SEPHER YETZIRAH (1999)
A recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in New York led to one of the most horrifying series of murders in the city's history. And I was in there to cover it.
Allow me to introduce myself. Name's Carl Kolchak. I'm a reporter with the Independent News Service in New York. I had worked out of Chicago until I learned too much about a series of killings at the well-connected Merrymount Archives. Lieutenant Irene Lamont of the Windy City P.D., along with a high-ranking representative of the U.S. Army, got in contact with my higher-ups. They were ready to fire me, but my bureau chief, Tony Vincenzo, intervened on my behalf. He somehow convinced the people with the hangman's noose to allow me to transfer out of Chicago. So here I am in the Big Apple, reporting the news and making a general pain in the ass of myself in the eyes of New York's ironically named “finest.”
When I transferred to New York, Vincenzo stayed in Chicago. However, the man became a victim of downsizing. In a rare act of corporate loyalty, Tony's higher-ups offered him a generous retirement package, but he said no. The man felt that he still had some good years left in him as an editor. (I beg to differ.) So the company offered him a transfer to New York. Vincenzo took it, somehow forgetting that I had been here for a few years myself.
Our reunion was a tearful one. Well, it was Tony who cried.
Borough Park, Brooklyn, Wednesday, July 21st. Dr. Jerome Goldstein, 63, was a true pillar of his community. He had spent the day seeing patients, many of whom he had treated for 30 or more years, after which he attended a board of directors meeting at his synagogue. The doctor had turned in for the night at 9:30 and was jolted out of a sound sleep some 90 minutes later. It sounded like somebody had kicked in his front door. The doctor went downstairs to investigate. It was the last thing he ever did.
Vincenzo and I were burning the midnight oil at I.N.S. when he came out of his office. “Carl, what are you working on?”
“The Hell's Kitchen story. You said you wanted it by ten a.m.”
“It can wait. There's been a murder in Brooklyn.”
“Big deal! Why not send a stringer?”
“Because I think it's up your alley; the victim was nailed to a cross.”
I retrieved my jawbone from the floor.
When I got to Borough Park, I saw police cars, fire engines, and an ambulance parked in front of Dr. Goldstein's house. It was in flames. The victim lay on the front lawn. He had, indeed, been nailed to a cross, but only after being severely beaten. Goldstein's mouth was duct-taped while a piece of cardboard hung from his neck on a length of barbed wire. Written on it in black magic marker was a most ugly phrase: JEWS, YOUR DAY IS COMING! I produced my camera and took pictures of the nauseating scene.
A uniformed officer approached me. “Sir, you can't be here. This is a crime scene.”
“Press.” I showed him my credentials.
“Oh, OK.”
“So, what happened here?”
“See for yourself. They nailed him to a cross and burned his house down.”
“Was he at least dead when they crucified him?”
“I don't know, sir. You'll have to talk to the M.E. about that.”
I shook my head. “I've seen some ugly things in my time, but this is a new low.”
“Yeah, it's brutal; but I've seen worse, if you can believe that.”
“Oh, I can believe it.”
I interviewed more first responders and a few witnesses, but they told me nothing of use. I drove back to I.N.S. and filed the story, thinking dire thoughts about the future of humankind.
Borough Park, Brooklyn, Thursday, July 22nd, 9:30 p.m. Six people were killed when two men in ski masks firebombed the Agudas Israel synagogue. They also a left a chalk message on the sidewalk: JEWS, YOUR DAY IS COMING!
When I arrived at the scene, I was surprised to see a familiar face: Detective Heather Fontayne, one of my few allies at the N.Y.P.D.
She greeted me with a half-grin. “Hey, Kolchak! Been a while.”
“Yes, it has.”
“I haven't even heard stories about you lately. You been behaving yourself?”
“Now, would I do that? So, what are you doing in Brooklyn?”
“I'm on loan. They've been short-handed lately.”
“Anything you can tell me?”
“Not yet. We've just begun the investigation.”
