another. On the right side of the table now. Closer.

"I said drop it, nigger-kike. All the way." Baldwin pressed the flat side of the knife blade against Shoshi's neck, obscuring the pulse. He stretched luxuriantly, gorging himself on power. But shifting to the right, simultaneously, in unconscious defense.

It exposed his crotch. His penis was semi-erect, a starched-white cylinder hovering tentatively above the branded thigh.

He removed his left hand from Shoshi's body, lowered it to himself, began stroking himself. Leering.

"Two weapons." Giggle. "Real science."

Daniel lowered the gun until it was level with the organ. Took another step forward.

Baldwin laughed, quickened his stroke. Kept sawing the knife in counterpoint.

"Silly millimeter, bye-bye kikette."

The voice rising in pitch, the erection hardening, tilted upward.

Power was everything with this one. Control, the key.

Daniel played along with it. Said, "Please."

"Please," laughed Baldwin. He masturbated a while longer, stopped, and ran his nail along the upper cutting edge of the knife. The lower edge still resting on Shoshi's windpipe.

"This is a Liston amputator, kikescum. It knows how to fast-dance, cuts through bone like butter." Grin. Giggle. The knife lifted, then descended.

"Please. Don't hurt her."

"Blink the wrong way and we'll be playing football with her fucking head."

"Please. I beg you."

Baldwin's eyebrows arched. He licked his lips.

"You really mean that, you insignificant piece of roach shit, don't you?"

"Yes." Forward.

"Yes, Doctor."

"Yes, Doctor." Begging, putting on a servile face and keeping Baldwin's eyes off his legs. Moving close enough to Shoshi's leg to grab her ankle, pull her away. But the knife was still kissing her flesh. A muscle twitch could sever her jugular.

" Yes, please, Herr Doktor Professor!"

"Yes, please, Herr Doktor Professor."

Baldwin smiled, sighed. Then his face creased abruptly into a livid hate-mask.

"THEN DROP THE BANG-BANG, FUCKHEAD!"

Daniel lowered the Beretta further. Begging for mercy as he did it. Scanning the room and taking in the layout.

No more doors. This was the end point.

"Please, Doctor, don't hurt her. Take me instead."

Idiocy, but it amused the bastard, purchased time.

Shiny things hanging from a nail embedded in a lath. Gold hoop earrings. Three pairs.

In the corner, an ice cooler. Next to it a crowbar. Too far.

Wall racks holding two large flashlights, more sheets, pillows. Stacks of folded clothing: Dresses, undergarments. A white dress striped with blue, torn, a strip missing.

Next to the clothing, jars filled with clear liquid and labeled with gummed stickers. Soft, pinkish things floating within.

Two he recognized as kidneys.

Others, unfamiliar. Roundish, clearly visceral.

"DROP IT, SHITBRAIN, OR I CUT HER!"

Bellowing, but subtle aftertones of panic.

Cowardice.

A passive monster, picking off the weak. Even after he had them in his clutches, putting them to sleep before doing his dirty work-terrified of resistance. Cutting himself superficially, but Daniel knew he'd chance nothing that endangered him.

He lowered the gun all the way. Baldwin was distracted, again, by its descent.

Daniel moved closer to the head of the table, looked at Baldwin, then past him, at a stuffed animal perched on the rack below the jars. Then he saw the black patch over the eye, realized it was Dayan. Stiff as a toy. No-paralyzed, the big brown eyes moving back and forth, following him. Begging for rescue.

"ON THE FLOOR OR FOOTBALL!" screamed Baldwin, sounding like a child having a tantrum.

Daniel said, "Yes, Doctor," and flipped the Beretta across the room, to the left. It hit the side of the sink-trough, clattered to the ground.

During the instant that Baldwin's eyes followed its trajectory, his knife hand lifted.

A millimeter of air between blade and throat.

Daniel lunged for Baldwin's wrist with both of his hands, pushing the knife up and way from Shoshi. Lowering his head, he drove it hard into Baldwin's oily abdomen, pushing the monster back.

Monster was heavy, a twenty-kilo advantage. Rock-hard. Thick wrists, A head taller. Two good hands.

Daniel injected the full force of his rage into the attack. Baldwin stumbled backward, against the wall racks, The baths vibrated. A jar tilted fell, shattered. Something wet and glossy skidded across the floor.

Earrings tinkling.

Baldwin opened his mouth, roared, charged, swinging the knife.

Daniel backed away from the death-arcs. Baldwin stabbed air several times in succession. The inertia threw him off-balance.

Big and strong, but no trained fighter.

Daniel used the moment to head-butt Baldwin again, drove his fists into the monster's belly and groin, kicking at naked shins, reaching upward, grabbing a wrist, struggling to gain possession of the knife.

Baldwin fought free. Stab, miss. Stepped on broken glass, cried out.

Daniel stomped on the wounded foot, went for the knife with his good hand, tried to claw Baldwin's chest with his bad one. The fingernails made contact with oily flesh, slid off ineffectually.

