Time Bomb

38

Surveillance. Numb butts.

But nice to be on the other side.

The first couple of days yielded no results. I learned about cop boredom, about self-doubt. About how even the best of friendships get strained by too much of nothing. But I refused Milo’s repeated offers to drop out.

“What? Your year for masochism?”

“My year for closure.”

“If your guess is right,” he said.

“If.”

“Lots of ifs.”

I said, “If you don’t want to bother, I’ll do it myself.”

He smiled. “Joe Detective?”

“Joe Curious. You think I’m reaching? It was just a look.”

He turned to me. The swelling down, his wounds greening, but one eye was still puffy and wet and his gait was stiff.

“No, Alex,” he said softly. “I think you’re worth listening to. I’ve always thought so. Besides, what do we have to lose except sanity, and not much of that left, right? It’s only been forty-eight hours. Let’s give it at least another couple of days.”

So we sat in the rented car until our butts turned downright frozen. Ate stale fast food, did crossword puzzles, engaged in inane chatter that neither of us would have tolerated under different circumstances.

The second day it happened. The maroon Volvo rolled away from suburbia, the way it always did. But this time it abandoned home territory and headed for the 405 Freeway.

Milo hung back until it had climbed a northbound on-ramp, then followed, hanging back several car lengths.

“You see,” he said, turning the steering wheel with one finger. “This is the way it’s done. Subtly. No way short of psychic powers he’s going to see us.”

Bravado in his voice but he kept checking the rearview mirror.

I said, “How’re your psychic powers?”

“Finely honed.” A moment later. “I knew the Department would buy my story, didn’t I?”

His story. Post-traumatic stress reaction. A need for seclusion.

Escape from L.A.

He’d been thorough. Buying an airplane ticket for Indianapolis. Showing up at LAX only to duck out of line just before boarding. Picking up a rental Cadillac and driving into the Valley. Checking into a motel out in Agoura under the name S. L. Euth.

Then surveillance. The other side.

Picking me up at a preassigned place that changed each day.

Watching. Making sure we weren’t being watched.

Today he had on a brown polo shirt, tan cords, white sneakers, and an old felt Dodgers cap on his head.

“Umm, nice leather,” he said, fondling the mocha-colored armrest that bisected the sedan De Ville’s bench seat. “Nice, even if it does drive mushy. I can see why you hold on to yours.”

“Not too obtrusive for a tail?”

“L.A. Chevy, pal. Your pricier neighborhoods, this is what the help drives.” He smiled. “Besides, it’s brown. Like my fashion statement. Blends in with all the bullshit.”

We followed the Volvo onto the 101 toward Ventura, stayed with it all the way through the west Valley. When it switched to the 23 North just past Westlake Village, Milo sat up straighter and smiled.

I said, “Let’s hear it for educated guesses.”

We sped past an industrial park with high-tech leanings. Vaguely ominous limestone and mirror-glass buildings with nondescript logos, security-gated parking lots, and streets with names like Science Drive and Progress Circle. The Volvo kept going.

When traffic thinned out at Moorpark, Milo pulled over to the shoulder and stopped.

I said, “What is it?”

“Now we are too conspicuous. Gonna give him a mile, then get back on.”

“Not worried about losing him?”

He shook his head. “We know where he’s going, don’t we?”

“If our information’s up to date.”

He said, “The Colonel’s information.” Frowned and checked his watch and got back on the highway. The highway became Grimes Canyon and evolved into a narrow, serpentine mountain pass. No other cars going our way; a few huge tankers coming from the opposite direction. The curves challenged the Cadillac and Milo put two hands on the wheel. Shifting his weight, he said, “Now the mushiness isn’t fun.”

I said, “You could have borrowed the Colonel’s Honda.”

“Right. God knows what kind of crap and gizmos he’s packed it with. Would you feel comfortable talking in something he owned?”

“Nope.”

“Him and his data banks. Guy’s got more info than the IRS. You see how fast he came up with what we wanted? But try to get something on him, and other data banks dry up real fast. I had a very reliable source on it, Alex. Same guy in Washington who helped me trace Kaltenblud. All his computer had to say about the Colonel was name, rank, date of discharge. Ditto with Major Bunyan.”

I said, “New Age warrior becomes New Age entrepreneur. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a colonel.”

“What then? Some clerk? He’s exactly what a colonel is. A general, even. Forget the George C. Scott stuff. Go high enough in any organization, and what you get is assholes exactly like him.”

Suddenly angry again.

I said, “He thinks he saved our lives.”

Milo grunted.

I said, “Maybe he did. But I think we had a pretty good chance without him. That sleeping-beauty act you pulled took me by surprise.”

He grunted again. The road straightened and we were in agricultural country: mountain-rimmed, ruler-edged plots of flat dry lowlands, ready for harvest. Cows grazing side by side with bobbing-grasshopper oil wells. Pig and egg farms; horse breeders, where gorgeous Arabians pranced arrogantly around roadside corrals; acres of citrus being cultivated for Sunkist.

