Pattern crimes

by William Bayer

  "Is that true?"

  "Could be." She gave him her best, most flashing smile. "One thing for sure-I'm going to start studying Hebrew seriously. Tomorrow I'm enrolling in a class."

  "Susan Mills used a tourist photo shop, Samuelson's on King George next to that old German bookstore. They remember her well. She bought a hell of a lot of film." Micha spread out photocopies of the receipts on David's desk.

  "They did her processing too," said Dov. "But when we add up the number of rolls she bought and the number she had developed, we come up twenty short. We found eight in her luggage and one in her camera. So there're still eleven unaccounted for."

  "I doubt she came to Israel without film."

  "Right. So at least eleven."

  "Maybe she took them to another shop?"

  "Doubt it. She was a creature of habit. Took the same bus from the Holyland every morning with a list of the places she wanted to see. Then she'd knock them off methodically, then she'd head downtown. She usually hit the photo shop at noon."

  David nodded. "Okay-let's see what we've got. They know she has film on the accident, including shots of the guys in the van. They want that film. Their guy 'Hurwitz' has already quarreled with her about it. Now suppose someone new calls her up and apologizes, someone with a very sincere voice who speaks perfect English and claims he's Hurwitz's boss. She agrees-after all, she's a decent Christian lady only too glad to help out police when they're polite. This new guy drops by her hotel, picks her up, and takes her away to be tortured. But why torture her if she gave them what they wanted? No, that isn't how it went. They lured her out, she got suspicious, and when she figured out that they weren't cops, she didn't give them anything at all."

  "So where's the film?"

  "Maybe still at the shop?"

  "It isn't. We checked."

  "So maybe she did talk," Micha said.

  "No. She didn't," Dov insisted.

  David glanced at him, wondered if Dov's strong identification with Susan Mills was blinding him to real possibilities. David was all for the investigator immersing himself in the victim's life, so long as the immersion didn't prevent the investigator from facing unpleasant truths.

  "Either way it doesn't matter," he finally said. "They took the film from her room, or, if it was still being developed, they found her receipt, took it back to the shop, and claimed the film as their own."

  "They knew her at Samuelson's."

  "Even when there's a name on the ticket they just look at the number. At least that's how they do it at the place I take my film."

  "We'll go back there."

  "This time make sure you talk to all the clerks. If someone else picked up those rolls, he wouldn't know she usually came by at noon. He'd probably go in late, around closing time when the staff is tired and gearing up for the bus ride home…"

  "So then what did Gati say?" Avraham's eyes gleamed as he gnawed on a piece of chicken.

  David glanced over at Anna and winked. It had been her idea to invite his father for dinner. She had prepared a feast of chicken Tapaka, using her clothes iron to weigh down the chicken on the griddle.

  He said he thought that if people understood Gutman's background he might never have to go to trial. When I suggested to him that this was maybe a little naive he didn't seem to understand. 'But don't you see? He's an atheist,' he said. 'Torahs mean nothing to him. Far as he was concerned he was just selling parchment. What's so bad about that?' "

  Avraham threw both hands into the air. "This is our Great Military Genius?" David was pleased. The old man was enjoying himself, and, best of all, the two of them were getting along.

  "You never told me you knew him, Father." David refilled his glass.

  "I've never been one to reminisce." Avraham toasted Anna. "Some of the good old days were better than others."

  "What kind of man is he?" Anna asked.

  "Not nice. Not nice at all. A warrior. The kind who thrives on war."

  "Didn't he go into politics?"

  Avraham waved his hand. "He tried, but he didn't have appeal. Gati was a soldier's soldier. Wouldn't kowtow. Didn't know how to play the game." He reached for the platter, took a second piece of chicken. He smiled at Anna. "This is very good, my dear."

  "Not kosher, I'm afraid."

  "I told you-don't worry about that. You're an excellent cook." He toasted her again, then turned back to his son. "So," his eyes were excited, "what did you say to him next?"

  "Told him it wouldn't matter if Gutman had been brokering stolen newspapers. He'd been caught in possession and for that he'd have to go to trial."

