“No,” Jacob said, “I’m looking for a homicide detective. Can you please—”
A series of beeps; a blast of Czech.
“Hello?” Jacob said. “English?”
“Emergency?”
“No emergency. Homicide department. Murder.”
“Where, please?”
“No, not — I need—”
“Ambulance?”
“No. No. No. I—”
More beeps.
“Ahoj,” a man said.
Jacob’s mind instantly conjured a sea captain on the other end of the line. “Ahoy. Is this Homicide?” He nearly added matey.
“Yes, no.”
“Uh. Yes, this is Homicide, or no, it’s not?”
“Who is calling, please.”
“Detective Jacob Lev. Los Angeles Police Department. In America.”
“Ah,” the man said. “Rodney King!”
The guy’s name was Radek. A junior lieutenant, he didn’t know who’d gone to New York last year, but cheerily offered to make inquiries.
“Thanks. I have to ask, of all things, how is it you know about Rodney King?”
“Okay. Snowproblem. After Revolution I am watch American television programs. A-Team. Silver Spoons. Sometimes news. So I see videotape. Pah, pah, pah! Black guy down.”
“We’ve improved our customer relations since then.”
“Yes? Good!” Radek laughed heartily. “Is okay for me to visit? Don’t kick my ass?”
“Not if you behave.”
“I have a cousin, he’s go to Dallas. Marek. You know him, I think?”
“I live in California,” Jacob said. “It’s kind of far.”
“Ah, yes?”
“It’s a big country,” Jacob said.
“Snowproblem. Marek, he marries American lady. Wanda. They have a restaurant for Czech food.”
“Sounds good,” Jacob said.
“You know this food? Knedlíky? My favorite, you should try.”
“Next time I’m in Dallas I’ll be sure to check it out.”
“Okay, snowproblem, I call you soon.”
He did, early the following morning, his voice tight and low.
“Yes, Jacob, hello.”
“Radek? Why are you whispering?”
“Jacob, this is not good thing for talking about.”
“What? Did you find out whose case it is?”
“One moment, please.”
A hand over the receiver, muffled voices, then Radek blurted a string of numbers that Jacob hastily scribbled on his arm.
“Who am I calling?”
“Jan.”
“Is he the detective?”
“Jacob, thank you, good luck to you, I must go.”
Dial tone. Jacob stood puzzling, then punched in the number.
The phone rang eleven times before a tired-sounding woman answered.
“Ahoy,” Jacob said. “Can I please speak to Jan?”
Kids fighting in the background, bright commercial jingles. The woman shouted for Jan, and a phlegmy cough drew near.
“Ahoj.”
“Jan.”
“Yes?”
“My name is Jacob Lev. I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Do you understand me? English?”
Screaming silence.
“A little,” Jan said.
“Okay. Okay, great. I got your number from a colleague of yours, Radek—”
“Radek who.”
“I don’t know his name. His last name.”
“Hn.”
“I understand you were in New York last year, and a police officer who met you told me about a homicide where you found a head, the neck sealed up, and as it happens—”
“Who told you this? Radek?”
“No, an NYPD cop. Dougie. He — or, his colleague, actually—”
“What do you want?”
“I’m working a similar case. I was hoping to compare notes.”
“Notes?”
“To see if there’s anything worth exploring.”
The chaos in the background had reached a fever pitch, and Jan turned away to bark in Czech. There was a very brief reprieve, then the battle resumed. He came back on, coughing and swallowing audibly. “I apologize. I cannot talk about this.”
“Is there like a gag order, cause—”
“Yes,” Jan said. “I am sorry.”
“Okay, but look. Maybe you can send me some crime scene photos, or—”
“No, no, no photos.”
“At least let me send you mine, so you can have a look, and if you—”
“No, I apologize, there is nothing to discuss.”
“There is to me,” Jacob said. “I’ve got thirteen dead women.”
A pause.
Jan said, “If you come here, we can talk.”
“We can’t just talk on the phone? Is there a better number?”
Jan said, “Call when you are here.”
And he hung up, too.
Chapter twenty-eight
“No such tag,” Marcia said. “Anthony reran it three times to make sure.”
“What about the 911 tape?”
“They haven’t gotten back to him.”
Figures. “Special Projects?”
“Nothing. What kind of top secret stuff are you into these days, Lev?”
“I’d tell you if I knew.”
“Keep safe.”
“I’ll try.”
The soonest affordable flight to Prague was a Wednesday-night red-eye on Swiss, connecting through Zurich and costing eleven hundred dollars. While leaving Mallick a voicemail explaining his intentions, he fiddled with the white credit card, then tossed it aside disgustedly, girding himself to cough up a grand of his own money with no hope of reimbursement. Maybe the interest on the $97,000 advance on his salary would bring him back up to even in due time.
The sat phone rang before he could finish typing in his own credit card number.
“Lev, Mike Mallick.”
“Commander. Nice to finally hear from you.”
“We need to talk. Face-to-face.”
“You want me to swing by the garage?”
“That location’s no longer active,” Mallick said. “Stay there. I’ll come to you.”
He came alone, pressed and slender, towering and tidy.
Standard eight-foot ceilings emphasized his height: he ducked his head as he entered, remained warily hunched, the habitual stance of a man living in a world not designed for him.
Jacob pulled out two kitchen chairs and offered coffee.
“No, thanks. But help yourself.” Mallick sat, smoothing down the white tufts of hair above his ears. “Getting along here?”
“That’s one of the things I was hoping to talk to you about, sir. I’ve been having a few technical issues.”
“Is that so.”
“I keep trying to run a tag and my system crashes.”
“Mm.”
“I asked a friend in Traffic to run it for me, and she said it doesn’t come up.”
“Then I’d assume it’s bogus.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I also encounter the same problem when I look for the division address.”
“Special Projects?”
Jacob nodded.
“That’s because there is none. This isn’t an official detail. You want to know the address,” Mallick said, tapping his chest, “you’re looking at it.”
“I sent you an e-mail,” Jacob said. “You never wrote back.”
“When was that?”
“A few days ago. I’ve sent several, actually. About a 911 recording, too.”
“Did you, now? I must have missed it.”
“All of them?”
Mallick smiled. “I’m bad with technology.”
“I asked Subach and Schott to tell you.”
Mallick didn’t answer.
Jacob said, “You came here when I told you I was going to Prague.”
“Well, that’s a significant expense.”