The Golem of Paris (5 page)

Barbara retraces her steps to Bleecker Street, where the acute intersection forms a small, overgrown park. Through cascading greenery she spots a circle of people sitting cross-legged on the ground. She walked right past them.

“Welcome, sister.”

The speaker is a white man in his midforties wearing a saffron robe. He has a shaved head and a dark, knife-point Vandyke. He beams at her.

“I’m looking for the pottery class,” Barbara says.

The man raises his palms.
Behold.

All she sees is a bunch of hippies. There are no tools, no tables, no wheels. Nobody has any clay.

“Please,” the man says, “join us.”

Confused, annoyed, Barbara settles herself awkwardly on the ground between two older women who shift to give her room. A couple wearing matching peasant shirts gaze at each other through dilated pupils.

No, her parents would not approve.

There’s no word in Czech for
hobby
.

The fifth student is a tall, thin girl about Barbara’s age. She’s not a hippie. In fact, she’s dressed like a Quaker, in a plain navy skirt that spreads around her generously and a long-sleeved white blouse buttoned to the neck. She ought to be burning up in the heat, but her skin is dry, and she sits up high and dignified.

Catching Barbara’s eye, she tilts her head at the robed man, then raises a doubtful eyebrow, and Barbara smiles, knowing immediately that they’re going to be friends.

•   •   •

N
OT A
Q
UAKER
; not even close.

Her name is Frayda Gonshor, and she lives in the Grand Street Projects on the Lower East Side. Like Barbara, she was caught off guard by the announcement that payment for next week’s class was due in advance.

The ad said free.

I share my wisdom freely
the robed man said. He called himself Sri Sri Jivanmukta Swami.
The supplies cost three dollars.

“Chutzpah,” Frayda says as she and Barbara wait for the light to change.

Barbara agrees. All the same, they both coughed up the money. Three bucks isn’t too bad, and she senses that she and Frayda share a common goal: escaping their parents.

“I wonder what his real name is,” Frayda says.

“Probably something like Henry,” Barbara says.

“Ralph.”

“Mickey.”

“Mickey,” Barbara says, giggling. “Sri Sri Mickey Lowenstein.”

“Guru Goldblatt.”

“Swami Schwartzbaum.”

The two of them teeter down Bleecker Street, arm in arm, in hysterics, exchanging information in a rush. Barbara has to force her long legs to slow down, as does Frayda, who is even taller than her, maybe the tallest woman Barbara’s ever seen, high-waisted, with hands that flap excitedly, evoking nothing so much as a flightless bird.

“Have you ever made pottery before?”

“A little,” Barbara says.

“I haven’t.” Frayda shrugs. “It said no experience necessary.”

“I think that means Mickey,” Barbara says.

Signs for the subway come into view, and Barbara feels herself slowing further, unwilling to part yet.

“Next week?” Frayda says.

“You bet.”

Cindy is waiting for her on the corner of Nostrand and Avenue D, the knapsack slumped at her feet.

Barbara blows out an anxious breath. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, baby, sure. So?” Cindy bites off a cuticle. “How did it go? Is it true love?”

“You bet,” Barbara says.

•   •   •

T
HE
SECOND CLASS MEETS
indoors at 11 Minetta, in Sri Sri Jivanmukta Swami’s second-floor studio apartment. Again the group sits in a circle on the floor, which is really the only option, because Sri Sri doesn’t own any furniture.

There’s clay, at least—a little ball, the diameter of a nickel.

“All creation begins from a single point,” he says.

They spend the hour forming tiny bowls by hand.

“You’re really good at this,” Frayda says.

Barbara shrugs.

Sri Sri presses his palms together. “The purity of the beginner.”

Each week he allots a bit more raw material, until, by week eight, they are making vases using hand-turned wheels. Sri Sri shuttles back and forth, dispensing advice and mopping up gray water with a rag.

“Next week,” he says, “we return to the garden to seek inspiration.”

“And to protect your floors,” Frayda mutters.

•   •   •

B
ARBARA
’
S PARENTS ARE HAPPY
to see her taking her studies so seriously.

Cindy, on the other hand, is starting to get restless.

“I’m happy to keep covering for you, baby, but don’t I deserve to meet him?”

“It’s tricky,” Barbara says.

“What, he’s a secret agent?”

“Something like that.”

The following Wednesday it’s drizzling. Barbara and Frayda arrive at the park to find it deserted. On the door to number eleven Minetta hangs a sodden note, ink running.

CL
ASS CANCELED

They head to a café.

Frayda says, “I don’t understand why he doesn’t just put down a drop cloth.”

“He’s wearing it,” Barbara says. She picks up her turkey sandwich but hesitates. Frayda isn’t eating or drinking, and that makes her feel weird—observed. “You’re sure you don’t want anything? A cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

Barbara takes a bite, chews, swallows. Frayda has missed a couple of pottery classes due to a spate of Jewish holidays.

