Strip search sp-2

by William Bernhardt

  It was a shame that the DHS list had been discovered, but that too she had known was a contingent possibility. Didn't matter. There were other ways. Vegas would never run short of lousy parents. She had already made her remaining selections.

  It was almost end game. One more individual for the 29th, the sixth member of the Sefirot-and then it would be time for the grand finale. The glorious conclusion to all she had done, everything she had calculated. The final expression so perfect even He would be forced to take notice. He would reveal Himself unto her.

  And then? Then she'd give Him a piece of her mind.

  33

  July 29

  "I don't buy it," Granger said. We were sitting in a conference room together, me and him and O'Bannon. Darcy had wanted to come in, but his father made him wait outside. "I think he's making up the accomplice. Trying to get himself off the hook."

  "I don't want to believe it," I responded. "I thought this case was over. I wanted this case to be over." I hoped my voice didn't sound as desperate as I felt. "But he isn't lying."

  "You don't know that."

  "I do."

  "Stop," O'Bannon interjected. "Bickering won't get us anywhere. Have either of you managed to get him to talk about this woman who supposedly told him what to do?"

  "No," we both said simultaneously.

  "But you think she'll carry on alone."

  "Or enlist another Tucker, I don't know," I said. "But she doesn't have much time."

  "So she skips a prime number. So what? She just waits for the next one."

  "No. She'll do it on the appointed day. Everything has been so…meticulously planned. So orchestrated and orderly. She thinks she's figured out the universe, reduced it all to a common denominator. Who knows what might happen if she broke the pattern? The whole system might fall apart."

  O'Bannon wrapped his hand around his jaw. "Puts us in a hell of a spot. We told the press we caught the guy."

  "We did catch the guy," I said, not trying to be funny. "But now we have to catch the girl."

  "And how are we going to do that? When he won't tell us who she is. We've checked all the forensic evidence. Fingerprints, footprints. It all points to him. There's no trace of a second person."

  "She's out there, just the same."

  "That's not good enough, Susan. You've got to find her. Fast."

  "Got it. Fast. Reaching for the Bat-Phone."

  "Don't give me-"

  "But for starters," I interrupted, "I'm going to visit my friendly neighborhood rabbi." I DIDN'T MIND meeting Rabbi Hoffman at the Friedman Jewish Community Center. If anything, I was relieved. Been a long time since I was in a church, frankly. Synagogue, whatever. Still, my mental image as I drove over was that I was going to see a man decked out in black, probably with a big bushy salt-and-pepper beard. Like in Fiddler on the Roof. A white scarf around his neck with a beaded Star of David sewn into it, hunched over a huge edition of the Torah, thinking studious thoughts.

  I didn't expect to see him in gym shorts, at any rate.

  "My apologies," he said, wiping his brow. "Racquetball game lasted longer than I expected." He was slim, clean-shaven, and young. Probably younger than me. More like a Calvin Klein model than a rabbi.

  "No problem," I said, trying to rearrange my stereotyped anticipations and get a grip. "Did you win?"

  "If I had, I'd have told you already."

  He guided me into a small room-the reading room, according to the lettering on the door-just off the main lobby. "What can I do for you? I can't imagine how I could help with a police investigation."

  "Well, this isn't exactly your average ordinary police investigation. We're looking for a serial killer-"

  "Not the one I've been reading about in the paper. The deep fat fryer-"

  "That's the one. All the murders have followed a strange mathematical pattern-"

  "Really?" His eyes brightened. "My undergraduate degree was in math."

  Which was why Colin had recommended this particular rabbi. "And now we have information indicating that there may be a religious connection. Something to do with the Kabbalah. You know anything about that?"

  "About the killings? Or the Kabbalah?" He grinned. He was damned handsome, for a rabbi. I tried to remember-are rabbis allowed to marry? "I'm going to assume the latter. Yes, I've done quite a bit of research into Kabbalistic history. Against the advice of my colleagues."

  "They don't care for the Kabbalah?"

