"Listen," Targov said, "I don't want to sound paternal but you're good for her. I see that. She's blooming here. She needed your kind of strength."
"Thank you for saying that," the detective said. "I appreciate-"
"Ah, but here she comes. She wants to show me things. You're coming with us of course?"
The detective shook his head. "I think you two should speak Russian for a while." He bent to kiss Anna, then offered Targov his hand. Again Targov noticed the quizzical searching look. "Please call if you need anything."
"Yes, I will," Targov said.
Somehow he managed to climb the Mount of Olives. She led him by his hand up a steep path of broken rocks between walls that guarded the ancient graves. He panted. In Big Sur he regularly prowled the forest but here the heat was punishing. When they reached the top he looked back across the valley at Mount Moriah bathed in golden light.
"Why?" she asked him.
He turned to her. Her eyes had caught the sun, now reminded him of the color of the Kremlin's walls.
"I thought I was finished. Then suddenly it came. My best work. Perhaps my last…"
She shook her head. "I know you, Sasha. You didn't travel eight thousand miles just to see a ribbon cut."
He studied her. She did not blink or turn away. "Yes," he admitted, "the sculpture is only part of it."
"And the rest?"
"There is a settlement to be made."
"What kind of settlement?"
He spread his arms. "What else? My life."
"So it has nothing to do with me?" she asked him later, as they sat in the backroom of a tea shop on sweltering Ben Yehuda. Outside a juggler was entertaining a small crowd. Across the pedestrian mall a seedy violinist was scratching out a rhapsody for tourists.
"Nothing. But I'm very glad to see you."
"Tell me why you've come."
He paused. "Call it redemption. A year ago on my birthday I had a dream. A man shot at me. He missed."
"Well?"
"Perhaps next time he won't. Then there'll be repercussions. Yes, I think there will."
She stared at him. "I must tell you, Sasha, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Better that way. Listen, I'm here and I have many things to do. To see you was the most pleasant of them. You could have been my daughter. God, how I wish…"
Later, nervously pacing his apartment, he received Rokovsky's call. The freighter had been delayed three days. Meantime, bad news: Irina was on her way.
"What?"
"She's flying in day after tomorrow. There was a rambling cable at the hotel. I phoned to try and stop her, but Bianca said she'd left. She's in New York someplace, unreachable."
"Bitch!" She'll ruin everything.
"I can't think how you can keep her out."
"All right, she wants to come, be a pest, share in the glory-fine. Meantime, I have a confidential mission and it must be accomplished before she arrives. Find Sokolov. When you locate him, and remember you're searching on your behalf not mine, call me back and give me the address. Under no circumstances, Tola, are you to go near him, or tell Irina anything, you understand? When she comes your job is to keep her away from me. Tie her up in knots."
A short silence while Rokovsky, accustomed to fulfilling unexplained requests, pondered a solution.
"Perhaps she might enjoy a trip to the Galilee," he finally said.
"A MAN WHO HAS BEEN WRONGED"
Everyone in the Russian Compound knew that Pattern Crimes was in disgrace. Cops who'd envied David his status as favorite son of Rafi's CID, greeted him with hypocritical commiseration, while real friends stopped him in the corridors to tell him he'd been handed a rotten deal.
One day in the men's room he over-heard himself discussed. A pair of middle-aged narcotics detectives were pounding on the coffee machine just outside the door:
"He's a terrific detective," said the first, "but he's got this complex-he's going to save us all."
"Yeah," said the second, "it's not enough for him to investigate. David has to understand."
He watched his people carefully. Each reacted in his own way. Uri Schuster per-formed isometric exercises while gazing sullenly into space. Micha made inefficient busywork with the files while Dov braved his gloom by striding aggressively up and down the halls. Only Shoshana seemed unperturbed. She wore the preoccupied look of a detective puzzling out a baffling case. She's onto something, David thought. He decided to leave her alone. Whatever it was she would play with it until she dropped it or brought it in.
