The Golem of Paris

by Jonathan Kellerman

  He heard the sound of snapping fabric and tilted his chin down, laughing to realize he was still clutching the tallit in his left hand.

  The river forked to accommodate two teardrops of land, the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis. Below, Notre Dame, a low-waisted stick figure basking in starlight. Mai lined up along the nave of the cathedral, shedding speed, cheating in the direction of the north tower, the air congealing around them, now water, now oil, now thick as honey, until his toes touched stone, and the constriction across his body eased.

  He wobbled.

  Stood.

  He was soaked with sweat and rain.

  He felt the tallit tugged from his fist.

  “Come on,” she said. She had wrapped herself in it, her eyes back to green, her amusement plain. She took his hand. “Let’s watch the sun rise.”

  • • •

  THEY STOOD TOGETHER atop the north tower, fingers laced, facing east, flanked by gargoyles.

  She said, “I wake up. Strange place. Strange body. I couldn’t tell you how much time has passed. I couldn’t tell you when I was last awake. I see a person. Sometimes he—it’s always a he—sometimes he’s kind. Sometimes he wants me to do horrible things. I can’t say no. He says kill and I kill.”

  She sagged, hiding in her hair. “A day goes by. A year. My mind starts to clear. Fragments come back. I begin putting them together and then it all goes dark.” She paused. “It’s horrible.”

  He nodded.

  She said, “For the longest time, it went on like that, over and over.”

  “What changed?”

  “There was a woman. She gave me the body I have now.”

  “Well,” he said. “If I ever run into her, I’ll thank her.”

  Mai laughed softly. “It was many years ago. After she remade me, I saw my reflection and recognized myself. Even though I was new. I know it sounds strange. She did that for me.”

  Jacob said, “It sounds like love.”

  Mai said, “She looked like you.”

  Silence.

  “She set me free,” Mai said. “The tall men were furious. They hunted me, for years and years. A few times, they managed to corner me. They seemed to expect they could snap their fingers and return me to dust. But I wasn’t as malleable anymore. The woman knew me. She knew how I was supposed to be. The form she had given me, it was . . . sticky. I always got away.

  “In the end, I came back on my own. To see her. I had to. Nothing else mattered.”

  She could have been describing any addiction.

  “She was expecting me. She’d left the garret door open. She said they had ordered her to destroy me. They threatened her. She said, ‘I’d never do that to you.’

  “She showed me a jar. It looked so delicate, you can’t imagine.”

  He could. He had seen one like it. More than once.

  In a garret, shards.

  In his apartment, intact. He used it to store sugar.

  Mai said, “I did what she asked. I crawled inside. I felt so tired I could hardly move. It was like that, if she touched me, and the jar came from her hands; it had her in it.”

  He made to release her fingers, but she held on tightly.

  “Right now,” she said, “this is where I want to be.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I broke out. It takes time, but I’ve done it, more than once. I’ll open my eyes and see light everywhere. Not a pleasant light. Sludgy, like a window that’s never been cleaned. As long as it’s there, I have the strength to kick. When it fades, I fall back asleep. Eventually, though—”

  “The jar cracks,” he said.

  “Usually someone’s waiting there to put me back in.”

  “Not the last time,” he said.

  “No.”

  “You saw a man, attacking a woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “You acted.”

  A dreamy smile, as though she was recalling an especially delicious dinner. “Yes.”

  Reggie Heap, a rapist and murderer. In general, Jacob believed he’d gotten his due. Nonetheless it unsettled him to perceive the pleasure she could take in ripping someone’s—anyone’s—head off.

  “When I touched him, I saw the others he’d hurt, the men who helped him. I went to find them. I found you, too.”

  Jacob shivered, recalling her, naked in his apartment, a girl he didn’t remember picking up, a creation without equal, bathed in early morning sun.

  I’m just a nice young lady who came down for some fun.

  “They’ve never stopped watching you,” she said. “You do know that.”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t, and while the deception infuriated him, worse was realizing his own naïveté.

  “They backed off a bit. They’re still in your neighborhood, though. I fly over them most nights. They keep a van at the ready, half a mile from the archive.”

  The desire to bash Mallick’s smug face in gave way to a pinch of anxiety. “Do they follow me in the car?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I try to shake them,” he said.

  She said, “They know about your mother.”

  He stared at her. “How do you know about her?”

  “You visit her every week. It’s not hard to see. You have her face.”

  Silence.

  “Why haven’t they gone after her?” he said.

  Mai bit her lip. “I suppose they think she’s in no state to help them.”

  He said, “Is she?”

  Mai considered her answer at length.

  “I do love her,” she said. “But I love you more.”

  A queasy smile. “Thanks?”

  She laughed softly.

  They were quiet together awhile.

  “Schott’s here,” he said. “In Paris.”

