The Bomb Maker's Son (13 page)

“Harriet, why would you mess with a cop?” I ask.

She stands and looks at me, her lips sculpted into a good-natured smile. Her hair is up in a careless bun. There’s a playful aura about her that I thought was a victim of the Sanctified Assembly’s sterile righteousness. “That man was rude to me. He asked me for identification. Government oppression, invasion of privacy, pure and simple.”

“Do you even carry identification?”

“Sit down and tell us how your day went,” she says. “You spoke with some witnesses.”

“Why would you ever reveal that?” I ask Holzner. “What I do for your case is confidential.”

“I have nothing to hide from Harriet,” he says. “But speaking of hiding, I had no idea you suffered from stage fright.”

“You told him that?” I say.

My mother blushes ever so slightly.

“I wheedled it out of her,” he says. “As good as you were in court yesterday, you seemed a little . . . let’s call it
affectless
. I worried it was drugs. It turns out it
was
drugs, though I guess you really need them.”

“You had no right, Harriet.”

“I had every right as your mother to tell your father about your affliction. As his attorney, you had an ethical duty to inform him. If you’d only try to cleanse yourself in the celestial waters, what you call stage fright, but what is actually a manifestation of cellular impurities of your limbic system, would soon . . .”

She stops talking when I shake my head, because I’m sure she expects me to call her on her Assembly-speak, and I almost do, almost respond that I’ll pass on the religious cant and just stock up on Smart-water and tofu. Not this time. Maybe at long last I’m weary of the whole debate.

“You saw Carol Diaz,” Holzner says. “How is she?” There’s a slight vocal crack, a subtle show of restraint.

“She’s retiring at the end of this year.”

“She’s an old lady, just like I’m an old man,” he says.

“Who’s Carol Diaz?” Harriet asks.

“My best friend as a kid.”

“They grew up on the same street together,” I say. “She’s currently the principal of Playa Delta High School.”

“A nice person who’s shouldn’t have been dragged into my problems,” Holzner says. “Why did you bother her?”

“Moses Dworsky suggested it. He also found Barney Kinsella.”

“Kinsella was an asshole.”

“And I talked to Gladdie Giddens. She told me that you grew up with her son.”

He shows no emotion at all, only utters a flat, “I didn’t know him very well. He was Jerry’s age.”

“She claims to have seen you at the VA the morning of the bombing.”

“Old news. FBI misconduct in showing her my photo. They suggested to her that I did it.”

Not a bad defense posture to take. Of course, he’s had a long time to craft his own legal arguments.

“So Diaz told me you broke a school window with a trash can,” I say. “Did it stop the war?”

“Oh, Parky,” Harriet says. “This sarcasm won’t—”

“It absolutely stopped the war,” he says. “That and thousands of other small but significant acts of rebellion against an oppressive government. The school window was a great start.”

“Diaz also said that she was afraid of your brother, Jerry. That he was a hoodlum and a creep around girls.”

“My mother wasn’t kind to him,” he says. “Jerry had some limitations. He had to be tough. No, that’s not right—he had to
act
tough. He never hurt anyone, just tried to survive.”

“Barney Kinsella says you loved explosives. That you made a bomb from gun cotton. I didn’t even know what that was until I looked it up on
Wikipedia
.”

He laughs. “Powerful stuff. Better than fireworks. It doesn’t really explode, it creates a flash fire.”

“You think it was funny? Kinsella says you used the stuff to try to kill his cat.”

He recalls the moment without an iota of hesitation. “Barney has it backwards. He hated the cat, it hissed at him, scratched him, and still his mother made him feed it. He said he wanted the cat dead. I thought he was joking. The cat wasn’t in any danger, anyway. She was smarter than Barney. The experiment—and that’s what it was—didn’t hurt anything. These days they teach you to make the stuff on YouTube.”

“Both Diaz and Kinsella said you berated them about their position on the Vietnam War.”

“Barney was a fascist and Carol a liberal. And yeah, I screamed at them. That’s who I was. I thought I could get people to do the right thing by shouting at them.”

