Trust Maybe Cassidy had done the first two American ones by herself-a female sex maniac. Why not? Then, four years later, Al Biyadi comes to America, meets her at Harper Hospital, the two of them find they have a common interest and start a killing club.
It sounded far-fetched, but you never knew. Anyway, enough speculating. It was giving him a headache. What was needed was good old-fashioned evidence.
The old Swiss nurse, Catherine Hauser, walked out into the center of the corridor and called out a name. Her voice was too soft amid the white noise of small talk, and no one heard her.
"Quiet," ordered Al Biyadi, just about to enter an examining room. "Quiet immediately."
The men in the hall obeyed.
Al Biyadi glowered at them, nodded like a little prince granting favors. "You may read that name again, Nurse Hauser."
The old one repeated it. A patient said, "Me" and got up to follow her. Al Biyadi pushed the door open and disappeared inside.
Shmeltzer leaned his elbows against the wall and waited. The man next to him had managed to get a cigarette from someone else and was blowing thick plumes of smoke that swirled in the hot air and took a long time to die. Across the hall Daoud was talking to a guy with a patch over his eye. Ahmed Ibn Dayan
The two other doctors-the older Arab, Darousha, and the Canadian, Carter, came out of a room with an Arab between them. The Arab had one foot in a cast and was stumbling along as they propped him up, his arms on their shoulders.
How sweet.
Do-gooders. As suspects, Shmeltzer thought they were weak. True, a Canadian was almost like an American. Carter would certainly have had easy access to a big open border. But if the American murders cleared anyone, it was him: The initial research placed him in South America during four of the killings, A hitch in the Peace Corps in Ecuador during the last year in medical school, a return trip years later, as a doctor. Real do-gooder, the soft, hippie type, but probably an anti-Semite down deep-anyone who worked for UNRWA had to be. But his references from the Peace Corps were all glowing: devoted physician, saved lives, prevented outbreaks of cholera, helped build villages, dam streams, blah blah blah. To believe it, Dr. Richard Carter pissed champagne.
Darousha also shaped up as one hell of a tzadik: reputation for kindness, no political interests, got along with Jewish doctors-took courses at Hadassah and received high marks. So clean he'd never even had a traffic ticket. Everyone said he really liked making people feel better, was especially good with children.
Only mark against him was the fact that he was queer- and a real Romeo. Shin Bet had just firmed up some rumors connecting him with a series of male lovers, including a married Jewish doctor three years ago. The latest boyfriend was the moronic watchman out in front. What a pair they'd make-two pudgy guys bouncing around in bed.
But being homosexual meant nothing in terms of this case, decided Shmeltzer. According to the head-docs, the magic word was latent. The theory was that the violence came about because the killer was repressing his homosexual impulses, trying to overcompensate by being supermasculine and taking control of women by destroying them.
If Darousha was already overtly queer, didn't it mean he'd stopped repressing? Had nothing to hide, nothing to be upset about? Unless he thought no one knew about him
All bullshit, anyway, the psychology stuff. Including the bullshit profiles Dani's black friend had quoted from the FBI: Men who cut up women are usually sadistic psychopaths. Which was like saying you could make something smaller by reducing it in size. Nice guy, the black-no doubt he had more experience than any of them, and Nahum Shmeitzer was the last person to refuse help from outsiders. But only if they had something solid. Like evidence.
Which was what they were after this morning, stuck here in the midst of all this stink and pestilence. He looked over at Daoud, hoped the chance came soon. Goddamned robes itched like crazy.
At one in the afternoon the doctors took a lunch break. Free coffee and pastries were offered to the patients, who went after the food like starving animals, rushing out to the front courtyard of the hospital where folding tables had been set up.
Moving damned fast, noticed Shmeltzer, for guys on crutches and canes. He signaled for Daoud to make his move.
Shielded by the commotion, the Arab detective sidled up to the Records Room door again, worked the pick out from inside his sleeve, and played with the lock.
Slow, thought Shmeltzer, keeping one eye on the hallway. One minute more, he'd have a try at it himself.
Finally the lock yielded. Daoud turned and looked at Shmeltzer, who looked up and down the corridor.
Coast was clear, but the hallway was emptying, their cover was dissipating.
Go, Shmeltzer signaled.
Daoud opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it after him.
The corridor grew silent. Shmeltzer waited for the Arab to do his work, standing watch five meters to the east of the door. Then footsteps sounded from the around the corner. A man appeared, a Westerner, walking quickly and purposefully.
Baldwin, the administrator-now there was an American. Real uncooperative bastard, according to Dani. And the shmuck had been out of America only for the last two murders in the FBI file, which were dismemberments anyway, no ID on the victims-far from clear that they belonged with the first ones.
A pencil-pushing bastard. Shmeltzer would have liked to see him as the killer. No doctor, but he'd hung around hospitals along enough to learn about drugs, surgical procedures.
Look at him, wearing a Great White Father safari suit and shiny black boots with hard leather heels that played a clackety drumbeat on the tile floor. Gestapo boots.
Shmuck was walking fast but his eyes were buried in a magazine-Time. A large ring of keys dangled from one hand as he approached.
Heading straight for the Records Room, realized Shmeltzer. Hell of a disaster if Daoud stepped out right now and came face to face with the bastard.
Shmeltzer backed up so that he stood in front of the door. Heard rustling inside and knocked a signal to the Arab, who locked the door and stopped moving.
Baldwin came closer, looked up from his magazine and saw him.
"Yes?" he said. "Can I help you?" Heavily accented Arabic.
Shmeltzer leaned against the door, clutched his chest, and moaned.
"What's the matter?" said Baldwin, looking down on him.
"Hurts," said Shmeltzer in a whisper, trying to look and sound feeble.
"What's that?"
"Hurts."
"What hurts?"
"Chest." A louder moan. Shmeltzer fluttered his eyelids, made as if his knees were giving way.
Baldwin grabbed his elbow, dropping his Time magazine in the process. Shmeltzer went semi-limp, let the bastard support his weight, smiling to himself and thinking: Probably the first real work he's done in years.
The American grunted, fumbled with his key ring until he'd attached it to his belt, freed his other hand to prop up Shmeltzer's steadily sagging body.