The Golem of Hollywood Read Online Free Page A

diplomas say the same thing. Cal State Northridge.”
    â€œThat’s true, sir.”
    â€œNo. 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.”
    â€œI think it cause that’s what I heard.”
    â€œCan I ask who you heard it from?”
    â€œNo, you may not. I also heard you’re thinking about putting in for some time off.”
    Jacob did not reply.
    â€œI’m giving you the opportunity to share your feelings,” Mendoza said.
    â€œI’d rather not, sir.”
    â€œWork’s got you down.”
    Jacob shrugged. “It’s a stressful job.”
    â€œIndeed 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.”
    â€œI don’t think that, sir.”
    â€œSure you do.”
    â€œOkay, sir.”
    â€œSee? That’s it. Right there. That’s
exactly
the kind of tone I’m talking about.”
    â€œI’m not sure I understand, sir.”
    â€œ
And again.
‘Not sure I gah gah gah gah gah.’ How old are you, Lev?”
    â€œThirty-one, sir.”
    â€œYou 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.”
    â€œI appreciate that, sir.”
    Mendoza reached for his phone. “You want time off, you got it. You’re being transferred.”
    â€œTransferred where?”
    â€œI 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.
    Who?
    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