He looked for the gun. Too far. Kicked at Baldwin's knee. Punishing, but not damaging. Got both hands around Baldwin's hand, felt the smooth pearl of the knife handle.

Go for the fingers, stuffed with nerve endings.

He tried to bend back Baldwin's index finger, but Baldwin held fast. Daniel's leverage was poor, his hand slipped, came perilously rose to the knife blade. Before he could regain his hold on the handle, Baldwin yanked upward, gear-shifting the knife, up and down, back and forth, stabbing, wrenching, controlling it, as Daniel held on and pivoted to avoid being slashed.

The pinkie of Daniel's bad hand grazed the blade. The nail split open, then the soft flesh under it. Electric pain. A warm bath of blood.

He kept his good hand on the handle, gouging at Baldwin's fingers.

Baldwin saw the blood. Laughed, was renewed.

He lowered his teeth to Daniel's shoulder, sank them in.

Daniel twisted away, torn, on fire. A deep wound, more blood-his shirt began soaking up scarlet dye. No problem, he had plenty to spare, wouldn't stop until he was drained.

But escaping from Baldwin's bite had caused him to lose his grip on the knife.

Baldwin raised the giant blade.

Daniel held out his bad hand, palm-first.

The knife came down.

Enough nerves left to register pain.

Old pain, memory pain.

Back on the hillside. Back in the Butcher's Theater.

Baldwin twisted the knife, both hands on the handle, the big blade eating muscle, severing tendons, threatening to separate the metacarpal bones, split the hand clear up to the finger webs.

The monster growling. Gnashing his teeth. The eyes empty, obscene.

Intent on destroying him.

Baldwin drew himself up to his full height, bearing down on the knife. Pushing, churning, forcing Daniel down.

Tremendous pressure, crushing, relentless. Daniel felt his knees bend, buckle. He sank, skewered.

Baldwin's grin was wider than ever. Triumphant. He pressed down, painting, sweating, the oil mixing with the sweat, running down his body in viscous streams.

Daniel looked up at him, saw the swastika brands.

The crowbar-too far away.

Baldwin laughing, shouting, churning the knife.

Daniel pushed up with all his strength; the knife blade continued devouring his hand, extended its scarlet dominion.

He bit back screams, locked onto Baldwin's eyes, held the monster fast, refused to succumb.

"You… first… her… for… dessert."

Daniel felt the blood leave him, the strength leeching out of his muscles, and knew he couldn't hold out much longer.

He pushed up again, harder, made his arm a rigid, jointless length of steel. Held his own, then let go suddenly, ceasing all resistance, falling backward in a paratrooper's roll, the impaled hand slamming to the ground, the knife pursuing it, but purposelessly, fueled by gravity, not intent.

The tension-release caught Baldwin off guard. He stum bled, held on to the knife, and went down after it, bending awkwardly at the waist to maintain his grip on the weapon.

Daniel kicked up at his knee, again.

This time hearing something snap.

Baldwin howled as if betrayed, clutched his leg, collapsed. Falling full force on top of Daniel, one hand bent under him. the other still clutching the knife.

Baldwin closed his eyes, pulled up on the blade, trying to free the Liston, go for a kill-zone.

But the knife was lodged between bones, refused to spread them. All he could do was saw it back and forth, open more blood vessels. Knowing time was on his side. The nigger-kike's pain had to be terrible-he was puny, inferior, bred for defeat.

But the little fuck was holding on, fighting back!

Hard blows stung his Aryan nose, cheeks, chin, mouth. His lower lip burst open. He tasted his own blood, swallowed it-hero-sweet but it made him gag.

The blows kept coming like razor-rain and his own pain got worse, as if the nigger-kike was taking everything he'd absorbed and spitting it back at him.

He forced a D.T. grin, looked down, searching for signs of fadeout.

Kikefuck was smiling back at him!

The scum-this fucking untermensch scum-didn't care about pain, didn't care about the Liston dancing on him, eating him alive.

He marshaled all his strength, pulled up on the knife. Scumshit used his hand as a weapon, pushed back, stuck to it.

Suddenly brown fingers were imbedded in his cheek and raking downward. Shreds of flesh peeling down like tree bark.

Oh, no!

Blood-his blood-splashing in his face, his eyes, everything red.

He sobbed with frustration, said farewell to the Liston and let go of it. Used one hand to block the endless blows, tried to clamp the other around the niggerfuck's throat.

Daniel felt big wet fingers scrambling over his larynx.

He rolled free. Punched Baldwin's nose, mouth, chin. Aiming for the cheek-gouges. Erase that grin, forever.

Keep smiling. It scared the coward.

Baldwin regained the stranglehold.

Getting a grip on the larynx. Squeezing, crushing. Trying to rip it out of Daniel's throat.

Daniel felt the breath leave his chest in a sad hiss. The perimeters of his visual field turned gray, then black. The blackness spread inward, blotting out the light. His head filled with hollow noises. Death rattles. His lungs filled quickly with wet sand.

He kept striking out, tearing at the monster's face. The big fingers kept choking him.