Sarah Dorfman was kind; she took Rebecca Marcus out to a concert. Then, three days after David's dismissal from the case, Rafi summoned him into his office, dispatched Sarah on an errand, then rose and closed the door.
"You're angry with me. I can tell by your expression. You think I should have fought harder on your behalf." Not true, of course, but David said nothing; his father had taught him to allow guilty-feeling people to express their guilt. "… but don't forget: that kind of loyalty has to be reciprocal. If you'd consulted me first, I'd have backed you up no matter what. But you moved in on your own, and went too far. I did the best I could for you. I'm sorry you feel betrayed."
Rafi lit his pipe, then mumbled something about having David and Anna over for dinner. But then, with no date set, the invitation hung between them awkwardly.
The next evening, when David came home, he found a strange assortment of flowers on the windowsill, bizarre epiphytic orchids with oblong ruffled pink-veined leaves.
"From Rafi," Anna explained. "He even sent the vase."
He began to leave the office early to take long walks in the city. His hope was that this exercise would work off his malaise. But these walks made him feel sorrowful. Jerusalem resisted his advances. The city remained elusive, evading his attempts to read her pattern, understand her grand design.
He started to revisit places he remembered from his youth, streets where long ago he and Gideon had walked or ridden bikes. Memories of his brother haunted him; he couldn't understand why. Then one evening he found himself just outside his father's door.
He didn't knock, simply stood outside in the gloom listening to the commotion within. A quarrel was taking place. The words were indecipherable. A woman whose voice he didn't recognize was carrying on hysterically and his father was responding with angry words. Thenthere was quiet, then whispers, then weeping again. Fascinated and embarrassed, David hurried down the stairs. In the alley he paused to stare up at the window. Then he rushed back through Me'a Shearim, past storekeepers pulling down their roller blinds, to the bright lights of Jaffa Road.
That night he told Anna about the incident. "Who could it have been? I know this sounds stupid but it never occurred to me that he still has a private life. I always think of him brooding at home alone, and then, when I catch him in an emotional scene, I wonder: Do I really understand him? Do I know anything about him? Oh, Anna, why do I feel so out of touch?"
She said she thought it was his case-that having been deprived of it so suddenly, it was impossible for him not to feel lost.
"Sure," he said, "that's why I started taking walks. But they've only made me feel worse. Things come back, bits and pieces of the past. The more I walk the more morose I get."
"Tell me."
"I've been thinking of Gideon. I suppose it's because of Ephraim Cohen and Peretz. Just this evening I had an idea-that somehow he took upon himself all the problems we should have shared. That he absorbed all the pathology in our family, took on all the abuse. And that now, because he did, I'm walking around alive."
"What pathology?"
"The thing our parents generated. The web they wove around us from which we had to struggle free."
"You think Gideon…?"
"He took it all upon himself, Anna. And by doing that he left me free to become a sane adult."
They went out for a walk late one afternoon along the wall that ran along the western edge of the Old City. They walked sil
ently until they reached the Jaffa Gate. Then Anna turned to him and spoke:
"I love it here, David. I don't know why. I'm not religious but I'm stirred. There's no river, no harbor, but I love it anyway. The city covering the hills like a carpet. The long shadows of people by the walls. Oh, David, it's your place, your city. This magic city-made-of stones…"
Early Saturday morning he drove to Haifa, arriving at the Raskov house at ten o'clock. It was an extremely large house in Central Carmel, modern, flat-roofed, and sprawling, with a fine view of the harbor below.
A Druse woman opened the door. No sign of Judith or Joe. "I'm Captain Bar-Lev," David said to her in Arabic.
The woman nodded. "Please wait. Hagith will be right down."
From the stoop David looked around. The lawn was perfectly manicured, and there were two shiny Mercedes-Benz automobiles parked beside the house. The trunk door of one had been left open exposing tennis rackets, an expensive set of golf clubs, a pair of snorkeling flippers and a breathing tube.
