Pattern crimes

by William Bayer

  "So what are you going to do for me, sonny-boy? Going to get me off?"

  "Can't do that. A reduced charge-maybe. But for that you'll have to trade."

  "Trade? You mean bargain? Your camel for my rug-that sort of thing?"

  "How about your money for my Torah?" For the first time, David saw Gutman grin.

  This, he knew, was the crucial moment, the pivot upon which the interview would turn. Gutman could spill, if indeed he had anything to spill. Or he could tighten up and then it would be useless to try and make him talk.

  They passed a young mother in a red blouse pushing a baby carriage, and then a young man with one leg, tall, tanned, athletic, a Lebanon veteran, walking with crutches, his sweetheart by his side.

  "I want to explain about the Torahs."

  "I'm listening." David gestured toward a bench. Gutman sat down. David sat beside him. Shoshana leaned against a tree.

  "I don't want you to misunderstand. I didn't do it for the money. I never cared about that."

  "So what did you care about?"

  "Religious people. Their stupid halacha. The way they've brought this country to its knees. They're detestable. The Knesset ought to ban them. Fire the rabbis. Outlaw the yarmulke. Cut off their damn earlocks and if they don't like it ship them out." He shook his head. "One day in 1972 one of them, a black-suited black-hatted son-of-a bitch, hit my only daughter, Miriam, with his car. He was a diamond merchant, fifty-two years old. She was nineteen, on leave from the army, a beautiful red-headed kid, eyes so sweet you'd look into them and want to cry. He ran her down, squashed her right there on Malkhe Yisrael, and the bastard didn't even stop. Just drove off with his precious diamonds, and then, when they caught him and put him on trial-no doubt of the outcome; the case was open-and-shut-up pop a dozen of his friends to say he couldn't have been the driver because he was with them in their lernen group interpreting Talmud at the time. Then his lawyer starts in on Miriam like she was some kind of slut, like she practically deserved to be run over for walking in a religious neighborhood, her head provocatively uncovered and her bare legs fanning flames of lust. The prosecutor was a young smart-ass. He didn't prepare himself; they ate him up alive. Then came the verdict. Reasonable doubt, says the judge. No punishment. No damages. The fucker walks out of court, a great big smile on his face. Your father tells you I was 'wronged.' Yeah, I was wronged. Oh yeah! I was wronged!"

  Gutman twisted in his seat. There were tears in his eyes. David glanced at Shoshana; she was staring embarrassed at the ground.

  "Give your father credit, he tried to help. Told me I had to come to terms with what had happened, put it behind me and get on with my life. I listened and I tried but I couldn't do it. My wife was dead. I had nobody left. So that's when I thought up my little vengeance scheme. Pretty pathetic for a hunter, maybe, but for me at my age it wasn't bad…"

  He shifted position, wiped his eyes, tensed himself as if to show them he was strong. "Trade in Judaica. Export the stuff to the diaspora. The scrolls too. I practically gave them away. Anything to get the damn things out of here faster than the damn scribes could write up more. So maybe it was pathetic. Still it satisfied. Every time I sold off some of that crap I felt a little thrill, a little lighter in my heart." He laughed. Now they want to lynch me. A Torah thief-they're crying for my blood. Suppose I say: 'Okay, sorry, judge, I'm remorseful, I won't do it again.' Then what? He gives me four years instead of five?" Gutman looked around. "A day like this, you think what prison could be like. I know I'm going there, and I know that's where I'm going to die."

  David peered at him. This, he decided, was one very strange human being. Gutman was spilling, so far so good. But there was more, there had to be.

  "So tell me, Mister Big-Shot Detective, why do you think Gati's been trying so hard to get me off?"

  "You have something on him."

  A shrewd smile now. "Pretty smart, sonny-boy. Yes, you're pretty smart."

  "Tell me about it?"

  "Maybe I will." He paused. "Funny thing, I kind of like the idea of him being so frantic on my account. Hiring that fancy lawyer Abramsohn for me-yeah, that was nice. Then Abramsohn says I should just keep calm and everything will get worked out. By calm he means silent. But now I'm not so sure. I could get killed in jail, poisoned, or maybe one night someone sneaks in and slits my throat. Anything to silence me, because they don't know what I know. The truth is, I don't know much. Just that there was some kind of accident."