The knife still piercing in his hand, lodged tight, hurting so intensely.

Two loci of pain.

Baldwin cursed, spat, throttled him. The blackness was almost complete. Acid flames raged in his chest, licked upward, scorching his plate, advancing toward his brain.

So hot, yet cold.

Fading

The monster, stronger than he. Intent on destruction.

Her for dessert.

No!

He reached inward, beyond himself, beyond sensation, mined a last filament of strength, embraced the pain, went past it. Arching his body, blind, breathless, he bucked, groped, found one of Baldwin's fingers. Took hold of it, bent it backward, breaking it in a single, swift movement.

A popping sound, then a distant cry. The grip around his neck loosened. A drink of air.

Two more fingers grasped together. Bent, broken. Another.

Baldwin's hand flapped loose. He screamed, flailed aimlessly.

Daniel pushed him hard, threw himself upon the big oily body, dived after it as it went down.

Baldwin was bawling like a baby, eyes closed, flat on his back, clutching his hand, unprotected.

Daniel pulled the knife out of his hand. Baldwin thrashed wildly, one of his feet caught Daniel in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.

Daniel gagged, gasped for breath. The knife fell loose, clattering on stone.

Hearing it, Baldwin opened his eyes, sat up, reached for the weapon with his unbroken fingers.

Daniel threw himself upon Baldwin, avoided gnashing teeth, clawing fingers. Baldwin snarled, head-butted, tried to bite Daniel's nose. Daniel pushed back reflexively, felt something soft. Familiar. Yielding.

His fingers had discovered Baldwin's left eye. He closed them around the orb, pried, ripped it loose.

Baldwin shrieked again, and sank his teeth into Daniel's shoulder. Finding the wound, chewing it, enlarging it.

Daniel felt his flesh give way-he was being consumed.

Nearly blacked out from the pain, he forced thoughts of Shoshi into his mind, struggled for consciousness, plumbed Butcher's Theater memories, and went for the other eye.

Realizing what was happening, Baldwin twisted maniacally out of reach. But Daniel was pure intent now, his hand a hungry land crab, stalking its prey, undistractable. It found what it was looking for, seized it, tore it loose.

His world immutably blackened, Baldwin whipped and pitched, weeping blood from empty sockets. But his teeth remained embedded in Daniel, crushing, gnawing, the force of the bite intensified by agony.

Daniel punched at Baldwin's scarlet-washed face. His fists grazed bone, skin, gristle. Finally he managed to get the heel of his good hand under Baldwin's chin and gave a sudden, sharp push. Baldwin's jaws relaxed involuntarily. Daniel pulled himself free.

Baldwin struggled to his knees, a moaning, swooning ghost. His face a bleached-white death mask, the holes below his brow yawning, black and bottomless.

He screamed and swung his arms wildly, seeking context in the void.

Daniel retrieved the knife, clutched it in his good hand. Stepped in fresh blood, slipped, and staggered backward.

Baldwin heard the sound of the fall. He got to his feet, staggering and groping for support.

And found it. Broken fingers embraced the cold metal rim of the surgical table, then advanced with a mind of their own.

A hellish smile spread across Baldwin's face, corroding its way through pain and blindness.

His unbroken hand, huge, blood-slick, lowered itself onto Shoshi's face turned claw-like.

Now it was Daniel's turn to scream. He charged forward and up, shoving his torn shoulder into Baldwin's rock-hard torso and pushing him away from the table.

Baldwin flailed, took a drunken step forward, and embraced him, ripping his nails into Daniel's back. Blood-pinkened teeth chattered and lowered, searching for a familiar target.

Daniel struggled to break loose, felt Baldwin's grip tighten around him. Despite what had done to him, strength remained in the monster. Daniel's hand was gripped around the handle of the knife, the blade was pressed between them, flat against their torsos. Useless and inert.

Baldwin seemed impervious to the coldness of surgical steel against bare chest. He raised his hand, buried it in Daniel's hair, and yanked hard. Daniel felt his scalp separate from his skull.

Baldwin yanked again.

Daniel twisted the knife free, found the spot he was looking for just under Baldwin's rib cage.

Baldwin snaked his fingers through Daniel's hair, over Daniel's forehead, onto Daniel's eyes.

He scrabbled, placed thumb and forefinger around the eye-ball, and cried out triumphantly just as Daniel shoved upward with the knife. The blade entered silently, completed its journey quickly, passing through diaphragm and lung, coming to rest in Baldwin's heart.

Baldwin pulled back, convulsed, opened his mouth in surprise, and expelled a wave of blood. Clutching Daniel in one final spasm, he died in the detective's arms.

More whiteness, everyone in white.

They were protecting him, entertaining him. Insinuating their comfort between him and his thoughts. Standing around the bed, kind strangers. Smiling, nodding, telling him how well he was doing, everything sewed up fine. Pretending not to notice the bandages, bags of blood, bottles of glucose, tubes running in and out of him.

