The Bomb Maker's Son (26 page)

“Meaning?”

“First thing: tell him I’m sorry. I didn’t want to rat him out. Never thought I’d have to. By way of explanation, not excuse, the FBI caught me on tape talking to Charlie Sedgwick about selling dynamite to the Holzner-O’Brien Collective. In exchange for immunity, I agreed to testify against those charged with the Playa Delta incident. I thought I’d never have to, but then Holzner turned himself in. Why would he do that?”

“What do you mean caught you on tape?”

“Just tell Ian I’m sorry.”

“Mr. Goldsmith—”

“Second thing: maybe there’s no apology necessary because I’m not going to testify at trial.”

“I thought tomorrow you were—”

“No.”

“You don’t care about blowing your immunity?”

“I certainly do, and I don’t want to serve prison time, but I care more about my life. Even at my advanced age, continued existence on this planet is very important to me. I’m in reasonably good health and not a religious man.”

“Who’s threatening your life, Mr. Goldsmith?”

He retrieves his cards again, fans them out on the table face down, and dominoes them back and forth. He begins another incessant round of shuffling. “The group is known as the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front. They’re responsible for the Playa Delta bombing, the bombing of the federal courthouse, and in all likelihood the murder of Belinda Hayes.”

I don’t quite believe him. He’s obviously an expert at the sleight of hand. But I’m listening. “Who are they?”

“Rumor was that Rachel O’Brien and Ian Holzner started the organization.”

“Sedgwick? Hayes?”

“Of course not Hayes. She didn’t measure up. I don’t know about Sedgwick. Maybe out of loyalty. The HFLF was formed for efficient acts of terror. Rumor has it.”

“And how do you know this?”

He stacks the cards again and looks at me as if I’m a naïve child. “The recent communiqués are signed by JB. The initials of John Brown, the abolitionist who tried to start a slave insurrection at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, just before the Civil War. He was hanged for treason. Forty years ago the group was a dream of a few, a horror to most, a joke to still others. It percolated through the underground back in seventy-six that the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front bombed Playa Delta.”

“How do you know O’Brien and Holzner—?”

“Rachel was obsessed with John Brown.”

“What about Holzner?”

“He did whatever she wanted.”

Not according to Moses Dworsky, who characterized Holzner as Svengali gone Maoist, seducing innocent girls and radicalizing them so they’d carry out his violent goals.

“And what makes you think this is the same group?” I ask.

“Well, the JB—”

“Forty years later? Pardon me, but you’re all senior citizens.”

“Rumor also has it they’ve recruited a younger generation.”

“Rumor among who? Your movement died just about when Ian Holzner ran away.”

He laughs—cackles in a high pitch, really, like a fairy-tale crone. “You don’t really think all of us turned coffee-klatsch progressive like Ayers and Dohrn, teaching school and idealizing the bad old days? Just because Islamic militants and right-wing extremists have seized the spotlight doesn’t mean the radical left has died. That’s what
deep underground
means. Dormant, waiting. Until now, it seems. As for how I know this? There’s still a robust communications system.”

“Why come to see me with this?” I ask. “Why aren’t you sharing this with the US Attorney.”

“You were an actor as a child.”

I nod.

“I, too, was an actor. I don’t know if anyone told you, Holzner or Dworsky—performance art, caricaturing that evil man Robert McNamara. Before he became secretary of defense, he’d been head of Ford Motor Company, you know. Kennedy appointed a numbers-crunching car salesman as secretary of defense, and Johnson kept him there.”

“What did you want to say, Mr. Goldsmith?”

“Six hours ago, I got a phone call from someone warning me that if I testified against Holzner I’d be brought to judgment like the traitor Belinda Hayes. Blocked caller ID, of course. No idea how he got my phone number. I didn’t recognize the voice. He said his name was Owen Brown. If you know your Civil War history—”

“I don’t.”

“I didn’t either. I had to check the Internet. Owen Brown was John Brown’s son. He escaped capture at Harpers Ferry and lived a fairly long life. But I got the message.”

“Which is?”

He leans in close. There’s an odor on his breath, maybe coming out of his pores, a garlicky-tobacco smell, though for some reason I don’t think he’s a smoker. “You’re making me say it? Certainly. The caller warned that if I testify against Ian Holzner, I’m a dead man.”

