The Golem of Hollywood

Chapter nineteen

Northbound traffic was bad, Sea World day-trippers returning to Orange County. Jacob burned most of a tank feathering the gas pedal. Behind and beside him, the boxes thumped and listed and threatened to topple, and every time he glanced in the rearview and confronted an expanse of tan cardboard, the magnitude of his new burden fell heavily on him.

Best of luck. Don’t forget to write.

Thanks, Philly.

Three exits shy of LAX, a Sigalert put an accident ahead. Jacob killed the radio and settled in to wait, using the quiet to turn over his discussion with Ludwig.

The D’s bias could stem from an honest belief that the family members were innocent. It could also be sensitivity to the suggestion that he had screwed up the first time around. Jacob sympathized. Anyone could benefit from a pair of fresh eyes. That didn’t make looking through them any fun. He wondered how well he’d take it if a young punk with half his years and twice his energy showed up to interrogate him about his most outstanding failure.

Minus Ludwig’s sales pitch, however, the Psychopath vs. Psychopath scenario held less appeal. Both versions — Jacob dubbed them Nerves and Remorse, respectively — had major shortcomings.

Remorse, because what defined a psychopath was lack thereof. It was far more common for a guy to get caught bragging than confessing.

Nerves suffered the same problem. Psychopaths didn’t get anxious. Jacob knew of no calm so profound and chilling. It enabled them to engage in behaviors that would cause an ordinary person to pass out.

Also: a nervous man didn’t waste time on symbolism.

Unless Ludwig was right, and the point was to juke the cops.

Psychopath trying to look like an avenger. Ha-ha: I control everything.

Maybe. But Jacob’s instincts rebelled. He’d seen the severed head, seen the message. As gestures, they were at once too subtle and too theatrical not to be genuine.

These were telegraphs, direct from the heart.

A twisted heart, but one that felt, deeply.

A heart that longed to communicate.

Then his mind pretzled: double fake-out? Avenger trying to look like a psychopath trying to look like an avenger?

Vice versa?

How far up the theoretical beanstalk did he want to climb?

In a way, the process he was engaged in — inflating ideas to their extremes, then kicking them for soundness — drew on skills cultivated in Hebrew day school and yeshiva. Argument proceeded by putting forth a law, then presenting challenges and contradictions to it. Sometimes those challenges were resolved. Sometimes not. Sometimes the reasoning behind a law was roundly demolished but the law itself retained in practice.

It was an idiosyncratic method, a mash-up of pure logic and faith-based exegesis, insisting on the truth of many truths. You argued not to find an answer, but to argue well.

For that very reason, the method had its limitations when applied to the real world. He didn’t think his superiors would be content with a series of penetrating questions.

Or would they?

Questions are good.

The basic refutation to the Psycho vs. Psycho theory was the woman on the 911 call. Ludwig had to agree that she couldn’t be one of the original killers, not unless there was a third person never accounted for, and such an explanation flew in the face of parsimony. Two killers was already pushing it. Two plus a female was beyond farfetched.

Jacob laughed to himself with an unexpected memory: an old friend who kept a running list of English words that sounded like Yiddish.

Farfetched.

Far-flung.

Melts.

Inspiring Jacob to create his own list, English that sounded like Talmudic Aramaic.

Derisive.

Houdini.

Time to add a new one.

Beheaded.

The Prius in front of him stopped short, and he jammed on the brake, his brain popping and fizzing. He couldn’t remember feeling this keyed up in years. He’d never get to sleep tonight without a drink.

The Venice Boulevard exit crept into view. He could be at 187 in fifteen minutes. He clicked on his turn signal.

It felt like you were stabbing me.

He clicked the signal off.

Remembered that it was the same exit for Divya Das’s apartment. Clicked the signal back on.

Remembered the pull he’d felt toward her.

Off.

Remembered the news of the second offender. He’d need to call Divya on business, regardless. Good enough reason to drop by.

On.

Unannounced? At ten-fifteen on a Saturday night?

Off.

This was starting to feel like a passage of Talmud.

Tractate “Loneliness.”

On.

Chapter “He Who Bangs His Coworker.”

Off.

The driver behind him was probably reaching into his glove box for a handgun.

Jacob swerved into the exit lane.

He phoned from the sidewalk, apologizing in advance for the disturbance. Two stories up, her face popped into view. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling.

She’d left her front door ajar, and he found her in the kitchen, filling a kettle. Chopsticks pinned a black snake of hair; a bulky red terry-cloth robe emphasized the delicacy of her throat and wrists.