  She nodded.

  “You’re not worried?”

  “Not at the moment. I’m safe. Any house of worship, really. It frightens them.”

  “I didn’t realize they got frightened.”

  “Everybody’s got something they’re afraid of. I’m afraid of them. They’re afraid of you. You’re afraid of me.”

  “I’m not—”

  She shut her eyes. “Please don’t lie. I can’t stand that.”

  He wondered what it looked like to her—the texture and hue of his fear.

  “He’s not the only one,” she said. “The man who followed you tonight. He’s one of them, too.”

  “That can’t be right,” he said. “He works for Tremsin.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  “His colors.”

  She said, “He doesn’t have any.”

  A beat.

  “That’s why he never entered the synagogue,” Jacob said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why you couldn’t help me.”

  She grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

  He pulled her closer.

  “I want to be there for you,” she said. “I’ll be there, as much as I can.”

  He said, “So, just to be clear, that’s your interpretation of ‘forever.’”

  She smacked him on the arm. “Stop.”

  “I’m just pointing it out,” he said. “I’m not the only one who picks and chooses.”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t go back in the jar.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  But she was drawn and trembling. “I can’t stand it in there. Not one day more.”

  She was right to be afraid, wrong about the reason.

  Subach and Schott had ransacked his apartment. They could’ve taken the jar. They took the potter’s knife.

  So that’s your strategy for dealing with her. Containment.

  Ask yourself what you’d do in
my position.

  An immense sadness gripped Jacob.

  “They’re not going to give up,” he said.

  “You want me to turn myself in?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Convenient for you. Sleep with anyone you want, get your old job back—”

  “Cut it out.”

  She said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know how this is supposed to work. You and I.”

  It can’t.

  “The woman who set you free,” he said. “What was her name?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’ve always had trouble with names.”

  “Perel,” he said. “Perel Loew. Is that right?”

  A smile broke open on Mai’s face, and she burrowed deep in his chest, and they laughed and cried and rocked together, sheltering each other from the morning chill.

  The tower bells began to toll.

  She said, “You should go.”

  “Not yet.”

  “He’s going to wonder where you are.”

  “Let him,” he said.

  She raised her mouth to his, and he remembered the taste of her, the way it coated his tongue like earth.

  He staggered forward, hungry for more.

  But the flesh was gone, and he felt himself embraced, rising, warmth at his back, as she floated him down to the garden behind the cathedral and set him gently on his feet.

  Shrunk to a point, she hovered briefly before him, then flew off, a scribble in his visual field, an error corrected by the higher functions of his brain.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Back at the hostel, Schott’s bed was empty and unmade, his roll-aboard pulled open. Jacob stripped off his wet clothes. His hair was a wind-driven pile, his eyes garish with broken capillaries.

  The man who followed you tonight.

  He’s one of them, too.

  Until now he’d thought of Special Projects as Mallick, Schott, Subach, Divya, the rotating cast of characters who manned the surveillance vans. The reality—if you wanted to call it that—now seemed obvious.

  Schott had said as much: there were others.

  The folks who’d shown up to bully Jan, for instance.

  Not all of them knew what they were.

  Maybe Tremsin’s guy fell into that category.

  Maybe Mallick was pulling strings.

  Assigning Jacob to the archives in the first place?

  Planting the file to snag his interest?

  But Marquessa—she was real. TJ was real. They were a mother and a child, tossed away like garbage. In the end, he didn’t care if he was playing into the Commander’s hands. He could do only this, the only thing that gave him meaning.

  • • •

  IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the night in California. Jacob e-mailed out a picture of Knob Neck to all potential witnesses. He predicted Zinaida Moskvina would be the first to reply. A baker. She’d be up early.

  He got cleaned up, texting Schott that he was back before heading down to the lobby for the stale display that passed for a continental breakfast. He sank into a bean bag chair, sipping black coffee, debating how best to act, going forward.

  Confront Schott?

  Pretend like everything was normal?

  Without trust, there’s nothing.

  He’d have some choice words for Divya when he got back.

  He hadn’t yet decided on a strategy when the big man came charging in from the street.

  Jacob rose. “Hey. We need to ta—”

  The slap sent him sprawling, coffee raining down in a lukewarm arc.

  A girl standing at the buffet table sputtered crumbs.

  Jacob rolled over, his head buzzing.

  Schott bent to him. “You’re a sack of shit.”

  The girl hurried out; the desk clerk began reaching for the phone.

  Schott turned, snapping his fingers. “Posez ça. Ne bougez pas.”

  The clerk replaced the receiver.

  “Vos mains.”

  The clerk laid his palms passively on the counter.

  “Asshole,” Jacob said. It came out as ath-hole.

  “I was right about you,” Schott said. “I should have gone with my gut.”

