The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan Страница 8

"Fine," she said, rising. "Then you have no interest in us at all. Can I go now?"

He left the Amelia Catherine at nine. Several blue-and-whites were parked near the eastern slope-the grid search of the hillside had begun-and he drove the Escort near the cliff and asked the uniforms if anything had turned up in Schlesinger's trunk.

"Just a spare tire, Pakad."

"What about on the slope?"

"A Coke bottle with no fingerprints-nothing else yet."

Daniel spun the car around, descended Shmuel Ben Adayah and, when he reached the northeast tip of the Old City, turned left on Derekh Yericho, driving along the walls until he came to the parking lot just outside the Dung Gate. Swinging the Escort into a free space, he turned off the engine, got out, and opened the trunk. Inside were two black velvet bags that he removed and tucked under his left arm, next to his heart. The larger, about a foot square, was embroidered with gold and silver almond blossoms encircling a good filigree Magen David. Half its size, the smaller bag was encrusted with a busy motif of gold curlicues and teardrops and studded with sequins.

Locking the trunk, he began walking toward the guard post just inside the Dung Gate, to his back the peaceful southern valley that had served as ancient Jerusalem's refuse dump. He passed the guards, walked under the graceful, scalloped arch, and stepped into the flow of people headed toward HaKotel Hama'aravi-the Western Wall.

The skies were a canopy of spring blue, cloudless and pure as only Jerusalem skies could be, so free from blemish that staring up at them could cause one to lose perspective. A cool, serene blue that belied the blanket of heat that had descended upon the city. By the time he reached the Wall, he was sticky with sweat.

The prayer plaza fronting the Kotel was uncrowded, the women's section occupied by only a few hunched figures in dark clothing-righteous grandmothers praying on behalf of barren women, scrawling messages to the Almighty on scraps of paper and slipping them in the cracks between the stones. It was late, nearing the end of the shaharit period and the last of the Yemenite minyanim had ended, though he did see Mori Zadok reciting psalms. He stood facing the Wall, a tiny, white-bearded, ear-locked wisp, rocking back and forth in a slow cadence, one hand over his eyes, the other touching the golden stone. Other elders-Yemenite, Ashkenazi, Sephardi-had taken their customary places of meditation in the shadow of the Wall; their solitary devotions merged in a low moan of entreaty that reverberated through the plaza.

Daniel joined the only minyan still forming, a mixed quorum of Lubavitcher Hassidim and American Jewish tourists whom the Lubavitchers had corralled into praying. The tourists carried expensive cameras and wore brightly colored polo shirts, Bermuda shorts, and paper kipot that rested upon their heads with the awkwardness of a foreign headdress. Affixed to some of their shirts were tour group identification labels (Hi! im barry siegel), and most seemed baffled as the Hassidim wound phylactery straps around their arms.

Daniel's own phylacteries lay in the smaller of the velvet bags, his tallit in the larger. On a typical morning he'd recite the benediction over the tallit and wrap himself in the woolen prayer shawl, then draw out the phylacteries and unwrap them. Following a second benediction, the black cube of the arm phylactery would be placed on his bicep, its straps wound seven times around his forearm, over the scar tissue that sheathed his left hand, and laced around his fingers. After uttering yet another braha, he would center the head phylactery over his brow, just above the hairline. The placement of the cubes symbolized commitment of both mind and body to God, and thus consecrated, he would be ready to worship.

But this morning was different. Laying the bags down on a chair, he pulled the drawstring of the larger and drew out not the tallit but a siddur bound in silver. Taking up the prayer book, he turned to the Modeh Ani, the Prayer of Thanks Upon Rising, which Laufer's call had prevented him from reciting at bedside. Facing the Kotel, he chanted:

Modeh ani lefaneha, melekh hai v'kayam,

"I offer thanks to Thee, O Everlasting King."

Sheh hehezarta bi nishmati b'hemla.

"Who hast mercifully restored my soul within me."

To the Hassidim and tourists standing near him, the prayers of the small dark man seemed impassioned; his rhythmic cantillation, timeless and true. But he knew otherwise. For his devotion was encumbered by faulty concentration, his words baffled by an unwelcome hailstorm of memories. Of other souls. Those that hadn't been restored.