Hagith's face reminded David of Gideon's, but her gestures were reminiscent of Judith. On the drive up to Tiberias, they talked about her schoolwork, her teachers, her friends, carefully skirting details of her life at home.
"Anna and I want you to stay with us," he said. "For a week, or longer if you like, and your mother approves." Hagith didn't answer. "Don't you miss Jerusalem? Do you remember it? It's been almost a year since you came up to visit."
"Yes, I remember," she said. And then she started to cry.
"Darling! What's the matter?" He pulled the car over to the side of the road. "Why are you upset? Is it something I said? Please tell me so I can help."
"I want to visit," she said. "I miss you and grandfather very much."
"We miss you too. That's nothing to cry about."
"Joe won't let me come," she said.
"What do you mean, he won't let you? Why not, darling?"
"He says people will try and kidnap me so they can get his money."
The crude son-of-a-bitch! He fought hard to control his fury. "Listen, Hagith-it doesn't matter what Joe says. Doesn't matter at all. A visit to Jerusalem is between you, me, and your mother-and nobody else."
"I don't like him," she said suddenly. "His breath smells bad." She threw herself sobbing across David's lap. He petted her splayed hair while explaining that no matter where she lived, he, David, would always love her and would always be her daddy. But even as he said all of this he couldn't help but be aware of a surge of joy inside. She hates Joe Raskov, hates the smell of his breath! She still my daughter! Suddenly he felt better than he had in weeks.
"I've been thinking about Anna and her problem playing Mendelssohn," his father said.
"Yes?"
"Mendelssohn was a Jewish composer."
"So…?"
"So that could be significant. She's having trouble with a Jew."
"You think she's having trouble with me, father?"
"Maybe. Of course this is only a suggestion, David, but perhaps it would be helpful if you would both examine that."
When he glanced up Shoshana's supple body filled the doorway. She shook her glossy curls and grinned.
"So here you are," he said.
"I know you've been waiting for me."
He motioned her to a chair. She sat and crossed her arms. "Nine days ago you sent me to catch Amit Nissim. I told you what happened-she couldn't describe the scary bearded man any better than she had for you. So I thought: Okay, I'll keep in touch, she knows something, she's the only one who does, she may be only six years old but right now she's all we've got. Every afternoon I've been dropping by the school just when they let the kids go loose. Amit sees me, runs over, we give each other a hug, then we walk a couple blocks, I buy her an orange, we talk, about police work, this and that, then I pat her on her fanny and send her home.
"I like her. She looks up to me, says she wants to join the force when she grows up. But I'm not spending my time with a six-year-old because I need my ego massaged. I figure she's seen this scary bearded guy once, maybe she'll see him again. Every time we meet I ask her if she has, and she shakes her head and promises she'll tell me if she does.
"Okay, two days ago we go through it again. No, she hasn't seen him, so we go on to something else. Then, out of the blue, she says: 'I saw the other one.' 'Who?' 'The other one,' she says-which just about freaks me out. Turns out, to please me she's been sitting with her parents watching all the grown-up shows. And on one of them, a discussion program a week ago, she recognized another of the three men from the van. Not the scary bearded one, and not the guy who was hurt. But the third man who, with the beard, helped the injured guy limp away. Can she describe him? A little. He had gray hair, sharp eyes, and acted very proud. Since that fits just about every Israeli TV panelist I've ever seen, I asked the broadcast people for a list. It wasn't long. I found pictures of most of the men in old newspapers and magazines. I compiled a little scrapbook and this afternoon I showed it to Amit. She examined every face, then fingered one of them. You know, David, she's been an excellent witness, and so far she's been on the button every time."
Shoshana placed her scrapbook on his desk. He turned the pages: party leaders, former cabinet ministers, public personalities from business and the arts. When he reached an old newspaper photo of General Yigal Gati, Shoshana clicked her teeth.
He glanced up at her. "Him?"
Her eyes were flashing. "Yup."
