The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Passive. Made to order for a fiend with control on his mind.

  He visualized a late-night stroll, a solitary stroll after cocktails and small talk at a hotel lounge—the De l’Europe? A respectable-looking killer, wearing a long coat with deep pockets for the knives. Checking out the herd, eyeing the long-lashed come-hithers, then selection: a flash of thigh, the exchange of guilders. Extra money for something different—something a little kinky. Intentions camouflaged by shyness. Maybe even an embarrassed smile:

  Could we—uh—go down by the docks?

  What for, honey? I’ve got a nice warm bed.

  The docks, please. I’ll pay for it.

  Got a thing for water, handsome?

  Uh—yeah.

  Plenty of water right around here.

  I like the docks. Will this be enough?

  Oh, sure, honey. Anjanette loves the docks too. The tides, going back and forth . . .

  “Gaikeena was killed the day after the convention,” said Bij Duurstede. “Your five left the next morning for Rome, along with twenty-three other U.N. people. Alitalia flight three seventy-one, first class. The U.N. always travels first class.”

  Daniel picked up the list of Amelia Catherine’s volunteer staff, compiled by Shin Bet.

  “I have some other names, Chief Inspector. I’d appreciate your checking if any of them attended the convention as well.”

  “Read them to me,” said Bij Duurstede. “I have the convention roster right in front of me.”

  Soon Daniel had added five more names to those of the permanent Amelia Catherine staff: three doctors, two nurses. A Finn, a Swede, an Englishman, two Americans. Same arrival, same hotel, same departure.

  “Any idea why they went to Rome?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Bij Duurstede. “Maybe an audience with the Pope?”

  He placed a call to Passport Control at Ben Gurion Airport, pinpointed the arrival of ten U.N. staffers from Rome on a Lufthansa flight one week after the Gaikeena murder. Two more calls, to Scotland Yard and Rome police, confirmed that neither had experienced similar murders during the New York to Tel Aviv time frame. By the time he hung up, it was ten-thirty—forty-eight hours since he’d bathed; the last thing he’d eaten was a water biscuit at eight in the morning.

  His head itched. He scratched it, looked at his open notebook, frustrated.

  After the Amelia Catherine covert and Van Gelder’s call, he’d felt the case starting to resolve. The net tightening. He’d put faith in the second Amsterdam call—too much faith—hoping for a magical intersection of geographical axes: a single name singing out its guilt. Instead the net had loosened, accommodating a larger catch.

  He had ten suspects to consider. Individually or in pairs, triplets—cabals. Maybe Shmeltzer had something, with his group-conspiracy theory.

  All of the above. None of the above.

  Ten suspects. His men and Amos Harel’s undercover backups would be stretched to capacity. The chance of getting something before next Thursday’s women’s clinic seemed slimmer than ever.

  The Sumbok wire. Bij Duurstede had sent it, but he hadn’t received it. He left his office to check with Communications and, midway down the corridor, met a female officer carrying the printout.

  Taking it from her, he read it in the hall, running his finger down the names of St. Ignatius students, and getting even more frustrated when he saw the size of it.

  Four hundred thirty-two students, fifteen faculty, twenty “ancillary” staff. Not a single match to his ten.

  Four hundred sixty-eight surnames followed by first initials. None of them identified in terms of nationality. About half the names sounded Anglo-Saxon—that could mean British, Australian, New Zealanders, and South Africans as well as Americans. And, for that matter, Argentinians—some of them had names like Eduardo Smith. And some of the Italian, French, German, and Spanish names could have belonged to Americans too.

  Useless.

  He scanned the list for Arabic names. Three definites: Abdallah. Ibn Azah. Malki. A few possibles that could also have been Pakistani, Iranian, Malaysian, or North African: Shah, Terrif, Zorah.

  Another waste of time.

  He returned to his office, suddenly exhausted, forced himself to call Gabi Weinroth, the Latam man stationed atop the law building at the Scopus Hebrew U. campus with an infrared telescope focused on the Amelia Catherine.

  “Scholar,” answered Weinroth, in code.

  “Sharavi,” said Daniel, eschewing the name game. “Anything new?”

