The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Just after noon an Arab on a camel came riding through the parking lot adjacent to the park. Pulling the animal to a halt just outside the south gate of the park, he dismounted and rang a brass bell hanging around its neck. Children queued up for rides and Daniel allowed the boys to have two turns each.

  “How about you?” he asked Shoshi as she untied her skates.

  She stood, put her hands on her hips, and let him know the question was ridiculous.

  “I’m no baby, Abba! And besides, it smells.”

  “Rather drive a car, eh?”

  “Rather ride while my husband drives.”

  “Husband? Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Not yet,” she said, leaning against him and putting her arm around him. “But I’ll know him when I meet him.”

  After the rides were over, the Arab helped Benny off the camel and handed him to Daniel, kicking and giggling. Daniel said, “Sack of potatoes,” and slung the little boy over his shoulder.

  “Me too! Me too!” demanded Mikey, pulling at Daniel’s trousers until he relented and hoisted him up on the other shoulder. Carrying both of them, his back aching, he began the walk home, past the Train Theater, through the field that separated the park from their apartment building.

  A man was walking toward them, and when he got close enough Daniel saw that it was Nahum Shmeltzer. He shouted a greeting and Shmeltzer gave a small wave. As he approached, Daniel saw the look on his face. He put the boys down, told the three of them to run up ahead.

  “Time us, Abba!”

  “Okay.” He looked at his watch. “On your mark, get set, go.”

  When the children were gone he said, “What is it, Nahum?”

  Shmeltzer righted his eyeglasses. “We’ve got another body, in the forest near Ein Qerem. A repeat of the Rashmawi girl, so close it could be a photocopy.”

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER

  24

  As a small child, the Grinning Man had been a poor sleeper. Fidgety during the day and afraid of the dark, he went as rigid as hardwood during slumber, easily startled by the faintest night sound. The type of youngster who could have benefited from warm milk and bedtime stories, consistency and calm. Instead, he was yanked awake regularly by a raging of voices: the bad-machine sound of his parents tearing each other apart.

  It was always the same, always terrible. He’d find himself sitting upright in bed, cold and wet from pee, toes curled so tightly that his feet hurt, waiting with a burnt-rubber taste in his mouth until the ugliness came into focus.

  Once in a while, in the beginning, they did it upstairs—either of their bedrooms could serve as a killing ground—and when this happened, he’d climb out of bed and tiptoe from the Child’s Wing across the landing, make a stumble-sneak to the Steinway grand, then slide under the giant instrument and settle there. Sucking his thumb, letting his fingertips brush against the cold metal of the foot pedals, the undercarriage of the piano looming above like some dark, voluptuous canopy.

  Listening.

  Usually, though, they fought downstairs, in the walnut-paneled library that looked out to the garden. Doctor’s room. By the time he was five, they did it there all the time.

  Everyone except her called his father Doctor, and for the first years of his life, he thought that was his father’s name. So he called him Doctor, too, and when everyone laughed, he thought he’d done something terrific and did it again. By the time he learned that it was a stupid affectation and that other boys called their fathers Dad—even boys whose fathers were also doctors—it was too late to change.

  Lots of times Doctor was cutting all day and into the night and slept at the hospital instead of coming home. When he did come home, it was always really late, way after the boy had been put to bed. And since he left for rounds an hour before the boy woke up, father and son rarely saw each other. One result of this, the Grinning Man believed, was that as an adult he had to struggle to retrieve a visual image of Doctor’s face, and the picture he did produce was fragmented and distorted—a cracked death mask. He was also convinced that this problem had spread like a cancer, to the point where anyone’s face eluded him—even when he managed to dredge up a mental picture of another human being, it vanished immediately.

  It was as if his mind was a sieve—damaged—and it made him feel weak, lonely, and helpless. Really worthless when he let himself think about it. Out of control.

  Only one type of picture stuck well—real science brought power—and only if he worked at it.

  At first he thought Doctor was gone a lot because of work. Later he came to understand that he was avoiding what waited for him when he crossed the threshold of the big pink house. The insight was useless.

