Time Bomb (31 page)

She said, “Just a nip before dinner.”

“Looks great.” I sat down. She took a place beside me, poured wine, and said, “How about a toast?”

“Let’s see. Things have been pretty nuts lately. So how about: to boredom.”

“Hear, hear.”

We touched glasses and drank.

She said, “So . . . what’s new?”

There was plenty to tell her: Mahlon Burden in his natural habitat, Novato and Gruenberg. Savaged cars. Neo-Nazis in suburbia, a crack alley . . .

I said, “Let’s honor the toast for a little while.”

She laughed and said, “Sure.”

We munched vegetables, drank some more.

“Got something to show you,” she said, got up, and crossed the room toward her bedroom. The jeans showed off her shape. The boots had very high heels and they did something to her walk that convinced me two nights ago had been real.

She came back with a boom box. “Amazing the sound you can get from one of these.”

She set it up on the coffee table, next to the food. “Takes cassettes and compact discs.”

Looking like a kid on Christmas morning, she set the control on battery, pressed
EJECT
, and handed me the compact disc that slid out. Kenny G:
Silhouette.

She said, “I know you like jazz—saxophone. So I thought this might be right. Is it?”

I smiled. “It’s great. That was really nice of you.” I popped the disc back in and pressed
PLAY
.

Sweet soprano sounds filled the small apartment.

She said, “Umm, that’s pretty,” and sat back down. We listened. After a while I put my arm around her. During the brief dead time between the first and second cuts on the disc, we kissed. Gently, with restraint—a deliberate holding back that was mutual.

She pulled away, said, “It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too.” I touched her face, traced her jawline. She closed her eyes and sat back.

We stayed locked in a lovely inertia. Kenny G did his thing. It seemed a personal serenade. After the fourth cut, we forced ourselves up and left.

We went to the galleries, taking in the newer places on La Brea, looking at lots of bad art, a few experiments that succeeded. The last gallery we visited was brand-new and a surprise—older stuff, by L.A. standards. Early twentieth-century works on paper. I found something I wanted and could afford: a George Bellows boxing print, one of the minor ones. I’d missed getting one from the same edition at an auction last year. After some deliberation I bought it and had it wrapped to go.

“Like the fights?” she said as we left the gallery.

“Not in the flesh. But on paper it makes for good composition.”

“Daddy used to take me when I was little. I hated it, all the grunting and the blood. But I was too afraid to tell him.” She smoothed her hair, closed her eyes. “I called him today.”

“How’d it go?”

“Easier than I thought. His . . . wife answered. She was kind of cool. But he actually sounded happy to hear from me. Agreeable—almost too agreeable. Old. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been such a long time or he’s really aged that much. He asked me when I was coming back for a visit. I beat around the bush, didn’t give him a straight answer. Even if I wanted to go back, so much else is going on right now. By the way, I confirmed your parents’ group for tomorrow. Should be a good turnout—” She stopped herself. “Ah, the toast. Viva boredom.”

“Forget the toast if you feel like it.”

“I don’t feel like it,” she said, and put her arm around my waist.

We got to the car. I put the print in the trunk and drove to a place on Melrose: Northern Italian food, seating inside and out on the patio. The night breeze was kind—the sort of caressing warmth that keeps people moving to L.A. despite the phoniness and the madness—and we chose outside. Small lacy trees in straw-covered pots separated the patio from the sidewalk. White lattice partitions had been set up around groupings of tables, affording the illusion of privacy.

The waiter was a pony-tailed recent acting-class graduate playing the part of Solicitous Server and he recited what seemed like an endless list of specials with the hubris of a memory course graduate. The lighting was so dim—just a single covered candle on each table—that we had to lean forward to make out the menus. We were hungry by now and ordered an antipasto, seafood salads, two kinds of veal, and a bottle of Pellegrino water.

Conversation came easily but we stayed faithful to the toast. When the food came, we concentrated on eating. Solicitous wheeled the dessert cart tableside and Linda chose a monumental cream and hazelnut thing that looked as if baking it required a building permit. I ordered a lemon ice. When she was halfway through the pastry, she wiped cream from her lips and said, “I think I can handle reality. Okay if we ditch the boredom pledge?”

