The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

Gene paused. "Sounds like your guy, doesn't it?"

"The modus is identical," said Daniel. His sweaty hands made wet marks on the desk. "A traveling killer."

"Beast of the highway," said Gene. "The more we coordinate our interstate records, the more we keep turning up. Looks like this one traveled far."

Daniel scanned his notes again. "Two murders took place in California. Perhaps that's his home base."

"Same state, but L. A. and San Francisco are four hundred miles apart," said Gene. "Maybe he just likes the weather."

Daniel examined the list of murder sites again. "All these places have good weather, don't they?"

"Hmm, let me see: Oregon, Louisiana-you get your rain and chill there, but yes, generally they're mild."

"Places to visit on holiday?"

"I suppose so. Why?"

"The time lapse between the murders averages almost two years," said Daniel. "Perhaps the killer lives normally for a while, goes out on holiday to murder."

"Let me take a look at the dates," said Gene. He grew silent for several moments, then: "No, I don't think so. January in Hawaii is the off-season, cloudy and rainy. New Orleans and Miami are hot and sticky in July-folks fly down there in the winter. Anyway, there are plenty of guys who don't need a vacation to travel: drifters, truckers-anyone with a job that puts him on the road. And don't depend too much on the time lapse. He may have killed plenty of others in between-FBI estimates six undiscovered victims for every one in the file."

Five hundred eighty-seven by six. "Over three thousand undiscovered murders," said Daniel. "How can that be?"

"Runaways, throwaways, orphans, missing persons who remain missing. Big country, big mess-it's not like over here, Danny."

Daniel put the numbers out of his head, returned to his notes. "The first murder was fourteen years ago, which tells us something about his age. The youngest he could have been at the time would be, what-fourteen?"

"I've heard of sex murders committed by kids," said Gene, "but they're usually a lot more impulsive-looking. Sloppy. From the care taken on these-cleaning up the evidence, using dope to knock them out-my guess is they were committed by an adult. Eighteen, nineteen at the youngest, probably early twenties."

"Okay, let's be cautious and say sixteen," said Daniel. "That would make him at least thirty today, most likely older."

"If Shehadeh was his first."

"If she wasn't, he could be much older. But not much younger."

"I can buy that," said Gene.

"Thirties or older"-Daniel thought out loud-"an American, or one who travels to America frequently." Thinking to himself: if he's not an American, all those trips to the U.S. will show up on his passport.

"Hundred to one, he's American," said Gene. "He knew the terrain, knew where to kill, where to dump. Some of those dump spots are out of the way. Americans are suspicious of foreigners. If one was lurking around, you'd expect it to surface in at least some of the investigations. Unless," he added, "you've got Interpol suggesting otherwise."

"No, I'm still waiting for Interpol. A question, Gene: In America, he's a traveling killer, goes from city to city. Here, he stays in Jerusalem. Why didn't he murder one girl-in Jerusalem, another in Tel Aviv, move on to Haifa?"

"Maybe Jerusalem's got some special meaning for him. Defiling the holiness or something."

"Maybe," said Daniel. But his mind was racing:

Defiling the holiness of three faiths. Defiling women. Dark women. Arabs. A Mexican stripper. An Indian girl. Maybe a Louisiana mixed-blood. Maybe a Jew-the Blumen-thal girl from Oregon could be Jewish.

Every identified victim a member of a racial or ethnic minority.

But here, only Arabs. The main ethnic minority.

A racist killer?

A Jewish killer? Kaganism justified by the Bible and carried to bloody extreme?

Or blood libel, as Shmeltzer insisted. Someone blaming it on the Jews?

Whoever had sent that note to Wilbur had defiled the Bible, too. Cutting the text out and pasting it up like some ransom note. What observant Jew would do that, when the sentences could just as easily be copied?

Unless you didn't know Hebrew.

Addressing the envelope in English block letters.

He didn't know Hebrew. A foreigner.

An outsider.

Fomenting hatred, setting Jew against Arab? Semite against Semite?

A genuine anti-Semite.

A racist American maniac. Amira Nasser's story about the crazy-eyed foreigner was sounding better and better: crazy eyes, strange smile… Dammit, where were the Mossad hotshots when you needed them?

"… still only general, we need specifics," Gene was saying. "Best thing is to take a look at the original police files, or at least get the important details over the phone. I can help you with San Francisco and New Orleans. The rest I've got no personal contacts with but they may cooperate, one American cop to another."

"You've done more than enough, my friend. I'll call them myself. Do you have the addresses and phone numbers?"

Gene dictated them, then said, "It's no problem my calling them, Danny. It'll go faster, believe me."

"You've only got four days left in Jerusalem, Gene. I don't want to take up the remainder of your holiday."

The line went silent.

"Listen," said Gene, "if you need me, I can postpone leaving."

"Gene, Rome is a beautiful-"

"Danny, Rome is more churches. Bigger ones. Shrines and murals. Murals on ceilings always give me a stiff neck."

Daniel laughed.

"However," said the black man, "I think there're still a few holy places around here that Lu hasn't seen. Just this morning she was complaining about a missing a lecture series on ancient pottery whosits or something. So there's a chance I can persuade her to modify our itinerary if you need me. Have to know soon, though, or we run into problems with changing the tickets."

"I need you, Gene."

"Nice to hear. You can tell me again at dinner tonight. Meantime, let me get going on those calls. Bye."

Daniel put the phone down, thought more about the traveling killer.

America to Israel.

Europe in between?

He phoned Friedman in Bonn, knowing it was barely morning in Germany and not caring if the Interpol man got yanked out of sweet dreams.

The same detached secretary's voice came on the line. Reciting a recorded message.

He slammed the phone down, studied his notes, let his mind run with the facts, expand them. Kept returning to one thought:

A racist killer.

Calculating. Careful.

Manipulative.

He remembered the phrase that had come to him while reading the books and monographs on psychopathic killers:

Street-corner Mengeles.

He thought, again, of the disgusting paperbacks in Ben David's office. The Black Book of Fascist Horror.

Read the chapter on "Murder for Profit," the psychologist had said. The surgical experiments.

I found myself thinking about them in Nazi terms

You see, you don't need me. Your unconscious is guiding you in the right direction.

His unconscious. It had been languishing, sick with frustration, withering from disuse. But the data on the FBI list-the link-had breathed new life into it. Now, an image of the killer had been sculpted in his mind-a soft sculpture, to be sure, a wax outline, gross features melting in the glare of uncertainty. But an image nonetheless.

He was certain he was right.

The killer was no Jew, no Arab.

An American with strange eyes, a diseased mind, and a racist scheme. A beast of the highway stalking the herd.

Americans, thousands of them living and visiting here, but the only ones under surveillance were Roselli and Wilbur. Not very promising; The reporter was unethical, but no killer; the monk's big secret was that he wanted to be a Jew.