The Golem of Hollywood (13 page)

Sam's eyes creased behind his sunglasses. “It's a start,” he said. “Now let me go fix you that doggie bag.”

H
e'd had too much to eat: his dreams blew in strong, almost sickeningly tactile. It was the garden again, and Mai again, receding as he pursued her, locking him in infinite desire.

He woke up drenched, looked down, and saw that he'd been masturbating in his sleep.

He rose groggily to finish the job in the bathroom.

Couldn't manage it. Tried to conjure her face.

No use: she vaporized.

Tried instead to conjure up some of his greatest hits.

No use.

He sat on the edge of the tub, watching his penis wilt in his hand. Turn on the TV, and ad after ad made it sound like it was a perfectly normal problem, for any man, at any age. But it was a new experience for him, and he didn't like it in the slightest.

He took the coldest shower he could stand.

—

B
Y
EIGHT
-
THIRTY
HE
WAS
on the road to San Diego, a gas station burrito stuffed in the cup holder, fiddling with the stations to drown out reverberations of confusion and shame.

For once the freeway lived up to its name: he cruised, arriving at the Point Loma Marina fifteen minutes early. He parked and got out and
took in a chestful of brine and diesel. Across the harbor, the Coronado Bridge threaded through the fog; a naval destroyer lay in for repairs. Gulls circled tauntingly. Jacob bent over the splattered call box to punch in Ludwig's number, willing the D to hurry up before he got bombed.

Ludwig's boat was a twenty-five-foot weekend cruiser named
Pension Plan
. On deck stood a keg-chested man in his early sixties, blond hair leached to white, a blue Hawaiian shirt open three buttons deep, exposing a rooster-red V of sunburnt flesh. He'd kept his stache, yellowed at the fringe by nicotine.

They shook hands and went below, occupying opposite ends of a garishly upholstered banquette set with watery iced tea.

“Clean swap,” Jacob said. “I'll tell you what I've got and hopefully we can both close.”

“You first.”

Jacob had expected as much. He read Ludwig's skepticism as a product of having been burned before by similar claims. He wanted to help almost as much as he needed help in return.

All the same, he had his own territory to protect, and he cherry-picked in describing the scene, leaving out most of the bizarro elements and making the crime sound like a run-of-the-mill rage killing.

“I wondered what he did to piss someone off that bad,” Jacob said. “Now I know.”

Ludwig's fingers worked thoughtfully.

“Don't go sniffing around those families,” he said. “They've been through enough.”

Jacob let that pass. “Did you ever work up a suspect profile?”

“FBI gave us their opinion. White male, twenty to fifty, intelligent but underemployed, trouble with interpersonal relationships, meticulous. The usual garbage. I always did think that was—I mean, wow. ‘Trouble with interpersonal relationships.' That is . . . that is insightful. That is some
superb
fuckin analysis, right there. ‘Trouble with . . .'” He shook his head. “Whatever. Any of that fit your guy?”

“I don't know. I don't know who my guy is.”

“What's he look like?”

Jacob showed him a photo of the head; Ludwig whistled. “Ouch.”

“Bells?”

“Nobody we ever talked to.”

“He couldn't've been that meticulous,” Jacob said. “He left behind DNA.”

“Not too many guys thinking about that in 1988,” Ludwig said.

He stared at the photo, momentarily transported. Then he sagged disappointedly.

“Well, he's white,” he said, tossing it down. “They got that much right.”

“Who was the original D?”

“They had a whole big R-H task force, but the lead was a guy by the name of Howie O'Connor. Maybe you heard of him?”

“Don't think so.”

“Grade-A prick. Good cop, though. They forced him out a couple of years after the task force folded. Some witness claims he felt her up, they tell him take a hike pending investigation. A week later, he eats a bullet. Sad stuff.”

“What was his theory?”

