The Golem of Paris

Chapter thirty-two

While it was happening, Jacob kept waiting for it to end — waiting for the cry of agony, the eyes rolling back in the head, the muscles locking up. His heart ran fast and rudderless, terror piled on top of arousal, needing her and needing to escape before he shredded another woman’s psyche.

Divya Das was no ordinary woman.

Astride him, her black eyes glistened. She did what she wanted, rolled off, positioned him on top of her as if he was tissue paper, bracketed her legs around him and held him fast and clawed his back and kissed him with force enough to incinerate the breath inside his lungs.

Afterward, she lay back.

He said, “Are you all right?”

She turned on her side, grinning.

Smug, even.

She reached for him again.

On the drive home, the world blared hyperreal.

Divya was one of them.

She was immune.

But was he? He kept leaning forward over the dash to peer up at the darkening sky, expecting retribution.

The unseen fist, streaking down, to send his car tumbling end over end.

Was this how it was going to be, for the rest of his sexual life?

He could only sleep with the members of Special Projects?

Member. Singular. Schott and Subach and the men in the vans, not his type.

His laugh was brittle, forestalling the next wave of anxiety.

Another mile. Nothing happened.

He was now the protagonist of a cheesy ballad.

Send me an angel.

Send me an angel... hybrid.

He made it back to his place in record time, parking on a slant and sprinting upstairs, eager for the mock safety of ceiling, walls, and floor.

He showered, drank till he was right, fixed himself a batch of Paleolithic mac and cheese and ate from the pot, standing by the range. Using his free hand to work the laptop, he burrowed into Zinaida Moskvina’s history.

Opened the bakery in 1998.

Silent partners? Men who wore big vulgar rings?

Naturalized in 1999.

A debt with roots in the old country?

All he could do was wonder. Nothing close to a concrete suspicion.

Her daughter remained her most glaring weakness.

The coke bust was for a small quantity that classified it as personal use, not dealing. It had occurred after her first DUI, before Katie had established herself as a chemical dependent. She pled out, no time served.

No bankruptcies, no credit issues, no defaults.

The icon for an incoming e-mail popped up, interrupting his train of thought. Thinking it might be from Divya, he opened his inbox.

It was from an ICE agent.

Subject: Query TREMSIN Arkady

Jacob scanned the first line and grabbed his phone.

Divya answered, groggy. “Hello?”

He said, “He was in the country. Tremsin. He entered through LAX customs on a six-month visa, July 11, 2004. The victims were killed the night of December 19, discovered the next morning. His exit stamp was December 22.” He paused. “Hello?”

“I’m here,” she said.

“Okay. So? Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Very,” she said, yawning.

Her lack of enthusiasm irritated him a bit. Then he remembered her overnight shift. “I woke you up, didn’t I.”

“Indeed you did.” She yawned again. “I’m glad for you, Jacob. Well done.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I mean, everything’s... okay.”

“If you want to have a talk talk—”

“No need here.”

“Then let’s agree that it was a nice thing that happened and leave it at that.”

“It was,” he said. “Nice.”

“Well, I thought so.”

He laughed softly. “Go back to bed.”

“Aren’t you going to get some sleep yourself?”

He glanced at the clock. Eleven p.m. For the last couple of weeks, he hadn’t gotten more than four or five hours a night. That he didn’t feel tired awakened a dormant fear: in a manic phase, his mother would stay up for days on end.

His laptop sat open. More work to do, threads to pull.

He said, “Stay on the line with me?”

“Hurry,” she said, yawning.

He didn’t bother to brush his teeth. He stepped out of his shoes, out of his clothes, and got into bed. He put the phone on speaker and set it on his chest. “Still there?”

“Barely.”

For a few minutes, they said nothing, sinking into the silence together. Then he said, “Good night, Divya,” and she said, “Good night, Jacob,” and he tapped the screen and rolled over.

In his dream, the garden has changed.

What was once gold and green has been leached to mud gray, leaves of stone and tendrils of graphite, dead and depthless.

Flitting from a distant corner of his consciousness:

Forever.

The ground trembles and smokes, and he turns, looking for her. Mai?

You said forever.

He still can’t see her. Can you come out, please?

You lied.

The air shimmers dangerously.

You need to understand how this is for me he says. I’m a human being. I’m alone.

When she replies, her voice is full of quiet menace.

What do you know about loneliness?

Mai. He starts to walk toward the sound of her, but a hellish wave of heat drives him back, and he blinks at the garden, rippling beyond a curtain of invisible flame.

Let’s be reasonable about this he says.

A wild laugh. Oh, no. Oh, no, no no no. I’m not going to let you get away with that again.

Get away with wh—

You think because you’re good with words you can talk your way out of anything.

I don’t think that.

“I have loved you forever and I will love you forever still.”

Mai. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You think I don’t remember? “I need you to come home to.” Lies.

I never said those things to you he says.