I motioned to the chalk message. “Didn't Jerome Goldstein's killers leave an identical message last night?”
“They might have,” said Fontayne. “I wasn't on the case yet.”
“That's not a denial.”
“No, it's not.”
Borough Park again, Friday, July 23rd, shortly after sunset. Two men in ski masks burst into Young Israel Beth El, where dozens of Jews were observing Sabbath. They opened fire with AR-15 assault rifles, killing eleven worshipers. They also left a message written in Sharpie on a piece of looseleaf paper: JEWS, YOUR DAY IS COMING!
I saw Fontayne at the scene. She was smoking a cigarette and looking heartsick as the paramedics brought the victims out on stretchers—a number of them with blankets over their heads..
I asked her, “Is it safe now to call these attacks an epidemic?”
Deep sadness in her husky contralto, Fonayne replied, “I suppose it is.”
Borough Park, Saturday, July 24th, 6:30 a.m. Rabbis Evelyn Weintraub and Isaac Aaronson were having a heated discussion.
“You can't do this, Isaac! It's an abomination.”
“Those murderers are abominations! How many more of our people are they going to kill?”
“The police are investigating it.”
Rabbi Aaronson snorted. “The police! Where were the police during the Holocaust? No, we have to deal with this ourselves. And you know exactly how.”
“Isaac, please! You know what can happen if we don't have a pure purpose.”
“I'm trying to stop these bastards from killing more of us! How is that impure?” He placed a hand on her left shoulder and assumed a softer tone. “Please, Evelyn. I'm 80 years old and my health is failing. I can't do this without your help.”
Borough Park, Sunday night, July 25th, 10:30 p.m. Two men in ski masks attempted to lob Molotov cocktails into the Congregation Shomrei Emunah. However, an unidentified man stopped them—by snapping their necks.
By the time I got there, the stiffs had been carted off. Fontayne and several uniformed officers were still on the scene. I asked her about the dead men.
She consulted her notes. “Thomas John Cullen, 24, of Bensonhurst and Ivan Rostov, 23, of Brighton Beach. Dumbasses had their wallets on them.”
I shrugged. “You can't expect thought from an anti-Semite. So, do you know anything about these guys? What was their problem with Jews?”
“Rostov and Cullen have priors for assault. And their fights were always with non-white people. We think they might have ties to the W.P.A.”
That was the Brooklyn-based White Person's Alliance. Two years before, I had written a series on nationalist groups in the city. I had interviewed Andrew Larson, the outspoken (to be charitable) leader of the W.P.A. Their beliefs came straight out of the Nazi playbook. However, despite the actions of some of its members, the organization was not known to be violent.
I changed the subject. “So, Borough Park has a vigilante?”
“We don't know that.”
“Well, without that guy, I'd be reporting on the latest synagogue attack.”
“We don't even know for sure the perp was male.”
“You didn't get a description?”
“Eyewitness accounts are conflicting. Some say the perp was seven feet tall, others think he was shorter. Some claim he was naked….”
I raised my eyebrows. “Naked?”
“That's not even the weirdest part. One woman insists the perp was covered with clay from head to toe.”
“What, like modeling clay?”
“That's what she told me.”
“Did you get a hair color?”
“He was bald.”
“How was he built?”
“I'd say husky. By all accounts, the perp was big and looked very strong.”
“Facial features?” I asked.
“Again, the reports are conflicting. One witness described the perp as 'having no face'.”
“No face?”
“Hey, your guess is as good as mine.”
At this point, I thought about renting a motel room in Borough Park. The nightly trips from Manhattan were getting tiresome. Still, what I first thought was a routine murder had turned into a most intriguing story.
My next stop was the city morgue, where I unexpectedly ran into an old acquaintance.
“Well, I'll be damned! It's Gordy the Ghoul.”
A mortified-looking Gordon Spangler held his index finger up to his lips. “Please, Kolchak, don't call me that. I don't need any trouble.”
“So, what are you doing in New York?”
“What did I do in Chicago?”