“Far as I know, he didn't have one, or not a strong one. I never talked to him directly. I only know what was in the file, and O'Connor wasn't the kind who made up stories to fit his assumptions. The general consensus was a drifter, a guy who moves around without anyone ever really seeing him. Remember, this is happening right around the time they nailed Richard Ramirez. People see what they're conditioned to see.”

“How's that sit with you?”

Ludwig shrugged. “I caught the case around when the big news was CODIS, media's going on like now we've got this magic thing's gonna solve every last coldy-moldy piece of crap taking up space in a file cabinet.”

“You never got a hit,” Jacob said.

“Not a one. I reran the profiles, first weekly, then monthly, then on the anniversaries of each killing. I went back and interviewed everyone who was still alive. Nothing had changed. Nobody arrested in the interim. Nobody straining at the seams with guilt. Nothing to deliver on the big promises. My commander implied that nobody would think ill of me if I buried it.”

“You didn't.”

“I did what I could without getting myself noticed,” Ludwig said. “Then my wife got sick and I bowed out.”

“Who owns it now?”

“Hell if I know. Nobody, probably. Nobody wants to touch it, cause in the first place they'd know they ain't gonna solve it, and in the second place they'd know they gotta deal with me calling them up and chewing on their ass about it whenever I get bored.”

Jacob smiled. “They must love that.”

“Oh, they're used to me. I have plenty of time and unlimited long distance. They treat me like a senile old goat, which if you want the truth is what I am.”

“Anyone else at LAPD I should talk to?”

“No one name jumps out at me. You know how it is.”

Jacob nodded. There was no tragedy so large that it would not fade, first from the headlines, then from the mind of the public, and finally from the minds of those charged to prevent its like from happening again. By the time it trickled down to a guy like Ludwig, it would have been all but erased from institutional memory, the smarter cops averting their eyes, looking out for simpler and more fruitful tasks.

What to make of Ludwig, then? The one who pursued the fleeting?

Admire him.

Pity him.

Wonder if he's you, in thirty years.

Ludwig fired up a cigar and leaned back. “Honesty time. What's your angle?”

“None,” Jacob said.

“Hey, now. Don't bullshit a bullshitter. You didn't drive a hundred twenty miles to enjoy my boat.”

“Put yourself in my position,” Jacob said. “What would you think?”

“What do I think? I think your vic was a bad guy and he probably did a bunch of bad things in addition to killing those girls. I think he maybe did some of those bad things to other bad guys, because that's who bad guys like to hang out with: other bad guys. They get together and do bad things. It's like Satan's bowling league. Then one time you drop a ball on your friend's foot, or maybe a whole bunch of feet, and he, or they, do what bad guys do, or at least this variety of bad guy. They get mad and chop someone's head off.”

“You find that satisfying?”

“I find pot roast satisfying,” Ludwig said. “I find that plausible.”

Jacob said, “There's something I didn't tell you.”

Ludwig was expressionless, rolling the cigar in his mouth.

“Whoever waxed my guy left a message,” Jacob said. “‘Justice.'”

Ludwig said nothing.

“
Now
put yourself in my position. What do you think?”

“You didn't think it was worth mentioning that?”

“What do you think now?”

“I thought this was a clean swap.”

Jacob did not reply.

Ludwig sighed. “Probably I'd think the same thing as you. But look. I'm telling you, I know every single one of those girls' families. It wasn't none of them did this.”

“What about friends? Boyfriends?”

“A little credit, please. Those were the first guys that got looked at. O'Connor squeezed them. As did I, multiple times. They don't fit.”

“Maybe they don't fit the original murders, but they might fit this. In fact, if they did fit the originals, I'd lean toward ruling them out, because what kind of sense does that make?”

“They don't fit
any
murders,” Ludwig said. “I mean it. Leave them the hell alone.”

A silence.

Jacob was about to apologize when Ludwig said, “Which profile did you match?”

“Pardon?”

“There's two,” Ludwig said. “Which one.”

