Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

“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.”