'The one near the New Gate.'
'Saint Saviour's?'
'Yeah.' The Turk peered closely at the photo, turned serious. 'What's the matter with her? Is she-'
'Do you know her name?'
'No idea. Only reason I remember her at all is that she was good-looking.' Another downward glance: 'Someone got her, right?'
Daniel took the picture away from him. 'Your name, please, adoni.'
'Sabhan, Eli, but I don't want to get involved in this, okay?'
Two little girls in T-shirts and flowered pants came up to the counter and asked for blue ice bars. Daniel stepped aside and allowed Sabhan to complete the transaction. After the Turk had pocketed the money, he came forward again and asked, 'What were you doing at the Saint Saviour's monastery, Adon Sabhan?'
The Turk waved his hand around the interior of the kiosk and gave a disgusted look.
'This is not my career. I used to have a real business until the fucking government taxed me out of it. Painting and plastering. I contracted to paint the monks' infirmary and finished two walls before some Arabs underbid me and the so-called holy men kicked me off the job. All those brown-robes-fucking anti-Semites.'
'What do you know about the girl?'
'Nothing. I just saw her. Scrubbing the floor.'
'How long ago was this?'
'Let's see-it was before I went bust, which would be about two weeks.'
Two weeks, thought Daniel. Poor guy's just gone under. Which could explain all the anger.
'Did you ever see her with anyone else, Adon Sabhan?'
'Just her mop and pail.' Sabhan wiped his face with his hand, leaned in, and said conspiratorially: 'Ten to one, one of the brown-robes did her in. She was raped, wasn't she?'
'Why do you say that?'
'A guy has needs, you know? It's not normal, the way they live-no sex, the only women in sight a few dried- up nuns. That's got to do something to your mind, right? Young piece like that comes around, no bra, shaking like jelly, squatting down, someone gets heated up and boom, right?'
'Did you ever observe any conflict between her and the monks?'
Sabhan shook his head.
'What about between her and anyone else?'
'Nah, I was busy painting,' said Sabhan, 'my face to the wall. But take my word for it, that's what happened.'
Daniel asked him a few more questions, got nothing more, and examined the Turk's business license. On it was listed a Katamon Two home address. He committed it to memory and left the kiosk, heart pounding. Quickening his pace to a jog, he retraced his path but turned east onto Ben Zakai, then northeast, making his way up toward the Old City.
He'd reached the David Remez intersection, just yards from the city walls, when his beeper went off.
'What's he like?' Avi Cohen asked Shmeltzer.
'Who?'
They were sitting in a gray, windowless room at Headquarters, surrounded by file folders and sheaves of computer print-out. The room was freezing and Cohen's arms were studded with goose bumps. When he'd asked Shmeitzer about it, the old guy had shrugged and said, 'The polygraph officer next door, he likes it that way.' As if that explained it.
'Sharavi,' said Cohen, opening a missing-kid file. He gazed at the picture and put it atop the growing mounting of rejects. Donkey work-a cleaning woman could do it.
'What do you mean, what's he like?'
Shmeitzer's tone was sharp and Cohen thought: Touchy bastards, all them in this section.
'As a boss,' he clarified.
'Why do you ask?'
'Just curious. Forget I asked.'
'Curious, eh? You generally a curious fellow?'
'Sometimes.' Cohen smiled. 'It's supposed to be a good quality in a detective.'
Shmeitzer shook his head, lowered his eyes, and ran his index finger down a column of names. Sex offenders, hundreds of them.
They'd been working together for two hours, collating, sorting, and for two hours the old guy had worked without complaining. Hunched over the list, making subfiles, cross-referencing, checking for aliases or duplicates. Not much of a challenge for a mefakeah, thought Cohen, but it didn't seem to bother him. Probably a burnout, liked playing it safe.
His own assignment was even more tedious: going through more than 2,000 missing-kid files and matching them up with the photo of the cutting victim. Only 1,633 were open cases, the computer officer had assured him. Only. But someone had mistakenly left more than 400 solved ones mixed in.