The end point of the view from Howard Burden’s office window.

The maroon Volvo was nowhere in sight.

“Nice,” I said, looking up through the windshield at clean blue sky. “If you have to run, do it in style.”

We crossed a green-hooded bridge over a dry bed of the Santa Clara River and kept going to the 126 junction at Fillmore. Past a business district consisting of well-preserved two-story brick buildings on spotless, empty shopping streets striped with meterless diagonal parking spaces, full-service gas stations staffed by attendants in hats and uniforms, and a Frosty Mug root beer stand that could have been part of the set for American Graffiti. Then a continuation of the highway and more citrus groves, working ranches, and produce stands advertising nuts, olives, tomatoes, corn, and “all natural” beef jerky.

Just a few more miles to the base of the mountains and Piru. The outskirts of town was abandoned railyards and citrus warehouses, derelict auto bodies and lots of dust. A hundred yards in were clumps of small, poor houses. One-and two-room structures set in chockablock randomness on fenced dirt lots. Untrimmed trees lined the road- date palms, plums, beeches, and stocky-limbed carobs that emitted a spermy perfume which insinuated itself into the car’s air-conditioning system and lingered. Chickens in the front yard. Toddlers in hand-me-downs making toys out of found materials. Inflatable wading pools. The few adult faces we saw were sun-beaten and solemn, tending toward elderly and Hispanic.

Main Street was a couple of blocks that crawled past a one-story bank so petite it resembled a county-fair model. Yellow brick, tile roof, gilt script on the windows over drawn Venetian blinds. CLOSED. Then a general store, a couple of saloons, one with a handwritten MENUDO TODAY poster taped to the front window, and a silvered-wood barnlike structure advertising auto repair, tack and ferrier supplies, bait and tackle.

Milo drove another half block until we reached more empty freightyard. Stopping and consulting his Thomas Guide, he jabbed a finger at a map page and said, “Okay, no problem. No problem finding anything here. We’re not talking Megalopolis.”

“No problem,” I said, “if you know there’s something to look for.”

Circling the tack shop, he drove down a back street, crossed Main, and coasted for another couple of blocks before turning off onto Orchard. The road took on a mild grade, turned to dirt, and ended at a bungalow court. Flat-roofed buildings of yellow stucco. Half a dozen of them, less than a foot of separation between the units. In the center, a plaster fountain that hadn’t spouted for a long time. The Volvo was parked at the curb, windows open, unoccupied, with a cardboard sunscreen stretched across the windshield.

We got out. The air was broiling and smelled like marmalade. Milo pointed again, this time for direction. We walked past the bungalows, taking a dusty path that ran along the right side of the court. Behind the units, in what would have been the backyard, was another building, fenced by waist-high pickets that needed priming and painting. White frame cottage, green sash and shutters, tar roof, warped porch, plank swing hanging lopsided from one piece of rope. To the left, a weeping willow grew out of the dirt- dreaming the impossible dream. Huge and rich with foliage it imprisoned the tiny house in a wide black ellipse of shade.

The drapes were drawn. Milo pointed to the left of the big tree and I followed him. Two-step cement porch. Rear panel door. He knocked.

A voice said, “Who is it?”

Milo said, “Naranjas.”

“Sorry, we’ve got.”

Milo raised his voice and gave it a plaintive twist. “Naranjas! Muy barato! Muy bonito!”

The door opened. Milo shoved his foot in it and smiled.

Ted Dinwiddie stared out at us, startled, his ruddy face mottled by patches of pallor.

He said, “I-” and remained frozen. He was dressed the same way he’d been at the market, minus the apron: blue broadcloth shirt rolled to the elbows, rep tie loosened at the neck, khaki slacks, rubber-soled cordovans. Same good burgher’s uniform he wore every day…

He kept staring, finally managed to move his lips.

“What is it?”

Milo said, “Even though my mother spent years trying to convince me otherwise, I never developed a taste for asparagus. So I guess we’re here to see your other special.”

Dinwiddie said, “I don’t know what you-”

“Look,” said Milo, his voice gentle and scary at the same time, “I was never any fashion model- I need all the help I can get to be able to walk down the street without freaking out little kids. This”- he pointed to his eye- “ain’t exactly help.”

Dinwiddie said, “I’m sor-”

“Can the apologies,” said Milo. “Your being a little more forthcoming in the first place might have prevented substantial pain and suffering to my person.”

I said, “He’s understating. The two of us nearly lost our lives trying to figure it out.”

Dinwiddie said, “I know that. I read the papers, for God’s sake.” He bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I never meant for it to-”

“Then how about you let us in out of the heat?” Milo said.

“I- What purpose would that really serve?”

Milo turned to me: “What’s that word you used, Dr. Delaware?”

“Closure.”

