Lineup (2 page)

Chapter 3

AMIT
Giladi looked over the titles of the latest porn films uploaded onto his favorite site. From time to time he clicked on one that caught his interest, but it didn’t take more than a minute before he stopped the film and began trawling for another one. He was finding it hard to concentrate. He kept glancing over at the cell phone sitting on his desk, waiting impatiently for it to ring. His source—he had secretly dubbed him “Deep Throat” in homage to the two investigative reporters who were his idols—had promised to call that night and tell him where he was leaving the envelope.

He hadn’t yet told anyone about their conversations. The story, if he could prove it, would be his and his alone. He’d been covering crime and education for the local Tel Aviv paper for seven and a half months. They’d stuck him with education a month and a half ago after they fired the reporter who used to cover the beat as part of the “streamlining” measures they were instituting. He’d learned a lot at the paper, especially from the editor Dori Engel, but he was ready for the major leagues, aching to be a real investigative journalist who reported more than merely local stories.

“Deep Throat” had contacted him claiming to have information about police corruption. He alleged that senior officers close to the police chief were being sent abroad for bogus training courses and being put up at five-star hotels at the taxpayers’ expense. He even supplied the names of some of those officers and the hotels they stayed at.

Amit had tried to wheedle out of him the source of his information. Was he a cop himself? What was his rank? But “Deep Throat” threatened never to talk to him again if he kept asking questions. Still, he insisted on knowing why, of all the reporters in the country, he’d picked him. After all, this was a story for a national paper. “Deep Throat’s” answer, that most of the officers were from the Tel Aviv district and that his paper had “balls,” wasn’t very convincing. He demanded documents in writing, hard evidence, before he’d agree to run with the story. Journalists more seasoned than he had ruined their careers by rushing into print without checking the facts first. Here, “Deep Throat” showed a little more understanding. On Sunday night, he’d promised, he’d call back and tell him where he was leaving the incriminating documents.

He’d been waiting anxiously since the afternoon, wondering when his source would call and what he had for him. But so far, nothing. It was already eleven o’clock, and the call hadn’t come. Maybe he’d changed his mind, or worse—taken the story to another paper.

He threw himself on the bed and stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling. He would’ve been thrilled to rent an apartment somewhere else in the city, but with what they were paying him, that was all he could afford—a measly 270 square feet, a room and a half on the first floor, facing the noise and stench of busy Allenby Street. The smell of fresh falafel from the stand outside tugged at his stomach, but, no, he’d better save his money and eat his mother’s stuffed peppers.

The sound of the ringtone caught him in mid-thought. Hurriedly, he reached out for the phone, almost dropping it in his excitement.

“Tell me, Giladi, why the fuck do I keep you around?” To his huge disappointment, it was Dori’s angry voice on the other end.

He didn’t answer. Dori might have a filthy mouth, but he also had a nose for news and very keen senses.

“Stop jerking off. There’s a world out there and things’re happening in it,” Dori went on when he got no response.

“I hear you, Dori. What’s going on?” he said in a contrite tone. Within no more than a month or two at the paper he’d learned the wisdom of not reacting to Dori’s taunts. He vowed that one day he’d pay him back for all the shit he’d taken. Just as soon as he had his scoop and he could walk away from that rag and slam the door behind him. But meanwhile, he had to grit his teeth and hold his tongue. He needed Dori more than Dori needed him.

“You know what I’m hearing? There was a rape on Louis Marshall, half the cops in the city are there, all the media, with the single exception of my fucking crime reporter who’s sitting at home playing with himself,” he bellowed.

Amit’s face went red. What a fuckup. No wonder Dori was furious. He checked his police scanner. He’d turned it off at noontime when he crashed for a while and had been so preoccupied with “Deep Throat” that he’d forgotten to switch it on again.