  On Home Nights, Doctor usually put his black bag down in the entry hall and headed straight to the kitchen, where he fixed himself a sloppy sandwich and a glass of milk, then took the food into the dark-paneled library. If he wasn’t hungry, he headed for the library anyway, sank into his big leather chair, loosened his tie, and sipped brandy while reading surgical journals by the light of a glass-shaded lamp with a weird-looking dragonfly on the shade. Unwinding before plodding heavily up the stairs for a few hours of sleep.

  Doctor was a fitful sleeper, too, though he didn’t know it. The boy knew because the door to Doctor’s bedroom was always left open and his thrashing and moans were scary, echoing harshly across the landing. So scary it made the boy feel as if his insides were rattling and turning to dust.

  Her bedroom—le boudoir, she called it—was never open. She locked herself in there all day. Only the smell of battle brought her out sniffing, like some night-prowling she-spider.

  Though he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d been allowed in there, his memories of the place were vivid: cold space. An ice palace—that was the image that had stayed with him after all these years.

  As white and bleak as a glacier. Treacherous marble floors, white porcelain trays crammed with diamond-faceted crystal bottles, the facets sharp enough to wound, beveled mirrors that spat back skewed reflections, filmy hangings of white lace, dead and sickeningly ephemeral, like the molt of some soft-boned albino reptile.

  And satin. Shimmering acres of it, shiny, cold, snotlike to the touch.

  At the center of the glacier was an immense white fourposter bed on a platform with a tufted satin headboard, smothered by gelatinous layers of satin—sheets and comforters and draperies and pendulous window valances; even the closet doors were padded with panels of the slimy stuff. His mother was always naked, lying exposed from the waist up under a frothy satin tide, propped up by a satin bed-husband, cocktail glass in hand, taking small sips of an oily-looking colorless liquid.

  Her hair was long and loose, Harlow-blond, her face ghostly and beautiful, like that of an embalmed princess. Shoulders white as soap, with little bumps where the collarbones arched upward. Rouged nipples like jelly candy.

  And always the cat, the hateful Persian, fat and spineless as a cotton ball, snuggled against her breast, piggy, watercolored eyes shining with defiance at the boy, hissing ownership of all that female flesh, branding him an intruder.

  Come-a-here, Snowball. Come to Mama, sweet thing.

  The stink, also. More intense as he got closer to the bed. Shit-breath. The oily liqueur, redolent of juniper. French perfume, Bal à Versailles, so cloying even the recollection made him gag.

  She slept all day and left the glacier at night to do battle with Doctor. Throwing open the door to her room and surging down the stairs in a swirl of satin.

  They’d start. He’d wake up, jolted by the bad-machine sound—a cruel roar that wouldn’t stop, as if he’d been locked in a shower, the water turned on full force. He’d get up, still groggy, trace a hypnotic path from his room to the top of the stairs, then down each step, feeling the heat of her bare feet radiating from the carpet. Thirteen stairs. He always counted in his head, always stopped at number six before sitting down to listen. Not daring t
o move as the machine sounds began to separate in his mind, his brain breaking the roar down into lip-smacking growls and bone-crunching syllables.

  Words.

  The same words, always. Hammer blows that made him cringe.

  Good evening, Christina.

  Don’t good evening me. Where have you been!

  Don’t start, Christina. I’m tired.

  You’re tired? I’m tired. Of how you treat me. Where were you until ten after one!

  Good night, Christina.

  Answer me, you bastard! Where the hell have you been?

  I don’t have to answer your questions.

  You goddamn do have to answer my questions!

  You’re entitled to your opinion, Christina.

  Don’t you dare smirk at me like that! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!

  Lower your voice, Christina.

  Answer me, damn you!

  What do you care?

  I care because this is my house, not some goddamned motel that you check in and out of!

  Your house? Amusing. What mortgage checks have you written lately?

  I pay the real bills, you bastard, from my soul—I gave up everything to be your whore!

  Oh, really?

  Yes, really, damn you.

  And what is it exactly that you’re supposed to have given up?

  My career. My goddamned soul.

  Your soul. I see.

  Don’t you dare smirk at me, you bastard!

