David sent the others out, then tried to calm the Nissims down. Mrs. Nissim hid her pregnancy beneath a cotton smock; Mr. Nissim lounged in a faded tennis shirt and polyester shorts. David peered around their living room. Behind the maroon sofa with the bright orange cushions, he observed a new Japanese stereo and a pile of tape cassettes. A short shelf contained the usual books: Hebrew editions of Exodus and Story of My Life by Moshe Dayan; copies of Michener's The Source and Kurzman's biography of Ben-Gurion in English. An oil painting of an old Jew praying at the Western Wall was prominently displayed, the paint laid on very thick, the scene garishly sentimentalized. David could see that the Nissims were good people -decent, law-abiding Jerusalemites. He knew that if properly approached they would cooperate.
"Your daughter has seen something very important," he told them. "But you were right to stop us. We didn't interview her properly. The proper way, without exerting pressure, is to turn the interview into a game. Amit is a vital witness. Would you consider allowing us to talk with her a second time? There'll be no intimidation. We'll videotape the interview, and when it's over that'll be the end of it. We won't bother her again."
After a brief whispered consultation, the Nissims solemnly agreed.
Since there could only be two interrogators, David asked himself who in the unit would be best. Shoshana? Too impatient. Liederman? Too old. He finally settled on huge weight-lifting Uri Schuster who, though tough, even brutal on the streets, was a lovable teddy bear with kids.
They set the whole thing up in Mrs. Shapira's apartment, just the way it had been that day: at noon with no one else around and a dark Chevrolet van and Schneiderman's truck positioned on the street just as they were in the insurance diagram.
David and Uri brought along two cartons of toys: a van, a truck, little buildings to create a model of the intersection, and various male and female dolls including dolls dressed in different military uniforms and one dressed as a Jerusalem cop. On one of the females they pasted a tiny photo of Susan Mills, and on one of the males, a photo of Schneiderman. They also made up dolls for Ora Goshen, Halil Ghemaiem, Yael Safir, and the murdered lovers, Ruth Isaacson and Aaron Horev, and they had a dozen more faceless figures with them too.
When everything was ready, Uri escorted Amit to the window, showed her the cars out on the street, and then asked her to use the toys to make a model of what she'd seen.
"That's right, Amit-the truck here at the corner, yes, and the van has just driven into it so they're together just like this… Now look at all these girl dolls. Do you see one that's like the woman with the camera? This one? Good. Put her just where she was when you saw her having the argument. And which of these boy dolls looks most like the uniformed man? The policeman. You're sure? And that they were standing together on the sidewalk here, like this, facing the truck? Uh huh…"
Yaakov Schneiderman was driving the truck-now Amit remembered. She also remembered him standing beside it after the collision, hands on his hips, shaking his head, inspecting the damage, then kicking the wheel of the van. Did she recognize any of the other dolls? Yes, these two, Horev and Isaacson-they came over during the argument. The woman with the camera was speaking in another language, and they came over to help her understand the policeman, who was getting mad.
So, Uri summarized, there were four of them on the sidewalk, and Schneiderman over by the van. Anybody else? Yes, three more men, two of them helping a third who seemed to be hurt. Using the dolls Amit reconstructed exactly what she'd seen: the hurt man placing his arms across the shoulders of the other two, and then the three of them together limping rapidly away.
"All three of them? You're sure, Amit? Up this way, up Berenice Street? And what about the others? Oh, you mean this was before the argument? But the other night you said you heard the quarreling and that's when you went over to the window to look out."
Amit had forgotten. When Mrs. Shapira had gone to her bedroom, she had gone over to the window because she wanted to go outside and play. Then she saw the truck coming and saw it hit the van. Then she saw the policeman get out of the driver's door of the van and then she saw the woman who spoke the other language taking pictures of everything. The policeman wasn't nice to the lady, or to the couple who'd been passing by and stopped to help. He made them all show him their identity cards, and then he spoke very angry words and wrote down all their names…
So, three men and a phony cop had been in a dark blue van, and after Schneiderman had hit it the three men, one injured, had fled the scene. The cop, who, of course, had been "Igal Hurwitz," had taken charge, exchanged names with Schneiderman, then demanded that Susan Mills turn over her film. Important evidence, he'd told her, but Susan had refused. Amit Nissim remembered hearing Ruth Isaacson explain to the cop that the American woman didn't like his attitude.
