The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

He picked up the press release, initialed it, and told Daniel he was free to leave. Allowed him to reach the doorknob before speaking again: "One more thing. I read Rashmawi's arrest report-the first one, for throttling the whore. The incident took place some time before Gray Man, didn't it?"

Daniel knew what was coming.

"Over two years before."

"In terms of a Major Crimes investigation, that's not long at all. Was Rashmawi ever questioned in regard to the Gray Man murders?"

"I questioned him about it yesterday. He denied having anything to do with it, said except for the incident with the prostitute, he never went out of the house at night. His family will vouch for him-an unassailable alibi, as you've noted."

"But he wasn't questioned originally? During the active investigation?"

"No."

"May I ask why not?"

The same question he'd asked himself.

"We were looking at convicted sex offenders. His case was dismissed before coming to trial."

"Makes one wonder," said Laufer, "how many others slipped by."

Daniel said nothing, knowing any reply would sound mealy-mouthed and defensive.

"Now that the Scopus thing has been cleared up," continued the deputy commander, "there'll be time to backtrack-go over the files and see what else may have been missed."

"I've started doing that, Tat Nitzav."

"Good day, Sharavi. And congratulations on solving the case.

On Wednesday night, hours after the Scopus case closed, the Chinaman celebrated by taking his wife and son out for a free dinner. He and.Aliza smiled at each other over plates heaped high with food-stir-fried beef and broccoli, sweet and sour veal, lemon chicken, crackling duck-holding hands and sipping lime Cokes and enjoying the rare chance to be alone.

"It's good that it's over," she said, squeezing his thigh. "You'll be home more. Able to do your share of the housework."

"I think I hear the office calling."

"Never mind. Pass the rice."

Across the room, little Rafi sucked contentedly on a bottle of apple juice, cradled in his grandmother's arms, receiving a first-class guided tour of the Shang Hai as she took him from table to table, introducing him to customers, announcing that he was her tzankhan katan-"little paratrooper." At the rear of the restaurant, near the kitchen door, sat her husband, black silk yarmulke perched atop his hairless ivory head, playing silent chess with the mashgiah-the rabbi sent by the Chief Rabbinate to ensure that everything was kosher.

This mashgiah was a new one, a youngster named Stolinsky with a patchy dark beard and a relaxed attitude toward life. During the three weeks since he'd been assigned to the Shang Hai, he'd gained five pounds feasting on spiced ground veal pancakes with hoisin sauce and had been unable to capture Huang Haim Lee's king.

The restaurant was lit by paper lanterns and smelled of garlic and ginger. Chinese watercolors and calendars hung on red-lacquered walls. A rotund, popeyed goldfish swam clumsily in a bowl next to the cashier's booth. The register, normally Mrs. Lee's bailiwick, was operated tonight by a moonlighting American student named Cynthia.

The waiter was a tiny, hyperactive Vietnamese, one of the boat people the Israelis had taken in several years ago. He rushed in and out of the kitchen, bouncing from table to table carrying huge trays of food, speaking rapidly in pidgin Hebrew and laughing at jokes that only he seemed to understand. The large center table was occupied by a party of Dutch nuns, cheerful, doughy-faced women who chewed energetically and laughed along with Nguyen as they fumbled with their chopsticks. The rest of the customers were Israelis, serious about eating, cleaning their plates and calling for more.

Aliza took in the activity, the polyglot madness, smiled and stroked her husband's forearm. He reached out and took her fingers in his, exhibiting just a hint of the strength stored within the oversized digits.

It had taken her some time to get used to it. She'd grown up a farm girl, on Kibbutz Yavneh, a bosomy, big-boned redhead. Her first beaus, robust, tractor-'driving youths-male versions of herself. She'd always had a thing for big men, the muscular, bulky types who made you feel protected, but never had she imagined herself married to someone who looked like an oversized Mongol warrior. And the family: her mother-in-law your basic yiddishe mama, her hair in a babushka, still speaking Hebrew with a Russian accent; Abba

Haim an old Buddha, as yellow as parchment; Yossi's older brother, David, suave, always wearing a suit, always making deals, always away on business.

She'd met Yossi in the army. She'd worked in requisitions and had been attached to his paratrooper unit. He'd stormed into her office like a real bulvan, angry and looking ludicrous because the uniform that had been issued to him was three sizes too small. He started mouthing off at her; she mouthed back and that was it. Chemistry. And now little Rafi, straw-haired, with almond eyes and the shoulders of a working man. Who'd have predicted it?

As she'd gotten to know Yossi, she'd realized that they came from similar stock. Survivors. Fighters.

Her parents had been teenaged lovers who escaped from Munich in '41 and hid for months in the Bavarian forest, subsisting on leaves and berries. Her father stole a rifle and shot a German guard dead in order to get them across the border. Together they traveled on foot, making their way through Hungary and Yugoslavia and down to Greece. Catching a midnight boat ride to Cyprus and paying the last of their savings to a Cypriot smuggler, only to be forced off the boat at gunpoint, five miles from the coast of Palestine. Swimming the rest of the way on empty stomachs, crawling half-dead onto the shores of Jaffa. Avoiding the scrutiny of Arab cutthroats long enough to reach their comrades at Yavneh.

Yossi's mother had also escaped the Nazis by walking. In 1940. All the way from Russia to the visa-free port of Shanghai, where she lived in relative peace, along with thousands of other Jews. Then war broke out in the Pacific and the Japanese interned all of them in the squalid camps of Hongkew.

A tall, husky theology student named Huang Lee had been held captive there, too, suspected of collaborating with the Allies, because he was an intellectual. Dragged out periodically to endure public floggings.

Two weeks before Hiroshima, the Japanese sentenced Huang Lee to death. The Jews took him in and he evaded execution by hiding in their midst, being passed form family to family under the cover of darkness. The last family he stayed with had also taken in an orphan from Odessa, a black-haired girl named Sonia. Chemistry.

In 1947, Sonia and Huang came to Palestine. He converted to Judaism, took the name Haim-"life"-for he considered himself reborn, and they married. In '48 both of them fought with the Palmah in Galilee. In '49 they settled in North Jerusalem so that Huang Haim could study in Rabbi Kook's Central Yeshiva. When the children came-David in 1951, Yosef four years later-Huang went to work as a post-office clerk.

For twelve years he stamped packages, noticing all the while the enthusiasm with which his co-workers devoured the dishes he brought for lunch-food from his childhood that he'd taught Sonia to cook. After saving up enough cash, the Lees opened the Shang Hai Palace, on Herzl Boulevard, in back of a Sonol petrol station. It was 1967, when spirits were high, everyone eager to forget death and find new pleasures, and business was brisk.

It had remained brisk, and now Huang Haim Lee was able to hire others to wait on tables, free to spend his day studying Talmud and playing chess. A contented man, his sole regret that he hadn't been able to transmit his love for religion to his sons. Both were good boys: David, analytic, a planner-the perfect banker. Yossi, wholly physical, but brave and warmhearted. But neither wore a kipah, neither kept Shabbat nor was attracted to the rabbinic tractates that he found irresistible-the subtleties of inference and exegesis that captivated his mind.