  All right, all right, no one’s smirking. Just get out of here and no one will smirk at anyone.

  I paid for everything, damn you—with blood and sweat and tears.

  Enough, Christina. I’m tired.

  You’re tired? From what? Running around with your candy-striper whores—

  I’m tired because I’ve been cracking chests all day.

  Cracking chests. Big shot. Lousy bastard. Whore-fucker.

  You’re the whore, remember? By your own admission.

  Shut up!

  Fine. Now crawl back upstairs and leave me alone.

  Don’t you tell me what to do, you bastard! You’re not my boss. I’m my own boss!

  You’re drunk, is what you are.

  You drive me to drink.

  Right, your weaknesses are my responsibility.

  Don’t laugh at me, I’m warning you—

  You drink, Christina, because you’re weak. Because you can’t face life. You’re a coward.

  Bastard goddamned bastard! What’s that you’re guzzling, Coca-Cola?

  I can handle my liquor.

  I can handle my liquor.

  Don’t imitate me, Christina.

  Don’t imitate me, Christina.

  Fine. Now get the hell out of here. Drink yourself cirrhotic and leave me alone.

  Drink yourself cirrhotic. You and your fucking jargon, think you’re a hotshot. Everyone thinks you’re a pompous asshole—when I worked Four West, everyone said so.

  Didn’t stop you from licking my balls, did it?

  It made me want to throw up. I did it for your money.

  Fine. You’ve got my money. Now get the hell out of here.

  I’ll stay wherever the hell I want to.

  You’re out of control, Christina. Rambling. Make an appointment with Emil Diefenbach tomorrow and have him check you out for organic brain disease.

  And you’re a limpdick asshole.

  Pathetic.

  Stop smirking, limpdick!

  Pathetic.

  Maybe I am pathetic, maybe I am! At least I’m human, unlike you the fucking machine who can handle everything. You’re perfect—Mister Per . . . Doctor Perfect! Handles anything except getting a hard-on! Doctor Limpdick Perfect!

  Pathetic lush.

  What is that, Coca-fucking-Cola!

  Get away, Christina, I’m—

  Sure doesn’t taste like Coca-fucking—

  Get away—

  -Cola!

  —Oh, shit, you spilled it all over me.

  Poor baby, poor limpdick! Serves you right! Slob! Whore-fucker!

  Get out of the way, you goddamned bitch! Get out of the way, damn you! I need to clean this off!

  Just throw it out, Doctor Limpdick. Fucking Italian suit makes you look like a greaseball, anyway.

  Move, Christina!

  Whore-fucker.

  MOVE!

  Fuck you!

  I’m warning you!

  I’m warning you— Ow! You—oh, you pushed me you hurt me, you lousy stinking bastard! Oh! Ow, my foot—

  Look at you. Dribbling. Pathetic.

  You pushed me, you goddamned cocksucker!

  Drunken cow!

  Piece of shit!

  Fucking lush!

  STINKING FUCKING KIKE BASTARD!

  Ah! There it is!

  You’re goddamned fucking right there it is, you filthy hook-nosed kike limpdick!

  Go ahead, let it all out. Show your true colors, bitch!

  JEW BASTARD!

  White trash cunt!

  KIKEKIKEKIKE! CRUCIFYING BASTARD!

  CHAPTER

  25

  The second victim was identified quickly.

  After he’d picked up the sheet and looked at her, Daniel’s first thought was: Fatma’s older sister. The resemblance was that strong, down to the missing earrings.

  They’d started working on the missing-kid files again, getting nowhere. But the interdepartmental gag was off, the story had hit the papers immediately, and passing her picture around brought results on Sunday, forty-eight hours after the body had been found: A detective from the Russian Compound, a recent transfer from Haifa, remembered her as someone he’d busted a few months ago, for soliciting down by the harbor. A phone call to Northern District brought her file down by police courier, but she’d been let go with a warning and there wasn’t much to learn from it.

  Juliet Haddad (“They call me Petite Julie”), born in Tripoli, a professional whore. Twenty-seven years old, dark and pretty, with a baby face that made her appear ten years younger.

