“It belonged to my grandfather. His grandfather, if you believe family stories.”
“I do,” she said. “Of course I do. What else do we have, besides our stories?”
She stood up and removed the tallis, exposing her body, a masterwork, shining and limber as satin.
Jacob instinctively averted his eyes. He wished like hell he could remember what had happened — any part of it. It would provide fuel for fantasies for months on end. The ease with which she stripped bare felt somehow less seductive than childlike. She sure enough didn’t appear ashamed to show herself; why should he be ashamed to look? He might as well take her in while he had the chance.
He watched her reduce the tallis to the size of a placemat with three precise folds. She squared it over a chairback, kissing her fingertips when she was done — a Hebrew school habit.
“Jewish,” he said.
Her eyes took on more green. “Just another shiksa.”
“Shiksas don’t call themselves shiksas,” he said.
She regarded his straining boxer shorts with amusement. “Have you brushed your teeth?”
“First thing I do when I wake up.”
“What’s the second?”
“Pee.”
“What’s the third?”
“I guess that’s up to you,” he said.
“Did you wash?”
“My face.”
“Hands?”
The question threw him. “I will if you want.”
She stretched lazily, elongating her form, unbridled perfection.
“You’re a nice-looking man, Jacob Lev. Go take a shower.”
He was under the spray before it had warmed, vigorously scrubbing pebbled skin, emerging rosy and alert and ready.
She wasn’t in the bedroom.
Not in the kitchen, either.
Two-room apartment, you don’t need a search party.
His tallis was gone, too.
A klepto with a fetish for religious paraphernalia?
He should have known. Girl like that, something had to be off. The laws of the universe, the balance of justice, demanded it.
His head throbbed. He poured more coffee and was reaching into the cabinet for bourbon when he decided that it was, no question, time to cut back. He uncapped the bottle and let it glug into the sink, then returned to the bedroom to check the sweater drawer.
She’d replaced the tallis, snugging it neatly between a blue cableknit and the thread-worn velvet tefillin bag. As a gesture, it seemed either an act of kindness or a kind of rebuke.
He thought about it for a while, settled on the latter. After all, she’d voted with her feet.
Welcome to the club.
Chapter three
He was still crouching there, naked and perplexed, when his doorbell rang.
She’d had a change of heart?
Not about to argue.
He hurried over to answer the door, preoccupied with cooking up a witty opening line and hence unprepared for the sight of two huge men in equally huge dark suits.
One golden brown, with a wiry, well-trimmed black mustache.
His companion, squarer and ruddy, with sad cow eyes and long, feminine lashes.
They looked like linebackers gone to seed. Their coats could have doubled as car covers.
They were smiling.
Two huge, friendly dudes, smiling at Jacob while his cock shriveled.
The dark one said, “How’s it hanging, Detective Lev.”
Jacob said, “One second.”
He shut the door. Put on a towel. Came back.
The men hadn’t moved. Jacob didn’t blame them. Guys their size, it probably took a lot of energy to move. They’d really have to want to go somewhere. Otherwise don’t bother. Stay put. Grow moss.
“Paul Schott,” the dark one said.
“Mel Subach,” the ruddy one said. “We’re from Special Projects.”
“I’m not familiar,” Jacob said.
“You want to see some ID?” Subach asked.
Jacob nodded.
Subach said, “This will entail opening our jackets. And offering you a glimpse of our sidearms. You okay with that?”
“One at a time,” Jacob said.
First Subach, then Schott showed a gold badge clipped to an inside pocket. Holsters held standard-issue Glock 17s.
“Good?” Subach said.
Good, as in, did he believe they were cops? He did. The badges were real.
But good? He thought of Samuel Beckett’s response when a friend commented that it was the kind of day that made one glad to be alive: I wouldn’t go that far.
Jacob said, “What can I do for you?”
“If you wouldn’t mind coming with us,” Schott said.
“It’s my day off.”
“It’s important,” Schott said.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Unfortunately not,” Subach said. “Have you eaten anything? You want maybe grab a muffin or something?”
“Not hungry,” Jacob said.
“We’re parked down by the corner,” Schott said.
“Black Crown Vic,” Subach said. “Get your car, follow us.”
“Wear pants,” Schott said.
The Crown Vic kept a moderate pace and signaled without fail, allowing Jacob to stay close behind in his Honda. His best guess for their destination was Hollywood Division, until recently his home base. A northward turn on Vine scuttled that theory, though, and as they headed toward Los Feliz, he fiddled with rising unease.
Seven years on the job, he was green for Robbery-Homicide, the beneficiary first of a departmental memo prioritizing four-year college grads, and second of a plum spot vacated by a veteran D keeling over after three decades of three packs a day.
That he had performed admirably — his clearance rate was consistently near the top of the department — could not erase those two facts from his captain’s mind. For reasons not entirely clear to Jacob, Teddy Mendoza had a king-sized hard-on for him, and a few months prior, he’d called Jacob into his office and waved a manila file at him.
“I read your Follow-Up, Lev. ‘Frangible’? The fuck are you talking about?”
“It means ‘fragile,’ sir.”
“I know what it means. I have a master’s degree. Which I believe is more than you can claim.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what my master’s is in? Don’t look at the wall.”
“That would be communications, sir.”
“Very good. You know what you learn to do in communications?”
“Communicate, sir.”
“Bull’s-fucking-eye. You mean ‘fragile,’ write ‘fragile.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“They didn’t teach you that at Harvard?”
“I must’ve missed that class, sir.”
“I guess they don’t get to that till sophomore year.”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Refresh my memory: how come you didn’t finish Harvard, Harvard?”
“I lacked willpower, sir.”
“That’s the kind of smart-ass answer you give someone when you want to shut them up. Is that what you want? To shut me up?”
“No, sir.”
“Sure you do. I ever tell you I had a cousin who got into Harvard?”
“You’ve mentioned that in the past, sir.”
“Have I?”
“Once or twice.”
“Then I must’ve told you he didn’t go.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did I say why?”
“It was cost-prohibitive, sir.”
“Expensive place, Harvard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You had a scholarship, if I recall.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lessee... An athletic scholarship. You lettered in Ping-Pong.”