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  I said, “Did you run into any problems having him work here? Given the attitudes you described.”

  “Not really. People will accept blacks in relatively menial positions.”

  Milo said, “Do you still have his job application on file?”

  “No.”

  “Remember his address?”

  “Venice. One of the numbered streets, Fourth Avenue or Fifth, I think. The landlady’s name was Gruenberg.”

  Milo wrote it down. “What about a picture?”

  Dinwiddie hesitated, opened a drawer, took out a color snapshot, and handed it to Milo. I craned and got a look at it. Group photo. Dinwiddie, the two cashiers out front, and a tall, lanky, mocha-colored young man, posed in front of the market, waving. Everyone wearing green aprons.

  Ike Novato had light-brown kinky hair cut short, full lips, almond eyes, and a Roman nose. The stooped posture of one who’d reached full height early. Big, awkward-looking hands, shy smile.

  “This was taken last Fourth of July,” said Dinwiddie. “We always throw a big party for the local kids. Safe and Sane Celebration. Free candy and soda instead of fireworks. One of the parents brought a camera and took it.”

  Milo said, “Can I borrow this?”

  Dinwiddie said, “Guess so. Are you saying there’s some connection between Ike and what happened at the school?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Milo said.

  “I can’t see that,” Dinwiddie said.

  I said, “Were there any problems with his doing deliveries? Having him come into people’s houses?”

  Dinwiddie’s right hand curled into a fist. Mounds of muscle and sinew appeared along the massive forearm. “In the beginning there were a few comments. I ignored them and eventually they stopped. Even a stone racist could see what a decent kid he was.” He tightened his other hand. “Chalk up one puny point for truth and justice, huh? But at the time I thought I was doing something important—making a stand. Then he goes down to Watts and gets shot. I’m sorry, hut it still makes me angry. The whole thing was depressing.”

  “Any other reason for him to be down in Watts?” said Milo.

  “That was Detective Smith’s point. The street where he was shot was a notorious crack alley—why else would he be there except to make a deal? But I still have my doubts. Ike told me more than once how much he hated drugs, how drugs had destroyed his people. Maybe he was down there to catch a pusher.”

  “His people,” said Milo. “Thought he had no family.”

  “I’m speaking generically, Detective. The black nation. And your Smith’s the one who told me there was no family. He said they ran Ike’s fingerprints through all the police files—missing kids, whatever—and nothing turned up. Said Ike had applied for his Social Security card only a few months before working for me. They had no record of any previous address. He told me it would be a Potter’s Field situation if no one came forth and claimed the body.” Wince. “So I took him home.”

  “What did the boy tell you about his background?”

  “Not much. We didn’t have extended discussions—it was a work situation. I got the impression he’d had a good education because he was pretty articulate. But we never went into detail. The name of the game around here is hustle, hustle, hustle.”

  “You never asked him for references?”

  “He came from the college—they screen them there. And his landlady said he was reliable.”

  “Have you talked to the landlady since his death?”

  “Just once. Over the phone. I asked her if she knew anything about his family. She didn’t either. So I took care of everything. Did what I could. I figured cremation would be... I don’t know, cleaner. Ecologically. That’s what I want for myself.”

  He raised his hands and let them settle on the desk. “And that’s about all I can tell you, gentlemen.”

  Milo said, “What was the relationship between him and Holly?”

  “Relationship?” Dinwiddie grimaced. “Nothing romantic, if that’s what you’re getting at. He was on a completely different level than she was. Intellectually. There’d be nothing in common between the two of them.”

  “We’ve been told he was her boyfriend.”

  “Then you’ve been misinformed,” Dinwiddie said, clipping his words. “Ocean Heights is flap-jaw capital of the world—too many small-minded people with too much leisure time. Take anything you hear around here with a container of salt. Iodized or otherwise.”

  Milo said, “We’ve been informed that Ike and Holly used to talk.”

  Dinwiddie’s hand rose to his tie and loosened it. “What Ike did tell me,” he said, “is that when he went to deliver to her house, occasionally they’d strike up a conversation. He said she was lonely. He felt sorry for her and took the time to make her feel good about herself—he was that kind of kid. She started preparing things for him—milk and cookies. Tried to keep him there. Which was really un-usual for Holly—she never wanted to talk to anyone. I told Ike how unusual that was and I warned him.”

  “About what?” said Milo.

  “The sexual thing, her developing a crush on him. You know the fantasies people have about blacks—all the hypersexual nonsense. Put black and white together and everyone assumes it’s something dirty. Add to that the fact that Holly wasn’t psychologically normal and the risk of trouble was definitely something to worry about. To Ike’s mind he was just being friendly—the way you’d be to a needy child. But I could see her reading more into his friendliness than he’d intended. Coming on to him, getting rejected, and screaming rape. So I advised him to be careful. For all of our sakes.”

