The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

"But that's old mischief," said Sharavi. "My primary concern is how far your current inventing went. Could you have been hungry enough for a juicy crime story to supply crime?"

Wilbur shot out of his chair. "What the hell are you saying!"

Sharavi closed his attache case, placed it on his lap, and smiled. •

"Learning by doing, Mr. Wilbur. It ensures realism."

"This conversation is over." Wilbur's heart was pounding, his hands shaking. He forced a cool tone: "Nothing more without my lawyer."

Sharavi waited a long time before speaking. Let the silence sink in.

"Where were you three Thursdays ago, Mr. Wilbur?"

"I don't know-but I was in Greece when the first one was killed! Across the goddamned Mediterranean!"

"Sit down," said Shmeitzer.

"Bullshit," said Wilbur. "Pure and total bullshit harassment."

Sharavi waved Shmeitzer away and said, "Remain on your feet if you like." The gold eyes remained steady. "Tell me, Mr. Wilbur, what sharp-bladed instruments do you own besides the Sabatier cutlery in your kitchen and the Swiss Army knife in your desk?"

"Absurd," said Wilbur. His damned heart wouldn't quiet.

"Do you rent another flat besides the one on Rehov Alharizi?"

"I want a lawyer."

"You've quoted Samir El Said, extensively. What's the nature of your relationship with him?"

Wilbur didn't answer.

"Talk, shmuck," said Dry Voice.

"I have nothing to say. This whole thing is a crock."

"Are you engaged in a homosexual relationship with Professor El Said?"

That took Wilbur by surprise. He tried to maintain a poker face but, from Sharavi's smile, knew he'd been unsuccessful.

"I thought not," said the little bastard. "You are a little old for him."

"I'm not homosexual," said Wilbur, thinking: Why the hell am I defending myself?

"You like women?"

"Do you?"

"I don't like cutting them up."

"Oh, Christ."

"Shmuck's religious," said Dry Voice.

"I have nothing to say," said Wilbur.

"Look," said Sharavi, "we have plenty of time. When it gets dark, we'll use flashlights to chase away the rats."

"Suit yourself," said Wilbur.

But the stonewall didn't work.

Sharavi proceeded to question him for another hour and a half about the murders. Times, places, where he bought his linens, what kind of soap he used, how many kilometers a day he drove. Were his eyes healthy, what drugs he took, did he shower or take baths. What were his views on personal hygiene. Seeming irrelevancies. Picayune details that he'd never thought about. Asking the same questions over and over, but changing the phrasing ever so slightly. Then coming out of left field with something that sounded totally irrelevant and ended up being somehow tied in with something else.

Trying to confuse him.

Treating him like a goddamned murderer.

He was determined to resist, give the little bastard nothing. But eventually he found himself relenting-worn down by the smiles and the repetition, Sharavi's unflappable manner, the way he ignored Wilbur's outbursts, refused to take "umbrage at Wilbur's insults.

By the time the reporter realized he was losing, he'd already lost, answering questions with numbed docility. His feet tired from standing, but refusing to sit for fear of underscoring his submission.

As the interrogation wore on, he rationalized it away by telling the little bastard was giving in too. Acting nicer.

Treating him like an adviser, not a suspect.

Believing him.

After ninety minutes, Sharavi stopped the questions, chatted with him about trivia. Wilbur felt himself loosen with relief. Sat down, finally, and crossed his legs.

Twenty minutes later, the chatting ceased. The basement cavity had grown darker, colder. Nightfall.

Sharavi said something to Slant-Eye, who came over and offered Wilbur a cigarette. He refused. Finally, Shavari clicked the attache case shut, smiled, and said, "That's it."

"Great," said Wilbur. "Drop me back at Beit Agron?"

"Oh, no," said Sharavi, as if the request had taken him by surprise.

Slant-Eye put a hand on Wilbur's shoulder. Handsome walked over, put handcuffs on him.

"This is Subinspector Lee," said Sharavi, looking at the

Oriental. "And this is Detective Cohen. They'll be taking back to Jerusalem. To the Russian Compound, where you'll be booked for obstructing a criminal investigation and withholding evidence."

A flood of words rose in Wilbur's gullet. He lacked the will to expel them and they stagnated.

Sharavi dusted off his trousers.

"Good afternoon, Mark. If there's anything else you wish to tell me, I'll be happy to listen."

When the BMW had driven off, Daniel asked Shmeltzer, "What do you think?"

"Only thing I got from his eyes is alcoholism-you should have seen the bottles in his flat. As far as the grin goes, we didn't give him much chance to smile, did we, Dani? Nothing we've turned up in the flat or the office implicates him, and the Greek thing checks out as an alibi for Fatma's murder-though if he's got pals, that's meaningless. What did Ben David tell you about the letter?"

"That the Bible quotes could mean a real fanatic or someone wanting to sound like one. One thing's for certain: Whoever wrote it is no true scholar-the passages from Leviticus are out of sequence and out of context. The one about washing the legs refers to a male animal. It smells deceptive-someone trying to distract us."

"Someone trying to pin it on the Jews" said Shmeltzer. "Exactly this Wilbur shmuck's style." He spat into the dirt. "Ben David have anything to say about the printing used for the address?"