  "You're right of course. A crime's a crime, a thief's a thief, and," he gave David a significant nod, "a detective, I suppose, is always a detective."

  "What will happen to Gutman now?" Anna asked.

  "Most likely he'll go to prison. I really can't see them letting him off. Unless, of course, there was something truly extenuating. I told Gati there's a classic method people use. They turn religious-put on a skullcap, grow a beard, and tell the judge about their new-found faith. But I told him that, unfortunately, due to the nature of Gutman's crime, I didn't see how this particular technique could possibly work."

  Avraham roared with laughter. Then he wiped his mouth. "You did well, my boy. I only wish I'd been there-just to see Yigal Gati's stricken face."

  The remainder of the dinner continued to be fun, Anna was pleased, and when Avraham thanked her and said good night the two of them embraced. In the car, as David started the drive back to Me'a Shearim, Avraham complimented him on having found such a fine companion.

  "You should maybe consider marrying her?" he asked tentatively.

  David was amused. "She isn't Jewish."

  "So what? You can marry in Cyprus. Isn't that what people do?"

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived at Hevrat Shas and Avraham opened the car door, David saw an old religious man wandering up the street and then he thought he saw his father wince. "Those missing files I mentioned…"

  "Yes. I meant to ask-"

  "Don't bother yourself. Turns out I was wrong. Blumenthal's garage was ransacked but nothing was taken. Whoever broke in was probably looking for valuables. When he didn't find any I think he just got mad and threw around my papers in a fit of spite."

  After his father disappeared into his building, David chopped his hand against the steering wheel.

  Damn! Why does he lie to me? He pressed his bruised hand against his mouth.

  There had been a temporary clerk who had worked at Samuelson's Photo Shop during the height of the April tourist season. A veteran of Lebanon, stoned half the time, according to Mr. Samuelson-nice, but not someone he'd wanted to keep on.

  Dov found him working for a rug cleaning firm that serviced the finer homes in Rehavia. He showed him Susan's picture. Yes, the young veteran remembered her, she'd been in the shop, had bought lots of film and brought it back to be developed. But she'd returned to America earlier than expected-he remembered that because her nephew had come in with one of her claim tickets to pick up her final batch of prints.

  "Nephew? Her Israeli nephew?"

  "Yeah, an apologetic kind of kid. Said his aunt was concerned, didn't want to stick the shop, and had made him promise to pick up her film and pay off her account."

  Dov ran out to his car for his IdentiKit, spent an hour with the veteran working up a composite of Susan's "nephew." When he brought the composite in David studied it. An ordinary looking young man, clean-cut and nondescript. "Nice Jewish boy," David said.

  Yosef Barak had spoken of a new authority in Anna's playing, a new confidence. Yet now, when David watched her practice, he sensed something troubled in the way she played.

  "Is anything the matter?" he asked her one morning.

  She shook her head. "No. Why do you think there is?"

  "You seem…I don't know, disturbed somehow. I just wondered if you were having trouble. After such a big success in Europe to
come back here could bring you down."

  "Oh, David-this isn't a backwater. Jerusalem's my home." She frowned. You know I set high goals for myself. Sometimes I think Yosef is too quick to praise."

  "So there is something?"

  "Just concentration. Don't worry, I'll get it back. All I have to do is," she smiled, "you know: 'practice, practice…' " She kissed him on his neck.

  Avraham called. "Something I forgot to tell you. We laughed a lot about Gati the other night, but later, when I thought about it, the approach he made to you rang false. He and Gutman always hated each other and from what I've learned there's never been a reconciliation. So the question is: Why is he trying to get Gutman off? I don't know the answer, but it's something you might think about. Employ an old Kabbalistic principle: Look for the hidden cause because the surface is never real."