At ten he drove up El Muqaddas to French Hill, past the cluster of towers where Yaakov Schlesinger lived, and down to National Headquarters. The building was half a kilometer southeast of Ammunition Hill, a crisp, six-story cube of beige limestone, banded by windows and bisected by a flag tower. To the front sprawled an expensive apron of parking lot, half-filled; the entire property was hemmed by an iron fence. At the center of the fence was an electric gate controlled by a uniform inside a guard station. Daniel pulled up next to the observation window.

"Morning, Tzvika."

"Morning, Dani."

The gate opened like a yawn.

A steel revolving door provided access to the lobby. Inside, all was cool and quiet, the white marble floors spotless. A solitary woman in jeans and T-shirt sat on a bench kneading her fingers and waiting. Three uniforms stood behind the shiny black reception counter, joking and laughing, nodding at him without interrupting their conversation. He walked past them quickly, past the bomb display and the burglary prevention exhibit, ignored the elevators, swung open the door to the stairs, and bounded up to the third floor.

He stepped out into a long hallway and turned right, stopping at a plain wooden door. Only a strip of tape with his name on it distinguished it from the dozens of others that checkered the corridor. Ringing telephones and the white noise of conversation filtered through the hall in tidelike waves, but at a discreet level. Businesslike. He might have been in a law firm.

So different from the old Russian Compound, with its green copper domes and cold, dingy walls, the ancient plaster crackled like eggshell. The constant press of bodies, the eternal human parade. His cubicle had been noisy, cramped, bereft of privacy. Suspects rubbing elbows with policemen. Vine-laced leaded windows offering views of manacled suspects escorted across the courtyard, bound over for hearing at the Magistrates Hall, some shuffling, others fairly dancing to judgment. The bitter smell of sweat and fear, voices raised in the same old cantata of accusation and denial. The working space of a detective.

His Major Crimes assignment had meant a move to National Headquarters. But National Headquarters had been built with administrators in mind. Paper blizzards and the high technology of contemporary police work. Basement labs and banks of computers. Well-lit conference rooms and lecture halls. Clean, respectable. Sterile.

He turned the key. His office was spanking-white and tiny-ten by ten with a view of the parking lot. His desk, files, and shelves filled it, so that there was barely space for a single guest chair; more than one visitor meant a move to one of the interrogation rooms. On the wall was a framed batik Laura had done last summer. A pair of old Yemenite men, brown figures on a cream-colored background, dancing in ecstasy under a flaming orange swirl of sun. Next to it, a pictorial calendar from the Conservation League, this month's illustration a pair of young almond trees in full snowy blossom against a backdrop of gray rolling hills.

He squeezed behind the desk. The surface was clear except for a snapshot cube of Laura and the children and a stack of mail. At the top of the stack was a message to call Laufer if he had anything to report, some Research and Development questionnaires to be filled out as soon as possible, a memo explaining new regulations for submitting expense vouchers, and a final death report from Abu Kabir on the Dutch tourist who'd been found dead three days ago in the woodlands just below the Dormition Abbey. He picked up the report and put the rest aside. Scanning the stiff, cruel poetry of the necropsy protocol ("This is the body of a well-developed, well-nourished white male…"), he dropped his eyes to the last paragraph: Extensive atherosclerotic disease including blockage of several main blood vessels, no sign of toxins or foul play. Conclusion: The man had been a heart attack waiting to happen. The steep climb to the abbey had done him in.

He put the report aside, picked up the phone, dialed the main switchboard, and got put on hold. After waiting for several moments, he hung up, dialed again, and was answered by an operator with a cheerful voice. Identifying himself, he gave her three names and left messages for them to contact him as soon as possible.

She read the names back to him and he said, "Perfect. There's one more, a Samal Avi Cohen. New hire. Try Personnel and if they don't know where he can be reached, Tat Nitzav Laufer's office will. Give him the same message."

"Okay. Shalom."

"Shalom."

The next number he tried was busy. Rather than wait, he left and climbed to the fourth floor.