“I’m sorry . . . I didn’t hear . . . ,” he mumbled. Wonderful. Just great. He could fantasize all he liked about quitting to go over to a national paper, but if he wasn’t careful he’d get himself fired before he got the chance. Dori was merciless. One mistake and you’re out. The professionalism of his little paper was his top priority. Only a few days ago he’d canned their health reporter, Naama, for a couple of errors in the copy she filed. “Moron, get the fuck out of my sight,” he’d yelled at her in front of everyone. Amit could suffer the same fate. Despite all his grumblings, he knew there were hundreds of people who’d jump at the chance to take over his job.

“No fucking excuses,” Dori roared. “Pull your finger out of your ass and get there now. Give me five hundred words by tomorrow morning.”

Amit jumped on his motorbike and sped to the old north, running what he liked to call “pink” lights on the way. Shit like this wasn’t supposed to happen. He could understand why Dori was so mad. Rape cases sell papers, especially when they occur in a safe, respectable neighborhood, the last place you expect to find violent crime. It was a shame people didn’t know that “the last place” was a cliché with no basis in fact. As a crime reporter, he knew only too well that no neighborhood was safe from criminals.

Dozens of people were already milling around the scene. He caught sight of Yael Gilboa from
Haaretz
and Sefi Reshef from the army radio station. They were talking to a tall cop he didn’t know. In his job, the name of the game was to get there first, to get the jump on the competition. That wasn’t going to happen this time, goddamn it.

His phone rang. Dori again.

“What’d you find out?” He could actually feel his impatience through the phone.

“I just got here,” he shouted to make himself heard over the commotion.

“Get me a scoop. You know what a scoop is, don’t you, Giladi?” Dori snapped before hanging up abruptly. Amit let out a sigh. Their budget was constantly being slashed and questions had even been raised as to the very need for the paper. A lot of journalists had found themselves out of work recently, including some who’d been in the profession for a long time and had an impressive résumé. He knew Dori had very good reason to demand a scoop.

He started toward the two reporters, trying to overhear what the cop was telling them. Last week he’d published a story about a local high-ranking officer who verbally abused his son’s principal. The police had been called. The district spokesman had asked him to bury the story, hinting that he’d find an opportunity to return the favor, but Dori had refused. “If we don’t print the story, someone else will. We can’t do favors in our business,” he’d replied adamantly. After that incident, would he be able to find anyone on the force who was still willing to talk to him? Where would he get his scoop? With any luck, the police would ask for a gag order, and then none of the papers would be able to print the story, even if the competition knew something about the rape that he didn’t.

His phone rang again. What does he want this time, he groaned to himself. The screen showed “number withheld.” Could it be the call from “Deep Throat” he’d been waiting for all day? He looked around for somewhere quiet, but there was nowhere to go.

“Hello,” he screamed into the phone.

A siren was wailing behind him.

“Hello,” he shouted again.

He heard the sound of the call being disconnected.

Chapter 4

YARON
Regev sat in his car, his eyes glued to his daughter’s house. He didn’t care how long it took. He’d sit there night after night for months, for years if he had to, until he was sure she was safe. He thought of the times when she was sick as a little girl and he’d sat at her bedside for nights on end. Nothing had changed. As far as he was concerned, she was still his little girl.

He pulled off the lid of the plastic box and looked at the sandwiches Irit had made. She thought he was crossing the line, that they should respect Adi’s decision to move back into her own apartment. Still, the box of sandwiches was waiting for him on the kitchen counter every evening.

He unwrapped a sandwich and tossed the paper onto the passenger seat. When he got home tomorrow he’d have to clean out all the sandwich wrappers, empty potato chip bags, and Styrofoam coffee cups.

Lately, his mind kept going back to memories of Adi as a child. He summoned up pictures of her taking her first steps, saying her first words, saw himself walking her to preschool in the morning and sometimes home again in the afternoon, remembered how she’d run to him and throw her little arms around his legs, refusing to let go of his pants, laughing happily. He especially remembered her infectious, bubbling laugh. It made the whole family laugh with her and filled him with a joy beyond words.

It was painful to remember those times now that Adi didn’t laugh anymore. She just sat quietly, lost in her own thoughts, staring at her hands resting on her knees, sobbing. The tears never stopped coming, dripping silently, like Chinese water torture on his heart.

