According to Northern District, Juliet had claimed to be a Christian, a political refugee from East Beirut, wounded in the invasion and fleeing the Sh?tes and the PLO. Asked how she'd gotten into the country, she'd told a story of hitching a ride with an Israeli tank unit, which seemed far-fetched. But she'd showed the interrogators a recent head wound and a Kupat Holim registration card from Rambam Hospital to back the story up, along with a Haifa address and temporary-resident ID, and the police, busy with more serious matters than another small-change street-walker, had accepted her story and let her go with a warning.
Which was unfortunate, because just a cursory investigation revealed that the story was a sham. Immigration had no record of her, the Haifa address was an abandoned building, and a visit by Schmeltzer and Avi Cohen to Rambam Hospital revealed that she'd been treated in the emergency room- for epilepsy, not a wound.
The doctor who'd seen her was gone, on a fellowship in the States. But his handwriting was clear and Shmeltzer read aloud from his discharge notes:
Treated successfully with phenobarbitol and Dilantin, full abatement of overt seizure activity. The patient claims these seizures were her first, and stuck to this, despite my explicit skepticism. I wrote a prescription for a month's worth of medication which was provided to her by the hospital pharmacy, gave her Arabic-language brochures on epilepsy and admitted her for observation, including comprehensive neurologic and radiographic studies. The following morning, her bed was empty and she was nowhere to be found. She has not recontacted this institution. Diagnosis: Grand mal epilepsy. Status: Self-Discharged, Against Medical Advice.
"Translation," said Shmeltzer, "she was a little liar, conned them into free medication."
Avi Cohen nodded and watched the older man flip through the pages of the medical chart.
"Well, well, take a look at this, boychik. Under Nearest Relative or Admitting Party, there's a little army stamp."
Cohen leaned over, pretending he could make sense of it.
"Yalom, Zvi," read Shmeltzer. "Captain Zvi Yalom, Tank Corps-goddamned army captain checked her in. She was levelling about the tank unit." He shook his head. "The little slut had an official military escort."
To listen to Yalom, he'd acted solely out of compassion.
"Listen, you were there-you know how it was: the Good Border and all that. We fed hundreds of them, gave them free medical care."
"Those were political refugees," said Avi Cohen. "Christians. And all of them went back."
"She was Christian too."
"Got to know her pretty well, didn't you?"
Yalom shrugged and took a drink of orange soda. He was a handsome, somewhat coarse-looking man in his late twenties, blond, ruddy, and broad-shouldered, with immaculately manicured hands. In civilian life, a diamond cutter at the Tel Aviv Exchange. His home address in Netanya had been traced quickly through army records, and Avi had invited him for lunch at a sidewalk cafe near the beach.
A beautiful Monday morning. The sky was as blue as the sapphire in Yalom's ring; the sand, granulated sugar. But Netanya had changed, Avi decided. A lot different from the days when his family used to summer there-a suite at the Four Seasons, calls to room service for hamburgers and Cokes with maraschino cherries, all of them staying too long in the sun, getting burned pepper-red. After-dinner strolls, his father pointing out the gangsters sitting at cafe tables. Exchanging greetings with some of them.
Now, the buildings seemed shabbier, the streets more crowded, thick with traffic and exhaust fumes, like a miniature Tel Aviv. Just a block away he could see black people sitting on the front stoop of a decrepit-looking apartment building. Ethiopians-the government had settled hundreds of them here. The men wore kipol; the women covered their hair, too. Religious types, but in blackface. Strange.
"You going to get me into trouble?" asked Yalom.
Avi smiled noncommittally. He liked this, enjoyed the feeling of authority. Sharavi had made good on his word, kept him away from reading, given him a real assignment.
He's a Lebanon vet. You should be able to relate to him.
Thank you, Pakad.
Doing your job well will be sufficient thanks.
"It could really fuck me up, Avi," said Yalom.
Overly familiar, thought Avi, using my first name like that. But some military officers had an attitude problem, thought of the police as second-class soldiers.
"Speaking of fucking," he said, "is that how you met her?"
Yalom squinted with anger. He kept a smile on his lips and drummed his perfect fingertips on the table. "You a virgin, kid?"
"How about," said Avi, starting to stand, "we continue this conversation at National Headquarters."
"Wait," said Yalom. "Sorry. It's just that I'm nervous. The tape recorder bothers me."
Avi sat down again. Moved the recorder closer to Yalom.
"You've got good reason to be nervous."
Yalom nodded, reached him into his shirt pocket, and offered a pack of Rothmans to Avi.
"No, thanks, but suit yourself."
The diamond cutter lit up, turning his head so that the smoke blew in the direction of the beach, the sea breeze catching it, thinning it to wispy ribbons. Avi looked over his shoulder, saw girls in bikinis carrying towels and beach baskets. Watched the little dimples in their backs, just above the ass-slit, and longed, for a moment, to be with them.
"She was scared," said Yalom. "The place she worked was on the Christian side of Beirut, private club, members only. She was afraid the Sh?tes would come and get her after we left."
"What kinds of members?" asked Avi, remembering what Sharavi had told him about the skull fractures, the cigarette burns.
"Foreigners. Diplomats, businessmen, professors from the American University. The place was too expensive for the locals, which was one of the reasons she wanted to get out-some fundamentalists had threatened to bomb the building, slapped up a poster calling it a receptacle for the semen of infidels, or something like that."
"You see the poster yourself?"
"No," said Yalom quickly. "I was never there. This was all from her."
"Where'd you meet her, then?"
"We were pulling out of the city. She was standing in the middle of the road, near the barriers between East and West. Waving her hands and crying. She refused to move and I couldn't just squash her, so I got out, checked for snipers, talked to her, felt sorry for her, and gave her a lift. She was supposed to go as far as Bin Jbeil, but then she started having seizures and I decided to take her all the way."
"Considerate of you."
Yalom grimaced. "All right, looking back it was stupid. But I felt sorry for her-it was no felony."
Avi sipped his beer.
"How many of you banged her?" he asked.
Yalom was silent. The hand holding his cigarette began tc shake. Bad trait for someone in his line of work, thought Avi. He sipped and waited.
Yalom looked around at the adjoining tables, moved closer and lowered his voice.
"How the hell was I supposed to know she was going to get carved up?" he said. Avi saw that there were tears in his eyes, the tough-guy posture all gone. "I just got married a couple of months ago, Samal Cohen. It's my wife I'm more worried about than the army."