Jacob said, “Two what.”

Ludwig smiled. “Right. Okay.”

“What,” Jacob said again.

“There were two DNA profiles,” Ludwig said. “Anal semen and vaginal semen. Completely different.”

“Shit,” Jacob said.

“Yup.”

“Two guys?”

Ludwig chuckled smoke.

“And you didn't think it was worth mentioning
that
?” Jacob asked.

“Fair is fair, Detective.”

“You have an interesting notion of fairness.”

“I acquired mine same place you did: the Los Angeles Police Academy. And what's unfair? You said clean swap and that's what you got. Your bullshit for mine.”

Jacob shook his head. “Anything else you want to share?”

“I'll tell you the identity of my secret crush.”

“Look—”

“It's Salma Hayek.”

“The word ‘justice' was burnt into a kitchen countertop,” Jacob said. “And it was in Hebrew.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I don't have a guess,” Ludwig said. “Hebrew?”

“Nobody told me about two guys,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, cause that information was never released, not even internally. You have to read the case file. Have you read the case file?”

“I haven't had a chance yet.”

Ludwig sighed. He stubbed out his cigar, drained his iced tea, and stood up. “You kids.”

T
hey caravanned to a cul-de-sac in El Cajon, septuplet ranch houses worshipping a teardrop of molten asphalt. Jacob could understand why Ludwig preferred the boat: it was easily fifteen degrees hotter out here than it had been down by the water.

Inside, the blinds were drawn, the air-conditioning going full bore. Ludwig stooped to pet a languid sheepdog before leaving Jacob in the kitchen.

“One minute.”

While Jacob waited, he checked out the photo propped next to the coffeemaker. The Ludwigs had bred for maximum blond: missus was as towheaded as mister, and the boys they'd produced looked like a Nelson cover band. Fresh tulips above the sink implied that Mrs. L had made it through whatever illness had caused the D to take retirement. Some woman was resident, anyway. Girlfriend? Second marriage? Jacob knew better than to ask. All happy families might be alike, and every unhappy family unhappy in its own way, but since there
are
no happy families, you never can tell.

Ludwig clomped in, schlepping a cardboard file box. He dumped it on the kitchen table and arched his back. “I made copies of everything before I left.”

“Need a hand?”

“Yeah, okay.”

There were thirteen boxes, one for each of the victims and four overflow. As Jacob ferried them from the garage, he noticed a curtained corner, a workbench and plywood table visible through a crack.

It reminded him of his mother's old setup, and he remembered Ludwig's comment to the reporter who'd asked how he planned to spend his free time.

Take up a hobby.

Jacob remarked on it to Ludwig, who snorted.

“That clown didn't print the rest of my answer. He goes, ‘What hobby?' And I go, ‘I dunno, something mindless. Like journalism.'”

Jacob laughed.

“Got to keep busy,” Ludwig said, and he pulled the curtain aside.

What lay beyond was not the stuff of carved ducks. It was more like Divya Das's second bedroom, or a hybrid of the two.

There were hand tools, hardware, clamps, a glass cutter, a Shop-Vac—their purpose evident in several half-constructed shadowboxes.

There were also specimen jars, tweezers, magnifying glasses. Shelves of thick books with weak spines and
USED
stickers.
The Handbook of Western Butterflies. North American Lepidoptera. The Audubon Society Guide to Insects and Spiders.

Jacob picked up a shadowbox containing three monarchs and a hand-lettered placard that read
D. plexippus
.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“I told you, I'm bored. I never knew a thing about any of this until I moved down here. I never had the time. These days, it's all I have. Do yourself a favor. Stay in L.A.”

—

L
UDWIG
SAID
, “Anyway, that's the way it makes sense to me.”

They were at the kitchen table, the dog at their feet, coffee cold, boxes exploded, paper towers occupying every chair except the two they were sitting on.

“A power struggle,” Jacob said.

