“It certainly has been a terrific adventure knowing you,” she said.
“You, too.”
“Should you chance through these parts again, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”
“Long as you call an exterminator.”
“Believe you me,” she said, “it’s top of my list.”
Back at the hostel, he packed his belongings by the light of his phone while his roommates grumbled and clamped their pillows over their heads.
The lobby was deserted. He sat at a computer kiosk and unfolded his transcription of the Prague letter on the table. As before, it was a slog. He frequently stopped to consult the Internet for definitions. No solution for missing words, so he guessed.
The Maharal’s fondness for allusion made it difficult to determine where his personal voice ended and Scripture began. Jacob kept a running list of sources. The clacking of the keyboard made a lonely sound.
It was nearing five a.m. by the time he’d finished.
With the support of Heaven
20 Sivan 5342
My dear son Isaac
And God blessed Isaac so may He bless you.
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so may God rejoice over you. For the sounds of joy and gladness yet ring in the streets of Judah. Therefore this time I, Judah, will praise Him.
And I say to you now, what man is there that has married a woman but not yet taken her? Let him go and return to his wife.
But now let us remember that our eyes have seen all the great deeds He has done. For the vessel of clay we have made was spoiled in our hands, and the potter has gone to make another, more fit in her eyes. Shall the potter be the equal of the clay? Shall what is made say to its maker, you did not make me? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, you know nothing?
But let your heart not grow weak; do not fear, do not tremble.
For in truth we have desired grace; it is a disgrace to us from God.
In blessing
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Shivering, he folded the note up and put it in his pocket and went to check out.
The clerk asked if he had enjoyed his stay in Oxford.
“Yes and no,” Jacob said.
“More yes than no, I hope.”
Jacob handed over the white credit card. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Chapter fifty
They were waiting for him beyond customs.
Subach grasped the handle of Jacob’s bag. “Allow me.”
Beneath a loud L.A. sun, they rafted pockets of exhaust toward the short-term parking lot.
“Nice of you guys to pick me up.”
“Beats the SuperShuttle,” Schott said.
“America greets you with open arms,” Subach said. “How was your flight? Watch the movie?”
“Kung Fu Panda 2.”
“Any good?” Schott said.
“Not like the first.”
“They never are,” Subach said, punching the elevator button.
Schott said, “I hope you brought a book.”
Jacob shrugged. He’d spent the majority of the journey reviewing his notes and studying the page torn from the yearbook, inoculating himself to Pernath’s stare. He’d read the in-flight magazine cover to cover, done the crossword and the sudoku, browsed SkyMall. Even after he’d run out of reading material, he had not looked at the letter, nor at his translation.
A smooth crossing, devoid of turbulence, everyone else serene, while around him the tube of the cabin spun, endlessly contracting.
Sucking thin recycled air, he’d loosened his seatbelt as far as it would go, watching the dot of the plane as it skipped across the Atlantic Ocean, touching the tingly strip of skin where the beetle had pressed itself to his lips, raising his finger at every approach of the drink cart, grateful for the lack of judgment in the flight attendants’ faces as they sold him his nth eight-dollar mini-bottle of Absolut.
Must be a nervous flier.
Now he stepped from the elevator, and they crossed oil-slickened concrete toward a bank of livery cars. Schott raised a remote, popping the locks on an extra-long white Crown Vic with unmarked plates and mirrored windows.
Jacob flinched at his own reflection: a wild-eyed prophet with a five-day beard.
He reached for the door but it swung open on its own, and he saw Commander Mike Mallick, his bamboo body stretched across the bench seat.
Mallick patted the leather. “Hop in, Detective.”
It was chilly and dark inside, the air-conditioning cranked to the max. Schott rammed the car into four p.m. traffic.
“What happened to your lip?”
“Sir?”
“Did you burn yourself?”
Reflexively, Jacob ran his tongue over the spot in the middle of his lip. It no longer tingled, but a coin of dead, dry skin remained.
“Pizza,” he said. “Fools rush in, sir.”
“Mm. Heck of a trip you took.”
“I tried to be frugal, sir.”
Mallick waved. “I’m not concerned with that.”
“Duly noted,” Jacob said. “Next time I’ll stay at the Ritz.”
“Next time?”
“Should the need arise, sir.”
In the front seat, Subach snickered.
Mallick said, “You found it fruitful, though.”
“You were right on, sir. Highly educational.”
“Good. Good. Tell me what you learned.”
The sanitized-for-sanity version omitted any mention of Jacob’s experience in the garret; his hour and a half in the basement of Radcliffe Science Library; the botched coupling with Norton; his new six-legged friend.
She was beautiful.
She looked angry.
She looked jealous.
When the recital was over, the Commander looked vaguely disappointed, although that might’ve simply been his default world-weariness.
“You’ve done a fine job, Lev.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Anything else you want to share?”
“Sir?”
“I recall that when we last saw each other I played a tape for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mallick weighed his words. “What’s your thinking on her.”
“How so?”
“Have you made any headway, figuring out who she is?”
“My plan, sir, was to gather intel on Pernath, seeing as he’s a strong suspect. If the woman’s involved, and I’m not sure she is, she may very well show up with him.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“I’ll continue to focus on Pernath, hope he screws up and I can grab him, swab him, and squeeze him for info.”
“And if he turns out to be a law-abiding citizen?”
“He is. He’s gone twenty-five years without getting caught. But he’s also a psychopath.”
“So you leave him running around but keep an eye on him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A psychopath.”
“I don’t see what choice I have, sir. Everything I’ve got on him is circumstantial. Move too soon and I guarantee you he’ll never so much as make a rolling stop for the rest of his life.”