He leaned back, thrilled. Pieces were finally clicking into place.
"You know, Shoshana, you've become one damn fine detective after all."
"Thanks. And now I suppose you'll take this into Rafi since, of course, it's not our case anymore. I hear the new team's discrediting all our work. Dov says they don't even care about the accident. So they'll probably discount this too."
He touched the scar on his cheek. "Fuck them," he said.
"Right! Fuck them!" She laughed. "What are we going to do?"
He leaned forward. "I want you to check up on our old friend Gutman, the Torah thief. He's been in the lock-up awhile. Maybe that prosecutor, Netzer, wouldn't mind if you took him out for a little walk."
"Gutman?" She squinted at him.
"Yeah. Don't you think he could use some air?"
"Is there some connection between him and General Gati?"
"Talk to Netzer, Shoshana. We need old Gutman. So when you go in use all your charms."
Late that afternoon she brought Gutman to where he waited beside the Jean Arp sculpture on the western edge of Independence Park. It had been a magical Jerusalem day, the sky deep blue, the dry air fragrant with decaying lilac blossoms. Now Arp's three vertical steel waves stood like profiles of gigantic women, silver silhouettes against the dense summer greenery.
Gutman had aged since the night of his arrest. He'd lost weight, his skin was pale, and he blinked like a man not used to being out in natural light.
"So it's you." When he saw David he lifted his eyebrows. "For this they let me loose?"
"You're not loose," David replied.
"Oh? More Gestapo torture. I get it now." Gutman enlarged his eyes. "Bring the old Jew out of Bergen-Belsen, let him breathe, then send him quick to the delousing van."
David knew Gutman was a shrewd old crook and that his indignant persecution talk was merely rhetoric. But he found the Nazi references troubling. They were bad enough coming from Arabs, but when a Jew used them they were calculated to injure and infuriate.
"Let's call this a short reprieve."
"Just how damn short is it going to be?"
"Depends on you."
"Do I have to read your mind?"
"Okay, Jacob, let's take a little walk."
He gestured for Shoshana to follow, then guided Gutman up King George toward the offices of the Chief Rabbinate.
"How's your father?" A moderate tone now, as if Gutman had decided to behave like a normal person for a while.
"You should have told me
you knew him."
"And embarrass you?"
"I wouldn't have been embarrassed."
"Oh? So you like to arrest your father's friends?"
The harsh defensive tone again; David ignored it. "You recognized me. Tell me how."
"I knew you when you were a kid. I've seen you a few times since. People point you out: 'Hey, there goes young Bar-Lev, nice boy.' See, David, you're not old enough yet. Later your face will change. Your true cop-type character will assert itself."
They passed Stein's Bookstore. Through the window David saw an old man in a skullcap moving languidly among stacks of moldy second-hand Hebrew and German books. Ahead, grenade screens guarded the entrance to the Jewish Agency. Bands of razor wire caught the sun.
"I haven't seen your father in years. Or many of the others."
"The hunters."
Gutman glanced at him. "What did he tell you?"
"Nothing. It's the one thing about which he's never said a word."
"Didn't he say anything about me?"
"Yes. He said you were a man who had been 'wronged.' "
Gutman smiled. "Still, you knew I'd been a hunter?"
"Yigal Gati told me. He came around one day."
"Hmmm. This is interesting. Tell me more."
"I didn't like him much. Pushy kind of guy."
"He always was. A good commander but no compassion, none at all."
"Yes," said David, "I know what you mean. A real first-class Israeli prick."
Suddenly Gutman stopped. He turned to David. There was fear in his eyes and wariness too. "What are you telling me?"
"That Gati's not doing you any good. That if you want help with your difficulties, Gati's not your man."
"So who is my man? You?"
"Calm down. Let's go into the park. It's nice and cool down there."
He glanced back at Shoshana, then guided Gutman off King George. As they descended by a footpath and entered the trees, the sounds of Jerusalem traffic faded away.
Pattern crimes Page 20
