Cross Bones Part 29

Ryan waggled his mug at an attendant and pointed to me. I set up my tray. Coffee appeared on it.

"Thanks, Audrey."

Audrey?

"Pleasure, Detective." Audrey's smile left last night's in the dental dust.

Security at Ben-Gurion wasn't as rigorous as it had been at Pearson. Maybe Ryan's badge. Maybe the coroner's detailed paperwork. Maybe confidence that if we'd had nitro in our blow-dryers they'd have found it by now.

Exiting customs, I noticed a man wall-leaning ahead and to our left. He had s.h.a.ggy hair and wore an argyle sweater, jeans, and sneakers. Except for bushy brows and a few more years, the man was a Gilligan double.

Gilligan was following our progress.

I elbowed Ryan.

"I see him," Ryan said, not breaking pace.

"Guy looks like Gilligan."

Ryan looked at me.

"Gilligan's Island."

"I hated Gilligan's Island. Gilligan's Island."

"But you're acquainted with the character."

"Except Ginger," Ryan amended. "Ginger had talent."

Gilligan pushed from the wall, dropped his hands and spread his feet, making no attempt to mask his interest in us.

When we drew within yards, Gilligan made his move.

"Shalom." The voice was deeper than you'd expect from a guy Gilligan's size. The voice was deeper than you'd expect from a guy Gilligan's size.

"Shalom," Ryan said. Ryan said.

"Detective Ryan?"

"Who's asking?"

"Ira Friedman."

Friedman stuck out a hand. Ryan shook it.

"Welcome to Israel."

Ryan introduced me. I shook Friedman's hand. The grip was more powerful than you'd expect from a guy Gilligan's size.

Friedman led us outside to a white Ford Escort illegally parked in a taxi zone. Ryan loaded the luggage, opened the front door and offered the pa.s.senger seat.

Ryan's six-two. I'm five-five. I opted for the back.

I pushed aside papers, a manual of some kind, balled-up food wrappers, boots, a motorcycle helmet, a baseball cap, and a nylon jacket. There were French fries in the crack. I left them there.

"Sorry about the car," Friedman said.

"No problem." Brushing crumbs from the upholstery, I crawled in, wondering if declining Jake's offer of airport pickup had been a mistake.

As we drove, Friedman brought Ryan up-to-date.

"Someone up your food chain contacted one of your external affairs guys, who contacted one of our senior police representatives for the U.S. and Canada. Seems your guy knew our guy at the consulate in New York."

"A personal touch can mean so much."

Friedman stole a sideways glance, obviously unfamiliar with Ryan's sense of humor. "Our guy in New York sent paper to the International Relations Unit at national headquarters here in Jerusalem. IRU bounced the request down to major crimes. I caught it."

Friedman merged onto Highway 1.

"Normally this kind of request goes nowhere. We'd have nothing to ask your suspect, no knowledge of the crime. That's a.s.suming we could even find him. Once a tourist enters the country, he's pretty much invisible. If we did locate him, legally he could refuse to talk to us."

"But Kaplan was kind enough to palm a choker," Ryan said.

"Herodian shekel on a gold chain." Friedman snorted. "Dumb a.s.s. Thing wasn't even real."

"How long can you hold him?"

"Twenty-four hours, and we've already eaten that. I can push it to forty-eight with some fancy talking. Then it's charge him or kick him."

"Will the shopkeeper press charges?"

Friedman shrugged. "Who knows? Guy got his coin back. But if Kaplan walks, I'll keep him on a very short leash."

Now and then Friedman would glance in the rearview. Our eyes would meet. We'd both smile.

Between rounds of collegiality, I tried taking in the landscape. I knew from Winston's book that the route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was taking us from the coastal plain, through the Shephelah, or lowlands, into the Judean hill country, and up into the mountains.

Night had fallen. I couldn't see much.

We rounded curve after curve, then suddenly Jerusalem was twinkling before us. A vanilla-wafer moon grazed the top of the Temple Mount, lighting the Old City with an amber glow.

I've observed few scenes that triggered a physical reaction. Haleakala volcano at dawn. The Taj Mahal at sunset. The Masai Mara during wildebeest migration.

Moonlit Jerusalem stopped my breath. Friedman picked up on it, and our eyes met again.

"Awesome, isn't it?"

I nodded in the dark.

"Lived here fifteen years. I still get goose b.u.mps."

I wasn't listening. My mind was shanking up images. Suicide bombers. Christmas pageants. West Bank settlements. Catechism cla.s.ses at my old parish church. Newsreel scenes of angry young men.

