The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees

dozen other businessmen here and in Hebron, too. Six years ago, he came here with a squad of Preventive Security officers. They were disrespectful to Nasra, and they took me away. They didn’t confiscate any of our files or records. There was no investigation. They just took me to the jail in Jericho and locked me up. Tamari told me, ‘Look, you haven’t paid your taxes. Give me thirty thousand dollars or I’ll have you accused of collaboration with the occupation and you’ll sit in this cell until you rot.’”
    “What did you do?”
    “I told him to fuck himself and demanded to see a lawyer. Pardon my language, Abu Ramiz.”
    “That’s all right. And so?”
    “He laughed in my face. Then he slapped it.” Charles Hal-loun gasped at the memory. “He tortured me, Abu Ramiz. I don’t like to tell you everything he did to me, but let me just say that every time I stand up I still get a shooting pain through my back and it reminds me of my time with Abu Walid.”
    Omar Yussef looked up. Abu Walid .
    “I was in the jail in Jericho for a week,” Halloun said. “I didn’t eat the whole time. They gave me a little water, but the bastards urinated in it and I was so desperate I drank it. They shaved one side of my head and made me wear a dress. In the end, they gave me a phone and I called Nasra. I told her to get the money from the bank and hand it over. Even then, Abu Walid gave me another beating before he sent me home.”
    “Who is Abu Walid?”
    “Hussein Tamari. The bastard father of a bastard son. Did you never meet Walid, his eldest boy? He’s a bullying swine, too. Ask any teenager around town. They’ve all got their lumps from that nasty scum. Just like his father.”
    Omar Yussef felt the weight of the Webley and the two spent cartridges in his pocket. Here was the information he needed. Abu Walid. Was Hussein Tamari the man in the bushes to whom Louai Abdel Rahman spoke before he died? How many men would there be among those gunmen who were known as “the father of Walid”? With Louai dead, Abu Walid took over the Abdel Rahmans’ business. He had a motive, something to gain from Louai’s death. But was he also the killer?
    Omar Yussef said farewell to Charles Halloun and Nasra. He drove down the hill to Dehaisha. He had always been sure that George Saba was innocent, but now he believed he knew the identity of the real collaborator. He felt his pulse rise and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel tightly. How was he going to prove that George Saba had been set up by the head of the resistance in Bethlehem? He knew that he must carry on, for the sake of George and for the sake of his town, which was quickly becoming a place where these gangsters could do whatever they wanted. Khamis Zeydan had told him this was a dangerous path to take. It wasn’t getting any less risky.
    Omar Yussef parked his car in the sandstone garage behind his house. He came in through the basement door and went up to his bedroom. He opened the drawer beneath his closet. His socks filled the drawer, bulbed in matching pairs. He took the Webley from his pocket and shoved it into the back of the pile. He looked about guiltily and closed the drawer.
    What did I bring this gun here for? I’m behaving like a detective, he thought. I’m gathering evidence. This gun is evidence, so I have to keep it. But I’m scared. Things could become dangerous, if a man like Hus-sein Tamari is involved. How will I react if Tamari confronts me? Already I’m frightened by the presence of a useless, antique gun amongst my socks. He rolled the two MAG cartridges in his palm, thick and stubby. He imagined them filled with gunpowder and tipped with a lead slug.
    Omar Yussef went into the salon. He picked up the phone and dialed Khamis Zeydan.
    “I need to talk to George Saba,” he said.
    There was a pause. “Come and see me in the morning. At eight A.M. At my office.” Khamis Zeydan hung up.
    Omar Yussef sat in silence. He