'Van had those kind of windows you can't see in. Even under hypnosis my witness can't recall the digits on the plates.'
'Didn't anyone else get a fix on the car?'
'David, you've forgotten what it's like. When you go on leave all you think about is getting home. You're so wrapped up in that you don't pay attention to anything else. The man who picked her up probably knew that too. He chose the perfect time when those hitching stops are wild.'
And now Shoshana has a favorite victim too, David thought.
The tan Renault that had carried Ora Goshen was stolen, so there was reason to believe the blue van with the one-way windows had been stolen too. David put out an all-Israel alert. No reports came in. Then he had Rebecca Marcus forward a request to the police computer unit. He wanted a printout on every dark-colored van in the country, broken down first by city, then by make. If necessary, he would have every owner checked.
Peretz: Dov had him thoroughly covered now. Five teams were on him, watching him day and night, and Dov didn't think Peretz was aware of them-he'd made no visible alterations in his routine.
'He's a strange guy, David. Doesn't go out much. Stays home most of the day. Doesn't seem to have a job. But then he takes a long walk around five, six in the afternoon. No particular direction or destination, but there's a manner he has that bothers me. Couldn't put my finger on it at first. Then I realized what it was. The way he moves -like a certain kind of dog. A hunter. A tracker. He moves around
Jerusalem like a guy maneuvering in the woods.'
Although there was risk, since he was publically identified with the case, David knew he had to see this for himself.
The apartment was on Zevi Graetz, heavily perfumed this time of year by flowering jasmine. A street of fine houses and lush gardens and a sweet smell that reminded him of his boyhood. Walking here to meet Dov he remembered spring evenings playing with Gideon on Disraeli Street, kicking around a soccer ball, then bicycling through the thick aromatic air that settled with the dusk.
Dov was waiting in an old Volkswagen squareback, parked a few doors down and across the street from Peretz's home.
'He's got the whole top floor. Looks like it was added on. There's a terrace. Uri can see it from the other side. Sometimes Peretz goes out there and stands by the railing. View's probably terrific. Place must have cost a bundle.'
David knew Peretz had money. Micha Benyamani and Moshe Liederman had pulled together a fairly decent file. He'd inherited from an aunt who lived in the States. The money came through just about the time he left the army and since then, as far as anyone knew, he hadn't bothered to find a job.
Some crackling over the field radio. Then Uri's voice: 'Lights going out.' David looked up at the apartment, saw the windows suddenly go dark.
'Going from room to room turning them off,' said Dov. 'Coming down now for the evening stroll.'
David focused on the building door. This would be his first look at a living breathing Peretz. He had read through the dossier and studied the tapes, but so far had no clear impression of the man.
'Okay, now watch the way he sniffs the air.'
And, indeed, when Peretz appeared, he paused, looked both ways, gave the air a sniff, then took off for Wingate Square with an aggressive swagger.
'Seems to like the posh parts of town.' Dov started up the car. 'Jerusalem Theater area, that sort of thing. Three out of four times he goes this way. Still, he always looks both directions before he starts.'
Dov turned the car around, zigzagged through a couple of streets, came out by the Mayer Institute of Islamic Art. 'Okay, he should pass by in a minute or so. He can work himself up to quite a pace.'
Uri's voice on the radio: 'He's on Chopin Street.' Then: 'Hey! Wait! There's a taxi-load of torchers heading your way.'
Just then an old Mercedes taxi came reeling around the corner with half a dozen bearded youths packed into the back. David caught a glimpse of fanatical eyes peering out of windows. He recognized a gang of ultra-orthodox who drove the city at night. Offended by the semi-nudity of models in advertisements affixed to the sides of bus shelters, they were no longer content to paint the posters out; now they burned the shelters down.
'What I'd give to arrest a couple of those creeps,' Dov said. The taxi passed. 'There! See him? There he is.'
David slid down in his seat as he watched Peretz pass in profile. He was striding swiftly now, head thrust forward, hands locked tightly behind his back.
'From here he usually heads for Zarefat. We had some trouble the first two nights, but now that we know him it's getting easier. There're always two of us out there on foot. Every couple of minutes we change off.' Dov started the car again. 'I'm going to do a pass.'
David sank down again but kept his eyes on the rear-view mirror. 'Now!' For an instant he caught Peretz's face and was surprised to find it troubled and grim. On the tapes he'd seemed so calm and self-assured. So, he thought, Major Peretz wears a mask.
As they took up various other positions to observe other segments of the walk, David asked himself how much he really knew about his quarry. Only son of secular South African-born parents. A loner with no close male friends. A lifetime bachelor apparently without any woman in his life-which seemed to fit with the lack of sexual assault upon the victims. Still not much to go on. Ali Saad had not been able to identify him, and neither had the two prostitute friends of Ora Goshen. But his appearance at the symposium and his former use of the double slash signature made him a plausible suspect, so far the only one they had.
'Oh oh, he's turning into the park.' Dov grabbed his microphone. 'Careful, Uri. It's a maze.'
They were parked across from the Supersol, where Anna did most of her shopping. Peretz had just strode by them, and then, opposite the American Consulate, had turned suddenly into the labyrinthine lower portion of Independence Park.
'You know, David, it's Queersville in there this time of night.'
Dov was right, this was the place and time for homosexual trysts. There were other such places, in the Old City and in East Jerusalem, but the southern base of Independence Park was notorious, and in the summer months there were always incidents, gay foreigners mugged by addicts, assignations made in expectation of pleasure but ending in beatings or fights.
'Three's not enough.'
'I know.' Dov ordered two more men in, then got out of the car himself.
'I'm coming too.'
'He knows you.'
'Can't worry about that now.' They jogged along the street together, Dov trying to attach his field radio to his belt. 'We'll split up and try to flank him. Shouldn't be too tough if he's just passing through. But if he's hunting…' They turned onto a footpath, then into a stand of trees.
That cloying odor again, of flowering jasmine, hanging in the still night air, thicker this time, almost like a syrup. It was a humid evening, and now, away from the street lamps, cut off from the city, wandering alone amid these silent woods, David asked himself why that particular aroma conjured up such sharp memories of his past. Gideon, he thought-something to do with him, and he realized at once that the association was stronger now than it had been earlier when he'd made his way down Zevi Graetz.
He took the right fork, skirted the edges of the Mamillah Pool where a dozen young men in tight-fitting clothing lingered against the thick trunks of eucalyptus trees.
No sign of Peretz. David was about to cross to his left when he remembered that the Renault into which Ora Goshen had stepped that night by the Damascus Gate had been stolen from the public parking lot just four hundred feet up the slope. Suppose he's not here for prey? Suppose he's after another car? He began to run toward the lot. As he charged through some bushes he nearly tripped over two men lying together on a patch of grass.
'David!' It was Dov, standing on one foot in the middle of the parking lot picking thorns out of his socks. 'He's up by the Arp statue on King George. Shoshana'll be around in a minute to pick us up.' He pushed in the antenna of his radio and grinned. 'Almost forgot about that car.'
'Garbage detail.' Shoshana dumped the bag onto the desk. 'Or should I say the gleanings, since I kindly removed all the soggy old teabags, raunchy old yogurt cups, and yukky orange rinds downstairs?'
Eleven A.M. The Pattern Crimes Unit room was nearly empty. Micha was on the telephone, and Rebecca