The Golem of Hollywood

Chapter thirty-one

The Czechs knew their beer. The pub met and exceeded Jacob’s standards: a cavernous, low-ceilinged, centuries-old room with mahogany accents and stone walls. Fried meat and quality pilsner were brought by a poker-faced waiter who materialized with a fresh glass whenever the one on the table dipped below fifteen percent. While it was still too early for serious partiers, a raucous atmosphere prevailed.

The only thing missing was Jan.

The hacking cough and the feral brood had led Jacob to picture a man in his late forties. Loose jowls, yellow teeth, bad skin. Nobody fit that description, so he began making eye contact with every male who walked in, receiving in return a series of irritated not gay stares.

He drummed his fingers on the manila envelope containing the crime scene photos from Castle Court. He called Jan’s number, then the second number. He sent texts to both. He checked with the waiter that there wasn’t another establishment that went by the same name.

“Hello!”

The girl didn’t wait for an invitation, sliding in next to him. “British? American?”

“American,” he said. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

She laughed. “Yes, me too! You are my friend. My name is Tatjana.”

He stifled a smile. “Jacob.”

“Nice to meet you, friend Jacob.” Sweet and blond and plump, she put out a dimpled hand. “How is your beer?”

“Killer,” he said.

“Hah?”

“It’s very good.”

“One for me?”

“You don’t look old enough to drink.”

Tatjana socked him in the shoulder. “I am nineteen.”

“In America it’s twenty-one.”

“Then I will stay here.” She raised her thumb to a passing waiter. “Jacob America, where do you come from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Hollywood? Movie stars?”

“Drug dealers. Prostitutes.”

No reaction; he decided she probably wasn’t a hooker.

“We have these, too,” she said.

“So I hear.” He consulted his phone. Nothing from Jan, now a full forty minutes late.

“You have been before in Prague?”

“First time.”

“Yes? And how do you like?”

“I haven’t seen much yet. But so far it seems very pretty.”

Tatjana grinned broadly.

Whoops.

“The architecture is amazing,” he added.

“Hah?”

“The buildings.”

“I think you must go to see the castle. This is the most beautiful place in Prague.”

He checked his phone. Sent another text. “I’m on a tight schedule.”

“You are a businessman?”

“Of a sort.”

The waiter brought her beer.

She raised her glass. “Na zdraví.”

“Back atcha.” They clinked and drank.

“What business?”

Jacob wiped foam from his upper lip. “I’m a cop.”

“Hah?”

“A policeman.”

Tatjana blinked. “Ah, yes?”

Maybe a hooker, after all.

Still, she didn’t leave, yammering in his ear as he sent text after text. Neighboring tables emptied and were wiped down and filled up again. At one point she broke off her monologue, and Jacob followed her stare to a group of simian toughs sporting chunky gold chains.

“Friends of yours?” he asked.

She snorted. “Russians.”

“How can you tell?”

“These ugly necklaces.”

One of the men smiled sourly and raised his glass at Jacob.

“This makes me angry,” Tatjana said. “We get rid of them, they come back, they are shit on everything.”

“You can’t possibly remember those days,” he said.

“No. I was not born. But my father was dissident.” Then, sensing that she had steered the mood awry, she smiled. “Everyone was dissident.”

“I’m Jewish,” he said. “Far be it from me to tell you not to hold a grudge.”

“Ah, I understand. This is why you come to Prague.”

“How’s that?”

“There are many Jewish tourists. They come to see the synagogue. You will go?”

“It’s a big business,” he said. “Jewish tourism.”

“Yes,” Tatjana said. “This and Kafka.”

“And what do you make of it?”

“Tourism? I think is very nice. Czechs are friendly people.”

“Just not to Russians.”

She laughed. “No.”

“You like Kafka?”

“I have not read.”

“Come on.”

She shook her head. “Under Communism this was not allowed. Kafka wrote in German, so there is Czech translation only one year ago, two. I will read it soon, I think.”

“You should read ‘A Hunger Artist.’”

“Yes?”

“It’s one of my favorite stories. That and ‘The Village Schoolmaster.’”

“Please,” she said, handing him her phone so he could type in the titles. “Your friend, I don’t think he is coming.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He typed, returned the phone to her, threw back the rest of his beer, put down enough money to cover them both. “Nice talking to you, Tatjana. Have a good night.”

She didn’t get up to follow him.

Not a hooker.

Old Town was in full riot. Buzzed, Jacob threaded along, catching snatches of expat English, Spanish, French. Chesty bass drum, rubbery guitar, off-key vocals. Squeals of delight presaged tomorrow’s regret. Pizza parlors and Internet cafés abounded, the ubiquitous Pilsner Urquell shield swinging in the sweet, foul breeze. Urine. Marijuana. Grilled onions dripping with sausage fat.

His umpteenth call to Jan went unanswered. Eurotrash. Chinese version of Eurotrash. A woman in a fraying corset attempted to entice him into a strip club. A woman in an evening gown attempted to entice him into a casino.

