The Golem of Hollywood Read Online Free PDF

to late thirties, she was slim, graceful, nice-looking despite—or perhaps because of—a toucan-beak nose. Wide charcoal eyes shone; long, lush hair the same color; skin like freshly ground nutmeg. She wore jeans and sneakers, a white coat over a flame-orange sweater.
    She stood up when he got out of the car, spoke his name when he was three feet away.
    â€œIn the flesh,” he said.
    Her hand was warm and dry.
    The badge clipped to her breast pocket said DIVYA V. DAS, M.D., PH.D.
    He said it was nice to meet her. She yawed her head skeptically.
    â€œYou might want to reserve judgment,” she said.
    Indian English in her voice: musical, coy.
    â€œNasty?” he asked.
    â€œWhen aren’t they?” She paused. “You’ve never seen anything like this, though.”
    Like the garage on Odyssey Avenue, the house showed signs of long abandonment: water stains, rodent droppings, close air saturated with filth.
    The light was nice, at least. He could appreciate that. The architect had exploited it to its utmost with sweeping glass panels, at present crying out for a washing, yet clean enough to offer a 270-degree panorama of hills and sky.
    Beneath a veil of smog, the city winked and snickered.
    Jacob had long believed that every last square inch of Los Angeles had been fought for and claimed. Not here.
    Perfect place to kill someone.
    Perfect place to leave a body.
    Or, in this case, a head.
    It was in the living room, lying on its side, centered precisely on a faded oak floor.
    Exactly two feet away—a measuring tape had been left in place—was a greenish-beige mound of what looked like a jumbo portion of spoiled oatmeal.
    He looked at Divya Das. She nodded permission, and he came forward slowly, his own head filling with white noise. Some guys could stand around in the aftermath of a massacre, cracking jokes and poppingCheetos. Jacob had seen plenty of bodies, plenty of body parts, and still, the first sight always knocked him sideways. His underarms felt clammy, and his breathing had grown shallow, and he suppressed his rising gorge. Suppressed the thought that a nice Jewish boy with an Ivy League education (or part of one, anyway) lacked the stomach to work homicide. He reduced the scene to shapes, colors, impressions, questions.
    Male, anywhere from thirty to forty-five, ethnicity unclear; dark-haired, beetle-browed, snub-nosed; an inch-long nub of scar tissue on his chin.
    Decapitation had taken place where the throat would have met the shoulders. Aside from the vomit, the floorboards were spotless. No blood, no leaking brain matter; no dangling blood vessels, tendons, or muscle meat. As Jacob made a circuit on his haunches, he saw why: the bottom of the neck had been sealed. Rather than ending in a ragged tube, it pinched together, as though pulled tight with a drawstring. The surrounding tissue was smooth and plasticky, bulging with the pressure of fluid and death-bloat, the domain of higher thought turned to a gore-bag.
    The rats had left it alone.
    He dragged his attention from the head to examine the fetid heap twenty-four inches to the left. It glistened surreally, like a gag item fished from the ninety-nine-cent bin at a novelty shop.
    â€œThe green means bile, indicative of rather severe emesis, explosive. I took samples for analysis and I’ll scoop up all of it when you’re through. But I wanted you to see it as it appeared.”
    He said, “Explosive vomit in one neat pile.”
    She nodded. “You’d expect spatter, speckling, clumps.”
    Jacob stood up and backed away, pulling in air. He looked out the window again.
    Sky and hills, for miles.
    â€œWhere’s the rest of him?”
    â€œExcellent question.”
    â€œThis is it?”
    â€œShow a little gratitude,” she said. “It could be a foot.”
    â€œHow’d he vomit without a stomach?”
    â€œAnother excellent question. Given the lack of spatter, I assume that