“Closure, Ted. Dr. Delaware and I would like some closure.”

Dinwiddie bit his lip again and tugged his straw mustache. “Closure,” he said.

“You took psychology,” said Milo. “Or was it sociology? Either case, that should mean something to you. Man’s search for meaning and finality in a cruel, ambiguous world? Man trying to figure out what the fuck is going on?”

He grinned and put his hand on the doorknob.

Dinwiddie said, “And after that, what?”

“That’s it, Ted. Scout’s honor.”

“I don’t believe much in honor anymore, Detective.”

Milo lifted the bill of his baseball cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Brushed away black hair and exposed white, sweaty skin, knobbed and scraped and scabbed.

Dinwiddie winced.

Milo tapped his foot. “Lost your innocence, huh? Well, bully for you, Mr. Clean, but there’s still plenty of explaining to do.”

A voice sounded behind Dinwiddie, the words incomprehensible but the tone pure question mark. The grocer looked over his shoulder and Milo took the opportunity to grasp his shoulders, move him aside like a toy, and walk into the house.

Before Dinwiddie realized what was happening, I was inside too. Small kitchen hot as a steambath, with white cabinets and counter tops of yellow tile laid diagonally and bordered with wine-colored bullnose. Open doorway to a paneled room. Yellow enamel walls, white porcelain sink, four-burner gas stove, a Pyrex carafe half-filled with water on one of the burners. Five big paper double-bags printed with the name of Dinwiddie’s market sitting on the counter. A sixth bag, unpacked: boxes of cereal, bags of whole wheat flour and sugar, sausages, smoked meats and fish, spaghetti, tea, a jumbo mocha-colored can of deluxe-grade Colombian coffee.

Holding the can was a boy wearing a baggy T-shirt and cutoff jeans. I knew his age, but he looked younger. Could have been a high school senior. Varsity letter in basketball.

Mocha-colored himself. Very tall, very thin, light-brown hair worn in a two-inch Afro- longer than in his photo. Full lips, Roman nose. His father’s nose.

Almond eyes full of terror.

He lifted the can as if it were a weapon.

Milo said, “It’s all right, son. We’re not here to hurt you.”

The boy darted his head at Dinwiddie. The grocer said, “These are the two I told you about, Ike. The cop and the psychologist. According to the papers, they’re on the right side.”

“The papers,” said the boy. Aiming for defiance, but his voice was reedy, uneven, adolescent in its lack of confidence. Big hands tightened around the can. His legs were skinny and hairless- cinnamon sticks perched on bare feet.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he said.

“Maybe so,” said Milo, walking up to him and standing on the balls of his feet to go eye to eye. “But you owe us, son. You owe someone else, too, but it’s too late for that. At least this is a debt you can pay.”

The boy retracted his head and blinked. The hand holding the can faltered. Milo reached up and took it from him. “French roast,” he said, examining the label. “Only the best for a super-hip fugitive, huh? And look at all this other good stuff.” Motioning toward the counter. “Granola. Pasta- what is that, tagliarini? Looks like you’ve got yourself hunkered down for the long haul, son. Comfy. Lot more comfy than where Holly ended up.”

The boy clenched his eyes shut and opened them, blinked again. Several times. Harder. A tear rolled down his cheek and his Adam’s apple rose and fell.

“Ike,” said Dinwiddie, alarmed, “we’ve been through that. Don’t let him guilt-trip you.” A cold look at Milo. “Hasn’t he been through enough?”

Milo said, “Tell it like it is, Ted. Wasn’t that an axiom you once lived by?”

The flush had returned to Dinwiddie’s complexion and his thick forearms were lumpy with tightened muscle. He was sweating heavily. I realized I was sodden. All four of us were.

Dinwiddie tugged at his mustache and lowered his head like a bull about to charge. I smelled confrontation. Said to the boy: “We’re not your enemies. Once in a while the papers do get it right. We know what you’ve been through, son. The running. Looking over your shoulder. Never knowing who to trust- that’s got to be hell. So no one’s saying anyone in your shoes could have handled it any better. You did exactly what you had to. But what you know can be useful- to get rid of the evil that remains. Draining the whole swamp. Terry Crevolin’s agreed to talk, and he’s not exactly Mr. Idealistic. So how about you?”

The boy said nothing.

I said, “We’re not going to force you- no one can. But how long can you go on like this?”

“Lies,” said a brittle voice from the doorway.

A very small old woman, wearing a gray-and-pink print shift and over that, despite the heat, a coarsely woven porridge-colored cardigan. Beneath the shift, bowed legs encased in supp-hose ended in flat sandals. Her face was wizened and sun-spotted under a halo of white frizz. Big dark eyes, clear and steady.

I wasn’t surprised by her appearance. Remembering Latch and Ahlward’s reaction when I talked about their plucking her off the street and disposing of her body.

Blank stares from both of them. No smirking, no jumping to take the credit…

Just a look.

