The Golem of Hollywood (16 page)

D
enise and Janet Stein's parents lived in Holmby Hills, their Dutch Colonial manse set back behind pittosporum hedges. Jacob rang the intercom. The maid came on to inform him that nobody was home.

“Try the club.”

He turned to face a woman with pink flotation-device lips, pink Juicy Couture tracksuit, a Yorkshire terrier on a pink leash with a pink Swarovski-studded collar.

“They're there every afternoon,” the woman said.

The dog crouched to lay a turd on the Steins' front lawn.

“It's Denise I'm looking for,” he said.

The woman smiled abundantly. “I'm sure they can tell you where she is.”

The club
, it emerged, was the Greencrest Country Club, two miles west on Wilshire. Jacob thanked her. As he drove off, he glanced in his rearview, calculating what percentage of the woman was biodegradable and frowning to see that she'd left without picking up after her dog.

—

H
IS
BADGE
COULDN
'
T
GET
him through the gate.

He called Abe Teitelbaum.

“Yakov Meir, my wayward boy. How are you?”

“Hey, Abe. Still fighting the good fight. Yourself?”

“Putting up no resistance whatsoever. And your father the
lamed-vavnik
?”

“Anyone who thinks he's a
lamed-vavnik
is by definition not a
lamed-vavnik
.”

“I didn't say he thinks it,” Abe said. “
I
think it. And I don't think, I know. What gives?”

Jacob conveyed his predicament.

“Time me,” Abe said.

While Jacob listened to hold music, he observed a remarkable change come over the fellow in the security booth. He reached lazily to answer the desk phone—then bolted from his chair, peering through the smoked glass, stricken with the fear of God.

Jacob smiled and waved.

At the count of eighty-one, the barrier arm went up.

Abe came back on the line. “Am I having any effect?”

“Like Moshe at the Red Sea,” Jacob said.

“Peachy. Have a drink. Put it on my tab.”

Greencrest had been founded by Jews denied membership in the city's venerable gentile country clubs. Candids of studio founders and comedians bygone plastered the walls. Policies had eased up in the seventies, but the dining room retained a distinctly synagogue-y vibe, populated by unsomber men and women who laughed heartily, ate with gusto, dressed well. Like the oak coffering the ceiling, they showed evidence of polish applied and admirably reapplied.

The manager who met Jacob at the door discreetly inclined his head toward a booth, where a woman in expensive knitwear sat drinking alone. “Please make it quick,” he said.

Otherwise chicly made-up, Rhoda Stein had missed a spot at the base of her throat. The flamingo flush told Jacob that the colossal piña colada in front of her wasn't her first of the day.

She looked him up and down and said, “I gave at the office.”

He smiled. “Jacob Lev, LAPD. May I?”

She waved indifferently.

He sat. “Is your husband around?”

“Sauna. Sweating out the toxins.” Her swig left lipstick on the rim of the glass. “You must be new. I've never seen you before.”

He nodded.

“Younger every year, they get.” She dabbed her mouth with a starched napkin, leaving another smudge. “Well. What is it this time?”

Jacob said, “It's about Denise.”

Rhoda Stein started visibly. “You mean Janet.”

“Denise,” he said. “I need to get in touch with her.”

She stared at him.

From beyond a plate glass window, the plink of a driving range.

He said, “I know you've gone through a lot. I can't begin to imagine it. I want you to know that I'm a hundred percent committed to getting justice for Janet. And right now, the best way for you to help me achieve that is by helping me speak to Denise.”

“I like that,” Rhoda Stein said. “‘Justice for Janet.'”

He waited.

“We started a foundation in her name. To promote literacy. Maybe we should've called it that instead. ‘Justice for Janet.' Catchy. Not very optimistic, though. What do you think?”

He said, “I think this must be difficult for you.”

“How'd you get past the guard?”

“It wasn't easy.”

“Nor should it be,” she said. “That's the point of a club: to keep the world out. Check your cares at the door, share a joke, a nice meal. Arturo makes a great piña colada, real fruit juice, not like some vulgar premixed resort swill. Care to try?”

