Part 42 (1/2)
”You know I feel all right...”
The tinny music blared again.
Jake's mobile!
Bolting from bed, I unpocketed the phone, and dropped the jeans back onto the floor.
”Jake?”
”You've got my cell.” got my cell.”
”How are you?”
I looked at the clock. Seven-forty.
”Peachy. I love being bled and having thumbs shoved up my b.u.t.t.”
”Nicely put.”
”I'm outa here before they take another run at me.”
”You've been released?”
”Right.” Jake snorted.
”Jake, you have to-”
”Uh. Huh. Did you get it?”
”The bag was gone.”
”f.u.c.king sonovab.i.t.c.h!”
I waited out the explosion.
”What about the other?”
”I have the shrou-”
”Don't say it over a cell phone! Can you get to my place?”
”When?”
”I've got to deal with the truck, then scare up a replacement vehicle.” Pause. ”Eleven?”
”Directions?” I darted to the desk.
Jake gave them. The landmarks and street names meant nothing to me.
”I have to call the IAA, Jake.” To tell them I'd lost the skeleton. I was dreading it.
”First, let me show you what else I recovered from that tomb.”
”I've been in Israel for two days. I have to call Blotnik.”
”When you've seen what I have.”
”Today,” I said.
”Yeah, yeah,” he snapped. ”And bring my G.o.dd.a.m.n phone.”
Dead air.
Obviously Jake still had irritability issues. And paranoia issues? Did he really believe his calls were being monitored?
I was standing naked, phone in one hand, pen in the other, when someone kicked my door.
c.r.a.p. Now what?
I checked the peephole.
Ryan had returned bearing bagels and coffee. He'd shaved, and his hair was wet from the shower.
Through my morning toilette, I described Jake's call.
”We'll finish with Kaplan well before eleven. Where's Jake living?”
”Beit Hanina.”
”I'll get you out there.”
”I've got directions.”
”How is he?”
”Ferocious.”
[image]
Kaplan was being held at a police station in the Russian Compound, one of the first quarters to be established outside the Old City. Originally intended as a residence for Russian pilgrims, it was now a down-at-the-heels piece of inner city deservedly slated for urban renewal.
The district headquarters and attached lockup were a collection of buildings wedged between Jaffa Street and the Russian church. Stone walls, iron window grates. Dingy and decrepit, the place blended well with the hood.
Police units pointed every which way. Friedman parked among them, by a cement barricade flanking the compound. Near it, a ma.s.sive stone pillar lay half-exposed in the earth.
The pillar was fenced off with iron railings, inside of which were mounded thousands of cigarette b.u.t.ts. I pictured policemen and nervous prisoners taking their last open-air drags before heading or being herded inside.
Friedman noticed me eyeing the pillar.
”First century,” he said.