“You ran a corpse lottery that I never won.”
“You weren't the only one. Someone got so tired of losing, he reported me and got me fired. I was out of work for two years before I got this job.”
“Well, I'm sorry to hear that,” I lied. “Listen, Gordy, I need to see two stiffs that were just brought in.”
“Sorry, Kolchak, I can't do it. I have to keep my nose clean.”
“Come on! You just spent two years out of work. Surely you mounted up some debts?” I produced my wallet and removed two twenties and a ten. “Fifty bucks, just to look in two drawers.”
“You're a heartless prick, you know that?”
“But I'm a heartless prick who pays.”
He exhaled noisily, took my money, and opened up the drawers. “Have a look.”
I had seen enough murder victims to recognize when a person's neck was broken. Rostov and Cullen, however, were strapping young men who couldn't have been easy to take down. What they lacked in brain power they had made up for in brute strength. Their killer must have, indeed, been very strong.
Something else caught my eye. “What's that under the fingernails?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Can I take a sample?”
“No! Jesus, Kolchak, you're going to get me fired.”
“There's another twenty in my wallet.”
He sighed. “You really know how to exploit my weaknesses.”
“Thank you for the compliment!” I used a toothpick to extract samples from beneath the fingernails of both Rostov and Cullen. I put the samples in a Ziploc bag and Spangler shut the drawers.
“Thank you, Gordy! It's a pleasure doing business with you.”
“Please, Kolchak! Not so loud.”
I couldn't do anything with my samples on a Sunday night. However, bright and early the next morning, I consulted a lab technician who owed me a favor. She placed the clay on a slide and put it under the microscope.
After a few seconds, she said, “It's clay soil. There's something odd about it, though; it's totally clean.”
“Clean?”
“In clay soil, I would expect to find other things mixed in: bacteria, minerals, some kind of microbes. But not here. This stuff is 100% pure. You could eat this clay and it wouldn't hurt you.” She eyed me suspiciously. “You're not planning to eat clay, are you?”
“No, no! I'm strictly a meat and potatoes man.”
Monday, July 26th, 1:45 p.m. I was at the office, working on the Borough Park story, when my cell phone rang. It was an informant, advising me that Andrew Larson had called an emergency meeting of the Brooklyn W.P.A. It was to be held at his house on Seaview Avenue in Canarsie at 8:00 p.m. I decided to attend it clandestinely. For that, I would need some things from the equipment room.
It wasn't long before Vincenzo joined me. “Kolchak, what are you doing in here?”
“I need some things.”
He looked at what I had pulled off the shelves. “A long-range microphone, a digital recorder, our best headphones, and a camera with a telephoto lens? Do you know what these cost? What do you need them for?”
I told him about the W.P.A. meeting. “I suspect they're the ones behind the violence in Borough Park. With any luck, I'll get a recorded confession.”
“All right, Carl, but please be careful with that stuff. Remember what happened to the digital camera you borrowed.”
“So I put too much mustard on a hot dog and it got inside the camera. How much could the repairs have cost?”
“You should know; it came out of your paychecks.”
Canarsie, 7:30 p.m. I parked across the street from Larson's house. It wasn't long before white men of all ages began to filter in. I counted 22 in all. I wondered if the house was bigger inside than it looked. I plugged the directional mike into the recorder, donned the headphones, and aimed at the house.
I recognized Larson's loud, booming voice. “It didn't surprise me at all that Tom and Ivan carried out those attacks. I have to admit, though, I never would've given them credit for thinking up a crucifixion. That took balls!”
A second voice cut in, “The organization had nothing to do with it, though, right?”
“Right,” said Larson. “Tom and Ivan acted completely on their own. Problem is, the Jew-owned media's not going to buy that. As far as they're concerned, we're guilty by association. Now, I got a visit from the cops yesterday. That's why I called this meeting.”
A towering hulk of a man appeared outside the house. I picked up the camera and pointed the telephoto lens at him. But before I could see anything, he had crashed through the door as casually as you'd walk up a stoop. I jumped out of my car and ran across the street.