"The block letters were written very slowly and deliberately by someone familiar with writing English. Along with the fact that English was used for the address instead of Hebrew, that could support our foreigner angle, except that the Bible quotes were in Hebrew. But Meir Steinfeld came by just before I picked you guys up, told me about the prints and the serum and shed some light on the Hebrew. The text matched that of a gift edition Hebrew-English Bible-common tourist item, printed locally. Mass-market-no use checking bookstores. He showed me a copy, Nahum. The text is printed correspondingly. Anyone could read the English, then cut out the matching Hebrew verse. Addressing the envelope would be a different matter."

"Some fucking anti-Semite," said Shmeltzer. "Fucking blood libel."

"The alternative, of course, is that whoever sent the letter knows Hebrew and English and used both languages to play games with us, show off how clever he is. That kind of posturing is consistent with serial killers."

"If the letter-writer's the killer."

"If," agreed Daniel. "It could be pure mischief. But there's the washing reference."

"Press leak," said Shmeltzer."

"If it was, someone in the press would have used it. Even Wilbur made no mention of it specifically, just talked in general terms about sacrifices. And Ben David thought it looked promising from a handwriting perspective, said the slowness and the pressure of the writing indicated calculation and suppressed anger-lots of anger. The tearing of the paper shows that the anger is threatening to break through the suppression."

"Meaning?"

"If the writer's our killer, we're probably in for another murder. Maybe soon-today is Thursday."

"Not if Wilbur's our guy and we keep him locked up," said Shmeltzer.

"Not necessarily. You're the one who likes the group theory."

"I like this guy, Dani. Wouldn't mind cooling his ass at the compound for a while, see what a little tenderizing does to his memory for detail. At the very least we can tie him up for a while on the obstruction thing, fucking bastard."

"You enjoyed the interrogation, didn't you, Nahum?"

"Labor of love."

The two of them got in the Escort. Daniel revved up the engine, drove out of the basement and across the rocky surface of the site. Gravel spattered the underside of the car. Only a semi-circle of sun was visible over the horizon. The darkness had turned the partially framed building into something ephemeral. Atrophied.

"Speaking of obstruction," said Shmeltzer, "Drori, the anesthesiologist, is eliminated. Night of both murders he was on duty at the hospital, working emergency surgeries. Thing that pisses me off is that the Thursday night that Fatma was killed, Krieger-the one who informed on him-was there loo. They did an operation together. Krieger was trying to harass the guy."

"Personal thing, as we suspected," said Daniel.

Shmeltzer gave a disgusted look. "I tailed Drori to find out where he goes on those middle-of-the-night drives when Krieger's on duty. Straight to Krieger's flat to fuck Krieger's wife. Same old jealousy shit-bastard was trying to use us as his henchmen. If we weren't so busy, I'd pull him in, teach him a lesson."

"Anything on the desert hikes?"

"University and the Nature Conservancy still checking- the usual bureaucratic bullshit."

Daniel steered the Escort onto the road and headed south. They rode for a while without speaking, past the upper Ramot, and down toward A and B. Just ahead of them, an Egged bus had pulled up to the curb. Dozens of dark-garbed yeshiva boys alighted; their mothers, waiting at the bus stop, greeted them with soft bosoms, kisses, and snacks. The bus swung out sharply, moving nonchalantly into the path of the Escort, and Daniel had to weave sharply to avoid hitting it.

"Idiot," muttered Shmeltzer. His glasses had been knocked loose and he straightened them. A hundred meters later he said, "Busting a journalist, Herr Pakad. Going to bring down big buckets of political shit."

"I'll wear a hat," said Daniel. He pressed his foot to the floor and sped back toward the city and its secrets.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, thought the Grinning Man, masturbating. Then thinking: I sound like Lawrence fucking

Welk, and starting to giggle.

But it was wonderful. Sand-niggers and kikes chewing each other up. Ripping and squeaking like the little hook-nosed rodents they were.

And he, the trainer.

Project Untermensch.

He flashed a mind picture of opposing rat hordes, charging at each other on little rat feet. Pouring out of sewer pipes, up out of putrid storm drains, bubbling to the surface of sinkholes.

Little brown sand-nigger rats with little rag heads and black whiskers. Little pink-and-gray kike rats with yarmulkes and chin-beards. Yammering and shrieking and snapping, biting off snouts and lips and leaving gaping holes like the pictures in Dieter Schwann's big green book.

Chomp. There goes a tail.

Chomp. There goes an ear.

Chewing each other up until there was nothing left but little bone piles and little moist rat stains that you could clean up really good.

And blessed silence-space for a white man to walk.

No more bad-machine noises.

Plenty of elbow room.

Chomp.

What a terrific feeling, to set something into motion and watch it work out just the way you planned.

Real power.

Real science.

Power. The thought of it made him come sooner than he'd planned. He was lost in the orgasm for a few brain-shattering moments, rocking back and forth on the bed, stroking and squeezing himself with one hand, caressing the half-healed swastika wounds on his thighs with the other.

Mind control.

The kind he'd wielded over Doctor, though the fucker had been only one rat and now he had lots of them scampering on command.

But an important rat, a mind-fucker par excellence.

The Michelangelo of mind pictures.

No. Dali. There was a mind-fucker - limpo clocks, quails cooked in their own shit. And they said he was a kike. Lies!