The Golem of Paris

Chapter twenty-seven

The Commander asked me to bring this by.”

Detective Paul Schott stood on the landing outside Jacob’s apartment, a laptop dwarfed by his huge hands.

Jacob stepped back to admit him.

Of all the members of Special Projects, it was Schott, with his strong whiff of zealotry, who unsettled Jacob most. Fat, red-cheeked Mel Subach had a sense of humor and could give as good as he got; Mike Mallick was driven and condescending but a pragmatist at heart.

Schott made no attempt to disguise his contempt as he lumbered in, carelessly Frisbeeing the computer onto the couch. He’d shaved off his mustache, which elongated his face and emphasized his frown.

“I’d offer you a drink,” Jacob said, “but you’re going to turn me down.”

Schott waved impatiently. “Fine, you know. I know you know. Congratulations. I’m going on record that I don’t trust you.”

“Join the club,” Jacob said. “Call my ex-wife, she’s the president.”

“Which one?” Schott grinned, a bulldog contemplating steak. “Yeah. I know all about you, too, Lev.”

“Everybody needs a hobby,” Jacob said.

“You could take up pottery,” Schott said.

“You,” Jacob said, “can shut the fuck up.”

The big man started.

“You don’t mention her,” Jacob said. “You don’t allude to her. Ever. Got it?”

Silence.

Schott said, “That all, Your Highness?”

“Yeah. Leave me the hell alone.”

Schott snorted. “Best of luck.”

Having decent research tools felt like coming up for air. For the next twenty-four hours, Jacob reran names, combed databases.

His relief faded fast. He could find nothing with a matching MO, not even close.

He turned his attention to the owner of the bakery. Her name was Zinaida Moskvina. Her record was spotless, free of so much as a parking ticket, and he felt affirmed in his hunch that whatever had happened, she hadn’t been at the center of it but dragged along.

Her daughter was a different story.

Ekaterina Moskvina, twenty-seven, had racked up three DUIs in the last four years. Additional busts for coke, shoplifting, chucking a drink at a police officer. She called herself Katie on her Facebook page and declared herself “dat bitch u dont fuk wit.” Her posts consisted of announcements that she was hitting the club and sHiT gOn GeT kRaYzEe KrAy.

Jacob agreed with her there.

He spent that night staking out her Van Nuys apartment in an unmarked. She was disappointingly well behaved, in by seven and lights out by ten. The same went for the next several days. But he persisted, and late on Friday night, he got his reward.

Eleven p.m., the hour for shit getting krayzee kray fast approaching. He’d skipped his visit to Bina and was composing a guilt-stricken text to Rosario when Katie emerged in circulation-choking jeans and a black halter top.

She got into her Kia and sped off.

Jacob tailed her to a dive bar on Magnolia. His breath quickened as he stepped inside, walking past Katie’s booth to occupy a stool at the end, scalloped wood a comfort beneath his backside.

“What can I getcha?”

Jacob tore his gaze from the blocky amber silhouette of the Jim Beam bottle and asked for a Bud Light. Moderation of a kind.

Behind him, Katie & Co. were whooping it up, a multiethnic team, all wearing identically skimpy clothing: Girls Gone Wild meets the United Colors of Benetton. Over pitchers of margaritas, they debated hotly where to take the evening next.

“Here you go, buddy.”

Jacob had begun salivating well before he took the first sip. He white-knuckled through the urge to drain the bottle in one go.

Katie seemed unencumbered by any such doubts. For the next hour, Jacob kept a refill count. He figured it wouldn’t take long. She was petite, five-three without the platform heels. Though she did have Russian genetics. And there was another variable: the strength of the margaritas.

For the sake of research, he ordered one for himself. Medium.

An hour later, he felt confident she would blow well over the limit.

Now he had to hope that she’d offer to drive.

“I’ll drive,” she announced, pitching back a half-full glass.

Like ducklings the women filed out of the bar, went through the leggy contortions of fitting into Katie’s tiny car.

