The Golem of Paris

Chapter forty-six

Striding smoothly, ape arms swinging, Molchanov took them down a corridor carpeted in plum-colored plush, veered into a room.

A library, in the sense that it contained books. But no cozy spot for reflection. A rolling hall, cluttered with tables, bookstands, display cases, and tapestry armchairs. The roof was a coffered barrel vault of what looked like ebony, the walls paneled with riotously grained satinwood. Wheeled ladders on brass rails offered access to obscure upper shelves. It reminded Jacob of the Widener reading room at Harvard, if Harvard had been feeling spendy.

A lone gunman stood watch while Molchanov exited via curtained French doors on the far end.

Jacob heard the bolt turn.

“What now?” he asked.

“They’re checking up on you,” Pelletier said. She had taken a seat on a chaise longue and was idly spinning an enormous globe.

“Again?”

She shrugged.

“I notice you kept your ID.”

“They know who I am.”

Jacob tapped his foot on the parquetry, watched time tick by on a twelve-foot-tall chinoiserie clock.

“I thought Tremsin was waiting.”

“When he’s ready for us, we’ll know.”

Jacob began moving along the bookcases, fingering gilt-edged spines. Most of the titles were in French, English, or German — part of the grand old Russian tradition of looking to Europe for sophistication.

The gunman trailed him loosely.

Would he dare shoot if Jacob provoked him? Shred all that lovely wood and leather?

Where was Schott?

This way, my friend.

A terrible thought seized Jacob.

Schott and Molchanov: two soldiers in the hybrid army.

Schott had known all along.

Jacob looked over at Pelletier. Examining her nails.

“What’s happening with Paul?” he asked.

“You were the one who asked to come here, Detective. Relax.”

Jacob resumed walking, his pulse high up in his neck.

In a far corner stood a cabinet distinct from the rest, its contents shimmering behind greenish UV glass. Probably the really expensive stuff. First Folios, Gutenbergs.

Decent guess. But wrong.

Inside were drab magazines, dozens of them. Some of the spines were wide enough to accommodate titles in minute print. Industrial Engineering and Chemistry. International Journal of Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials. What Jacob presumed were the Russian equivalents.

The issues were organized in chronological order, clustering in the mid-seventies, picking up again in the nineties — the eras when Tremsin had been most active in his lab.

Behold the Doktor’s personal hall of fame.

The bottom shelf stood out.

Rather than magazines, it held forty or fifty slim volumes of uniform size, bound in burgundy leather, gilt stamped along the spines, the work of a custom bookbinder.

Jacob squinted to read.

He reached into his memory, sounded out the Cyrillic characters.

He felt the room starting to spin.

She went to Prague.

Steadying himself against the case, he worked his way along, coming to the one he wanted.

Прага — ноябрь 1982

Praga — Nayaber 1982

Jacob reached to open the cabinet.

Locked.

She was never the same after that.

He gave the knob a firm wiggle.

Behind him, the guard said something.

Jacob tugged, harder.

“Stop,” the guard said loudly.

Jacob wheeled around. “What.”

Startled by the outburst, the guy briefly lost the grip on his gun.

Down at the other end of the library, the French doors opened.

Molchanov entered.

Alone.

Jacob started toward him, halting with hands up as the guard recovered his aim.

Molchanov said, “Your friend made big mistake.”

He displayed a stubby brown object.

Pelletier was off the chaise, on her feet, instantly alert. “What is that?”

“Hidden in boot,” Molchanov said. “Wrapped in material.”

Mindful of the gun held level with his waist, Jacob came slowly forward until he could identify the object as a wooden-handled potter’s knife.

His mother’s knife.

“This special material,” Molchanov said, jouncing the knife in his palm, “very interesting. I cover knife, put wand, no beep. I take material away, beep beep beep beep.”

Pelletier gaped at Jacob. “My God. What is wrong with you?”

“I had no idea,” Jacob said, which wasn’t really true, because he did have some idea; only he hadn’t known where exactly Schott had stashed it. “I swear.”

“Je suis désolée,” Pelletier said to Molchanov. “Je pensais—”

But Molchanov had a hand up. “No problem.”

He smiled at Jacob. “Remove clothes.”

A beat.

Jacob said, “I’d like to leave now.”

Molchanov said, “Clothes.”

The library temperature was mild enough, calibrated for long-term storage of paper. Jacob shook nonetheless as he stripped off his shirt and pants.

“All clothes.”

Jacob stood naked. Pelletier made a show of studying the floor.

Molchanov set the knife down on an end table, removed his leather gloves, and began inspecting Jacob’s clothing, feeling along the seams.

