Page 50 of Go First
He flexed one wiry arm with mock solemnity.“Three times a week.Squats.Deadlifts.My trainer Rhydian says I have ‘explosive glutes.’Imagine!At my age!”
She laughed so loudly one of the winged waitresses glanced over.“Rhydian?That’s one of those names I never know the gender of.”
“He’s all man,” Gabe said.“All Welshman.Do you know, he was born and raised in the same street as Tom Jones.”
“Who?”
Gabe flashed her an open-mouthed, horrified look, before breaking into a grin.
“You mustn’t do things like that to me.My heart isn’t strong enough.”
“Marcus says hey.He called you the Pixie-in-Chief.”
“I preferred the earlier one.Il Pixie-di-tutti-pixie.So!”Gabe leant forward, eagerly, rubbing his hands.“What can I do for you on this raw November Monday?”
Kate slid the transparent sleeve across the table.“This.You’ve probably seen the headlines.”
Gabe adjusted his ivy glasses and read the note carefully, lips pursed.“James five, thirteen through fifteen… and a mysterious ‘two years, two months.’Yes, I’ve followed the case.Distressing work you do, Kate.I wish you’d taken my advice and stayed in academia.”
“You were the one who told me to quit academia and join the Bureau.”
“Ah.Yes.Well, I wish you hadn’t listened to me then.”
He tapped the biblical quotation.“This, at least, is straightforward.Jesus of Nazareth did not appear out of nowhere.He was one of many itineranthasidimwandering Galilee—pious mendicants who claimed to be healers and wonder-workers, men with the apparent gift of passing on a message from the dead, or telling the anxious bride whether her intended would be faithful, or curing a nasty rash.Charismatic freelancers, if you like.And here’s St.James saying: folks, that whole Muppet Show is over.Healing now belongs to the church—elders, congregation, prayers in an established liturgy.Official.Authorised.Alternatives prohibited, on pain of a fifty-shekel fine and your name in the local newspaper.”
“So,” Kate said slowly, “he’s saying that the healing that the last victim, Sister Beverly offered is forbidden.”
“Exactly.He’s also kind of demystifying it.Instead of healing being some sort of unique gift that a handful of special people are just born with, it’s part of the day-to-day, communal business of the church.You pray to God for healing, you don’t go paying some street performer.What’s the matter?”
Kate frowned and shook her head.“It’s so… mild.Almost academic.It just doesn’t sound like the voice of someone who cuts out people’s tongues, you know?”
“Why assume it’s the same person?”Gabe countered gently.“The mind that crafts the theology need not be the hand that wields the knife.”
Kate felt that thought settle like a cold stone in her chest.She’d been assuming a single killer with a single motive.Maybe she was wrong.Maybe someone else—the ‘operative,’ as she now thought of him—was only carrying out orders.
“And the other line?”she asked.“‘Two years, two months.’”
Gabe’s eyes gleamed.“Ah.Not so easy to track, I can see why you had problems.It’s a reference from the Book of Ezekiel.We’re talking 593 bc, thereabouts.Ezekiel was born into a priestly lineage, but he also had the gift of prophecy.Fat lot of good it was doing him, though; he and half of Israel were living in Babylonian captivity, a squalid kind of refugee camp on the banks of the Kebar canal.”
“Funny how… I don’t know…modernthat sounds.”
“There’s nothing new under heaven,” Gabe said, drily.“So you’ve got an exiled population, leaning out for a sign of hope.And demand, inevitably, finds a supply.False prophets like Hananiah pop up, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear.‘Cheer up.God is on our side.We’ll be free in two years.’But Ezekiel, knowing better, declared that Hananiah would be dead in two months.And he was.Was in the story, anyway.As for the historical reality…” He shrugged.
“You think it’s just an allegory?”
“It’s a dramatic, perhaps dramatized encounter that illuminates a central debate in the ancient Israelite religion. The role of prophets. If you pay a guy for his vision of the future, how honest is that vision going to be?But…” Gabe paused for a gulp of coffee.“That doesn’t mean the clash between Ezekiel and Hananiah never happened.We know the exile in Babylon happened.”
Kate felt a chill.“So—do you think this could be some kind of countdown?Another two false prophets will become victims?Two months until the killer strikes again?”
“Perhaps.But remember, these original texts also became oral traditions, shaped with each re-telling in the diaspora, before early ethnographers started collecting and writing them down again in the 19thcentury.”
“Got any examples?”
Gabe stared into space, as if the thing he wanted was floating there, in his own, personal, invisible cloud.“In the midrashic folk collections of Poland and Belarus, Ezekiel and Hananiah are rewritten almost as friendly rivals: the true healer and the wily crook.Hananiah is a master of disguise—often impersonating Ezekiel to fool people and outdo his opponent.In one tale Ezekiel is sick, resting in a farmer’s house.The wife has taken a shine to him and is fussing over him, making sure he’s got blankets, bringing him little treats from the kitchen.With his usual mix of guile and cunning, Hananiah tricks Zeke out onto the roof in his underpants and locks the window.Then he takes Ezekiel’s place in the warm bed, eating the stew meant for him.”
Kate smiled despite herself.“That’s… not the sort of story I learned in Sunday school.”
“Same,” Gabe said, already fishing his phone from his pocket.“Outside of Hasidic circles, the rabbis were very disapproving towards all of these little folk traditions, but they functioned to keep the faith alive for ordinary people.”