Gurgling when they talked. Usually he had no idea what they were saying, but he tried to look as if he were paying attention so as not to hurt their feelings.

They'd given him something to silence the pain. It worked but encased him in wet cement, turned the air liquid, made staying alert an effort, like treading water wearing sandbags.

He tried to tell them he was okay, moved his lips. The people in white nodded and smiled. Gurgled.

He treaded water a while longer, gave up, sank to the bottom.

The second day, his head cleared slightly, but he remained weak and the pain returned, stronger than ever. He was disconnected from his tubes, allowed to sip liquids, given pain pills that he concealed under his tongue and discarded when the nurse left.

Laura sat by his bedside, knowing what he did and didn't need. When he drifted off to sleep, she read or crocheted. When he awoke, she was there, holding his good hand, wiping his forehead, tilting a water glass to his lips before he asked for it.

One time, toward evening, he woke up and found her sketching. He cleared his throat and she flipped the sketch pad around, showed him what she was working on.

Still life. Bowl of fruit and wine bottle.

He heard himself laughing. Sank back in pain, then slept and dreamed of the day they'd met-a hot, dry morning, the first September of a unified Jerusalem. Just before Rosh Hashanah, the birth of a new year that promised nothing.

He was a patrolman, still in uniform, nursing a soda at Cafe Max. Winding down after a rotten day in the Kata-monim: the bad hand aching from tension, a bellyful of verbal abuse form pooshtakim, and the torment of wondering if he'd made the right decision. Had Gavrieli used him as a pawn?

Across the cafe sat a group of art students from Bezalel. Young men and women, long-haired, nonconformist types with laughing mouths and graceful hands. Their laughter grated on him. They took up three tables, drank iced coffee, gobbled cheese toast and cream pastries, and filled the tiny restaurant with cigarette smoke and gossip.

One of the girls caught his eye. Slender, long wavy blond hair, blue-eyed, exceedingly pretty. She looked too young to be studying at the institute.

She smiled at him and he realized he'd been staring. Embarrassed, he turned away and finished his soda. Calling for the check, he reached into his pocket for his wallet, fingered it clumsily, and dropped it. As he bent to pick it up, he caught another glimpse of the art students. The blond girl.

She seemed to have separated from the others. Had moved her chair so that she faced him, and was drawing in a pad. Looking right at him, smiling, and sketching.

Doing his portrait! The nerve, the intrusion!

He glared at her. She smiled, continued to sketch.

Bubbles of pent-up anger burst inside of him. He turned his back on her. Slapped down a few bills and stood to leave.

As he exited the cafe, he felt a hand on his elbow.

"Is something the matter?"

She was looking up at him-short girl. Had followed him out. She wore an embroidered black smock over faded jeans and sandals. Red bandanna around her neck-playing artist.

"Is something wrong?" she repeated. American-accented Hebrew. Terrific, another spoiled one, spending daddy's money on fantasies. Wanting a fling with a uniform?

"Nothing," he said in English.

The force of the word startled her and she took a step backward. Suddenly, Daniel felt boorish, at a loss for words.

"Oh," she said, looking at his bandaged hand. "Okay. It's just that you were staring at me, and then you got angry. I was just wondering if something was wrong."

"Nothing," he repeated, forcing himself to soften his tone. "I saw you drawing my portrait and was surprised, that's all."

The girl raised her eyebrows. Broke out laughing. Bit her finger to stop. Continued giggling.

Spoiled baby, thought Daniel, angry once more. He turned to walk away.

"No. Wait, "said the girl, tugging on his sleeve. "Here. "She opened her sketch pad, flipped it around so he could see it.

Still life. Bowl of fruit and wineglass.

"Pretty bad, huh?"

"No, no." Idiot, Sharuvi. "It's very nice."

"No, it's not. It's dreadful. It's a cliche, kind of a joke-an art school joke."

"No, no you're a very good artist. I'm sorry, I thought-"

"No harm done." The girl closed the sketch pad and smiled at him.

Such a wonderful smile. Daniel found himself hiding his scarred hand behind his back.

Awkward silence. The girl broke it.

"Would you like your portrait done?"

"No, I don't, I have to-"

"You have a terrific face," said the girl. "Really. Great contours." She raised a hand to touch his cheek, pulled it back. "Please? I could use the practice."

"I really don't-"

She took his arm, led him up King George. Minutes later he was sitting on green grass, under a pine tree in Independence Park, the girl squatting across from him, cross-legged and intent, sketching and shading.

She finished the portrait. Tore the paper out of the pad and handed it to him with lovely, smudged fingers.

At this point in the dream, reality receded and things got strange.

The paper grew in his hand, doubling, trebling, expanding to the size of a bed sheet. Then larger, a banner, covering the sky. Becoming the sky.

Miles of whiteness.

Four faces rendered in charcoal.

A thoughtful Daniel, looking better than life.

Three laughing, round-faced infants.

This doesn't make sense, he told himself. But it was nice. He didn't fight it.

The portrait took on color, depth, achieved photographic realism. A sky-sized mural.