“You keep kosher,” Barbara says.

Frayda nods.

“I’m sorry.”

“That I keep kosher?”

Barbara laughs. “I don’t want to be rude,” she says, putting the sandwich down.

“Please,” Frayda says. “Enjoy.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?”

“I don’t know,” Barbara says.

Frayda gestures to the carnival that is Greenwich Village. “A turkey sandwich,” she says, “is the least of my concerns.”

They talk about their families, about school. Frayda studies accounting at Hunter. She’s nineteen, two years older than Barbara, but also a junior. With a detached air, she mentions that she’s engaged.

“Cool,” Barbara says, although she’s amazed. “When’s the happy day?”

“We don’t know yet. We’re not formally engaged. More like . . .
betrothed
.”

“That sounds fancy.”

“It’s not. We’ve known each other since we were five. Our families are friends.”

Her accepting manner disquiets Barbara. “What’s his name?”

“Yonatan. You could meet him sometime. You could come for Shabbos dinner.”

“Sounds like fun,” Barbara says, hoping she sounds more sincere than she feels.

“It really is,” Frayda says. “You could come this Friday, if you wanted.”

“Maybe.” She promised Cindy they’d go to a movie. “I have to check.”

“Sure.”

There’s a silence. Then Frayda peers at her suddenly.

“Do you have a Hebrew name?” she asks.

She does, but it’s purely an abstraction. Talk of God enrages her father. He is clear: God perished in the camps. It is with barely contained disgust that he watches his wife light the
yahrzeit
candle for her brother. They eat pork, they drive on Saturdays, they socialize with other Czechs, Jewish or Christian, it doesn’t matter, every last one of them is a devout atheist.

And yet he has chosen to live in Flatbush, surrounded by Jews. And when he drinks too much, he boasts.
Reich
is German for “rich,” does she know that? They come from royalty.

They hate us because we are better.

Barbara looks across the café table at Frayda’s cool, benevolent
face, the temples tinged with premature gray. She decides she will cancel her plans with Cindy; she will go to Friday night dinner, if for no other reason than to please her new friend, a friend who asks questions and then actually listens to her answers.

Plus, she’s curious. The concept of the Sabbath is foreign, and mysterious, and a bit naughty—an attractive combination.

“Bina,” she says. “My name is Bina.”

R
osario heard Jacob running toward the lobby and smiled without looking up.

“No more cookies.”

“Something’s wrong with my mother,” he said.

Out on the patio, Bina was as Jacob had left her, fetal, sheened, the vein bisecting her forehead hideously engorged, neck a tendon cage, fluid hands shrunk to clubs. The remains of her dinner had been swept to the concrete, the tray pinwheeling, mashed potato skid marks.

Rosario took her blood pressure and pulse. She had a temporal lobe artery thermometer, which was a good thing, because Bina wouldn’t open her mouth.

“Come on, honey. I need to look in your eyes.”

Slowly, Bina’s eyelids parted, allowing Rosario to check her pupillary response.

Like the rest of her vitals, it was normal.

While Rosario went off to page the on-call MD, Jacob paced, trying to talk his own heart down. The silence felt much heavier than usual, thrown into hard relief by his mother’s burst of life.

For a brief moment, he’d seen her.

Now she was gone again.

“He’ll be here as soon as he can,” Rosario said, returning. She glanced at Bina, whose body had begun to lose its tautness, causing her to slide down, her head wilting over her chest. “She seems like she’s okay now.”

Jacob said, “You didn’t see what I saw.”

“What did you see?”

He didn’t know how to answer that.

The doctor arrived inside the hour, by which point Bina had gone completely limp.

“We’ve got it from here,” Rosario said. “Promise.”

Jacob hesitated. “If you need to admit her, call me. Not my father. Okay?”

Rosario nodded, both of them knowing full well it was Sam’s name on the proxy.

She touched his arm. “There’s really nothing more for you to do.”

He could take a hint. He’d done enough already.

•   •   •

T
HE FIRST AND ONLY
TIME
his father had accompanied him to the care facility, he’d led Jacob along a circuitous route—east through Boyle Heights, south through Downey. It was absurd, really, taking driving directions from a blind man, and Jacob had laughed, asking if they were being followed.

There was nothing joking in Sam’s response.

You tell me.

The precautions went further than that: he’d registered Bina under a false name, going so far as to sign himself in as Saul Abelson.

Jacob still didn’t understand exactly what, or whom, his father was afraid of. They’d never gotten a chance to discuss it. But Sam’s sins
didn’t change the fact that he was a thoughtful man. If he deemed precautions necessary, Jacob would take precautions.

