CHAPTER SEVEN

Badly needing air, he stuffed the Discover card and the sat phone in his pockets and walked the four blocks to the 7-Eleven on Robertson and Airdrome.

Except for a year in Israel, another in Cambridge, and a brief, unsuccessful bid by Stacy to graft him to West Hollywood, Jacob had always lived within the same one-mile radius. Pico-Robertson was the hub of west L.A.’s Orthodox Jewish community. His current home was on the second floor of a dingbat, three blocks from the dingbat he’d lived in after college.

He sometimes felt like a dog tugging on its chain. He never did tug that hard, though; breaking free required energy he didn’t have.

In a sense, he was ripe for hush-hush undercover work. He lived an undercover life, walking familiar streets wearing a stranger’s face. Sometimes a childhood acquaintance would buttonhole him, wanting to catch up. He’d smile and oblige and move on, knowing what they’d be saying about him at lunch on Saturday.

You’ll never guess who I ran into.

He’s a what?

He married who?

Divorced?

Twice?

Oh.

We should have him over.

We should fix him up.

Steadily his childhood friends had filled their expected positions of prominence. Doctors, lawyers, dentists, people engaged in ambiguous “finance” activities. They married each other. They took out mortgages. They had robust, adorable children.

For this reason, it didn’t bother him that he’d devolved into a cliché: the hard-drinking loner cop. It didn’t bother him, because it wasn’t his cliché.

And even if he avoided the community, he felt comforted that it thrived.

Someone had faith, relieving him of the burden.

More important, he had his father to think of. Sam Lev would never leave, and by extension, neither would Jacob.

A reason for staying, and an excuse.

Their corner of the neighborhood had always been low-rent despite proximity to South Beverly Hills and Beverlywood, with their tony mini-mansions. His grade-school classmates engaged in an arms race over the latest Jordans or Reebok Pumps. Jacob got off-brand back-to-school Velcro specials, once a year, Memorial Day weekend. The Levs didn’t own a television until the Gulf War, when Sam bought a crappy black-and-white so they could keep count of the Scud missiles pelting Israel. As soon as the hostilities ended, the set went out on the lawn, for sale. Nobody wanted it. Jacob hauled it out with the trash.

The mere fact that he was an only child made him an outlier. Free-spirited, deeply pious, his parents had met and married relatively late in life, raising Jacob in a kind of intellectual and social bubble, without the large extended family that swaddled his peers. The grandparents and  uncles and aunts and cousins who made sure you were never, ever alone.

Jacob was often alone.

Now, pushing through the doors at 7-Eleven, he thought about his TV, disconnected and slumped on the sofa. His father would be thrilled.

The clerk greeted him by name. He did most of his shopping there.

Bachelor’s diet.

Bachelor cop’s diet. He needed to start living better.

He bought two hot dogs and four bottles of Jim Beam.

The clerk, whose name was Henry, shook his head as he scanned the liquor. “I say this as your friend. Go to Costco.”

“Duly noted,” Jacob said. He dug out his wallet, started to give Henry a twenty—then reconsidered and handed him the Discover card.

While he waited for it to ring up, he glanced at the ATM. He had the check in his wallet, too—he hadn’t wanted to leave it at home—and he smiled to himself, imagining the machine belching smoke and exploding as he tried to deposit a hundred grand at once.

“It’s not going through,” Henry said.

No limit, my ass. Jacob couldn’t pretend to be surprised. It was LAPD. Of course they’d use some company like Discover. He paid in cash, took his dinner, and left.

He made this trip five or more times a week, and his pace was carefully calibrated so that he’d finish the hot dogs right as he reached his building. Two blocks shy, his pocket began to buzz. He crammed the remaining fourth of the second dog in his mouth and fished the sat phone out, hoping for Officer Chris Hammett.

His father.

Jacob tried to quickly chew a too-big bite, coughing as he answered. “Hello?”

“Jacob? Are you all right?”

He swallowed, painfully. “Fine.”

“Is this a bad time?”

Jacob pounded his chest. “. . . no.”

“I can call back.”

“It’s fine, Abba. What’s up?”

“I wanted to invite you for Shabbos dinner.”

“This week?”

“Can you come?”

“Dunno. I might be busy.”

“Work?”

Jacob assumed that his lack of observance was a disappointment to his father, for whom working on the Sabbath was inconceivable. It was to Sam Lev’s credit that he’d never showed outward disapproval. On the contrary, he expressed a shy but morbid fascination with the terrible things Jacob related.

“Yup,” Jacob said.

“It’s interesting, I hope?”

“Right now there’s nothing much to discuss. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

“About the case?”

“About dinner,” Jacob said.

“Ah. Please do. I need to know how much food to get.”

“You’re not planning on cooking.”

“That wouldn’t be very hospitable, would it.”

Jacob smiled.

Sam said, “I’ll ask Nigel to pick up takeout.”

Jacob considered that better than having Sam burn his house down, but not by much. His father lived on a tight budget. “I’m asking you to please don’t put yourself out.”

“I won’t until I know you’re coming.”

“Right. Well, I’ll call you if I can make it, okay?”

“Okay. Be well, Jacob. I love you.”

Sam was a gentle man but sparing with his affection. To hear him state it plainly took Jacob aback. “You too, Abba.”

“Call me.”

“I will.”

Jacob turned onto his block. The hot dog still felt lodged in his chest, and he was tempted to crack open one of the clinking bottles and wash it down.

A dinged white work van had taken the place of the Crown Vic.

CURTAINS AND BEYOND—DISCOUNT WINDOW TREATMENTS

Midway up the stairs, Jacob changed course. Rather than take the bottles into the apartment, he stashed them in the Honda’s passenger-side footwell and drove back toward the murder house.