The Golem of Hollywood

Chapter twelve

The sat phone was dinging as he stepped from the shower, a voicemail from his father, a text from Divya Das: ring me.

Today was Friday. He hadn’t given Sam an answer about dinner tonight. “Hey, Abba.”

“Did you get my message?”

“I’m swamped. Can we reschedule?”

A brief pause. “Of course.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Jacob said.

“You do what you need to do,” Sam said. “Have a good Shabbos.”

“You too.” Jacob disconnected the call and thumbed the directory for Divya Das.

“Good morning, Detective.”

“I got something for you,” he said. “You got something for me?”

“Indeed. Are you free to meet up?”

“Name it,” Jacob said.

She gave him an unfamiliar address in Culver City.

He told her he’d be there in fifteen minutes.

The white work van was parked across from his building. He had a faint recollection of it being there the night before. He was far from sure. He’d been drunk, focused primarily on getting his lady friend up the stairs without her pitching over the railing. If he was right, though, the vehicle hadn’t left the block in several days, shifting from space to space.

Somebody had a lot of curtains to put up.

He jogged over to peek through the windshield.

Tools, rods, boxes of fabric.

No hulking dude on a headset monitor.

He told himself to stop acting ridiculous.

En route to Culver City, the sat phone rang: his father again. Jacob let it go to voicemail.

The address Divya Das had given him turned out to be a pink stucco apartment complex fronting an unsavory stretch of Venice Boulevard. A homeless man slept on the grass beneath a hopeless sign touting one-, two-, and three-bedroom vacancies.

Jacob parked on a side street, cut the engine, and played the voicemail from his father.

Hi, Jacob. I don’t know if you listened to my previous message, but please disregard it. I’ll manage.

He hadn’t listened to it. Now he had to.

Hi, Jacob. You’ve probably got your hands full, since I haven’t heard from you. Not to worry. I have everything prepared, except for one thing: Nigel accidentally brought me two challahs instead of three and I wanted to ask, if it’s not too great an inconvenience, maybe you might have time to pick up another. I like poppy seed, but—

Jacob stopped the playback and dialed him.

“Jacob? Did you get my other message?”

“I got it. Can I ask you something, Abba?”

“Of course.”

“Was that an honest attempt to absolve me of picking up the challah, or was it intended to make me feel guilty?”

Sam chuckled. “You think too much.”

Jacob rubbed one gummy eye. “What time’s dinner?”

Divya Das had approached her generic white Sheetrock walls as a blank canvas, embarking on a charmingly random spree of color and texture. A neon orange throw revived a battered sofa; the dining table was a fifties-era TV set topped with glass. Laminated prints of gods and goddesses brightened the living room: elephant-headed Ganesha, Hanuman the monkey god.

He meant to tell her about the missing letters, but she began chatting with him, inviting him to sit at the breakfast bar and setting out a plate of cookies and a steaming mug.

“There we are,” she said. “Proper tea.”

He took a mouthful. It was scalding.

“Shit,” he gasped.

“I was about to say,” she said, “you might want to blow on it.”

“... thanks.”

“It’s essential to use fresh, clean water and to bring it right up to the boil. Americans consistently neglect that step, with disastrous results.”

“You’re right,” he said. “It tastes much better with a third-degree burn.”

“Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

“Some milk would be nice.”

She got it for him. “I’m sorry I don’t have something more substantial to offer you.”

“Don’t be. This is the most complete breakfast I’ve had in months.”

“I shall have to tell your mother.”

“You’ll have to shout pretty loud,” he said. “She’s dead.”

“Oh, my,” she said. “I’m so sincerely sorry.”

“You didn’t know.”

“Well, I ought not to make assumptions.”

“Don’t sweat it. Really.” To spare her further embarrassment, he pointed to the fridge door, magnets pinning snapshots. “You and yours?”

The centermost photo had Divya embracing an elderly woman in a red sari. “My naniji. This one” — a host of people arrayed on either side of an elaborately bedecked couple — “is from my brother’s wedding.”

