I could believe it. Its aroma left no room for doubt as to its quality and authenticity. This was real prime coffee.
Then I noticed there were two cups on saucers by the pot.
"Are you expecting someone?" I asked.
"No one in particular. But I've learned it pays to be ready for company. You can never know when someone will drop by. Like you did." She ran a light hand over her calf, curling her stockinged toes. "Don't worry, Adam. No one will disturb us."
"I'm not here for that, Sima."
She arched an eyebrow. "You mean coffee or—"
"Both."
That made her frown momentarily. Bewildered by the curtness of my reply, perhaps. But she wasn't about to surrender just yet. In fact, judging by the curve of her lips and the twinkle in her eyes, she found pleasure in my resistance.
She rose from the sofa in a fluid movement, glided around the coffee table, and came to stand so close to me that every cell in my body glowed with her warmth. Gazing up at me from under her lashes, she put her hands flat on my chest. "Let's get you out of your coat so you can be more comfortable." She moved her hands to my shoulders, under my coat, and started drawing it off.
I grabbed her forearms and pulled her hands off me. "I said I'm not here for that."
Sima's eyes grew to brown pools of childlike dismay. This wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't playing my part. She stepped back and looked at me in puzzlement and hurt.
"What are you here for, then?"
"Information."
"What information?"
"About a client of yours."
"I don't discuss my clients. Would you appreciate my discussing you?"
"These are special circumstances. They relate to the death of a young woman."
"What young woman?"
"The daughter of Baruch Gafni."
"I didn't know she'd recently died."
"He didn't talk about it with you?"
Sima didn't answer. She returned to the sofa, poured herself coffee, and took a dainty sip. "How did she die?"
"She killed herself. Pills."
Sima looked relieved. "I was sure you were going to say she was murdered and you suspect Baruch of killing her. How old was she?"
"Twenty-three."
"So young. Why did she do it?"
"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out."
"I can't help you. Baruch never talked about his daughter."
"What did he talk about?"
"I don't think I should tell you."
"Please, Sima. It's important."
"What sort of information are you after?"
"I don't know," I said. "But I assume he must have talked about himself while he was with you. He would have wanted to appear the big man in your eyes. He must have revealed things about his life. Maybe he even told you things he never told anyone else. I'm sure many of your clients do."
"Like you did, you mean? About your scars?"
I nodded awkwardly as the scars on my back started prickling. "Yeah, like I did."
A hint of a smile floated across Sima's mouth. She'd noticed my discomfort, and it pleased her. A little payback for my rejecting her.
"Well?" I said.
Sima took another sip and tapped the rim of her cup with a forefinger. "You're asking a lot, Adam. My clients rely on my discretion. If Baruch found out I talked to you, I'd lose him as a client."
Anger flared in me. She was worried about money while I was working to decipher the death of a young woman.
"I wouldn't be expecting him to visit anytime soon," I said. "He's in jail. For murder."
"But you just said—"
"It's not his daughter he killed."
"Who, then?"
"A man called Arye Harpaz. You know him?"
"Never heard that name in my life. Baruch never mentioned him. Why did he kill him?"
"Because he believed Harpaz was his daughter's lover."
"That doesn't sound like a good reason to murder someone."
"I think so too. That's why I'm here, to see if Gafni told you anything that might explain his actions."
Sima puckered her lips, thinking it over while looking as if she were offering her mouth to be kissed, though this time I thought the effect was unintentional.
Finally, she shook her head. "There's nothing about Baruch that would lead me to believe he would be capable of murder. Compared to other clients, he was quite ordinary. Sweet, even."
"Sweet?" I said, hardly believing my ears. "In what way?"
"It's how he's still in love with his wife. She's been dead for years. He misses her terribly. It's not a common thing for me to meet men who actually love their wives."
"This is Baruch Gafni we're talking about? Are you sure about that?"
She gave me an affronted look. "Of course I'm sure, Adam. I never get men mixed up. Why the doubt?"
"Because I talked to Gafni about his wife recently, and nothing in his manner or tone indicated he feels any love for her. By the way, did he tell you she committed suicide?"
Sima breathed in sharply. "He said she died of cancer."
"She slashed her wrists. Gafni admitted she did it because he was a philanderer. Did he tell you about that?"
"No."
"And you think he's sweet. Maybe you don't know men as well as you think."
"Don't blame me for not solving your case, Adam," Sima said evenly, then notched her head. "Or is there another reason you're angry with me?"
There was. I was disgusted by her sleeping with Gafni, and to make matters worse, it now seemed that she was actually fond of him. I dropped onto a chair and raked my fingers through my hair, nails scraping my scalp in frustration. This was shaping up to be another dead end, and a particularly unpleasant one at that.
Sima's lilting voice filled my ears. "It shouldn't surprise you that Baruch talked differently about his wife with you than he did here with me. Many men are different here. It's a place where they can show parts of themselves they keep hidden from the rest of the world. Isn't that true for you?"
I didn't respond. I wanted to get out of there, but for some reason, I didn't budge.
"Baruch was that way. Here he could do things he wouldn't have been able to with any other woman. He could be with his wife again."
I raised my head. "What do you mean?"
Sima lifted her chin, her mouth set in a proud line. "You want to know why Baruch came here? What he had me do? I'll tell you, my darling Adam, since you so desperately wish to know, and I always aim to please you. What Baruch did was have me act as his wife. Pretend to be her. So he could imagine her in my place, in his arms. When we were in bed, he would call out her name. 'Moria, Moria.'"
A cold, slimy blob of horror settled in the pit of my stomach. A fist of bile thrust up my throat and hammered at the back of my mouth.
"He said Moria?" I asked, my voice weak and hoarse.
"Yes. His wife's name. Now you understand why I—"
"Moria wasn't his wife," I said in a cutting tone. "Moria was his daughter."
Sima froze, shock written all over her lovely features.
"Yes, Sima. That's right. That wasn't Baruch Gafni's dead wife you were pretending to be. It was his daughter, Moria. The one who killed herself."
I shut my eyes tight as a horrible clarity hit me, like light thrown into a deep well where a body had long been hidden.
Arye Harpaz had told me he didn't know any women who'd had an affair with Gafni, and now I knew why. There hadn't been any. Gafni had allowed that rumor to spread, maybe even started it, to hide a worse truth. A truth that caused him to gruesomely kill Harpaz for the sin of being Moria's lover. Gafni couldn't stand that because he had sexual feelings toward Moria. That was why Vera Gafni had killed herself. It was the reason Moria had broken off all contact with her father. Why she had refused to see him, why she'd wept when Leitner had informed her she had to, or he'd expose her and Naomi Hecht.
Blackmailed by Leitner, she'd managed to bring herself to ask her father for money over the phone; not for herself, but for the hospital. But when she asked a third time, Gafni had demanded a meeting. This was too much. He was her devil, the man who had taken away her mother and much more besides, and she couldn't imagine being in the same room with him. Worse, he might interpret it as the harbinger of forgiveness and closer relations to come.