Four giant faces-his own face, smiling now. Beaming down from the heavens.

"Who? he asked, staring at the infants. They seemed to be smiling at him, following him with their eyes.

"Our children." said the girl. "One day we'll make beautiful babies together. You'll be the best father in the world."

"How?" asked Daniel, knowing her, but not knowing her, still dream-baffled. "How will I know what to do?"

The blond girl smiled, leaned over, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "When the time comes, you'll know."

Daniel thought about that. It sounded right. He accepted it.

At eight-thirty, Gene and Luanne arrived with flowers and chocolates. Gene chatted with him, slipped him a cigar, and told him he expected a speedy recovery. Luanne said he looked great. She bent and kissed his forehead. She smelled good, minty and clean. When they left, Laura went with them.

The next afternoon was spent tolerating a visit from Laufer and other members of the brass. Faking drowsiness in the middle of the D.C.'s little speech.

Laura returned at dinnertime with the children and his father, bringing shwarma and steak pitas, cold beer and soda. He hugged and kissed all of them, stroked Mikey's and Benny's buttery cheeks, let them play with the wheelchair and fiddle with the television. Watched Shoshi stare out the window, not knowing what to say.

His father stayed late, taking out a Tehillim and singing psalms to him in a sweet, soothing voice, using ancient nigunim from Yemen that synchronized with his heartbeat.

When he woke up, it was nine forty-five. The room was dim; his father was gone. Only the psalmbook remainded closed on his nightstand. He picked it up, managed to open it one-handed, chanted the old tunes softly.

Shmeltzer burst into the room minutes later. A heavyset nurse followed on his heels, protesting that visiting hours were long over; this patient had already, had too many visitors.

"Off my back, yenta," said the old detective. "I've put up with your rules long enough. This is official police business. Tell her, Dani."

"Official police business." Daniel smiled. "It's all right."

The nurse placed her hands on her hips, adjusted her cap, said, "It may be all right with you, but you don't make the rules, Pakad. I'm calling the attending doctor."

"Go, call him," said Shmeltzer. "While you're at it, take a tumble with him in the linen closet."

The nurse advanced on him, fumed, retreated. Shmeltzer dragged a chair to the bed and sat down.

"Bastard's real name was Julian Heymon," he said. "American, from Los Angeles, rich parents, both dead. A loser from day one, kicked out of Sumbok-why, we don't know, but a place like that, it had to be serious. He couldn't get into any other medical school and tramped around the U.S., living off inheritance and attending medical conventions using false identities. Our busting him helped the FBI close fourteen murders. There are at least five other possibles. Don't hold your breath waiting for thanks.

"The real Sorrel Baldwin was a medical administrator from Texas, bright young guy on his way up-earned a master's degree at the American University and stayed on to work at their hospital when Beirut was still Zurich East. He stayed a year, returned to the U.S. in '74, took a position running a fancy pathology lab in Houston that catered to heart surgeons-Heymon's father was a heart surgeon, a Yid-do you believe that! So there may have been some weird connection there. In the shit we found in the German Colony house, there are multiple references to another father, some guy named Schwann. We're still trying to sort that out, along with boxes of the preserved animal corpses and Nazi shit that he scrawled on the walls. He filled a couple of notebooks, too, labeled them experimental data: real science, but it was mostly incoherent crap-psycho ravings, torture experiments. From what I can tell, you were right about the racial angle. We found the phrase Project Untermensch several times-something about using the murders to set us against the Arabs, them against us, until we wiped each other out. Finishing off-"

Shmeltzer stopped. Cleared his throat, looked out the window. "Anyway, that's the long and short of-"

"Finishing off Shoshi was his final ploy," said Daniel. "He planned to mutilate her, leave a note next to the body attributing it to an Arab revenge group."

Shmeltzer nodded. "According to his notes, his next destination was somewhere in Africa-South Africa or Zimbabwe. Pit whites against blacks. Far as I'm concerned, it was all bullshit. Shmuck enjoyed killing, plain and simple. Tried to gussy it up with political motivation. Whatever you did to him was too good."

Daniel closed his eyes. "What happened to the real Baldwin?"

"That's one to feel sorry for," said Shmeltzer. "Poor devil was on top of the world until he attended a medical finance convention in New York, back in 75. Had dinner with some other administrators, went out for a stroll, and was never heard from again."

"Ten years ago," said Daniel, remembering what Gene had said about America: Big country, big mess. Missing persons who stayed missing.

"Heymon was patient, I'll say that for him," said Shmeltzer. "He held on to Baldwin's papers-for four years used them only to get duplicates, transcripts. We found other false IDs in the German Colony house, so the bastard had his pick. In '79 he got a job, as Sorrel Baldwin-an administrator in an abortion clinic in Long Beach, California. Four years later, he hooked up with the U.N.-Baldwin's resume was first-rate, not that they're that picky. He pushed U.N. paper in New York for a while-probably enjoyed working for Waldheim, eh?-studied Arabic, then applied for the Amelia Catherine job and got it. The rest is history."

