"But if Kulaski finds out you're back in Jerusalem..."

"I'll need to make sure he doesn't."

"And if you fail?"

"Then," I said, "I'll likely end up in the cold ground alongside Dr. Shapira and Moria Gafni."

As much as I hated to admit it, Greta was right. I was in no shape to work a case. Hell, I was in no shape to go down the three flights of stairs from my apartment to street level. I was hurting all over, I couldn't draw a proper breath without my ribs screaming, I was weak and tired constantly, and I still had a fever.

Greta looked after me as well as any person could. She cooked my meals, made sure I took my medicine; she even brought me a couple of Western paperbacks to pass the time.

My fever broke two days after my return to Tel Aviv. The swelling in my nose went down. Gradually, my urine lost its redness. Still, it was only after seven days of Greta's firm yet gentle ministrations that I felt strong enough to go out.

Greta didn't like the idea. "What's the urgency?" she asked, her arms folded across her chest.

"I need to talk to my client. I told him I'd report to him a week after he hired me."

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"I'm late as it is."

"You sure you want him to see you this way?"

My bruises were in vibrant, colorful bloom. Having lost nearly all traces of blue and purple, they glowed in a range of yellows, a few tinted a sickly green or a disconcerting brown. The abrasions across my forehead had scabbed over, looking like a bunch of earthworms paralyzed mid-squirm on my skin. They itched like mad, and Greta admonished me to not touch let alone scratch them.

In short, I wasn't a sight to inspire confidence in any client. But as I was recuperating, I was also growing restless. I wanted to do something. And while I still wasn't ready to go back to Jerusalem, where I might run into Kulaski, I felt well enough to see Gafni.

"Why not call him?" Greta asked. "You can deliver your report over the phone, can't you?"

I could, but I had a few questions for Gafni, and I wanted to see his face when he answered them.

I called his office from the public phone in Levinson Drugstore, on the corner of my street. The secretary answered. I gave her my name, and ten seconds later, Gafni came over the line. I told him I wanted to see him and asked when I could come by.

"Have you discovered what I hired you to?" he asked.

"Not yet. But I'm getting close. I have a couple of questions I need to ask you."

"I understand." There was a pause. All I could hear was his breathing. Then he said, "Come by at six thirty. I'll be waiting."

I took a bus that belched its way through the cold January evening to Gafni's factory. My ribs still ached, protesting with a teeth-clenching spasm when the bus driver accidentally mounted the curb on a turn.

The door to Gafni's factory was locked. The windows on the ground floor were dark. No machinery sounds. All the workers were long gone. Gafni wanted privacy.

I pounded on the door. The metal echoed. A minute later, I heard a key being turned, and Gafni pulled the door open and motioned me inside. The foyer and staircase were dim, so he noticed my injuries only after I followed him upstairs to the outer office where his secretary's desk stood.

"What happened to you?"

"I was mugged."

He voiced no concern or empathy. His only reaction was a creasing of the forehead.

"Don't worry," I said, making no effort to keep the sarcasm from my voice. "It's not serious."

He exhaled a low grunt and turned toward his inner sanctum. There, settled in his large chair behind his desk, he observed me with half-masted eyes beneath knitted eyebrows, his fingers steepled. It was his favorite spot, I bet, where he could appear as he wanted to: the successful, crafty businessman, in total control not only of his own destiny, but of that of many others as well.

I sat in one of the chairs opposite his and was about to speak, but he beat me to it. "How much?"

I didn't understand. "How much what?"

He rolled his eyes. "Money. That's what you're here for, isn't it? I imagine you don't have any after being mugged." It was clear by his inflection that he doubted my story. Probably thought I'd had an accomplice punch me in the face a few times.

I felt like doing the same to him, but I quelled the urge and shook my head. "Rest assured, I'm not here to squeeze you for more money. The muggers left empty-handed."

A filament of fear fluttered in his eyes. I bit back a smile. He assumed I'd done battle with multiple muggers and emerged bloodied but triumphant. I was a man to be reckoned with. And he was alone with me in a deserted building, and he had just insulted me to my face.

If only he knew the true story.

Taking advantage of his discomfort, I angled forward, planting my elbows on his desk as though I owned it. "Why didn't you tell me about your wife?"

His face lost color, and he retreated deeper into his seat. In the light that now splashed directly on his face, backdropped by the large dark windows that looked down on the deserted factory floor below, I could see the cracks in the image he strove to project. The fatigue. The worried, drawn features. The lines of mourning or guilt or both.

"Who told you about her?" he asked in a hushed yet cunning voice, no doubt already plotting his retribution on whoever had whispered his family's unsavory history in my ear.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that she killed herself and that your daughter found her body."

"And so?"

"I'm wondering why you failed to mention it."

"To put it simply," he said, seemingly recovered from his shock, "it was not pertinent to your assignment."

"I think it was."

"It is not your place to think of such things. You are to concern yourself solely with the job I hired you for."

"Why did your wife kill herself?"

His jaw clamped like a dog chomping on a bone. "You are overstepping your bounds, Mr. Lapid."

"I heard it was because you were having affairs. Is that true?"

He let out a breath and laced his hands atop his round belly. To my surprise, his anger did not spike.

"It's not something I'm proud of, but I won't deny it."

"Is that why Moria severed all contact with you?"

He looked down at his hands, his mouth working, and nodded. "I didn't see the point in telling you."