likely explanation is that whoever put the body of that poor girl there brought along a sackful of live rats just in case they needed them.”
“Needed them? For what purpose?”
“To distract people. It worked on you, didn’t it?”
It certainly did.
“They took the trouble to gather a sackful of rats?” I said.
“It’s not hard if you’re willing to use good bait.”
“Like—?”
“Like good cuts of meat. Did they look well fed?”
“How should I know?”
The ratcatcher shook his head as if he were supremely disappointed in me, because naturally he would have spotted it immediately. Then he shrugged it off as if he had gotten used to the gross incompetence of meddling amateurs.
Three more cups of wine arrived.
They drank. I sipped.
“A single piece of rotten meat in the right location will attract a few dozen rats in a couple of minutes,” said Izzy.
“What kind of locations?”
He took another long, slow drink before saying, “Places where rats gather. Slaughter houses, dungheaps, the waterfront—”
The pieces were starting to fit.
I said, “And the only kind of cart that wouldn’t miss a hunk of beef that big is—”
“A butcher’s cart,” said Izzy. “Mystery solved.” He celebrated this triumph of reasoning by draining his wine to the dregs.
“I saw such a cart,” I said. “There were two men in it. The driver and somebody else.”
“One to pick the lock and the other to carry in the body,” said Beynish.
“They nearly ran me over, and a Christian girl, too, they were in such a hurry to get out of there.”
“And you want me to help you find out which direction they went,” said Izzy.
“Sure, but I think the most important question is what direction they came from.”
“Why is that more important?”
“Because I might be able to answer it, if I only knew the streets better—”
“Not that way, you idiot!” A woman’s voice blared, scattering my thoughts like frightened starlings.
“Ha ha ha!” A drunken man cackled, kicking his half-naked legs in the air and sending his gaily colored pantaloons flapping all around him.
“Mr. Johnson, please—!”
The hostess nearly spilled a pitcher of wine as she rushed over to help the woman drag him back into the dark corridor behind the bar.
It was just a quick flash of color, but it was enough. The man’s clothes, his carefree attitude, and the unwashed turnip swinging between his legs told me it was time to abandon my drinking partners and follow the hostess into the plea sure garden behind this underground tavern.
The hostess reappeared in time to block my way to the passage.
“I’ve changed my mind about seeing your other line of business,” I said.
“Too late. We’re all full up.”
Nobody had come in after me.
“Oh, I see.” I feigned disappointment. “How much?”
“That depends,” she said, practically batting her eyelashes at me, trying to be coy, although she couldn’t have pulled off being coy with the help of a team of dray horses.
I reached inside my cloak, and her smile turned sour when I held up a piece of parchment signed by Rabbi Loew granting me license to investigate in his name.
She blinked.
“What the hell is this?” she said, looking at the Yiddish words as if they were a collection of meaningless squiggles.
“Do you recognize this signature?”
Her eyes flitted along the page like frogs hopping around Pharaoh’s bedchamber.
“Sure, but what is it supposed to mean?”
“It means don’t bother yourself, I’ll show myself around.”
Some chairs scraped behind me as several gentlemen stood up from their games and gallantly offered to come to the lady’s assistance.
“And I’ll take my change now,” I said, holding out my hand.
She looked like she wanted to drive a corkscrew through my palm, but decided against it. “Fine. Take your change, you cheap shammes.”
She slapped a few kreuzers on the bar. At least she didn’t throw them at me.
“Thanks,” I said, picking them up. Then I nodded toward the middle gaming table. “And by the way, one of those pairs of dice is loaded.”
I FOLLOWED THE SOUND of voices to a little room at the end of a pale green corridor, where a half-dozen women were lounging on a long couch, drinking cups of peppermint tea and joking among themselves. Some of them had their feet up on the table, exposing even more of their forbidden flesh. The only attempt to dress up the room was an embroidered tablecloth and a couple of lanterns with tinted glass emitting a reddish glow that rendered the women’s soft curves all the more mysterious and alluring. I wondered what the artisans who spent their days