The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shmeltzer repeated the question.

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

The woman gathered enough courage to look up.

"Where is he?" Shmeltzer asked her.

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

"Is it his habit to leave?"

"Does a pig have habits?"

"What did he do to piss you off?"

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

"What kind of trouble?"

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

"What else besides the matches?"

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

"What else?" Shmeltzer repeated.

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

"What did you do about that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What kinds of games?" asked Shmeltzer.

"Sheshbesh, cards, dice."

"Where did he gamble?"

"Anywhere there was a game."

"Did he go into Jerusalem to play?"

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

"Did he ever make any money?"

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

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

"Where can we find him?" asked Shmeltzer.

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

"What do you think?"

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

"Did you ever see him with a girl?"

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

Shmeltzer showed him the picture of Fatma Rashmawi.

"Ever seen her?"

No reaction. "Nah."

"Did he use drugs?"

"What would I know of such things?"

Ask a stupid question

"Where do you think he's gone?"

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

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

"No."

"Anywhere else?"

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

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

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

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

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

"He steal that scar for you?"

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

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

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

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

"Very convenient, eh?" said Shmeltzer.

"You don't like it?"

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

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

"Why not?" said Shmeltzer.

"We're the enemy."

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

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

"Not much," he said.

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

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

"What about the Rashmawi brothers?" asked Shmeltzer.

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

"Cold," said Avi Cohen.

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