"And what am I supposed to have told him?" Rosen asked.
"You told him to back off, that from now on he was no longer Maryam's pimp, that she belonged to you. You warned him never to talk to her again or be seen with her. Otherwise, you would make trouble for him. You like to use your power to threaten people to do your bidding. Just like you threatened me. But Buzaglo was even more vulnerable to you than I am, because he was a criminal. He couldn't have the police look too hard into his affairs. It would have destroyed him. So he cut his losses and gave up Maryam. It wasn't too hard. It's not like he was in love with her, not like she was with him." I paused, rubbing at my forehead behind which a dull ache blossomed. "It's strange, isn't it, Rosen, the people we fall in love with or become obsessed about. Here was this beautiful girl falling desperately in love with a rat-faced lowlife, and there was you, becoming obsessed with this young girl whom you were charged with locating and delivering to her death."
He stared at me with his flat, emotionless eyes. After a moment he said, "Why are you telling me all of this? Do you really think you can pin this on me?"
"No. I suffer no such illusions. I know what happened, most of it, anyway, but I can't prove a thing."
"In that case, I think it's time we concluded our talk. I gotta tell you, Lapid, you are a strange man. Did you make me walk all the way from headquarters just to hear you utter this nonsense?"
"No. I brought you here because I have one condition for stopping my investigation."
His face hardened. "You're in no position to make demands. As you said, you have nothing on me."
"Not yet, but if I keep digging, who knows what will turn up."
"Keep digging and it might be a hole for yourself that you'll end up with."
"Relax, Rosen. I meant what I said, I'm off the case once this conversation is over. But I have to know."
"Know what?"
"Know everything that happened with Maryam. I know most of it, but there are small gaps that only you can fill. Do that for me, and you never have to worry about me again."
He looked at me for a moment, forehead furrowed. "You're insane."
"Come on. I think you want to tell me. You're dying to tell someone, and you have no one to tell it to. You've looked around; there is no one who can hear us. There is no risk on your part. But I have to know."
"I'm not telling you anything. Your little theory is just that, a theory. A figment of your imagination."
"Let me tell you what I do know," I said. "I know you work closely with the Jamalka brothers. They need you because it's not so easy for an Arab to move about these days, especially someone with a criminal record, especially when they're moving contraband. You help them move product in and out of Tel Aviv. You give them and their associates in Jaffa police protection. And they pay you handsomely for it."
"Nonsense."
"I can smell it on you," I said, and looked him straight in the eye. "On your breath. That rich smell of tobacco. I smelled it when you came to Greta's Café to threaten me, but I couldn't place it then. When Charlie Buzaglo told me all he knew, the memory came to me—it's a special tobacco from Lebanon. You can't get it in Israel these days, not unless you have special contacts in Beirut. The Jamalka family has such contacts. I should know. Ahmed Jamalka gave me a couple of cigarettes with the same tobacco when he hired me to find out who butchered his sister."
Rosen cursed under his breath. I'm not sure he even noticed it. There were dark thoughts roiling through his mind, but I didn't waste my time trying to guess what they were.
At length he said, "That's hardly proof."
"No," I agreed. "Not even close."
"And neither brother will testify against me. So you still have nothing."
"You're right. I don't. But I can still make trouble for you. I can pass on what I know to Ahmed Jamalka and he may pass it on to his brothers."
"Do you think they care about Maryam being dead?"
"No. But that's not all you did to her. And they might care about that. I will tell them nothing as long as you tell me everything."
He said nothing. His hands were in his lap, and they had both bunched into tight fists. I had no doubt that, at that very moment, he was plotting how to have me killed.
At length he said, "It's a deal. Tell me the rest of what you already know, and I'll fill in the details."
"I know that when Maryam Jamalka fled from home, her brothers were anxious to find her. She had blemished their family honor. They had marked her for death. But they didn't know where she was. Until someone spotted her. Some local Arab in Jaffa saw her on the street. He passed on the word to Jalal and Kadir that he thought Maryam was in Tel Aviv. But he didn't know where she lived, so the brothers came to you for help. They wanted you to find Maryam for them. And you agreed. Am I right so far?"
He gave a curt nod.
"What were you going to do when you found her, just hand her over to her brothers to be killed?"
"Yes. That's what they wanted, and why should I care? It's the way they do things, the stupid Arabs. It's their fault she became a prostitute in the first place. If they hadn't made her run away, she would still be in their village where she belonged."
"And alive," I said.
"And alive."
"But you changed your mind. What happened?"
"I heard she was finding johns in Club Adom, and I went over there one night just to make sure it was really her. I don't know what came over me, but I had to have her. And not just once. It seemed easy enough. Jalal and Kadir were in the north, and they were counting on me to find their sister for them. I could string them along for a while."
"And they also gave you the perfect way to control Maryam, to threaten her."
"Yes. That's why I had her arrested and jailed, to make sure she knew who was in control, so I could put some fear into her."
"That's why you went to visit her in jail," I said, my stomach filling with acid as I considered how Maryam Jamalka must have felt to have this maniac threaten her in her cell.
"That's right. All I had to do was tell her that if she didn't do what I said, I would hand her over to her brothers. She was terrified of them. She would do anything to avoid that. Jalal and Kadir, they can be quite brutal. They like killing. They would have done horrible things to her just so no other female in their family would start entertaining any thoughts of independence from their control."
"Then what happened?"
"She became mine. It was a sweet time. Too short, in the end, but sweet nonetheless. Unfortunately, it couldn't last. Jalal and Kadir were pressuring me, asking what was taking so long, when was I going to find Maryam. I couldn't hide her forever, and I couldn't hand her over to them. She might tell them about me before they killed her. And sooner or later, someone would have seen her and reported it to them. I had to get rid of her." He sighed. "It was the hardest thing I ever did. But I had no choice."
His tone had taken on a mournful edge, and his eyes dropped to his lap. I stared at him. He was actually looking for sympathy. This lunatic who exploited and knifed a young woman.
"You stabbed her," I said.
"Yes."
"More than once."
"A few times. I had to make sure she died."
"And then you cut her face and legs."
"Yes," he said, his voice distant, as if he were reliving the moment.
"Why?"
He didn't answer for a moment. And when he did, it was not the answer I had expected. I thought he mutilated her body so that if it were found, the suspicion would fall on her family.
What he said was, "I'm not sure. I just started doing it, and I found that I enjoyed it, so I kept on doing it for a while."