Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

“Very interesting.” I held it out to Burden.

He shook his head. “Keep it, Doctor. My compliments. You’ve been receiving it for five months but haven’t ordered anything yet. Perhaps a closer look will change your mind.”

The catalogue went into my jacket pocket.

I said, “Quite an eclectic collection.”

He responded with all the hesitation of a rodeo bull let out of the stall. “My brainchild. I was in the army just after Korea. Cryptography and decoding and computer technology- the infancy of the Computer Age. After discharge I went to Washington, D.C., and worked for the Census Bureau. We were just starting to computerize- the old days of clunky mainframes and IBM cards. I met my wife there. She was a very bright woman. Mathematician. Master’s degree. I’m self-taught, never finished high school, but I ended up being her mentor. All those years working with statistics and demographic patterns, we got a good fix on shifting population masses, trends, how people in different regions and social strata differ in their purchasing patterns. The predictive power of residential variables. When ZIP codes came into being it was beautiful- such simplification. And now the new sub-codes make it even easier.”

He sat down in one of the secretary chairs, made a half whirl, and spun back.

“The beauty of it, Doctor- of the informational age- is that things can be done so simply. When I left public service, I adapted my knowledge to the business world. Given my excellent typing skills combined with programming ability, I’m a corporation to myself- don’t even need a secretary. Just a few toll-free lines, several free-lance operators working from home stations, and a few privately contracted printers in various locations around the country. I interface with all of them by modem. No inventory or warehousing costs- because there’s no inventory at all. The consumer gets the catalogue and makes his or her choice. The operators take the order, communicate it immediately to the manufacturer. The manufacturer sends the product directly to the consumer. Upon delivery confirmation, the manufacturer’s hired for retail markup- my fee for facilitating.”

“Electronic middleman.”

“Yes. Exactly. The advanced state of my technology allows me to be extremely flexible. I can add and delete products based on sales performance, alter copy, and produce highly focused mail-outs within a twenty-four-hour period. I’ve even begun experimenting with an automated operator system- pretaped messages combined with voice-activated pauses: The tape waits until the consumer’s finished talking, then talks back in perfectly modulated, grammatical, regionless English. So one day I may not need any employees at all. The ultimate cottage industry.”

“Who’s Graff?”

“A model. I got him through a New York agency. You’ll notice he’s designated as Chief Consulting Officer- a title that’s meaningless from a legal point of view. I’m the President and Chief Executive Officer. I went through hundreds of photos before picking him. My marketing research told me exactly what I was looking for: youthful vitality combined with authority- a beard works very well for the latter, as long as it’s short and neat. The mustache implies generosity. The surname Graff was chosen because upscale consumers respect anything Teutonic- regard it as efficient, intelligent, and reliable. But only up to a point. A forename like Helmut or Wilhelm wouldn’t have done. Too German. Too foreign. ‘Gregory’ scores high on the likability scale. All-American. Greg. He’s one of the boys, with Teutonic ancestry. A great athlete, smartest boy on the block- but someone you like. My research shows that many people assume he has a graduate degree- usually law or an M.B.A. The button-down shirt communicates stability; the tie, affluence; and the suspenders provide a flair- creativity. He’s a man you believe in, instinctively. Aggressive and goal-oriented but not hostile, dependable but not stodgy. And concerned. Humanistic. Humanism is important to my target consumers- feeling charitable. Twice a year I give them the option of donating one percent of their total purchase to a selection of charities. Gregory’s an excellent fund-raiser. People reach deep into their pockets. I’m thinking of franchising him.”

“Sounds very well thought-out.”

“Oh, it is. And very lucrative.”

Emphasizing the last word to let me know he meant megabucks. A cottage industry tycoon.

That didn’t mesh with the worn carpet, the thirty-year-old furniture, the dirty Honda. But I’d met other rich men who didn’t care to show it. Or were afraid to show it and hid behind a Just Plain Folks facade.

Right now he was hiding something else.

I said, “Let’s talk about Holly.”

He looked surprised. “Holly. Of course. Is there anything else you need to know about me?”

The naked narcissism threw me. I’d thought his self-absorption was a means of delaying painful questions. Now, I wasn’t sure.

I said, “I’m sure I’ll have lots of questions about all your family members, Mr. Burden. But right now I’d like to see Holly’s room.”

“Her room. Makes sense. Absolutely.”

We left the office. He opened a door across the hall. More notepaper walls. Two windows, covered by Venetian blinds. A thin mattress lay on the floor, parallel to a low wooden bedframe. The mattress had been slit open in several places, the ticking peeled back, the foam scooped out in handfuls. A crumpled ball of white bed sheet lay rolled in one corner. Nearby was a pillow that had also been slit and sat in a pool of foam chunks. The only other furniture was a pressed-wood three-drawer dresser below an oval mirror. The mirror glass was finger-smudged. The dresser drawers were pulled open. Some clothing- cotton undergarments and cheap blouses- remained inside. Other garments had been removed and piled on the floor. Atop the dresser sat a plastic clock radio. Its beaverboard back had been removed and it had been gutted, parts spread across the wood.

“Compliments of the police,” said Burden.

I looked past the disarray, saw the sparseness that had pre-existed any police intrusion. “What did they take with them?”

“Not a thing. They were after diaries, any sort of written record, but she never kept any. I kept telling them that but they just went in and pillaged.”

“Did they say you were allowed to clean it?”

He fingered his eyeglasses. “I don’t know. I suppose they did.” He bent and picked a piece of foam from the floor. Rolled it between his fingers and drew himself up a bit.

“Holly used to do most of the cleaning. Twice a year I’d bring a professional crew in, but she did it the rest of the time. She liked it, was very good at it. I guess I’m still expecting her to… walk right in with a dustrag and start tidying.”

His voice broke and he walked quickly to the door. “Please excuse me. Take as long as you like.”

I let him go and turned my attention back to the room, trying to conjure the place as it had been when Holly had been alive.

Not much to work with. Those white walls- no nails or brackets, not a single hole or darkened square. Young girls typically used their walls as plaster notebooks. Holly had never hung a picture, never tacked a pennant, never softened her life with rock-poster rebellion or calendar imagery.

What had she dreamed about?

I kept searching for some sign of personal imprint but found none. The room was cell-like, assertively barren.

Did her father realize this wasn’t right?

I recalled the back room, barren except for his toys.

His own place of refuge, cold as a glacier.

Emptiness as a family style?

Daughter as charwoman, handmaiden to the cottage tycoon?