Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

"Say that again, Ahmed.".

The boy pawed at the photo. Daoud pulled it back.

More pawing, as if he were trying to hit the picture.

"What's her name, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

"She's a bad girl?"

"Badirl!"

"Why is she a bad girl, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

"What had she done wrong?"

"Badirl!"

"Do you know her name, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

"All right, Ahmed. She's a bad girl. Now tell me her name, please."

"Badirl!"

"Where does she live, Ahmed?"

"Badirl!"

Sighing, Daoud put the picture away and started leaving. Ahmed gave a loud shriek and came after him, putting a padded hand on his shoulder.

Daoud reacted swiftly, turning and pushing the boy away. Ahmed stumbled and landed in the dirt. He looked up at Daoud, pouted and burst into loud sobs. Daoud felt like a child abuser.

"Come on, Ahmed. Settle down."

The door to the house opened and a small woman stepped out, bosom drooping, round dark face emerging like a hickory nut from within the folds of her melaya.

"What is it?" she said in a high, sharp voice.

"Mama, Mama, Mama!" wailed the boy.

She looked at the fruit of her loins, then over at Daoud with a combination of sadness and muted anger. A look that said she'd been through this many times before.

The boy reached his hands out, cried "Mama." Daoud felt like apologizing but knew it was the wrong approach for someone like her. To the traditional ones, raised on beating by fathers and husbands, kindness was interpreted as weakness.

"I'm Police Sergeant Daoud of the Kishle Substation," hesaid, stiffly. "I'm searching for someone who knows this girl." A wave of the photo. "Your son said he did and I was attempting to learn what he knew."

The woman snorted, came forward and glanced at the photo. Looking up without expression, she said, "He doesn't know her."

"Badirl!" said Ahmed, clucking his tongue.

"He said he did," said Daoud. "Seemed quite sure of it."

"Lessano taweel" snapped the woman. "He has a long tongue." She chattered rapidly: "His talk is like dung. Can't you see he's a fool?" Coming down the steps, she walked to the boy, slapped him sharply on the head, and took hold of his shirt collar.

"Up, you!"

"Mama, Mama!"

Slap, drag, slap. The boy got halfway to his feet and the woman, breathing hard, pulled him up the stairs toward the door.

"Badirl!" shouted the boy.

"One moment," said Daoud.

"A fool," said the woman, and she yanked the boy into the house and slammed the door.

Daoud stood alone on the steps and considered his options: He could knock, pursue the matter. But to what end? The picture had elicited no response from the woman, which meant the idiot son probably didn't know her either. A long-tongued idiot, as she'd said. Shooting off his mouth. A waste of time.

He took a deep breath and noticed that the skies had begun to darken. His job was far from done-covering the rest of the village would take hours. But the chance for human contact diminished with every degree the sun dropped. Better to wait until morning, a workday, with men on the streets. In the meantime he'd be better off asking his questions around more populated areas: the bus depot, the train station. Chasing shadows into the small hours.

It was decided, then. He'd leave Silwan, work Jerusalem until he couldn't keep his eyes open, come back tomorrow. First thing in the morning.

The collision of fist with face, firecracker-sharp.

The Chinaman sat in the tent, watching the movie. Waiting for Charlie Khazak to finish with the truck driver.

Bruce Lee on a big TV screen, surrounded by seven masked bad guys in black pajamas. Bare-chested and sweating, unarmed against the bad guys' knives and clubs. The bad guys moving in. A closeup of Bruce grimacing, screaming, a storm of lightning kicks and all the bad guys are down.

Not likely.