Ever since that night, it took an effort for him to keep from losing it. He wanted to be strong for Adi, for Irit, but he felt his control slipping away, his sanity slowly deserting him. He couldn’t function. He couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t work.

If he did manage to fall asleep, he was tormented by the same recurring nightmare. He saw Adi stretched out on the ground, petrified, pleading for her life, while a strange man, a faceless beast, raped her brutally. She turned her frightened, tear-filled eyes toward him, imploring him to save her. He ran forward, desperately trying to reach out to her, to pull her away, but he never could. He’d wake up covered in cold sweat. He wanted to shout, to scream, but he couldn’t get any sound out. Not even the sound of weeping. If only he could cry.

HE
was awakened by pulsating music on the radio. Despite what he’d told Irit, it was hard for him to keep a nightlong vigil. His whole body ached. Time and again he dozed off and then came awake with a start. Momentary sleep that provided no rest. Night after night. For three weeks. No time off. He tried to nap during the day, at home or at the office, when Adi was at work, at the skyscrapers of the Azrieli Center, where she was safe. Or so he hoped.

He raised his head to get a look at the time. His neck was stiff. The clock showed 1:30 a.m. Adi must be asleep. Maybe he should go home and get some sleep too. That would certainly make Irit happy.

He pulled the back of the seat upright and was reaching out to turn the key in the ignition when he stopped himself. What if she woke up and needed him?

He leaned back and yawned cavernously. He’d go get himself a cup of coffee from the shop around the corner. It was open twenty-four hours a day. There were things like that in Tel Aviv that you couldn’t find anywhere else. Definitely not in Hadera. But he wouldn’t want to live here. Hadera might not be the sleepy little town it used to be when the kids were little and everyone knew everyone else, but it still hadn’t started to suffer from the anonymity of the big city.

He felt his eyes closing again. He’d rest for five minutes and then go get that cup of coffee. All of a sudden he tensed and sat up straight. A tall, thin man in a baseball cap was passing by the car.

The street lay in utter silence. The man was walking slowly, staring intently left and right, scouting the area as if he were trying to spot something. He stopped about thirty yards away and hastily ducked behind a car. Yaron stretched forward, trying to see what he was doing. Finally, he caught a glimpse of the top of his head between two parked cars. He looked down the street. Not far away, a girl with long hair was walking on the other side of the road.

Could this be him? Could the man he just saw be the rapist? Was he out here stalking another victim? Was he following the long-haired girl just like he’d followed his Adi a month ago? Was it he hiding in the dark between the cars?

What in hell was he supposed to do now? This was an opportunity he couldn’t afford to miss. He could rescue the girl and catch the rapist at the same time. It all came down to him.

Yaron stepped out of the car. He did his best not to make any noise, but the click of the car door closing broke the stillness. He started in the direction of the man’s hiding place. His target didn’t move. He drew closer. Suddenly the man stood up, turned his head around, and looked straight at him. His heart missed a beat. Their eyes locked for no more than a few seconds, but Yaron was certain he would remember every detail of his face—the long chin, the aquiline nose, the thin lips, and especially the fear in his eyes.

The girl turned and looked their way for a moment before picking up her pace and heading quickly into a building. The man glanced apprehensively at Yaron again. Yaron looked directly into his eyes and knew for sure. This was the man who had raped his little girl. It all fit: his build, the cap, the hour, the way he tried to hide, the girl, the frightened look on his face when he realized he’d been caught red-handed.

Yaron could feel the rage roiling up inside him, threatening to burst out. That monster had attacked Adi in the dark, molested her. Because of him she was now home alone crying, as she had been for so many days. My beautiful daughter, my sweet baby, he mouthed to himself. My Adinka. If only he had a gun, he’d put a bullet in his head right now. His hand clenched in a fist. If only he were a few years younger, he’d finish him off with his bare hands. But he wasn’t young, so he had to be smart.

The man started walking away. Yaron followed. In the morning he’d get in touch with Eli Nachum, the lead detective on the case, and hand him the rapist on a silver platter.

The man turned into a side street. Yaron hurried to keep up with him. He couldn’t lose him now.

