Bob Arnon was one of the latter, a middle-aged man with curly gray hair, long, bushy sideburns, and a heavy-jawed face assembled around a large broken nose. He'd been living in Israel for two years, had acquired three disorderly-conduct arrests and a conviction for assault.

He wore faded jeans and crossed gun belts over a new YORK YANKEES T-shirt. The shirt was tight and showed off thick, hairy arms and a substantial belly. Poking up into the belly was the polished wooden grip of a nickel-plated.45-caliber revolver-an American-made Colt. The gun rested in a hand-tooled leather holster and made Daniel think of a little boy playing American cowboy.

In addition to the Colt, Kagan's deputy wore a hunting knife ensconced in a camouflage-cloth case, and carried a black baseball bat, the handle wrapped in adhesive tape that had long ago turned filthy gray. He was a combat veteran, he informed Daniel, and more than happy to talk about himself, starting in American-accented Hebrew but shifting to English after Daniel responded to him in that language.

"Saw hard action in Korea. Those were toughlittle suckers we were fighting-no Arabs, that's for certain. When I got back to the States I knocked around."

"What do you mean by 'knocked around"?" Arnon winked. "Little of this, little of that-doing my thing, doing favors for people. Good deeds, you understand? My last hitch was a bar in New York-up in Harlem, gorgeous place, you ever heard of it? Five years I worked the place, never had a single problem with the shvoogies." This last comment was punctuated by a toothy grin and a slap of the bat. "May I see your knife, please?"

"This? Sure. Genuine buck, great all-purpose weapon, had it for fifteen years." Arnon took it out of its case and gave it to Daniel, who turned it over in his palm, inspecting the wide. heavy blade, the serrated edge honed to razor-sharpness. A nasty piece of work, but from what Levi had told him, not the one he was looking for. Gray Man, on the other hand, he used a serrated blade. But duller, smaller… He gave the knife back to Arnon. "Do you own any other knives, Mr. Arnon?"

"Others? Oh, yeah. Got a tackle box that I brought over from the States-haven't had a chance to use it yet. They say there's great fishing in the Sea of Galilee. That true?"

"Yes. Your other knives, Mr. Arnon."

"A gutter and a scaler in the box, along with a Swiss Army-least, I think it's still there. Maybe a spare scaler too.

Then there's another buck for under the pillow and an antique Japanese samurai sword that I picked up in Manila. Want to know about the guns, too?"

"Not right now. Some other detectives will be here soon. They'll want to see your weapons."

"Sure." Arnon smiled. "But if I was the one cut up those Arab whores I wouldn't be advertising it, now would I? Leaving the knife around to show you."

"What would you be doing, Mr. Arnon?"

"Wiping it clean, oiling it, and hiding it somewhere. That's if, mind you. Hypothetical."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me-hypothetical?"

"Just that you're barking up the wrong tree. Gvura doesn't concern itself with an Arab here, an Arab there. It's a sociological problem-they've all gotta go."

The women were an odd mix of toughness and subser-vience, filing in after the men had been questioned. Stoic and unsmiling, they brought their children with them, resisted Daniel's suggestion that the youngsters leave.

"The questions I'll be asking aren't fitting for a child's ears." he told one of the first. She came in with three small ones, the oldest a girl of no more than four, the youngest an infant who squirmed in her grasp.

"No. I want them to see," she said. "I insist upon it." She was young, pallid, and thin-lipped, and wore a long-sleeved striped shift that reached below her knees. Her hair was covered completely with a white kerchief, and an Uzi was strapped over her shoulder. The baby's tiny fingers reached out and touched the barrel of the submachine gun. 'Why?" asked Daniel. 'To show them what it's like."

She sounded like a kid herself. A teenager asserting herself with her parents. So young, he thought, to have three of them. Her eyes were bright, vigilant, her breasts still heavy with milk.

'What what's like, Gveret Edelstein?" 'The world. Go on, ask your questions." A glance down-ward, the ruffling of hair. "Listen carefully, children. This is called harassment. It's part of being Jewish."

By noon he'd talked to a third of them, found no one who interested him, other than Arnon, with his knives and assault conviction. And even he seemed more bluster than substance, an aging tough guy living out his mid-life fantasies. His assault conviction itself wasn't much-the result of a confrontation at a rally. Arnon's left hook had landed on the nose of a peace now placard-bearer; when the police came to break it up, Arnon resisted. First offense, no jail time. Not exactly your psychopathic killer, but you could never tell. He'd have the others follow up on Cowboy Bob.

At twelve-thirty the lunch bell rang and settlement members swarmed into the dining room for salad and fried fish. They took their places automatically and Daniel realized seats were preassigned. He vacated his chair and left the hall, meeting Kagan and his wife as they came in.

"Any luck, Inspector?" asked the leader loudly. "Find any crazed killers among us?"

Mrs. Kagan winced, as if her husband had told an off-color joke.

Daniel smiled noncommittally and walked down the path toward the guard post. As he left he could hear Kagan talking to his wife. Something about melting pots, a fine old culture. what a shame.

At twelve forty-six, Shmeltzer and Avi Cohen drove up to the guard post in Cohen's BMW. Laufer had wanted four detectives questioning the Gvura people. Daniel had given in partially by pulling Avi out of the Old City for the afternoon, but this was no job for Daoud and he had no intention of removing the Chinaman from his current assignment.

He was interested in the big man's story about the flat-eyed American with the strange grin, despite Little Hook's credibility problem, because it was something-a solitary buoy bobbing in a great sea of nothingness. He double-teamed the Chinaman and Daoud again-the Arab helping out until sundown, before he began the Roselli surveillance. Those two and Cohen were to put all their energies into finding some backup for Little Hook's story, someone else who might have encountered Flat Eyes. And in locating

Red Amira Nasser. The dark hair and the fact that she was dull-witted put her in league with Fatma and Juliet. So far the only thing they'd come up with was a rumor that she had family in Jordan, had escaped there. And a medical chart at Hadassah Hospital-treatment six months ago for syphilis. No welfare payments, no other government records; a true professional, she lived off her earnings.