Israel is a place where the wonder of the past slams daily into the bitter reality of the present. Driving through the night, I couldn't take my eyes from the ancient settlement forever and always at the center of it all.

A quarter hour after first seeing Jerusalem, we were in the city. Cars lined the curbs, b.u.mper sniffing b.u.mper, like dogs in some frozen canine parade. Vehicles crammed the streets. Pedestrians thronged the walks, women in hijab hijab or full burka, men in black hats, teens in Levi 501's. or full burka, men in black hats, teens in Levi 501's.

How like Quebec, I thought, with its constant clash of religion, language, and culture. French and English. The two solitudes. In Jerusalem the ante was upped to three. Muslim beside Christian beside Jew, all separate.

I lowered my window.

The air was packed with smells. Cement. Exhaust. Whiffs of flowers, spices, garbage, cooking grease.

I listened to the familiar city-night jazz. Car horns. Traffic humming on an overpa.s.s. The sound of a piano slipping from an open door. It was the melody of a thousand urban centers.

Ryan had booked us into the American Colony, a Turkish-style manse-turned-hotel in East Jerusalem. His thinking: Arab sector, no bombs.

Friedman turned from the Nablus Road into a circle drive bordered by flowers and palms. Pa.s.sing a small antiquities shop, he looped around and stopped under a vine-draped portico.

Friedman alighted and retrieved our suitcases.

"Hungry?"

Two nods.

"I'll be in the bar." Friedman slammed the trunk. "Lower level."

Ryan's choice was a good one. The American Colony was all antiques, chandeliers, hanging tapestries, and hammered bronze. The floors were polished stone. The windows and doorways were arched, and the floor plan centered on a flower-filled courtyard.

Everything but the pasha himself.

We were expected. Check-in was quick.

As Ryan asked a few questions, I scanned names engraved on small marble wall plaques. Saul Bellow. John Steinbeck. Jimmy Carter. Winston Churchill. Jane Fonda. Giorgio Armani.

My room was everything the lobby promised. Mirrored armoire. Carved writing desk. Persian carpet. Bathroom aglow with gold gilt mirrors and black-and-white tile.

I wanted to shower and crawl into the four-poster. Instead, I brushed teeth and hair, changed, and hurried downstairs.

Ryan and Friedman were already seated at a low table in one of the alcoves. Each had a bottle of Taybeh beer.

Friedman signaled a waiter.

I ordered Perrier and an Arabic salad. Ryan went with spaghetti.

"This hotel is beautiful," I said.

"The place was built by some fat-cat Arab around 1860. Forget his name. Room one was his. The other downstairs rooms were his wives' summer digs, and in the winter, the ladies moved up a floor. The guy was hot for a son, but no one obliged, so he married a fourth time, and built two more rooms. The new bride disappointed him, too, so he died."

Friedman sipped his beer.

"In 1873, a big-bucks Chicago attorney named Horatio Spafford sent his wife and four daughters off on a European vacation. The ship sank and only Mama survived." Another sip.

"Couple years, couple more daughters. Then the Spaffords lost a son. They were real religious, members of some church organization, so they decided to seek consolation in the Holy Land. In 1881 they came and settled with friends in the Old City. The group became known as the American Colony, and developed quite a reputation for helping the poor.

"Long story short, others joined and the group outgrew its digs. The Spaffords rented, then eventually bought this place. Ever hear of Peter Ustinov?"

Ryan and I nodded.

"In 1902 Peter's granddaddy started sending visitors here from a hotel he owned up in Jaffa. Became the American Colony Hostel, later Hotel. The place has survived four wars and four regimes."

"The Turks, the Brits, the Jordanians, and the Israelis," I guessed.

"Bingo. But you're not here for a history lesson. Why's this toad Kaplan such a hot property in Canada?"

Ryan filled Friedman in on the Ferris investigation.

"Big leap from bad paper to homicide," Friedman said.

"Jumbo," Ryan agreed. "But the widow's got a history with Kaplan."

"Which she failed to mention," Friedman said.

"She did," Ryan said.

"And Kaplan fled the country."

"He did."

"Widow stands to collect four million," Friedman said.

"She does."

"Four million's a lot of motivation."

"Nothing gets by you," Ryan said.

"You'd like to chat with Mr. Kaplan?"

"At his earliest convenience."

"First thing in the morning?"

"Nah, let him brush his teeth."

Friedman turned to me. "My fault, I'm sure, but I didn't get your connection to the case."

I explained how I'd obtained the photo from Kaplan and the skeleton from Morissonneau, and mentioned my call to the IAA.