Applause and hoots came from some of the tables. Greasy-haired pooshtakim slouched with their arms around the bare shoulders of dumb, adoring girlfriends. Staring at the TV on the ladder as if it were some kind of god on a pedestal. Chain-smoking and drinking Turkish coffee, eating shishlik and watermelon, open-mouthed, spitting the seeds onto the dirt floor. Snotty little punks, laughing too loud. At this hour they should all be in bed. He picked out at least three or four he'd busted in the last year, probably others he couldn't remember. A couple of them met his eyes, tried to give him a little shit with defiant looks, but turned away when he held the stare. •

A hot night, and he was overdressed for it-jeans, boots, a body shirt, a loose cotton sport coat to cover his shoulder holster. Tired and grumpy from walking all night through the Arab neighborhoods, showing the girl's picture and getting blank stares. Five hookers working the entire Green Line, all of them fat and ugly. Having to wait for one of them to finish blowing an Arab in the back of her car before he could question her; the other ones available but semiretarded. None of them knew the girl; none of them seemed to care, even after he'd warned them, even after Gray Man. Now, here he was, waiting again, for a shit like Charlie Khazak.

On the screen, Bruce had walked into a garden and encountered a fat bald guy with the body of a sumo wrestler. Was there a plot to this one? Bruce's footwork didn't seem to impress Fatso. Close-up of his ugly puss grinning. Bruce getting slammed around; then a neck chop and a two-hander to the back of the head turned the tables. More cheers and hoots. Someone had told him the guy had died from a brain tumor or something like that. Too many kicks to the head.

He took a cube of melon from his plate, let it melt in his mouth, looked around the tent, got restless, and walked outside. Charlie Khazak was still talking to the driver, standing next to the melon truck, playing dickering games.

The Chinaman kept his eye on the flow out of the Damascus Gate, watched a group of soldiers pass under the arch, patting one another on the back, looking like the teenagers they were. A couple of Arabs, emerged, dressed in long white jallabiyahs. Another Arab, older, carrying a prayer rug. A solitary Hassid, tall, thin, wearing a wide mink hat. Like some black-garbed scarecrow, earlocks swinging as he walked. Where was a guy like that coming from at one in the morning on Shabbat-didn't they screw their wives on Friday night? What was his game-a late wrestle with the Talmud? Or some other kind of wrestle? During the stakeouts on Gray Man he'd learned about the righteous ones

Shouts of laughter poured out of Charlie's tent. No doubt Bruce had polished off someone else. As if in competition, the tent next door erupted in guffaws, backed by bass-heavy rock music.

Midnight party time at The Slave Market, every Friday, like clockwork. No party for Yossi Lee, walking through the tents, showing the picture to sleazy types and getting nothing.

By daybreak the tents would be down, the entire area just a dirt lot again, crowded with ten-dollar-a-day laborers waiting to be picked up by contractors. The only evidence of the party scene, the garbage: piles of broken bamboo shishlik skewers and melon rind, seeds dotting the dirt like dead bugs.

A Border Patrol jeep drove down Sultan Suleiman, stopped, and flashed blue lights over the walls, striping the Damascus Gate and driving on. Belly-dancing music came from one of the coffeehouses just inside the gate. A hangout for older Arabs-men only; the women were stuck at home. Card games and backgammon, the air a fog of tobacco smoke filtered through rosewater narghilas. Scratchy recordings of finger cymbals and whining violins, the same love song played for an hour-what use was all that romance, with no women around? Maybe they were ail queer-the way they sucked on their narghilas, you could hear the gurgle.

Charlie Khazak paid the driver. Two boys materialized from behind the truck and started unloading the melons, carrying five, six at a time, back to the tent. Hot night like this, they'd sell faster than they came in.

The Chinaman stretched impatiently, walked over to Charlie, and said, "Come on."

"Patience." Charlie smiled and turned back to the Arab, who was counting his money with a tongue-moistened finger. Charlie smiled again, a vulture smile on a vulture face. Skinny, dark. Pocked, sunken cheeks, Iraqi beak nose, and one dark line of eyebrow. Bald on top with pointy sideburns and a long fringe of hair on the sides that ran over onto his collar. A purple and green paisley shirt with balloon sleeves, tight black pants, needle-toed patent-leather shoes. A pooshtak all grown up. The guy's father had been a rabbi in Baghdad; the wages of righteousness, a punk son.

"Patience, nothing," said the Chinaman and put his hand heavily on Charlie's shoulder. All bones. One good squeeze and the guy would be out of commission.

He exerted the tiniest bit of pressure and Charlie said goodbye to the Arab.

