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.”
“No, sir.”
“Varsity nut juggling . . . ? No? What kind of scholarship was it, Detective?”
“Merit-based, sir.”
“Merit-based.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Merit-based . . . Hunh. I guess my cousin didn’t have as much merit as you.”
“I wouldn’t assume that, sir.”
“How come you got it, and he didn’t?”
“You’d have to ask the financial aid office, sir.”
“Merit-based. See, in my mind, that’s a lot worse than not getting a scholarship. In my mind, that’s the worst thing, when you have something and you piss it away. No excuse for that. Not even a lack of willpower.”
Jacob did not reply.
“Maybe you could finish up online. Like a GED. They got a GED for Harvard? You should look into that.”
“I will, sir. Thank you for the suggestion.”
“Till that day comes, though, you and I, our diplomas say the same thing. Cal State Northridge.”
“That’s true, sir.”
“No. It isn’t. Mine says master.” Mendoza kicked back in his chair. “So. Feeling burnt out, are we?”
Jacob stiffened. “I don’t know why you’d think that, sir.”
“I think it cause that’s what I heard.”
“Can I ask who you heard it from?”
“No, you may not. I also heard you’re thinking about putting in for some time off.”
Jacob did not reply.
“I’m giving you the opportunity to share your feelings,” Mendoza said.
“I’d rather not, sir.”
“Work’s got you down.”
Jacob shrugged. “It’s a stressful job.”
“Indeed it is, Detective. I got a whole bunch of cops out there who feel the same way. I don’t hear any of them asking for time off. It’s almost like you think you’re special.”
“I don’t think that, sir.”
“Sure you do.”
“Okay, sir.”
“See? That’s it. Right there. That’s exactly the kind of tone I’m talking about.”
“I’m not sure I understand, sir.”
“And again. ‘Not sure I gah gah gah gah gah.’ How old are you, Lev?”
“Thirty-one, sir.”
“You know what you sound like? You sound like my son. My son is sixteen. You know what a sixteen-year-old boy is? Basically, he’s an asshole. An arrogant, entitled, snotty little asshole.”
“I appreciate that, sir.”
Mendoza reached for his phone. “You want time off, you got it. You’re being transferred.”
“Transferred where?”
“I haven’t decided. Someplace with cubicles. Fight it if you want.”
He didn’t fight. A cubicle sounded fine to him.
Strictly speaking, burnout wasn’t the correct term. The correct term was major depression. He’d lost weight. He prowled his apartment, exhausted but unable to sleep. His attention drifted, words dribbling from his mouth, syrupy and foreign.
These were the outward signs. He knew them well, and he knew how to hide them. He drew up a curtain of aloofness. He spoke to no one, because he couldn’t be sure how short his fuse was on any given day. He ceased to nourish his few friendships. And in the process he made himself out to be exactly what Mendoza thought he was: a snob.
Not as obvious, and harder to conceal, was the dull sorrow that shook him awake before dawn; that sat beside him at lunch, turning his ramen into an inedible repugnant wormy mass; that chuckled as it tucked him in at night: Good luck with that. It revealed the raw injustice of the world and made a mockery of policework. How could he hope to correct a worldly imbalance when he could not get his own mind right? His sadness made him loathsome to himself and to others. It was a sick badge of honor, a family inheritance to be taken out every few years, dusted off, and worn in private, a tattered black ribbon, the needle stuck through naked flesh.
Up ahead, in the Crown Vic, he could see the outlines of the two men.
Apes. Heavies, in case things got heavy.
It was all he could do not to wheel right around and go home. Special Projects had to be a euphemism for fates best avoided.
It sounded like what you got when you thought you were special.
Maybe he hadn’t vetted them thoroughly enough.
He could send a text, let someone know where he was going. Just in case.
Renee?
Stacy?
A jittery message to the ex-wives would make their respective days.
Mr. Sunshine.
Renee’s title for him, imbued with nuclear scorn. Stacy had adopted it, too, after he’d made the mistake of telling Wife Number Two about Wife Number One’s nagging and Wife Two came to empathize with “the crap you put her through.”
Everything turned to shit in the end.
So he was bound for someplace unpleasant. What else was new.
Determined beyond all reason to enjoy the ride, he eased back in his seat, nudged his mind toward Mai. He put her in street clothes, then removed them, piece by piece. That body, injection-molded, freakishly proportional. He was about to rip the tallis off when the Crown Vic made a sharp turn and Jacob swerved after it, hitting a pothole.
The sign said ODYSSEY AVE, an ambitious name for a grimy, two-block afterthought. Wholesale toy dealers, import-exports with Chinese signage, a shuttered “Dance Studio” that looked as if no feet, agile or otherwise, had crossed its threshold in ages.
The Crown Vic pulled over outside a set of rolling steel doors. A smaller glass door was inscribed 3636. A man in the dress of LAPD brass stood on the sidewalk, shading his eyes. Like Subach and Schott, he cut an imposing figure—towering, gaunt, pallid, with two frothy white tufts over his ears, suggestive of wings. He wore ash-gray pants, a luminous white shirt, a service firearm in a lightweight mesh holster. As he approached the Honda and bent to open Jacob’s door, the gold badge around his neck swung forward, clicking against the window, COMMANDER in blue enamel.
“Detective Lev,” the man said. “Mike Mallick.”
Jacob got out and shook his hand, feeling like a different species. He was six feet tall, but Mallick was six-six, easy.
Maybe Special Projects was where they put the freak shows.
In which case, he’d fit right in.
The Crown Vic honked once and drove off.
“Come on in, out of the sun,” Mallick said, and he glided into number 3636.