Tonight he performed his usual pre-drive check, feeling in the wheel wells and peering at the car’s underbody for tracking devices. He made a few wrong turns, pulling over to flush out tails. Once on the freeway, he pushed the needle to eighty-five, his salivary glands pinching in anticipation as he neared the exit for his former favorite bar.

He wondered if they missed him. He hadn’t been by in months. He wasn’t looking for women, and he could drink alone, just as effectively and at half the price.

He imagined his face plastered to bourbon bottles across the state.

HAVE Y
OU SEEN ME?

Impulsively, he veered toward the off ramp—veering back as a horn blared.

One lane over, a middle finger waved.

“Yeah, okay, sorry.”

But the guy wouldn’t be placated, continuing to lean on the horn.

Jacob glanced over. Standard-issue asshole.

Thankfully, that was all.

There had been a period, the first four or five months after the madness in the garden, when he felt like an emotional antenna. He looked at people and saw—there was no other word for it—auras. Purple or blue or gray, gradated and shifting with every change of heart. He could walk into a room and know at a glance who’d fought with his wife the night before; who’d gotten laid; who could not let go, who could not hold on.

An exquisite, excruciating sympathy that would’ve made him a great therapist, but that turned freeway-driving into a terrifying ordeal. Every car became a plasma jar, lit up with the concerns of its occupants.

He couldn’t tell anyone. They’d think he was losing it.

He
thought he was losing it.

At the time, he’d been sneaking four or five Vicodin a day, nursing a cache accumulated during his hospital stay. He cut back. When that didn’t help, he flushed the remaining pills down the toilet. The hallucinations persisted.

His GP gave him a mini-mental and sent him home with a psych referral. Jacob went so far as to make an appointment, canceling the morning of. He decided to tough it out, congratulating himself on his foresight and fortitude when, with time, the symptoms faded. Now he looked back and chalked them up to stress and detox.

Some days he even believed that.

One lane over, the guy was lobbing F-bombs.

Jacob fished out his badge and pressed it to the glass. The guy recoiled, yanking his steering wheel and nearly hitting another car himself.

•   •   •

I
T TOO
K SEVERAL HOURS
to undo the havoc Bina had wreaked on the Marquessa Duvall file. Even after Jacob had gotten it in order, it remained incomplete: pages missing, pages waterlogged, pages nibbled by mice, pages from other cases mixed in.

Bottle of Beam in hand, he sat on his couch to read.

Early on the morning of December 20, 2004, a jogger completing his daily circuit noticed a human shape slumped in an alley south of Santa Monica Boulevard, between El Centro and Gower. That area, like most of Hollywood, had a large homeless population, and as the jogger explained, it was not unusual to come across people passed out, especially on a Monday, following a weekend of partying.

What was unusual was the person’s size.

Mr. Sproul advised that he stopped to take a closer look. When I asked why, he stated that he was concerned it was a child. Mr. Sproul called out several times but received no response. He then proceeded to approach the person. He confirmed that the person appeared to be a black male between the ages of four and seven years old. The victim was propped in a semi-upright position against the wall on the north side of the alley. The victim did not appear to be breathing. Mr. Sproul stated that although he is trained in CPR, he did not attempt to touch the victim’s body or to perform resuscitation. He advised that he could observe severe injuries to the victim inconsistent with survival. He stated, “I know a dead kid when I see one.”

Mr. Sproul advised that he turned away from the body and took out his mobile phone to dial 911. In doing so, he discovered a second body, positioned opposite the child’s body and facing it. The second body appeared to belong to a black female in her mid- to late twenties. She showed similar injuries and did not appear to be breathing.

Mr. Sproul advised that he did not notice the presence of the second body prior to then because it was blocked by a large trash container.

Mr. Sproul left the immediate vicinity to dial 911.

Marquessa Duvall, twenty-three years old.

Her five-year-old son, Thomas White Jr.

Jacob flipped through photos, advancing down the alley in shutter clicks.

The area was familiar to him from his days riding patrol in Hollywood Division: a trash-strewn corridor hemmed in on one side by commercial property, on the other by chain-link and pickets, cracked yards and lopsided parking pads. Yellow evidence markers flourished like an invasive species.

He kept going until he found what he’d dreaded and craved: a close-up of the boy.

A neat hole drilled in the center of the forehead. Crimson ribbons unfurled over his eye sockets, along the bridge of his nose, over his cheeks and his baby-fat double chin, throat shortened by the skeptical bend of his head, tugged down by gravity. His T-shirt collar, dyed red. He was dressed for activity, jeans and shoes with Velcro straps. His hands were folded in his lap.

I know a dead kid when I see one.

His eyes were wide open, making him appear polite and weirdly attentive. Jacob shuddered and shuffled rapidly to the next victim.