  The illusion of youth ended below the slashed neck—what remained of her body was flabby, mottled, the thighs lumpy and scarred with old cigarette burns. The uterus was gone, severed and lifted out like some bloody treasure, according to Dr. Levi’s report, but tissue analyses of the other organs revealed evidence of gonorrhea and primary syphilis, successfully treated. Like Fatma, she’d been sedated with heroin, but for her it was no maiden voyage: scores of sooty, fibrosed needle marks surrounded the pair of fresh ones. Additional marks in the bend of her knees.

  “She was washed as clean as the other,” Dr. Levi told Daniel. “But physiologically speaking, she was far from spotless—a damaged young woman, probably abused for years. There were hairline fractures all over the skull—like spider-webbing. Some evidence of minor damage to the dura of the occipital and frontal lobes of the brain.”

  “Would that have affected her intelligence?”

  “Hard to say. The cerebral cortex is too complex to assess retroactively. Loss of function in one area can be compensated for by another.”

  “How about an educated guess?”

  “Not if you’ll hold me to it.”

  “Off the record.”

  “Off the record, she may have had visual problems—distortions, blurring—and a dulling of emotional responses, like the patients the Russians do psychosurgery on. On the other hand, she may have functioned perfectly—there’s no way to tell. I’ve examined brains that have necrosed to nothing—you’d bet the owner was a vegetable. Then you talk to the family and find out the guy played chess and solved complex math problems up until the day he died. And others that look picture-perfect and the owners were morons. You want to know how smart she was, find someone who knew her when she was alive.”

  “Any theories about the uterus?”

  “What did the psychiatrists say?”

  “I haven’t spoken to any of them yet.”

  “Well,” said Levi, “I suppose I can guess as well
as they can. Hatred of women, destruction of femininity—removal of the root of femininity.”

  “Why take this one and not Fatma’s?”

  “Maniacs change, Dani, just like anyone else. Besides, Fatma’s uterus was virtually obliterated, so in some sense he was destroying her womanhood, too. Maybe he removed this one in order to take his time with it, do God-knows-what. Maybe he’s decided to start a collection—didn’t Jack the Ripper start off by carving, then progress to removing organs? One of the kidneys, if I remember correctly, wasn’t it? Sent a chunk to the police, claimed to have eaten the rest of it.”

  “Yes,” said Daniel, thinking: butchery, cannibalism. Until Gray Man, such horrors had been pure theory, cases in the homicide textbook. The kind of thing he never thought he’d need to know about.

  Levi must have read his mind.

  “No sense escaping it, Dani,” said the pathologist. “That’s what you’ve got here—another Jack. Better bone up on maniacs. He who forgets history is condemned and all that.”

  According to Northern District, Juliet had claimed to be a Christian, a political refugee from East Beirut, wounded in the invasion and fleeing the Shiites and the PLO. Asked how she’d gotten into the country, she’d told a story of hitching a ride with an Israeli tank unit, which seemed far-fetched. But she’d showed the interrogators a recent head wound and a Kupat Holim registration card from Rambam Hospital to back the story up, along with a Haifa address and temporary-resident ID, and the police, busy with more serious matters than another small-change streetwalker, had accepted her story and let her go with a warning.

  Which was unfortunate, because just a cursory investigation revealed that the story was a sham. Immigration had no record of her, the Haifa address was an abandoned building, and a visit by Shmeltzer and Avi Cohen to Rambam Hospital revealed that she’d been treated in the emergency room—for epilepsy, not a wound.

  The doctor who’d seen her was gone, on a fellowship in the States. But his handwriting was clear and Shmeltzer read aloud from his discharge notes:

  Treated successfully with phenobarbitol and Dilantin, full abatement of overt seizure activity. The patient claims these seizures were her first, and stuck to this, despite my explicit skepticism. I wrote a prescription for a month’s worth of medication which was provided to her by the hospital pharmacy, gave her Arabic-language brochures on epilepsy and admitted her for observation, including comprehensive neurologic and radiographic studies. The following morning, her bed was empty and she was nowhere to be found. She has not recontacted this institution. Diagnosis: Grand mal epilepsy. Status: Self-Discharged, Against Medical Advice.