My educated guess…

But something did surprise me.

Steady hands in one so tiny and old. Gripping a very big shotgun.

She said, “Cossacks. Lying bastards.”

Clear eyes. Too clear. Something other than mental clarity.

Beyond lucidity. A flame that had burned too hot for too long.

Ike said, “Grandma, what are you doing! Put that down!”

“Cossacks! Every Christmas a pogrom, raping and killing and giving the babies to the Nazis to eat.”

She aimed the weapon at me, held it there for a while, shifted it to Milo, then to Dinwiddie. To Ike, then back to Dinwiddie.

“Come on, Sophie,” said the grocer.

“Back or I’ll blast you, you cossack bastard,” said the old woman, eyes jumping from one imaginary foe to the other. Hands shaking. The shotgun vibrating.

Ike said, “Grandma, enough! Put that down!”

Loud, a little whiny. A teenager protesting unfair punishment.

She looked at him long enough for confusion to finally settle in.

“It’s okay,” said Dinwiddie, pushing down with one hand in a calming gesture and taking a step forward.

Her eyes shot back to him. “Back! I’ll blast you, you goddammed cossack!”

Ike called out, “Grandma!”

Dinwiddie said, “It’s okay,” and walked toward the old woman.

She pulled the trigger. Click.

She stared down at the weapon with more confusion. Dinwiddie put one hand on the walnut stock, the other on the barrel, and tried to wrest it away from her. She held on to it, cursing, first in English, then louder and faster in a language I guessed was Russian.

“Easy does it, Sophie,” said Dinwiddie as he carefully pried her fingers from the gun. Deprived of it, she began shrieking and hitting him. Ike ran to her, tried to restrain her, but she struck out at him, continued to curse. The boy struggled with her, absorbing blows, taking pains to be gentle, tears streaming down his face.

“Unloaded,” said Dinwiddie, handing the shotgun to Milo as if it were something unclean. To Ike: “I took out the shells last time I was here.”

Ike gaped at him. “Where? Where’d you put them?”

“They’re not here, Ike. I took them with me.”

Ike said, “Why, Ted?” Talking loud to be heard over the old woman’s invectives, his tall body canopied over her tiny sweatered frame. Trying to contain her with his spidery arms while fixing his attention on Dinwiddie.

Dinwiddie held out his hands and said, “I had to, Ike. The way she is- how she’s gotten. You just saw that.”

“She didn’t even know how to use it, Ted! You just saw that!”

“I couldn’t take a chance, Ike. She was so much worse the last time, so… you know that’s true. We talked about it- your worries. I didn’t want anything to happen. It’s obvious I was right.”

The boy’s face was a battlefield. Comforting calm for the old woman warring with the pain and rage of betrayal. “What about our protection, Ted! Our arrangement? Where did that leave us? Tell me that, Ted!”

“It was a judgment call,” said Dinwiddie. “What could I do? I couldn’t take a chance she’d-”

Ike stamped his foot and began shouting. “We need pro-tection! Shotgun protection! I know what a shotgun can do- I saw what a shotgun can do. That’s why I asked you for a shotgun, Ted, not some stupid metal tube that clicks and blows air! You got me a shotgun because that’s what I needed, Ted! Now you pull it out from under me without- How could you do that, Ted!”

The words rushing out, followed by short, harsh breaths. Fugitive panting. Fugitive eyes.

His passion had silenced the old woman; she’d stopped struggling, was looking up at him with the innocence and bafflement of an infant on a first outing.

Dinwiddie shook his head, turned away, and rested his elbows on the counter. One of his hands brushed against a package of pasta. He picked it up, looked at it absently.

Milo inspected the shotgun. “This thing’s right out of the box, never been fired.”

Silence filled the kitchen, choking it, draining the air of oxygen.

“Such a good boy,” said the old woman, reaching up and touching Ike’s cheek. “The cossacks come, you protect your bubbe.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“Yes, Bubbe.”

“Yes, Bubbe. How are you feeling?”

The old woman shrugged. “A little tired, maybe.”

“How about a nap, Bubbe?”

Another shrug. She took one of his hands in both of hers and kissed it.

He escorted her through the doorway.

Milo began to follow.

Ike turned around sharply. “Don’t worry, Mr. Detective. I’m not going anywhere. Can’t handle going anywhere. Just let me take care of her. Then I’ll come back and you can do whatever it is you want with me.”

We waited for him in the living room. Knotty-pine panels, working fireplace under a fieldstone mantel, brick-a-brac that had once been meaningful to someone, hooked rug, overstuffed chairs, tree-stump end tables, a couple of trophy fish on plaques over the mantel. Next to them, a snapshot of a beaming white-haired boy holding an enormous trout. It brought to mind the shot of the two children I’d seen in Dinwiddie’s office. But this one was black-and-white, the boy’s clothes two or three decades out of fashion.