“When did you move to the U.S.?”

“Seven years ago,” she said. “For graduate school.”

“Columbia,” he said.

“Have you been checking up on me, Detective?”

“Just Google.”

“Then I’m sure you know everything you need to know.”

There were others photos, too, that she apparently did not think required explanation. They showed her in far-flung locales, engaged in mildly risky activities: strapped into a rock-climbing harness; in ski suit and goggles; among girlfriends woozily hoisting margarita glasses.

No kissy photo booth strip; no thick-haired man in surgeon’s scrubs, clutched around the waist.

She said, “I hope I didn’t bother you, calling on you early.”

“I was up.”

“I wanted to catch you before I had to leave for the day. I know it’s unorthodox to meet here, but it’s for the best. I’ve had to tread lightly. My immediate superior isn’t very gung-ho about your severed head. Right now we’ve got several pathologists away at a convention, and the bodies are piling up.”

“What’s that mean, not very gung-ho?”

“I believe his exact words were, ‘I haven’t got time for curiosities.’”

“It’s a homicide.”

“He tried to convince me it’s a relic from a museum.”

“With fresh vomit?”

“I didn’t say he was successful,” she said. “Or sensible. But I know better than to waste time arguing. He can be rather authoritarian, especially under stress.”

“So you called me here to apologize for not working my case?”

She smiled, causing a gold stud in her left nostril to twinkle. He hadn’t noticed it before.

She said, “I’m afraid I’ve been a bit naughty.”

Her apartment was a two-bedroom. The door to the first was ajar, giving Jacob a glimpse of a bed piled with embroidered pillows.

The second had been set up as a mini pathology lab. Heavy-duty plastic sheeting protected the carpet. A dissection tray sat on a folding table; a desk hosted a microscope; there were bins labeled for scalpels and forceps and hammers, a biohazard container, an air purifier, and a two-thousand-count box of nitrile exam gloves.

Jacob looked at her.

She shrugged. “Beg, borrow, and steal. Nothing fancy, mostly surplus. I’ve been refining it since my student days. No mean feat getting it through customs, believe you me.”

“It’s nice to meet someone as OCD as me,” he said.

“It helps to pass the time,” she said.

And explains in part why you’re single. Jacob liked her more and more.

In the closet, a wire rack displayed five vinyl bowling bags — the pink and green versions she’d had with her at the crime scene, and three others in orange, black, and red.

“Very Sex and the City,” he said.

She pointed to the green bag. “Emesis.” The black one. “Fingerprints.” Red. “Blood.” Pink. “Gobbety bits.”

“Orange?”

“For when I go dancing,” she said. “It’s my favorite color. Tell me: how would you know anything about Sex and the City?”

“Ex-wife,” he said.

“Ah,” she said.

He wondered if he’d erred, because in the next breath she was back to business. “I didn’t want my boss looking over my shoulder, so I brought the material here—”

“Material?”

“The head. Vomit, too. They’re in the freezer.”

“Remind me never to have ice cream here, either.”

“If I might continue, please. The vomit wasn’t very useful. It was so laced with acid that it actually began corroding my glove. And I confess I still haven’t been able to determine what sealed the neck. The skin isn’t blistered or scorched in keeping with a blast of high heat. I suspect it’s some form of tissue adhesive, such as hospitals use to aid in wound repair.”

“Someone with specialized knowledge,” Jacob said. “Access to medical supplies.”

“Possibly. Although you can order transglutaminase over the Internet. Chefs use it. They call it meat glue.”

“A mad doctor or a mad chef.”

“Or none of the above. That’s not the interesting part, though. I took tissue from the head and snuck into the Coroner’s lab to extract DNA and run it through CODIS. I wasn’t expecting much, but I wanted to be thorough. It’s your lucky day, Detective. You’re familiar with the Night Creeper, I presume.”

Certainly he was.

“Well, you’ve got him. Or, rather, his head. Or, rather, I do. In my freezer.”

Jacob, dumbstruck, watched her give a shallow curtsy.

“Ta-da,” she said.