  David stared at him. "What kind?"

  "An accident. How the hell should I know what kind it was? I wasn't there. But I do know that's what they're worried about."

  "Who's worried?"

  "Oh, Gati. Maybe Abramsohn. Maybe some other people too. That's the trouble. I just don't know. I don't know what it means."

  "Where did you hear this?"

  "I heard it."

  "Not enough, Jacob. We already know about the accident. Who? Where? You have to say."

  "In the first place, sonny-boy, I don't have to tell you anything. But suppose I do? Then what happens? They hear I squawked and decide to kill us both. I don't care about myself, but you're Doc Bar-Lev's boy. I wouldn't feel right my dying moment knowing I'd brought that kind of grief on him."

  David peered at him. As much as he wanted to probe he knew it would be a mistake. So they just sat there together in silence until finally Gutman cleared his throat.

  "What happened with our hunters group-now that's an interesting tale. First it was just to talk it through, your father's idea after he became a psychoanalyst. We'd all long since gone on to other things, but there was still something lingering in our hearts. Not guilt exactly, but this awful feeling about having killed so coldly and brutally the way we had. So your father got us together. A reunion, he said. A chance to talk things out. Regular meetings. I looked forward to them, the first Thursday of every month.

  "But then, after we'd been through it all a hundred times, we began to speak of other things. Israel. Her destiny. What should be done. It was around that time, after the Yom Kippur War, that there occurred what we later called 'the split.'

  "I'm not saying up to then we didn't disagree. Gati and I, for instance-we always hated each other's guts. But this new thing went beyond personalities. It had to do with the way we'd each responded to what we'd done. How to put it? There were two completely different ways. Your father's, the way of most of us, that we'd done what we had to do and that that was over for us now. And the smaller faction, Gati's gang, who felt the opposite. They had this idea we should become an avenging knighthood and go back to doing dirty clean-up work. So that was the division: hunters who wanted to live normal lives, and hunters who wanted to hunt some more.

  "After the split we went separate ways. We didn't mix with them and they didn't mix with us. But there were still a few odd contacts, guys who moved back and forth. One of them, Max Rosenfeld, lived in my house on Hananya Street.

  "Max died two and a half months ago. Liver cancer. Started feeling bad, went into the hospital, and three weeks later he was gone. I went to visit him four, five days before the end. He sent for me, said he knew something important about Gati and the rest of them, something he wanted to pass on. He was very sick. He didn't give details. Just said there'd been this accident. Gati was worried about it, all of them were worried, and they were trying desperately to cover it up. He also told me they'd robbed your father's papers, files he'd stored in Herman Blumenthal's garage. He said they'd taken stuff to cover their tracks, because they were going to try and set you up."

  " Me?" David was astonished. "Me personally?"

  "Yeah, you, sonny-boy. Avraham Bar-Lev's Big-Shot Policeman Son. Truthfully, that's all I know. I forgot about it because it didn't mean a thing. But after I got arrested I remembered and sent word to Gati I knew certain stuff, that I needed help, and that if I didn't get it I was going to spill to the police. He was famous. I figured he could pull some strings. Now I see he can't and neither can that fancy
Abramsohn. So now I'm wondering: What's going to happen? Am I going to die in prison? Or, now that I've squawked, is this pretty young police girl here going to trot me off to the delousing van…?"

  He went directly from the park to see his father. No advance call. The old man's embrace was brittle. The stubble of his beard bruised David's cheek.

  "What's the matter? You look unhappy."

  "I didn't come for therapy."

  "I don't do therapy anymore." A pause. "Why did you come?"

  "Which of your papers were stolen?"

  "None. I told you that."

  David glanced at the photos on the table: Gideon in his Air Force uniform smiling, his mother's sad longing eyes meeting his with reproach.