“No, thanks.”

She drank, dabbed, said, “You want to talk to Denise.”

“I'm curious to know what she's been up to lately.”

Rhoda nodded, nodded, kept nodding. She took another healthy swig
and peered into her glass, sighing as though disappointed to find it half full.

“Such a shame to waste it,” she said.

She threw the drink in his face, dabbed her lips, dropped her napkin on the table, stood up, and tottered away.

Jacob sat, stunned, his chin dripping.

But not for long. In the storied history of the Greencrest Country Club, enough drinks had been thrown in enough faces that a protocol existed. Within ninety seconds, a phalanx of tuxedoed men advanced, waving rags. They wiped down the tabletop and seats, removed the offending glass, handed Jacob a clean napkin and a glass of seltzer for his shirt.

As for the other club members, they'd seen it all before, too. They paused but briefly before returning to their eating and yakking.

“Hey. Pal.”

A wizened man in a cashmere blazer had taken the toothpick out of his mouth and was beckoning him toward a nearby booth.

Jacob approached, mopping his neck.

The man said, “Listen, kid, leave her alone, wouldja? She's been through hell.”

“I'm aware of that,” Jacob said. “I'm trying to help her.”

The man's lunch companion hunched behind amber sunglasses that reminded Jacob of his father's. He said, “She's heard that a million times.”

“This is different.”

“Different how?”

“I need to talk to her daughter,” Jacob said.

“Her daughter's dead.”

“Not that one. The other one.”

The men exchanged a look.
Moron.

“Kid,” the first guy said, “they're both dead.”

The manager's voice drifted from the lobby.
Ask him to leave, please.

Jacob said, “Shit.”

The second guy nodded. “She hung herself a couple years back.”

“Shit . . .”

“Yeah,” the first guy said. “Shit.”

Footsteps.

“Excuse me,” Jacob said.

He ducked out, jogging down a musty corridor that gave onto a breezeway. Signs pointed the way to the golf shop, fitness center, Founder's Lounge. Rhoda Stein was nowhere to be seen.

The smiling woman behind the fitness center desk handed him a sign-in sheet.

He wrote
Abe Teitelbaum
. “Sauna?”

“Basement level,” she said. “Enjoy.”

Jacob trod carefully on the slick tile, averting his gaze from furred potbellies and pendulous scrota. Nobody—no body—younger than seventy. What would happen to the roster when the Greatest Generation died out? They'd have to start running promotional discounts.

The sauna was deserted except for one man sitting motionless on the highest tier, head back, eyes closed, perspiration coursing down his torso while around him steam swirled and sank. He evoked some mountaintop Jewish Buddha.

“Mr. Stein?” Jacob said.

The guy didn't open his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Jacob Lev. I need to apologize to you.”

“I forgive you.”

“You haven't heard what I had to say yet.”

Stein shrugged. “Life's too short for grudges.”

Jacob's shirt, already glued to his front with piña colada, was beginning to stick to his back with sweat. “I upset your wife.”

Now Stein peered at him through the mist. “Why'd you do that?”

“I didn't mean to. I—I made a serious mistake.”

“What mistake.”

Jacob hesitated, then told him.

Stein burst out laughing. “That's goddamned awful.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, no, listen: that's more or less the worst thing I ever heard. And trust me, I've heard some winners. Did she take em?”

“Pardon me?”

“My wife. Your balls. Did she take em.”

Jacob shook his head. “I guess I got lucky.”

“You got that right, amigo,” Stein said. “So? Why're you talking to me?”

“I—”

“Ahhhh
I
get it: you want to try and top yourself. Well, hunh. Dunno, I can't think of anything. Lessee. Okay, how about, how bout this: ‘Hey, Eddie, Detective'—what is it, again?”

“Lev.”

“‘Detective Lev here. Good news, I got a lead on your daughters, turns out they're both alive. Denise's turning tricks at a truck stop in Barstow. And Janet, she works as a press secretary for Hezbollah. Just kidding, they're still dead as Christ.'” Stein smiled. “How'd I do?”