Yet the text is familiar, a lesson from the womb.

If I did he says then I apologize.

No answer.

I’m sorry he says. Then shouts it.

But the heat closes in, and amid the stench of broiling hair, blackening flesh, he perceives that he, too, is aflame.

Jacob seized awake.

His upper lip itched like mad.

Every smoke detector in the apartment was howling.

He charged out of bed and ran toward the bitter clouds billowing from the kitchen.

The leftover mac and cheese, sending up a pillar of smoke.

He threw up a window, wrapped his hand in a towel, dumped the pot in the sink, ran cold water, thermal shock crackling the aluminum.

The upper left burner, cranked to high, screamed with blue flame.

He remembered shutting it off, before heading to bed.

He wasn’t sure, now.

He twisted the knob down.

A cold gust passed over his naked body, and he turned and saw the living room window, cracked an inch.

He was sure: he’d never opened it.

He walked over.

Outside, the streetlight, insects coalescing, an electric dandelion.

He slammed the window down, latched it, yanked the curtains together.

He checked every inch of the apartment, finding nothing else amiss.

Returning to bed, he sat with his damp back against the wall.

He said, “I don’t know if you can hear me. I’ll assume you can.”

Silence.

“I’m not going to call Mallick,” he said. “In case you’re worried about that. I’d never try to hurt you.”

He imagined her reply: Promises, promises.

“I don’t think you really want to hurt me, either.”

He thought that was true. She could have easily done much worse.

“You need to think about it,” he went on. “What if the batteries in my smoke detector were dead and I never woke up?”

Shivering, he drew the blanket up to his chin.

“I had one decent pot,” he said. “You ruined it.”

Eventually the sun rose, slashing open his bedroom. He started to get dressed, thinking he ought to get on with his day.

The bed began to vibrate.

He bunched with dread.

His phone buzzed its way out from under his blanket.

The screen showed a mass of digits — a foreign number.

Odette Pelletier, having second thoughts?

But it was a man’s voice, barely, that said, “Allo. Police?”

“This is Detective Jacob Lev. Who am I talking to?”

A rattle of phlegm. “Capitaine Théo Breton.”

The man began speaking in a hurried whisper.

“Slow down, please. I can’t understand you.”

“Pelletier,” the man said. “She is bullshit.”

“Pe — are you a cop?”

There was a commotion on the other end of the line.

“Hello? Hello.”

A rustling sound came over the phone. Then a rush of incoherent anger, growing louder until Breton managed to croak out a single, hoarse word.

“Tremsin.”

Before Jacob could respond, a woman came on and began reprimanding him in blistering French. The line went dead.

Jacob pulled up the number on caller ID.

“Institut Curie, bonjour.”

“Hello, English?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“I just had a call from you,” he said. “I got disconnected.”

“With whom you were speaking, monsieur?”

“Mr. Théo Breton. I’m a colleague of his.”

“Pardon?”

“From the police department.”

“One moment.”

The line rang and rang and rang. He tried several more times before giving up.

Jacob sat on the edge of the unmade bed, thinking.

The smell of smoke was still fresh in his nostrils.

After a few minutes, he fetched down an overnight bag from a high shelf in his closet. He filled it with a variety of clothes, suitable for a variety of tasks. It was December, so he grabbed all three of his sweaters. Then he began looking around for his passport.

The soonest flight to Paris was a red-eye that evening. He bought the last remaining coach seat and sent an e-mail to Mallick.

Late in the day, packed and ready, he wondered if he had enough time to visit his mother. In the end, he decided not to go. What could he say that didn’t risk harming her?

He phoned Sam instead, bypassing hello and getting right to the point.

“Did Ima ever mention the name Arkady Tremsin?”

“I don’t believe so. What is it?”

“Tremsin. Think, Abba. It’s important.”

“I don’t remember that,” Sam said. “I suppose I could ask her when I—”

“Absolutely not,” Jacob said. “Do not do that.”

Silence.

“Forget I mentioned it,” Jacob said. “I mean that.”

Sam said, “As you wish.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” Jacob said. He wanted to believe him. “Here’s something you can tell her: I’ll see her soon as I’m back.”

A distressed inhalation. “Back from where.”

“Paris. Not sure how long I’ll be gone.”

“Jacob?” Sam said. “Can I give you tzedakah money?”

It was an old custom: giving a traveler charity money to protect him from harm. Sam had made the same offer before Jacob’s trip to Prague.

A lot of good that had done.

Jacob said, “No, thanks.”

When the honk sounded from the street, he hefted his carry-on, pausing by the door to address the empty air:

“Try not to burn anything down while I’m gone.”

Not a cab idling by the curb, but a silver Town Car.

Jacob approached, slowly.

The window buzzed down.

Jacob said, “You’re kidding.”

Behind the wheel sat big Paul Schott. He patted the front seat and gave a dour smile. “Mais oui.”