Inside the house, it was pure bedlam. The large man's arms were stretched above his head. He balanced a visibly frightened W.P.A. member on his palms and threw him at the wall. The impact was so hard, the victim splattered against the wall like a tomato and left a human-shaped indentation. Several other W.P.A. members punched and kicked at the assailant, but he seemed oblivious to the onslaught.
The man was a good seven feet in height. He was covered with clay, just as a witness from the other night had claimed. The man was not faceless, as another witness had averred, but his face seemed like an afterthought. He had eyes, a nose and a mouth, but they were nondescript, as if somebody's index finger had carved them into the clay. His fingers and toes did not seem quite human, either. But the two strangest things? There was lettering on his forehead: EMET. And the man had no sexual organs! The area between his legs was smooth, like a macabre Ken doll.
The camera dangled from my neck. I picked it up and snapped photo after photo as the man of clay massacred the White Person's Alliance before my incredulous eyes. Presently, I heard sirens, followed by a phalanx of cops in riot gear. One of them pushed me out of the way, and they opened fire on the killer. Their bullets made holes in him, but they appeared not to have the least effect. He turned to the wall, punched and kicked holes in it with his fists and knees, and walked away. The officers pursued him.
Someone tapped on my shoulder: Detective Fontayne.
Breathless, I asked her, “Did you see him?”
“I saw something, but I'll be damned if I know what.”
An officer entered the house. “Detective, I'm sorry. We lost him.”
“Shit.” Fontayne asked me, “Did you get pictures?”
“Yeah.”
“Good! Maybe they'll give us an I.D. Let's go to the stationhouse. We can develop your film.”
Fontayne and I stood at her desk, looking at my photos. The detective shook her head. “Why would he cover himself in clay?”
“I don't think he's covered. I'm beginning to think our killer is made of clay.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, you come on. Remember our little adventure at the East River? If any cop should know the preternatural exists, that cop is you.”
“But a man of clay?”
“How else to explain that he's impervious to bullets?”
“Good question.” She further examined the photographs. "What do you suppose the letters on his forehead mean?”
Before I could respond, her desk phone rang. “Detective Fontayne.” Her face fell. “OK, thank you.” Hanging up the receiver, “A rabbi was just murdered.”
Welcome, my friends, to the show that never ends.
The victim was Rabbi Isaac Aaronson of Bay Ridge. The killer had smashed his way into the rabbi's house and snapped his neck. I followed Fontayne to the address on Bay Ridge Avenue. The house was adjacent to Congregation Ahavath Torah. A half-dozen police cruisers were parked on the street, their blue and red lights flashing in the sultry July night. Dozen of civilians lined the sidewalks on either side of the street, trying to see what had happened at their place of worship. Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the property. Fontayne lifted the tape so I could walk under it.
The front door had been smashed in and dangled precariously from a single hinge. Inside the house, Rabbi Aaronson's body was sprawled across the carpeted living room floor. His head lay at a grotesque angle and his elderly face bore a look of unexpurgated fright. A uniformed officer interviewed a stocky, gray-haired woman of about 65. She wore a white summerweight dress and sobbed uncontrollably. I heard her saying, “My god, Isaac, what have we done?”
I joined Fontayne as she knelt down to examine the body. She said, “There's something on his neck,” and called for tweezers and an evidence bag.
I said, “How much you want to bet that's clay soil?”
“But I thought the killer was fighting anti-Semites. Why would he kill a rabbi?”
As we stood back up, I motioned to the crying gray-haired woman. “Maybe she knows.”
Fontayne approached the woman and the officer who was talking to her. “Sergeant, I'll handle the interview from here.”
“Very well, Detective.” He walked away.
I hit the “record” button of my hand-held cassette deck.
“Ma'am, I'm Detective Fontayne. Did you know the rabbi?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I'm Rabbi Evelyn Weintraub. Isaac and I run—I mean, ran—the synagogue together. I live across the street.”
“Did you see what happened?”