  "Listen, Father, this is difficult to say, but I know you've not been truthful. Dr. Blumenthal never reported the break-in. I checked. And on his deathbed Max Rosenfeld told Gutman that Gati and his faction robbed your files. Which ones? Files on the hunters? I can understand that; Rosenfeld spoke of covering their tracks. But he also said that they were going to try and set me up." Silence. "What files could you have that could possibly help them do a thing like that?"

  Avraham stared at him, then turned away. "I'm sorry…"

  "Never mind that. What did they take?"

  "Remember the concept of the broken vessels…"

  "No Kabbalah, Father, please. This one time just the facts."

  "You want facts. All right. They did take the hunters files, not that that means anything. Everything we did has been common knowledge for years."

  "What else?"

  "That doesn't concern you."

  "Dammit, Father, don't hold out on me. I must know everything. I may be your son, but I'm also a captain of police."

  "Ha! You're going to play the big shot now with me? "

  "Don't lie to me again. Or withhold or shade the truth."

  Just then the window shook: the sonic boom of a fighter crashing across Jerusalem's skies.

  "Would you arrest me? Really?" Avraham's voice now was subdued.

  David lowered his to match. "If I had to-yes," he said.

  The old man winced. The room was steamy. David wiped his brow. A long pause, and then Avraham spoke: "They also took my file on Gideon."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. To hold over me maybe, remind me I'd already lost one son."

  "A warning?"

  "I think so." Avraham squirmed. "If they read that file they know I blame myself."

  "How can you? Gideon was an adult. He made a choice."

  "But what compelled him to make it? I don't know. That's the trouble-he was more difficult and perplexing than any patient I ever had. After he died I lost belief. For thirty-five years I gave people answers. Then, when he killed himself, I started wondering: Was my profession just a fraud?"

  "You helped many people. You can be certain of that."

  "I look around now and I see sickness everywhere."

  The light in the little room was dim but David was certain he saw tears in his father's eyes. He wanted to say something, give the old man comfort, then he knew that the best comfort he could give him would be to give up their struggle and allow him to regain his dignity.

  "I'm sorry I talked to you the way I did. Sometimes I get carried away." He paused. "It's hard, you know, being the big-shot cop. Sometimes even harder than being Dr. Avraham Bar-Lev's son."

  Avraham smiled. "No, you were right. I shouldn't have lied to you. But now I have something more to say." He paused. "This time will you let me tell it my own way?"

  "Of course."

  "An analogy between the broken vessels and your case. The vessels, remember, were unable to contain the powerful light that poured into them, and thus they shattered into a million shards. I believe that's why your case is so important. The forces you are confronting are very powerful. And if you don't separate them, David, they may blow everything apart."

  "You already figured it out, David. You told me before they set you up to go chase after Peretz."

  Anna was lying on their bed, hands behind her head. David stood by the window staring out.

  "Peretz-yes," he said. "But now I think there may have been something more."

  He gazed down upon Jerusalem. In the summer night the lights of the city made a pattern across the valleys and the hills. The Dome of the Rock seemed poised above everything, like a cap holding in the anger boiling out of the maze below.

  "Suppose they were planning to create a case," he said, "a pattern case that would have to be assigned to me. Suppose they deliberately left a trail of killings that they knew would pull me in."

  "But why would anyone want to do that? What could they possibly gain?"

  "Maybe they thought it would seduce me, and then, on account of some personal flaw, I'd botch it and then they could go ahead with whatever it was they'd planned."

  He turned to her. The shadows beneath her arms were pools of darkness. "I wonder…"

  "Yes?"

  "I wonder if they did this so that maybe later on…" He shook his head. "I know this is a bizarre idea, Anna, but suppose they did this so that later they could use me somehow…?"

  He phoned Yehuda Merom at the Ministry of Defense. "Can you get hold of my brother's medical file?"

  "No problem…"

  But later that afternoon, when Yehuda called him back, his voice had lost its confidence.

  "David, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to give you what you want."

  "The file's missing?"

  "Most of it, yes. It'll turn up eventually. Probably it was just misplaced."

  "The psychological portions?"

  "Yes. But, David, how did you know?"

  "It's been almost two years since he crashed. Are the records on a dead pilot kept secure?"

