The Golem of Hollywood

Chapter five

Not having planned to spend his day off this way, Jacob resorted to using his cell phone to photograph the scene.

“I took my own before you arrived,” Divya Das said. “I’m happy to share if yours don’t come out.”

“Appreciate it.”

He photographed the head and the vomit and the lettering in the kitchen. The house’s isolation had made it seem larger from the outside; aside from the kitchen and the living space, there was a medium-sized bedroom, an adjoining bathroom with a composting toilet, and a small studio with a shelving unit and a crude wooden desk jutting from the wall, picture window overlooking the eastern slope.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“No, go for it.”

She went to her car and came back with what looked like two oversized vinyl bowling bags, one teenybopper pink and the other lime green, as though she’d raided wardrobe at Nickelodeon. She donned gloves, carefully placing the head inside a plastic bag, double-wrapping it, and transferring the bundle to the pink bag. She scooped the vomit into a snap-top container using a plastic spatula. Stomach juice had burned a matte amoeboid patch in the varnish. She nudged loose the few dried flecks using a smaller, thin-bladed spatula, and placed the lot of it into the green bag.

“Remind me never to have pancakes at your place,” he said.

“Your loss,” she said.

Swabbing the remaining stain with a clear liquid, she transferred the green-stained cotton into an evidence bag.

A few more swabs produced clean cotton. She collected those as well. They went into the green bowling bag.

“You don’t seem very grossed out,” Jacob said.

“I hide it well,” she said. Then she grinned. “Confession time. The vomit’s mine.”

He laughed.

“Next,” she said.

In the kitchen, she dabbed delicately at the wood-burned message. “Good to go.”

“Nothing in the rest of the house?”

“Two rooms,” she said. “Bedroom, bathroom, no furniture, no movables. I went over it thoroughly.”

He asked about the toilet and she shook her head.

“You’re positive,” he said.

“Quite,” she said. “And to be frank, it’s an experience I would prefer not to relive in the retelling.”

She hefted her hideous luggage and he walked her to the door.

“It’s been somewhat of a pleasure spending the morning with you, Detective Lev. Let’s do it again, what say?”

Jacob searched the surrounding hilltop.

No footprints, tire tracks, or other signs of human intrusion. Hostile soil and bleached stone and ground-hugging, drought-tolerant plants.

He crab-walked around the back end of the house, moving south and east as far as he could before the slope got too severe. He estimated the drop into the canyon at four or five hundred feet. The upper third of that was bare dirt, nothing to grab on to if you fell. You’d build up one hell of a head of steam before you hit bottom, an impenetrable pubic tangle of chaparral and scrub oak. He doubted the hardiest K-9 could manage the descent without breaking a leg. It was terrain custom-made for disposal: set a body tumbling and go to bed that night feeling easy.

He made a note to check a map of the area for other access points. The western edge of Griffith Park, perhaps. Still, he had to figure that any corpse thrown down there would be picked clean long before some unlucky hiker got lost enough to stumble across it.

Justice.

He scrambled back up to the house, the sun baking his hangover, the pain bringing the irregularities of the situation out in bold relief. It wasn’t impossible to conceive of a skeleton crew being sent to handle a murder, even an atypical one. LAPD, like every city agency, was understaffed, underfunded, overworked. Someone — Officer Chris Hammett or Divya Das; someone further up the chain — had recognized the etched characters as Hebrew, known enough to get antsy.

Jewish victim?

Muslim victim?

Jewish perp?

He imagined the brass at a hastily assembled meeting, panicked fantasies of urban ethnic war. Scrambling for ass-cover.

Get a Jewish D.

Do we have anyone like that?

Good morning, Yakov Meir ben HaRav Shmuel Zalman.

Bye-bye, protocol.

He had a solid notion of what Special Projects meant now: shut your mouth and follow orders.

If he ever cleared this one, would he be asked to don a yarmulke at the press conference?

Wrap himself in his tallis to address the media?

If. Biggest word in the English language.

Inside the house, he examined the letters burnt into the kitchen counter.

Wood-burning stamp, battery-op? Hobbyist killer? Merit badge in decapitation?

Would that kind of thing work to seal the neck? He’d have to ask Divya Das about it.

He thought about her. The accent was attractive.

Then he thought about Mai.

Then he thought: Get a life.

He stepped outside and dialed his own extension at Valley Traffic. The phone rang ten times before Marcia, the normally cheerful civilian receptionist, answered warily.

“I just finished packing up your stuff.”

Mike Mallick didn’t screw around.

“Where are you sending it?” Jacob asked.

“Chen had me leave it in his office. Come get it at your leisure. Why are you calling?”

“I was hoping to touch base with him.”

“I wouldn’t. He’s less than thrilled with you. He seems to think this is a habit of yours.”

“What is.”

“Bailing.”

“It wasn’t my choice,” he said.

“Hey, I don’t care. I mean, I care. You used to brighten my day, Lev.”

“You’d be the first to say so,” he said.

Marcia laughed. “Where are you headed?”

“Caught a case.”

“What kind?”

“Homicide.”

“Re-ally. I thought you were finished with that.”

“You know how it goes.”

“I don’t. Anthony’s been trying to move from Central Burglary to Van Nuys Homicide for a year and a half so he doesn’t have to commute like a maniac. No go. Total freeze. Tell me how you swung it and I’ll be your best friend.”

For a moment he considered asking if her husband was circumcised. With a name like Sangiovanni, though, it was probably a moot point. “Not my choice.”

“We didn’t bore you enough with our puny little vehicular mishaps?”

“I miss them already,” he said.

“Then I’ll expect to see you back here as soon as you’re done.”

“Your mouth to God’s ears,” he said.

He did another outdoor search, taking his time, finding nothing.

Overhead movement against the two o’clock sun caught his attention.

The bird was back, circling to Jacob’s south, descending gradually.

Do your thing. Show me what you’re after.

As if responding, it swooped. Flattened its descent, speeding diagonally.

Aiming directly at Jacob.

When it was about forty feet above the ground, it pulled up and began turning loops. Big and black and shiny — not a raptor. A raven? He squinted, unable to get a bead on it. It was moving fast and the sun was strong. Not a raven, either: the wings were too stubby, and the body oddly flat.

For nearly a minute it traced haloes far above him. He waited for it to touch down. Instead it shot off into the eastern sky, over the deep canyons. He tried to follow its trajectory. No cloud cover, nowhere to hide. Even so, it vanished.