Barakat started to throw up his hands, got midway to his shoulders, and let them drop. "He took my money-it didn't work. What was the use?"
"Did she see a medical doctor?"
Nod.
"After she saw Professor Mehdi or before?"
"After."
"When?"
"Last month, then later."
"When later?"
"Before she " Barakat chewed his lip.
"Before she left?"
Nod.
"When before she left?"
"Sunday."
"She saw this doctor the day before she left?"
Nod.
"Was she going for treatment?"
Barakat shrugged.
"What was the purpose of her appointment?"
Tension, then a shrug.
Daoud tensed also, looked ready to throttle Barakat. Tapping the table with his fingertips, he sat back, forcing a reassuring smile onto his face.
"She saw this doctor the day before she left, but you don't know for what."
Nod.
"What was the doctor's name?"
"Don't know."
"Didn't you pay his bill?"
Shake of the head.
"Who paid the doctor, Abdin?"
"No one."
"The doctor saw Shahin for free'.
Nod.
"As a favor?"
Shake of the head.
"Why, then?"
"A U.N. doctor-she had a refugee card. They saw her for free."
Daoud edged his chair closer to Barakat's.
"Where is this U.N. doctor's office?"
"Not an office. A hospital."
"Which hospital, Abdin?"
There was an edge in the detective's voice and Barakat heard it clearly. He pressed himself against his chair, shrinking back from Daoud. Wearing an injured look that said I'm doing the best I can.
"Which hospital?" Daoud said loudly. Getting to his feet and standing over Barakat, abandoning any pretense of patience.
"The big pink one," said Barakat, hastily. "The big pink one atop Scopus."
Patients began arriving at the Amelia Catherine at nine-thirty, the first ones a ragtag bunch of men who'd made the walk from the city below. Zia Hajab could have started processing them right then, but he made them wait, milling around the arched entry to compound, while he sat in his chair sipping sweet iced tea and wiping his forehead.
This kind of heat, no one was going to rush him.
The waiting men felt the heat, too, shuffling to avoid baking, grimacing and fingering their worry beads. Most of them bore obvious stigmata of disease or disability: bandaged and splinted limbs, sutured wounds, eye infections, skin eruptions. A few looked healthy to Hajab, probably malingerers out for pills they could resell-with what they were paying, pure profit.
One of them lifted his robe and urinated against the wall. A couple of others began grumbling. The watchman ignored them, took a deep breath and another sip of the cool liquid.
What they were paying, they could wait.
Only ten o'clock and already the heat was reaching deep inside Hajab, igniting his bowels. He fanned himself with a newspaper, peered into the tea glass. There was a lump of ice floating on the top. He tilted the glass so that the ice rested against his teeth. Enjoyed the sensation of chill, then nibbled a piece loose and let it rest upon his tongue for a while.
He turned at the sound of a diesel engine. A UNRWA panel truck-the one from Nablus-pulled up in front of the hospital and stopped. The driver got out and loosened the tailgate, disgorging twenty or thirty men who limped down and joined the grumblers from the city. The groups merged into one restless crowd; the grumbling grew louder.
Hajab picked his clipboard off the ground, got up, and stood before them. A sorry-looking bunch.
"When may we enter, sir?" asked a toothless old man.
Hajab silenced him with a look.
"Why the wait?" piped up another. Younger, with an impudent face and runny, crusted eyes. "We've come all the way from Nablus. We need to see the doctor."
Hajab held out his palm and inspected the clipboard. Seventy patients scheduled for Saturday Men's Clinic, not counting those who walked in without appointments, or tried to be seen with expired refugee cards or no cards at all. A busy Saturday made worse by the heat, but not as bad as Thursdays, when the women came-droves of them, three times as many as the men. Women were weak-spirited, crying Disaster! at the smallest infirmity. Screeching and chattering like magpies until by the end of the day, Hajab's head was ready to burst.
"Come on, let us in," said the one with the bad eyes. "We have our rights."
"Patience," said Hajab, pretending to peruse the clipboard. He'd watched Mr. Baldwin, knew a proper administrator had to show who was in charge.
A man leaning on a cane sat down on the ground. Another patient looked at him and said, "Sehhetak bel donya"-"without health, nothing really matters"-to a chorus of nods.
"Bad enough to be sick," said Runny Eyes, "without being demeaned by pencil pushers."
A murmur of assent rose from the crowd. Runny Eyes scratched his rear and started to say something else.
"All right," said Hajab, hitching up his trousers and pulling out his pen. "Have your cards ready."
Just as he finished admitting the first bunch, a second truck-the one from Hebron-struggled up the road from the southeast. The engine on this one had an unhealthy stutter-the gears sounded worn, probably plenty else in need of repair. He would have loved to have a go at it, show what he could do with a wrench and screwdriver, but those days were gone. Al maktoub.
The Hebron truck was having trouble getting over the peak of Scopus. As it lurched and bucked, a white Subaru two-door came cruising by from the opposite direction-from the campus of the Jews' university. The Subaru stopped, rolled several meters, and came to a halt directly across the road from the Amelia Catherine. Probably a gawker, thought Hajab, noticing the rental plates and the yellow Hertz sticker on the rear window.
The door of the Subaru opened and a big guy in a dark suit got out and started walking toward the Amelia Catherine. The sun bounced off his chest and reflected something shiny. Cameras-definitely a gawker-two of them, hanging from long straps. From where Hajab sat they looked expensive-big black-and-chrome jobs with those oversized lenses that stuck out like noses.
The gawker stopped in the middle of the road, oblivious to the approaching truck despite all the nose it was making. He uncovered the lens of one of the cameras, raised the machine to his eyes, and started shooting pictures of the hospital.
Hajab frowned. That kind of thing just wouldn't do. Not without some sort of payment. His commission.
He pushed himself out of his chair, wiped his mouth, and took a step forward, stopped at the sight of the Hebron truck coming over the peak and headed straight for the guy with the cameras, who just kept clicking away-what was he, deaf?