The Golem of Paris (21 page)

A
s Jan had suggested, the next logical step was to call the Moscow police. Tremsin had spent the majority of his last thirty years there.

In the end, it was the simplest stuff that got you: Jacob couldn’t figure out which number he wanted. He tried a few at random and got nowhere.

He e-mailed Mike Mallick a third time.

He e-mailed Neil Adler, updating him with the name.

He made coffee and began slogging through Russian news sites, searching for mother-child murders, mutilated eyelids, eliciting a barrage of pop-up ads for discount plastic surgery. By noon, he’d gotten to the point where he could sound out the characters in Cyrillic. He still didn’t know what any of it meant, though.

The doorbell rang: his interpreter, arrived at last.

Officer Anna Polinsky was a petite redhead in LAPD blues. Jacob had her wait outside while he hurried around the living room, depositing bottles in a trash bag, a clinking indictment he stashed in the bathtub. He brushed his teeth and smoothed down cowlicks, apologizing for the mess as he let her in.

“I’m totally the same way,” she said in a voice that made clear she was not at all the same way.

The colonel they reached at Moscow CID was determined to give them as little information as possible while simultaneously sucking Jacob dry.

“What I want to know is if they’ve got anything with a matching MO.”

Russian Russian Russian.

“He says it’s impossible to determine. Moscow is a big city.”

“I don’t expect him to give me an answer off the top of his head,” Jacob said. “He’s going to have to hunt around for it. Have him call me back.”

Russian, Russian, Russian Russian Russian.

“He says it’s not his responsibility.”

“Then who should we be talking to?”

“First he would like to know what proof you have against Arkady Tremsin.”

“That’s exactly why I’m—”

Russian Russian
Russian
Russian.

“He would like to know,” Polinsky said, “if there are other crimes you suspect Tremsin may have committed while on U.S. soil.”

“Tell him no and ask him about the Natalia Honcharenko homicide.”

Russian, Russian, Russian Russian Russian.

“He says he does not recall.”

“It was front page for three months.”

Russian.

“There are no suspects.”

“Now he remembers?”

Polinsky shrugged.

“Was Tremsin ever in the picture?”

“He can’t answer that.”

“What can he answer?”

“First he would like to know what steps you plan to take.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s an ongoing—okay, tell him I’m not taking any steps yet.”

Russian Russian, Russian Russian.

“If you’re not taking steps,” Polinsky translated, “then why are you bothering him?”

Three more hours calling various branches; three hours of evasion and dismissal.

“You don’t happen to speak French, do you?” he asked Polinsky.

“Sorry,” she said. “Not my pay grade. Anyhow I’m going on shift soon.”

He was glad to hear it. They’d been sitting together long enough that he was going to have to offer her a bite to eat soon, which would entail disclosing that he didn’t
have
a bite to eat, which would in turn necessitate running out to 7-Eleven. He thanked her for her help and the two of them called it a day.

•   •   •

H
E DIDN
’
T
call it a day.

Instead he shifted his aim to Paris, where Tremsin now lived, working late into the night before coming up with a hit.

QUI EST LA FAMILLE-X?

A brief item from a Parisian daily, dated winter of last year. A woman and a young boy had been found murdered in a park. The cops were reaching out to the public for help identifying the victims.

Oddly enough, there was no photo, which he would’ve thought useful in making an identification. He assumed they’d withhold anything unprintably gory, or of evidentiary value—missing eyelids, say, or gunshot wounds to the forehead.

The statement released by the prosecutor’s office waxed dramatic.

To depreciate a mother and child so is the greatest evil conceivable. We will not rest until we brought-have this monster to justice.

Wondering what nuance he was missing, Jacob tried retranslating the sentence, a word at a time.
Avilir
meant “to depreciate.”

It could also mean “to debase.”

As good a term as any to describe what had been done to Marquessa and TJ.

A second piece, a month later, implied that investigators had hit a brick wall.

Captain Odette Pelletier of the DRPJ stated, “There are many avenues left to explore for us.”