“Look—”

“Don't spare my feelings. Be honest. One to ten.”

“Look, I'm sorry. I really am. I feel like an asshole—”

“Trust that feeling.”

“—but your wife ran off before I could say anything, and I don't know where she went.”

“That's easy,” Stein said. “To get a refill.”

Jacob said, “I just want to tell her I'm sorry.”

Eddie Stein wiped his face and stood up. “Come on, let's go.”

Standing before an open locker, Stein said, “Don't let me catch you ogling my manhood. Jealousy's a negative emotion.”

“No, sir.”

“People have been known to try. Its reputation precedes it. Although,”
Stein said, toweling his stomach, “come to think, I can't say anything precedes it. It's always the first one in the room.”

Now Jacob really did want to look. Stein wasn't lying.

“Don't think I don't see you, Lev.”

Jacob faced the opposite wall.

“Mind if I ask what you want with my dead kid?”

Jacob made a judgment call. “We found one of the guys.”

Behind him, the whisk of terry cloth on flesh cut off. “Found who?”

“One of the guys who killed Janet. He's dead.”

Silence. Jacob worried that he'd given Stein a coronary. “I'm going to turn around,” he said. “You can cover up.”

But Eddie didn't cover up. He was standing with the limp towel in his limp hand, his face streaming to match his still-streaming chest.

Jacob said, “Do you need a doctor?”

“No, you schmuck, I need a tissue.”

Jacob pulled one from the dispenser. “I'm sorry to tell you like this.”

“Sorry? What the fuck are you sorry for? That's the best news I heard since the little blue pill went generic.” He looked at Jacob. “He's dead? What happened to him?”

“Somebody cut his head off,” Jacob said.

Eddie barked a laugh. “Fantastic. Who?”

“I don't know.”

Eddie nodded musingly. Then he seemed to recall that he was naked and pulled the towel around his waist. “I said no peeksies and I meant it. Go wait in the hall.”

A few minutes later he emerged in fitted plaid slacks, a bright blue Izod shirt, and cream-colored calfskin loafers. His white hair was gelled back to his scalp.

“Tell me if I'm reading this correctly,” he said, punching the elevator button. “You found this son of a bitch with his head chopped off and you got to thinking Denise did it.”

“I wanted to talk to her,” Jacob said feebly.

“And I'm Alfred, Lord Tennyson.” Stein shook his head. “Well, based on my extensive experience with LAPD, you're par for the course. Par being retarded.”

The elevator juddered, dinged, opened on the manager flanked by two security guards.

“Sir, you'll have to please come with us.”

“Shut up,” Eddie said, pushing through the men as through a bead curtain. “He's my guest.”

—

T
HEY
FOUND
R
HODA
in the main building, at the second-floor bar, a new drink in front of her. Nearly empty.

“Do I know my wife or what,” Eddie said.

She saw them approaching and flagged the bartender, pointing to her cocktail. “Another,” she said. “Make it thick.”

“Hang on, Arturo,” Eddie said. To Jacob: “Tell her.”

Jacob told her.

She didn't cry. She didn't react at all. She said, “Arturo. I'm getting thirsty.”

“Yes, madame.”

“I apologize,” Jacob said. “From the bottom of my heart.”

Rhoda nodded once.

“Who told you Denise was alive?” Eddie asked.

“I went to your house,” Jacob said. “I talked to a woman.”

“What'd she look like?”

“Big lips. Tracksuit. Dog on a pink leash.”

“Nancy,” Rhoda said.

“I thought she was your neighbor,” Jacob said.

“She is,” Eddie said. “She's also Queen of the Cunts.”

Rhoda clucked her tongue. “She claims we blocked her view when we added on.”

“View of what?”

“Exactly,” Rhoda said.

A silence.

Eddie said, “I don't know what else we can tell you, Detective. But you find out who did it, you let me know. I want to send him a Rosh Hashana card.”