By the time he reached the corner, the man was at the end of the block. How had he gotten so far ahead of him? Was he running? Did he know Yaron was tailing him?

He had to move faster. He was breathing heavily and was already covered in sweat, his shirt sticking to his back. The strain and exhaustion of the last few weeks were getting to him. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack,” Irit had warned, “or else you’ll go crazy from lack of sleep.” He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was sixty years old, a grandfather with two grandkids. Adi was his middle daughter and already twenty-four. Irit might turn out to be right. In the end, his heart would give out here in the middle of Tel Aviv. So what? He wasn’t ready to give up. If Adi knew that the man who raped her was behind bars, maybe she could get on with her life, maybe she could put the atrocity behind her.

By the time he made it to the end of the block, there was no one in sight, no sign of the mysterious man. Had he disappeared into one of the buildings? Did he have enough time? Yaron stood there, panting, his heart pounding. He retraced his steps a few yards to a bench he’d just passed. He sat down and leaned his head back, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal. The smell of cat urine pounded his nose and made him sick. He was overcome by frustration. He’d been so close!

But he was wrong. It wasn’t over yet. All of a sudden he saw the man come out of a yard and stand still for a minute looking in both directions. He stared at the street intently, checking it out. The location of the bench gave Yaron a clear view of the rapist, but Yaron couldn’t be seen by him. Silently, he lowered himself until he was lying flat on the bench, taking advantage of the lucky hand he’d been dealt. There was no doubt in his mind that the man had seen him tailing him and had taken diversionary tactics. He’d obviously been hiding behind the bushes in the yard.

The man started in Yaron’s direction. There was less than a hundred yards between them. If he sees me, it’ll all be over for me, he thought, crawling off the bench as silently as possible. He had to get to the end of the block before the rapist. He could hide behind a hedge and then follow him from there. It was only two yards to the corner. You can do it, he urged himself on, envisioning his army days.

He crouched down and started moving forward, just as he’d been trained to do in the infantry. He couldn’t tell if the man saw him or not, but he forced himself not to turn around. Then he slipped into the yard of the corner building and waited. The man passed right in front of him. He was striding rapidly and confidently, heading for the main road. Yaron took up a position at a safe distance and looked to see which way he had gone. He caught sight of him standing at a bus stop. Yaron remembered reading that Tel Aviv operated a late-night bus service on the weekend. What would he do if the bus came? He was going to lose him!

A minibus pulled up and the man got on. Yaron ran into the road. In less than ten seconds, a taxi stopped beside him. He had to admit the city had its advantages.

“Follow that bus,” he ordered the driver, like a character in some action movie.

The driver gave him a puzzled look.

“Just go! Fast!” he commanded brusquely.

WHEN
he got home the adrenaline was still rushing through his veins. He went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee, and then a second, and a third. There was no chance he’d be able to get any sleep tonight in any case. He didn’t wake Irit. The situation was hard enough for her as it was. Adi’s rape had dealt her a heavy blow, drowning her in rivers of guilt and a numbing sense of helplessness. He had to put an end to it. For Adi. And for Irit and himself too.

He counted the minutes until dawn, until he could contact Nachum. The last time they met, the detective had told him to feel free to call at any time, but the middle of the night seemed to be taking that a little too literally.

At six o’clock he picked up the phone and then stopped before he could dial the number. It’s still too early, he decided. Turning on the computer, he looked up the procedures for police lineups in rape cases. There were cops and lawyers present. It was very stressful for the victims. He read one woman’s story about how traumatic it was for her, how it made her relive the rape.

He couldn’t do that to Adi. He wasn’t willing to have her go through such an ordeal, to have so many people examining her, documenting her reactions in minute detail. And later some slimy defense attorney would start grilling her about why she hesitated for a second or two before pointing to the rapist. He’d seen it in the movies, how they use any dirty trick to cast doubt on the victim’s testimony. He couldn’t allow that.

He wanted her to walk into the lineup and point directly at her attacker. No hesitation, no stress. In and out in one minute. And then it would all be over. At last, it would all be over.