"It wouldn't feel right, with you having to ration yourself."
"These days, is there anything one doesn't need to ration? Should simple courtesy be postponed to a more prosperous time?"
I nodded agreement with his logic, and he proceeded to roll a cigarette for me. While doing so, he said, "You can consider this a part of your retainer, Mr. Lapid."
I snuffed out my cigarette. "A retainer for what, Mr. Jamalka?"
"For a job I want to hire you to perform." He handed me the cigarette. "Here."
I lit it and took a drag. It was too deep and the tobacco surprisingly strong. I coughed and my eyes watered. Jamalka smiled at me through the haze of smoke our twin cigarettes made between us.
"Good, eh?"
I drew in on the cigarette again, a shallower pull this time. I nodded. "Very good. A new taste, for me at least. The taste of European cigarettes, or American ones, is vastly different. Would you like some coffee to go with it?"
He said that he would, and I asked Greta to bring each of us a cup. We smoked in silence while we waited, gazing at each other through the smoke. He was scrutinizing me more closely than I was him, trying to get the measure of me. He had come here specifically to hire me, but he was hesitant. Whatever task he wanted me to perform, it was of a deeply personal nature. Just revealing it to me might be cause for embarrassment.
It could be anything. He might be blackmailed by someone and could not go to the police. His wife might be having an affair. He might suspect his business partner was stealing from him. But whatever it was, Ahmed Jamalka did not relish sharing it with me.
Greta set the coffee on our table, and Jamalka and I both took a sip. Jamalka nodded at Greta and said, "This is very good. I admit I am surprised."
Greta smiled and thanked him before returning to her chair by the entrance.
He took another sip, seeming to weigh the coffee in his mouth as he contemplated how to tell me what was on his mind.
I said, "There is always tomorrow, Mr. Jamalka."
"What's that?"
"You obviously have a reluctance to talk about whatever brought you here today. Unless it is of an urgent nature, you can always come back another day."
"Do you always tell prospective clients to go away, Mr. Lapid?"
"No. But I'm not that hungry for work, so I don't mind if you do."
He flashed a smile that quickly died, his face turning serious. He gave a small nod of decision, brought out a picture from his inside jacket pocket, and laid it on the table. "This is my sister, Maryam."
I picked up the photo. It was a color picture of a young woman, or perhaps a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman. She was slim, black-haired, olive-skinned. She was wearing a white, ankle-length dress that did not cling to the contours of her body, but could not hide her fine figure. At her back was a wall of rough stones. At her feet was a big pot with a wooden spoon sticking out of it. A small brown-furred dog with a white spot on its nose peered up at her from the corner of the picture.
"And here is another." Jamalka handed me another picture.
This one was a close shot. It showed Maryam's face. She had the same eyes as her brother and almost the same nose and mouth. They looked better on her than they did on him.
"She is quite beautiful," I said.
"Yes," he said softly. "And the pictures fail to capture her essence, her vitality, her spirit."
I put both pictures on the table.
"And what do you wish me to do? Is Maryam missing? Do you want me to find her?"
Jamalka shook his head slowly. "That's not it, Mr. Lapid. You see, Maryam is dead. It's her murderer I want you to find."
The Dead Sister - Chapter 2
I asked, "How did she die? How long ago?"
"Maryam's body was discovered a month ago in Tel Aviv. The nineteenth of September, to be exact. She'd been stabbed. Don't ask me the particulars. The police would not release their reports to me. But I can tell you that he had cut her face up pretty badly. She was no longer beautiful."
"When did you see her?"
"When I made the formal identification at the morgue. I wanted to see the rest of her injuries, but the medical examiner wouldn't let me. He said that he didn't want me to see the autopsy stitches, but I had a feeling her wounds were what he was trying to keep me from seeing."
"Most people wouldn't handle well seeing a loved one dead and exposed like that."
"Well, I didn't get the chance," he said. "Not that it mattered. Seeing her face was bad enough." His cigarette had burned to a stub, and he crushed it out in the ashtray. "The rest you will need to find out for yourself."
"Murder is a matter for the police to investigate," I said.
"It normally is. But not this time."
"What makes Maryam's murder the exception?"
"I do not want the police involved in the matter. Which suits them fine, I should add, as they don't seem to want to be involved either."
"That doesn't seem right. The police here take murder very seriously, Mr. Jamalka."
"Even that of an Arab woman?"
"Even that," I said.
"Well, if they do, they have little to show for it. The detective in charge, Sergeant Yossi Talmon, has been giving me the runaround for weeks. If I had to guess, no progress has been made, and I doubt any would be made."
"And you? Why don't you want the police involved?"
He gazed at me levelly and in a flat tone said, "When the time comes, when the murderer is discovered, I want to take care of him myself, Mr. Lapid. Rather than see him stand trial and, if he's found guilty, spend a few years in prison. I would like to mete out his punishment myself. It's a matter of family pride. It's the way we do things."
I took a last drag off my cigarette, looking at him through the thinning smoke.
"You want to kill him," I said simply.
"Yes. Is that a problem for you?"
"It is against the law. If I do find out who did this, I would be expected to go to the police with what I know."
"But it's not a moral problem?"
No, I thought. It wasn't. I was not averse to killing murderers, especially not the murderers of women. I had done so before, but only when the authorities would or could not deliver justice themselves. But why should I stick my neck out for this man? I didn't know him. I didn't know that I could trust him. And he was asking me to break the law, to be an accessory to murder. I ran my finger around the rim of my glass and looked at him.
"How far does this go, the way you do things? Your vengeance? Is it limited to the murderer, or does it extend to his family?"
He smiled thinly. "I give you my word that no one but the man or men who killed Maryam will be hurt. Does that satisfy you?"
"No," I said. "It does not. I don't run a killing operation here, Mr. Jamalka. If you do hire me and I discover who killed your sister, I intend to hand him over to the police for trial. Take it or leave it."
He stared at me narrow-eyed and tight-jawed for a moment. "And if I won't be satisfied with a jail sentence and decide to kill him nonetheless?"
"That's your business. Not mine. Let me point out, however, that in that case the police will know to come knocking on your door. Your motive will be clear."
"Do you take this position because you think the killer is a Jew?"
"Why would I think that?" I said.
"She was found dead in Tel Aviv. There aren't a lot of Arabs here."
He was right about that. Tel Aviv was a predominately Jewish city. Even after the merger of Tel Aviv with its southern neighbor Jaffa, a port town with a sizable Arab population, into a single municipality earlier that year, Jews were the distinct majority in the joint city.