  "Not many do. It's become sort of the pop culture stepchild of Judaism. Madonna professes to be an adherent of the Kabbalah, and I think that pretty well says it all."

  I stifled a laugh.

  "When you talk about the Kabbalah, though, you're not talking about religion. It's mysticism. It may have evolved from Judaism, but please let me assure you it is not the same thing."

  "Does it have anything to do with math?"

  "A lot, actually. But then, so does Judaism. The Kabbalah didn't really come into its own until around the fifth century, but its mathematical origins can be traced back to Pythagoras. A great mathematician-but also a great mystic. You could argue that all the secret societies, the Masons, the Scottish Rites, whatever, date back to the secret society he formed way back when."

  "Because they wanted to keep this big secret, right? The square root of two."

  "You are well-informed."

  "Well, I have good advisors."

  "Not being able to reduce the square root of two to an integer may not seem like a big deal to you and me, but for the blue-star crowd-"

  "The what?"

  "The blue stars. Did you know that all the members of the Pythagorean secret society had tiny blue stars tattooed on the palm of their hand?"

  "I didn't."

  "That was how they identified themselves to one another. Predecessor to the secret handshake, I guess. Anyway, the secret motto of the Brethren of Purity was: God is number. And their definition of number was whole numbers, and the ratios between whole numbers. Problem is-whatever the square root of two is, it clearly is not a whole number. This was a devastating blow for the secret society. It challenged their understanding of the universe, of God. It suggested that God was not perfect."

  "I'd think a simple look around town would prove that to them," I said, then immediately regretted it. "Sorry, Father. Brother. Whatever. What do rabbis call themselves?"

  "Rabbis. But you can call me Mike. And don't worry about sending a little populist cynicism my way. Keeps me on my toes." He smiled again. Cute. "Anyway, they lived with this secret, but it is one reason they kept the society exclusive. It continued to thrive, even after Pythagoras's death-till a rival group of mystics called the Sybaris attacked and slaughtered them. A few got away and managed to record what they knew, but it was the end of the cult."

  "Fascinating. But what has this got to do with the Kabbalah?"

  "Are you familiar with the Jewish priesthood? How it started and all."

  "Mmm…with Moses?"

  "Darn close. His brother, Aaron. In this time, before written language, the priest was responsible for preserving wisdom orally. It wasn't until much later that the five books comprising the Torah were written down. And it wasn't until a thousand years later, during the Babylonian exile, that priests began to write the secret interpretations of the Torah. See, unlike the fundamentalists in a certain rival religion I won't name, we've never pretended that the stories in these books were literally true. We've always understood them to be allegorical. And we've never suggested that there can be only one correct interpretation of these texts, either. The Torah contains many interpretations. The Kabbalist reads the Torah on four different levels-the literal, the allegoric, the homiletic, and the secret. The point is to encourage debate. To make people think. Not to turn them into mindless puppets regurgitating nonsense they heard fifty years ago in Sunday school."

  "So, uh, tell me, Mike-is this something you feel strongly about?"

  I made him laugh. Hurrah! "Sorry. I get a litt
le wound up sometimes."

  "Is the Kabbalah part of the Torah?"

  "Heavens, no. It's not even a written text, or wasn't originally. It came from another secret society, a Jewish one. Secret teachings, secret practices and prayers. The name literally means: the received tradition of the Jews. First in Spain in the eleventh century, then elsewhere, the Kabbalists organized to study the Torah and to look for hidden meanings and truths. Which soon led to thinking about numbers."

  "It did?"

  "Absolutely. Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a corresponding number."

  The light dawned. "Like numerology."

  "Exactly. This may be where that occult belief originated. The idea was that any words that had the same numerical value were linked in meaning. So the Kabbalists began to study the Torah focusing, not on the meanings of words, but on these numeric connections. Sephirothic correspondences."

  "And this caught on? Because frankly-it sounds kind of boring."

  He held up a finger. "Not if you think you're unraveling the secrets of the universe."

