The Golem of Paris

Chapter thirty-one

Talking to Pelletier had been strangely invigorating. That seeped away over the next few days, as he recontacted potential witnesses.

He e-mailed a photo of Tremsin to Alon Artzi, Farrah Duvall, Jorge Alvarez, Susan Lomax.

Nobody recognized him.

“He never got out of the limo,” Alvarez said when Jacob called him. “He might’ve stuck his head out once or twice, but I don’t think I ever got a solid look at him.”

“Put him in a fur hat,” Susan Lomax said. “Can you do that? Photoshop one on?”

Jacob sent the photo to Zinaida Moskvina. She didn’t reply, which he’d half-expected: she’d already said it was a flunky who came to see her, not Tremsin himself. He doubted he could get much more out of her, even if he rearrested Katie.

Discouraged, he got in his Honda and drove to Culver City.

Divya Das opened her door. Arched a thin black eyebrow. “This is a surprise.”

“Pleasant one, I hope.”

She motioned him in. “I’ll let you know once I’ve decided. Tea?”

He nodded and took a seat at her kitchenette pass-through. “Thanks.”

She put on the speed kettle. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to eat.”

“Well, yeah,” he said.

She looked at him, startled, and then they both started laughing.

“I usually keep something around,” she said, rummaging in a cabinet, “in case of unexpected — ah. Here.”

She triumphantly displayed a faded box of Wheat Thins. “Let no one say that I am not a gourmet.”

She shook crackers onto a plate, poured the tea and slid it to him, pulling up a seat on the other side of the pass-through. “May I ask what brings you by?”

“Nothing in particular,” he said. “I’m spinning my wheels, so.”

“And how did you know I’d be home?”

“I didn’t. I took a chance. But your car’s in your spot. It’s what we in the police biz call a ‘distinguishing mark.’”

“Too true,” she said, adjusting her bathrobe.

Only then did he notice that she was dressed for bed, the robe over scrubs.

“I’ve just come off an all-nighter,” she said.

“Shit. I’ll go.”

“Don’t be daft. You just got here. What’s bothering you? The mother and child?”

He filled her in on his halting progress.

“When I asked the French cop about her victims’ eyelids, she didn’t say no. I know,” he said, “she didn’t say yes, either.”

“How did she respond?”

“By changing the subject, which to me means I touched a nerve.”

Divya said, “It would be nice to confirm that this Tremsin fellow was actually in Los Angeles at the time of the murders.”

“I contacted ICE for immigration records.” He bit down on a cracker: dust and must. “Meantime I’m floating around in a fact vacuum, surrounded by all sorts of fun things to play with.”

“Such as?”

“Susan Lomax said the guy who came to TJ’s class was wearing a big black ring. I found some blogger who hinted that Tremsin used to be a member of a KGB group called the Zhelezo Circle. I’ll bet you can figure out what ‘zhelezo’ means in Russian.”

“‘Big and black’?” she said.

“Close. ‘Iron.’”

“Iron circle,” she said. “Cute.”

“Not cute. They were a torture squad. A bunch of psychopaths with PhDs.”

Divya bit her lip. “My God.”

“It’s a blog,” he said. “Proves nothing. But you wonder, right? And Zinaida Moskvina insisted that the guy who came to the bakery was one of Tremsin’s men.”

“Mm,” she said.

He eyed her. “What.”

“You’re quite persuasive,” she said. “And I don’t want to be a wet blanket.”

“Just say whatever it is you’re thinking.”

“This baker,” she said. “She’s the one who set you after Tremsin to begin with. Have you considered that she might be stringing you along?”

“Her? No way. She was practically shitting herself, she was so scared.”

“All right. But does it have to be him she’s scared of? Perhaps the real danger is from someone local, and she’s throwing you Tremsin’s name because it’s relatively low-risk. He’s halfway around the world. He’s never going to hear about it.”

Smart girl.

“Is she in trouble?” Divya asked. “Does she owe money?”

“Don’t know about debts. Her record’s clean.”

“Well,” she said. “If I were you, that’s where I would start.”

He flicked his mug morosely. “Crap.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not trying to discourage you.”

“Don’t be. That’s why I came. I’ve been holed up for a week talking to myself.”

He got up, paced. “Last night I got sidetracked, reading up on Cold War stuff. Crazy, what went on. They had these female spies, swallows, trained to seduce men. They’d develop a relationship with a mark and pump him for information. Sometimes it went on for years, the suckers convinced they’d found true love. There were even marriages. Forget Us versus Them. It was Them versus Them. The Soviets, the Czechs, the East Germans — they were all spying on each other. That was a major part of their undoing.”

“Without trust, there’s nothing,” she said.

He felt a twinge of annoyance, unable to tell if she was admonishing him.

“The first time Special Projects called me out to Castle Court,” he said. “It was just you and me. You knew it was Mai.”

She hesitated. “I wanted to tell you up front.”

“But.”

“Commander Mallick thought she would respond better if you were frustrated.”

He shook his head. “You people are amazing.”

“We people?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Besides,” she said, taking his mug to the sink, “you can’t claim Mallick wasn’t correct. It worked.”

Jacob said, “I’m frustrated now.”

Her back to him, she said, “I hope that passes.” A graceful pivot. “I really do.”

“You know what, I should let you get some sleep.”

“You don’t have to run out the minute I show concern for you.”

“I’m not running out,” he said. Then he said, “Do you sleep?”

She laughed.

“Don’t act like that’s a ridiculous question,” he said.

“Not ridiculous. Just strange. I don’t understand you. First you say we’re full of it. Now you’re talking to me like a true believer. Which is it?”

“Both,” Jacob said. “Neither.”

“Make up your mind, would you? And for the record, yes, I sleep.”

“All of you? Or does some part remain on alert?”

Her voice dropped low: “Detective Lev, let’s not get bogged down in theoreticals.”

It was an eerily terrific impression of Mallick.

Jacob said, “Does he know you can do that?”

She laughed. “Absolutely not. You can’t tell him, he’d thrash me.”

She leaned in conspiratorially, her robe dipping open, dark dagger of skin.

“You know,” she said, “sometimes I even feel myself starting to get hungry.”

“Really. Then what?”

“I wait. It passes.”

“I find that sad.”

“Do you? I imagine most people would love to be able to have the ability. Put it in a pill and I’d make a billion dollars. You could call it Resolvex.”

“I’m not talking need. I’m talking want.”

“Desire is tyranny.”

“I’m living proof of that. But I still wouldn’t get rid of it. No light without heat.”

She said, “That’s not a completely foreign sensation to me.”

She gathered up a bolt of hair, securing it with a rubber band. Her neck was smooth, an invitation, and he turned his face to look at everything but her.

Shabby carpet.

Walls blistered by water damage.

Posters of gods and goddesses, blanched and peeling at the corners.

Such a glorious creature. Living in such a grungy little place.

But then she was coming around the counter, coming toward him, and he could see her, only her, her mouth opening to his, blinding, burning.