her writhing and moaning in sexual abandon that filled him with desire.
Perhaps he spent a quarter hour watching her. He remembered being fascinated and also feeling like a spy. When she left the museum, he followed her down the drive, across Suleiman, along the Old City walls, and then, turning the corner, along a little footpath that ran between an ancient Moslem cemetery and the massive Turkish wall.
Some Arab boys were playing soccer in the dust. There was a scent of pine resin in the crystal air, the leaves on the olive trees flashed silver, and the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock glowed brilliant beneath the sun. She stopped several times. At first he thought she was looking at Gethsemane. But then, as he drew closer, he saw that she was gazing upon the chalk-white graves that coated the slopes of the Mount of Olives.
Suddenly she glanced at her watch, then broke into a run. His heart stopped when, plunging forward, she almost tripped upon a step. He watched as she ran into the Jericho road, flagged down a taxi, then was gone, speeding back toward the center of Jerusalem. And then he knew he had to meet her, that if he did not he could not live.
Sarah Dorfman arranged it. Poor wonderful Sarah, Rafi's loyal middle-aged secretary, abandoned by her husband for one of those aggressive young German girls, the kind who come to Israel 'to confront my parents' guilt' but in fact, or so it always seemed to David, came for a quick tan and to make love to a lot of swarthy Jews. Still, Sarah never complained, and now her life was devoted to the CID. Her only outside interest was music. She knew everyone in the Jerusalem music world and delivered on her promise that David would meet his cellist within the week.
All that had happened less than six months before and now Anna lived with him in Abu Tor. What if he had not driven by the Rockefeller that day? Would they have met? Or would he have forgotten her face and the extraordinary way she'd played? David did not know but he believed in the magic of Jerusalem, that it was a city of intersecting lives.
A rumble of thunder as he pulled into En Rogel Street, a flash of lightning as he parked. Just as he stepped out of his car the rainstorm began. He dashed to the doorway of number sixteen where he frantically stabbed out the code on the touch-tone combination lock.
He was soaked before he got inside. In the lobby he took off his jacket, held it away from him, and wrung it out. A spring rainstorm at last; the country needed rain. Water was a problem even more serious than the confrontation states.
Anna was wearing a faded yellow shirt. There was a crease between her eyes.
'What's the matter?'
'Rafi just called. You're to call him back right away. He sounded tense.' She shook her head, disturbed.
He kissed her between her eyes, then strode to the phone. Dialing the Russian Compound, waiting for them to patch Rafi in, he threw her several more kisses as she stood by the kitchen door.
'David?'
'It's me.'
'There's a terrific rain coming down.'
'I know. I just got in.'
'You're going to have to come out again.'
'Another one?' He knew the answer and even before Rafi responded he could feel the dull ache again, the ache he had felt in his stomach ever since he'd been assigned the case.
'It's near you, anyway. A dumpster on the south corner of Bloom field Park.'
He gulped. 'Two minutes ago I passed within fifty feet.'
'If I'd seen you I'd have flagged you down.'
Anna had his poncho out, was smoothing it by snapping it in the air. He glanced out the window and at that moment a bolt of lightning cracked the sky. Anna held the poncho, he ducked under it, then straightened up so that his head was in the center hole. She pulled the hood up for him.
'When you come back we'll make love,' she whispered. 'And then I'll make us eggs.'
Rafi wore a bright orange slicker, like a fisherman, David thought. Micha wore a trench coat, Moshe Liederman sucked on a cigarette beneath a poncho, while Dov Meltzer stood in soaked sneakers holding a pin-up magazine above his head.
'I heard it on the radio,' Dov said. His T-shirt was soaked; through the wet fabric David could see dark curls of hair covering his upper chest.
'Peretz?'
'He's home. We spotted him around five going into his building. I've got four guys watching him now. Thought I ought to meet you here.'
The dumpster loomed before them like an oversized coffin, huge and black, difficult to see, except when the lightning struck and then it was etched out. Five patrol cars and an ambulance were parked around it at converging angles. The forensic team was waiting for the illumination. A sergeant was setting up portable quartz lights, clipping the lamps to the door frames of a van.
David went up to Rafi. 'Female?' he asked.
Rafi nodded, pipe clenched between his teeth. 'Found by a couple of teenagers looking to scrounge up some discarded wood. Very young this time, like the third one by the wall. But I have a bad feeling she's not a prostitute. Five is too many, David. We never had a case with five.'
'You said it before. Our first serial killer.'
'But the scale's wrong. Know what I mean?' Rafi reached under his slicker, brought out a lighter, tried unsuccessfully to light his pipe. 'Everyone's always talking about scale. We go to war, lose a thousand guys, and we say that's like the fifty, sixty thousand the Americans lost in Vietnam. So figure it out. Five is like two hundred fifty. Yeah, I know it doesn't work that way, but that's the way it seems.' Another lightning bolt. Rafi winced at the thunderclap. Now the rain was slashing down in sheets. 'Shit, don't know what they think they're going to find in there. With rain like this there'll just be soup.'
'Same blanket?'
Rafi nodded.
Suddenly David was furious. 'Pricks!'
Rafi squinted at him. 'Anyone I know?'
'Mossad bastards. Their guy spotted Peretz but they had to wait a couple days before they clued me in. Now this. We've only been on Peretz since five o'clock today. He could have done this last night. We'd have seen him approach her. We could have stopped him. You understand, Rafi? If Peretz did this, then the blood's also on their fucking heads.'
A SHAPE IN THE CLAY
Big Sur
Six Months Before…
'Oh…Targov…'
She was like that-after she climaxed she always moaned his name: 'Targov, Targov…oh…oh…' Then, always, she fell asleep.
She was a big girl, this one, taller than Anna, California-grown with a quick smile, a dimpled Irish face, and a Milky Way of freckles across her chest. Strong hard breasts and a ribbon of reddish hair between her legs. She jogged. She took dance class. She lifted weights. Her hair was long and auburn. Her hands were powerful. She was a potter.
He left her on her mattress amid rumpled salmon sheets. There was no bed in the loft, just the huge mattress and her clothing, costumes really, stored in straw baskets scattered on the floor. Smaller baskets, containing underwear and stockings, hung from the ceiling amid her hanging plants. A ladder led down to her studio. He descended it, his cock swinging. A little tired, a little droopy, he thought, but still it swings and rings…
He went to the refrigerator, poured himself a vodka, sat down naked on her sofa upholstered in musty olive
