Holy Smoke: A Jerusalem Mystery

by Frederick Ramsay

  “Yes, let me ask you another question, Loukas. If you wanted to announce to an enemy that you had eliminated one of his people, someone important, say, how would you do it?”

  “If I were a Roman, I would publically hang him from a cross. Otherwise I would send a neutral intermediary.”

  “Take the case that you wanted the enemy to know their man was murdered and in a very dramatic fashion, and you were not in a position to crucify him?”

  “I give up. Tell me what you’re driving at.”

  “In a minute. We need to establish a few more axioms.”

  “Gamaliel, you try my patience. If it weren’t so early, I would be well into the wine by now. Just tell me what you decided.”

  “I stayed up all night working this out and you would deny me my moment, my geometry lesson?”

  Loukas groaned. “All right, go on, but could you give me the short version?”

  “There is no short version. To continue with another axiom, we know that there are two sources of this new hul gil, Egypt and Khorasan. We know that men from both places are on their way here to wage a small war over who sell it in the souk. We conclude that they represent syndicates, and we also conclude they do not wish to share the market. You remember that one of the shopkeepers said that the Hana store had a proprietor before the most recent one. From that we extrapolate that there has already been some murderous activity and perhaps this temple man was an act of revenge. So, to send the message, our killer perpetrates the most sensational murder in history. He assumes that we, that is, the Jews, will do nothing about it, believing that the circumstances were as the high priest wishes to us believe.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  “No, we didn’t, but that was sheer chance, a misadventure. I summoned you and you immediately suspected an alternative. Do you realize what our position would have been if you had been away or unavailable that morning?”

  “You give me too much credit. You would have tumbled on to the ruse in good time.”

  “Possibly.”

  A loud knocking at the door brought Gamaliel up short. Benyamin announced that there was a man at the door who wished to speak to the rabban.

  “Are you able to receive a visitor or shall I send him away?”

  “I will see him.” Gamaliel disappeared, and Loukas could hear him talking to someone. The door slammed shut, and the rabban returned.

  “And that was…?”

  “I needed to deploy my minyan.”

  “I thought you had done so already.”

  “Redeploy, then. This time in a way that will net us our killers. In an hour they will be set and ready to bring this to a close.”

  “And we? What shall we do?”

  “In that same hour, we shall take a walk.”

  “A walk?”

  “Exactly. Now where was I?”

  Chapter XLIX

  Benyamin, who had been standing in the corner seeing to the meal, seemed rattled.

  “Excellency, please tell me you do not plan to walk about the streets. If there is a murderer out there, and if he is as clever as you say, he will also know you are onto him. He will come after you.”

  “Yes, Benyamin, that is the point of the walk, to draw him out. Now then, to return to our killer…yes, we were discussing where we might have been but for the perspicuity of our good physician.”

  Gamaliel had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were experiencing something approaching the spiritual. Loukas just looked worried.

  “The fact of the murder would have been abroad within moments of its discovery.” Gamaliel continued. “Within an hour, everyone in the city would know about it. The faithful would wail and moan and wonder what Ha Shem would make of it. The kohanim and the pharisee would preach and scold, and the syndicate who’d lost their man would have received the message.”

  “But they would not report it?”

  “In this case, no. They would not like the prefect nosing around the Street of the Herbalists and discovering what his troops, among others, were involved in and doubtless shutting them down.”

  “No, I suppose not. I need to pick up on Benyamin’s worry. Why are we walking into certain danger?”

  “Nothing in life is certain. Life, death, they are facets of the same ordinary thing, Loukas, but honor, and truth, and obedience, now they have value.”

  “And we will seek these things in our walk?” Loukas did not seem pleased at the prospect.

  “Oh, I despair for you, Loukas. It is a problem to be solved, first. If you were the killer and you had on good authority that the rabban of the Sanhedrin knew who you were and why you killed, what would you do?”

  “Find an opportunity to do you in as quickly as possible.”