“Or bombing them.”

I expect Harriet to chide me again, but she doesn’t. She just primps her hair, sucks in her lower lip, and looks at us as if she’s a front-row mourner at a funeral.

“Tell me about Alicia Bowers,” I say.

“A little kid who lived down the block,” he says. “Crazy father who was a POW in World War Two. He showed me what war could do to the common man.”

“She had a crush on you. Years later, someone saw her on the podium with you during one of your protest rallies at UCLA.”

“She had a crush on me because I threatened to kick some kids’ asses when they were teasing her,” he says. “As for the rally, who remembers? A lot of people wanted to be around me. I was a celebrity. You know what that’s like, Parker. But Alicia wasn’t involved in the movement, as far as I know. Anything else?”

I shake my head.

He gets up, tenderly places his hand over Harriet’s, and then goes down the hall and disappears into his bedroom.

Harriet stands, walks over to me, and puts her arm around me. I fight the urge to recoil, not in disgust but in shock, because I can’t recall the last time she touched me with affection.

“He’s a good man,” she says.

“That’s what you’ve always said about Bradley Kelly despite his crimes against nature.”

“Leave that alone for once,” she says. “Anyway, this is different. Your father might’ve made mistakes, but he isn’t a bad man.”

I’m about to argue with her until I notice the tears in her eyes. Another shock—Quiana Gottschalk, divine prophet of the Sanctified Assembly, doesn’t cry.

What is it about Ian Holzner that makes her behave like someone else? She’s never acted like this with any man, not even Kelly, who was more of a partner in a perverse business venture than a paramour. Could Holzner really be the love of her life? Before Holzner showed up, I didn’t believe my mother could truly love anyone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Our best defense is that, if Holzner didn’t bomb the Playa Delta VA, Rachel O’Brien did. So where the hell is she? Is she even alive? If so, has she gone far away, or is she near and just concealed by that most effective of camouflages, ordinariness?

Moses Dworsky told us he lost touch with her in 1983, after she won parole and moved back to the Bay Area. Her family disowned her, so they’re of no help. Reddick claims the FBI can’t find O’Brien, either. I believe her, because O’Brien would be the US Attorney’s key witness. Lovely’s theory is that O’Brien went into the witness-protection program, maybe to hide from the mysterious bomber JB. It’s speculation, but I never discount what Lovely has to say.

Holzner continues to live like a monk, taking meals in his room and meditating for hours. The already-gaunt man is becoming emaciated, his face taking on a bony, angular, almost Lincolnesque quality. And yet he does hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups per day. At sixty-five, he’s in far better shape than I am. The only thing he’s asked me for is a chinning bar that he can mount in the doorway.

I’ve stopped asking him about O’Brien or the other members of his collective. I’m tired of the stock answer
I don’t know what happened
, sick of his misplaced honor among criminals, disgusted by his conviction that there’s nobility in shielding murderers.

Or maybe he won’t name anyone else because he’s guilty.

Although it’s October, the Santa Ana winds have heated the coast to a temperature that bears no relationship to the concept of autumn. The days are oppressive, but the nights are balmy, such that Lovely Diamond and I can share dinner on the balcony of my condo. Her blond hair falls insouciantly down to her shoulders, and she’s dressed in a Juicy Couture cerulean tracksuit. On an ordinary day, her clothing would’ve kept her warm in the cool sea breeze, but on this night, the winds sweep in hot from the desert, so her cheeks are rosy, like they were when we’d make love. She seems indifferent to the candlelight, neither buying into the romance nor retreating from the implications. My cooking skills might be rudimentary, but hers are nonexistent. I’ve made penne arrabbiata with grilled chicken strips, which I serve with an aged Amarone that a grateful client gave me five years ago.

The last thing I want to talk about is the Holzner case, but that’s all she wants to talk about.

“We should do to O’Brien what she did to him—blame her
in
absentia
. She’s not going to show up as a witness, so we can say what we want about her.”

“What if she testifies in rebuttal?”