  He went to Rafi, laid out the case, explained why he thought the worst was yet to come:

  "Okay, Peretz is a fruitcake. But now I think his crazy forger theory is correct. My symposium idea was good, but not that good-it was a shot in the dark, not an airtight trap. So a certain 'friend,' whom Peretz refuses to name, a guy he trusts who stuck with him when times were tough, tips him off there's a killer using his signature and there's going to be an open discussion at the Rubin Academy about what this killer might be like. Naturally Peretz goes. But we don't notice him. He sits there and listens like a normal member of the audience. Then five days later someone in a dark blue van picks up Yael Safir at the Ben Gurion hitching stop, and just about the time she's being killed and dumped I'm meeting a guy named Ephraim Cohen, who just happens to have been a friend of my brother, and who works for one of the covert services, or so he says. Ephraim wants to pass along a tip about Peretz from an unnamed source whom he claims was helping us in that Mossad-owned video truck. So we go after Peretz, he's a logical suspect, and if he hadn't gone to Egypt we might still be trying to break him down. You see, Rafi-it's much too slick. Peretz is tipped off about the symposium, he goes, and then I'm tipped off that he was there."

  "You think this guy, Cohen-?

  "Yeah, I think he's part of it. Wanted me to think he was Mossad, but I checked him out and it turns out he's Shin Bet. Which means his story about passing on a 'tip' from the video technician was bullshit, something he made up to sucker me in."

  "What about the ambush at the zoo? How did they find out that you were onto them?"

  "Our inquiry about Hurwitz-that must have triggered the alarm. When they heard I was asking about their cop-who-didn't-exist, they realized I was getting close. Which means, far as I'm concerned, that they're wired in here too."

  Rafi tensed up. "That's a pretty awful suggestion, David. Hard to go along with it unless you bring me proof."

  "Oh, I'll be bringing you proof, you know that. For now it's just a theory."

  "Awful…"

  "Why resist it? You're always bitching about corruption. Now, faced with the possibility of a really supreme example of official rot, why do you want to turn away?"

  "Look, dammit-!" Rafi was angry.

  "You look! Everyone knows Shin Bet has murdered prisoners. Everyone knows about Mossad assassination squads. A superpatriot like Peretz recruits violent sociopaths to staff out his counter-terror squad. High embassy officials in Washington recruit American Jews to spy on their own government. So how come, when I mention the possibility this thing could reach in here, you suddenly lock up your mind? Why, Rafi? What's so damn sacred about the cops? We're the garbage men, remember. So maybe we stink a little too."

  Rafi sat stiff in his chair. David was glad Sara Dorfman wasn't in the room. "Remember that girl I was going with last fall?"

  "The American shikse. Yeah. I never liked her."

  "She's an agent."

  "They all are."

  "She gets into the sack with people in the cabinet."

  "What's that got to do-?"

  "She tried to warn me off. Said she heard I was up to my ass in something big and that if I kept on the way I was going I could end up getting hurt. I'm telling you, Rafi, this thing feels big, feels like it's getting ready to explode. I'm telling you that, now, up front, and that I don't like being set up for a shoot, and I don't like being shot at, and that I'm following this wherever it goes. There've been murders, innocent people killed, and no matter what the reason turns out to be, it's not going to be anywhere good enough. Not for me."

  "The Righteous Martyr"

  BIG SUR.

  TWO MONTHS BEFORE…

  They'd just rolled away the scaffolding. The enlargers, a crew of Italians from San Francisco, were busy packing up their gear.

  "She's begging now," Rokovsky said.

  "So let her beg," Targov replied.

  "It's so pathetic. I wish you'd relent. Maybe just this once."

  Targov stood, his dogs crouching by his heels, surveying the big sculpture. His second model, the one one-third human scale, was dwarfed now by the full-sized piece.

  He glanced at Rokovsky, so stern and gaunt. Pale and skeletal, he looked his part as homme de confiance. " I know just what she'll say if I let her in: 'So big, Sasha. I had no idea! But perhaps a little grand, don't you think? Not pretentious. The Great Form-Giver could never be! But maybe just a trifle…hmmm… fancy? Grandiose?' "

  "Since you know what she's going to say, what difference does it make?"

  "It brings me down, Tola. I'm feeling really good just now."

  He moved slowly to the large window, trailed by the dogs, then turned back suddenly to confront the work.

