Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  “Inspector,” Tawil called from the front seat where he had leaned in on an almost impossible angle. “I think ... I found . . . something. Yes,” he finished, and wormed his way back through the passenger door.

  Ben’s eyes signaled Danielle to take over the watch, while he turned toward Tawil and accepted something he was holding out.

  “It was squeezed between the console and the driver’s seat.”

  “A valet parking ticket,” Ben noted, and then he held it out toward Danielle. “From the Hilton in Tel Aviv, Pakad. Now what do you make of that?”

  * * * *

  Chapter 27

  T

  hey left Tawil to drive the BMW back to Jericho, and headed for Tel Aviv. Back in Jericho, they exchanged Ben’s car for Danielle’s, since his orange Palestinian police license plates did not allow for passage into any part of Israel other than Jerusalem.

  She decided to tell him what she had learned from her father the night before after they cleared the final Israeli checkpoint.

  “There’s something you need to know.”

  He turned slowly and looked at her, the urgency clear in her tone.

  “We didn’t kill your father, Ben.”

  His expression was utterly blank, no response beyond that.

  “Not the government, anyway,” Danielle continued.

  “I know,” Ben said finally. “I think I always have.”

  “How?”

  “A sniper’s bullet would have been the Israeli method, not a clumsy ambush.”

  “Like the Palestinian bullet that destroyed my father?” Danielle challenged. “A man like your father, on the other hand, would have had much more value to us as a prisoner, even back then. We like to make examples, not martyrs.”

  Ben felt a heaviness in his throat. “I appreciate you looking into things for me.”

  “I did it for both of us.”

  The drive to Tel Aviv from Jericho took ninety minutes in normal traffic and, despite his excitement over a major break in the case, Ben found himself lapsing into uneasy silence the last stretch of the way. He had never been to Tel Aviv before, never been so deep into the heart of Israel. Jerusalem was different. Jerusalem was the world’s city, whether the Israelis wanted to believe it or not. The only Palestinians found in Tel Aviv were the ones still lucky enough to hold down jobs, a rigorous undertaking since recent security precautions required them to be at checkpoints between three and three-thirty in the morning to be assured of passage through by six.

  If Ben hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was back in the United States. That’s what Tel Aviv looked like to him, an American city. Danielle swooped her car around the Hilton entrance and left it in a no-parking zone beneath the overhang. She flashed her ID badge to an approaching attendant and then led Ben into the lobby. He could barely keep up with her, instantly aware of the stares drawn by his Palestinian police uniform, although he had left his gun locked in the trunk of the car.

  Danielle marched straight to the registration desk and showed the ID badge again. A female clerk fetched the assistant manager for her.

  “What can I do for you, Pakad?”

  She slid the parking ticket, encased in clear plastic, across the marble counter. “My partner and I,” she made a point of saying, “would like to know the name of the man who rented this car. Please do not remove the ticket from the bag.”

  The assistant manager grabbed it by the edges, as if afraid of disturbing the contents. He slid over to a computer, typed in some commands, waited, then typed in some more.

  “The guest’s name is Harvey Fayles from New York City. He was scheduled to stay with us Sunday and Monday nights with a Tuesday checkout. We have no record of that checkout, and the car rental agency has reported the car missing. Have you found it?”

  “Yes, and it is now in police custody,” Danielle answered, not bothering to add that the BMW was in Palestinian police custody. “You can tell the agency it will be missing a little longer.”

  “Has something happened to Mr. Fayles?”

  “We’re not sure. We found only the car. We would like his address, credit card number, any other information you can give us.”

  The assistant manager wrote the information down carefully on a slip of Hilton stationery and handed it across the desk. Danielle accepted it, keeping her eyes on the man.

  “You will find out for us if anyone remembers seeing Mr. Fayles during the time he was here. A maid, perhaps, or someone in the bar. Maybe the parking valet who delivered his car.”

  The assistant manager was writing it all down. “Of course.”

  “And we will want to know what time he picked up his car on Sunday night. We will want to know that immediately.”

  “I’ll get right on it, Pakad.”

  The man disappeared into a back office. Ben slipped over next to Danielle and looked at the information on Harvey Fayles the assistant manager had given her.

  “Can I see that for a moment?”

  She slid the Hilton memo sheet in front of him. He read the address and snatched up the paper.

  “Let’s make a phone call,” Ben said, and then led the way to a bank of phones tucked into an alcove within sight of the front desk.