“Sure.”

“Then tell me about the Burden girl’s home. What was the father like? Can you talk about it?”

“In terms of confidentiality? Yes. One of the conditions I gave him was that anything I learned could be passed on to you, to the kids, or to the police. But I didn’t learn anything earth-shattering. Just confirmed what I suspected.”

“How so?”

I gave her a synopsis of my visit. She said, “God, he sounds like a real jerk.”

“He’s different, that’s for sure.”

“Different.” She smiled. “Yes, that’s much more professional than
jerk
.”

I laughed.

She said, “See why I wouldn’t make a good therapist? Too judgmental. How do you do it, keeping your feelings from getting in the way?”

“It’s not always easy,” I said. “Especially with someone like him. While interviewing him I realized I didn’t like him, resolved to keep that in the forefront of my mind. Which is what you do. Be aware of your own feelings. Stay aware. Put the patient’s welfare first, keeping yourself in the background. Like an accompanist.”

“You consider him your patient?”

“No. He’s more of a . . . consulting client. The way the court would be, in a custody evaluation. Not that I’m going to be able to tell him what he wants to hear: that she was innocent. If anything, she fits the profile of a mass murderer pretty closely. So my hunch is I’ll probably get fired fairly soon. It’s happened before.”

She put half a hazelnut in her mouth and chewed. Some tension—the intensity—had returned to her face.

I said, “What is it?”

“Nothing. Oh, heck, I just keep thinking about my car. It was the first thing I bought myself when I had money. It looked so sad when they towed it away. They say it’ll live, but surgery will take at least a month. Meanwhile, I’ve got a rental. If I’m lucky, the district won’t hassle me when it comes time to divvy up.”

She pushed her fork around on her dessert plate. The thing that keeps bugging me is: Why
my
little clunker? It was parked on the street with all the others. How’d they know who it belonged to?”

“Someone probably saw you in it.”

“Meaning someone was watching me? Stalking me?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I doubt we’re talking about anything that sophisticated. More likely someone spotted you, knew you were associated with the school, and decided to strike out.”

Opportunism. I knew why the word had leaped into my mind. All this exposure to politics. Ugliness.

“So you think it was someone local?” she said.

“Who knows?”

“Stupid punks,” she said. “I won’t let them dominate my life.”

A moment later, she said, “So what’s my next step? Start toting a gun?” She smiled. “Maybe not such a bad idea after all. Like I told you, I’m a crack shot.”

“Hope I stay on your good side.”

She laughed, looked down at what remained of her dessert. “Want any of this? I’m full.”

I declined, called for the check, and paid Solicitous. As we got up from the table I noticed simultaneous movement from a table on the other side of the lattice. As if we were sitting next to a mirror. The synchrony was so strong that it actually gave a second look to make sure we weren’t. But it was two other people—the vague outlines of a man and a woman. I thought nothing of it as we headed toward the car, but as I drove away from the curb, another car pulled out right behind us and stayed on our tail. I felt my chest tighten, then remembered the similar fantasy I’d had just a few days ago. The paranoia that had caused me to pull off Sunset into the service station.

Brown Toyota. What appeared to be two people. A couple. Absorbed with each other. Now another couple, right behind us, but from the spacing of the headlights, this car was larger. A midsized sedan. No flicker.

Okay. Definitely not the same car. Nothing odd about two couples leaving a restaurant at the same time. And heading this way on Melrose was the logical route for anyone living west of Hancock Park.

Ease up, Delaware.

I looked in the rearview mirror. Headlights. Same ones? The glare prevented me from seeing who was inside.

Ridiculous. I was letting all the talk of plots and counter-plots go to my head.

“What’s wrong?” said Linda.

“Wrong? Nothing.”

“All of a sudden you’re all tensed up. Your shoulders are all crunched.”

The last thing I wanted to do was feed her anxiety. I consciously relaxed, tried to look more casual than I felt. Snuck another glance in the rearview mirror. Different set of headlights, I was pretty sure. A caravan of headlights, stretching for blocks. Typical weekend jam-up on Melrose . . .

