The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

"Something like stalking and killing."

"That's what Krieger thinks. At first he didn't want to believe it, but the more he thought about it, the better Drori looked as our guy. He wasn't too happy about telling me all this, of course. Felt like an informer. But civic duty and all that."

"Think this could be some issue between them?"

"It's possible, but Drori sounds strange enough to look into."

"What else do you know about him?"

"His employment records show he immigrated two years ago from England-Scotland, actually. Original name was Denzer-Selwyn Denzer. Divorced his wife and left her and some kids there. Personnel notes say he's got a very good reputation medically, but hard to live with."

"Has the lack of sleep affected his performance?"

"Not yet, but they're watching him for slip-ups. They'd love an excuse to get rid of him."

"Where does he live?"

"In Petah Tikva."

"Not exactly local."

"No, but with the new highway he could be driving back and forth in ample time. Who knows, maybe our second kill spot's out of town. A guy this fanatical could be into rituals, making some sort of symbolic statement."

"Any connection between him and Kagan?" ~ "According to Krieger, Drori thinks Gvura's too moderate."

"Okay," said Daniel. "Find out what he was doing the nights of both murders."

"Will do."

After Shmeltzer hung up, Daniel phoned Bonn for the tenth time and asked for the Interpol man. A secretary assured him that Mr. Friedman had indeed received the Pakad's messages, would be returning them shortly. All attempts to push the issue were met with cool secretarial indifference.

He collected his maps and his files, left the office, and drove to the Laromme Hotel. The lobby was thick with people, tourists queued up at the desk, checking in and settling their accounts, an army of clerks attending to their needs.

The courtesy phones were all in use. Daniel searched for the manager, spotted him standing near one of the mobile luggage racks berating a bellman. When the bellman had departed, Daniel walked over and said, "Please ring

Mr. and Mrs. Brooker, Yigal. I'm not sure of the room number."

The manager's eyebrows rose. "Is there something I should know about them?"

"They're friends of mine."

"Oh. In that case, no need to call. She went out this morning at ten, met a blond woman-good looker-near the taxi stand. He's out by the pool."

"Impressive, Yigal. Want to join my staff?"

The manager shrugged. "They're easy to spot."

Daniel walked to the pool area-lots of bikinis and laughter, the clink of glasses. The water in the pool was turquoise dappled with navy. The only ones swimming were children and one old man doing a slow breast stroke.

Gene was asleep on a chaise longue, next to an um-brellaed table, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other resting at his side. On the decking near his fingertips were a bottle of Heineken and a half-full glass of beer. He wore green-and-white striped trunks. His legs were speckled with gray fuzz; his belly asserted itself above the waistline in a sleek, ebony billow.

Like a seal, thought Daniel. A bull seal, basking on a rock.

He settled in a deck chair. A waitress approached and took his order for a Coke with lime. When she returned with the drink, he sipped slowly, watching Gene sleep, and was halfway through the ice when the black man began to stir.

The arm lifted, peeling away audibly from the tar-colored face. Gene's eyes closed tighter, then opened and focused on Daniel.

"Hey," he said, sitting up and extending his hand.

Daniel shook it. "You look at peace with the world, Lieutenant Brooker."

Gene smiled, stretched, and pulled a towel down from the table. "Working on my tan." He wiped his brow, ran the towel over his face. "Lu's at the museum, some lecture on biblical archaeology-matter of fact, I think Laura's with her. What's up?"

"I need to talk to the FBI, Gene. I'd like your help."

That brought the black man to his feet.

"My, my," he said. "I thought you'd never ask."

They drove the two blocks to Daniel's apartment. Laura had left a note saying Shoshi was staying late at school to work on a science project; the boys were at friends'; she and Luanne would be back by five, five-thirty the latest.

Gene sat down at the dining room table and stroked Dayan as Daniel brought out files, maps, pencils, and a stack of paper. He uncoiled the phone wire, put the phone down next to Gene, and sat down. Taking a sheet from the stack, he began writing, jotting a column of numbers parallel with the left-hand margin, placing notations next to each number. When he was through, he handed the list to Gene, who put on a pair of half-glasses and read.

"The program's fairly new-called VICAP," Gene said. "Stands for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program-the Feds love acronyms."

"They also love paperwork, which is why I'm bothering you. They usually delay us for weeks."

"If that's an apology, I'm ignoring it." Gene read for a while longer. "Not much to work with, Danny. Your basic generic sex killer mutilation-neck, breasts, privates. I've seen plenty of it over the years."

"There was a difference between the victims," said Daniel. "The genitals were cut up on One, removed from Number Two."

"Yeah, I see-that could work for us or against us, depending on how they've programmed the computer. If all they've got in there is wound pattern, we'll lose, because we're giving them two sets of data, reducing the chances of finding something in common with ours. On the other hand, if they've put in sequences-and I don't know that they have-and come up with another chop-the-first, steal-the-second pattern, we'll get a tighter match, something a little thought-provoking."

Gene read further. "Maybe the washing will pan out, but even that's not that weird-good way to get rid of evidence. Most of these turkeys like to fool with the body, manipulate it, have sex with it. We had a case back in L.A. in '49, the Black Dahlia, pretty famous. She was scrubbed and drained just like your two. They never found the guy who did it. How far back do you want them to go?"

"As far as they can."

"If I remember correctly, the file bottoms out at ten-year-old unsolveds. Most of the stuff is pretty recent. There seems to be more and more of it each year-world's getting sweeter."

He scanned the list again, put it down. "All right, let's get to it. Let's see, the time difference from here to L.A. is ten hours, which would make it seven hours from here to Virginia-just after eight A.M. Okay, McGuire should be there by now. Set me up."

Daniel dialed the international code, got a recorded message that all overseas cables were in use. He phoned the local operator, after several minutes of debate, obtained an international line. Gene took the receiver, dialed Virginia, and waited.

"No ring yet."

"Sometimes it takes a while."

The black man nodded, tapped the phone with his finger. "McGuire's a very nice guy-cooperative for a Fed. He's in Disputed Documents at the FBI Academy in Quantico, used to be in the L.A. office. We worked together on a forgery case that turned into-All right, it's ringing."

A moment later he was talking to his contact, speaking in a low, level voice:

"Hello, Sam? This is Gene Brooker. I'm calling from the Middle East… Yup, you heard right. Doing some international consulting… Yeah, I'll tell you about it when I get back. Anyway, I need access to VICAP-Serial Killer Data Bank in particular. Got some homicides with a possible international connection, want to run the wound patterns and modus, see if anything you guys have matches up… No, nothing iffy politically… not at all-you've got my word on it, Scout's honor. Just trying to catch a bad guy with a possible wide radius of operations… Yes, I know it's still in development. Any profiles worked out?… Okay, I'll take what I can get. So who do I speak to?… You will? Terrific. I owe you. Got a pen? These are the parameters…"