“No. I wasn't home at the time. But as soon as I saw Isaac's door smashed in, I knew exactly what was wrong.”
“What did you know?”
“That he had turned on us.”
“Who is 'he,' ma'am?'”
“The golem.”
I asked, “What's a golem?”
Fontayne said, “Carl, please. Let me ask the questions.”
“Sorry.”
“As my colleague said, what is a golem?”
It was the first (and last) time a cop ever called me a colleague.
Rabbi Weintraub explained. “It's a being made of clay. They're created to fight the enemies of Judaism. It takes two rabbis to bring one to life, and the process is very involved.”
“What's the process?” I asked, earning an admonitory glance from Fontayne.
“First, we had to make sure the place of its creation was immaculate. We chose the synagogue's attic. It was empty, and we spent hours cleaning it. Then, we had to make the clay. Again, we needed to be certain the ingredients were 100% pure. There couldn't be dirt, bacteria—anything of the sort. We wore surgical gloves to handle the clay, and we washed a brand new sheet. We laid it out on the floor, and that's where we assembled the body.”
“What are the letters on its forehead?” I asked.
“Kolchak,” Fontayne said through clenched teeth.
“It's the Hebrew word for 'truth.'” The rabbi took a breath. “Once the body was done, Isaac and I chanted from the Sepher Yetzirah. That's the Hebrew Book of Creation. Again, our chants had to be absolutely perfect. If we got even one detail wrong, we'd have to start over. It took seven hours of chanting before the golem opened its eyes. Isaac and I were exhausted but jubilant. We sent the golem out to kill the two men who had attacked our people.”
“Rostov and Cullen,” I said. This time, all Fontayne gave me was an eyeroll of exasperation.
“Yes,” Rabbi Weaintraub replied. “After that, the golem should have returned to the attic so that Isaac and I could deactivate it; but instead, it went to that man Larson's house and killed everybody inside. That wasn't supposed to happen.”
This time, Fontayne herself interjected. “Why not? Weren't those men overtly anti-Semitic?”
“Yes, but only in word. That's not enough to merit being killed by a golem. At that point, I knew my fears were justified—we had created our golem with a less than pure purpose. It's out of control now; that's why it killed Isaac. It'll kill me, too, and anybody else who crosses its path!”
I asked, “Is there some way stop a golem?” This time, Fontayne did not seem annoyed with me.
“There is,” said the rabbi. “You have to erase the letters from its forehead; but I don't think that's possible now. The golem will kill anybody who gets close to it.”
Fontayne asked, “Where would we look for your golem?”
“It will eventually return to the place of its creation.”
“The attic next door,” I said.
“Yes.” Pausing, Rabbi Weintraub started to cry again. She buried her guilt-wracked face in her hands.
Fontayne placed a hand on her shoulder. “Rabbi, we need to get you to a safe house—someplace the golem can't find you.”
“There is no such place,” the rabbi insisted. “If you move me, you're just delaying the inevitable.”
“I'd like you to move you anyway. Will you allow it?”
Rabbi Weintraub nodded her head. Fontayne instructed an officer to accompany her across the street to her house, where the rabbi could pack a suitcase. Once that was taken care of, Fontayne regarded me with a cocky grin.
“So, you ready for a golem hunt?”
By age fourteen, Heather Fontayne was five feet nine inches tall. She took up cigarettes in the hope that it would stunt her growth. It didn't. By the time she graduated, the future policewoman was six-feet-two and a high school basketball star (despite her nicotine addiction). She attended the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at C.U.N.Y. The N.Y.P.D. had recruited Fontayne during her senior year. She was now a sixteen-year veteran who had worked her way up from Traffic Control to being a highly respected member of the Detective Division. It was widely believed that Fontayne would one day make Chief of Detectives.
Appearance-wise, she had fluffy blonde hair that hung down to her shoulder blades, her eyes were an incandescent blue, and her impeccable face and body could have been sculpted from porcelain. If she hadn't gone into law enforcement, Heather Fontayne could very well have been a model.