  “Nothing.”

  The fifth “nothing” of the day. He reiterated his home number to the undercover man, hung up, and left for the place that matched it.

  He drove around Talbieh and the neighboring German Colony, looking for Dayan, seeing only the luminescent eyes of stray cats, part of nocturnal Jerusalem for centuries.

  After three go-rounds, he gave up, went home, opened the door to his flat expecting family sounds, was greeted by silence.

  He entered, closed the door, heard a throat clear in the studio.

  Gene was in there, using Laura’s drawing table for a desk, surrounded by stacks of paper. The stretched canvases and palettes and paint boxes had been shoved to one side of the room. Everything looked different.

  “Hello, there,” said the black man, removing his reading glasses and getting up. “The Arizona and Oregon files came this morning. I didn’t call you because there’s nothing new in them—the local investigations didn’t get very far. Your boys are sleep-ing over at your dad’s. The ladies are catching a late movie. I just got a call from the night manager at the Laromme, very dependable fellow. Another package arrived for me. I’m going to run down and pick it up.”

  “I’ll go get it.”

  “No way,” said Gene, looking him over. “Take some time to clean up. I’ll be right back—don’t argue.”

  Daniel acquiesced, went into his bedroom, and stripped naked. When the front door closed, he gave an involuntary start, realized his nerves were frayed raw.

  His eyes felt gritty; his stomach sat like an empty gourd in its abdominal basket. But he felt no desire for food. Coffee, maybe.

  He put on a robe and went into the kitchen, brewed some Nescafé double-strength, then padded to the bathroom and took a shower, almost falling asleep under the spray. After dressing in fresh clothes, he returned to the kitchen, poured himself a cup, and sat down to drink it. Bitter, but warming. After two sips, he put his head down on the table, awoke in the midst of a confusing dream—bobbing in a rowboat, but no water, only sand, a dry dock . . .

  “Hello, sweetie.”

  Laura’s face smiling down at him. Her hand on his shoulder.

  “What time is it?”

  “Eleven-twenty.”

  Out for half an hour.

  “Gene found you this way. He didn’t have the heart to wake you up.”

  Daniel got up, stretched. His joints ached. Laura reached out, touched his unshaven face, then put her arms around his waist.

  “Skinny,” she said. “And you can’t afford it.”

  “I didn’t find the dog,” he said, hugging her tightly.

  “Hush. Hold me.”

  They embraced silently for a while.

  “What movie did you see?” he asked.

  “Witness.”

  “Good?”

  “A police story. Do you really want to hear about it?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  Finally they pulled apart and kissed. Laura tasted of peanuts. Cinema peanuts. Daniel reminded himself of the reason for the movie distraction, asked, “Where’s Shoshi?”

  “In her room.”

  “I’d better go talk to her.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He walked through the living room, down the hall toward the rear bedroom, and passed by the studio. Gene sat hunched over the table/desk, eating and working. With a pen in one hand and a sandwich in the other, he looked like a student cramming for exams. Luanne reclin
ed, shoeless, on the couch, reading a book.

  Shoshi’s door was closed. He knocked on it softly, got no response, and knocked louder.

  The door opened. He looked into green eyes marred by swollen lids.

  “Hello, motek.”

  “Hello, Abba.”

  “May I come in?”

  She nodded, opened the door. The room was tiny, barely room to walk, plastered with rock-star posters and photos cut out of tabloids. Above the bed was a bracket shelf crammed with rag dolls and stuffed animals. The desk was piled high with schoolbooks and mementos—art projects, a cowrie shell from Eilat, his red paratrooper’s beret and ’67 medals, a Hanukah menorah fashioned from empty rifle shells.

  Incredible clutter, but neat. She’d always been a neat child—even as a toddler she’d tried to clean up her crumbs.

  He sat on the bed. Shoshi leaned against a chair, looked down at the floor. Her curls seemed limp; her shoulders drooped.

  “How was the movie?”

  “Fine.”

  “Eema said it was a police story.”

  “Uh huh.” She picked at a cuticle. Daniel restrained the impulse to tell her to stop.

