Time Bomb (58 page)

“Very
good,
” he said. “But actually it went far beyond the phones. I installed listening devices in several locations in and around your house—under furniture and beds. Near the front door. Today’s technology permits incredible ease of installation. I’ve got units no bigger than a grain of rice—though the ones I used for you were larger. Lentil-sized. Self-adhesive. Long-distance, super-high resolution, tunable—”

I said, “Section five. Life and Limb.” Stroking him while realizing all he’d heard. Phone conversations. Pillow talk. The violation . . .

He was my liberator but I didn’t like him any better for it.

Being saved by him was like finding out God existed but that He had a bad personality.

He said, “Actually, these particular components haven’t been featured in the catalogue yet. So you got a sneak preview. I’d be happy to leave them installed, show you how to use them for your own benefit.”

“No thanks.”

“No doubt you’re feeling intruded upon. But monitoring your input and output was necessary. You were my informational conduit. To the school, the police—all of them. No one would help me. Everyone treated me as if I were a pariah. I needed good data—that was my
right.
I knew I had to be thorough. I pretuned the units to receivers in
my
house. Identical receivers were also installed in this van. No one else could possibly receive the transmission, so you needn’t be concerned that anyone else was monitoring you. And the tapes will be destroyed very shortly.”

“I appreciate that.”

Unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. But he missed it or ignored it.

We were on the Sherman Oaks/North Hollywood border now, approaching Coldwater. A few cars on the street. Late diners heading home from the restaurants on Ventura. More lights, then the on-ramp to the 134 West.

He said, “The lentils are manufactured in
Poland,
of all places, though I suppose the actual research and development came out of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and perestroika have been a boon for those of us interested in the free exchange of advanced technology. The distributor in Hong Kong was more than happy to send me a boxful of the little devils at great discount in the hopes that I’d feature them in the next catalogue. It didn’t work out that way, did it, Gregory?”

“No, Mr. B. Too expensive for our target audience.”

“Very expensive—even at discount. But only the best for you, Dr. Delaware. Because I respect you. Your tenac-ity. I had high expectations of the quality of information you’d be able to shunt to me. And I was right, wasn’t I? So I’d say the lentils paid for themselves. As did the homing tracers I placed in your Seville and in Detective Sturgis’s Matador and Fiat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get to the Ford he traded for the Matador, but by that time I had enough data to be able to trace his abduction.”

“What a guy,” said Milo.

No longer hoarse now. Clear and quiet and enraged.

I knew what he was thinking: Burden had let him endure the interrogation. Waiting. Listening.

I said, “Howard was your conduit too. You dropped in on him and waited in his office so you could install your lentils.”

And hear every hateful word his son had spewed.

“Absolutely,” he said. A little too nonchalantly. “Holly’s behavior had been puzzling—distant, preoccupied. Due to her communication problems, I couldn’t draw it out of her. I knew she’d snuck over to Howard’s, both of them thinking I didn’t know about their little attempt at rapport-building. I thought Howard might be able to shed some light on the change in his sister, now that the two of them were
communicating.”

“But you couldn’t simply ask Howard about it, because he also has communication problems.”

“Exactly.”

I remembered the loathing that had filled Howard’s office. How was a father able to deal with that—to defend against it?

I looked over at him. Placid. Blocking it out. Narcissism in service to the soul.

He made a left turn onto the freeway. All six lanes were as empty as Indy the day after the race.

“Howard’s a bright boy,” he said, “but he’s got many, many problems. Blind spots. You saw how obese and ner-vous he is. How he sweats. He gets eczema too. Gastric discomfort and insomnia. Clear signs of unhappiness. Constitutional weakness made worse by a poor attitude toward life. If he’d allowed me, I could have helped him with all of it. Perhaps one day he will. In the meantime, I couldn’t let his weakness get in the way.”

“That’s why you were so eager for me to meet with him. Hoping he might open up to me and you’d get it all on taper.”

He smiled. “More than hope. Data-based prediction. The conversation between the two of you ended up being a very useful transmission.”

“Wannsee Two,” I said. “Howard described how Holly had babbled about that the day her sister-in-law came over. I set out to learn what it meant. You listened and taped and followed along.”