  "Big impact," he said. "Good shadows, especially in full light. Very strong, but California light, Pacific light-how much different will the light be there?"

  "We don't know. Not yet. No way to calculate. A couple of days smoothing and it'll be ready for the foundry. By the way, I'm driving up to Palo Alto in the morning. Please make sure the car's gassed up. Better arrange for a truck too, and contact our friends at the Israeli Consulate. I want them to see the piece before it's cast."

  He gazed again at the enormous overpowering thing he'd wrought. He'd never done anything like it, had had no notion such an image had been harbored in his brain. Part human, part abstract, it would rise, "The Righteous Martyr," a black bronze vision from a black basalt pedestal, his signature against the sky.

  At midnight, a pounding on the door. The dogs leapt, then turned to him, their shaggy slobbering faces inquiring whether they should bark. For four months he'd been living in the studio, sleeping on his day bed, eating at his workbench, rarely venturing to the main house. No distractions, just work sixteen hours a day, his only recreation once-a-week fucking sessions with Maureen. Recently she'd taken to dressing up in black silk underwear, then prancing in time to Polish marches while he sat watching from her moldy couch, his cock a cylinder of steel.

  It was Irina. He recognized her style: fierce pounding alternated with whimpers. He went to the door. "All right. I hear you. What do you want?"

  "Can't sleep, Sasha. Why are you so cruel? I want to see it. Please…"

  When it's finished-I told you."

  "Oh, now. Please. Please…"

  Christ! She's impossible! He opened the door, she inserted her foot, and then, when he saw her face, he knew he'd been suckered once again.

  "Not a word," he warned her. "A quick glance from here. Then out! Back to the house! I'm exhausted. I need my sleep."

  She nodded to assure him she agreed and that she understood his artist's temperament. He opened the door all the way and then stepped back. She stared at the sculpture. He stared at her. "It's so big, Sasha. And so-"

  He brought his finger to his lips. "Shut up!"

  She clamped her mouth, then suddenly brought up her hand to shield her eyes. "Oh no!"

  "What's the matter?"

  She was frightened. "The face!"

  "What about it? What?"

  "It's him!"

  "Who?"

  "Sergei, Sasha. Sergei. Just as he was t
hen. But suffering, suffering so, the boot on his neck, his face ground down into the dust…"

  Today Rokovsky was bringing the Israelis-he must greet, present, explain, persuade. He would pay for everything, the casting and the pedestal. But in return he would demand a major site.

  Jerusalem. He had never been there but for weeks he'd poured over photographs and maps. He had a vision of it: capital city of the world, central city, the world's heart. City of martyrs, temples, passions, crucifixions, dreams, redemptions, and now an enormous garden embellished with works of art. He had created "The Righteous Martyr" especially for this place. His journey there, accompanying the work, would be his chance to put the tortured past to rest.

  The Abattoir

  While he groped for the phone Anna turned over and faced the other way.

  "Yeah?" He glanced at his watch. It was a little past 2 A.M.

  "Got him!"

  "What?" As he blinked and tried to clear his brain, David realized he was speaking to Peretz. "Been looking for you. Where've you been?"

  "Got him. One of my old boys. Questioning him all night. Don't think he's going to last."

  David sat up. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Guy who did the killings. So far he's confessed that much. Funny thing though-says he wasn't trying to pin them on me. Seems it was lack of imagination, old habits die hard. He used our old unit signature because he couldn't think up a new one on his own."

  No, that's wrong…

  "… took a lot to get that out of him, and that he was hired, the executioner. Thing is, Bar-Lev, much as he doesn't like the pain, and he doesn't…" Peretz must have turned his receiver to the room, because now David could hear some kind of whimpering in the background. "…still he'd rather suffer than tell me who's behind this and what it's all about."

  "You're crazy!"

  Anna turned and buried her face in her pillow. David cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, got out of bed, and carried the phone into the kitchen.

  "Listen carefully, Peretz. You can't do this by yourself. If he dies on you, you'll be a murderer. Stop right now, tell me where you are, and we'll handle this the proper way."