  “I know about the dog, motek. It wasn’t your fault—”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Shoshi—”

  She wheeled on him, beautiful little face suffused with rage. “He was my responsibility—you always said that! I was stupid, blabbing to Dorit—”

  He got up and reached out to hold her. She twisted away. One of her bony knuckles grazed his rib.

  She punched her thighs. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  “Come on,” he said, and pulled her to him. She resisted for a moment, then went limp. Another rag doll.

  “Oh, Abba!” she sobbed. “Everything’s coming apart!”

  “No, it’s not. Everything will be fine.”

  She didn’t answer, just continued to cry, drenching the front of his clean shirt.

  “Everything will be fine,” he repeated. As much for his benefit as hers.

  CHAPTER

  62

  Sunday noon, and all was quiet at the Amelia Catherine, medical activities suspended in honor of Christian Sabbath.

  Up the road, at the Scopus campus, everything was business as usual, and Daniel made his way unnoticed through throngs of students and professors, up the serpentine walkway, and through the front door of the Law Building. He traversed the lobby, took the stairs to the top of the building, walked to an unmarked door at the end of the hall, and gave a coded knock. The door opened a crack. Suspicious eyes looked him over; then the crack widened sufficiently to admit him. Gabi Weinroth, in shorts and T-shirt, nodded hello and returned to his position across the room, sitting at the window. Daniel followed him.

  Next to the Latam man’s chair was a metal table bearing a police radio, a pair of walkie-talkies, a logbook, three crushed, empty cola cans, a carton of Marlboros, an ashtray overflowing with butts, and greasy wax paper wrapped around a half-eaten steak pita. Under the table were three black hardshell equipment cases. A high-resolution, wide-angle telescope equipped with infrared enhancement was set up almost flush with the glass, angled eastward so that it focused on the entire Amelia Catherine compound.

  Weinroth lit a cigarette, sat back, and hooked a thumb at the telescope. Daniel bent to look through it, saw stone, wrought iron, chain link, pine trees.

  He pulled away from the scope, said, “Anyone leave besides the watchman?”

  The Latam man picked up the logbook, opened it, and found his place.

  “The older doctor—Darousha—left fifty-three minutes ago, driving a white Renault with U.N. plates. He headed north—Border Patrol picked him up on the road to Ramallah. Our man Comfortes confirmed his arrival back home. The watchman showed up a few minutes later. Both of them went into Darousha’s house and closed the shutters—probably planning a midday tryst. These U.N. types don’t work too hard, do they?”

  “Anything else?”

  “A couple of brief in-and-outs,” said Weinroth. “More romance: Al Biyadi and Cassidy jogged for half an hour—eleven-eleven to eleven forty-three. Down the Mount of Olives Road and back up again past the hospital and all the way to the east campus gate. I was tilted almost straight down—lost them for a bit, but picked them up again as they headed back for the Amelia Catherine. Short run, about five and a half kilometers, then back inside. Haven’t seen them since. She’s a better runner than he is, good strong calves, barely breathing, but she holds herself back—probably doesn’t want to break his balls. The administrator, Baldwin, took a stroll with the Arab secretary, more Romeo and Juliet stuff. If you would have let us plant some audio surveillance, I might have picked up some sweet talk.”

  Daniel smiled at the Latam man, who smiled back pleasantly and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Weinroth had pressed him on the microphones—hi-tech types loved to use their toys. Codes and toys. But Daniel had judged the risk too high: If the killer/killers caught on to the surveillance, there’d be a pullback, stalemate. The madness had to end.

  “Want me to videotape any of it?” asked Weinroth between puffs. “I can easily interface the recorder with the scope.”

  “Sure. Anything else? Any sign of Carter or Hauser?”

  Weinroth shook his head, simulated snoring.

  “Pleasant dreams,” Daniel told him. By the time he reached the door, the Latam man was up and fiddling with the latches on one of the equipment cases.

  Sunday, eight P.M., and the old man was dead, Shmeltzer was sure of it. He could tell by the nurse’s tone of voice over the phone, the failure resonating from every word, the angry way she’d refused to let him talk with Eva, insisted Mrs. Schlesinger was in no condition to speak with anyone.

