Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

He handed me the book. “Happy research.”

I held out a ten.

“Make it five,” he said, reaching into his pocket and giving me change. “I recognize you now. You’re a good customer, and it’s a ratty copy. Besides, it’s not exactly one of our fast-movers.”

“Bad writing?”

He laughed and fingered some buttons on the sax. “That doesn’t start to describe it. It’s self-published dreck. Downright turgid would be flattery. Also, the guy sold out.”

I opened the book. The title was Lies , by T. Crevolin. I turned a page, looked at the name of the publisher. “Rev Press?”

“As in o-lution. Pretty clever, huh?”

He raised the sax to his lips, expelled a few blue notes and bent them.

I thanked him again.

He continued to play, blowing harder, raised his eyebrows, and closed the door.

I tossed the book into the trunk of the Seville and drove to Linda’s.

We went to a place in the Los Feliz district that I’d gotten to know during my days at Western Pediatric. Small, Italian, deli case in front, tables in back. Ripe with Romano cheese and garlic sausage, olive loaf and prosciutto, a beautiful brine smell wafting up from open vats of olives.

I ordered a bottle of Chianti Classico that cost more than our dinners combined. Each of us finished a glass before the food came.

I asked how the children were handling Massengil’s murder.

She said, “Pretty well, actually. Most of them didn’t seem to have that clear a picture of who he was. It seems like a pretty remote experience for them. I dealt with the cause and effect thing. Thanks for getting me on the right track.”

She filled my glass, then hers. “Catch the six o’clock news?”

“No.”

“You were right about Massengil- they’re turning him into a saint. And Latch’s best friend.”

“Latch?”

“Oh, yeah, center stage. Delivering a eulogy in Council chambers. Going on about how he and Sam had enjoyed their differences but through it all there’d been a mutual respect, an appreciation for the process of give-and-take, whatever. Then condolences to the widow, a formal proposal to make it a day of official mourning for the beloved leader. The whole thing sounded like a campaign speech.”

“Beloved leader,” I said.

“Everyone loves him now. Even the guy Massengil punched out- DiMarco- had nice things to say.”

“Nothing like death to enhance the old public image.”

“If his corpse were up for reelection, he’d probably win.”

I raised my glass. “What a concept. Suicide as a campaign tactic. The possibilities are fascinating- like adding the post of Official Exhumer to the cabinet.”

Both of us laughed. She said, “Lord, this is grisly. But I’m sorry, I just can’t start liking him because he’s dead. I remember how he used us. And what he liked to do with that call girl. Ugh.”

I said, “Any mention of Dobbs through all of this?”

“Respected psychologist, consultant, et cetera.”

“No mention of his working at the school?”

She nodded. “That was the respected psychologist part. They made it sound as if he’d been treating the kids all along- so much for an informed press. There were also a few questions about a possible connection to the sniping, but Frisk brushed them off with doubletalk: every contingency being investigated, top secret, et cetera, et cetera. Not that any cops’ve been down to talk to us.”

She licked her lips. “Then Latch goes out in front of City Hall, rolls up his sleeves, and lowers the flag to half-mast himself, looking real solemn. Twenty years ago he was probably burning it.”

“People have short memories,” I said. “He proved that by getting elected. He’s gotten his foothold; now he’s angling for respectability. The Great Conciliator. Combine that with the DeJon concert and the fact that it was his man who saved the day, and he’ll probably go down as the hero in this whole thing.”

She shook her head. “All the stuff they don’t teach you in civics class. When you get down to it, they’re all the same, aren’t they? One big power trip, no matter what they claim they stand for.”

No matter what wing…

She said, “What is it, Alex?”

“What’s what?”

“All of a sudden you got this look on your face as if the wine was bad.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said.

“You didn’t look fine.”

Her voice was soft but insistent. I felt pressure around my fingers; she’d taken my hand, was squeezing it.

I said, “Okay. Beady for more weirdness?” I told her about Ike Novato’s research. Wannsee II. The New Confederation.

She said, “Crazies on both ends putting their heads together. What a lovely thought.”

“The expert at the Holocaust Center doubts it actually took place. And if anyone would know, she would.”

“That’s good,” she said, “because that is too weird.”

We both drank wine.

I said, “How’s Matt the car basher working out?”

“No troubles so far. I’ve got him doing scut stuff, wanted to show him who was boss right at the outset. He’s really a meek little kid in an overgrown body. Pretty docile, no social skills. A real follower.”

“Sounds like Holly.”

“Sure does,” she said. “Wonder how many of them like that are out there.”

She let go of my hand. Touched her wineglass but didn’t raise it to her lips. Silence enveloped us. I heard other couples talking. Laughing.

“Move your chair,” she said. “Sit next to me. I want to feel you right next to me.”

I did. The table was narrow and our shoulders touched. She rested her fingers on my knee. I put my arm around her and drew her closer. Her body was taut, resistant. A tremulous, high-frequency hum seemed to course through it.

She said, “Let’s get out of here. Just be by ourselves.”

I threw money on the table, was up in a flash.

As far as I could tell, no one followed us home.

We fell asleep holding each other; by six-thirty the next morning we’d shifted to opposite sides of the bed. She opened one eye, rolled back to me, put her leg over my hip, fit me to her, eager for union. But when it was over, she was quick to get out of bed.

I said, “Everything all right?”

“Dandy.” She bent, kissed me full on the lips, pulled away, and went into the shower. By the time I got there she was out, toweling off.

I reached out to hold her. She let me, but just for a moment, then danced away, saying “Busy day.”

She left without eating breakfast. I sensed a reserve- a trace of the old chill?- as if the no-ugliness rule had sheltered us for a few hours, but at the expense of intimacy.

I showered alone, made coffee, and sat down with Terry Crevolin’s book.

Downright turgid would be flattery.

The book was full of typos and grammatical errors. If editing had taken place I couldn’t see it. Crevolin had a fondness for two-hundred-word sentences, random italics, creative capitalization, frequent references to “Ottoman manipulation,” “mercantile demonics,” “the new State-Management Bank,” and quotations from Chairman Mao. (“In wars of national liberation, patriotism is applied internationalism.”)

A sample sentence read: “None of the existent forms of conscious revolutionary rhetoric or trans cultural revolutionary activity thus devised by the Labor Discipline and related Labor Vanguards as means of eliminating Commodityism and mercantile demonics seem so far able to self-defend against a steadily diminishing Proletarian Consciousness fermented by an anarchic, carnivalous, mirror-gratifying, and ultimately dissipated pseudo-Ideology concurrently nurtured by the Power Structure…”