“No, no,” he said, annoyed. “I didn’t need you for that. I was one step ahead of you. I know enough history to understand exactly what
Wannsee
was
.
Vahn-say is the correct pronunciation, of course. Gregory knows about Wannsee too, even though he’s from your generation. Because a good deal of Gregory’s family was eliminated by the Nazis. So when I called and told him we were dealing with Wannsee Two, he was more than eager to get involved in this project. Weren’t you, Gregory?”

“Absolutely, Mr. B.”

“Good ventriloquism,” said Milo. “Where’d you find a dummy this big?”

Graff gave a deep loose laugh.

“Hardly,” said Burden. “Gregory’s got training in electronics and biophysics under his belt, a year of medical school at an Ivy League university, a law degree from that same university, and graduate studies in business.”

Pride. Paternal pride.

His real son
.

I said, “Sounds like a real renaissance man.” One part of my brain thinking about Linda and running at Methedrine pace. Another making small talk, trying to get information from the odd, scary man in the driver’s seat.

“Bet he has military training, too,” I said. “Former intelligence officer, same as you. That’s how you found him, isn’t it? Not some modeling agency. When it was time to recruit a partner, you know precisely where to go.”

“I’m not a partner,” said Graff. “Just a figurehead.” More laughter.

Burden laughed too. The exchange to the 405 appeared. He took it going south, and moved into the center lane, maintaining a steady seventy miles per.

I said, “How about going a little faster.”

He didn’t answer, but the speedometer climbed to seventy-five.

Wanting a hundred but knowing that was all I was going to get, I said, “Here’s another hypothesis: Between the two of you, New Frontiers has access to military computers. Ahlward had a military background. You checked him out.”

“Military background,” said Graff. Bear-growl laughter.

Burden didn’t join in. “He was the
first
one I researched. Before I approached
you
. The press was painting him as some kind of hero. I wanted to learn about the one who actually pulled the trigger. The hero who’d killed my daughter. What I found out smelled bad. He’d lied about being a military man.”

His tone said that was the ultimate felony.

“All he had was seven months in the Marine Corps. April of ’sixty-seven to November of ’sixty-eight. A good part of it in the brig before he was dishonorably discharged for moral turpitude. A closed file that I managed to open. Two separate incidents. Sexual harassment of a sixteen-year-old girl—a black girl—and attempts to organize a white-supremacist gang among other new recruits. It was the latter that made me research him further. After his discharge he enjoyed brief stints in local jails for theft and burglary and disorderly conduct. I decided he was scum, looked into his family history. His father had been a Bundist war criminal. Ran one of their summer camps. Schweiben. Ahlward Senior was imprisoned for sedition in 1944, released in 1947, only to die a year later of cirrhosis. Alcoholic scum. Multigenerational scum. Which led to another question: why would a supposedly liberal-minded city councilman hire someone like that? So I researched the city councilman too. Found nothing there but a piece of lint masquerading as a man. Good family, all the privileges, not a trace of hardship in his background. Not a trace of character either. Addiction to the path of least resistance. Needless to say, he found his way into the latrine we know as politics.”

Angry words but a conversational tone.

“I monitored Latch’s headquarters. Easy as pie, right, Gregory? But that didn’t teach me much. Latch’s people displayed a modicum of discipline—tended to be circumspect over the phone. But you were doing a fine job as my conduit, putting it all together: Novato, the old woman, that pathetic washout Crevolin. For a brief period I thought the vandalization of Ms.—Excuse me—
Dr
. Overstreet’s car was related to it, But Detective Sturgis proved me wrong. Congratulations, Detective.”

“Fuck off and drive.”

“Nevertheless, the rest of it proved what I’d known all along: that my daughter had been a victim herself. A dupe. I put it all together before either of you did. And in answer to the question you asked of Howard, Doctor, my political beliefs are antithetical to fascism. I believe in unrestrained free enterprise, minimal government control. Live and let live. On condition the other side behaves itself.”

“Die and let die,” said Graff. “Never again.”