Below that, a shot of a heavyset man in wading boots, his arm around the same boy. A string of fish hanging from the other arm.

Dinwiddie saw me looking, “We used to come up here a lot. Dad owned lots of the land around here. Bought it up after the war, thinking he’d combine growing with selling, avoid the middleman, become serious-rich. A couple of cold years killed off the profit margin in citrus but the mortgage stayed the same. The big outfits could wait it out but it dampened Dad’s enthusiasm, so he sold a lot of his acreage to the Sunkist co-op. We continued to come up for a couple of weeks each year and fish, just the two of us. Lake Piru used to be jumping with rainbows and bass. Last few years the rains have been weak and everything’s dried up- they’re not releasing anything out of the Fillmore hatchery until they can be sure the survival rate’ll be high. I’m sure you saw that, coming over the Santa Clara. The dry beds.”

Milo and I nodded.

“Can I get you coffee or something?” said Dinwiddie.

We shook our heads.

He said, “In the early sixties Dad got into another cash-flow problem and sold off most of the land he still owned in town- like the bungalows in front of us, the plot where the school is now. All of it gone, fast and cheap. He kept only this house- guess he was more sentimental than he’d ever have admitted. When he died I inherited it, started bringing my own boys up here. Until the drought. I figured it would be a good place- who bothers to come out here except truckers? Lots of Mexicans and old people- the two of them wouldn’t stand out.”

I said, “Makes sense.”

“I did it because I had to. There was no choice. Not after Ike raised my consciousness.”

He stopped, waited for a challenge, and when none came, said, “He’d talk about the Holocaust, how so few people had hidden Jews. How only the Danes had stood up as a country. How the whole thing could have been prevented if more people had stood up, done the right thing. You hear that, you start to wonder. What you would have done. The depth of your own principles. It’s like this psych experiment they did years ago- I’m sure you know it. Telling people to shock other people. For no good reason. And most people did it. Just to obey. Shocked total strangers, even though they knew it was wrong, didn’t want to. I’d always told myself I’d be different, one of the noble few. But I was never really sure. How can you be when it’s all theoretical? The way my life had gone, everything was theoretical. So when Ike called me, middle of the night, so scared, told me what they’d tried to do to him, I knew what I had to do. And I know I did the right thing. I’m sorry if it caused you-”

Milo said, “You pick up the old lady too?”

Dinwiddie nodded. “Both of us did that. She wouldn’t have gone with me alone. Ike was taking a chance, coming back to town, knowing they were after him. But he loved her, was worried about what might happen to her- especially worried because of the way she’d become.”

“What is it, Alzheimer’s?”

Dinwiddie said, “Who knows? She won’t go to a doctor.” To me: “Her age, it could be anything, right? Hardening of the arteries, whatever.”

I said, “How long has it been going on?”

“Ike said just a few months. Said she was such a bright woman- before the change- that most people didn’t notice anything different. Because when she talked she still made sense. And she’d always gone on about conspiracies- cossacks, whatever. So if she did it a little more, who’d notice? The way she is now, of course, you’d notice, but that’s just been the last few weeks. Maybe it’s the stress. Of hiding. I don’t know.”

He lowered his head, rested his forehead in his hands.

“So the two of you came back to town and got her,” Milo said.

“Yeah,” said Dinwiddie, talking to the hooked rug. “When she wasn’t home, Ike figured she’d either be at the synagogue or walking around. She’d always loved to walk, had started doing it even more- since the change. In the dark, when it wasn’t safe. We drove to the synagogue, saw there was some kind of party inside, and waited until she left. Then we picked her up and brought her here. She didn’t want to come, was yelling at us a lot, but Ike managed to calm her down. He’s the only one who seems to be able to calm her down.”

He looked down again, knitted his hands and swung them between his knees. “There’s something special between them. More than just family. The bond of survivors. He’s not even twenty, has been through way too much for someone that age. For anyone. So bear that in mind. Okay?”

Ike came back into the room and said, “Bear what in mind?”

Dinwiddie sat up. “I was just telling them to keep things in perspective. How’s she’s doing?”

“Sleeping. What kind of perspective?”

“Just everything that’s been going on.”

“In other words, coddle me out of pity?”

“No,” said Dinwiddie. The boy looked away from him. “Ike, about the shotgun-”

“Forget it, Ted. You ended up saving your own life. What could be better?”

Generous smile, startling in its suddenness. But largesse tainted by bitterness. Dinwiddie picked up on it, knew what it meant- an immutable change in the bond between them- and his expression turned to misery.

Milo said, “You ready to tell us what happened, son?”

Ike said, “How much do you know?”

“Everything up to Bear Lodge.”

“Bear Lodge,” he said. “Rural nirvana, some pipe dream, huh? All I know about that is what I’ve been told. By Grandma.”

“Where’d you live afterward?”