"What about Khoury, the girlfriend?"

"She claims to be as shocked as anyone. We've got nothing that proves otherwise. She says she knew Baldwin- Heymon-was a weird one. Never tried to get in bed, happy just to hold hands and gaze at the stars, but she never suspected, blah blah blah. We'll keep an eye on her anyway. Maybe I'll assign Cohen to it-she's a looker, comes on strong."

"How's he doing?

Shmeltzershrugged. "According to him, perfect-big John Wayne thing, for the moment. When you get down to it, he didn't go through that much. Your finishing off Heymon gave his heroin dose time to wear off. Cohen woke up all by himself, saw the animal heads, and probably thought he'd died and gone to hell. But he denies it, says it was funny-some joke, eh? He wriggled to a phone, put a pencil in his teeth, and dialed 1(X). By the time Daoud and the Chinaman got there, he was out of his ropes, bragging how simple it had been. He'll get credit for the German Colony bust, a promotion, like all of us. You're the only one who got bruised-tough luck, eh?"

"Me and Richard Carter," said Daniel.

"Yeah, tough luck for him too," said Shmeltzer. "Guy's at Hadassah, but he'll live. The watchman, Hajab, got a split mouth. The teeth you knocked out were false-let the fucking U.N. buy him a new bridge. Needless to say, the bastards from the Hill of Evil Council tried to raise a stink, bring you up on charges, but the brass and the mayor stood up for you. Something about tearing down the fucking hospital for national security purposes."

Daniel coughed. Shmeltzer poured him a glass of water, held the glass to his lips.

"Two other tidbits, Adon Pakad. Amira Nasser, the redheaded whore, supposed to be in Amman all this time? Rumor has it that she was on Shin Bet's payroll, free-lancing for dollars, on top of her street work, in order to pick up on bomb talk. When she encountered Heymon, started talking about it. Shin Bet pulled her off, sent her to a safe house in the Negev."

Daniel sat up, was hit with a wave of pain. "Nice guys. They couldn't have let us talk to her, given us the ID?"

"Bad timing, low priority," said Shmeltzer. "Rumor has it that she didn't get a good look anyway."

"Rumor has it, eh? Your friend been getting talkative?"

Shmeltzer shrugged again, adjusted his glasses. "My famous fatal charms. She thinks I'm still available, wants to get on my good side."

"What's the second tidbit?"

"More wonderful timing. Remember that pregnant kib-butznik I talked to-Nurit Blau, used to be a tour guide for the Nature Conservancy, had total amnesia? She saw Baldwin's picture in the papers, this morning. Called me up and said, oh, yeah, that guy, he was on one of my tours, snooping around. Anyway, I can be of help, blah blah blah-idiot, probably give birth to a cabbage."

Daniel laughed.

The door opened. The heavy nurse stormed in, a young doctor at her side.

"Him," she said, pointing at Shmeltzer.

"Finished so soon?" Shmeltzer said to the doctor. "Tsk, tsk, not good at all, got to work on your staying power."

The doctor was perplexed. "Adon," he began.

"Good night, Pakad." Shmeltzer saluted, and left.

A candle burned on the nightstand.

At least another two kilos gained, estimated Daoud, as he watched Mona get into bed. She'd unbraided her hair and combed it out to a black, glistening sheet that hung past her waist. And what a waist! Her softness concealed by a tent of soft cotton nightgown, but the curves coming through-all that comforting roundness.

She got in beside him, causing the bed coils to creak, laid her head on his chest, and sighed. Fragrant of cologne and the sweets he'd bought her: sugar-coated almonds, Swiss chocolate filled with fruit paste, honeyed figs.

"Was the dinner acceptable?" she asked timidly.

"Yes."

"Is there anything else you'd like to eat or drink?"

"No."

She lay there, breathing heavily. Waiting, the way a woman should, for him to make the first move.

The closet-sized bedroom was silent; an opened window revealed a starry Bethlehem sky. All six children and Grandma finally put to bed. The rugs beaten, the kitchen washed down and aired.

Time to rest, but even after the heavy meal and sweet tea, he was unable to unwind. All those spent in the shadows, waiting, watching, and now it was over. Like that.

Thank God, no more murders. But still, a letdown.

He'd done his job well, there were promises of promotion, but when the end had come, he'd been sitting and watching and waiting.

Much talk of all of them being heroes, but the Yemenite was the the true hero, had met the killer face to face, washed his hands in the devil's blood.

He'd visited Sharavi in the hospital, brought him a cake Mona had baked, moist and rich, spiced with anise, stuffed with raisins and figs.

The Yemenite had eaten with him. Commended his performance, repeated the promises of promotion.

Still, he wondered what lay ahead.

Walking the line. Serving at the pleasure of strangers.

Cases like the Butcher came up once in a century. What further use would they have for him, waiting and watching? Betraying his Arab brethren? Making more enemies, like the one in Gaza?

Mona's dimpled hand caressed his chin. She purred like a well-fed cat, eager, ready to take him in, make another baby.