Back in his room, he opened up his bag and fished out the Dani Forrester file. He’d read most of it on the plane, and so far it consisted of stuff Flores had told him over the phone. A casino hostess dealt with a range of unsavory types. They’d gone through her BlackBerry, running down everyone she’d met with in the weeks leading up to the murder: bachelor party organizers, low-rent gamblers, hard-luck cases hondling for cheap rooms, conventioneers.

He came to the last page. Nine-fifteen p.m. Lunchtime in L.A.

He reached for the remote control.

No remote.

No TV.

Twenty bucks a night, you get what you pay for.

For the next hour, he read the obsolete guidebook from cover to cover.

Learned what to say if he was detained by customs.

Learned how to avoid having his film confiscated.

Wide awake, he shut off the light and stretched out, free-associating through the Castle Court chronology.

Eleven p.m., the call first comes in.

Hello.

Who greeted 911? People calling 911 forgot their own names. They stammered. They repeated themselves.

I’d like to report a death.

Not a head or a dead body or oh my God please help.

A death.

As though the victim had departed the earth peacefully, doing what he loved best. In the bathtub. On the golf course.

The woman’s tone was grotesquely at odds with the content of her words.

She’d like to report it.

She enjoyed reporting it.

It would be my pleasure to report a death.

Ms. Mai with an i Whoknowswhat, of Whoknowswhere, kindly requests your presence at the discovery of a corpse. Dinner and dancing to follow. RSVP to LAPD. Black tie suggested.

Giving the address, she enunciates, so as not to be misheard. It’s the dispatcher who’s tripping over her own words.

Thank you.

Again: who does that?

Per Divya, the murder hadn’t taken place long before the call. Hours, not days. But no body, no blood, no spatter. Off-site.

Where?

I’m just a nice young lady who came down for some fun.

Down from?

Up. That’s where you come down from.

An especially nasty in-joke? A reference to the fact that the house was in the hills?

An hour passes between the call and Hammett’s arrival.

During that time, what does Mai do?

Hunker down, waiting to see if they take her seriously?

Does she watch the patrolman go inside? Snap pictures with her cell phone?

Post them to Facebook? Tweet?

w/cops @ murder scene

#justice

lol!!

Or has she already split? She might have phoned it in from another location. The lack of background noise on the recording made it difficult to tell.

Meanwhile, Hammett radios in. The information gets punted around.

Not for very long, though. Divya Das arrives at the house around ten to two. She lives over an hour away, and that’s assuming she goes straight to the right address, without getting lost. Meaning she’s called out no later than twelve-forty-ish. Meaning the news hits Mallick’s radar in under an hour.

Making for a level of efficiency Jacob had never encountered at LAPD.

Unless they’re already on the move.

Meaning, they know about the head before the call comes in.

Nonsense.

Unless they’re with Mai at the scene.

Maybe they cut the guy’s head off.

Maybe Divya’s there, too.

Maybe they all are.

A grand conspiracy! The whole goddamned department!

He indulged himself, wallowing in paranoia. LAPD death cabal, put that Jew Lev on the case, then obstruct him. The bizarro work-at-home arrangement, the fritzy computer system. The unresponsiveness when he requested the recording, Mallick’s attitude when he finally played it for Jacob.

Did that help?

The Commander expected him to recognize her voice? Meaning, Mallick knows Jacob met Mai?

But Mallick can’t know that.

Go. I think you’ll find it educational.

Go fuck yourself, Confucius.

Neither O’Connor nor Ludwig had mentioned anybody named Mai with an i. Not that that meant a thing. Her real name could be Sue or Helena or Jezebel.

Whoever she is, at some point after making the call, she heads over to 187.

For some fun.

Fun with Mr. Sunshine, so drunk he can’t even remember the color of her hair. His inability to perform self-evident. What’s she doing, talking to him?

Why drive him home?

Why spend the night and get him stoked for sex, only to disappear?

Minutes later, Subach and Schott show up.

The timing made his stomach ache.

He played the recording through several more times, pressing the speaker up to his ear. It sounded like Mai — his memory of Mai. But what, really, was that memory grounded in? Ten hungover minutes. The wilder his thoughts wanted to be, the tighter he leashed them, and eventually he was able to listen to the recording and decide that it wasn’t her, after all. He’d been dreaming about her and thinking about her, far more than he ought to, and that was making him hear her specific voice when in fact it was a generic female voice, a voice that could belong to any woman. He listened again, noting the sound’s diminished quality, considering the route it had taken to get to him, the signal filtering through a phone and a satellite and a computer, emerging through a tiny crappy built-in speaker. He should get some high-quality headphones. He listened again and concluded that he’d been wrong, dead wrong. The voice wasn’t Mai’s. And his earlier conviction that it was her voice now discomfited him profoundly, as it implied his critical apparatus wasn’t functioning too well.

Restless, he turned on the bedside light and leaned over to root through his bag.

The crude cover art: the golem, forever pursuing someone beyond the edge.

Read him a normal book, like a normal child.

A book of ghoulish tales probably wasn’t the right choice to induce sleep. But he had a vague recollection of the golem as a benevolent being, fearsome appearance notwithstanding, and right now, a take-care-of-business pile of super-sludge vanquishing evil sounded terrific.

He opened up and started to read.