Time Bomb (46 page)

“Sounds pretty nuts.”

“So did Hitler, at the beginning. That’s why we investigated the Wannsee Two thing as thoroughly as we’ve ever investigated anything. But we never came up with anything to support it.”

I said, “There was something else in the margin. Crevolin. And a phone number. I called it and got the office of someone named Terry Crevolin, at one of the TV networks.”

“I know Terry!” she said. “He works in development—screening scripts. He worked with us last year on our war-criminal special—
The Hidden.
We won an Emmy.”

“I remember. Did Ike know him?”

“Not as far as I know, but I’m starting to see there were lots of things I didn’t know about Ike.”

“Could they have met at the Center?”

“No. Terry was just here a couple of times, for meetings. And that was last year, months before Ike showed up. Though I suppose there could have been a chance meeting if Terry dropped in without my knowing it. What exactly did Ike write in that book?”

“Wannsee Two?—
the
two
in roman numerals—followed by the word
Possible?
Then
Crevolin again? Maybe.
And Crevolin’s number. It could mean he tried to talk to Crevolin once—about Wannsee Two—hadn’t been able to reach him, and was thinking of trying it again. Any idea why?”

“The only thing that comes to mind is that Terry used to be involved with the New Left—even wrote a book about it. I recall his mentioning that. He seemed kind of embarrassed and proud at the same time. I guess Ike could have seen him as a source, though how Ike would know that, I have no idea.”

“A source on the New Left?”

“Maybe. Certainly not on the Holocaust. Terry wasn’t especially knowledgeable about that until we educated him. You’ve really got my curiosity piqued. If you find out anything useful, please let me know.”

I called the network again and got patched through to Crevolin’s office. He was still out. This time I left my name and said it was about Ike Novato. Then I phoned Milo at the West L.A. station, planning to play Show and Tell. He wasn’t in either. I called his home number, got Rick’s recorded voice on a machine, and recited what I’d learned about Wannsee II. Saying it out loud made me realize it wasn’t much: a dead boy’s exploration of an urban myth.

I searched through the rest of Ike’s books, found no more marginal notes or Wannsee references, and repacked them. It was close to six by the third time I called the network. This time no one answered.

Crevolin again?

Instead of implying Ike had been unsuccessful in reaching the network man, it might mean they’d talked and Crevolin hadn’t given him what he wanted.

But why had Ike believed Crevolin would he helpful?

A New Left veteran. And author.

Perhaps Ike had gotten hold of Crevolin’s book and found something interesting.

I looked at my watch. An hour until I was supposed to pick up Linda.

I called a bookstore in Westwood Village. The clerk checked
Books in Print
and told me no book by anyone named Crevolin was current and the store had no record of ever having stocked it.

“Any idea where I might get hold of it?”

“What’s it about?”

“The New Left, the sixties.”

“Vagabond Books has a big sixties section.”

I knew Vagabond—Westwood Boulevard just above Olympic. Right on the way to Linda’s. A warm, cluttered place with the dusty, easy-browsing feel of a campus-area bookstore, the kind of place L.A. campuses rarely have. I’d bought a few Chandler and MacDonald and Leonard first editions there, some art and psych and poetry books. I looked up the number, called, waited ten rings and was about to hang up when a man answered:

“Vagabond.”

I told him what I was looking for.

“Yup, we have it.”

“Great. I’ll come by right now and pick it up.”

“Sorry, we’re closed.”

“What time do you open tomorrow?”

“Eleven.”

“Okay. See you at eleven.”

“It’s pretty important to you?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You a writer?”

“Researcher.”

“Tell you what: come around through the back, I’ll give it to you for ten bucks.”

I thanked him, did a quick change, and left, picking up Westwood Boulevard at Wilshire and taking it south. I reached the back entrance to the bookstore by 6:25. The door was bolted. After a couple of hard raps, I heard the bolt slide back. A tall lean man in his thirties, with a boyishly handsome face framed by long wavy hair parted in the middle, stood holding a grimy-looking paperback book in one hand. The book’s cover was gray and unmarked. The man wore sneakers and cords and a Harvard sweat shirt. A tenor sax hung from a string around his neck.