On his left index finger was an enormous black ring.

Jacob, shivering, said, “What is that? Iron?”

Molchanov stopped what he was doing to glance at his own hand.

“Where’d you get it?” Jacob said.

“It was reward,” Molchanov said.

“Reward for what?”

“Work,” Molchanov said.

He tossed the jeans on the floor, picked up Jacob’s shirt.

“How about this?” Jacob said, tapping the side of his own neck.

Molchanov’s fingers darted to his hunk of scar tissue, as though to conceal it. A habit not quite broken. Quickly, he dropped his hand.

He said, “Also reward.”

He started to search the shirt — then, changing his mind, cast it aside.

He took out a new glove, a latex one. Pulled it on.

“Turn,” he said.

When Jacob did not, Molchanov said, “I must look for weapon.”

Still Jacob stood his ground.

Molchanov advanced like the leading edge of a tsunami. He seized Jacob by the shoulders and spun him around, bending him over the back of a chair and kicking Jacob’s feet apart.

Jacob gritted his teeth. “Whatever gets you off, asshole.”

“I am not asshole,” Molchanov said. “This is asshole.”

Jacob crouched: shrunken, damp, hurting, nauseous.

His clothes hit him in the back.

“Put on.”

Pelletier was still gazing dispassionately at the floor.

Jacob got dressed.

“Okay,” Molchanov said. He spoke to the gunman in Russian, and the four of them left the library and began to walk.

The house went on and on and on.

Ornate in spots, stark in others, room after room inhabited by domestics of every stripe. At Molchanov’s approach, they paused their chatter to give a respectful distance.

An exterminator squatting by the baseboards, a spray tank on his back, stood and doffed his hat.

Molchanov led them through passageways, switchbacks, miles of silk wallpaper. The further they went, the less the place felt like a fortress and the more it felt like a house. A really nice house, but a house. You could even overlook the security cameras, tastefully concealed behind leaded glass shades.

The air moved gently against them, carrying a distinct but agreeable iodine tang.

Jacob felt a dull ache where Molchanov had assaulted him. That had been more than security. It was an announcement — a change of plans.

He wasn’t going to talk to Tremsin. He was being brought to Tremsin.

Focus. Head up. Back straight.

He glanced over at Pelletier. Serene as cream.

They arrived at an elevator bank. Molchanov punched an ivory button. Pale, lustrous doors parted. “Lady first.”

They stepped into the car. Its three interior walls were made of glass, exposing the elevator shaft, which was elaborately mosaicked with an abstract lattice. The elevator panels were made of the same lustrous metal as the doors.

Molchanov pressed another ivory button and the car began to rise — sluggishly.

Jacob saw letters and numbers tiled in among the lattice.

The patterns weren’t abstract.

They were chemical diagrams.

A nice slow ride, offering plenty of time for you to admire them.

Jacob said, “His creations.”

Pelletier nodded.

Jacob looked around again at the fixtures, wondering what the metal was. Nothing so pedestrian as white gold. Platinum, maybe, or something exotic that would excite a chemist. Palladium. Iridium.

The main panel was engraved with a warning.

In case of fire, do not use the elevator. Take the stairs.

It sounded so much more refined in French.

They reached the top floor.

The doors opened.

Molchanov said, “Lady first.”

The mosaics continued across the floors and walls of a six-sided antechamber. There was only one way to go, through a door incongruously narrow and rustic, roughhewn from light-colored wood.

Molchanov stepped toward it but stopped, his hand going to his earpiece. “Da.”

Whatever the message was, he didn’t like it.

“Nyet. Nyet. Devyanosto sekund.”

Molchanov lowered his voice, shot off a command in Russian, hustled back into the elevator. Through the glass, Jacob saw him pry open the panel and turn a knob. The car plunged out of sight.

“What was that about?” Jacob said.

Pelletier shook her head. “He said he’d be back.”

She had a brief conversation with the gunman in Russian, which ended with his shrugging agreeably and stepping aside.

“We’ll go ahead,” Pelletier said to Jacob.

She started across the antechamber, paused. “Have you prepared your questions?”

“A whole list.”

“Pick two or three.”

He said, “Why’s Tremsin curious to meet me?”

“You’ll want to address him as Doktor,” Pelletier said.

“You said he was curious to meet me,” Jacob said. “What did you tell him?”

“That you are an American police officer, in town to talk to him.”

“You gave him my name.”

“Naturally.”

“What else?”

“That was it,” she said.

“What exactly did he say?”

She said, “Only that he looked forward to meeting you.”