"Is that your son?" I asked, pointing at the picture.
A shadow passed over Navon's face. "That's Mickey, God rest his soul. A month before he died. A heart condition."
"I'm so sorry," I said. "When did he die? How old was he?"
"Mickey died on the first of December, 1945. He was four years old."
I thought about calling the police and probably would have if the garage had a telephone. As I stepped out into the street, however, I changed my mind and started running instead. If this was indeed part of some game, I needed to reach Leon Zilberman's apartment before anyone else. I dreaded what I would find there.
I caught a taxi at the corner and told the driver to step on it. I drummed my fingers on the seat, barely registering the sights of Tel Aviv streaming past my window.
When I got to Zilberman's building, I raced up the stairs to his apartment. The door was closed but unlocked. Leon Zilberman was in the living room.
He lay facedown on the floor, three stab wounds in his back, his shirt soaked with blood. He was quite clearly dead.
Draped over a chair was a suit of medieval clothes, the outfit worn by Zilberman in King Lear. On the dining table lay a piece of paper weighted down by a thimble and a roll of black sewing thread. A message was scrawled in a feminine hand.
Noble knight, meet me at the theater. V.
I sprinted down the stairs, out of the building, south to Sirkin Street, and east to Frishman. No taxis were around. Cursing in a medley of languages, I ran east, my feet pounding the pavement almost as fast as my heart pounded against my breastbone.
The day was scorching hot, and my face dripped with sweat. People jumped out of my way, giving me wary or angry looks, one or two shouting curses. A young mother pushing a baby stroller yelled at me to watch out. As I streaked past her, I heard her baby wailing, woken by his mother's yell.
I cut south to Dizengoff Square and finally caught a taxi. I threw myself into the backseat.
"Balfour Street..." I wheezed out, short of breath from my run. "Ohel Shem."
It took fifteen minutes, but it felt like fifteen hours. When the taxi stopped, I threw money at the driver, not waiting for change. Then I hurled the door open and hurtled out and up the steps and into the lobby of Ohel Shem.
There I paused, unsure of where to go. To Varda's room or up the stairs to the theater hall?
If this was a game or, better yet, a play, then there was only one place suited for the final scene.
I took the stairs three at a time and rushed into the theater hall. Then I stopped dead, rendered immobile by what I was seeing. As in my previous two visits, Isser Rotner was on stage. Only this time, he wasn't standing and he wasn't alone.
Rotner was on his knees, and behind him—one hand coiled into his hair, the other holding a long-bladed knife to his throat—was Varda Navon. A sheen of perspiration covered Rotner's face. His expression was one of pure dread. He was bleeding from one bicep. His other hand tried to stem the flow of blood.
"Did you get my note, Adam?" Varda called from the stage.
"Yes," I said, breaking free of my paralysis. I walked forward slowly, keeping my hands raised to show they were empty.
"It's good that you didn't dawdle. We don't have much time before the rest of the actors arrive to prepare for this evening's performance. I was worried we might have to proceed without you."
"I came here as soon as I could, Varda."
"Are you alone? Or are the police here as well?"
"I'm all by myself. I didn't think it would do any good to call the police."
"You're right, it wouldn't. That's how tragedies work. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you can't escape your destiny."
I was three rows from the stage by now. "Can I come up, Varda?"
"By all means. But stay back. If you try anything, I'll slit his throat."
I climbed on the stage, keeping a distance of twelve feet between myself and Varda and her captive.
"Are you all right, Mr. Rotner?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, his voice scratchy with pain and fear. "You gotta help me. She's insane. She's—"
"Shut your mouth," Varda said, yanking on Rotner's hair. "I'm the director here, not you."
She sounded calm and collected. This wasn't a woman gripped by maniacal rage. Not a killer driven by uncontrolled urges. This was a mastermind, on the verge of seeing her long and carefully executed campaign of vengeance come to its successful end.
Her face was drawn, her eyes heavy with fatigue. She had been in control for twelve years. She had acted without cease. She had kept a mask on her face even as she spent day after day servicing the people she hated with all her might. No wonder she was exhausted.
"I met your husband," I said. "It was quite clever, telling him I was writing a play. But not as clever as how you used him and his work for the Irgun to get alibis for yourself."
She smiled. "That was ingenious, wasn't it?"
I nodded. "Your husband was engaged in an operation on each of the nights Dattner, Ornstein, and Anna were killed. As these operations took place when the British still ruled here, you and he agreed that if anyone came asking, you'd swear he was with you at home during those nights. It would give him an alibi if the British suspected him, and, as a byproduct, furnish you with one as well—for the deaths of your colleagues."
"Not my colleagues," she said, with an edge of anger. "They were actors. I am not."
"Not on stage, maybe. But you're the best actress to have ever worked in Shoresh Theater. Better even than Dahlia Rotner. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to fool everyone for as long as you did."
This seemed to please her, but her knife remained steady. She could slash Rotner's throat in a heartbeat.
"You knew about Eliezer Dattner's lover," I said, "so you ambushed him in Jaffa, knowing the murder would be attributed to an Arab. The pamphlet you left in his mouth made sure of that."
"You should have seen Eliezer's face when I came out of the shadows with a gun in my hand," Varda said. "It was glorious. Before that, I wasn't sure I had it in me. To kill someone, I mean. Afterward, I knew I could do it again and again. I could get them all."
"Ornstein was next. How did you do it?"
"I came to his apartment supposedly to make alterations in the outfit he wore for the play the theater was running then. I whacked him across the back of the head with a pipe, got him naked, hauled him into the bathtub, and held his head under water until he died. I made sure it would look like he had an accident due to his drug use."
"I thought it was something like that. I should have figured it out earlier. The first day we met, I carried that sack for you, remember?"
"I remember."
"It was heavy as hell. Heavier than a woman should be able to carry all the way to your room at the back of this building. But you intended to carry it yourself. You're strong enough to do it. Strong enough to lift a big man like Ornstein into a bathtub, and to throw a small woman like Ofra from her window."
"I've been carrying large bolts of cloth ever since I was a child," she said by way of explanation.
"And there was another clue," I said. "Something I missed at the time."
"Oh?"
"After Ornstein's body was discovered, Leon Zilberman took over his part. He told me you had to make him a brand-new outfit the day of the show. But at another stage of our conversation, he said Ornstein was taller than him. So why would you need to make him an outfit from scratch? Why not simply modify the existing one? Unless it could not be used for some reason, say, because it was stained with Ornstein's blood."
"He was wearing the outfit when I hit him," Varda said. "There was a little blood on the collar and back. I had to get rid of it and make a new one."