The fifty-gallon can used to prop Marquessa Duvall’s body had been dragged there for that purpose; a group of identical cans lived down at the other end of the alley, behind a bakery. He pictured the killer struggling to keep her dead weight from toppling over, growing more and more irritated. The boy had been simpler; once wedged, his tiny frame stayed put. His mother had a large bust and a slim waist. She flopped around. Even in death, she wouldn’t
cooperate.

Like her son, she had a single gunshot wound to the forehead. It was easier for Jacob to estimate its size relative to an adult face. Small-caliber, probably .22 or nine-mil.

Her eyes were also open, and a medium-angle shot showed what he’d already inferred. Mother and child had been positioned as though staring at each other from across the alley, engrossed in a conversation never to take place.

It was this photo that Bina had gotten her hands on.

Of course it upset her. It was an atrocity.

Had context heightened the effect? She was sitting with her own son.

Wouldn’t that be nice to think.

Someone was home, after all.

Sick, but nice.

He cycled through the stack twice more, searching for a trigger that might’ve led to the mashed potato sculpture. Dead bird, bird necklace, bird earrings, bird graffiti.

Nothing.

He checked the evidence log.

Candy wrappers.

Malt liquor bottles.

Cigarette butts by the score.

No shell casings.

No birds.

He was overanalyzing. The picture had freaked her out, and she’d resorted to the only form of self-soothing she knew: making something with her hands. As to her inspiration, who could say? Maybe a bird lived in the fig tree. Maybe she wanted chicken instead of meatloaf. You couldn’t question an artist, certainly not a catatonic one.

He decided to wipe his mind of preconceptions, approach the case like any other.

Approach? Like it belonged to him?

Mallick’s pronouncement rang loud in his head.

You’re not going to solve them. They’re hopeless.

Aren’t we all.

Jacob went back to the beginning.

•   •   •

T
HE FIRST
D
ASS
IGNED
was a guy named Dan Ballard. His signature appeared on the reports until mid-2007, when a woman named Theresa Krikorian took over. For three years, she worked Ballard’s leads and developed a couple of her own.

Then the paper trail dried up.

From what Jacob could piece together, there’d been no traction
since. He did register the likelihood of stray documentation floating around in the system, lost on a hard drive or a shelf or a desk drawer.

He looked up Ballard, got an obituary.

He looked up Theresa Krikorian. Got another.

He could understand why cops would shy away from the case: it had already claimed two of them.

Dan Ballard had suffered a golf course heart attack.

Theresa Krikorian’s family had established a fund in her memory, cancer research.

Killed in the line of duty
could mean a lot of things.

Too many desk lunches. Too much nicotine.

Jacob drank to their memories, plunged back into the short lives of Marquessa Duvall and Thomas White Jr.

•   •   •

S
INGLE WORK
ING MOTHER
, her Culver City address a good nine miles from the dump site. Based on the absence of spatter or pooling, it appeared that the murders had gone down elsewhere, the bodies transferred to the alley.

On the questions of
where
elsewhere and
why
transferred, the file was mute.

Ballard described Marquessa’s job as “hostess.” Attach the right modifier and you came up with any number of activities ranging from banal to seedy.

Restaurant hostess? Hospitality hostess? Game show hostess?

I’ll take Double Homicides for eight, Alex.

Maybe
hostess
meant hooker—a bit of respectful whitewashing on the D’s part. Jacob hoped not. Euphemisms did no favors to anyone, least of all the victim. Anyway, Ballard’s writing showed the hallmarks of a linear thinker.

Jacob returned to the close-up of Marquessa’s face. Death didn’t improve one’s appearance, and it was hard to look good with an extra hole in your face. But he could tell how beautiful she’d been. Lips, a coy invitation; waved hair, lush and streaked like macassar ebony.

He found himself searching for his reflection in her eyes. They were that big and dark and naïve.

And wrong. He couldn’t pinpoint it.

He compared close-ups of both victims. Wide, wide open. Like there were invisible toothpicks stuck between the lids.

He dug out the autopsy report, which put Marquessa Duvall’s time of death between ten p.m. and two a.m.—at least three hours prior to discovery.

Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head.

Lacerations to the right forearm and bruising of the right thigh.

No indication of sexual assault.

On a separate pathology page, he saw an enlarged facial diagram, arrows pointing to the eyes. A text box explained.

Victim’s upper and lower eyelids

Jacob took a strong pull of bourbon before forcing himself to continue.

Victim’s upper and lower eyelids were removed bilaterally with a sharp instrument. The precision of the cut and lack of cutaneous bleeding suggests mutilation took place postmortem. Search of the crime scene failed to recover the excised tissue.

The boy had been identically savaged.

Jacob went to the kitchen and stuck his head inside the fridge, lungs prickling. He had seen and could not unsee; and he felt sick all over again, imagining the trauma he’d unleashed on Bina, the horrors caroming around her hobbled brain.

The phone rang. The caller ID announced, “Lev, Samuel.”