“I woke you up,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and set out a plate of cookies. “You must consider me an absolutely enormous loser to think me asleep at this hour. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He recounted his visit with Ludwig. Her reaction to news of the second killer was more subdued than he’d expected.

“Mm,” she said. She sat down behind the breakfast bar. “That does complicate things, rather.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, I don’t reckon it makes them simpler.”

He blew on his tea until she clucked her tongue at him.

“If it’s Snapple you wanted, there’s a Vons on the corner.”

But she was smiling, and she hadn’t bothered to re-cinch her robe. Beneath it were pale orange surgical scrubs: more freebies scrounged from the Great Pathology Labs of the World.

“I was thinking you might be able to dig up that second profile for me,” he said.

“I’d be happy to. Be patient, though. You know as well as I do that it’s much faster to work backward from a known sample.”

“Even if you call your friends in high places?”

“Unfortunately so. I’m not friends with everybody, and before we arrive at that point, we’ve got to track down where it’s filed. Tell you what, I’ll start first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t bother. It can wait till Monday.”

“I thought this was urgent,” she said.

He shrugged. “I feel bad eating up your whole weekend.”

“But we’ve already established that I’m an absolutely enormous loser.”

“You don’t need to tell me about that,” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” she said. “So you are.”

The edge of the breakfast bar bit into his ribs, making him aware that he was leaning toward her.

Divya said, “I googled you.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Turnabout is fair play,” she said.

“And? Anything interesting?”

“I hadn’t realized that you were a fellow Ivy Leaguer.”

“I’m not. Never graduated.”

“Ah. Well. I’ve gone and put my foot in it again, haven’t I?”

“It’s all right. It was a valuable year. Or so I tell myself, cause I’m still paying it off. Anyhow, it worked out. I ended up finishing at CSUN. Same shit, different packaging.”

“Why did you leave?”

“It was right after my mom died,” he said. “I didn’t want my dad to be alone. He’s not a hundred percent — he’s got vision problems, and... I just thought it would be better.”

“That’s kind of you,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“What’s there to doubt? You did what a son ought to do.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Except, that’s not really what happened.”

She said nothing.

He said, “It’s true that I wanted to be around to help him out. But that makes it sound like I came to rescue him, which is bullshit, cause he can pretty much handle himself.” He paused. “I left for me. I was messed up and depressed and I couldn’t hack it. I didn’t turn in any work for half a semester and they took back my scholarship and threw me out. I mean, they were more polite about it. The way they phrased it was more along the lines of, ‘We’re inviting you to take a leave of absence until you’re ready.’ Technically, I can still reenroll.” He laughed and shook his head. “What about you?”

Her eyes were wide with compassion, and she was biting her lip, as if to hold back platitudes. “Me?”

“Why’d you leave home?” He thought that true compassion, at that moment, would be to agree to change the subject. She seemed to come to the same conclusion, for she smiled and said, “Fleeing adulthood.”

“Ah.”

“My parents are very traditional. They had an arranged marriage. It worked for them. Naturally they can’t understand why I wouldn’t want one. Time’s running out. Now they’re petrified I’m never going to get married. The last time I went back, my mother sat me down and asked if I’m a lesbian.”

He smiled, sipped tea.

“For the record, I’m not.”

“Not my business one way or the other,” he said.

A silence.

Once again he was grateful for the breakfast bar, resentful for the breakfast bar.

He said, “Listen, I don’t know what your deal is—”

But she was already looking down, shaking her head.

He grinned. “That has to be some kind of record. I didn’t even finish my sentence.”

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” she said.

“It happens. I’m sorry, too.”

She knotted her hands. “You don’t understand, though.”

“I’m a big boy. I get it.”

“No,” she said. “You don’t.”

A silence.

She said, “I’m not like you, Jacob.”

In her mouth, with her accent, his name sounded more like the Hebrew version, Yakov.

“Different can be good,” he said.

“Sometimes, yes.”

“But not in this case,” he said.

“It’s not as though I’m particularly happy about it.”

“Then you’re right. I don’t understand.”

“Whether I’m happy or you’re happy is not the real question.”

“I think it is,” he said. “I think that’s the only question.”

“Do you? Really?”

“What else is there?”

She didn’t answer.

He said, “People like you and me, we see suffering every day. We see death. I don’t know what that’s taught you. To me, it’s the moment, this moment, that counts.”

She smiled wistfully. “If not now, when.”

He blinked. “Yes.”

She sighed, pulled her bathrobe tight, stood.

“I’ll call you when I have something to report, Detective Lev.”

Back on the sidewalk, Jacob watched her window, waiting for the light to blink out. When it did, the sudden darkness yielded a sky full of cold stars.