'Shrimp, lobster cocktail.'
Wilbur felt himself grow irritated. Patronized.
'What about soup?' He smiled. 'Chicken soup. With matzo balls.'
The kid was impassive. 'We've got that too, Mr. Wilbur.'
'Bring me a shrimp cocktail.'
Wilbur looked across the bar as the kid disappeared into the kitchen, read the gag cards again. An eye chart that spelled out TOO MUCH SEX MAKES YOU GO BLIND if you read it the right way; a placard announcing ONCE A king, always a KING, BUT? ONCE A KNIGHT IS ENOUGH!
The door to the street swung open, letting in heat, and Rappaport from the Post walked in. Perfect. It was Rap-paport's byline on the murder story, and he was an American, Princeton grad, a former hippie type who'd interned at the Baltimore Sun. Young, Jewish, and fast-talking, but he didn't mind a tipple once in a while.
Wilbur motioned toward the empty stool on his left and Rappaport sat down. 'Steve, old boy.'
'Hello, Mark.'
The Post man was wearing a short-sleeved safari shirt with oversized pockets, denim walking shorts, and sandals without socks.
'Very casual,' said Wilbur appraisingly.
'Got to beat the heat, Mark.' Rappaport took a bulldog pipe, tobacco pouch, and matches out of one of the big pockets and placed them on the bar.
Wilbur noticed that the other two Israeli journalists were also informally attired. Long pants, but lightweight sport shirts. Suddenly his seersucker suit, button-down shirt, and rep tie, which had looked natty when he'd dressed this morning, seemed out of place, superfluous.
'Righto.' He loosened his tie and pointed to the rolled-up Post. 'Just finished reading your piece. Nice chunk of work, Steve.'
'Routine,' said Rappaport. 'Straight from the source. The police covered up the first one, fed us a false quick-solve, and we swallowed it, but there were rumors that it was too easy, too cute, so we had our feelers out and were ready for them the second time.around.'
Wilbur chuckled. 'Same old bullshit.' He picked up the newspaper, used it for a fan. 'Nasty stuff, from the sound of it.'
'Very. Butchery.'
Wilbur liked the sound of that. He filed it away for future use.
'Any leads?'
'Nothing,' said Rappaport. He had long hair and a thick handlebar mustache that he brushed away from his lips. 'The police here aren't used to that kind of thing-they're not equipped to handle it.'
'Amateur hour, huh?'
The bartender brought Wilbur's shrimp.
'I'll have some of that too,' said Rappaport. 'And a beer.'
'On me,' Wilbur told the bartender.
'Thank you much, Mark,' said Rappaport.
Wilbur shrugged it off. 'Gotta keep the expense account going or the main office gets worried.'
'I won't tell you about my expense account.' Rappaport frowned. 'Or lack thereof.'
'Police beating their meat?' asked Wilbur, trying to get the conversation back on track. It was a little too obvious and Rappaport seemed to have caught it. He picked up the pipe, rolled it in his palm, then filled it, lit it, and regarded Wilbur over a rising plume of smoke.
'Same thing back home,' said Wilbur, backtracking casually. 'Stepping over each other's feet and snowing the press.'
'No,' said Rappaport. 'That's not the situation here. Major Crimes is a fairly competent unit when it comes to their specialty-security crimes, bombs left in trash bins, et cetera. The problem with this kind of thing is lack of experience. Sex murders are virtually unknown in Israel-I went into the archives and found only a handful in thirty years. And only one was a serial-a guy last year, cutting up hookers. They never caught him.' He shook his head, smoked. 'Six months in Baltimore, I saw more than that.'
'Last year,' said Wilbur. 'Could it be the same guy?'
'Doubtful. Different M.O.'s.'
M.O.'s. The kid had been reading too many detective novels.
'Two in a row,' said Wilbur. 'Maybe things are changing.'
'Maybe they are,' said Rappaport. He looked concerned. The sincere worry of a good citizen. Unprofessional, thought Wilbur. If you wanted to be effective you couldn't be part of it.
'What else you have been up to, Steve?' he asked, not wanting to sound too eager.
'Sunday puff piece on the new Ramat Gan mall-nothing much else.'
'Till the next pseudo-scandal, eh?'
Before Rappaport could reply, his shrimp and beer came. Wilbur slapped down his American Express card and
