She didn’t answer.
Then she said, “It felt like you were stabbing me.”
He said, “I...”
He stopped. He didn’t know whether to apologize, or... what. He felt he should make an effort to get her to stay, at least until she was good to drive. He started to say so and she waved him off, grabbing her purse and rushing out into the milky morning.
From the window he watched, unnerved, as she sped away.
He dressed and got down on hands and knees to hunt for roaches.
He couldn’t find any, not there or in the bathroom.
All the same, he tied up the trash bag containing his old waffle and took it out to the thirty-three-gallon cans at the side of the building.
He walked to 7-Eleven, bought one can of bug spray and one box of roach motels.
Thinking that the bug bite theory didn’t have much going for it.
Her eyes white. Her breath whistling.
It felt like you were stabbing me.
Maybe she had a condition. Dryness. After all, she’d gone with Extra Lubricated.
A funny thought popped into his head. The Hebrew word for penis: zayin.
Also the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet: 
.
Also the word for weapon.
The shape had it. A blade or an axe or a mace.
His was the dick of death.
A schlongsword.
Excockabur.
He started to laugh. He couldn’t help himself.
He went around setting out the motels, spraying poison until the apartment was well and truly fogged. He threw open the windows and went to get cleaned up.
Chapter twelve
The sat phone was dinging as he stepped from the shower, a voicemail from his father, a text from Divya Das: ring me.
Today was Friday. He hadn’t given Sam an answer about dinner tonight. “Hey, Abba.”
“Did you get my message?”
“I’m swamped. Can we reschedule?”
A brief pause. “Of course.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Jacob said.
“You do what you need to do,” Sam said. “Have a good Shabbos.”
“You too.” Jacob disconnected the call and thumbed the directory for Divya Das.
“Good morning, Detective.”
“I got something for you,” he said. “You got something for me?”
“Indeed. Are you free to meet up?”
“Name it,” Jacob said.
She gave him an unfamiliar address in Culver City.
He told her he’d be there in fifteen minutes.
The white work van was parked across from his building. He had a faint recollection of it being there the night before. He was far from sure. He’d been drunk, focused primarily on getting his lady friend up the stairs without her pitching over the railing. If he was right, though, the vehicle hadn’t left the block in several days, shifting from space to space.
Somebody had a lot of curtains to put up.
He jogged over to peek through the windshield.
Tools, rods, boxes of fabric.
No hulking dude on a headset monitor.
He told himself to stop acting ridiculous.
En route to Culver City, the sat phone rang: his father again. Jacob let it go to voicemail.
The address Divya Das had given him turned out to be a pink stucco apartment complex fronting an unsavory stretch of Venice Boulevard. A homeless man slept on the grass beneath a hopeless sign touting one-, two-, and three-bedroom vacancies.
Jacob parked on a side street, cut the engine, and played the voicemail from his father.
Hi, Jacob. I don’t know if you listened to my previous message, but please disregard it. I’ll manage.
He hadn’t listened to it. Now he had to.
Hi, Jacob. You’ve probably got your hands full, since I haven’t heard from you. Not to worry. I have everything prepared, except for one thing: Nigel accidentally brought me two challahs instead of three and I wanted to ask, if it’s not too great an inconvenience, maybe you might have time to pick up another. I like poppy seed, but—
Jacob stopped the playback and dialed him.
“Jacob? Did you get my other message?”
“I got it. Can I ask you something, Abba?”
“Of course.”
“Was that an honest attempt to absolve me of picking up the challah, or was it intended to make me feel guilty?”
Sam chuckled. “You think too much.”
Jacob rubbed one gummy eye. “What time’s dinner?”
Divya Das had approached her generic white Sheetrock walls as a blank canvas, embarking on a charmingly random spree of color and texture. A neon orange throw revived a battered sofa; the dining table was a fifties-era TV set topped with glass. Laminated prints of gods and goddesses brightened the living room: elephant-headed Ganesha, Hanuman the monkey god.
He meant to tell her about the missing letters, but she began chatting with him, inviting him to sit at the breakfast bar and setting out a plate of cookies and a steaming mug.
“There we are,” she said. “Proper tea.”
He took a mouthful. It was scalding.
“Shit,” he gasped.
“I was about to say,” she said, “you might want to blow on it.”
“... thanks.”
“It’s essential to use fresh, clean water and to bring it right up to the boil. Americans consistently neglect that step, with disastrous results.”
“You’re right,” he said. “It tastes much better with a third-degree burn.”
“Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
“Some milk would be nice.”
She got it for him. “I’m sorry I don’t have something more substantial to offer you.”
“Don’t be. This is the most complete breakfast I’ve had in months.”
“I shall have to tell your mother.”
“You’ll have to shout pretty loud,” he said. “She’s dead.”
“Oh, my,” she said. “I’m so sincerely sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Well, I ought not to make assumptions.”
“Don’t sweat it. Really.” To spare her further embarrassment, he pointed to the fridge door, magnets pinning snapshots. “You and yours?”
The centermost photo had Divya embracing an elderly woman in a red sari. “My naniji. This one” — a host of people arrayed on either side of an elaborately bedecked couple — “is from my brother’s wedding.”
“When did you move to the U.S.?”
“Seven years ago,” she said. “For graduate school.”
“Columbia,” he said.
“Have you been checking up on me, Detective?”
“Just Google.”
“Then I’m sure you know everything you need to know.”
There were others photos, too, that she apparently did not think required explanation. They showed her in far-flung locales, engaged in mildly risky activities: strapped into a rock-climbing harness; in ski suit and goggles; among girlfriends woozily hoisting margarita glasses.
No kissy photo booth strip; no thick-haired man in surgeon’s scrubs, clutched around the waist.
She said, “I hope I didn’t bother you, calling on you early.”
“I was up.”
“I wanted to catch you before I had to leave for the day. I know it’s unorthodox to meet here, but it’s for the best. I’ve had to tread lightly. My immediate superior isn’t very gung-ho about your severed head. Right now we’ve got several pathologists away at a convention, and the bodies are piling up.”
“What’s that mean, not very gung-ho?”
“I believe his exact words were, ‘I haven’t got time for curiosities.’”
“It’s a homicide.”