Blood Test Page 22

  He put his glasses back on, stroked his chin, started to lift his teacup but thought better of it.

  “Doctor,” he said evenly, “you seem a sincere young man and I want to help you. But let me explain the position I’m in. I’ve lived here for a decade but still consider myself an outsider. I’m a Sephardic Jew, descended from the great scholar Maimonides. My ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492, along with all the Jews. They settled in Holland, were expelled from there, went to England, Palestine, Australia, America. Five hundred years of wandering gets into the blood, makes one reluctant to think in terms of permanence.

  “Two years ago, a member of the Ku Klux Klan was nominated for state assembly from this district. Part of it was subterfuge— the man concealed his membership—but too many people knew who he was to make the nomination an accident. He lost the election but shortly afterward there were cross-burnings, anti-Semitic leafleting, an epidemic of racist graffiti and harassment of Mexican-Americans along the border.

  “I’m not telling you this because I think La Vista is a hotbed of racism. On the contrary, I’ve found it an extremely tolerant town, as witnessed by the smooth integration of the Touch. But attitudes can change rather quickly—my forebears were court physicians to the Spanish royal family one week, refugees the next.” He warmed both hands on his cup. “Being an outsider means exercising discretion.”

  “I know how to keep a secret,” I said. “Anything you tell me will be kept confidential unless lives are at stake.”

  He engaged in another bout of silent contemplation, the delicate features solemn and still. We locked eyes for a moment.

  “There was some kind of trouble,” he said. “Exactly what kind was never publicized. Knowing the girl, it had to be of a sexual nature.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She had a reputation for promiscuity. I don’t seek out gossip, but in a small town one overhears things. There’s always been something libidinous about the girl. Even at twelve or thirteen when she walked through town every male head would turn. She exuded—physicality. I’d always thought it strange that she sprang from such a withdrawn, isolated family—as if somehow she’d sucked the sexual energy from the others and ended up with more than she could handle.”

  “Do you have any idea what happened at the Retreat?” I asked, though from Doug Carmichael’s story, I had a strong hypothesis.

  “Only that her job was terminated abruptly and snickers and whispers circulated around town for the next few days.”

  “And the Touch never hired town kids again.”

  “Correct.”

  The waitress brought the check. I put down my credit card. Maimon thanked me and called for another pot of tea.

  “What was she like as a little girl?” I asked.

  “I have only vague memories—she was a pretty little thing— that red hair always stood out. Used to pass by my place and say hello, always very friendly. I don’t think the problems started until she was twelve or so.”

  “What kinds of problems?”

  “What I told you. Promiscuity. Wild behavior. She started running with a bunch of older kids—the ones with fast cars and motorcycles. I suppose things got out of hand because they sent her away to boarding school. That I remember vividly because on the morning she left Garland’s car broke down on the way to the train station. Just gave out in the middle of the road, a few yards from my nursery. I offered to give them a lift but of course he refused. Left her sitting there with her suitcase until he came back with a truck. She looked like a sad little child, though I suppose she must have been at least fourteen. As if all the mischief had been knocked out of her.”

  “How long was she away?”

  “A year. She was different when she returned—quieter, more subdued. But still sexually precocious, in an angry kind of way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He flushed and drank tepid tea.

  “Predatory. One day she walked into my nursery wearing shorts and a halter top. Out of the blue. Said she’d heard I had a new kind of banana and she wanted to see it. It was true—I’d brought in several fifteen-gallon Dwarf Cavendish plants from Florida and had taken a lovely bunch of fruit to the town market for display. I wondered why she’d be interested in something like that, but showed her the plants anyway. She looked them over in a cursory manner and smiled—lasciviously. Then she leaned over and gave me a frank view of her chest, picked a banana and began eating it in a rather crude manner—” He stopped, stammered—“You’ll have to excuse me, Doctor, I’m sixty-three, from another generation, and it’s hard for me to be as uninhibited about this kind of thing as is fashionable.”

  I nodded, trying to seem empathetic. “You look much younger.”

  “Good genes.” He smiled. “Anyway, that’s the story. She made a production out of eating the banana, smiled at me again and told me it was delicious. Licked her fingers and ran off down the road. The encounter unnerved me because even as she vamped there’d been hatred in her eyes. A strange mixture of sex and hostility. It’s hard to explain.”

  He sipped his tea, then asked, “Has any of this been relevant?”

  Before I could answer the waitress returned with the charge slip. Maimon insisted upon leaving the tip. It was a generous one.

  We walked out to the parking lot. The night was cool and fragrant. He had the springy step of a man a third his age.

  His truck was a long-bed Chevy pickup. Conventional tires. He took out his keys and asked, “Would you like to stop by and visit my nursery? I’d like to show you some of my most fascinating specimens.”

  He seemed eager for companionship. He’d unloaded a lot of alienation, probably for the first time. Self-expression can become habit forming.