When they left Amit, after thanking her and presenting her with a gift of the policewoman doll, Uri, who'd been so calm and paternal during the interview, began shadowboxing on the stairs. A quick succession of left jabs, then four quick rights, then a hard right cross.
"Horev-Isaacson! Same case! Congratulations, David-you were right! But you know something? When you told us that the other day I thought you were full of shit…"
Horev and Isaacson-all of Israel knew about them.
Aaron Horev: engineer, devoted husband of Rivka, obstetrician at Hadassah in Ein Karem. Three boys: Zvi, Yigal, and Ehud. A typical, honest, striving, middle-class Jerusalem family, with a two-bedroom apartment in Gillo and a good second-hand Fiat sedan.
Ruth Isaacson: librarian at the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University, wife of Asher Isaacson, professor of geology at Givat Ram. The childless Isaacsons, close friends of the Horevs, owned a comfortable two-bedroom house on Bezalel. They'd done their own fix-up, put a sleek modern menorah in their window, parked their shiny Japanese car out front.
The assignations took place at 49 Alexandrion, in a second-floor apartment belonging to Ruth's friend, Zena Raphael. The arrangement, as it was later revealed, was that for the reasonable sum of fifty thousand shekels a month, the lovers had the optional use of Zena's place, including sheets and towels, from noon to two each weekday afternoon.
How often they actually met there was a matter of dispute. Zena said possibly once or twice a week; a neighbor said every afternoon. But there was no dispute about the finale. A little after 6 P.M. on Thursday, April 18th, Zena Raphael returned home by bus from a long and tiring day. She unlocked her door, carried her groceries to her kitchen, rinsed her oranges, made tea, then went to her bedroom to lie down. From the doorway she saw two nude and tangled bodies. The lovers, each shot expertly twice in the head, lay dead in each other's arms.
Who had done it? Asher Isaacson? Rivka Horev? Rivka's brother Samuel, who had always despised Aaron? Some said Zena had done it, that she was herself in love with Aaron and madly jealous of Ruth. Rafi's homicide investigators weren't sure. The clean method of the double slaying, four precisely fired shots from a. 22 caliber Beretta, suggested the possibility of a professional hit. And since the "injured parties" in the affair had each been at work at the time, Rafi was basing his investigation on the theory that one or the other of them might have contracted the executions out.
All parties claimed innocence. Asher Isaacson hired an attorney. Rivka Horev, persecuted by reporters, took her three sons to Haifa and threatened to leave Israel for good. The religious demagogue, Rabbi Mordecai Katzer, described the double killing as the wages of infidelity, a consequence of "perverted values" and "secular Hellenism" in Israeli life.
"So now you want Horev-Isaacson?" Rafi's sad eyes drooped with skepticism. He sat back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head.
"I've got a witness."
"A six-year-old. David-please…"
"I'm telling you, Rafi, she may be six but she's very very good. Look at my tape. See if you believe her. Horev and Isaacson saw the accident-that's why they were killed."
After Rafi looked twice at th
e tape he agreed that Amit made a convincing witness. "You didn't lead her and she makes good sense," he said. "Too bad there's no corroboration."
"So?"
Rafi paused. "So-okay, you get Horev-Isaacson. I'll have to tell Latsky, but we won't mention this to anybody else. My homicide guys will just have to keep spinning their wheels. Which is about all they've been doing anyway." He leaned back and lit his pipe. "Of course on one level you've solved it. Now we understand the motive. Get rid of witnesses. Conceal two of them in a phony serial case. Sacrifice three other people including an innocent soldier-girl. Knock of a pair of lovers too."
"Ruthless people."
"So what's behind it?"
"A cover-up. The witnesses saw something dangerous," David said.
"What?"