“Where’d I live?” The boy smiled again and ticked off fingers. “Boston. Evanston, Illinois. Louisville, Kentucky. I was a regular ramblin’ man.”

Another smile. So forced it was painful to look at.

I said, “Not Philadelphia?”

“Philadelphia? Nope. I’m with W. C. Fields on that one.”

“Terry Crevolin said your father’s family was from Philadelphia.”

“Family.” The smile opened and twisted and turned into an angry laugh. “My father’s family was wiped out fifty years ago. Except for one distant cousin. In Philadelphia. Fat-cat lawyer, I’ve never even talked to him- couldn’t imagine he’d welcome me with open arms.” Another laugh. “No, Grandma wouldn’t have sentenced me to Philadelphia.”

I said, “Those other places- was that your mother’s family?”

He cocked a finger at me. “You guessed it, smart person. You get the rubber duckie. A progressive series of nice middle-class Negro neighborhoods, where I wouldn’t stand out like chocolate syrup in milk. Nice hospitable relatives who tolerated me until they got sick of me, or got scared of what it meant putting me up, or things just got too crowded- the middle class likes its comforts.”

Dinwiddie said, “Why don’t you sit down, Ike?”

The boy wheeled on him. “What, and relax?” But he did lower himself into an armchair, stilt-legs stretching out onto the hooked rug.

A long silence. When Milo didn’t break it, I said, “Any reason you chose a Spanish surname?”

“Spanish? Oh yeah, that. I’d been using Montvert- some of my mom’s family were Creoles, so it seemed appropriate to go French.” Another joyless smile. “Then when I moved here I needed a new one. Covering tracks. I thought of Russian, for Grandma. But who would buy that on me? I didn’t want to attract attention. Then one day I scoped out Ocean Heights- it had been in the news, Massengil’s Jim Crow bullshit. I wanted to take a look at the place, see what KKK territory looked like in the eighties, took a drive through. Beaver Cleaverland. But I noticed they had all these Spanish names for the streets. Stone hypocrisy. So I thought, why not? Do ’em one better, go for Español. Which would be Verde. But that sounded wrong- like it wouldn’t be someone’s name. So I checked out a Spanish-English dictionary. Green. Slang for ‘novice.’ Which I was. An L.A. novice- go west, young man. Novato. Had a cool ring to it. The rest, as they say, is Will and Ariel Durant territory.”

Milo had started to squirm halfway through the speech. He said, “How’d it happen? The alley.”

“Boy,” said Ike, “you’re a real master of subtlety.”

“Fuck subtlety,” said Milo. “Let’s aim for truth.”

The boy’s turn to be startled. Then a genuine smile.

He said, “By the time they told me to meet them in the alley, I’d started to suspect something weird. Latch was too nice. I mean, the guy was an elected official and we were talking about murder, blowing things up. Him being really casual. As if it were no big deal. As if he were still a revolutionary. Not that I ever really trusted him in the first place. Grandma didn’t trust him- said the fact that he’d gone into establishment politics said plenty about him. So when be told me about the meeting, new information, I said sure, faked being all gung-ho. But I was suspicious from the outset.”

“Why down there? In Watts.”

Ike nodded. “Exactly. That bothered me too. Latch’s story was, the source I was going to meet was someone who lived there. From Mom and Dad’s past, the Black Liberation Army. Someone still wanted by the authorities, needed the cover of Watts, couldn’t afford to leave home territory.”

“Latch give you a name?”

“Abdul Malik. But he said that was just a code. He liked codes. Like some kid playing I Spy. I never really bought it.”

“The real reason for Watts,” said Dinwiddie, “was that a black body there wouldn’t cause the police to blink an eye. And that’s exactly what happened, isn’t it?”

Milo ignored that, said to Ike: “So in spite of it smelling bad, you went down there.”

“I had to know what was going on. I figured if they were going to pull something, they’d do it another time, another place. Might as well be prepared, see what was going on. So I showed up early, hid my bike in the next alley, and found a hiding place next to this garage, behind some garbage cans. The bulb was out and that part of the alley was really dark. And rank. Something out of a nightmare.” He grimaced, remembering. “Junkies sneaking in and out, all these low whispers, deals going down, people shooting up, snorting, taking leaks, taking dumps. I started to get scared, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. But as it got later, closer to the time I was supposed to meet this Malik, the action started to slow.”

“When was that?” said Milo.

“About three A.M. I heard somewhere that’s the killing time of day, time the life forces are weak. Hiding in that place, you could really feel it. Everything going dead. Anyway, the junkies and dealers started to go home, only a few stragglers. Real losers nodding off, not caring if they were sitting in dog shit or whatever.”

He gave a sick look. Stopped.

Milo said, “Go on.”

“One of them- one of the stragglers- was about my size. Maybe a little shorter but almost the same size. And really skinny, like me. I noticed him because of that, kind of identified with him, thinking about what led him to get that way, there but for the grace of God, and all that kind of stuff. I mean this guy was really pathetic- totally wasted. Walking back and forth, muttering, stoked on God knows how many different kinds of poison.

