The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

They'd come quickly to terms, Anwar unaware that he was being blatantly overcharged, and he'd climbed into the backseat of her Fiat. Recognizing the terror of inexperience, the whore had cooed at him, smiled at him, and lied about how cute he was, stroking him and wiping the sweat from his brow. But when she'd unbuttoned his fly and reached for him, the smiling and cooing had stopped. And when she'd pulled him out, her shock and revulsion had caused her to laugh.

Anwar had gone crazy with rage and humiliation. Lunging for the whore's throat, trying to strangle the laughter out of her. She'd fought back, bigger and stronger than he, pummeling and gouging and calling him freak. Screaming for help at the top of her lungs.

An undercover cop had heard it all and busted poor Anwar. The whore had given her statement, then left town. The police had been unable to locate her. Not that they'd tried too hard. Prostitution was a low-priority affair, the act itself legal, solicitation the offense. If the whores and their customers kept quiet, it was live and let live. Even in Tel Aviv, where three or four dozen girls worked the beaches at night, making plenty of noise, busts were rare unless things got nasty.

No complaint, first offense, no trial. Anwar had walked free with a recommendation that his family obtain further medical consultation and psychiatric treatment. Which the family was about as likely to accept as conversion to Judaism.

Pathetic, thought Daniel, looking at him. Denied the things other men took for granted because of missing centimeters of tissue. Treated as something less than a man by family and culture-any culture.

Sent in with the women.

"Would you like something to eat or drink now?" he asked. "Coffee or juice? A pastry?"

"No, nothing," said Anwar, with bravado. "I feel perfect."

"Tell me, then, how you avenged Fatma's honor."

"After one of their… meetings, I followed him. To the bus station."

"The East Jerusalem station?"

"Yes." There was puzzlement in the answer. As if there was any other station but the one in East Jerusalem. To him the big central depot on the west side of town-the Jewish station-didn't exist. In Jerusalem, a kilometer could stretch a universe.

"What day was this?"

"Thursday."

"What time of day?"

"In the morning, early."

"You were watching them?"

"Protecting her."

"Where was their meeting?"

"Somewhere behind the walls. They came out of the New Gate."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know. That was the last time."

Anwar saw Daniel's skeptical look and threw up his hands.

"It was him I was interested in! Without him she'd come back, be obedient!"

"So you followed him to the station."

"Yes. He bought a ticket for the Hebron bus. There was some time before it left. I walked up to him, said I was Fatma's brother, that I had money and was willing to pay him to stop seeing her. He asked how much money and I told him a hundred dollars American. He demanded two hundred. We haggled and settled on a hundred and sixty. We agreed to meet the next day, in the olive grove, before the sun rose."

"Wasn't he suspicious?"

"Very. His first reaction was that it was some kind of trick." Anwar's face shone with pride. His glasses slid down his nose and he righted them. "But I played him for a fool. When he said it was a trick, I said okay, shrugged, and started to walk away. He came running after me. He was a greedy dog-his greed got the better of him. We had our meeting."

"When?"

"Friday morning, at six-thirty."

Just shortly after Fatma's body had been discovered.

"What happened at the meeting?"

"He came ready to rob me, with the knife."

"The knife we found you with tonight?"

"Yes. I arrived first and was waiting for him. He pulled it out the minute he saw me."

"Did you see from which direction he'd come?"

"No."

"What did he look like?"

"A thief."

"His clothes were clean?"

"As clean as they'd ever be."

"Go on."

"He had the knife, ready to do me harm, but I'd come armed too. With a hammer. I kept it hidden behind the trunk of the tree that had fallen. I pulled out ten dollars. He grabbed it out of my hands and demanded the rest. I said the rest would come in installments. Five dollars a week for every week he stayed away from her. He started adding it up in his head. He was slow-witted-it took him a while. 'That's thirty weeks,' he said. 'Exactly,' I answered. There's no other way to deal with a thief.' That made him crazy. He started to walk toward me with the knife, saying I was dead, just like Fatma. That she was nothing to him, garbage to be dumped. That all the Rashmawis were garbage."

"Those were his words? That she was dead? Garbage to be dumped?"

"Yes." Anwar started crying again.

"Did he say anything else?"

"No. From the way he said it I knew he'd… hurt her. Id come up there with intentions of killing him and knew now that the time had come. He was coming closer, holding the knife in his palm, his eyes on me, beady, like those of a weasel. I started laughing, playing the fool, saying I was only joking and that the rest of the money was right there, behind the tree stump.

"'Get it,' he ordered, as if talking to a slave. I told him it was buried under the stump, that it was a job for two men to roll it away."

"You took a chance," said Daniel. "He could have killed you and come back later for the money."

"Yes, it was risky," said Anwar, clearly pleased. "But he was greedy. He wanted everything right then and there. 'Push,' he ordered me. Then he knelt down beside me, holding the knife in one hand, using the other to try to roll the stump. I pretended to roll, too, reached out and pulled hard at his ankles. He fell, and before he could get up I grabbed the hammer and hit him with it. Many times."

A dreamy look surfaced behind the eyeglasses.

"His skull broke easily. It sounded like a melon breaking on a rock. I took his knife and cut him. Kept it for a memorial."

"Where did you cut him?" asked Daniel, wanting a wound match on tape, all the details taken care of. The body had been dug up and sent to Abu Kabir. Levi would be calling within a day or so.

"The throat."

"Anywhere else?"

"The… the male organs."

Two out of the three sites where Fatma had been butchered.

"What about his abdomen?"

"No." Incredulity, as if the question were absurd.

"Why the throat and genitals?"

"To silence him, of course. And prevent further sin."

"I see; What happened after that?"

"I left him there, went to my house, and returned with a spade. I buried him, then used the spade to roll the log over his grave. Right where I showed you."

Abdelatif's remains had been lifted from a deep grave. It must have taken Anwar hours to dig it. The trunk hiding the excavation. Which made Daniel feel a little less foolish about sitting for hours, just a couple of meters away. Watching the house, keeping a dead man company.

"The only money you paid him was ten dollars," said Daniel.

"Yes, and I took it back."

"From out of his pocket?"

"No. He had it clenched in his greedy hand."

"What denomination?" asked Daniel.

"A single American ten-dollar bill. I buried it with him."

Exactly what had been found on the corpse.

"Is that all?" asked Anwar.

"One more thing. Was Abdelatif a drug user?"

"It wouldn't surprise me. He was scum."

"But you don't know it for a fact."

"I didn't know him," said Anwar. "I merely killed him."

He wiped the tears from his face and smiled.

"What is it?" asked Daniel.

"I'm happy," said Anwar. "I'm very happy."

Like a suite at the King David, thought Daniel, walking into Laufer's office. Wood-paneled and gold-carpeted, with soft lighting and a fine desert view. When it had been Gavrieli's, the decor had been warmer-shelves overflowing with books, photos of Gorgeous Gideon's equally gorgeous wife.