“What is it, Alex?”

“Nothing. Really.” I turned off Melrose onto Spaulding and pulled a therapist switcheroo: “How about yourself? Still thinking about the car?”

“Got to admit I’m a little edgy,” she said. “Maybe we should have stuck to the boredom pledge.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I can get you bored again, really quick.” I cleared my throat and put on a whiny, pedagogical tone: “Let’s talk educational theory. The topic of the day is, ahem, curriculum adjustment. Macro- and micro-variables of a variety of contemporary text offerings that contribute to greater, ahem, student participation while holding constant class size, budgetary factors, and the, ahem, cement/asphalt ratio of the surrounding play areas in a suburban school prototype, as defined by—”

“All right, I believe you!”

“—the Harrumph-Pshaw Educational Coercion Act of 1973—”

“Enough!” She was laughing hard.

I looked in the mirror. No headlights. Stretched my arm across the seat and touched her shoulder. She scooted closer, rested a hand on my knee, then removed it. I put it back.

She laughed and said, “Now what?”

“Tired?”

“More like wired.”

“Want to help me hang the print?”

“That kind of like ‘come up and see my etchings’?”

“Same general idea.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm what?”

“Hmm yes.”

I squeezed her shoulder, drove home feeling relaxed. Except for the two dozen times I checked my rearview mirror.

“I love everything about this place,” she said, stretching out on the leather sofa and undoing her hair. “The view, the pond—it’s simple but you’ve done a lot with it. Feels bigger than it is. How long have you been living here?”

“Almost seven years.”

“Out here that just about makes you a homesteader.”

“Got the wagon train out in back,” I said, holding up the Bellows. “How does this look?”

“Little to the left.” She got up. “Here, I’ll hold it. You take a look for yourself.”

We exchanged places.

She said, “What do you think?”

“Perfect.”

I measured, hammered the nail, hung the print, straightened the frame. We returned to the sofa and looked at it.

“Nice,” she said. “That’s a good place for it.”

I kissed her without restraint. Her arms went around me. We clinched till we lost breath. Her hand settled on my fly. Gently squeezing. I began unbuttoning her blouse, got two buttons loose before she said, “Whoa,” and lifted her hand.

“Something the matter?”

She was flushed and her eyes were shiny. “No, nothing . . . It’s just . . . every time we get together, we just
do
it?
Bam?
”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

The white lashes fluttered like down. She took my face in her hands. “You really that chivalrous?”

“Not really. But all that talk about your being a crack shot has me worried.”

She laughed. Turned serious just as quickly. “I just don’t want it to be . . . easy come, easy go. Like everything else in this town.”

“That’s not for me either.”

She looked uncertain, but kissed me again. Deeply. I got into it.

She squirmed.

I backed off. She pulled me closer, held me to her. My heart was racing. Or maybe it was hers.

“You want me,” she said, as if amazed at her own power.

“Oh, yeah.”

A moment passed. I could barely hear the gurgle of the pond.

“Oh, what the heck,” she said, and put her hand back.

21

I heard her get up the next morning at six. She had dressed and was drinking coffee at the kitchen table when I came in half an hour later.

“Blue Monday,” she said.

“Feeling down?”

“Actually, not one bit.” She gazed out the window. “Really love this view.”

I filled a cup and sat down.

She looked at her watch. “When you’re ready, I’ll take a ride back to my place. I want to get to school early, set up your parents for today’s group.”

“How many do you expect?”

“About twenty. Quite a few are Spanish-speaking. I can be your translator but it means I’ve got to clear my desk first.”

“Sounds good.”

“Do you think you’ll need more than one session?”

“Probably not. I’ll be available for individual follow-ups.”

“Great.”

Both of us talking shop, skirting the personal as if it were a dead animal in the middle of the road.

I drank a little more coffee.

She said, “Want any breakfast?”

“Nope. You?”

She shook her head. “How about a rain check, then? I’m a pretty good breakfast cook—nothing Cordon Bleu, just down-home integrity and high quantity.”

“I look forward to making you prove it.”