Again he paused, but his face did not register any inkling as to his thoughts. He was a good actor, better than most, and he longed to be the best. How it must have tormented him to be eclipsed by Eliezer Dattner and Nahum Ornstein. Enough, perhaps, to cross the ultimate line and kill them.
He said, "I did not have any reason to kill Anna."
"You were her lover," I said, and the subtle cramping of his lips confirmed it. He hadn't expected that secret to be revealed. "Don't bother denying it. I know it for a fact. What did she do? Threaten to tell your wife? Decide to end the affair? Did she have enough of you?"
He smiled contemptuously. "You're flailing, Mr. Lapid. You have nothing."
"Innocent men don't fake alibis, Mr. Rotner. And you did."
"You may believe my wife or not, that's not important. Only what the police believe is."
"The police may decide to take a closer look when I tell them about the affair."
"Tell them any lie you wish. Even if they believe you, I doubt they'll do anything about it after all this time. And if they do, my wife will tell them the same thing she did five years ago, that I was with her all that night."
"She may decide to change her story once she learns of the affair."
That made him quiet. And it achieved the dual goal I had set for this meeting. His eyes burned with rage and hate and a dash of fear. He did not want his wife to know of his infidelity. That by itself could be reason enough for him to kill me.
"Don't you dare speak with my wife about me, understand?" His voice was a low growl. "I am not some nobody you can push around."
"I know you're not. No murderer is."
"I'm no murderer."
"What did you do with Anna's bag? Why did you take her underwear?"
His Adam's apple shifted in his throat. That was his only reaction. "I did not kill Anna."
"I don't believe you. I came here to give you a chance to confess."
"You're out of your mind. I have nothing to confess to. Now I want you to leave and never come back here again. Not even if you buy a ticket to any of our shows. And if you bother my wife or spread lies about me, you'll pay dearly for it. Do I make myself clear?"
"Quite," I said, not budging. "I wouldn't want to get shot or drowned in my bathtub."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how you became the leading man of this theater. I'm talking about Eliezer Dattner and Nahum Ornstein, the two men you killed."
He stared at me, his mouth slightly ajar.
"It's a shock, isn't it," I said, "that someone else knows what you did?" I took a step closer. "I understand why you killed them. Dattner was in your way; he was the lead actor. You thought you deserved that position more, so you followed him into Jaffa one night, when he went to pay a call on his lover, and you shot him. You planned it well, down to the anti-Jewish pamphlet you shoved between his lips.
"As for Ornstein, he was getting too many glowing reviews; some of them said he was even better than you. So you went to his apartment, knocked him out somehow, and made it look like he drowned in his bathtub. You staged the scene perfectly. Like you do in that notebook of yours."
He looked down at the notebook in question, then slowly back up at me. "You think I killed Eliezer? And Nahum? You're—"
"You want to be the best," I said. "That's why you spend so many hours here, working so hard to make each performance perfect. And you're very good. Just not good enough. Not like Dattner and Ornstein. And I bet they didn't work half as hard as you. They were just born better. This must have made you mad as hell. You deserved it and they didn't. So you killed them and got what you wanted. You became the leading man. That must have felt good."
Rotner shook his head. A vein began throbbing in his temple. "I've killed no one. Absolutely no one."
"Got an alibi? Or are you planning on getting your wife to lie for you again?"
That got to him. His ears pulled back, the skin of his cheeks drew taut, the wolf in him surfacing.
"It must be killing you," I said, "how bad things are going. I know about the wage cuts. I know the theater is bleeding money. And it's all happening with you being the star. I watched you in King Lear. You're good. But apparently, you're not good enough to carry a theater on your shoulders."
"Shut up! Just shut your mouth!"
"I'm going to find proof, Mr. Rotner. And then everyone will know what you did, and why. And how, after all that, you're still a failure."
I watched it happen, the last shreds of his self-control sloughing away like dry skin. He let out a bellow of fury and came at me. One big step, a planted left foot, and then his hand was flying at my face. It was the hand clutching the pen.
I could see it coming and evaded the blow easily. His midsection was undefended, and I punched him right on the navel, not holding anything back, doing what I'd wanted to do since our first conversation. His air went out. Notebook and pen tumbled. He joined them, dropping on his ass, gasping for breath.
I crouched down beside him. I could smell his anger, a musky, vibrant scent. His face was red with rage and lack of oxygen. I'd done what I came here to do. I did not think I could make him any madder at me.
"Just one more thing," I said, noting the spittle on his lips and the twin cauldrons of hatred in his eyes. "Did you also kill Emil Polisar? Because if you did, I'll make sure you go down for that one as well."
30
I went to Greta's Café. The place was humming with customers, and Greta did not have time for me. That was all right. A dose of solitude was what I wanted. I spent the next three hours at my table, playing chess and drinking coffee, trying to think of nothing at all. But being a marked man tends to occupy the mind. I did not think the killer would act so soon, but I found myself scanning the face of each new patron and periodically touching my knife for reassurance.
Back in my building, I unlocked my door and went inside my apartment, finding it exactly as I'd left it. Feeling entirely safe for the first time since my talk with Ofra Wexler, I took my knife out of my pocket and laid it on the table. I rummaged around for my cigarettes, then realized I'd run out and forgotten to buy a new pack. Swearing under my breath, I went into the kitchen, got an apple, ran some water over it, and took a bite.
Going to the nightstand, I picked up the creased paperback with the cover showing a weather-beaten cowboy with a Winchester rifle. I thumbed open the book where I'd left a cinema stub as a marker, then sat on the bed to read. I was raising the apple for a second bite when my nose caught the smell.
It was so faint, I thought I was imagining it. Still, my body tensed up and the small hairs on the nape of my neck stood like inmates at roll call.
Then some primal instinct shouted a warning in my head, and I acted without thinking. I pitched myself forward, down to the floor, sure that I was too damn slow, sure that my next sensation would be my skin getting ripped open or my skull blown apart by a bullet.
But the only thing I felt was a whoosh of splitting air as something sliced through empty space an inch from my back. Empty space that an instant ago had been filled with my body. And then I landed hard on my stomach and chest, the book tumbling from one hand, the other somehow retaining its grip on the apple. I heard a guttural curse behind me and rolled over quickly.
Amiram Gadot was standing there, dressed all in black, a knife in his hand. The blade was stuck in the mattress, all the way to the hilt, exactly where I'd been sitting. I shot to my feet as he pried it loose.
His upper lip curled, almost as white as the teeth it revealed. His narrow face looked bony, his skin seemingly so thin the bones bleached through, like the head of a recently dead man. His bottomless eyes held a sharp, manic gleam. Something long and sleek seemed to move just under the irises, but that must have been a trick of the light. He had taken off his shoes to make his already quiet walk utterly soundless. And it had worked. I had not heard him sneaking up on me.