The two of them walked back to the tent, past the tables with pooshtakim greeting Charlie as if he were some sort of pop star, to the rear, where shishlik and skimpy hamburgers sizzled on charcoal grills and a sleepy-looking bartender filled orders behind a makeshift bar of melon cartons piled one on top of the other. Charlie grabbed a bottle of Coke from the ice bucket and offered it to the Chinaman, who took it and dropped it back in the bucket. Charlie shrugged, and the Chinaman motioned him into a dark corner next to a pyramid of melons, away from the eyes of the others.

"Look at this," he said, pulling out the picture. "Know her?"

Charlie took the photo, furrowed his forehead so that the single eyebrow dipped in the center.

"Cute. Is she sleeping or dead?"

"Ever sell her?"

"Me?" Charlie feigned hurt feelings. "I'm a restaurateur, not a flesh peddler."

A roar of approval rose from the crowd at the tables. Bruce Lee had just finished vanquishing a small army of bad guys.

"The mysteries of the Orient," said Charlie, watching the film. "Right up your alley."

"Cut the shit. I'm tired."

Something in the detective's voice wiped the smile off

Charlie's face. Handing the photo back, he said: "Don't know her."

"Ever seen her around?"

The faintest hesitation, but the Chinaman picked up on it.

"No."

The Chinaman inched closer to Charlie, so that they could smell each other. "If you're holding out on me, I'll find out, shmuck. And I'll come back and jam one of those melons up your ass."

The bartender looked up. Smiling faintly, enjoying the sight of the boss being bossed.

Charlie put his hands on his hips. Raised his voice for the benefit of the bartender: "Get the hell out of here, Lee. I'm busy."

The Chinaman lifted a melon from the pyramid, knocked on it as if testing for freshness, then let it roll off his palm and fall to the ground. The melon landed with a dull thud and exploded, pink pulp and juice splattering in the dust. The barman looked up, remained in his place. No one else seemed to have noticed. All locked in on Bruce.

"Oops." The Chinaman smiled.

Charlie started to protest, but before he could say anything the Chinaman placed his right boot heel on the tent-keeper's right instep, leaned in, and put a little weight on it. Charlie's eyes opened wide with pain.

"What the-" he said, then forced himself to smile. The grand-daddy pooshiak, toughing it out, not wanting to look like a pussy in front of his fans. Not that they had eyes for anyone but Bruce.

"Tell me what you know." The Chinaman smiled back.

"Off my foot, you baboon."

The Chinaman continued smiling. Pressed down harder and talked nonchalantly, as if the two of them were buddies. Having a chat about sports or something.

"Listen, Adon Khazak," he said, "I've no interest in finding out what naughtiness you've been up to. Tonight." More pressure. "Just tell me about this girl."

Charlie gasped and the bartender came closer, bottle of Goldstar in one hand. "Charlie-"

"Get the hell out of here, stupid! Do your job!"

The bartender cursed under his breath, went back to washing glasses.

"Like I told you," Charlie said between his teeth. Sweat ran down his nose, beading at the tip of the beak, rolling off into the dirt. "I don't know her. Now get the hell off my foot before you break something."

"You've seen her around."

"What of it? She's a face, a nothing."

"Where and when," said the Chinaman.

"Get off and I'll tell you."

The Chinaman gave a good-natured shrug and broke contact. Charlie spat into the ground, did a sneaky little dance. Concealed his pain by pulling out a pack of Marlboros and a box of matches, jamming a cigarette between his lips, and making a show of lighting a match against his thumbnail. He sucked in smoke, blew it out though his nostrils. Repeated the gesture. Formed his features into a tough-guy grimace.

"Very impressive," said the Chinaman. "The girl."

"She's been around once or twice, okay? That's all."

"On a Friday?"

"That's the only time we're here, Lee." A kick at a stray chunk of pulp.

"Was she alone or with someone?"

"I saw her with a guy."

"What kind of guy?"

"An Arab."

"Name."

"How the hell should I know? They never came in. I just saw them hanging around. It was a long time ago."

"How long?"