“I worked for the US Attorney’s office. Reddick wouldn’t be foolish enough to hold O’Brien back.”

“You only worked there for a little over a year, and that was for Reddick’s predecessor.”

“I talked to Lou about it.”

“I don’t care what Frantz thinks.”

“You should. Speaking of which, you’re supposed to be consulting with him.”

“Whatever.”

“Lou agrees that Marilee Reddick wouldn’t hold O’Brien for rebuttal. What if we decided to rest without putting on a defense case? She’d have nothing to rebut and no chance of getting her star witness before the jury. Besides, if Holzner didn’t do it, O’Brien must have, with the help of Hayes and Sedgwick. We’ve got to blame all of them.”

“You won’t do that,” Holzner says from the shadows in a tone so soft and threatening that I suspend my forkful of pasta in midair, inches from my mouth. Lovely flinches so violently that some of her wine spills on her top.

“Damn it,” she says. “I just bought this outfit.”

I look into the dark living room. He’s a silhouette in warrior’s pose—legs spread and slightly bent, arms curved and held away from his body, hands balled up in fists, as if he’s about to assault us.

“Why don’t you come outside where we can see you,” I say.

He joins us, as expressionless as an ancient Greek statue whose face has been eroded by time. Only when he sees Lovely using a napkin and Pellegrino water to try and remove the red stain from her top does his expression change from blank to embarrassed.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says.

“It’s okay.” Her impatient tone makes it clear that it’s not okay. Still dabbing at her top, she turns toward him. “So tell me, Ian. Why shouldn’t we blame Rachel O’Brien for the bombing?”

The wind gusts, dog-howling between the buildings.

“Because she couldn’t build it,” he says. “Neither could any of the others. So no one will believe that defense.”

“O’Brien was smart,” I say. “So was Sedgwick. It wasn’t that hard to cobble together a bomb.”

“Not the way I built them. Rachel was a sociology major. Charlie studied philosophy, and Brenda Hayes could hardly write her name.”

“Did you build the bomb, Ian?” Lovely asks.

“Of course not.”

“Then who did?” I ask.

He stands up. “You will
not
argue that one of the others built the bomb.”

“One of them must have planted the bomb,” I say.

“Feel free to argue that,” he says and then turns and walks back into the living room.

“The problem is we can’t prove it,” I call after him. “Gladdie Giddens will testify she saw
you
at the scene.”

Lovely uses a napkin to take another swipe at the stain on her shirt, then dabs at her mouth. I turn toward the sea and gaze at the illuminated decks of the mega-yachts anchored at the berths, at the lighted masts of the sailboats and skiffs riding the strong adiabatic winds and skittering toward the jetty like overwound toys in a child’s bathtub.

“Talk to him,” she says. “He’s your father.”

“No, he’s our client.”

“He wants you to treat him more like a father than a client. You should. It’ll help the case. And it’s a second chance for both of you.”

“It’s never going to happen.”

“I also dumped my child, and I got him back. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Brighton was ten years old. I’m not.”

“Do you think your father is innocent?”

“I have no idea. It’s not a question that a criminal-defense lawyer should ask.”

“It’s a question a son should ask,” she says. “And for the record, I think he’s innocent.”

“Based on what?”

She reaches over and covers my hand with hers. “Believe your father is innocent, Parker. If not for him, then for you. And for Emily.”

I won’t do it for him or for me. I might do it for Emily.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Belinda Hayes was, during her days in the Holzner-O’Brien Gang, an imperial fuck-up and a profligate. The one time she tried to plant an explosive device to cause property damage to a bank in Venice Beach, California, she buried the bomb so deep that the blast only kicked up some sand. She worked as a stripper and a prostitute. Although she used her earnings to help finance radical causes, her brazen drug abuse and promiscuity drew unwelcome attention to the collective. Unlike her comrades, she didn’t try to escape when the police identified the Holzner-O’Brien Gang as the perpetrators of the Playa Delta bombing. Instead, she remained paralyzed in her filthy apartment, where the FBI found her cowering under a Murphy bed.