  “And if you believed that no one else, with the obvious exception of his friend the physician—”

  “Me!”

  “No one else knew and further you had it on the same good authority, that the prefect had left the city for a few days or weeks, and that this rabban was waiting for Pilate’s return before revealing who the killer was—”

  “Rabban, he’s going to kill us.”

  “He’s going to try, certainly, perhaps even succeed. That’s why we will take our walk. He will act as soon as he possibly can, and then the rest will be easy. You see, he thinks no one but the two of us care about the Temple man. With us out of the way, he will be free to set his men against the other syndicate and start the war over the drug. Simple.”

  “I have no wish to put myself in harm’s way, Rabban. I have no wish to die in the service of the prefect, for that is what this comes down to. You are asking me to throw myself into the fire so that the prefect, the most hated man in the country, can round up a felon?”

  “You will serve justice, not the prefect. It is an axiom that truth must overcome falsehood, righteousness overcome faithlessness.”

  “I wish I had never taught you geometry.”

  “I thought you said you hadn’t. So there you are, my night’s musings, as you so inelegantly put it.”

  “Not quite. We agreed the killer couldn’t have inserted the body behind the Veil alone. Where is his accomplice, and shouldn’t we worry about him?”

  “His accomplice? I offer you two possibilities. One, he is the other man who follows the follower, or two, he is dead.”

  “Which?”

  “My instinct says the latter. There is no reason for them to traipse around on each other’s heels like that. My supposition is that the accomplice is, or was, a hul gil user who, because of his dependency, would do exactly what he was asked so long as he was supplied the drug. But people like that are unreliable and, therefore, he was either the man in the burned out shop who had been co-opted by the other side, or is dead somewhere else, his body with those guards in some remote place. We may never know.”

  “Why does the killer believe Pilate has left the city?”

  “Because I told him so. Well, not me directly. I left him a message with Amun. You remember the Egyptian craftsman I visited. He produced the bowl and the pot and I was certain that if I visited him, so would the killer, if only to find out what I said.”

  “And you are certain he visited?”

  “No, but I like the probabilities. See how I have mastered your Hellenic love of mathematics and logic?”

  Loukas held his head and moaned. “Rabban, this is not like you. You are always so careful, you are conservative, and you are always sure. What has gotten into you?”

  Gamaliel did not answer. Instead, he sat very still and stared at the far wall,

  “Gamaliel, is there something?” Loukas studied his friend. His physician’s habit he would say. Gamaliel sat quietly, like a volcano about to erupt, or the calm before a gale. Then, he stood and began to pace, at first aimlessly, then striding furiously back and forth. His voice dropped to a near whisper. His eyes flashed, which caused Benyamin to retreat into a corner.

  “My friend,” Gamaliel rasped, “you miss the whole point
. This is not just some wonderfully concocted murder. It is not just about the possible consequences of some opiate invading the sensibilities of the Nation. Loukas, someone has defiled the Holy of Holies. He has done so for the basest of reasons and no one seems to care.” His voice grew stronger, and by the end of his speech was nearly a shout.

  “He has mocked Ha Shem. Don’t you understand? The Holy of Holy has been desecrated, the Temple defiled! That cannot be allowed. Does anyone care about that? Does the high priest? No. It cannot, I repeat, it cannot be allowed. As long as I am alive, it will not go unpunished. You, Loukas and those like you, may drift comfortably along on the edges of near nonbelief and see only a foolish attack on an institution. In my darkest moments I believe half the nation is with you in that, but I will not abide it. The Lord expects more from us, and when he is attacked by some scheming, irreverent, blasphemous…infidel. He expects us to respond. Wringing our hands will not do. Pretending it is something it is not, will not do. This man must be brought to justice. Well, since Rome forbids us the exercise of capital punishment, I must turn this terrible person over to them to do it for us. Do you understand? I am the Rabban of the Sanhedrin, and I can do no less.”

  “And how do you reckon the risks entailed in the walk we are to take?”