He rolled over, looked at her. Saw the pretty face, cushioned, like a piece of gift glass.

She closed her eyes, pursed her lips.

He kissed her, propped himself up, hiked up his nightshirt, and prepared to climb atop the mountain.

Mona parted her thighs and extended her hands toward him.

Then the phone rang in the sitting room.

"Oh, Elias," she murmured.

"One moment," he said, climbed out of bed, and went in to answer it.

He picked up the receiver. The ringing had wakened the baby. Covering one ear to blot out its cries, he placed the other against the phone.

"Daoud? Chinaman here."

"Good evening."

"I'm at French Hill. Got an assignment for you, interrogation."

"Yes," said Daoud, smoothing his shirt down, suddenly alert. "Tell me."

"You know all those confessors that have been crawling out of the woodwork since the Butcher thing closed? Finally we've got one that looks promising-for the Gray Man. Old plumber in gray work clothes, marched into Kishle a few hours ago, carrying a knife and crying that he did it. They would have kicked him out as a fake, but someone was smart enough to notice that the knife matched the pathologist's description. We hustled it over to Abu Kabir-blade fits right into the wound mold. Guy's an Arab, so we thought you'd be the one to handle it. Okay?"

"Okay."

"When can you be here?"

The baby had gone back to sleep. Daoud heard a sound from the bedroom, turned and saw Mona, filling the width of the doorway. A plaintive look on her face, like a kid begging for goodies but not expecting any.

Daoud calculated mentally.

Mona clasped her hands across her pendulous belly. The nightgown rippled. Her earrings shone brightly in the candlelight.

"Ninety minutes, maybe less," said Daoud. Then he hung up and pulled off his nightshirt.

The best disco in Tel Aviv: huge, tropical motif, silk ferns and papier-mache palms, green-and-black velvet walls and aluminum-rainbow ceiling, strobe lights, a high-tech German sound system that could make your ears bleed.

The best drinks too. Russian vodka, Irish whisky, American bourbon, French wine. Freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juice for mixers. And food: barbecued lamb ribs at the bar. Fried eggplant, steak on bamboo skewers, shwarma, shrimp, Chinese chicken salad.

American rock, all back-beat and screaming guitars.

The best-looking girls, going crazy to the music, making love to every note. Scores of them, each one a perfect doll, as if some horny Frankenstein had invented a Piece of Ass Machine and turned in on full-force tonight. Firm breasts and jiggling tushes, hair tosses and glossy white smiles turned multicolor by strobe flashes.

Hip-thrusting, wiggling, as if the dance were sex itself.

Avi sat smoking at a corner table near the bar, by himself. Wondering if it had been wrong to come.

A slim brunette at the bar had been making eyes at him for five minutes, crossing and uncrossing silver lame legs, sucking on a straw, and letting one high-heeled slipper dangle from her toes.

But a hungry look on her face that made him feel uneasy.

He ignored her, ate a shrimp without tasting it.

Another guy came over and asked her to dance. The two of them walked off together.

Twenty-dollar cover charge, plus drinks, plus food. He had thought this would be the way to wipe his head clean, but was it?

The noise and drinks and laughter seemed only to make everything worse. Emphasizing the difference between good clean turn-ons and what had happened to him. Like putting what had happened into a picture frame and hanging it on the wall for everyone to see.

It was crazy, but he couldn't help feeling branded, couldn't shake the thought that everyone knew about him, knew exactly what the fucking pervert had done to him.

Those eyes. Bound and gagged, he'd looked up into them, seen the grin, known the meaning of evil.

I'm saving you, pretty one. Thank me for it

Another girl sat down at the bar. Strawberry blonde, tall and fair, not his usual type. But nice. She spoke to the bartender, lit a cigarette while he prepared her something lime-green and foamy in a brandy snifter, a piece of pineapple stuck on the rim.

She smoked, drummed her fingers on the bar top, bobbed in time to the music, then started looking around. Her eyes fell upon Avi. She checked him out, headoo toe. Smiled and sipped and smoked and batted her lashes.

Nice lashes. Nice smile. But he wasn't ready for it.

Didn't know when he'd ever be.

Frame it and hang it on the fucking wall.

Everyone knew. Though the secret sat like a stone in his chest.

Last night he'd awakened, smothered by the stone, cold and damp and relentless. Struggling against dream bonds, unable to breathe

Pretty one.

The strawberry blonde swiveled on her stool in order to give him a full front view. Lush figure, all curves. Red brocade shorty jacket over black leotard. Low cut. Healthy chest, lots of cleavage. Long, shiny hair that she played with, knowing it was gorgeous. Maybe the color was natural-he wasn't close enough to tell for sure.

Very nice.

A flash of green strobe light turned her into something reptilian. It lasted for only a second but Avi turned away involuntarily. When he looked again she was bathed in warm colors, nice again.

He smoked.

She smoked.

Big-shot Lover Boy.

Everyone had nice words for him-Sharavi, the Arab, even old Shmeltzer.

