Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

“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.”