  “Risks? The risks are unimportant. If we are killed, is unimportant. The only important thing is that he be captured and brought to justice.”

  Gamaliel stopped his pacing and let out a wail of anguish. Loukas would say later he had never heard the man so upset.

  “Rabban, calm yourself. This is not like you. Benyamin, some wine for the rabban.” The servant scuttled off to find the strongest vintage in the cellar.

  Gamaliel wheeled and, red faced and, his finger pointing at Loukas’ face, barked, “This is the high priest’s responsibility, not mine. He has no business sweeping this under one of those gaudy carpets he decorates his house with. He is our anointed high priest. He stands foremost in the line of Aaron, and it is his job, I say. But does he address it? No! He frets and fusses about a country rabbi and does nothing about the defilement of his Temple. It is an outrage! He is our shepherd, and yet he chases after mice in the feed bin while wolves ravage his sheep!”

  Benyamin handed Gamaliel a cup. The rabban drank it in a single gulp. “It is time, Loukas. Time to walk, time to send our own message.” Gamaliel headed for the door. “Are you coming? You do not have to. I am the man he wants.”

  Although his better judgment warned him not to, Loukas followed Gamaliel into the street.

  Chapter L

  It had been a long and dangerous day. Loukas sat in the late afternoon sun in his back court and contemplated his friend. While his nerves still jangled and his heart pounded from the morning’s excitement, the rabban, sitting opposite him, appeared calm and quite pleased with himself.

  “There are still some things I do not understand, Rabban. I listened at the fortress when Ali bin Selah and the other man were being questioned, but what with the Roman’s shouting. Ali’s screaming, and the other man’s moaning, I did not learn much. I must say, as a healer, torture is contrary to everything I hold dear. I could take no more. In any event, I lost the thread.”

  “But we went through it this morning. You have been with me from the very beginning. Your difficulty arises from your friendship with Ali bin Selah and your innate reluctance to think ill of anybody, much less a friend.”

  “You may be right about Ali. I value friendship highly, and Ali was one.” Loukas paused. “I confess that after I heard the part about our murderer believing you were waiting for Pilate’s return before revealing the killer to him, my mind tended to drift. To tell the truth, not a lot of what you said this morning sank in.”

  “Yes, you said ‘He is going to kill us.’ I remember.”

  “Looking back on it, I suppose it went very well. I was able to control all of my sphincters, and I don’t think I wept. I do admit to being very frightened.”

  “Yes, so was I, to be honest. I will happily fill in your gaps, if you produce some Cappadocian wine.”

  “You realize it may be the last you will ever taste now that Ali will no longer be traveling this way.”

  “A terrible price to pay for justice. In the future we must concentrate on delivering criminals to the authorities who do not require us to make such a heavy sacrifice.”

  Loukas produced the skin of wine, and they sipped in silence.

  “As we thought, all this business is to be understood in the ruse of planting the dead man in the Temple. An Egyptian dealer in hul gil who traded under the name of Hana. After our Roman interrogators had created sufficient pain in Aswad Khashab, the poor man babbled that Hana was his brother. When he refused Ali’s demand that he surrender the market in the more powerful hul gil to him, Ali murdered him. But, if the plan was to work, our dead man had to seem a recipient of Ha Shem’s wrath and draw us away. At the same time a clear message sent to the dead man’s allies. We might believe in Divine wrath, but they would know otherwise. As you noted, they would not report it.”

  “So, the Jerusalem authorities would assume that the dead man was a lunatic who believed he was supposed to communicate with Ha Shem. And the other side would say nothing but know what was afoot?”

  “Exactly. It served the same purpose the incense smoke serves at Yom Kippur—to screen the high priest from the Presence lest he be struck down for accidently gazing on the Presence. In this case, the intent was to screen us from the truth.”

  “In this case, not with holy smoke.”