"I've been thinking about that. It couldn't have been obvious, or they would have had to kill all of them right away. The killers didn't do that. They executed them slowly. Spent two months playing out a complicated charade. So the witnesses-Schneiderman, Mills, Horev and Isaacson-saw something that maybe didn't register as important at the time, but that might appear to be very important in retrospect later on. Four guys, one of them dressed like a cop, driving in an illegally registered van. Something about connecting them-that's what it's got to be. Guys who were going to do something so bad they were willing to kill seven innocent people rather than have four of them look back at some future date and remember seeing them together."
David kept his unit up until 4 A.M. talking out the case. Their first decision had to do with Amit. Since everyone else who'd seen the accident had been murdered, she might now be in danger too. She would have to be protected. David assigned Shoshana to guard her, with Uri and Liederman as relief.
Their second decision concerned Susan Mills. She'd refused to turn over her film to the phony Hurwitz. That could account for the fact she'd been tortured before she'd been killed. Had she talked? She was strong-willed, Dov reminded them-he'd always admired the American nun. So it was possible to presume she hadn't talked, which meant the dangerous photos she'd taken might still be around. David gave the order: Go to every photo store and film-processing outlet in the city working in concentric circles from the Holyland Hotel. Show pictures of Susan to the shopkeepers. Had the nun ever come into their stores? Had she bought film, left off rolls to be developed? Had they any uncollected developed pictures in their files?
At dawn David went home to sleep. He rose in the early afternoon, made coffee, ate some yogurt, and fixed himself a salad. He was in the midst of taking a shower, long and hot, thinking of Anna, becoming excited at the thought that she'd be home in just a week, when he heard the sound of the buzzer downstairs. He turned off the water, wrapped himself in a towel, and went out to the intercom to find out who was there.
"Yigal Gati. I tried your office. They told me you were home."
"General Gati?" Even through the intercom he recognized the famous voice.
"Yes. I'd like to come up and talk if it's not inconvenient."
"I'll buzz you in," David said.
He rushed around the apartment straightening up, wondering what he'd done to deserve this visit from a living legend. He was still struggling into his pants when the doorbell rang. He pulled on a sweater before he opened up. When he did, the general stared with faint disgust at the wet bath towel he was still holding in his hand.
"Worked late last night. I just got up."
"Maybe I should have phoned." But, as David noticed, the general continued to stand there, not offering to come back at a more convenient time.
When David offered him a drink General Gati requested a glass of water. "Bottled," he called into the kitchen. When David brought the glasses back into the living room he found Gati standing before the large window looking out.
"Superb view."
David handed him his water. "Never tire of it. We love it here."
The general turned to him slowly. "Of course you do, a lovely home like this in Abu Tor."
Then, it seemed to David, he became the subject of a deep examining gaze, the kind of gaze, he recognized, which he often applied himself. It was as if the general was trying to penetrate his mind, searching out some weakness he might exploit. David tried to return the gaze but found it difficult. All he could see was the public face, so familiar from a thousand photographs: Gati, the retired Air Force commander whose daring tactics had been so decisive in the wars of '67 and '73, his thick short gray hair brushed forward like an ancient Roman senator's, his dazzling dark blue eyes unwavering and cold.
"This is an unofficial visit. I'm an ordinary citizen, just like everybody else these days." A tight little smile, then, that suggested he knew he was a lot more than that. "It's in that capacity, nothing more, nothing less, that I took the liberty of dropping by."
David motioned him to the couch.
"Spent my life in the military. I'm a blunt guy, so instead of jerking you around and mentioning the names of mutual friends, I'll get right to the point. I'm here to plead a case."
David took a long sip of water. "Go ahead," he said. "Plead away."
"This is a request for mercy because from what I understand there's probably no decent legal defense. You're wondering what I'm talking about." That fake tight little smile again. "A man named Gutman, whom I understand you arrested a few weeks back."
David nodded. "We arrested him."
"He's in a lot of trouble now."
"Not surprising, considering he's a thief."
"Just a thief? Or perhaps a victim too?"