  "I don't know…"

  "Not if you think you're forging a hotline to God. The Kabbalah has been very influential. Dante borrowed from it when he created his-extremely mathematically precise-Divine Comedy. Augustine, Aquinas, and many others you probably think of as Christian figures were influenced by the Kabbalah."

  "Well…can you give me the Cliff's Notes version?"

  "The fundamental premise of Kabbalistic learning is the Sefirot, which is based upon the components of God's greatest creation."

  I leaned forward eagerly. "The Sefirot? Our suspect mentioned that. What is it?"

  "I won't bore you with the mathematical and translational methods by which this system was devised. Just think of it as a tree of life. It has been conceptualized different ways-with twelve parts, ten or seven. Seven is probably the favorite, because it's considered the most holy number in Judaism, the number that shows up the most often in important places in the Torah."

  "Okay, let's go with seven."

  "Fine. Now, envision a primordial human body. Each part of the Sefirot represents a limb of the body, each symbolizing man's closeness to God. Keter is the head. Binah is the face. Chesed is the arm. Netzach is the leg. Tiferet is the heart."

  He must've read my reaction.

  "What? Does this mean something?"

  I could feel my pulse racing, but I managed to answer. "The mutilations. I mean-what the killer took each time. Face, head, arm, leg. Heart." Poor sweet Amelia. Because I wasn't there to help her, even after she'd helped me a hundred times. "The killer-or whoever is behind the killer-is hacking away each part of the Sefirot. And those names-that explains the letter branded on each victim." I paused to think. "What comes next? After the heart."

  "Yesod, representing the genitals."

  "Oh, God."

  "And then Malchut, who is sometimes interpreted as representing the feet, but is also used to symbolize many people, or humanity itself. All mankind."

  "I don't even want to think about how she accomplishes that part of her mission."

  Rabbi Hoffman paused. "Your killer is not just dismembering the victims. She's dismembering Creation itself. She's severing our connection to God."

  This was way too much for me, even with the tranquilizers. My head was spinning. "But-why?"

  He turned his hands out helplessly. "I think that question falls more in your department than mine."

  "Does this mean…the killer thinks he's the Antichrist?"

  He shook his head. "Even in Christian theology, the Beast comes to tempt man, not to destroy him. In math, we have so-called apocalyptic numbers-Fibonacci numbers with precisely 666 digits. But that doesn't explain these murders."

  "Maybe the killer wants to summon the Antichrist. Or maybe…to challenge the Church. Christianity."

  "The person who destroys the Sefirot…" Hoffman looked at me helplessly. "It's a line in the Zohar, perhaps the most cherished of all Kabbalistic texts. 'He who destroys the Sefirot challenges the Aleph.'"

  "The Aleph? What's that?"

  "Remember when I told you that all the Hebrew letters had numeric correspondents? The Aleph is the first letter in the alphabet, or in numeric terms, one. Which is interpreted to mean oneness. Infinite nature." He took a deep breath. "In other words, God. He who destroys the Sefirot challenges God."

  34

  Thomas Stevens brought the close-up mirror practically next to his nose and scrutinized the cut of his beard. Left profile-perfect. Right profile-almost perfect. But not quite. He held the tiny scissors in his left hand-he was quite ambidextrous-and clipped the offending hairs until his beard lay as perfectly as if it had been sculpted by Michelangelo. Perfection!

  He applied a little gel until he had his hair precisely the way he wanted it-chic, hip, youthful. None of that absurd comb-over Donald Trump stuff. Not that he had a bald spot, or ever would, but if he did, he wouldn't try to mask it in such an obvious fashion. It was beneath him. He dressed in one of his best suits, a black, always black, Armani number that had been specially tailored. A cane this evening? Yes, a cane, he thought. Added just the right panache. A tad eccentric, since he didn't need it to walk, but loaded with elan.

  Stevens noticed that the latest in his long series of gentlemen's gentlemen had positioned himself just inside his dressing room door. He seemed to float soundlessly into the room; it was a bit eerie, actually. And his knowledge was equally impressive.

