Less than five minutes later I had my answer. At first it looked like we weren't getting anywhere. I showed him the three names I had copied from the hotel register, and he remembered none of them. Too many guests, he said, too many faces. Then I asked him some specific questions, and finally he confirmed what I already knew from the crime report of Kalman Zinger's murder.
"What's all this about?" he asked when I slid the bills to him and turned to leave.
I didn't answer. Just walked out.
I took the bus back to Tel Aviv. I was dead tired, and once I laid my head against the window, I was fast asleep.
The bus stopping woke me up. It was a little before six thirty and the gloom of early evening had set in. I disembarked and started walking north. I was scheduled to meet Feinstein at seven, and I did not want to be late.
He'd left the outer door open a crack. I went in, closed the door behind me, walked through the waiting room, and entered his office. He was seated behind his desk. He'd removed his tie and undone the top button of his shirt. He was no longer formal with me. He didn't even bother hiding his deformed hand. It rested on his desk, on its back, fingers twisted upwards like stunted trees. Upon seeing me, Feinstein's delicate lips stretched into a smile. "On time. Good. I have the money right here."
He pointed to a bulky white envelope on his desk. I made no move to pick it up.
He frowned. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes," I said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Everything is fine. But I want to make a small change in the mission."
"What change?"
"I want to add three members to the team: Kalman Zinger, Yosef Kaplon, and Meir Abramo."
He offered no reply and a long, chilly silence stretched between us. But I had watched his eyes carefully as I recited the names of the three dead Auschwitz musicians, and saw them widen in triple recognition. He didn't have to say anything. I had his confession right there.
He raised both eyebrows in question. "Who are these men?"
"Let's not play games," I said. "You know who these men are. You killed them all. You shot Kalman Zinger in Ramat Gan, hanged Meir Abramo in Jerusalem, and slit the wrists of Yosef Kaplon in Tel Aviv."
He chuckled a dry, crackling chuckle. "Is this a joke? Because you're acting crazy. Normally, I'd say you've come to the right place, but this time I think—"
"Kalman Zinger was a patient of yours. I read the interview Sergeant Shamai conducted with you after Zinger was shot. After you shot him. His wife said he came to you because you had a reputation as someone who helped camp survivors. He had trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating. He felt bogged down in the past. He came to you for help. Don't pretend you don't know his name."
"Oh, well, of course I remember Kalman. I was deeply saddened by his death. I felt terrible about it. But shoot him myself? What an absurd accusation. And as for the other two men, I have no idea who they are. And I think it's time we concluded our meeting."
"Meir Abramo was also a patient of yours. He came here every two, three weeks. Always on Wednesdays."
Feinstein gestured toward a filing cabinet. "You won't find a man by that name in my files, I assure you."
"No," I said, my voice flat and hollow. "You learned from your mistake with Zinger. You couldn't afford to have the police question you about another dead patient. You needed to be more careful this time. That is probably why you waited as long as you did before killing Abramo. You were still rattled by having the police question you about Zinger's murder, even if in the end nothing came of it." I looked at him. His face was composed, in control. But his injured fingers were twitching. I didn't think he noticed it himself.
I went on. "Abramo made it easy for you. He wanted no one to know he was seeing you. Not even his wife. He used to leave work early just so he could come here and get back home to her without arousing suspicion. He even had the guy with whom he rode from Jerusalem drop him off a few corners from here, just so no one would know he was coming to this building." I thought about how embarrassed I had felt when I rang Feinstein's phone on Friday. If I had become Feinstein's patient, I would have told no one.
I said, "A lot of people are ashamed to go to a psychiatrist. Some don't even tell their spouses. Zinger did tell his wife, which was how the police came to interview you, but Abramo was too embarrassed to do that. And you made full use of it. Did you tell him he was right to keep his sessions with you a secret from his wife? Did you tell him not to worry, that he would reveal everything to her at some future date when he was ready? When he could speak about the horrors he'd seen in the camp? That's why he came to you, isn't it? He wanted to talk to his wife about his time in Auschwitz but couldn't bring himself to do it. And now he never will. I don't need to look to know you have no file for Abramo. You would have disposed of any notes you kept on him. You were careful. No one was supposed to know you had any connection with him."
"Which I don't," he said. "This is all some delusion you're suffering from. You're obviously insane. Completely and utterly insane. I thought you had things under control. I see now that I was wrong. You need intense treatment."
I smiled without humor. "You want to know what your biggest mistake was? You didn't look in Kaplon's mailbox after you killed him. You see, I was hired by a friend of Kaplon's to look into his death, to find out why he'd killed himself. I visited Kaplon's apartment and in his mailbox I found a letter from Meir Abramo, mailed shortly before you killed him. Without that letter I never would have made the connection between them. That was sloppy of you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, his lips pressed into a flat, colorless line.
"Just one small miscalculation is the difference between getting away with murder and paying the price for it."
"I murdered no one," he said. "From what I understand from reading about it in the paper, Meir Abramo killed himself, and the other man—Kaplon, his name was?—also took his own life."
"That's what the police think."
"Of course they do. And you can't prove otherwise. If you could, you would have brought them with you."
"That's where you're wrong," I said.
"What do you mean?"
I didn't answer his question. I picked up one of the framed pictures that stood on his desk. A dark-haired plain-looking woman made pretty by her for-the-picture smile was holding a two-year-old boy on her lap. The boy had curly hair and was grinning impishly at the camera.
"You have a nice family," I said.
His eyes flashed. He practically growled at me. "You leave my family out of this. You understand me?"
I reset the picture in its position on the desk.
"You didn't leave Abramo's family out of it, did you?"
He glared at me but did not reply.
"You were very smart about that murder, far more than you were with Zinger. You didn't want the police involved. You didn't want it to be deemed a murder at all. You took the time to plan it. You scoped out his apartment—you used the hotel across the street for that. That's how you knew there was a hook in the ceiling. Strong enough for a heavy lamp. Perfect for hanging a man. Perfect for a fake suicide. You used the name Samuel Cohen, stayed for three nights in August. One of the hotel employees remembered you. It's funny what sticks in people's minds. It was the way you kept one hand always in your pocket. You were trying to hide your hand, but the way you did it lodged in his memory.
"It was a risk: Abramo might have spotted you. But you took precautions. I bet you only ventured out onto the balcony during work hours, when Abramo was away from home. His wife might have seen you, but what of it? She didn't know you and you planned to keep it that way. Once you learned from Abramo that she and the baby would be away for a few days, you knew you had to strike. But, of course, there was one major problem."