"A lot of Israelis have been victimized, general. Not all of them have turned to crime."
"Ah," Gati smiled tightly again, "a tough guy. I heard you were. I respect that. I am too."
"What's your interest in Gutman?"
"Known him more than forty years. We served together in the Jewish Brigade. After the surrender, I served with him in Germany, British Occupation Zone. Perhaps you're familiar with some of the different things we did."
So this was how father knew Gutman, and how Gutman recognized me the night of his arrest. " You knew my father?" David asked.
"Of course."
"The 'hunting seasons'?"
The general nodded. "We called them that."
"Gutman was a hunter?"
"One of the best. And a fine fighter later on. We killed quite a few Arabs together, Jacob and I. You may not know it, but Jacob Gutman was one of the heroes of Latrum in May of '48."
The thrust to Jerusalem, one of the legendary achievements of the first war fought by the Jewish State. The rusted tanks and broken armor were still in place, reminders to modern travelers driving the highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
"And now he brokers stolen Torahs."
Gati rose, walked over to the window, stood with his back to David staring out. "Torahs. Sure. Why not? What does he care? He can't survive on his lousy pension so why shouldn't he supplement it by selling Torahs to born-again American Jews? Way this country is today, what the hell should he think? This pretty young virgin we married almost forty years ago. We look at her now. Do you know what we see?" He turned back to the room, stood at parade rest with his legs apart. "A tarted-up old whore. When we can stand to look at her. When looking at her doesn't make us puke."
He turned back to the window. "You were born after Independence, David. Gutman and I were grown men then. We fought for something and we knew what we were fighting for, and one thing we weren't fighting for was the soft-bellied society you've got out there today. Oh, sure, it's sweet out there." He gestured toward the city. "Maybe a little decadent, but what the hell? Everyone's got himself a refrigerator, a washer, a drier, and a car, and the people you need to fix your plumbing are extortionists so sometimes, when your toilet leaks, you just leave it that way because you can't afford to get it fixed."
He turned again; now his body was silhouetted against Jerusalem, and David had trouble reading the expression on his face. "…except Jacob Gutman doe
sn't like leaking toilets. Not that he's so fastidious, you understand. Just that in that regard he's like everybody else. So, good Jew that he is, he knows how to survive. He does what a Jew has always done. Opens up a little shop.
"Now there're all kinds of little Jewish shops. Tailor shops. Dry goods shops. Little grocery stores. Places to buy some lace, some shoes, maybe borrow money on a watch. All those kinds of shops have one goal in common: Sell things for more than you pay out. It's called business. And who's to say who's the sharpie and who's the thief and who's the honest Jewish businessman?
"For a guy like Gutman, those kinds of fine distinctions got blurred along the way. He looks around and thinks: I was one of those few guys who went around occupied Germany in '45 and '46 cleaning things up, doing a little public-service de-Nazification with my pals Gati and Doc Bar-Lev. I actually planned a lot of those missions, the way we'd show up at a guy's house, oh-so-polite in our nicely pressed British uniforms, show him our well-forged summons for interrogation, apologize for the intrusion to his wife, then lead him off politely to our borrowed official truck. Then I'd get in the back with him, pull the canvas flaps shut, and break his neck, quick, the way the Brits taught us in their commando school. Then we'd dump him by the side of the road-no burial necessary because you only take that kind of trouble with a human being. Then on to the next guy the authorities didn't care about. You know, the little guy, the average run-of-the-mill little murderer. And I, who'd done all that, who'd taken upon myself the nasty exterminator's job, find that now that I'mold, my wife's gone, and my daughter's dead, I don't have a marketable skill worth shit in this wonderful meretricious New Society of ours. I look around and what do I see? Everyone stealing, extorting, buying luxuries, getting rich. The country I fought for acting like a harlot running to the Americans for hand-outs every time she overspends. So what should I do? Pretend she's still the same? Hell with that! I'll set myself up in a kind of little Jewish shop. I'll pick up old Torahs, not ask too many questions about where they're from, and sell them to Americans who'd rather buy one cheap than pay a scribe to write one new."
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