He gave a warm smile and said, “I looked for a cleaner one, but this was all we had.”

I said, “No problem. I appreciate your doing this.”

He handed me the book. “Happy research.”

I held out a ten.

“Make it five,” he said, reaching into his pocket and giving me change. “I recognize you now. You’re a good customer, and it’s a ratty copy. Besides, it’s not exactly one of our fast-movers.”

“Bad writing?”

He laughed and fingered some buttons on the sax. “That doesn’t start to describe it. It’s self-published dreck.
Down-right turgid
would be flattery. Also, the guy sold out.”

I opened the book. The title was
Lies
, by T. Crevolin. I turned a page, looked at the name of the publisher. “Rev Press?”

“As in
o-lution.
Pretty clever, huh?”

He raised the sax to his lips, expelled a few blue notes and bent them.

I thanked him again.

He continued to play, blowing harder, raised his eyebrows, and closed the door.

I tossed the book into the trunk of the Seville and drove to Linda’s.

We went to a place in the Los Feliz district that I’d gotten to know during my days at Western Pediatric. Small, Italian, deli case in front, tables in back. Ripe with Romano cheese and garlic sausage, olive loaf and prosciutto, a beautiful brine smell wafting up from open vats of olives.

I ordered a bottle of Chianti Classico that cost more than our dinners combined. Each of us finished a glass before the food came.

I asked how the children were handling Massengil’s murder.

She said, “Pretty well, actually. Most of them didn’t seem to have that clear a picture of who he was. It seems like a pretty remote experience for them. I dealt with the cause and effect thing. Thanks for getting me on the right track.”

She filled my glass, then hers. “Catch the six o’clock news?”

“No.”

“You were right about Massengil—they’re turning him into a saint.
And
Latch’s best friend.”

“Latch?”

“Oh, yeah, center stage. Delivering a eulogy in Council chambers. Going on about how he and
Sam
had
enjoyed
their differences but through it all there’d been a mutual respect, an appreciation for the process of give-and-take, whatever. Then condolences to the widow, a formal proposal to make it a day of official mourning for the beloved leader. The whole thing sounded like a campaign speech.”

“Beloved leader,” I said.

“Everyone loves him now. Even the guy Massengil punched out—DiMarco—had nice things to say.”

“Nothing like death to enhance the old public image.”

“If his corpse were up for reelection, he’d probably win.”

I raised my glass. “What a concept. Suicide as a campaign tactic. The possibilities are fascinating—like adding the post of Official Exhumer to the cabinet.”

Both of us laughed. She said, “Lord, this is grisly. But I’m sorry, I just can’t start liking him because he’s dead. I remember how he used us. And what he liked to do with that call girl. Ugh.”

I said, “Any mention of Dobbs through all of this?”

“Respected psychologist, consultant, et cetera.”

“No mention of his working at the school?”

She nodded. “That was the respected psychologist part. They made it sound as if he’d been treating the kids all along—so much for an informed press. There were also a few questions about a possible connection to the sniping, but Frisk brushed them off with doubletalk: every contingency being investigated, top secret, et cetera, et cetera. Not that any cops’ve been down to talk to us.”

She licked her lips. “Then Latch goes out in front of City Hall, rolls up his sleeves, and lowers the flag to half-mast himself, looking real solemn. Twenty years ago he was probably burning it.”

“People have short memories,” I said. “He proved that by getting elected. He’s gotten his foothold; now he’s angling for respectability. The Great Conciliator. Combine that with the DeJon concert and the fact that it was his man who saved the day, and he’ll probably go down as the hero in this whole thing.”

She shook her head. “All the stuff they don’t teach you in civics class. When you get down to it, they’re all the same, aren’t they? One big power trip, no matter what they claim they stand for.”

No matter what wing . . .

She said, “What is it, Alex?”

“What’s what?”

“All of a sudden you got this look on your face as if the wine was bad.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said.

“You didn’t look fine.”

Her voice was soft but insistent. I felt pressure around my fingers; she’d taken my hand, was squeezing it.

I said, “Okay. Beady for more weirdness?” I told her about Ike Novato’s research. Wannsee II. The New Con-federation.

She said, “Crazies on both ends putting their heads together. What a lovely thought.”