It was about eleven a.m. in Paris. Persistence led him to a guy who spoke heavily accented English and offered a limp assurance that he would locate Pelletier’s division and call Jacob back.

“After lunch,” he said, and clicked off.

Jacob lay down on the couch.

The sun was up when he next opened his eyes.

He looked at his phone: 6:48 a.m. No missed calls in the last five hours.

One hell of a long lunch. He redialed.

“Allo?”

“Sorry if I’m interrupting dessert,” Jacob said.

The guy said, “She will contact you.”

“When?”

“Later.”

To Jacob’s surprise, the call came within the hour. He was further relieved when Odette Pelletier introduced herself in crystalline English.

“This is a rare event,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He described the Duvall homicides.

“May I ask what prompted you to assume there would be similarities to our case?”

“There were no photos of the victims in the paper.”

“Naturally. That would be disrespectful.”

“Then how’d you expect anyone to recognize them?”

“We hoped that someone would be looking. A friend, a boyfriend, a grandmother.”

“No one stepped forward.”

“Unfortunately not.”

“The statement said the victims were debased.”

“Procureur Lambert isn’t one to avoid hyperbole,” she said.

“Debased how? Their eyelids?”

“Surely you can appreciate that I cannot discuss this over the phone.”

“How about in person?”

She laughed.

“I’m serious,” he said. “I’ve got time.”

“You’d have to send your request to the
juge
’s office in writing.”

“My victims were each shot once in the forehead. Small-caliber. Does that match?”

“As I said—”

“If you tell me they were strangled, I’ll hang up right now.”

Silence.

“They weren’t strangled,” he said.

“I never said that.”

“You’re still here,” he said.

A beat. “Anything else, Detective?”

“What about a suspect? Any luck?”

Another beat. She said, “We never got that far.”

“Thank you.”

“And you?”

“Just Arkady Tremsin.” He waited for a reaction. “Did that name ever come up?”

“No.”

“But you know who he is.”

“Only by reputation.”

“Which is?”

“He’s very rich,” she said. “Like most very rich people, he values his privacy.”

“You could take a look at him now,” Jacob said.

“That’s up to me and the
procureur.
”

“The procu—what is it?”

“
Procureur.
Prosecutor.”

“He’s like the district attorney.”

“Of a sort. Technically I answer to him.”

Sensing another point of entry, he said, “That must be a pain in the ass.”

“Lambert and I have a good working relationship.”

“Well, sure. I’m just saying, if you think Tremsin deserves a look—”

“I never said that, Detective. You did.”

“I’m trying to make your life simpler.”

Pelletier asked, “Is there anything else?”

“The victims,” he said. “Any progress since the article?”

“Very little. We pursued the matter for several months. Their prints didn’t show up in our system or Interpol. The pathologist believes they’re Eastern European.”

“Based on what.”

“The mother’s features weren’t typically French.”

“What’s that mean, ‘typically French’? She wasn’t carrying a baguette?”

“This isn’t America. People wear their identities.”

“Eastern European could be Russian.”

“I suppose it could be, yes.”

“Arkady Tremsin is Russian.”

“I fail to see how that’s relevant,” she said. “Unless that’s how it works in America? People only kill their own kind?”

“I was hoping you might be able to get me in touch with him,” he said.

“I’m flattered you think I could obtain an audience.”

“You could get a warrant.”

“The
juge
would want a compelling reason to issue it.”

“Let me send you the pictures of my crime scene,” he said. “Maybe that’ll convince you.”

“Do as you like. Don’t expect a response any time soon.”

“That’s fine. I’ll call you later.”

“What for?”

“I like your voice.”

He said it to keep her on the line, but as it emerged he realized it was true. “We don’t have to talk about murder. We can talk about something else.”

“Such as?”

“Anything,” he said. “Except soccer. I don’t like soccer.”

“It’s not a game for the impatient,” she said, and she hung up.

T
alking 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.

•   •   •

D
IVYA
D
AS
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.