Berserk marksmen. Lots of shootings. Bitter jokes had arisen: The psychiatric wards of Amman had been emptied in order to staff Hussein's army.
The change of borders in '67 had brought about a shift in character in other poor districts-Yemin Moshe with its cobbled alleys and artists' studios, so inflated now that only foreigners could afford it; even Musrara had begun looking a little better-but the lower Katamonim remained a living monument to urban blight.
During his rookie days, he'd driven patrol here, and though his own origins had been anything but affluent, the experience had depressed him. Prefab buildings knocked up hastily for tides of Jewish immigrants from North Africa, strung together like railroad cars and sectioned into dreary one-hundred-square-meter flats that seemed incurably plagued with mildew and rot. Tiny windows built for safety but now unnecessary and oppressive. Rutted streets, empty fields used for garbage dumps. The flats crammed with angry people, boiling in the summer, clammy and cold in the winter. Fathers unemployed and losing face, the wives easy targets for tirades and beatings, the kids running wild in the streets. A recipe for crime-just add opportunity.
The pooshtakim had hated him. To them, the Yemenites were an affront, poorer than anyone, different-looking, regarded as primitives and outsiders. Smiling fools-you could beat them and they'd smile. But those smiles reflected an unerring sense of faith and optimism that had enabled the Yemenites to climb up the economic ladder with relative haste. And the fact that their crime rate was low was a slap in the face to the poverty excuse.
Where else could that lead but to scapegoating? He'd been called Blackie more times than he could count, ridiculed and ignored and forced to come down hard on defiant punks. A hell of an initiation. He'd endured it, gradually ingratiated himself with some of them, and done his job. But though it had been his idea to work there in the first place, he'd welcomed the completion of his assignment.
Now he was back, on a Shabbat, no less, embarking on an outing that was a long shot at best.
On the surface, coming down here did have a certain logic to it. The girl was poor and Oriental, maybe a street girl. Though other neighborhoods bred that type, too, Eight and Nine were the right places to start.
But he admitted to himself that a good part of it was symbolic-setting a good example by showing the others that a pakad was still willing to work the streets. And laying to rest any suspicions that a religious pakad would use Shabbat as an excuse to loaf.
He despised the idea of disrupting the Sabbath, resented the break in routine that separated him from family and ritual. Few cases made that kind of demand on him, but this one was different. Although the dead girl was beyond help, if a madman was at work, he wouldn'd stop at one. And the saving of a life overrode Shabbat.
Still, he did what he could to minimize the violation- wearing the beeper but carrying no money or weapon, walking instead of driving, using his memory rather than pen and paper to record his observations. Doing his best to think of spiritual things during the empty moments that constituted so much of a detective's working life.
An elderly Moroccan couple approached him, on their way to synagogue, the husband wearing an outsized embroidered kipuh, mouthing psalms, walking several paces ahead of his wife. In Eight and Nine, only the old ones remained observant.
"Shabbat shalom," he greeted them and showed them the picture.
The man apologized for not having his glasses, said he couldn't see a thing. The woman looked at it, shook her head, and said, "No. What happened? Is she lost?"
"In a way," said Daniel, thanking them and moving on.
The scene repeated itself a score of times. On Rehov San Martin, at the southern tip of Nine, he encountered a group of muscular, swarthy young men playing soccer in a field. Waiting until a goal had been scored, he approached them. They passed the photo around, made lewd comments, and giving it back to him, resumed their game.
He continued on until eleven, eating a late breakfast of shrugs, ignorance, and bad jokes, feeling like a rookie again. Deciding that he'd been stupid to waste his time and abandon his family in the name of symbolism, he began the return trip in a foul mood.
On his way out of Eight, he passed a kiosk that had been closed when he'd entered the district, a makeshift stand where children stood in line for ice cream and candy bars. Approaching, he noticed that a particularly sickening-looking blue ice seemed to be the favorite.
The proprietor was a squat Turk in his fifties, with black-rimmed eyeglasses, bad teeth, and a three-day growth of beard. His shirt was sweat-soaked and he smelled of confection. When he saw Daniel's kipah, he frowned.
"No Shabbat credit. Cash only."
Daniel showed him his ID, removed the photo from the envelope.
"Aha, police. They force a religious one to work today?"
"Have you seen this girl?"
The man took a look, said casually, "Her? Sure. She's an Arab, used to work as a maid at the monks' place in the Old City."
"Which monks' place?"
"The one near the New Gate."
"Saint Saviour's?"
"Yeah." The Turk peered closely at the photo, turned serious. "What's the matter with her? Is she-"
"Do you know her name?"
"No idea. Only reason I remember her at all is that she was good-looking." Another downward glance: "Someone got her, right?"
Daniel took the picture away from him. "Your name, please, adoni."
"Sabhan, Eli, but I don't want to get involved in this, okay?"
Two little girls in T-shirts and flowered pants came up to the counter and asked for blue ice bars. Daniel stepped aside and allowed Sabhan to complete the transaction. After the Turk had pocketed the money, he came forward again and asked, "What were you doing at the Saint Saviour's monastery, Adon Sabhan?"
The Turk waved his hand around the interior of the kiosk and gave a disgusted look.
"This is not my career. I used to have a real business until the fucking government taxed me out of it. Painting and plastering. I contracted to paint the monks' infirmary and finished two walls before some Arabs underbid me and the so-called holy men kicked me off the job. All those brown-robes-fucking anti-Semites."
"What do you know about the girl?"
"Nothing. I just saw her. Scrubbing the floor."
"How long ago was this?"
"Let's see-it was before I went bust, which would be about two weeks."
Two weeks, thought Daniel. Poor guy's just gone under. Which could explain all the anger.
"Did you ever see her with anyone else, Adon Sabhan?"
"Just her mop and pail." Sabhan wiped his face with his hand, leaned in, and said conspiratorially: "Ten to one, one of the brown-robes did her in. She was raped, wasn't she?"
"Why do you say that?"