“Are you saying Holzner—?”

He looks over his shoulder like a stalked animal sensing danger, then pockets his cards, holds up his hands as if I’m pointing a gun at him, and stands up. His thin lips are turned down in a stiff grimace. He looks back at the front door, which Romulo is in the process of locking.

“Is there a back exit?” he asks.

“Mr. Goldsmith, if you’ll just—”

“A back exit, please.”

I point him toward the back door, which is totally conspicuous. He apparently could only hold his emotions in check for so long, and now he’s about to panic. He hurries away with the rickety gait of an old man whose body will no longer let him run.

Not thirty seconds later, someone pounds loudly on the front entrance. From the frantic hammering, it’s clear that it’s not just someone in need of a late-night caffeine fix. Romulo goes to the door, says something I can’t hear, and shakes his head. There’s shouting from whoever’s outside and more pounding. Two baristas start forward, but Romulo hollers, “Get back and call the cops!” With quivering hands, he reaches for the keys and unlocks the door, which opens slowly. He backs away with his hands in the air, mimicking Goldsmith’s gesture of just moments ago.

Mariko Heim slides inside, wearing her sunglasses, though it’s after eleven o’clock. She’s carrying a gun, black. I know it to be a Glock 22 Gen 3 because that’s what killed my boss Harmon Cherry a few years ago. I don’t know why I looked up the gun on the Internet back then, but I had to see what the weapon looked like. I wish I hadn’t. I get up and approach her.

“What are you doing here?” I say. “The cops are on their way. You’re a Celestial Warrior. They don’t leave messes, and now you have a mess.” My insides have turned gelatinous, but I can’t show weakness in front of her. I can only appeal to the tenets and tactics of her church.

“Where is he?” she says to me.

“Who?”

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, and while I can’t see her eyes, I’m sure she’s rolling them—either that, or deciding whether to start shooting.

“Where is he?” she says again, waving the pistol in the air for emphasis. “Is he still here or did he go out the back?”

“The cops are on their way, lady,” Romulo says.

Again that tiny shake of the head, now combined with an off-kilter gritting of her teeth. She takes a step forward and I flinch, but she hurries past, stops to look in the storeroom, glances back at me with a threatening shake of the head, and goes out the exit through which Goldsmith fled into the alley.

Esther, the female barista who’s been cowering in the corner, breaks down in sobs.

“Jesus, man, what the fuck was that?” Romulo says, breathless.

“That was the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front,” I murmur.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Ninety minutes before this morning’s trial session is to start, Marilee Reddick and I sit in twin government-issue chairs across from Judge Gibson, glaring at each other. I arrived at the courthouse at 7:00 a.m., immediately went to her office, and told her about last night’s encounter with Goldsmith—including his statement that a group called the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front was responsible for both the Playa Delta VA bombing and the recent federal courthouse bombing. I left out Cracknamara’s implication that Ian Holzner is a founder and current member of the HFLF. I have no obligation to walk into the US Attorney’s office and hand her the rope to hang my client with. I also told her about the sudden appearance of Mariko Heim of the Church of the Sanctified Assembly. Reddick says she’ll ask the FBI or the LAPD to check my story out, but she’s clearly not interested. The Sanctified Assembly’s involvement in this bizarre promenade of horrors doesn’t fit the government’s prepackaged theory of the case.

Now, as we face a bleary-eyed Judge Gibson, Reddick is blaming me for Goldsmith’s disappearance.

“Counsel for the defense should be sanctioned,” she says. “Goldsmith is in contempt, and as an officer of the court, Mr. Stern was obligated to do everything in his power to get the witness to honor the subpoena. I believe you should instruct the jury that Mr. Stern encouraged a prosecution witness to flee.”

“That’s absurd,” I say. “I specifically told Goldsmith to talk the US Attorney. He wasn’t buying it. He fears for his life, truly believes this Harpers Ferry group wants to kill him. The FBI should be investigating Mariko Heim and the Sanctified Assembly’s role in all this. Did I mention that Heim was one of the people who killed Belinda Hayes and was trying to kill me? Ms. Reddick is so fixated on Ian Holzner that she forecloses every other possibility. It’s unbecoming of someone in her position.”

“Give me a break, Parker,” Reddick says with a dismissive flap of the hand.