“The expert at the Holocaust Center doubts it actually took place. And if anyone would know, she would.”

“That’s good,” she said, “because that is
too
weird.”

We both drank wine.

I said, “How’s Matt the car basher working out?”

“No troubles so far. I’ve got him doing scut stuff, wanted to show him who was boss right at the outset. He’s really a meek little kid in an overgrown body. Pretty docile, no social skills. A real follower.”

“Sounds like Holly.”

“Sure does,” she said. “Wonder how many of them like that are out there.”

She let go of my hand. Touched her wineglass but didn’t raise it to her lips. Silence enveloped us. I heard other couples talking. Laughing.

“Move your chair,” she said. “Sit next to me. I want to feel you right next to me.”

I did. The table was narrow and our shoulders touched. She rested her fingers on my knee. I put my arm around her and drew her closer. Her body was taut, resistant. A tremulous, high-frequency hum seemed to course through it.

She said, “Let’s get out of here. Just be by ourselves.”

I threw money on the table, was up in a flash.

As far as I could tell, no one followed us home.

29

We fell asleep holding each other; by six-thirty the next morning we’d shifted to opposite sides of the bed. She opened one eye, rolled back to me, put her leg over my hip, fit me to her, eager for union. But when it was over, she was quick to get out of bed.

I said, “Everything all right?”

“Dandy.” She bent, kissed me full on the lips, pulled away, and went into the shower. By the time I got there she was out, toweling off.

I reached out to hold her. She let me, but just for a moment, then danced away, saying “Busy day.”

She left without eating breakfast. I sensed a reserve—a trace of the old chill?—as if the no-ugliness rule had sheltered us for a few hours, but at the expense of intimacy.

I showered alone, made coffee, and sat down with Terry Crevolin’s book.

Downright turgid
would
be flattery.

The book was full of typos and grammatical errors. If editing had taken place I couldn’t see it. Crevolin had a fondness for two-hundred-word sentences, random italics, creative capitalization, frequent references to “Ottoman manipulation,” “mercantile demonics,” “the new State-Management Bank,” and quotations from Chairman Mao. (“In wars of national liberation, patriotism is applied internationalism.”)

A sample sentence read: “None of the
existent
forms of conscious revolutionary rhetoric or
trans
-cultural
revolutionary activity
thus devised
by
the Labor Discipline and related Labor Vanguards as means of
eliminating
Com-modityism and mercantile
demonics
seem so far able to self-defend against a steadily
diminishing
Proletarian Consciousness fermented by an
anarchic, carnivalous, mirror-gratifying,
and ultimately
dissipated
pseudo-Ideology concurrently
nurtured
by the Power Structure. . . .”

All that and pictures, too—photo-snippets culled from textbooks and magazines, some of them sloppily hand-colored in crayon. Headshots of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and for reasons I couldn’t comprehend, Buddha, Shakespeare, and a rhesus monkey. Cloth-capped workers waiting in bread lines. Byzantine icons. Greek statuary. Dustbowl migrants with faces out of a Woody Guthrie song. The Egyptian pyramids. Butterflies. Two pages of ancient weapons—maces, halberds, long swords. A Sherman tank.

I tried to make some sense of it, but the words passed through me without being digested—literary fiber. My eyes blurred and my head began to hurt. I flipped to the last chapter in hopes of finding a summation, some central message I could make sense of. Something that would tell me why Ike Novato had sought out the author.

What I found was a two-page spread of a crayoned mushroom cloud captioned
BEAR LODGE
,
R.I.P.
,
THE GREATS
. On the next page was a photo-reproduction of a newspaper story from The
New York Times.
April 21, 1971. The word LIES! in large red letters had been hand-printed diagonally over the copy. The red letters were grainy. I read through them.

IDAHO BLAST THE RESULT OF RADICAL BOMB
FACTORY ACCIDENT SAYS FBI

BEAR LODGE, IDAHO
— Federal and local law enforcement authorities in this rural logging community report that an enormous explosion that took place during the early morning hours was the result of the accidental detonation of a cache of high explosives stockpiled by left-wing radicals conspiring to carry out a program of domestic terrorism and violent political protest.