“Gregory and I had no trouble believing in Wannsee Two. Because of our military background, our access to classified data. We knew what had gone on in various army bases during the late seventies. Racist cells that the armed forces broke up swiftly. But at the cost of discharging the fascists into the weak, civilian world, where irregularities couldn’t be dealt with as efficiently. That insight and experience gave me the edge. I knew from the careful way Latch’s people handled themselves over the phone that there had to be some other place they did their dirty work—a secret headquarters where the swine spoke freely. But they never let on, not through all the monitoring. Then I thought of Latch’s wife. Began tracing properties deeded to her. Burrowing through the layers of corporations she’d wrapped around herself. Piercing that kind of cocoon is absurdly easy if you know how, and I quickly came up with several possibilities—despite the fact that she’s a very well-landed lady. I was in the process of narrowing down the list when you made my job easy. Calling Detective Sturgis last night and leaving him the message about your being followed. That license plate. I have trace capacities better than most police departments—millions of licenses in my data bank. I matched your number to one of my possibilities, a company listed as a printing facility. Gregory and I were there just alter sundown. Saw Detective Sturgis being delivered there. Listening. Show him, Gregory.”

Graff lifted something from the floor of the van. Glass cone with a microphone in the center.

“This is a Stevens Twenty-five-X long-range parabolic microphone,” said Burden. “Good up to two miles.”

I said, “Another sample of Eastern Bloc creativity?”

“Perish the thought,” said Burden. “This one’s all-American.”

“Born in the U.S.A.,” said Graff.

Burden said, “When you arrived, trussed and shackled, Detective Sturgis, we were waiting. You held up nicely. Your own military background, no doubt—quite impressive. Rest assured that had you been in any serious danger, we would have saved you, but we knew from our previous monitoring that they planned to keep you alive, finish both you and the doctor off in a sexually suggestive manner. You, however, had no way of knowing that and you did very well.”

“Aw, shucks,” said Milo.

“I’d suggest,” said Burden, “that you conserve your anger for those who deserve it. For example, why do you think they came after you in the first place, masquerading as FBI?”

Silence from the back.

“Are you truly ignorant, Detective? Or just repressing?”

No answer.

Graff said, “Your own people sold you out. Extremely bad form.”

I said, “Frisk.”

Burden nodded. “Another piece of lint. When he came to interrogate me, the day of the shooting, he actually attempted to install a monitoring device in my living room. Primitive piece of junk. Needless to say, I left it in place. Talked to it, played the cello for it. Leading Frisk exactly where I wanted to lead him: in circles. Because he’s a moron, I could see right away there’d be no use working with him. The next time I saw him at his office, I returned the favor. So I have a very clear picture of what he’s been up to. And it’s nothing I would tolerate if I were you, Detective.”

“Polish lentils at Parker Center?” said Milo.

“Our vaunted Anti-Terrorist Division,” said Burden. “If it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny, the incompetence. You see, Latch and company have been under investigation for quite some time. But not for the right reasons. Frisk hasn’t the slightest inkling, no suspicions about Wannsee Two.
He
suspects Latch of being a communist subversive, an unrepentant left-winger—because Latch’s political enemies have been feeding him that.”

“Massengil?” I said.

“Among others. The late assemblyman was a prime source of disinformation on Latch, because he knew Latch had designs on his job. Dr. Dobbs helped him compose little false reports of Latch’s supposed subversive activities. Dr. Dobbs actually made direct phone calls to Frisk. Using a code name. Santa. Talking on pay phones. All of it very malicious and childish. Cinematic cloak-and-dagger nonsense. But our Lieutenant Frisk took it very seriously. Compiled a file on Latch—a classified file.”

Chuckles. Echoed by Graff.

I said, “Why didn’t he move against Latch?”

“He considered it,” said Burden. “I have recordings of him talking to his dictaphone, thinking out loud, considering his options. Playing every angle against the other, ruminating endlessly. But he was afraid to confront Latch without solid evidence, yet unable to get any evidence, because A, he didn’t know how, and B, the whole thing was a sham. The man really is incredibly stupid. That’s why he was so eager to take over the Massengil murder. He suspected Latch might be behind it—this would be his big chance. And he was right.”