Rounding the top of the stairs, Jacob saw the two of them huddled together, their arms around each other, two soft old bodies trembling. Laughing or crying, it was impossible to tell.

H
e texted Divya from the parking lot.

anything yet

Her reply came back quickly.

no prints

damn
he wrote.
2nd offender?

patience

not my strong suit

She responded with a smiley.

He dithered a moment, then typed
dinner?

Her reply to that was far slower in coming.

busy

He rubbed his eyes, started the car, began to back out. The phone rattled in the cup holder.

sorry
she had written.
maybe another time

Something to work with. He started to type
hope springs eternal
; told himself not to be an idiot. He erased that and wrote asking her to be in touch.

—

T
HERE
WAS
STILL
NO
REPLY
from 911 dispatch, not even an acknowledgement of his first two requests. He wrote directly to Mike Mallick,
outlining the new developments at length and imploring him to intercede. Let Special Projects do some of the heavy lifting.

He ate his dinner, dogs and bourbon, sitting on the floor, a file open on his lap.

By eleven-thirty he had a tension headache and could no longer see straight. Trudging to his bedroom, he collapsed without brushing his teeth. To feel himself finally running out of steam brought palpable relief. For the present, at least, he was sane.

—

H
E
ITCHED
.

Arm and back, neck and genitals.

It was a maddening sensation and he rubbed at himself and the itch regrouped elsewhere on his body, newly doubled in strength.

He looked down.

They were on him.

They were everywhere.

Beetles.

Swarming his body like a black coat of armor; twisting in his navel, the cracks of his toes, tiny feather feet whispering against him. He slapped at himself and they scattered in concentric circles, seeking refuge in his pubic hair, his armpits and buttocks, clogging his ears, tunneling up his nostrils then tumbling, wriggling, down to the back of his throat. The more he struggled, the worse it got. They were too fast, too numerous, sprung from an infinite source, burrowing into him, millions of tiny undulant bulges bubbling in the nonexistent space between skin and raw flesh.

He raked his fingers across his scalp, scraped in the crevices where they hid, screamed and screamed and screamed.

Then a sharp stone was in his hand, and he used it to flay himself, shins and elbows, the tops of his feet, peeling his stomach off in an
unbroken sheet and still he
itched
, he would do anything to stop it and he turned the point of the stone on himself to stab and gouge; soon he wept from a hundred puckered mouths while the beetles continued to penetrate deep into his brain. He beat his forehead against a stony wall, yearning to crack his skull open.

He slit his own throat.

Reached his hand up between the ends of cleanly severed pipes, pushed his fingers through custardy matter to the very center of their squirming legions and closed his fist around them, knowing all the while that he was destroying himself in the process.

At four-thirty a.m. he lurched awake streaked red from clawing at himself in his sleep. Running down the hall, he plunged into a scalding shower until the nightmare burnt off, slumping cross-legged on the bath mat, heaving, slick, jittery with terrible epiphany.

He had missed something.

—

C
RIME
SCENE
PHOTOGRAPHERS
in the digital age could snap away without limit; their 1988 counterparts had the cost of film and development to contend with. There was no standard set of angles, and those in the Creeper file didn't correspond between cases.

Jacob did the best he could, ripping off his rank bedsheets, layering the mattress with 8×10s, lining them up in a grid, comparing, blood punching through his brain.

He swapped out some of the photos, juggled others around.

What was bothering him was Inez Delgado.

Why drag her back to the bedroom to cut her throat?

Why not leave her where she fell, like with the other women?

Now he suspected that was wrong. Now he suspected they'd
wanted
Inez in her bedroom, just as they'd wanted Helen and Cathy and Janet and Sherri in theirs, just as they'd wanted Christa in her living room and
Patty in her kitchen and Laura in her walk-in closet and Katherine Ann centered in her studio.

In some instances, they'd moved furniture.

In other instances not.

The constants: the legs were always spread, typical sexual assault positioning.

The backs were always bruised.

He projected himself into the killer's script, knelt, grabbed hair, yanked, reached around.

What did he see?