  Telling him without telling him.

  “She’ll speak with me,” he’d insisted.

  “Are you family?”

  “Yes, I’m her brother.” Not really that much of a lie, considering what he and Eva had established between them.

  When the goddamned nurse said nothing, he repeated: “Her brother—she’ll want to speak with me.”

  “She’s in no condition to speak with anyone. I’ll tell her you called, Adon Schnitzer.”

  “Shmeltzer.” Idiot.

  Click.

  He’d wanted to call the bitch back, scream: Don’t you know me? I’m the shmuck always with her, every free moment I’ve got. The one waiting out in the hall while she kisses a cold cheek, wipes a cold brow.

  But the nurse was just another pencil pusher, wouldn’t give a damn. Rules!

  He hung up the phone and cursed the injustice of it all. Since the first time they’d met, he’d stuck with Eva like paste on paper, absorbing her pain like some kind of human poultice. Holding, patting, drinking it in. So much crying on his shoulders, his bones felt permanently wet.

  Faithful Nahum, playing big strong man. Rehearsing for the inevitable.

  And now, now that it had finally happened, he was cut off. They were cut off from each other. Prisoners. She, chained to the goddamned deathbed. He, shackled to his assignment.

  Keep an eye on the fucking sheikh and his fucking dog-faced girlfriend. Down from the hospital in his big green fucking Mercedes, a shopping trip at the best stores in East Jerusalem. Then watch them enjoy a late supper at their fucking sidewalk table at Chez Ali Baba.

  Stuffing their bellies along with all the other rich Arabs and tourists, ordering the waiters around as if they were a couple of monarchs.

  Two tables away, the Latam couple got to eat too. Charcoal-broiled kebab and shishlik, baked lamb and stuffed lamb, platters of salads, pitchers of iced tea. A flower corsage for the lady . . .

  Meanwhile, Faithful Shmuck Nahum dresses as a beggar, wears false sores, and sits on the sidewalk just out of sniffing range from the restaurant. Sniffing garbage fumes from the restaurant’s refuse bins, absorbing curses in Arabic, an occasional kick in the shins, a rare donation—but even the few goddamned coins he’d e
arned by looking pathetic would be returned to the department, cost him a half hour of paperwork logging the money.

  Any other case, he’d say fuck it, time to retire. Run to Eva.

  Not this one. These bastards were going to pay. For everything.

  He turned his attention back to the restaurant.

  Al Biyadi snapped his fingers at the waiter, barked an order when the man approached. When the waiter left, he looked at his watch. Big gold watch, same one as at the hospital—even from here Shmeltzer could see the gold. Bastard had been checking the time a lot during the last half hour. Something up?

  The Latam couple ate on, didn’t seem to notice, but that was their job, noticing without being noticed. Both were young, blond, good-looking, wearing high-priced imported clothes. Looking like a rich honeymoon couple absorbed in each other.

  Would he and Eva ever have a honeymoon?

  Would she have anything to do with him after being abandoned at the Crucial Moment? Or maybe he was sunk anyway—abandonment had nothing to do with it. She’d suffered with an old guy through terminal illness. Now that he was dead she’d be ready to put her life together—last thing she’d want was another old guy.

  She was a fine-looking woman; those breasts were magnets designed to pull men in. Younger men, virile.

  No need for bony wet shoulders.

  The waiter brought some sort of iced drink to Al Biyadi’s table. Big, oversized brandy snifter filled with something green and frothy. Pistachio milk, probably.

  Al Biyadi lifted the snifter, Cassidy hooked her arm around his, they laughed, drank, nuzzled like high school kids. Drank again and kissed.

  He could have killed them both, right then and there.

  At eleven P.M., Gabi Weinroth completed his shift at the top of the Law Building and was replaced by a short, gray-haired undercover man named Shimshon Katz. Katz had just been pulled off a three-month foot surveillance of the Mahane Yehuda market and sported a full Hassid’s beard. Twelve weeks of playing rabbi and looking for suspicious parcels—he felt pleased that nothing had turned up but was drained by the boredom.