“Guys working in pairs, you've got a leader and a follower. There's always going to be internal tension. Twenty years of staying quiet, that's no small thing. Figure them arguing about something, going back and forth at each other, this and that, and one of them gets nervous and goes, ‘I've got to take him out before he takes us both down.'”

“You think the message was a blind,” Jacob said.

“It worked, didn't it? You're here asking about the victims. Or try this on: Guy A feels remorse, but instead of going to the cops he turns around and kills guy B. In his mind, that's justice.”

“The cop who responded to my scene said it was a woman who called it in,” Jacob said.

Ludwig said, “You're full of surprises, aren't you?”

“To me that's a reason to revisit some of the victims' families.”

Ludwig nodded slowly. “Okay, maybe. But these people have suffered, you keep that right smack in the front of your mind.”

“Promise,” said Jacob. “Any suggestion where I should begin?”

A silence.

Ludwig said, “I hesitate to even mention this.”

Jacob said nothing.

“One of the vics had a sister who was mentally ill. We never considered her for the original killings because, in the first place, she had no history of violence, and in the second place, we were only looking at men—we had semen. I guess it's not impossible to fit a crazy woman to yours. Just cause she's had some problems—”

“I know,” Jacob said. “I get it.”

“She'd have to succeed in tracking the guy down where we failed, and if she's anything like I remember, that's out of the question.”

“Fair enough,” Jacob said. “Let me talk to her, at least.”

“Go easy, would you?”

“I promise. What's her name?”

“Denise Stein.”

“Janet Stein's sister,” Jacob said.

Ludwig nodded.

Jacob said, “Did you ever look at anyone who spoke Hebrew?”

“Someone Jewish, you mean?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Who else speaks Hebrew?”

“A classically trained priest, a Bible scholar. You come across anyone like that?”

Ludwig was laughing. “Maybe I should be looking at you, Detective Lev. No. I don't remember anyone like that. If there was, it'd be in there somewhere.”

Warily, Jacob regarded the mess.

Ludwig said, “Best of luck. Don't forget to write.”

—

T
HEY
REPACKED
THE
FILE
BOXES
and loaded them into the Honda: four in the trunk, two belted in the passenger seat, and seven stacked in the back.

A station wagon pulled into the driveway, and a slightly older version of the woman from the family photo got out, carrying a Gap bag and a supermarket rotisserie chicken.

“He's taking it off my hands,” Ludwig said to her, thumbing at the boxes.

She beamed at Jacob. “My hero.”

Her name was Grete. She insisted Jacob stay for dinner. While they ate, she asked if Jacob intended to take her husband's bugs, too. “Pretty please,” she said.

“She won't let me bring them in the house,” Ludwig complained.

“What sane human being would?”

“I think it's good to have a hobby,” Jacob said. “Better that than gambling.”

Grete stuck out her tongue at him.

“Listen to the man,” Ludwig said. “He's a bright one.”

Jacob showed him the photos of the insect from the cemetery.

“Any idea what that is? I think I have an infestation.”

Ludwig put on his reading glasses. “I can't tell the scale.”

Jacob demonstrated with his fingers. “About yea.”

Ludwig arched an eyebrow. “Really. That big . . . ? Well, tell you what: e-mail them to me, and I'll think on it. Don't get your hopes up, though. It's black, it's shiny, it's got six legs. Could be a lot of things. You know how many species of Coleoptera there are? About a hundred jillion. They once asked this biologist what his study of nature had taught him about the Creator. He said, ‘God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.'”

“Can we please,
please
talk about something else,” Grete said.

Jacob asked about their kids.

The younger son was at UC Riverside, the elder a sous chef in Seattle.

“You must eat well when he comes home.”

“I won't let him in my kitchen,” Grete said. “He destroys it. He'll use every single pan I own to make a salad. He's used to other people cleaning up after him.”

“Like father, like son,” Ludwig said.