The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

Shmeltzer leaned against a gurney and watched people hurrying up and down the hospital halls, oblivious to his presence. Nurses, technicians. More doctors-he couldn't get away from them. Not that they were worth a damn. He remembered their reactions to Leah's aneurysm, the damned shrugs and false sympathy.

One time he'd peeked into Schlesinger's room, amazed at how far the old man had faded in so short a time. The tubes and needles were all over him, like the tentacles of some kind of sea monster-a giant jellyfish-wrapping themselves around what remained of his body. Meters and machines beeping away as it it meant something. All that technology was supposed to be life supporting-that was the story the white-coats told-but to Shmeltzer it seemed to be sucking the life out of the old palmahi.

A couple of times the hospital visits had been followed by tea at a cafe, an hour or so of winding down from the damned hospital ambience, small talk to hide from the big issue. But tonight Eva told him to take her straight home. During the drive back to French Hill, she was silent, sitting up against the passenger door,.as far from him as possible. When they got to her door, she turned the key in the lock, gave him a look full of anger-no, more than that: hatred.

Wrong time, wrong place, he thought, and braced himself for something unpleasant, feeling like an idiot for getting involved in a no-win situation, for getting involved at all. But instead of spitting out her pain, Eva bored her eyes into his, breathed in deeply, took his hand, and pulled him into the apartment. Moments later they were lying next to each other in her bed-Tell it straight, shmuck: their beds, hers and the old man's. Schlesinger wouldn't be sleeping in it again but

Shmeltzer still felt like an adulterer.

They remained that way for a while, naked and sweat-ing atop the covers, holding hands, staring at the ceiling.

both of them mute, the words knocked out of them, a mismatched pair of alter kockers, if he'd ever seen one. He, a scrawny bird; she, all pillows, wonderfully upholstered, her breasts heavy and flattened, thighs as soft and white as hallah dough.

She began crying. Shmeltzer felt the words of comfort lump up in his gullet, congealed by inhibition. He lifted her hand, touched dimpled knuckles to his mouth. Then, suddenly, they were rolling toward each other, slapping against each other like magnets of opposite polarity. Cleaving and clawing, Shmeltzer cradling her, listening to her sobs, wiping wet cheeks, feeling-and this was really crazy-young and strong. As if time were a pie and a large slice had been restored by some compassionate god.

The Chinaman spent another Friday night in and around the Damascus Gate, alternating between joking around with the lowlifes and pressuring them. Receiving promises from all of them, Arabs and Jews, that the moment they saw or heard anything, blah blah blah.

At one in the morning a series of behind-the-hand whispers steered him to a petty sleaze naned Gadallah Ibn Hamdeh, and known as Little Hook, a diminutive, crook-backed thief and swindler who sidelined by running girls out on the Jericho Road. The Chinaman knew him by sight but had never dealt with him personally and wasn't familiar with his haunts. It took an hour to find him, halfway across the Old City, in Omar Ibn el Khatab Square, inside the Jaffa Gate. Talking to a pair of backpackers at the top of the steps that led down to David Street, just past the facade of the Petra Hotel.

The Chinaman stood back for a moment and watched then conferring in the dark, wondering if it was a drug deal. Ibn Hamdeh was bowing and scraping, gesticulating wildly with his arms as if painting a picture in the air, reaching back every so often to touch his hump. The backpackers followed every movement and smiled like trusting idiots. Except for a solitary street sweeper who soon turned down the Armenian Patriarchate Road, the three of them were alone in the square; the Aftimos Market and all the other shops on David Street, dark and shuttered.

Too conspicuous for dope, decided the Chinaman. Had to be some kind of swindle.

The backpackers looked to be around nineteen or twenty, a boy and a girl, tall and heavily built, wearing shorts and tank tops and hiking boots, and carrying nylon knapsacks supported by aluminum frames. Scandinavian, he guessed, from the goyische features and blond, stringy hair. They towered over the little hunchback as he kept jabbering on in a steady stream of broken English. Laying on the shit in a high, choppy voice.

When the boy pulled out money, the Chinaman approached, nodding at the backpackers and asking little Hook, in Arabic, what the hell he was up to. The hunchback seemed to shrivel. He backed away from the money and the detective. The Chinaman whipped out his arm and grabbed him by the elbow. A look of protective aggression came into the male backpacker's eyes. He had peach fuzz on his chin, a narrow mouth set in a perpetual pucker.

"He's my friend, man."

"He's a crook," said the Chinaman in English, and when the boy continued to look hostile, showed him his police badge. The backpackers stared at it, then at each other.

"Tell them," the Chinaman commanded Little Hook, who was grimacing as if in agony, doing a little dance, calling the Scandinavians "my friends, my friends," playing the part of victim, outrageously overacting.

"Hey, man," said the backpacker. "We were seeking a place for the night. This fellow was helping us."

"This fellow is a crook. Tell them, Hook."

Ibn Hamdeh hesitated. The Chinaman squeezed his arm and the little thief started crowing: "I'm crook. Yes." He laughed, displaying toothless upper gums, lower incisors jacketed with steel. "I'm nice guy, but crook, ha ha."

"What did he tell you?" the Chainaman asked the backpackers. "That his sister has a nice place, warm bed, running water, and free breakfast-you give him a finder's fee and he'd take you there?"

The girl nodded.

"He has no sister. If he did, she'd be a pickpocket. How much did he ask for?"

The Scandinavians looked away in embarrassment.

"Five American dollars," said the girl.

"Together, or each?"

"Each."

The Chinaman shook his head and kicked Ibn Hamdeh in the seat of the pants. "How much money can you spend on a room?" he asked the backpackers.

"Not much," said the boy, looking at the bills in his hands and putting them back in his pocket.

"Try the YMCAs. There's one in East Jerusalem and one in West Jerusalem."

"Which one's cheaper?" asked the girl.

"I think they're the same. The east one's smaller, but closer."

He gave them directions, the boy said, "Thanks, man," and they loped off. Stupid babies.

"Now," he said, dragging Ibn Hamdeh up David Street and pushing him against the grate of a souvenir shop. He flipped the little rascal around, frisked him for weapons, and came up with a cheap knife with a fake pearl handle that he pulverized under his heel. Spinning Ibn Hamdeh around so that they were face to face, he looked down on greasy hair, fishy features, the hump covered by a flowered shirt that reeked of stale sweat.

"Now, Gadallah, do you know who I am?"

"Yes, sir. The…police."

"Go on, say what you were going to say." The Chinaman smiled.

Little Hook trembled.

"Slant Eye, right?" said the Chinaman. He took hold of Ibn Hamdeh's belt, lifted him several inches in the air-the shmuck weighed less than his concrete-can barbell. "Everything you've heard about me is true."

"Most certainly, sir."

The Chinaman held him that way for a while, then lowered him and told him what he'd heard on the street, got ready for resistance, the need to exert a little pressure. But rather than harden the hunchback's defenses, the inquiry seemed to cheer him. He opened up immediately. Laying on the sirs and talking fast in that same choppy voice about a man who had scared one of his girls the previous Thursday night, on the Jericho Road just before it hooked east, just above Silwan. An American with crazy eyes who'd seemed to materialize out of nowhere, on foot-the girl had seen no car, figured he'd been hiding somewhere off the road.