"Sounds weak to me," said Friedman.
"If I had the case solved, I wouldn't be calling you."
"No need to get sensitive. I'll get you what you want. All I'm telling you is that it sounds weak. Anything else I should know about?"
"Nothing."
"Because if there is, I need to have it up front. They're not pleased with us-think all their terrorist problems are our fault. Being able to give them something would help grease the skillet."
"Whenever we get something, you're always the first to know," said Daniel. He gave the Interpol man his home number and hung up. As he put the phone in its cradle, he saw Gene smile knowingly from across the table.
"Friendly chat," said the black man.
"New man," said Daniel. "We don't owe each other anything, yet."
He went into the kitchen, finished setting up the coffeepot, and started laying slices of yellow cheese on rye bread.
Gene followed him in, said, "Changing of the guard's always wonderful. I spent six years building up a relationship with one captain, got a new one and had to start proving myself from scratch."
"I know all about that," said Daniel, opening the refrigerator. "Do you like mustard?"
No one was talking to Wilbur, but he could live with that. No problem.
A Butcher story a week had kept New York happy. The pieces had a terrific pickup rate, both in the States and worldwide. So terrific, he'd managed to cadge a byline on the last three.
The key was to be creative, work with what you had. On something like this, facts were less important than flavor.
And no shortage of flavor on this one: ancient city, Thousand Nights' ambience, ethnic tensions, a fiend with a knife.
Terrific visuals-he'd started thinking about a screenplay.
There was always the political angle too. Arabs getting killed-the implications were obvious.
He approached it from the human-interest perspective first, went to Silwan, and knocked on the door of the first one's family, hoping for a victim piece.
When they wouldn't let him in, he got hold of a sociology professor from Bir Zeit University: Columbia-educated little snot named El Said, in love with himself and a real publicity hound, which made him more than eager to offer quotable quotes about the political roots of violent crime in a racist society.
When that had been milked, it was time to backtrack, round out the historical perspective. He spent hours at the Jerusalem Post archives-unimpressive place on the north side of town, near a sooty industrial stretch. You entered through the back of the building, had to walk between the newspaper delivery trucks, through some kind of loading dock. Nearby was a slaughterhouse or chicken processing plant; as he entered the archive, he heard the birds squawking, smelled the stench of burnt feathers.
Inside wasn't any better: rows of sagging floor-to-ceiling bookcases, scarred tables, cracked linoleum floors, not a computer in sight. And the librarian was a stooped, shuffling old character with wet eyes and an unhealthy complexion.
Central-casting Dickens, decided Wilbur, half-expecting the geezer to creak when he walked.
But the geezer was competent, knew where everything was. He took Wilbur's money and was back with the file before the correspondent finished counting the change.
Deciding to give the political thing a rest, he did a sex-murder search, hoping to shatter some myths. The local press kept repeating what Steve Rappaport had told him that first afternoon at Fink's: Psycho homicides were virtually unknown in Israel. But that could have been just another bit of self-congratulation on the part of the Chosen People. He wasn't ready to accept it at face value.
He scoured clippings and reports, pulled Rappaport's file and those of a couple of other reporters who'd covered the crime beat, went back to '48 and found that it checked out: The violent crime rate was low and had remained relatively constant over the thirty-seven-year life of the state. The homicides they did have were mostly family blowups, manslaughters, and second degrees; serials and bizarre snuffs were virtually unheard-of. And from what he could tell, it didn't seem due to cover-ups or underreporting. Since '48, the press had been free.
So no scoop, but the fact that two serials had arisen in rapid succession gave him a new slant: Thoughtful theoretical pieces about societal changes responsible for the sudden increase in brutality. No need for new sources; El Said and other academic types were more than happy to pontificate upon command.
With that kind of spice, the pickup rate soared, especially in Europe. New York asked for more. The other foreign correspondents caught flak for not being there first-now none of them wanted anything to do with him. Ditto for Rappaport-kid was green-faced with envy, convinced he'd been robbed.
Another source dried up. And the police weren't saying a damn thing.
But no problem. He had other things on his mind: The more he thought about it, the more attractive a screenplay started to look.
He began an outline, realized he needed more to flesh it out.
He researched the first series of killings, attributed to some ghoul they'd tagged the Gray Man, got one long retro piece out of that, and learned that the head detective on the first serial was the same one working the Butcher-Major Crimes detective named Sharavi. There were no quotes from him, no pictures. Probably a strong, silent type, or maybe he just didn't want to field questions about his solve rate.
Wilbur called the guy's office at French Hill, got no answer, which was hardly surprising. He had the geezer dig up whatever he could on the detective, found a series of clippings from the previous autumn that opened his eyes nice and wide:
Elazar Lippmann, former Member of Knesset. Ruling party loyalist with a progressive voting record and a special interest in criminology and prison reform. He'd been appointed warden of Ramie Prison, talked aJot about humane changes, education and rehabilitation. Real golden boy, little Omar Sharif mustache, good teeth-everyone seemed to like him. Good old Stevie Rappaport had even done a Friday Supplement interview with him-amateur stuff that reeked of hero worship.
So it surprised everyone when, six months later, Lippmann was ambushed and assassinated on the way to work- machine-gunned to death along with his driver.
Daniel Sharavi had headed the investigation, appointed directly by the deputy commander, which, considering Gray Man hadn't been solved, meant he was either hot or well-connected.
Efficient fellow, and thorough, Wilbur decided, making his way through the Lippmann clippings and getting a feel for the rapid pace of the inquiry: the prison turned upside down, everyone interviewed, guards as well as inmates; gang leaders and their buddies on the outside hauled in for interrogation, Palestinian activists questioned by the busload, even talks with clients Lippmann had represented as an attorney a decade ago, before going into politics.
Plenty of intrigue, but in the end it had turned out to be just another tacky corruption case. Far from a hero, Lippman had been a first-class sleaze. Four weeks after his death, the press murdered him again.
Sharavi had solved this one-and quickly. Dug up the dirt on Lippmann and found the prick had been venal from day one, hit his stride when he got the warden job: two fat Swiss accounts, one in the Bahamas, a small fortune amassed selling favors-extra visitations, early release dates, exemptions from work details, even illegal weekend passes for dangerous felons. Those who reneged on payment made it up in pain-Jews locked in Arab cell blocks and vice versa, handpicked guards looking the other way when the blood started to flow.