  “Asshole. Listen. You were sleeping. I got restless. I took a walk. I was followed.”

  Schott wavered. “What?”

  “The guy from Tremsin’s house. Knob Neck. See for yourself.”

  He thumbed to the first image on his phone and handed it over.

  “He knew my name,” Jacob said.

  SAG card notwithstanding, Schott reacted with convincing astonishment. “How’s that possible?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacob said. “Theories?”

  Schott looked at him.

  “He’s not one of yours?” Jacob asked.

  “One of—are you outta your mind?”

  “He’s awfully tall,” Jacob said.

  “Tell me you’re kidding. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Me? He chased me for half an hour. I had to duck into a building to get away. He knew my name, you prick.”

  “Don’t look at me. I saw him for the first time yesterday, same as you. Call Mallick, you don’t believe me.”

  Jacob laughed. “Okay, right.”

  “Christ, but you’re paranoid.”

  “Says the pot to the kettle.”

  Schott lobbed the phone at Jacob, hitting him square in the chest.

  “Look me in the eye,” he said, “and tell me you didn’t see her.”

  Jacob reached for a napkin and began dabbing at coffee stains. “I didn’t.”

  “Look me in the eye.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re looking at the floor.”

  “You fucking hit me. My head is spinning.”

  “I barely touched you,” Schott said. Grumbling: “Trouvez-moi des glaçons.”

  With the possibility of further excitement ruled out, the desk clerk appeared both relieved and disappointed. He ducked through a back door.

  Schott paced. “You can’t run off like that.”

  “Next time I’ll leave a note.”

  “I don’t want a note. I want you not to run off. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I was more focused on not getting shot.”

  “Were you drunk?”

  “I had a drink.”

  “How many?”

  “Leave it alone.”

  The clerk came back with a baggie of ice. He handed it to Schott, who handed it to Jacob, who pressed it to his face.

  Schott lowered his bulk into a plastic chair. He looked haggard. “You should have called,” he muttered.

  “Duly noted.”

  “How’d the guy find you, anyway?”

  “For all I know, he was following us all day.”

  “I didn’t notice anyone.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “What’d he want?”

  “You know,” Jacob said, “I completely neglected to ask.”

  “I’m thinking out loud, all right? What’s he think he’s going to accomplish?”

  “He said he wanted to talk. Maybe it’s true. I suppose if he really wanted to nail me, he had plenty of time. Or he didn’t want to risk shooting in public. Either way, I’m taking it as a good sign. Tremsin blinked.”

  He held out his coffee cup for a refill.

  Schott scoffed. “Yeah, okay.”

  “You were an actor, weren’t you?”

  Schott snatched the cup and lumbered over to the buffet.

  “I wouldn’t say no to a pastry,” Jacob called.

  “Eat me.”

  • • •

  THEY ARRIVED AT THE HOSPITAL minutes after visiting hours began. The hallway outside Breton’s r
oom was clogged with bodies, men clumped in protective twos and threes, talking in low tones, a few openly crying.

  “Shit,” Jacob said.

  A waspish Odette Pelletier pushed from the crowd to intercept them. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “We came to talk to Breton.”

  “Yes, well, as you can see, it’s a bit late for that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s not your place to be sorry,” she said. “This is a family matter.”

  A man crouched against the wall looked up sharply. Jacob recognized the blond goatee, the expression of dislocation.

  “My colleague is dead,” Pelletier said. “I’ve been here all night. You’re abusing professional courtesy, Detective. I’m going to ask you, one last time, to leave.”

  Jacob put up peace hands. “Okay. Just so you know: I was followed last night.”

  A beat. “By whom?”

  “One of Tremsin’s goons.”

  He showed her the photo on his phone. She didn’t react.

  “Did he do anything?” she asked. “Threaten you?”

  “Nothing overt. Didn’t feel too good, though.”

  The goateed man was watching them intently.

  Pelletier said, “You can file a formal complaint at the station.”

  “You don’t think it’s a little strange?” Jacob said. “I’m minding my own business and I get tailed?”

  “I think you acted provocatively by going to Mr. Tremsin’s house. I will say it again, and I ask that this time you please pay attention. He is a private citizen, entitled to live free of harassment. Now excuse me. I have my men to take care of.”

  She turned on her heel.

  • • •

  OUT IN THE LOBBY, Jacob punched the elevator button. “We never told her we went to the house.”

  “You said he was Tremsin’s goon. It’s a reasonable assumption on her part.”

  “Or she’s in contact with them. That’s the easiest way for the guy to know where to find me. I gave her my card with the hostel’s address. She tipped them off.”

  They stepped into the elevator.

  “Une seconde, merci.”

  The man with the blond goatee was running toward them.

  Jacob stuck a foot out to block the closing doors.

  “Merci.” The man tucked himself into a corner and they rode down in silence to the ground floor.