He ransacked the photos for mid-range shots oriented along the victim's body in the direction of the head. He found five that were perfect and four close enough.

Nine times, he looked at what the killer saw while drawing the knife.

Nine times, he was looking at a window.

—

B
Y
SEVEN
A
.
M
. he could no longer contain himself. He picked up the phone.

Phil Ludwig said, “We need to establish some ground rules. I get to sleep in now.”

“It's important. Listen,” Jacob said.

The detective listened.

Then: “Huh.”

“I reread the files,” Jacob said. “I wondered if anyone else had noticed it.”

A beat. “Obviously nobody did,” Ludwig said.

“Nobody.” Realizing how arrogant that must sound, Jacob added, “It's not obvious.”

“Don't patronize me, Lev.”

In the background, Grete Ludwig said
Take it outside
.

“So?” Ludwig said. “What's it mean?”

“I have no—”

Phil. I'm asleep.

“Hang on,” Ludwig said.

Thwap of slippers, a door gently shut.

“I have no idea what it means,” Jacob said. “But it had to be deliberate. Inez isn't running back into the bedroom. She's trying to get out of the apartment, they're trying to stop her. And something went wrong. For them. They stabbed her in the stomach—I'm thinking she managed to punch one of them, or kick him in the balls, and he just lost it and went off on her and gutted her. But that wasn't the plan, all along they meant to put her in front of the window—that's what they did with the rest of them, I can't tell you why they did it but they did. So with Inez, she's not dead yet, she's dy
ing
, they go, ‘Fuck, let's get her in front of the window before she goes.' And it makes me wonder if some of the others were moved. I've been assuming any movement was due to an escape attempt but maybe that's why they tied them up, to get them into position while they were alive, at which point they sliced the bindings. As to why windows, I don't know. But Inez wasn't tied up, so it's worth thinking about.”

Silence.

“Phil? You there?”

Barely audible reply: “I'm here.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you've had too much coffee.”

“I haven't had any coffee,” Jacob said, annoyed.

“You're talking a hundred miles an hour.”

“I feel like I might really have something here.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“You don't agree.”

“It's not—look: good job, at least you're working it.” Ludwig yawned, puncturing Jacob's enthusiasm. “What's your next step?”

“I don't know. I haven't had a chance to process.”

“Okay, well, you do that. I'm going back to bed. Give a call if you need anything. After ten, preferably.”

Jacob said, “Detective? You were right about Denise Stein.”

A pause.

“Oh yeah?”

“She's definitely not the offender.”

“Glad to hear it,” Ludwig said. “Before I forget: I'm still working on that bug you showed me. Nothing yet.”

“Thanks.”

“Take care, Lev.”

Jacob hung up, deflated. Ludwig's reaction was justifiably cautious.

The victims had been positioned toward the window. So what?

Jacob resolved to calm down, couldn't, resumed pacing his bedroom, rubbing the tips of his fingers together. He trotted to the kitchen, dumped out cold coffee, brewed a new pot, raised it to pour, noticed his hands vibrating, dumped out the new pot, too.

When in doubt, the computer. Nothing from 911, nothing from Mike Mallick.

His leg hopped and jigged as he typed out a lengthy e-mail to the Commander, detailing the conversation with Ludwig and restating his request.

A surfeit of nervous energy remained. He futzed around on the web for a while, then googled
Mai
.

Got a slew of hits about anime characters and recipes for mai tais.

Did you mean May?

He glanced out the window.

The white van was back.

He googled
Curtains and Beyond
.

Got an Australian company, its UK sub-branch.

Nothing Stateside.

He sat back, chewing his lower lip.

Glanced out his own window again.

Perhaps what mattered wasn't the victims' windows, but the view they gave.

He got dressed and wrote down the information he needed; grabbed the digital camera and went outside.

—

A
S
BEFORE
, the van was empty.

He took pictures of the interior, the license plate, the logo, noticing now that although the company name and motto were painted on the side, there was no contact information.

He fished out his card and scribbled on the back.

Hello, I would like to install some new curtains.

He trapped the note under the wiper blade.