Gibson—in shirtsleeves and a bow tie and sans robe—says, “I’m a judge, not a law-enforcement officer, Mr. Stern. I care about this trial, not about getting the FBI to play cops and robbers with the Church of the Assembly, or whatever it’s called. As for you, Ms. Reddick, there will be no sanctions and no adverse instruction to the jury. I don’t know what you expected Mr. Stern to do. He couldn’t very well horse-collar tackle the man. Well, he could have, but he had no obligation to do it.”

Reddick is about to jump out of her chair, but when Gibson crosses his arms in final judgment, she sits back. “Very well, Your Honor. We’ll proceed with other witnesses.”

I didn’t think she’d be ready with another witness, thought she’d ask for the day off. I’m completely unprepared. “Your Honor, I didn’t get notice of anyone other than Goldsmith,” I say. “I’d request a continuance—”

“No continuance, counsel,” the judge barks. “You’re not going to take advantage of a witness skipping out on a valid subpoena, especially when he did so right from under your
nariz
.”

“I need a name so I can prepare,” I say.

“Get out of my chambers, Stern. You, too, Reddick. I have court business to attend to. You’re not the only fish in the sea.
¡fuera de aquí!
” He picks up a pen and starts scribbling on a legal pad.

When we’re in the empty courtroom, Reddick heads for the exit ahead of me but turns before she opens the door and silently mouths, “You’re an asshole.” As soon as she leaves, Lovely comes into the courtroom, this time followed by a long-striding Lou Frantz, lean and spry for a man in his early seventies. As always, his tie is loose and his shirttails are half out of his slacks, as if this were the end, not the start, of a long day.

“We need to talk,” he says.

“About what?” I address the question to Lovely, and she shakes her head in an apologetic denial.

“Not here,” he says. Of course not—the place is bugged.

We go to the attorneys’ lounge, where he commandeers a conference room, literally ordering two young lawyers to wait outside while we talk. They obviously recognize the great Louis Frantz.

“Lovely told me what happened with Cracknamara,” he says. “I don’t blame you, Stern. But Lovely was already shot at, and she tells me that Goldsmith believes Ian Holzner threatened him. Witness intimidation is a crime, and I’m not going to be part of that, nor is Lovely.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself,” Lovely says. “There isn’t a shred of evidence that Ian was involved.” Not many young associates would use that tone to an omnipotent boss like Lou Frantz.

“So you say,” Frantz replies. “But I want to know what Parker thinks. I want to know if Holzner is still perverting the law, still attacking the justice system. He certainly seems to be with his radical statements and erratic, disrespectful behavior in court.” He has trouble keeping his cannonball voice quiet, and now it’s loud enough to be heard on the other side of the thin walls.

“I don’t think Holzner had anything to do with Goldsmith skipping out,” I say.

“Then who did?”

“Mariko Heim and the Sanctified Assembly,” I say. “She was chasing him last night. And Ian Holzner has been under house arrest in my condo unit for months. I don’t have a landline, and my computer is password protected and always in my possession when I’m not there.”

He regards me with a look of incredulity. “Lovely and I are going to move to withdraw.”

“No, we are not, Louie,” Lovely says.

I don’t know what makes me more jealous—that they’re bickering like an old married couple, that she can so easily control him, or that she called him
Louie
. I would wager the future Screen Actors Guild residuals from all my movies that no one else at his law firm calls him that
.
That she can talk to him that way is also one of the reasons I love and admire her. That’s what jealousy is, I guess—the fear that the loved one will treat other people in a way you want them only to treat you.

“Are we good,
Louie
?” I ask.

“We’re not good,
Parky
, we’re not good at all.”

“Because it’s all academic,” I say. “Carlton Gibson wouldn’t let you withdraw in the middle of trial and you know it. It would result in a mistrial.”

He harrumphs once and crosses his arms. This is one of the premier trial lawyers in America, perhaps the most arrogant, and with good reason—he dominates courtrooms, chooses his clients, helps decide who becomes elected officials. He even has a law-school building named after him. He’s not accustomed to being a backbencher.

“Whom do you think Reddick intends to call to the stand?” I ask. “I can think of only a couple of potential witnesses.”

“Oh my god,” Lovely says. “She’s going to call Rachel O’Brien.”