  “Hello,” Ben greeted when the line was answered. “Mr. Harvey Fayles, please . . . Yes, I see. I’m sorry. When? . . . He was so young—how old did you say? . . . I’m sorry to have bothered you . . . We were friends, you see. Again, I am sorry.” He replaced the receiver.

  “I heard a woman’s voice,” Danielle remarked.

  “Mr. Fayles’s wife.”

  “Did she already know? It sounded like she already knew.”

  “About her husband’s death? She certainly did. You see, she was at the funeral—six years ago.”

  * * * *

  H

  ow did you know?” Danielle asked, after the information had sunk in.

  “I know New York City fairly well, from a stint I did with their Crime Scene Unit. That address the manager gave us is in a black neighborhood. The murder victim was Caucasian.”

  “You’re saying that he must have assumed Fayles’s identity. That’s why you asked the wife about his age.”

  “Forty-two. Definitely within my medical examiner’s estimate for the victim. It’s a common practice, you know, easy to pull off in the United States. Find someone about your age who is dead and report to the appropriate hall of records to say you need a copy of your birth certificate, actually theirs. Simple as that, you can become someone else.”

  “I’m well acquainted with the procedure,” Danielle continued, as they made their way through the lobby. “And usually, to avoid complications, the subject chooses someone who died as an infant instead.”

  “But this man didn’t care about developing a superior alias, because he must not have planned on staying Harvey Fayles very long.”

  “A throwaway identity, then. Use a few times and then discard.”

  “So if al-Diib’s latest murder victim isn’t Harvey Fayles, who is he?”

  * * * *

  A

  ccording to the assistant manager, the mustard-color BMW had been delivered for the last time at ten p.m. Sunday to a man meeting a description similar to the one given by the Jericho resident who had rented out his driveway somewhere around two hours later. The passage of time couldn’t have been more perfect. Since the man calling himself Harvey Fayles had driven to the West Bank, with luck there would be a record of his car passing through at least one of the Israeli checkpoints.

  Danielle next made arrangements to inspect the room the man calling himself Harvey Fayles had been staying in. A security guard accompanied her and Ben upstairs and took up a post in the hallway after letting them inside. The large room was located on the hotel’s concierge level and overlooked the pool. The bed was made and no personal belongings were in plain view. A suitcase and a tote bag lay in the closet, a pair of suits hanging above them. A toilet kit with its articles neatly p
acked rested on the bathroom counter. Danielle checked its contents, while Ben fished through the tote bag and then laid the suitcase across the bed.

  “Mouthwash, toothpaste, aftershave,” she said, emerging from the bathroom just as he was finishing. “In other words, nothing.”

  “Nothing here either,” Ben said, the suitcase still open before him.

  “We should check the room for fingerprints. See if they match those of the victim. I’ll see to it.”

  Ben nodded, though he didn’t see the need. In his mind they had found the man they were looking for. He checked the suitcase’s inner compartments and found them empty, while Danielle busied herself with the drawers of a large bureau. As she opened the second, Ben watched her eyes widen in expectation. Her hand reached in delicately and emerged holding a torn and tattered envelope. She regarded it briefly and then held it out to him.

  “Have a look at this.”

  The envelope’s stamps were already canceled. The top had been clumsily torn open and the flap was missing altogether. Ben studied the typewritten address:

  Max Peacock

  1100 AMsterdam Avenue

  New York, NY 93097

  “You think this Max Peacock is an associate of Harvey Fayles?” Danielle asked him.

  “Either that or it’s another one of Fayles’s fake identities.”

  “If only we knew what had been inside.”

  Ben eased it into his right jacket pocket. “I have some police acquaintances in New York. At the very least, we’ll be able to get a full report on that address.”

  “I thought you knew New York.”

  “Not that part of Amsterdam Avenue, I don’t.”

  “How long will it take for them to get back to you?”

  “Long enough for me to find that boy I think witnessed the killing.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 28

  B

  en hadbeen hopingRadji’s sisterwould beat thegate ofthe Einissultan refugee camp in Jericho to greet him again, but he wasn’t that lucky. The unrest in Jalazon and some of the other camps had led to a clamping down here too, in the form of an increased presence of Palestinian paramilitary militiamen patrolling along the makeshift avenues. Danielle had dropped him back in Jericho, then returned to Tel Aviv to follow up the Harvey Fayles lead as far as it went.

  “How can I be of service?” the camp commander asked, after Ben had been escorted to his office.

  “I was here on Monday.”

  The camp commander looked more closely at him, focusing on his uniform. “Oh, yes. The policeman who entered against the advice of my guards. Please accept my apologies, officer . . .”