  “It would be my pleasure. Could being seen with me cause problems for you?”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “Last I heard, Doctor, this was still a free country. I’m located several miles southeast of town. Up in the foothills where most of the big groves are. You’ll follow me, but in case we disconnect I’ll give you directions. We’ll cut under the freeway, ride parallel with it, and turn right on an unmarked road—I’ll slow down so you don’t miss it. At the foot of the mountains there’ll be a left turn onto an old utility trail. Too narrow for commercial vehicles and it floods when the rains come. But this time of year it’s a handy shortcut.”

  He went on for a while before I realized he was directing me to the back road I’d seen on the county map in the sheriff’s office. The one that bypassed the town. When I’d asked Houten about it he’d said it was sealed off by the oil company. Perhaps he considered a utility trail too insignificant to be thought of as a road. Or maybe he’d lied.

  I wondered about it as I got into the Seville.

  20

  THE TURNOFF was sudden. The road, apart from being unmarked, was hardly a road at all. Just a narrow dirt ribbon, at first glance one furrow of many that cut through the vast table of farmland. Anyone unfamiliar with the area would have missed it. But Maimon drove slowly and I followed his taillights through moonlit fields of strawberries. Soon the freeway sounds were behind us, the night hushed and aglitter with moths spiraling up toward the stars, pressing frantically and hopelessly for the heat of distant galaxies.

  The mountains hovered above us, grim hulking masses of shadow. Maimon’s truck was old and it lurched as he shifted into low gear and began the climb into the foothills. I stayed several car-lengths behind and trailed him into darkness so dense it was palpable.

  We climbed for miles, finally reaching a plateau. The road veered sharply to the right. To the left was a broad mesa surrounded by chain-link fence. Pyramidal towers rose from the flatlands, skeletal and still. The abandoned oilfields. Maimon turned away from them and resumed the ascent.

  The next few miles were groves, unbroken stretches of trees recognizable as such by the serrated silhouette of star-kissed leaves, shiny satin against the velvet of the sky. Citrus, fro
m the perfume in the air. Then came a series of homesteads, farmhouses on one-acre plots shadowed by sycamore and oak. The few lights that were on blurred as we drove by.

  Maimon’s turn signal went on two hundred feet before he swung left through an open gate. An unobtrusive sign said RARE FRUIT AND SEED co. He pulled up in front of a big two-story frame house girdled by a wide porch. On the porch were two chairs and a dog. The dog rose on its haunches and nuzzled Maimon’s hand as he climbed out of the truck. A Labrador, heavy and stolid, seemingly unimpressed by my presence. Its master petted it and it went back to sleep.

  “Come around to the back,” said Maimon. We walked along the left side of the house. There was an electrical junction box hanging from the rear wall. He opened it, flicked a switch, and a series of lights came on in sequence, as if choreographed.

  What unfolded before my eyes was as textured and verdant as a painting by Rousseau. A masterpiece entitled Variations on the Theme of Green.

  There were plants and trees everywhere, many in bloom, all thick with foliage. The larger ones sat in five and fifteen gallon containers, a few were rooted in the rich dark soil. Smaller plants and seedlings in peat pots rested on tables shielded by canopies of mesh. Beyond the canopies were three glass greenhouses. The air was a cocktail of mulch and nectar.

  He gave me a guided tour. Initially I recognized most of the species but found the varieties novel. There were unusual strains of peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, low-chill apples, and pears. Several dozen fig trees in pots were lined up against a fence. Maimon picked two figs from one of them, handed one to me and popped the other in his mouth. I’d never cared for raw figs but ate the fruit to oblige him. I was glad I did.

  “What do you think?”

  “Wonderful. Tastes like a dried fig.”

  He was pleased.

  “Celeste. Best taster by my standards, though some prefer Pasquale.”

  It continued like that, Maimon pointing out choice hybrids with unconcealed pride, sometimes stopping to pick one and offer me a taste. His fruit was unlike anything I’d found on the produce shelves, larger, juicier, more vividly colored and intensely flavored.

  Finally we came to the exotic specimens. Many were aflame with orchidlike blossoms in shades of yellow, pink, scarlet, and mauve. Each group of plants was accompanied by a wooden sign staked into the ground. On the sign was a color photograph of fruit, flower, and leaf. Under the illustration were botanical and common names in neatly lettered text, along with geographic, horticultural, and culinary details.

  There were species with which I was vaguely familiar—litchies, unusual varieties of mango and papaya, loquats, guavas, and passion fruits—and many others I’d never known existed—sapotes, sapodillas, acerola cherries, jujubes, jaboticaba, tamarinds, tree tomatoes.

  One section was devoted to vines—grapes, kiwis, raspberries hued from black to gold. In another, stocked with rare citrus, I saw Chandler pommelos three times the size of grapefruit and sugary sweet, Moro, Sanguinelli, and Tarocco blood oranges with pulp and juice the color of burgundy wine, tangors, limequats, sweet limes, and Buddha’s Finger citrons resembling eight-digited human hands.