He followed them over Laurel Canyon to the Strip. She’d had a lot of practice driving drunk. No twenty-mile-per-hour trepidation, no reckless lane changes. You could screen a video of her in driver’s ed as an example of road courtesy. They had that sad fact in common, he and poor Katie: both functioned better with a certain amount of intoxicant in their systems.

Finally, at Sunset and Fairfax, she made an illegal U-turn, and he clamped the light on his dashboard and switched on the flasher.

The compact lurched. Making a run for it?

No. She was pulling over.

When he reached her, her eyes were full of tears, her mouth full of breath mints. He asked her to step out of her vehicle.

She blew a .129 and immediately demanded a blood test.

“You got it.”

He drove her down Sunset, turning onto Wilcox toward Hollywood Station but stopping a block shy to veer into the parking lot of a Staples. He cut the engine and turned around.

“Listen,” he said. “You’re fucked. You know that, right?”

Her mascara was running in streaks. “I want a blood test.”

“I’m trying to reason with you, first.”

“Lawyer. Lawyer.”

“Pipe down a sec.”

“Lawyer. Lawyer. Lawyer.”

He said, “There’s another way.”

Her eyes got big. “What?”

“Help me out and this doesn’t need to happen.”

She said, “You’re fucking disgusting.”

Jacob burst out laughing. Even in his heyday, he maintained some minimal standards of hygiene. Katie Moskvina had vector of infection written all over her.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said, crying harder.

“Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Shut up.”

“I’m going to sue your ass.”

“Listen to me carefully. This is your last chance. You can help me out or we can drive over to the station and they’ll jab your arm. Fourth DUI in four years? You’re looking at sixteen months, mandatory minimum. I tell the judge how you spit at me, it’ll be worse.”

“I never—”

“—especially after you grabbed my arm. Especially after you threw that drink at that cop. That’s called a pattern of aggressive behavior toward the police.”

“You’re a fucking liar.”

“And you’re a drunk,” he said.

Katie began to weep quietly. “Asshole.”

“Great,” he said, dialing his cell. “Now that we’re on the same page.”

He put the ringing phone on speaker. “Tell your mom to get over here. Speak English.”

When Zinaida Moskvina arrived, Jacob allowed her a look at her daughter, cuffed and stuporous in the back of his car. Then he led her off a ways, to a splotch of deathly yellow light on the parking lot blacktop.

“That speech about the police banging on your door in the middle of the night? Very powerful stuff. Definitely gave me a few ideas.”

She shifted her glare from him to the unmarked.

“She must drive you up the wall,” Jacob said. “Hardworking woman like you, you give her opportunities, and she just keeps screwing up.”

Zina’s temples bulged.

“I don’t want to lock her up. I don’t think that’s the place for her. Rehab, maybe. But, a girl like her, at County? She’ll get eaten alive.”

He stepped toward her. “I know you’re frightened.”

“You don’t know nothing.”

“Talk to me,” he said. “I can keep you safe.”

She laughed. “You can’t touch him.”

“Who?”

She laughed again. “You think I’m stupid?”

“I think you’re scared. I saw how you looked when I showed you the boy’s picture. I can see what it’s doing to you, keeping everything inside. You’re going to feel better if you tell me.”

Silence stretched.

“I was not there,” she said.

“Who was?”

Another silence, longer and denser.

“Remember what he did to a child, Zina. He’s going down, whether you help me or not. The only question is if you’re going to let your own child go down in the process.”

He paused. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe she had something to do with it.”

Zina looked up sharply. “No.”

“Whatever,” he said. “I’ll find out one way or the other.”

He started walking back toward his car. “I’ll make sure she gets her lawyer.”

He got in and slammed the door hard, jarring Katie awake.

“What’s — what the fuck,” she said.

“Time for that blood test,” he said, starting the engine. “Mother knows best.”

He shifted into drive.

Katie flopped onto her back and began screaming and kicking at the door.

He stomped the brake. “Knock it off.”

She had rolled off the seat and was lying on the floor, tangled up, sobbing.

He swore quietly. Now he had to actually book her.

Bullshit. Paperwork. Testimony. And no lead.

He swung the unmarked toward the exit, was about to turn when he heard a shout. In the rearview mirror, Zinaida Moskvina was running after them, waving her arms.