  “Inspector.”

  “You see, Monday was a difficult day. Things had already begun to simmer in Jalazon, Balata, Tukarem ...”

  “I visited Jalazon yesterday.”

  “Then you understand why my men were frightened. I suspended their patrols and kept them on the perimeter. I only wish I had been here when the . . . incident involving you occurred.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “If there’s a way I can make it up to you, Inspector.”

  “Help me today.”

  “Anything I can do, please.”

  “There was a young woman who helped me, shielded me in the end. I don’t know her name, but I need to speak with her again. If you could help me find her.”

  “An easy task, Inspector. I know the woman you are speaking of; everyone here does. Some forms regarding her just crossed my desk yesterday.”

  “Forms?”

  “I’m afraid she was beaten rather badly. She’s in the infirmary. Please allow me to take you there.”

  * * * *

  T

  he camp infirmary was a corrugated tin hotbox laid out like a barracks. Ben heard the moans as soon as the commander parted the canvas entry flap and led him inside. He walked ahead of Ben between the twin rows of narrow cots layered with bodies roasting in the heat. The air hung thick and motionless, and Ben found himself feeling slightly light-headed in the midst of the oppressive temperature and rank smells.

  He waited while the commander spoke to one of the attendants on duty and watched her point out a bed further down the endless row on the left. The commander waved Ben forward.

  “She regained consciousness late last night, and has been improving steadily today. The prognosis is favorable.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Zahira is the one she gave us.”

  Ben continued on past him. The floor was moist, causing his shoes to squeak against it. The light in the tin infirmary came only from scattered bulbs dangling from the ceiling, hanging motionless, their beams as dead as the air. He stopped before the cot the commander had indicated.

  Zahira’s face was purple and swollen. One eye was closed, the other a mere slit. Her nose had been flattened, what remained of it covered by a bandage. She was breathing noisily and Ben could see some of her front teeth were missing. Her lips were raw flesh, pulp. She opened her good eye and recognized Ben. He thought she tried to smile, the effort quickly giving way to a grimace.

  Ben came closer, brushing against a wooden clipboard that hung from the end of her cot.

  “Hello, cop,” she muttered.

  “Who did this to you?”

  She tried to wet what remained of her lips with her tongue. “Does it matter?”

  “Then why was it done?”

  Zahira said nothing.

  “It was me, wasn’t it?”

  If she could have, she might have shrugged. “They didn’t take too kindly to me helping you.”

  “They . . .”

  “Actually, it was a he. Worse thing was, I let him see that it hurt, so he enjoyed it even more.”

  “Who?”

  “I want a cigarette.”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “It figures.” She grimaced, squeezing back the pain.

  Ben crouched down beside her. One of her hands, looking anomalously young and clean, dangled weightlessly from the bed and he took it in both of his. “We need to talk again.”

  She tried to laugh. “Haven’t caused enough damage yet, cop?”

  “Your brother’s life is in danger.”

  “It comes with being Palestinian.”

  “Another witness is already dead, maybe because of what she saw. I found her too late. I don’t want to make the same mistake with Radji.”

  “Why are they killing witnesses?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  “You going to save my brother from them?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  He felt her hand squeeze one of his. “If I say I witnessed the murder, would you save me?”

  “Zahira—”

  “Tell me what you want me to say. Tell me what I was supposed to have seen, who you want to have done it. Just promise you’ll get me out of this place.”

  “This was my fault ...”

  “Would have happened anyway.” She dry-swallowed air. “I don’t do what the ones who run this camp want me to.”

  “The one who did this, he is one of them?”

  “Head of the local assholes association. I’d spit on him if I could move my lips.”

  “I’m going to make sure you get better care.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Soon as I’m out he’ll do it again. Just for fun.”

  “Tell me where I can find your brother, Zahira. Tell me where I can find Radji.”

  The half eye he could see drifted upward, tearing. “I told him to watch his mouth, to behave. I told him the outside was even worse. He wouldn’t listen, wasn’t even sorry when they threw him out.”

  “Where would he have gone?”

  “Where all the young musharedeen go: Jerusalem, the Slave Market. See what they can steal in the day, sell in the night. I’ve been there, cop. You won’t like it.”

  “How will I know him, recognize him?”

  “They all look alike. But Radji has a front toot
h missing. The left one. Courtesy of the guards.”

  Ben started to stand up. Zahira clung to his hand. “You’ll come back?”

  “When you’re better.”