  The greenhouses protected seedlings of the most fragile plants in the collection, those Maimon had obtained from young adventurers who explored the remote tropical regions of the world for new species of flora. By manipulating light, heat, and moisture he’d constructed microclimates that assured high success in propagation. He became animated as he described his work, tossing out esoterica followed by patient explanations.

  Half of the last greenhouse was given over to stacks of carefully labeled boxes. On the table were a postage meter, scissors, tape, and padded envelopes.

  “Seeds,” he said. “The mainstay of my business. I ship all over the world.”

  He held open the door and took me to a cluster of small trees.

  “Family annonaceae.” He poked among the leaves of the first tree and uncovered a large yellow-green fruit covered with fleshy spines. “Annona muricata, the soursop. And this red one is Annona reticulata, the custard apple, Lindstroms variety. There are no fruit on this one here, won’t be until August— Annona squamosa, sweet-sop or custard apple, seedless Brazilian variety. And these,” he indicated half a dozen trees with drooping, elliptical leaves, “are the cherimoyas. Right now I’ve got several varieties—Booth, Bonita, Pierce, White, Deliciosa.”

  I reached out and touched a leaf. The underside was fuzzy. An orangelike scent issued forth.

  “Lovely fragrance, isn’t it?” More probing among the branches. “This is the fruit.”

  It didn’t look like the stuff of which dreams were made—a large, globose, heart-shaped mound, pale green and dotted with protrusions, resembling a leathery green pine cone. I touched it gingerly. Firm and gently abrasive.

  “Come inside. I’ll open a ripe one.”

  His kitchen was big and old and spotless. The refrigerator, oven, and sink were white enamel, the floor, linoleum waxed to a gleam. A table and chairs fashioned from rock maple occupied the center. I pulled up a chair and sat down. The big Lab had moved indoors and lay snoring at the base of the stove.

  Maimon opened the refrigerator, pulled out a cherimoya, and brought it, two bowls, two spoons, and a knife, to the table. The ripe fruit was mottled with brown and soft to the touch. He sliced it in two, put each half in a bowl, skin down. The pulp was a creamy off-white, the color and consistency of fresh custard.

  “Dessert,” said Maimon and spooned out a shimmering mouthful. He held it aloft then ate.

  I put my spoon to the fruit. It slid in and sank. I pulled it out filled with custard and put it to my lips.

  The taste was incredible, bringing to mind the flavors of many other fruits yet different from each; sweet, then tart, then sweet again, shifting elusively on the tongue, as subtle and satisfying as the finest confection. The seeds were plentiful, beanlike and hard as wood. An annoyance, but tolerable.

  We ate in silence. I savored the cherimoya, knowing it had brought heartbreak to the Swopes, but not permitting that to adulterate my pleasure until all that was left was an empty green shell.

  Maimon ate slowly and finished a few minutes later.

  “Delicious,” I said when he put down his spoon. “Where can you get them?”

  “Generally two places. At Hispanic markets they’re comparatively cheap but the fruit is small and irregular. If you go to a gourmet grocer you’ll pay fifteen dollars for two good-sized ones wrapped in fancy tissue paper.”

  “So they’re being grown commercially?”

  “In Latin America and Spain. On a more limited basis here in the U.S., mostly up near Carpenteria. The climate there’s too cool for true tropicals but it’s even more temperate than what we get down here.”

  “No frosts?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Fifteen dollars,” I thought out loud.

  “Yes. It never caught on as a popular fruit—too many seeds, too gelatinous, people don’t like to carry spoons with them. No one’s found a way to machine-pollinate so it’s highly labor-intensive. Nevertheless, it’s a delicacy with a loyal following and demand exceeds supply. But for the Fates, Garland would have been wealthy.”

  My hands were sticky from handling fruit. I washed them in the kitchen sink. When I returned to the table the dog was curled at Maimon’s feet, eyes closed, crooning low-pitched canine satisfaction as the grower stroked its fur.

  A peaceful scene but it made me restless. I’d lingered too long in Maimon’s Eden when there were things that needed to be done.

  “I want to take a look at the Swopes’ place. Is it one of those farms we passed on the way up?”

  “No. They live—lived further up the road. Those weren’t really farms, just old home tracts too small to be commercially viable. Some of the people who work in town like to live up here. They get a little more space and the chance to earn spare change growing seasonal cash crops—pumpkins for Halloween, winter melo
ns for the Asian trade.”

  I remembered Houten’s sudden anger when he talked of farming and asked if the sheriff had ever worked the land.

  “Not recently,” he said hesitantly. “Ray used to have a plot nearby. Grew conifers that he sold to Christmas tree brokers.”

  “Used to?”

  “He sold the place to a young couple after he lost his daughter. Moved into a rooming house a block from city hall.”

  The possibility that the sheriff had lied to discourage me from snooping around hadn’t left my mind. I found myself wanting to know more about the man who was the law in La Vista.

  “He told me about his wife dying of cancer. What happened to the daughter?”