The Golem of Hollywood

Chapter six

The Crown Vic was parked outside his building, Subach and Schott in the front seat. Jacob nodded to them as he eased into the carport, and they met him at the door to his apartment, each man carrying a cardboard box.

“Merry Christmas,” Schott said. “Can we come in?”

They set the boxes down in the living room and — without obtaining consent or announcing their intentions — began rearranging the furniture.

“Feel free,” Jacob said. “Really, don’t hold back.”

“I do feel free,” Schott said. “It’s the defining feature of humankind.”

“That and the capacity for speech,” Subach said. He lifted Jacob’s coffee table with one paw. “Otherwise we’re no better’n a buncha animals.”

They disconnected the television and DVR, stacking the media console atop the couch, which they had shoved into the corner. That left a low bookcase, its shelves home to a collection of wooden-handled tools, oiled and polished. Wire brushes, scrapers, styluses, knives, loop-end trimmers.

Jacob transferred them, two by two, to his bureau. Schott bent to admire them.

“Nice. You a woodworker?”

“My mother’s,” Jacob said.

“She’s a woodworker?”

“Was. A sculptor,” Jacob said.

“Talented family,” Schott said.

Subach appeared, carrying the denuded bookcase. “Where do you want this?”

“Where it was,” Jacob said.

“What’s your second choice?”

Jacob waved vaguely in the direction of his closet.

While Schott returned to the car for another box, Subach pried open a flat-packed pressboard desk. He settled down cross-legged in the living room and began laying the pieces out, rotating the diagrammed instructions this way and that, shaking his head.

“Fuckin Swedes, man,” he said.

Jacob went to the kitchen to make coffee.

An hour later, they were done.

A swivel chair. A brand-new computer, a blue pleather three-ring binder leaning against it. A compact digital camera and a smartphone. A compact multifunction printer, tucked against the wall, on the floor. A wireless router and a humming battery pack.

“Welcome to your new office,” Schott said.

“Mission Control,” Subach said, “J. Lev Division. Hope it works for you.”

“I was thinking I could use a new look,” Jacob said.

“Sorry about the TV,” Subach said.

“It’s better,” Schott said. “No distractions.”

Subach indicated the router. “Secure satellite. The phone, too.”

“You won’t be needing your old cell,” Schott said.

“What about personal calls?” Jacob asked.

“We’ll reroute them to the new one,” Schott said.

“All the numbers you’ll need are preprogrammed,” Subach said.

“Does that include pizza?” Jacob asked.

Schott handed him an unsealed envelope. Jacob took out a credit card, pure white plastic, orange Discover logo, embossed with his name.

“Operational expenses,” Subach said.

“Does that include pizza?”

The men did not reply.

“Seriously,” Jacob said. “What the fuck is this?”

“Commander Mallick thought you’d be better off working from home,” Schott said.

“How thoughtful.”

Subach made a pained face. “May I remind you, Detective, you let us in of your own free will.”

Jacob examined the sat phone. It was a brand he had never heard of. “Should I assume you’ll be listening?”

“We won’t tell you what to assume,” Schott said.

Subach pulled out the desk’s keyboard tray, pushed a button. The computer screen glowed darkly. There was a chime, and the desktop popped up, tiny icons displayed in a tight grid: everything from NCIC to police departments in major cities to missing persons databases to ballistics registers.

“Fast, comprehensive, broad reach, no passwords, no permission slips,” Schott said.

“You’ll like it,” Subach said. “It’s fun.”

“I bet,” Jacob said. He looked at the binder.

“Your murder book,” Subach said.

“Some things are best kept old school,” Schott said.

“Any questions?” Subach asked.

“Yeah,” Jacob said. He held up the credit card. “What’s the limit?”

“You won’t hit it,” Subach said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Jacob said. “I eat a lot of pizza.”

“Anything else?” Schott asked.

“About thirty thousand,” Jacob said.

Subach smiled. “That’s good. Questions are good.”

After they’d gone, Jacob stood there for a moment, wondering if a drink would make it harder or easier for him to accept his new reality.

For most of his adult life, he’d been a high-functioning alcoholic, although sometimes functioning was the operative word, and sometimes it was high. Since his transfer to Traffic, he hadn’t been drinking as much — he hadn’t needed to — and it bothered him that he’d blacked out last night.

Now that he was back in Homicide, he supposed he was entitled.

Stop, wagon-driver! I want to get off.

He brewed fresh coffee and got the spare bottle of bourbon from beneath the sink and added an unhealthy slug.

Each sip blunted his headache fractionally, and he began to think of Mai.

It was raining weirdos.

He killed the drink and killed its twin and had a seat at his new desk.

Opening up the browser, he plugged in a query. The computer was indeed responsive.

Commander Michael Mallick had a handsome wife and two handsome daughters.

He was an alumnus of Pepperdine University, class of ’72.

The final standings of several amateur golf tournaments suggested that he ought to consider taking up tennis.

File photos had him talking to reporters, announcing the arrest of a local terrorist cell plotting to bomb the office of a state congressman.

So maybe Jacob was after a Jewish terrorist, after all.

The idea embarrassed him. His people. Collective responsibility.

How long did you have to be on your own before they ceased to be your people?

Anyhow, how would Mallick know who the bad guy was?

And if he did know, why hadn’t he told Jacob?

Questions are good.

But for a cop, answers were better, and Jacob had the unsettling thought that Mallick preferred to have him spinning his wheels.

A sensitive matter.

Protecting someone?

Maybe the whole thing really was revenge from Mendoza. Make Jacob look dumb, lower his clearance rate, keep him subservient.

He shook his head. He was getting paranoid.

He looked up Officer Chris Hammett in the PD directory. He dialed him on his personal cell. It wouldn’t go through. His home phone worked fine, though, and he used it to leave the officer a message — a small act of defiance, little better than a tantrum. They hadn’t explicitly forbade him from making calls on the landline, and moreover he assumed that they were listening in, as well.

He searched for Dr. Divya V. Das.

A native of Mumbai, a graduate of Madras Medical College. Her Facebook page was set to private. She’d done her doctorate at Columbia University.

The V stood for Vanhishikha.

He could squander the rest of the day on the Internet, reading about other people, and get no closer to closing his case. Murders weren’t solved by technology. They were solved by people, and persistence, and enough caffeine to disable a yeti.

The sat phone’s directory listed Michael Mallick, Divya Das, Subach, and Schott.

All the numbers you’ll need are preprogrammed.

In other words, no consults allowed. Jacob felt his headache returning.

As far as he could tell, the camera was a normal camera.

He opened the pleather binder.

Blank pages, his job to fill them.

But not empty, not completely. A tooth of paper peeked up from the rear slit pocket.

A check made out to him, written on departmental Special Account, signed by M. Mallick.

Ninety-seven thousand ninety-two dollars.

One year’s salary, before taxes.