  “Not even remotely holy. Then, of course, to make it all work, I think they, that is Ali and whoever helped him, dragged the dead man up the ramp to the Altar of Sacrifice and tossed him on the coals left from the day’s sacrifice. Remember, he was only burned to his knees.”

  “But you said nothing about Ali at the time, yet you suspected.”

  “There was nothing to say. He declared his intention to leave the city immediately, and the matter seemed moot. It was only when he reappeared at your door dressed as someone else that I had any real doubts. I assumed he must be connected somehow, but I did not know how. It was the business about the hul gil that changed suspicion to a near certainty.”

  “How so? Ali merely gave me a sample for Draco. I would expect no less from any visitor who happened to have a useful potion.”

  “Once I discovered the danger the new formulation of the substance posed and the fact that Ali had it, the wheels, you could say, began to turn. That coupled with the realization that it was probably he who, in one disguise or another, represented at least half of the people who’d been tracking for us the last several days. Remember, too, he said his brother Achmir had been murdered recently. When and where, I wondered. Finally, Jacob, with his newly functioning eyes, described his attacker, too well, it seems. Ali nearly killed him too, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. I congratulate you, and as you are naturally more skeptical than I, it makes perfect sense. While I think of it, why did Ali even come back when he could have been away and clear after that first day?”

  “I believe he had not completed his business in the city, there were the guards to be gotten rid of and he needed to return as someone else to do that. That would explain the fire at the store and the second death as well—tidying up.”

  “It seems like a lot of trouble. You’d have thought he would have had a neater plan to start with.”

  “You would. He overplayed his hand, it seems. Posing as a priest got him past the guards, but he did not have to kill them. Once they’d realized what they’d done, they’d have disappeared into Thrace or Edom, or some such distant place rather than face the wrath of the Sanhedrin and the Lord. And he killed his accomplice.”

  “He had to have had one?”

  “How else carry a body into the Temples disguised as four or five omers of grain, except with a coconspirator? What I don’t understand is how, or from whom, the killer discovered the intricaci
es of our rituals. How did he know about Yom Kippur or to tie a rope on the ankle, for example?”

  Loukas’ face reddened, and he fixed his gaze on the tiles. “That would be me, I’m afraid. I told you we exchanged information, not just medical. He told me he had an interest in learning about our culture. That’s what he called it—our culture. So, over several cups of the wine he brought me, I told him what I knew.”

  “Not to worry, my friend. If not you, he would have learned it from someone else and perhaps in a less hygienic way.”

  “I am sorry to have ever brought that man into our circle, Rabban. I must be a better judge of character in the future.”

  Gamaliel poured the last of the wine into their cups and sighed.

  “Do not distress yourself, Loukas. Men are deceived and betrayed by their friends all the time. Think of David, and his sons and his friends. My student, Saul, read from Kings when I asked him to parse the mystery. He quoted the part about Joab’s deception. Joab, the king’s faithful all, turned on him and rallied to Absalom.”

  “I suppose you are right, but I wish it weren’t so. So the prefect has what he needs?”

  “After some persuasion which involved a branding iron, Ali confessed to Pilate that he intended to do away with the Egyptian’s trade in hul gil. As we heard, the Egyptian syndicate had got hold of plants from Khorasan and competed, too successfully, with his group.”

  “It seems so ridiculous that people should die for a pain killer. Any fool who tried it would immediately see the danger and avoid it afterwards.”

  “I am afraid you give people too much credit. In a despairing and hurting world, anything that offers a person a moment’s release will be snapped up by the suffering like children after honey cakes. Pilate understands that. Remember, the legionnaires stationed here are not from Rome nor are they Romans. The Roman legions, the elite troops, remain on the Italian peninsula, honored and admired. The men who serve here and elsewhere on the dusty fringes of the Empire, are mercenaries. Their lot is only marginally better than ours. The drug would have the same appeal to them as it would to us. More importantly, were it to take hold, Pilate would have troops that could not function. That, in turn, would encourage rebels to more violence, which would be completely unacceptable.”