“I’m watching him, watching all of this, the smells seem to be getting worse, and the darkness starts to get really heavy- crushing down on me. I know now it was my anxiety. I start thinking anxiety-thoughts, like is someone going to steal my bike and am I going to get stranded here? Who knows who’s out there. Watching. Then the guy they sent to do the job shows up. He’s early too. Half hour early. I can tell ’cause he’s dressed in black, wearing this long black coat even though it’s summer- that’s one thing that tipped me off, though by itself it didn’t mean much. Junkies get cold. But he stepped under a garage light and I saw that he was a white guy. Real cracker face, turned-up pig nose, but with stuff on his face. Greasepaint. To make him look black- like a minstrel act. In the darkness it almost worked. The few junkies who were left never noticed- they just wanted their dope. But I was looking out for it, so I caught it right away.

“This guy just kind of saunters in, walking cool, head-bopping, trying to look as if he belongs there. But overdoing it. Playing black. Then, when he saw no one was paying attention to him, looking at his watch, showing how jumpy he was. I stay behind the garbage cans. Then this tall thin junkie spots him, says, “Yo, bro,” and starts ambling up to him. Talking really slurred- stoned out of his mind. Maybe he was trying to buy or sell or just hitting the white guy up for a handout. The guy in the coat says my name-‘Yo, Malcolm?’ Like that. And the junkie mutters something back, doesn’t say he’s not me, and keeps coming at him. Maybe he even wanted to mug him or something, I don’t know. He was pretty big, must have looked pretty scary to old Whitey. So old Whitey pulls something out of the coat. Sawed-off shotgun. And blasts the tall guy, from right up close- maybe he was two feet away, if that. I could see him fly back, as if he’d been hit by a hurricane. Just fly back and fall. The other stragglers started running- it was weird, no screams, no one talking. Just silent running, like rats. Like they were used to it- this was no big deal. Then the white guy in the coat runs away and I hear a car start at the end of the alley and drive off. I wait awhile, scared out of my mind but knowing I should go over to the junkie, see if there’s anything I can do for him. Even though I know there isn’t- the way he was thrown back, the way he exploded. But finally, I do. When I see what the shotgun did to him I get really sick. For him and also, I guess, because I know this is what they meant for me. I’m dizzy, I feel like throwing up, but I know I’ve got to get out of there before the police show up, so I hold it in. My stomach’s really killing me, churning, I need to go to the bathroom. Then I think of something- some way to take something good out of this. Make the junkie’s life meaningful. I put my hands in his pockets. It’s disgusting- they’re all wet. With blood. And empty except for some pills. No ID. I slip my ID in and split. Hoping the way he looks- what the shotgun did to him- us being around the same size, no one will figure it out. Later, riding away, I get real paranoid about it, start to shake. Tell myself it was the most idiotic thing I could have done. What if they do figure it out? There’s my ID right on the body- I’m cooked. I could be busted for murder. So I call Ted from a pay phone. He gets out of bed and drives me here. And I wait, scared out of my mind. Out here in Nowheresville. For the cops to come looking for me. For Latch’s Nazis to come looking for me. The next day the cops do come around talking to Grandma, asking about my involvement with dope. Accepting the dead body as me. So I’m officially dead.” Smile. “Never thought it would feel so good.”

The smile faded. “But I can’t stop thinking about the junkie. His dying for me. Like the Azazel goat in the Bible- almost as if he were my Jesus. If I believed in Jesus. I think about the fact that he was someone’s little kid once. Maybe someone loved him; now no one will ever know what happened to him. Then I rationalize it, saying it wouldn’t make him any more alive to tell the story. The way he was- so far gone- probably everyone who’d once loved him had given up on him.”

Looking to us for confirmation. I gave a supportive smile and nodded. Milo nodded too.

The boy clenched and opened his hands. Blinked. Wiped his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was small and tight.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Holly. Another sacrifice. But I had no idea she’d do what she did- it wasn’t as if the two of us were confidants or anything. I felt sorry for her, so lonely, so closed in, that father who treated her like a slave. If I had known, I would have called her, warned her not to do anything stupid.”

Milo said, “What did the two of you talk about, son?” Using the voice I’d heard him use with victims.

“Things,” said the boy. Wretched. “All kinds of things. She didn’t talk much herself- she wasn’t very bright, just a step above retarded, really. So I did all the talking. I had to do all the talking.”

He held his hands out, supplicating. Zeroing in on Milo. Wanting a cop’s forgiveness.

Milo said, “Absolutely. If you didn’t talk, it would have been like treating her the way everyone else did. Shutting her out.”