Far as they knew, he'd slept through it all, dosed up on heroin.

Didn't know the maniac had let him come out of it, didn't know what the fucking shit had done with him.

To him.

Making him the woman. Calling him pretty one, cursing in German as he played out his filthy

The agony, the shame. After the fucking shit left, he bloodied his hands freeing himself, dressed himself before they had a chance to find out the truth.

The next day, he'd driven all the way to Haifa, found a doctor up on the Carmel, and using a false name, told a lame story about bleeding hemorrhoids which the doctor hadn't even pretended to believe. Cash up front had stifled any questions. Ointments, salves, the blood test results back yesterday.

Everything normal, Mr. Siegel.

Normal.

The secret intact. He returned to Headquarters a hero.

If any of them ever found out, they'd never look at him the same.

He wanted desperately to put the memories out of his mind, but they kept returning-in dreams and daydreams, filling empty moments, dominating his thoughts.

Filth. He wanted to remove his brain, dip it in acid.

The strawberry blonde had gotten up, was walking toward him.

Leaning low. Giving him a tease-glimpse of nipple before tugging up her top.

Really a gorgeous one.

She posed, smiled, tapped a foot, and made her chest shake.

He felt a warm stirring in his jeans. But vague, removed, as if it were happening to someone else's body.

He said nothing, did nothing.

She looked confused. "Hey. Do you want to dance?"

Avi looked up at her, trying to collect his thoughts.

"Hey," said the girl, smiling again, but hurt. "I didn't know it was a life-or-death decision."

She turned to leave.

Avi stood, took hold of her.

"It's not," he said, twirling her around and putting on a smile of his own, the one the South African girl had called devilish, the one they all went for.

Keeping the smile plastered on his face, he squired her onto the dance floor.

On the fourth day, Daniel went home and slept until evening. When he awoke, Shoshi was in the room, sitting in a chair by the window, big-eyed, silent, picking at her cuticles.

Far away

He remembered Ben David's visit, yesterday. The disquieting feeling of waiting for a comparative stranger to tell him about his own child.

I won't tell you she's perfect. She's shaken up-traumatized. Expect some sleep problems, maybe nightmares, appetite loss, fearfulness, clinginess. It's normal, will take time to work through.

What about addiction?

No chance. Don't worry about that. In fact, the heroin turned out to be a blessing. She was spared the gory details. All she remembers is his grabbing her suddenly, holding her down for the injection, then waking up in the ambulance.

Hearing the psychologist talk about the abduction had made him want to cringe. He'd suppressed it, thought he'd done a good job of hiding his feelings. But Ben David's look was penetrating. Appraising.

What, Eli?

Actually, what worries her the most is you-that you'll never be the same, that it was all her faut. you'll never forgive her.

There's nothing to forgive, Eli.

Of course not. I've told her that. It would help if she heard it from you.

"Motek?"

"Yes, Abba?"

"Come here, on the bed."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't. I'm a tough guy. Come on."

She got up from the chair, settled near his right shoulder.

"How's the dog, Shosh?"

"Good. The first night he cried until morning. I put him in my bed, but last night he slept well. This morning he ate everything I gave him."

"And how about you-how are you sleeping?"

"Fine."

"No bad dreams?"

"No."

"And what did you eat for breakfast?"

"Nothing."

"Why not?"

"I wasn't hungry."

"Dieting?"

A tiny smile formed on her lips. She covered her mouth with her hand. When she removed it, the smile had vanished.

"No."

"What then, Yom Kippur? Have I been here so long that I've lost track of time?"

"Oh, Abba."

"Not Yom Kippur. Let me see-a boy. You want to look skinny for a boy."

"Abba!"

"Don't worry about what the boys think, what anyone thinks. You're beautiful just the way you are. Perfect." He lifted her hand to his lips, touched the palm to his unshaven cheek. Feeling the warmth, capillaries brimming with life-blood. Exulting in it.

"Smooth or scratchy?" Old game.

"Scratchy. Abba-"

"Perfect," he repeated. Pause. "Except, of course, for the way you treat your brothers."

The smile again, but sad. Fingers twisting her hair, then touching the wings of the silver butterfly.

"Have you done your homework?"

"There is no homework. School's out in two days. The teachers let us have parties. And they're wild animals."

"Your teachers are wild animals?"

"Mikey and Benny!"

"Oh. What species?"

She stiffened, pulled her hand away. "Abba, you're being silly, treating me like a baby and trying to avoid the subject."

"And what subject is that?"

"That I was stupid to go with a stranger-all those times you and Eema told me about strangers, and I went. I thought he was a rabbi-"

"You cared about Dayan-"

"It was stupid! Retarded! And because of it I hurt you, hurt you badly-your shoulder, your hand. It was all my fault!"

She tore at her hair, her little face crumpled. Daniel pulled her down to him, tucked her head under his neck, felt her fragile body convulse with sobs.

"I won't lie to you, Shosh, it was a mistake. But even mistakes turn out well-because of you, an evil man was caught before he could hurt anyone else. All part of God's plan."