The Golem of Hollywood Read Online Free PDF Page A

in.”
    â€œWhich part of it, sir? I’m a pretty complex guy.”
    â€œThink tribal.”
    Jacob said, “I’m assigned because I’m Jewish.”
    â€œNot officially. Officially, the Los Angeles Police Department actively and enthusiastically promotes diversity. In matters of case assignment, we maintain a strict policy of race blindness, gender blindness, ethnicity blindness, religion blindness.”
    â€œReality blindness,” Jacob said.
    Mallick smiled and offered a scrap of paper.
    Jacob read an address with a Hollywood zip code. “What am I going to find there?”
    â€œHomicide. As I said, you’ll report to me. This is a sensitive matter.”
    â€œThe Jewish angle,” Jacob said.
    â€œCall it that.”
    â€œThe vic?”
    â€œI’ll let you form your own impressions.”
    â€œCan I ask what’s so special about Special Projects?”
    â€œEverybody’s special,” Mallick said. “Or hadn’t you heard.”
    â€œI have,” Jacob said. “I haven’t heard of you.”
    â€œAs a unit, we don’t feel it’s appropriate for us to get overly involved in the day-to-day,” Mallick said. “It enables us to move faster when we’re really needed.”
    â€œWhat do I tell Traffic?”
    â€œLet me handle them.” Mallick walked to the glass door, held it open. The sun turned his white shirt to a mirror. “Enjoy the view.”
    â€”
    J ACOB ’ S GPS PUT 446 C ASTLE C OURT at the northernmost reaches of Hollywood Division—north of the reservoir, west of the Sign—and estimated a travel time of fifteen minutes.
    It had lied. Half an hour in, he was still climbing, the temperature gauge on the Honda spasming as he pushed past mid-century boxes, some remodeled, others flaking. Cross streets appeared in thematic spurts, Astra and Andromeda and Ion, followed by Eagle’s Point and Falconrock, then Cloudtop and Skylook and Heavencrest. Evidence of multiple real estate developers, or a single one with ADD.
    The road writhed and forked, civilization thinning along with the oxygen, until the asphalt petered out and the GPS announced that he’d arrived.
    Another lie. No crime scene in sight. Nothing but a continuing ribbon of rocky soil.
    He drove on.
    â€œRecalculating,” the GPS said.
    â€œShut up.”
    Pebbles spat against the undercarriage, and the Honda rattled over buckling earth on rotten shocks. It felt like he was being punched in the kidney by an angry, relentless toddler. He had to take it down to five miles an hour to avoid a blowout. The surrounding land was weedy, desolate, cratered, scrubby; devoid of human structure because there was no place level enough to accommodate any; devoid of life, seemingly, until he spotted a pair of horny squirrels flaunting their sexuality beneath a spiky thicket.
    He wasn’t the only one to notice: in an instant, a bird was circling overhead. Large one, probably a raptor. Ready to turn the amorous couple into brunch.
    The eagle of Eagle’s Point? The falcon come down from its Rock?
    The bird began to bank, and Jacob craned to watch the drama unfolding, his attention drifting. Then a crest raised him up and slammed him down and he beheld a shallow mountaintop depression, a couple of wind-whipped acres of dirt and stone, bounded to the south and east by a steep, curving canyon.
    A stark gray cube cantilevered out over the city like a faceless gargoyle.
    He’d arrived.
    Total travel time: fifty-one minutes.
    â€œRecalculating,” the GPS said.
    â€œEat me,” Jacob said, and turned it off.
    There was none of the postmortem party that took place when agencies converged. No black-and-whites or unmarkeds, no Coroner’s van, no tech crew. Just a necktie of yellow tape fluttering from the doorknob, and a silver Toyota askew on a concrete parking pad. Crypt card on the dash. Woman perched lightly on the hood.
    Mid-