The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

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

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

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

"No Shabbat credit. Cash only."

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

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

"Have you seen this girl?"

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

"Which monks' place?"

"The one near the New Gate."

"Saint Saviour's?"

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

"Do you know her name?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you know about the girl?"

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

"How long ago was this?"

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

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

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

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

"Why do you say that?"

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

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

Sabhan shook his head.

"What about between her and anyone else?"

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

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

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

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

"Who?"

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

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

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

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

"As a boss," he clarified.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. Forget I asked."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just curious, eh?"

"Right."

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

Cohen blushed furiously.

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

Cohen nodded, flipped the pages of a file.

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

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

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

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

"Yes," said Daoud.

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

"How did you find them?"