Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

Fidel Frantz Rodriguez-Santana, 8 months, of the Bronx, New York, the son of Rodriguez and Santana.

Asked why members of groups such as the Black Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Weathermen, which had been known to have experienced significant ideological differences in the past, had cooperated in assembling the explosives cache, Agent Stowe said, “Our information is that they were trying a unity-is-strength approach. All the major subversive groups have fallen upon hard times. Successful prosecution and imprisonment of leaders and exposure of their true goals have decimated their ranks, and new recruits are rare. The only ones left tend to be hard-core, violent radicals. This appears to have been a last-ditch effort to establish a radical confederation in order to disrupt society and damage lives and property. Because of their violent tendencies, it’s no surprise they ended up this way. Unfortunately, the two children were innocent victims.”

Facing the clipping was a poem surrounded on all sides by a border of dozens of tiny Jesuses on crosses.

BLACK LIES, WHITE LIES

blood on sawdust

rich and warm sweet with purpose

the splinters pierce martyrflesh

fascist sky ironred firered

uglysound

mycountrytis ofthee

mycountryrightorwrong they say

meanwhile spilling the sacramental blood

of

righteous ones

truth the ultimate victim

in their game the ultimate game

win or lose

battle

not the war

my heart bleeds too

rich and warm

for

joe hill

sacco and vanzetti

che

leon

triangle fire girls

thirdworld saints

piglies black and white

together

just the battle

because of red red

blood

power to the people!!!!

The last page was taken up by a photo, a group portrait of twenty or so people standing and kneeling in two rows in front of an ivy-covered brick building. The handwritten caption said, “Berkeley, Feb. 1969. Great bash. Even revolutionaries have to party.”

Arms around shoulders. Smiling faces. The joy of camaraderie. A few pairs of marijuana eyes.

Several heads had been haloed in black crayon- five men, three women. Handwritten names above each.

Thomas Bruckner and Catherine Lockerby stood together in the center of the front row. He, pear-shaped and stooped in a faded work shirt and jeans, with limp brown shoulder-length hair and a thick drooping mustache that obscured the bottom half of his face. She, big, heavily-built, bare-footed, wearing a batik muumuu, with her blond hair drawn back severely. Thin lips yielded reluctantly to mirth. Piercing eyes, strong jaw. In another place, another time, she might have matured to a horsey society woman.

Next to her stood “Tonio” Rodriguez, medium-sized and clean shaven, surprisingly clean-cut, his dark hair shorter than that of the others, side-parted. Button-down shirt and jeans. Eyes hidden behind mirrored Highway Patrol sunglasses. Teresa Santana had her arm around him. She was very short, very thin, wore a black turtleneck and tight jeans. Her long black hair was parted in the middle, framing an oval face with fashion-model cheekbones, almond eyes, full lips. A miniature Joan Baez, but hardened by a life more brutal than show biz.

Mark Grossman and “Big Skitch” Dupree stood on the left side of the second row, only their faces visible. Grossman’s was soft, childish, without much chin. He wore a huge blond Afro and fuzzy muttonchops that made him look out of focus. Dupree’s Afro was more modest. He wore black-framed eyeglasses, had a square, asphalt-colored face and a full beard. No smile. Penetentiary wariness.

To the far right side of the second row were the haloed visages of Norman and Melba Green. Next to Melba was an unhaloed face that I recognized.

Roundish, freckled, an unruly mop of dark hair. Pinched features, round tortoise-shell eyeglasses- the kind the British welfare department used to distribute for free. A skimpy mustache and feathery Vandyke that had the pasted-on look of theatrical costumery. But take away the facial hair, add a few years, and it was the same man I’d run into in a classroom, playing a harmonica. Same man I’d seen introducing a rock star.

Even back then, Gordon Latch had worn a politician’s smile. I stared at his picture for a while, creating hypotheses, running with them, hitting brick walls, trying again, finally turning my attention back to the Greens.

Norman Green had been very tall- from the way he towered over the others, at least six three or four. He had coarse dark hair, parted in the middle and held in place with a leather thong. Roman nose, thick dark eyebrows, long handsome face, rendered Lincolnesque by a bushy, mustacheless beard. Something about the face familiar…

His wife was of medium height, which brought the top of her head to his bicep. Black and pretty but severe-looking, as if preoccupied. She wore a collarless white blouse, ebony bead necklaces, and huge ebony hoop earrings. Haughty smile. Fluffy Afro above a fine-boned oval face. The carved-mask good looks of an African princess. Her face familiar too.

Black woman, white man.

It made me think of something. I turned back pages, to the newspaper clipping.

Malcolm Isaac Green, 2, of Oakland, California.

Seventeen years ago. Seventeen plus two. The time-frame fit.

Hispanic name on a black kid.

I went into the library, scrounged until I found my Spanish-English dictionary.

Page 146: novato m. novice, beginner.

Flip to the English-Spanish side.

Page 94: green adj. verde; novato, inexperto.

I put the book down and got on the phone.

Still unable to reach Milo. Unable to get a bored desk officer at the West Side station to tell me where he was.

Where were the cops when you needed them?

I remembered Judy Baumgartner’s account of her cryptic conversation with lke. Relax your standards. If I was interpreting my dictionary correctly, that made sense. I phoned her again at the Holocaust Center. Her secretary informed me she was out of the office and was cagey about saying more. Remembering what Judy had said about death threats, I didn’t push, but finally managed to convince the secretary that I was legitimate. Then she told me Judy had flown back to Chicago, wasn’t expected back for three days. Did I want to leave a message? Thinking about what kind of message I could leave, I declined and thanked her.

As I hung up, I thought of someone else who’d be able to firm up my theory. I looked up the number of the Beth Shalom Synagogue and dialed it. No one answered. The directory yielded three Sanders, D., only one with no address listed and a Venice exchange. I called it. A woman with an accent similar to the rabbi’s answered. Children’s voices filled the background, along with what sounded like recorded music.

“Rabbi Sanders, please.”

“Who may I say is calling?”

“Alex Delaware. I met him at the synagogue the other day. Along with Detective Sturgis.”

“One moment.”

Sanders came on saying, “Yes, Detective Delaware. Any progress on Sophie?”

“Still an ongoing investigation,” I said. Amazing how easy that came…

“Yes, of course. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a theological question for you, Rabbi. What are Orthodox Judaism’s criteria for determining if someone’s Jewish?”

“Basically, there are two,” he said. “One must either be born to a Jewish mother or undergo a proper conversion. Conversion is predicated upon a course of study.”

“Having a Jewish father wouldn’t be enough?”

“No. Only the Reform Jews have accepted patrilineal descent.”