  "There are representatives of the press positioned in the hotel lobby," the man announced. Stevens didn't know his name. He liked to call them all Jeeves; it was so literary. "Presumably awaiting your comments regarding the contemplated merger."

  "That's fine. Just fine."

  "Should I instruct the security officers to forcibly disperse them?"

  "No, not necessary."

  "Then should I instruct your press secretary to announce that you will give a brief statement?"

  "No, not that, either," he answered, while knotting his tie.

  The man stood granite-still, making only a small throat-clearing sound. Stevens knew this was his way of saying, Well, what the hell should I do, then?

  "Leave them as they are. I have no objection to picking up a little publicity on my way to the deal. The more attention I can draw to the negotiations, the more likely this business will be completed in a satisfactory fashion."

  "Then-"

  "I won't say anything informative. Just a few cryptic comments on my way through the lobby. Then into the limousine and off I go."

  "Perhaps I should have a security detail attend your automobile."

  "Not necessary. Mercer can handle the crowd. No one can get into the garage unless they know the numeric password on the access lock pads." Mercer was his driver, had been for years. "Is my tie straight?"

  "Your appearance is, as always, impeccable, sir."

  "Good. Uh…tell me. Has there been…any activity from Mr. Wynn?"

  "No, sir. Not to my knowledge. Were you expecting any?"

  "You never know. Wynn loves attention." Steve Wynn was, of course, the other building mogul in Vegas, the big dog, the man with the global reputation, although as far as Stevens was concerned, it was based mostly on his talent for capturing media attention, not for his business acumen. Stevens could deal rings around him, though that didn't get him in the papers. These days, it was all about name-recognition.

  Stevens reached for his fur-lined jacket, even though it wasn't cold today and, in point of fact, was never cold in Vegas. Let PETA cry their hearts out; he looked good in it. "Will there be anything else?"

  "Only if you wish it, sir."

  "Then-how can I put it politely-why are you still here?"

  His man cleared his throat again. "I know that you have been quite busy of late, sir, but may I assume that you are familiar with the series of unfortunate events that have occurred the last few weeks in our fair city?"

  "You mean the murderer? The
one who got Danielle?"

  "The very same, sir. Quite a dangerous fellow."

  "I thought they caught him."

  "It seems, as is so often the case, the announcement of mission accomplished was premature. He is believed to have an accomplice who is still at liberty."

  "So what's your point?"

  "My point, sir, is that-" Here he cleared his throat again. "According to the morning Courier, the pattern that links all these killings together involves records at the Department of Human Services regarding parenting issues."

  Stevens's neck stiffened ever so slightly. "And your point is?"

  "I do not wish to give offense, sir-"

  "Then don't."

  "But I feel it is my duty-"

  "I tell you what your duty is, understand me?"

  His chin rose ever so slightly. "As you say, sir."

  "Good. Glad we got that worked out." He smiled. "Don't mean to put you off, old boy, but I've got the best security system in town. No one can get to me." He grabbed his cane and started toward the door, but just before he reached it, he put the knob of his cane under his gentleman's gentleman's chin. "And tell the gang down in the servants' quarters to stop gossiping, would you? Something like that could cost a person their job. And jobs are hard to find these days. Especially for anyone who burns me."

  THIS TIME, I didn't wait until Tucker was comfortable, didn't offer him a drink, didn't let the boss send out for sandwiches. I wanted him to be uncomfortable. If I didn't get the name of the woman who had been pushing his buttons today, it would be too late for someone.

  With Darcy's help, we'd run our own homegrown version of the numerology program to come up with the next few likely victims in the DHS files. They were all under heavy surveillance. At the same time, I knew that Tucker's boss was anything but stupid. She knew we had him. That meant she probably knew we'd broken the code. That meant we couldn't count on her adhering to it. Tucker said he didn't know who the next victim would be, and sadly, I believed him. That meant my only chance of stopping the next murder was to find out who this woman was and to stop her.