“Exactly! Shining her on- everyone shined her on, treated her like some kind of subhuman creature. Even that father of hers, going around doing his own thing with his computers, pretending she didn’t exist. She told me that, told me how he expected her to do his housework. His scutwork. For no money. After we got to know each other she said her dad had been in the army, a general or something. Demanded everything perfect. That she could never be perfect, so she knew he’d never like her.”

“Ever meet the father?” said Milo.

“Just in passing. He walked by me once or twice. Pretending I didn’t exist. Whether it was racism or just the way he was, I didn’t know. Until Ted told me.”

He looked at Dinwiddie and our eyes followed.

The grocer looked uncomfortable. “What I told him is that Burden was strange, to be careful. The whole family was strange.”

“And the other stuff,” Ike said softly.

“Rumors,” said Dinwiddie. “About Burden having been some kind of government spy- rumors that were going around back when I was in high school. We used to ask Howard about it. He always said he didn’t know, but no one believed him- why wouldn’t he know about his own father? We figured he was hedging. This was the sixties- it was uncool to be military. Not that I really believed it. But I just wanted Ike to know that he was dealing with a possible risk factor. So as not to get into trouble.”

“You wanted to make sure I didn’t sleep with her,” said Ike, smiling. Without malice. “Which is cool- that would have been stupid. But there was never any chance of that. It wasn’t… She wasn’t like that- wasn’t feminine. More like a kid. Gullible. It would have been like sleeping with a kid. Perverted.”

Milo nodded again and said, “How much detail did you give her? About Wannsee?”

“More than I realized, I guess. When I’d come over there, she’d be so happy to see me- set out food, start to make a big deal about it. I was the only one who gave her any attention. So I guess I just kind of went on. Talking my head off.”

“You mention Latch’s name?”

He looked down. Muttered something that passed for “Uh-huh.”

“And Massengil’s?”

“All of it.” Still downcast and muttering. He looked up suddenly, wet-eyed again. “I had no idea she was really listening! Half the time she was so spaced-out I felt like I was talking to a wall! Talking to myself! Almost a stream of consciousness thing, just letting it all out. I don’t even remember what I told her, how much I told her. If I’da known…” He broke off, shook his head. Wept. Dinwiddie went over to him and patted his shoulder.

Milo waited a long time before saying, “It wasn’t your fault.”

The thin brown face shot up like a jack-in-the-box. “No. Nothing like that. Whose fault was it?”

“You want to torture yourself with guilt, son, wait until you’re a bit older. After you’ve given yourself some good reason.”

Ike stared at him. Dried his eyes. “You’re weird, man. For a cop. What is it you want from me?”

“That’s up to you,” said Milo. “Latch and Ahlward and a bunch of the others are dead. Mrs. Latch is being looked into. But quite a few of them- too many of them- survived. We’ve got very little to hold them on- nothing that’ll do serious damage in terms of jail time. And maybe that’s no big deal. They’re all a bunch of sheep- with the leaders gone they’ll forget politics, go into real estate or growing dope or writing screenplays, whatever. But maybe not.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you were an eyewitness to a homicide. Maybe you saw enough of the asshole in the coat to be able to match him up to a face. Match that pig nose. If you don’t want to bother, I understand. You can’t buy beer legally and you’ve been through ten lifetimes’ worth of shit. You still don’t trust anyone, know who’s right, who’s wrong. But if you can ID him, there’s a chance we can put the Nazi flick away, get some of the others for conspiracy, Get them really seared. And talking.”

“That’s it?” said the boy. “Match a face?”

“’Course not,” said Milo. “If you do get a match, there’ll be depositions, subpoenas, the whole legal ball of twine. If it gets that far the Police Department will offer you protection, but the truth is, that can be kind of half-assed. So I’ll protect you myself. Make sure it’s done right. I’ll also make sure your grandma gets protection. And good medical help. I’ve got close medical connections.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why go to all the bother?”

Milo shrugged. “Part of it’s personal. I’m still plenty pissed at them- what they did to me.” He ran his hand over his face. Removed his baseball cap and scratched his head. Sweat and pressure had turned his hair into something black and oily and sodden. “Also, maybe I’m curious. The way Ted was. How I’d react. Being asked to shock someone.”

He yawned, stretched, put his hat back on. “Anyway, I’m not going to pressure you, son. Tell me to forget it and I drive back to L.A., you go on to your next hidey-hole, sayonara.”

The boy thought for a while. Bit his nails, gnawed his knuckles.

“Match a face? It was a long time ago, pretty dark. What if I can’t?”

“Then it’s bye-bye and good luck.”

“Do I have to see them… him… in person? Or can I just look at some photos?”

“Photos for a start. If you come up with an ID, we’ll do a lineup. With full security. Behind a one-way mirror.”

The boy got up, paced, punched his palm with his other hand. I couldn’t help thinking how much he reminded me of Milo. Wrestling. Always wrestling.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll look at your photos. When?”

“Right now,” said Milo. “If you’re ready. I’ve got stuff in the car.”