  "They're supposed to be."

  "But not really, right, Yehuda? You had access to them, so other people did too. Any number of people could have removed them. And no one would have noticed because nobody cares once the officer is deceased."

  David was surprised. Israeli generals did not usually retire into luxury. They tended to favor simple farmhouses or the beloved kibbutzim of their youths. Yigal Gati, however, inhabited a penthouse in the most expensive area of the rebuilt Jewish quarter, the complex designed by Moshe Safdie that overlooked the Western Wall.

  The scene below was fascinating as always, but observing it from here David felt detached. So vivid and engaging when seen from out-of-doors, the view seemed dead through Gati's wall of soundproof glass.

  He turned back to the room. The general, sipping from a glass of mineral water, observed him from a sleek gray soft glove-leather couch. Except for a pair of expensive contemporary chairs the large living room was under-furnished and austere. Sets of thick glass shelves recessed in the walls contained a collection of archaeological artifacts. David examined them: superb examples of pottery, papyrus, and ancient coins illuminated by invisible lights. There was a large ornate menorah too, the kind one might have found sixty years before in a wealthy synagogue in Prague. And beside it, in a simple frame, hung a fine small glowing oil painting by Chagall.

  Gati, offering no explanation as to how he had acquired these priceless objects, watched with curiosity as David took them in. Finally, when David sat down, Gati met his eyes.

  "So-nothing can be done. I was afraid of that. Poor Gutman. I had hoped…" He made a gesture to show he understood the inexorable processes of the law.

  "Still," David said, "we have loose ends. Gutman's case, it turns out, is not as simple as we thought."

  "Oh? I thought you found the Torahs in his apartment."

  "Yes. But now it's not the scrolls that interest us."

  "What then?"

  "Collateral aspects. Certain statements the man has made. He's a strange fellow, clear one moment, barely rational the next. He sees us alternatively as friends and persecutors. In his paranoid phases he sometimes says the most extraordinary things."

 
"Such as?"

  "Well, for one thing, he hints at knowledge of inflammatory facts."

  "Is this what you've come to tell me?" Gati was studying him with the same cool evaluating gaze he'd employed on his unexpected visit to Abu Tor. "You have something to say, David, go ahead and say it."

  David nodded. "I know now why you came to see me, even though you always hated Gutman's guts."

  "Why did I come?"

  "You were afraid he'd talk."

  Gati didn't wince or blink or exhibit any other symptom of stress. "What could he say, that crazy old man?"

  "He had plenty to say about you. Including the fact that you'd been recognized leaving the scene of a certain unreported accident."

  Gati laughed. "Ever since his daughter was killed, Gutman's had accidents on the brain." He continued to gaze at David. Then, after a long silence, he shook his head. "You're bluffing. And what's more, you know I know you are." He stood up, went to the huge window, stared out, then turned. "Tell me-what do you really want?"

  "Since you ask so bluntly, I'd like to see you without your mask."

  "An honest man. You're not like your father. I always found him a little…oblique."

  "And my brother? Do I remind you of him?"

  "No. Not at all. He was a completely different type. Extremely talented, perhaps the most effective pilot I ever had in my command. But he was a coward killing himself the way he did. Not that there's anything wrong with suicide. In appropriate circumstances it can be honorable. The zealots of Masada; that Japanese guy, Mishima; Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment. But your brother…look, if he wanted to take his own life, okay. But a single bullet would have done the job. To destroy a perfectly magnificent aircraft in the process -I'm sorry, I lose sympathy. I don't respect grandiose gestures designed to distract attention from-and let's be honest now-unsavory personal flaws."

  Gati seemed actually to froth as he said this. Now he stood in a defiant posture as if challenging David to mount a physical assault.

  "I notice something about you, general."

  "Yes?"

  "You like to stand in front of windows when you talk."

  Gati grinned. "Not a bad observation. Though I'd have hoped for better from the 'best detective in all of Israel.' " He shrugged. "Anyway, since I'm standing here, let me say a few words about the view." He turned his back, stood at parade rest, and stared out as he had done in front of David's window in Abu Tor.