  “Did he listen to you?”

  Dinwiddie shook his head. “He thought I was worrying over nothing, assured me there was no danger of anything happening—Holly never got seductive. That all she wanted was a friend. What could I say to that? That he should reject her? Because she was white? What would that have said to him?”

  Neither of us answered. Dinwiddie kept talking, in a low, deliberate tone, as if unaware of our presence. “One time I was driving home, doing a delivery that took me past the Burden house, and saw the two of them out in front. Ike was holding a bunch of books and Holly was looking up at him as if he were some kind of big brother. She and Howard had never been close. Ike looked more brotherly with her than Howard ever had. I remember thinking how strange it looked—a white kid and a black kid actually communicating. In Ocean Heights. It could have been a poster for tolerance. Then I thought how stupid it was that something as simple as that would be strange.”

  He punched a button on his calculator, studied the number that came up as if it were a puzzle.

  “They were just a couple of kids,” he said. “Trying to get through life. And now they’re both gone. And I’ve got a special on asparagus.”

  16

  He walked us out through the market. Business had slowed and the chubby cashier stood idle. I lifted a large yellow apple from its crepe bed and handed it to her along with a dollar bill. Before she could open her register, Dinwiddie said, “Forget it, Karen,” and removed the bill from between her fingers. Handing it back to me, he said, “On the house, Dr. Delaware. And here’s one for you, Detective.”

  “Can’t take gifts,” said Milo. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Then here’s two for Dr. Delaware.” Smiling but intense. I thanked him and took the fruit. He held the door open for us and stood on the sidewalk, next to a fichus mushroom, gazing after us as we drove away.

  I cruised down Abundancia and came to a stop sign. There was a small golden sticker on each apple. Milo removed his, read it, and said, “Fiji. Hoo-hah, watch out, Gauguin.”

  I said, “That was Tahiti.”

  He said, “Don’t nitpick,” bit, chewed, swallowed. “A bit presumptuous, but fine nose and texture. These Ocean Heights folks sure know how to live.”

  I said, “Let’s hear it for the good life,” lifted my own apple like a toast glass, and took a bit
e. Crisp and sweet, but I kept expecting a worm to wiggle out.

  I drove through the empty, picture-perfect streets. At the next stop sign Milo said, “So. What’d you think of El Grocero?”

  “Frustrated. Likes to think of himself as a fish out of water but feels guilty about keeping his gills wet.”

  “Know the feeling,” said Milo, and I regretted the flippancy of my remark.

  He knew what I was thinking, laughed, and cuffed my arm. “Don’t worry, pal. It’s a privileged position, being on the outside looking in.”

  I turned onto Esperanza, and the conformist magnolias came into view. “Apparently the boyfriend wasn’t a boy-friend.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. If this Novato kid did have a romance thing going with Holly, he wouldn’t have told the boss.”

  “True,” I said. “So all we really know about him is that he and Holly talked a few times. And that he’s dead. Which in terms of—pardon the expression—understanding Holly could be relevant. If Ike meant a lot to her, his death could have tipped her over the edge.”

  “Trauma leads to rifle games?”

  “Sure. The loss could have been especially traumatic for someone with her history—the early death of her mother. She closed herself off from the world. Withdrew. I’ve worked with patients who lost a parent at a young age and didn’t get help. When you don’t grieve, the sorrow just sits there and festers. You stop trusting, learn to hate the world. Holly was a loner. If Ike was the first person who really tried to relate to her, he could have become a substitute parent—Dinwiddie said she was looking up at him as if he were a big brother. Let’s say he got her trusting again, brought her out of her shell. Then he dies. Violently. It triggers all the garbage she’d been sitting on for fifteen years. She explodes. Make sense so far?”

  “As much sense as anything,” he said. “You know better than I do.”

  I drove past another block of green lawns. A few people were out, walking dogs, washing cars. I thought of Linda’s car, remembered the fog and dread that had settled over Ocean Heights last night. The broken glass, the hooked cross.

  What other demons hid themselves, crouching and sniggering behind the diamond-paned windows?

  Milo stared out his window and munched. Cop-surveilling, force of habit. Pictures kept floating through my mind. Ugly possibilities.

  When he turned away for a moment, I said, “What if Holly and Ike did more than just chat? What if they got into philosophical raps—the rotten state of the world, injustice, poverty, racism. Given Holly’s sheltered life, the experiences of someone like Ike would have been a real eye-opener for her—could have really changed her. That’s what happened in the sixties when white kids from suburbia went to college and encountered minority students for the first time. Instant radicalization. Someone else might have channeled it constructively—volunteer work, altruism. But Holly was vulnerable because of all that loneliness and anger and distrust. It’s the classic lone assassin profile, Milo. She could have seen herself as Ike’s avenger. Vanquishing Massengil—a symbol of racism—could have seemed noble.”