Not that any of this was on my mind as we walked up the stone steps that led to the ornate front doors of the synagogue. A uniformed officer stood guard but let us by as he recognized Fontayne. Once inside, we found the stairwell and climbed. As we got to the top, Fontayne drew her gun and slowly opened the metal door of the attic. Cautiously, I shined my flashlight inside. It was empty. We entered the cavernous room and I found a light switch.
When Rabbi Weintraub told us that she and Isaac Aaronson had cleaned up the attic, she wasn't exaggerating. I had seen operating rooms less sterile than that synagogue's attic!
The sheet still lay on the floor where the rabbis had created their golem. Assorted gobs of clay were strewn around the work area, but otherwise the attic housed nothing.
Fontayne said, “Now we wait.” We sat on the floor at the far end of the attic and didn't speak. After a time, she lit a cigarette.
I told her, “Those things will kill you.”
“So will a pissed-off golem,” she retorted, exhaling. “What about you, Kolchak? You ever smoke?”
“Cigars, but I haven't lit up in years. Lost my taste for 'em.”
Two hours and four cigarettes later, my stomach rumbled. “Wish I had thought to eat before we came here.”
“I'm getting hungry myself.”
“How about if I hit that diner up the street?”
“Sounds good to me.” She told me what sandwich and drink she wanted and went for her wallet.
“That's all right, I've got it.” I left the synagogue, determined to get back as quickly as possible. If the golem showed up, I didn't want Fontayne facing it alone.
As I approached the stone steps, I no longer saw the police officer on duty. Fearing the worst, I ran up the steps and found him dead.
“Oh, god.” I dropped the bag of food and high-tailed to the attic. The door was smashed in. At the far end, I saw the golem. It held Fontayne by the neck. She was against the wall and several inches off the floor.
“Get off her, you son of a bitch!” I ran up behind the golem and pounded on its back. It dropped Fontayne, who fell to the floor and coughed violently. The golem turned to face me. I ran away, hoping to distract the monster long enough to give Fontayne sufficient recovery time. I made a zigzag pattern across the attic as the golem gained on me. I stopped running and spun around to face the creature, surprising it long enough to run past it in the opposite direction. My heart felt as if it would blast out of my chest.
Meanwhile, Fontayne had regained her breath and footing. She ran toward the golem and fired her gun into its back, but it didn't faze the creature.
When the golem caught up to me, I stood in the landing. It wrapped its massive right hand around my neck and lifted me so I dangled over the steps. Fontayne appeared in the doorway and used her Taser on the creature, but it did no more good than shooting it. She wrapped her arms around the golem's waist and tried wrestling it to the floor, to no avail.
As I felt myself losing consciousness, the monster lifted its other hand to snap my neck. I had the presence of mind to wipe my right palm across the golem's forehead, erasing the letters written on it. Then I blacked out.
“Carl? Carl, wake up!”
I blinked numerous times and saw Fontayne kneeling next to me. We were on the second-floor landing.
Weakly, I said, “The golem?”
“You did it; he's dead.”
“Good, good.” I sat up and looked around. The golem was in several pieces on the steps and landing. I groaned and rubbed the back of my head, which hurt something fierce.
“You took a hell of a tumble,” Fontayne said. “I'm taking you to the E/R.”
“No, no.”
“Yes, yes. You're going, dammit!”
The emergency room doctor released me after a couple of hours. Though I was banged up, I had not sustained a concussion. As Fontayne pointed out, “Sometimes it helps to have a thick head.”
The police, the mayor's office, the higher-ups at I.N.S., and the city's representatives in Albany and Washington thought it best to withhold my pictures from the public. We would not, after all, want to start a mass panic. Nor would we ever admit that certain things cannot be explained away.
Now that the violence in Borough Park has ended, the city is noticeably more relaxed. Still, New York's Jewish population is second only to Jerusalem's. When will further acts of anti-Semitism occur? And will they be severe enough to give rise to another golem? Let's hope not.
