Джонатан Келлерман - The Golem of Paris

He didn’t have time to shout, to shut his eyes, to throw up his arms.

He listened to his heart’s closing measures.

A wet socket punched through her forehead, just left of center, and her head snapped back and the live pressure dumped out of her body and she flopped down atop him. Her face mashed his chest, then lolled over so that he was staring into her matte eyes.

The exit wound had taken off the back of her skull. In the airspace above them hung microscopic drops of blood and cerebrospinal fluid, clinging to the perfumed mist, a pink filter through which to view the skylights.

The moon had come out.

A tinny pip, as the razor slipped from her hand and fell to the tiles.

Soft bootsteps approached.

A waxy face drifted into view, a human eclipse.

Dmitri Molchanov said, “Nu.”

He stepped on Jacob’s left wrist and kicked the razor out of Jacob’s right hand, into the pool. He stepped on Jacob’s right wrist and did the same for the razor in Jacob’s left hand. He kicked Pelletier’s blade in with the other two.

“Up.”

Jacob stood. Blood and tissue and splinters of bone smeared his shirtfront.

Molchanov was holding a black-and-brown pistol, surveying the chaos, trying to reconstruct what had happened, his eyes finally fixing on the barbershop alcove.

He waggled the pistol: move .

Jacob took half steps, partly because his left leg was starting to throb, partly because he had a notion that he’d be shot as soon as Molchanov saw Tremsin’s body.

The bead curtain was still swaying, just perceptibly.

Jacob stepped into the alcove, Molchanov close behind.

Tremsin’s smock had soaked up so much water that the fabric had darkened several shades, the true red visible in patches near the collar.

“I’m sure it won’t matter,” Jacob said, “but I didn’t kill him.”

Molchanov’s gaze shifted toward the main room.

Jacob nodded. “She injected him with something. The needle’s in her wristband.”

“Hm,” Molchanov said. His accent rendered it as chm.

He regarded Tremsin dispassionately. “Thirty-six years.”

“That’s how long you worked for him?” Jacob said.

Molchanov nodded.

“That’s a long time,” Jacob said.

“Whole life,” Molchanov said. “He goes, I go.”

Jacob said, “I’m sorry to hear it.”

He felt ridiculous. Sullied. Consoling one monster over another monster.

Molchanov touched his earpiece, spoke in Russian. Then he told Jacob to kneel.

“Face down. Arms behind.”

Assuming the position limited Jacob to a few inches of peripheral vision, as well as a clear view down the corridor of his shins. Rusty streaks in his left pant leg. He didn’t appear to be actively bleeding.

Take what you can get.

Molchanov kicked aside one of the overturned hand baths and stepped toward the counter that held the collection of straight razors. Jacob snuck a glance. The Russian was opening drawers in search of a clean smock, which he draped over Tremsin’s body. Then he opened a razor and began sawing the cord off the hairdryer.

He noticed Jacob watching and clucked his tongue. “Face down.”

Jacob’s head throbbed against the tile. His shoulders screamed from the effort of keeping his arms up and back. He was getting dizzy, bright spots stippling his field of vision. Through the gap in his feet, he noticed a black speck near the junction of the cabinetry and the floor. Tremsin’s ring.

A shadow shifted, Molchanov circling around behind him. Jacob flinched. Waiting to be strangled, raped; a blade, a bullet; any combination.

Molchanov tightly bound Jacob’s wrists, pulled him up, marched him back through the curtain, made him kneel by the edge of the pool.

Wet warm scummy water seeped into Jacob’s jeans.

He said, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Molchanov raised an eyebrow.

“Last night, when you were chasing me. You wanted to have a conversation,” Jacob said. “We could have it now.”

Molchanov smiled. “Talking is complete.”

The spa door opened. Two new guards appeared.

They held Jacob at gunpoint while Molchanov left the room.

Another silence, longer.

The skylight pinged: the rain returning, tiptoeing at first, then steadily gaining in confidence.

He weighed the pros and cons of trying to run.

He said to the guards, “Your boss is dead.”

They didn’t reply. A sullen pair, each sporting the beginnings of a beard.

“That makes you unemployed.”

No answer.

Molchanov returned carrying a clunky metal cylinder, an attached hose and wand.

The exterminator’s spray tank.

He set it down and dismissed the guards. Righted a teak chair and sat down a few feet in front of Jacob, propping the pistol on his knee. He produced Jacob’s phone from his greatcoat pocket and began thumbing through it.

Searching for the picture Jacob had taken of him in the Marais?

No: Molchanov turned the screen around, showing the photo of the Gerhardt fob.

“You have it?” he asked.

Jacob shook his head.

“Where is it?”

“I gave it to the French police. They’re running it for prints.”

Molchanov nodded, unconcerned.

Jacob said, “Tremsin must have paid you well, you can afford a car like that.”

“Doktor Tremsin,” Molchanov corrected.

Thirty-six years.

He goes, I go.

Jacob said, “Did he have anything to do with Lidiya and Valko?”

Molchanov appeared briefly confused. Then he said, “From embassy.”

Jacob nodded.

“No,” Molchanov said.

“That was all you.”

Molchanov gazed wistfully at the picture of the fob. “After I lost, I called dealership. Three thousand euros to replace.”

“What about Marquessa and TJ? All you?”

Molchanov lobbed the phone into the pool.

“How many others?” Jacob said.

Molchanov tucked the gun in his coat pocket, swapping it for the potter’s knife.

“Your friend,” he said, rolling the handle between his fingers, “did brave thing.”

He wiped the blade against his coat sleeve, leaving an iridescent blue trail.

“He tried to fight.”

Jacob suppressed a retch of terror and grief.

Oh God. Oh no.

“Very brave,” Molchanov said. “Also very stupid.”

Jacob said, “He was your kind.”

Molchanov said, “I have no kind.”

He stood up. He hefted the spray tank, tried to put it on. The straps were too narrow for his huge frame.

To afford himself a little more slack, he shrugged off his greatcoat and draped it over the back of the chair, managing then to get the tank on.

He felt around for the dangling wand, gave a few test sprays.

Jacob said, “You really think that’s going to work?”

Molchanov smiled, shrugged. “Bug is bug.”

He tugged his scarf up over his face and came behind Jacob.

“What is it with you about mothers and sons?” Jacob said.

Molchanov barked a laugh. “You never knew my mother.”

With the sprayer hand, he grabbed a handful of Jacob’s hair and pulled back, resting the blade against Jacob’s windpipe.

“However,” Molchanov said, “I knew yours.”

PRAGUE

FALL 1982

Bina steps out onto the far end of Lunatics’ Boulevard, Dmitri close behind.

They pass the other solitary confinement cells. Behind one of those doors, Olga is serving out her punishment. Bina will not get a chance to say good-bye to her.

She won’t get a chance to say good-bye to Fat Irena.

To Majka — poor lovely Majka.

They made a pact, yet she’s stealing away in the dead of the night like a thief.