  “Vanquishing,” Milo said. “Sounds pretty medieval. Maybe she just wanted to shoot kids.”

  “What would be her motive for that?” I said. “We’ve no indication she resented their presence.”

  “Look, Alex, you’re talking about a probable nutcase. Who knows what she would have had reason to do? Who knows what kind of crazy things actually ran through her head? When you get down to it, how much do you really know about her, anyway?”

  “Not much at all,” I said, feeling suddenly like one of the pontificating TV experts.

  I exited Ocean Heights, headed back on the winding canyon road toward Sunset. Milo said, “Don’t sulk,” and went back to looking out the window.

  At the boulevard, I said, “Still entertaining questions, or is the cop-shop closed for the day?”

  “Questions about what?”

  “Novato’s murder. The way Dinwiddie talked about him. Any of that intrigue you?”

  He turned and faced me. “What about it is supposed to intrigue me?”

  “It just seemed as if Dinwiddie developed a lot of... passion when he discussed Ike. Really tensed up, got emotional. He got really defensive when denying that Holly and Ike had been lovers. Could have been jealousy. Maybe there was something more than a working relationship between him and Ike.”

  Milo closed his eyes and gave a short, weary laugh.

  “It happens,” he said, with a wicked smile. Then he ran his hand over his face. “Yeah, I was thinking that myself—the guy did get awfully righteous. But if there was something sexual, don’t you think he would be careful not to let on to us? I mean, how many Fiji apples do you think he’d sell if the good folks of Ocean Heights suspected him of that?”

  “True,” I said. “So maybe his emotionality was a result of exactly what he said it was—liberal guilt. Still, the picture he painted of Novato was kind of odd, don’t you think? Black kid with a Latin name, comes from somewhere “back east” but doesn’t tell anyone where. Settles in Venice, enrolls in college in Santa Monica, gets a job in Whitebread Heaven, performs excellently in that job, inspires some kind of passion in his employer, makes friends with the girl no one talks to, then gets blown away in Watts. Not too long after, that girl goes for her gun and gets blown away herself.”

  Milo was silent.

  I said, “Of course, I’m just a rank amateur civilian. Theorizing. The pros... that guy from Southeast—Smith—didn’t think it was weird at all.”

  Milo said, “What’d I say about sulking?” But he looked bothered.

  I said, “Do you really know Smith?”

  “Casually.”

  “And?”

  “Not the worst investigator in the world.”

  “But not the best.”

  Milo moved his bulk around, trying to get comfortable, frowning when he couldn’t. “Maury Smith is average,” he said. “Like most people in most jobs. Putting in time and dreaming about Winnebago Heaven. In all fairness to him, a place like Southeast Division’ll do that to you even if you start out determined to be Super Cop. More bodies in one hot week than we see in six months. No matter what anyone says, those kinds of numbers will change your attitude about the sanctity of life—the same way war does.”

  “NAACP’s been saying that for a long time.”

  “Nah, it’s not racism. Okay, maybe some of it is. But what it really boils down to is context : One DB out of a hundred thou just ain’t the same as one out of a hundred—I don’t care how pure your heart is. And a DB in Crack Alley just ain’t gonna merit the same care as one in Stone Canyon.”

  “Meaning Smith’s investigation might have been cursory.”

  “Meaning a black kid gets gunned down in a bad black neighborhood with a Baggie of rock clutched in his hot little hands doesn’t exactly shout high intrigue.”

  “We don’t know Novato was carrying.”

  “Yeah. Well, I guess I can make a few calls and find that out.”

  He folded his arms over his chest.

  I said, “Ready for lunch?”

  “Nah, the goddam apple filled me. Complex carbohydrates. Who needs more?”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  A minute later he said: “Tell you what I’d really like. A tall, frosty, liver-eating Johnny Black or reasonable facsimile. In lieu of that, I’ll make those phone calls and do the goddam laundry. What do you guys call that—repression?”

  “Sublimation.”

  “Sublimation. Yeah. Drop me back at your place. Gotta go home and sublimate.”

  I didn’t like the edge in his voice, but his expression warned off debate.

  Besides, I had a call of my own to make.

  17

  Mahlon Burden’s answering machine message was ten seconds of chamber music followed by a clipped “Leave your message,” and three short beeps.

  I said, “This is Alex Dela—”

  Click. “Hello, Doctor. W
hat have you decided?”

  “I’m willing to explore the possibilities, Mr. Burden.”

  “When?”

  “I’ve got time today.”

  “Doctor, I’ve got nothing but time. Name the place and the time.”

  “An hour. Your house.”

  “Perfect.” Strange word considering his circumstances.

  He gave me an address I already knew and followed it up with precisely detailed directions.