The office he entered was one-third larger than his, but it housed two people. A pair of desks had been placed in an L. On the wall behind them, a single shelf held books, a collection of straw dolls, and a sachet that emitted a light aroma of patchouli.

Both youth officers were on the phone, talking to bureaucrats. Both wore pastel short-sleeved blouses over jeans.

Otherwise, physically and stylistically, they were a study in contrasts.

Hanna Shalvi sat nearer to the door, diminutive, dark, be-spectacled; baby-faced, so that she didn't look much older than the children she worked with. She asked a question about a family's fitness, nodded as she listened, said "yes" and "hmm" several times, repeated the question, waited, repeated.

A few feet away, Alice Yanushevsky hunched over her desk, jabbing her pencil in the air and smoking like a chimney. Tall and moon-faced, with straw-colored hair cut in a Dutch-boy, she demanded fast action from a recalcitrant pencil-pusher in a voice tight with impatience.

"This is a girl in jeopardy! We'll have no more delays! Am I understood?" Slam.

A sweet smile for Daniel. A drop in vocal pitch: "Good morning, Dani." She picked up a cardboard tube, opened it, and unfolded the contents. "Like my new poster?"

It was a blowup of the American rock band Fleetwood Mac.

"Very nice."

"Avner gave it to me because he says I look like one of them"-she swiveled and pointed-"the English girl, Christine. What do you think?"

"A little," he conceded. "You're younger."

Alice laughed heartily, smoked, laughed again.

"Sit down, Pakad Sharavi. Just what is it that you need?"

"Photographs of missing girls. Brunettes, probably fifteen or sixteen, but let's play it safe and go twelve to nineteen."

Alice's green eyes jumped with alarm.

"Something happened to one of them?"

"Possibly."

"What?" she demanded.

"Can't say anything right now. Laufer's put a gag on."

"Oh, come on."

"Sorry."

"All take, no give, eh? That should make your job easy." She shook her head scornfully. "Laufer. Who does he think he's kidding, trying to keep anything quiet around here?"

"True. But I need to humor him."

Alice stubbed out her cigarette. Another shake of the head.

"The girl in question has dark skin, dark hair," said Daniel. "Roundish face, pretty features, chipped teeth, one missing upper tooth. Anyone come to mind?"

"Pretty genera! except for the teeth," said Alice, "and that could have happened after the disappearance." She opened one of her desk drawers, pulled out a pile of about a dozen folders, and thumbed through them, selecting three, putting the rest away.

"All our open cases are being entered into the computer, but I have a few here that just came in recently. All runaways-these are the ones in your age range."

He examined the photographs, shook his head, gave them back.

"Let's see if she has any." said Alice. Rising, she stood over Hanna, who was still nodding and questioning. Tapping her on the shoulder, she said: "Come on, enough."

Hanna held up one hand, palm inward, thumb touching index finger. Signaling savlanul. Patience.

"If you haven't convinced them yet, you never will," said Alice. She ran her fingers through her hair, stretched. "Come on, enough."

Hanna conversed a bit more, said thank you, and got off the phone.

"Finally," said Alice. "Take out your recent files. Dani needs to look at them."

"Good morning, Dani," said Hanna. "What's up?"

"He can't tell you but you have to help him anyway. Laufer's orders."

Hanna looked at him, dark eyes magnified by the lenses of her glasses. He nodded in confirmation.

"What do you need?" she asked.

He repeated the description of the murdered girl and her eyes widened in recognition.

"What?"

"Sounds like a kid I processed two weeks ago. Only this one was only thirteen."

"Thirteen is possible," said Daniel. "What's her name?"

"Cohen. Yael Cohen. One second." She went into her files, talking as she sorted. "Musrara girl. Fooling around with twenty-two-year-old pooshtak. Papa found out and beat her. Next day she didn't come home from school. Papa went looking for her, tried to beat up the boyfriend, too, got thrashed for his efforts. Ah, here it is."

Daniel took the file, homed in on the photograph, felt his spirits sink. Yael Cohen was curly-haired, bovine, and dull-looking. A missing tooth, but that was the extent of the resemblance.

"Not the one," he said, giving it back to Hanna. "The rest are in the computer?"