Anna Hartman's bag was never recovered, nor her missing underwear. No new evidence presented itself, and no main suspect emerged. The possibility that this had been a random killing, the hardest kind to solve, loomed ever larger.
Meltzer, like all police detectives, had other cases to work. Slowly, gradually, Anna Hartman's case shifted in status from active to inactive. And like more murder victims than the general public would be comfortable knowing about, she joined the sad ranks of the dead and unavenged, a victim awaiting justice in the cold embrace of death.
10
I gathered the reports and pictures and stuck them back in the folder. They were probably out of order, but I didn't care. I doubted anyone would be looking at this file anytime soon.
Unless I managed to catch the murderer.
I crossed the hall to Reuben's office. He was still there, working. He'd made some headway. The mountain range of papers on his desk was not as tall as it had been.
"I'm done," I said, crossing over to his desk and handing him the folder.
He put it back in his desk drawer. "Got everything you need?"
"Just about," I said. "I would like to talk to the lead detective. Hillel Meltzer. You know him?"
"Sure. But he doesn't live in Tel Aviv anymore. He moved to Netanya a few years back." He glanced at his watch. "He probably went home for the day. I can call him tomorrow morning."
Through Reuben's window I saw the sky was a dark purple. It was a quarter to seven. I felt a twinge of guilt.
"You waited here for me?" I asked.
Reuben shrugged. "It's all right. As you can see, I got plenty to do."
"But nothing that couldn't wait till tomorrow, right?"
He got up from his chair and smoothed his uniform shirt. He had always been a tidy man, almost fastidious, even during the war. "We can talk about it, or we can get out of here. I know what I prefer."
We walked out of the station together. The evening air was cool and smelled fresh and clean. Reuben stuck his cap atop his head. He glanced again at his watch.
"You want to come over, Adam? Gila will be happy to see you."
I shook my head. "Thank you, Reuben, but I got to be someplace. We'll do it soon, I promise. And I'm sorry that you stayed here so late because of me."
He waved a hand. "Forget about it. I just hope you catch this murderer."
We shook hands and he turned and walked away. I watched him for a moment. I almost ran after him and told him I'd changed my mind, that I would be glad to come over. Instead, I remained rooted to the sidewalk until he rounded a corner and was gone. Only then did I head off myself.
I had lied to him. A half lie, because I was meeting someone that night, but not until much later. Maybe I'd done it to spare his feelings. Or to spare myself the need to explain my reluctance to visit him and his family.
Either way, I felt bad about it. I also felt lonely. But it was that strange sort of loneliness in which you feel the pressing weight of your isolation, but also don't want to talk to anyone who knows you.
So I did not go to Greta's Café. Instead, I wandered around a bit, bought a soda at a kiosk, found myself near Gruzenberg Street, and went to see a movie at Ophir Cinema. I sat on a hard wooden chair surrounded by strangers and watched the drama unfold on the screen. It was sort of like the previous night when I'd gone to see King Lear.
Only no one wept. No one clapped. My fellow spectators did not refrain from whispering among themselves—which they did in Yiddish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hebrew, and a slew of other languages. And I wasn't there to see a potential murderer.
It was midnight when I arrived at the cluster of shabby warehouses on the outskirts of Tel Aviv Harbor. On either side of a lane of pocked asphalt stood lines of blocky structures, several rows deep.
A minority of the warehouses boasted a single desultory light bulb, which shone above their door and did little to illuminate the lane I was treading on. Others hulked like giant black rocks, shrouded by darkness. In the narrow spaces between warehouses, shadows converged, thick and sinister. Anything could have hidden there. Man or beast.
The place was deserted, all the workers safely in their beds. There was a night watchman, but I'd been assured he would not be around.
The blast of crashing waves carried on the light breeze, sounding strangely closer than it should have. In between one crash to the next, I could hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet—scurrying rats, probably—and twice the woeful howl of a night creature, though in both cases it was impossible to tell from where. My nose filled with the smell of rust, rotting wood, and the sea.
I counted off warehouses as I walked. After eight, I stopped before a wooden door above which no light shone. I had my instructions. Three rapid knocks, a pause, and then two more.
Half a minute later, a key turned in the lock, the door creaked open, and I found myself standing before a man I did not know.
"You Lapid?" he asked, his accent local.
I could hardly make out his face in the gloom of the doorway, and I doubted he could see mine, but it was clear he wasn't the man I was there to see. I could tell that by his voice—low and raspy.
"Who are you?" I asked, tensing, my hands bunching into fists.
He grinned, a slash of white teeth opening in the shadows crowding his face. "Relax, it's okay. I'm Meir's cousin. He's out back, taking a leak. Come in."
He moved aside to allow me to enter. He locked the door and then led the way through a narrow aisle lined with wooden crates heaped ten feet high. At the far end, a pool of light beckoned, painting an empty patch of floor a tarnished yellow. It was only when we got there that I got a proper look at him.
And he at me.
It all happened fast then. Much too fast for me. His face twisted in surprise, rage, and blazing hatred. His hand flashed lightning quick under his jacket, and before I had time to draw in a breath, he had pulled out a gun and had it aimed straight at my face.
11
I stood there like a pillar of ice, stock-still and freezing cold, as I stared at the gun and the man holding it.
The gun was a Browning Hi Power pistol, with a thirteen-round magazine. Not that he would need thirteen bullets to kill me. Not when he was standing just five feet away. Not with his hand as steady as it was and his finger curled around the trigger, when all it would take was a tiny squeeze to blow my brains out.
Wondering what had led to this abrupt shift in his attitude toward me, I said, "Listen, I don't know—"
"Shut up." His finger tensed just a bit more on the trigger. "You just shut your mouth." His teeth were bared, but his voice, firm and flat, betrayed not a hint of nervousness. This wasn't the first time he'd pointed a gun at a man, and would not be the first time he shot one either. My heart was hammering so hard my chest ached. My blood rushed through my arteries, as though eager to convey life throughout my body while it still could. I became acutely aware of every inch of my skin. It vibrated with fear.
We were standing near the center of the warehouse, in a wide empty space framed by towers of crates and boxes. Dust motes floated through the air like a cloud of insects angry at our disruptive presence.
The man who could kill me with a jerk of his forefinger was lean and wiry, early thirties, five nine or ten. Full black hair that had been smeared backward with brilliantine. It glinted in the light cast down by the naked bulb that burned above him. He had a narrow, feral face, with high cheekbones, a curving jaw, and a tight, mean-looking mouth with thin, pallid lips. But his eyes were what grabbed my attention, and what made me even more terrified than the gun in his hand.