holiday.'
The line went silent.
'Listen,' said Gene, 'if you need me, I can postpone leaving.'
'Gene, Rome is a beautiful-'
'Danny, Rome is more churches. Bigger ones. Shrines and murals. Murals on ceilings always give me a stiff neck.'
Daniel laughed.
'However,' said the black man, 'I think there're still a few holy places around here that Lu hasn't seen. Just this morning she was complaining about a missing a lecture series on ancient pottery whosits or something. So there's a chance I can persuade her to modify our itinerary if you need me. Have to know soon, though, or we run into problems with changing the tickets.'
'I need you, Gene.'
'Nice to hear. You can tell me again at dinner tonight. Meantime, let me get going on those calls. Bye.'
Daniel put the phone down, thought more about the traveling killer.
America to Israel.
Europe in between?
He phoned Friedman in Bonn, knowing it was barely morning in Germany and not caring if the Interpol man got yanked out of sweet dreams.
The same detached secretary's voice came on the line. Reciting a recorded message.
He slammed the phone down, studied his notes, let his mind run with the facts, expand them. Kept returning to one thought:
A racist killer.
Calculating. Careful.
Manipulative.
He remembered the phrase that had come to him while reading the books and monographs on psychopathic killers:
Street-corner Mengeles.
He thought, again, of the disgusting paperbacks in Ben David's office. The Black Book of Fascist Horror.
Read the chapter on 'Murder for Profit,' the psychologist had said. The surgical experiments.
I found myself thinking about them in Nazi terms
You see, you don't need me. Your unconscious is guiding you in the right direction.
His unconscious. It had been languishing, sick with frustration, withering from disuse. But the data on the FBI list-the link-had breathed new life into it. Now, an image of the killer had been sculpted in his mind-a soft sculpture, to be sure, a wax outline, gross features melting in the glare of uncertainty. But an image nonetheless.
He was certain he was right.
The killer was no Jew, no Arab.
An American with strange eyes, a diseased mind, and a racist scheme. A beast of the highway stalking the herd.
Americans, thousands of them living and visiting here, but the only ones under surveillance were Roselli and Wilbur. Not very promising; The reporter was unethical, but no killer; the monk's big secret was that he wanted to be a Jew.
Which made him intriguing, but no suspect.
Unless he had more than one big secret.
From what Daoud had overheard, the monk knew he was under suspicion. Was the move to the yeshiva a means of covering something up?
Daniel had instructed Daoud to stay on Roselli. The Arab's 'Yes, Pakad' had been reflexive but strained. Poor guy was probably cross-eyed with boredom by now. If nothing came up soon, Daniel resolved to put his talents to better use. Any further observation of Roselli could be carried out by one of Harel's Latam boys, wrapped in robes and kafftyah.
He thought about Roselli again. From monk to yeshiva student.
A spiritual quest? Or just another impulsive shift for an unbalanced mind?
Another crazy American. With crazy eyes?
Thousands of Americans walking the streets of Jerusalem-find the one with the crazy eyes. Like sifting granules of gold for a single speck of dross.
Big mess, but small country. An outsider couldn't submerge himself indefinitely.
He took pen in hand, outlined his plan.
Airline cross-checks, page-by-page reviews of tens of thousands of uncomputerized passport records-the tedium the Chinaman had dreaded out loud but which was the surest way to fine-carve the sculpture. Canvasses of hotels, pensiones, hostels, dormitories, housing agents and automobile rental firms, travel and tour companies, kibbutzim and moshavim that took on foreign volunteers.
