Time Bomb Read online

  Fronting the building was a tow-away zone. I turned the comer, hooked into an alley, and parked in a visitor’s slot. Pushing open an iron gate, I stepped into more fresh air—the basic garden office setup: half a dozen suites on each floor, each with its own entrance, arranged in a right angle around a jungle of banana plants, clump bamboo, and asparagus fern.

  The district office occupied two suites on the ground floor of the building, its neighbors an insurance broker, a graphic artist, a travel agent, and a publisher of technical manuals. The door to the first suite instructed me to please use the door to the second. Before I had a chance to comply, it swung open and a woman stepped out into the garden area.

  She was in her mid- to late thirties, with blue-black hair drawn back and tied in a tight bun, a full face, icy gray-green eyes, a fleshy mouth, and ten pounds of extra weight in all the right places. She wore a tailored black suit that flaunted the weight, a white silk blouse, and black string tie fastened by a huge smoky topaz. The suit skirt ended at her knees. Her spiked heels were long and sharp enough to render grave bodily harm.

  “Dr. Delaware? I’m Beth Bramble.” Her smile was as bright and durable as a camera flash. “Won’t you come in. The Assemblyman’s free.”

  I resisted the urge to ask if the Assemblyman was also easy and followed her inside. She swayed when she walked—more flaunting—and led me into a reception area. Soft, spineless music flowed from an unseen speaker. The furnishings were vintage highway motel—wood-grain and Mylar, ostentatiously frugal. The walls were lime-sherbet grass cloth hung with a few blurry nautical prints and Rockwell reproductions. But most of the vertical space was covered by photos, scores of them, framed in black: Massengil entertaining foreign dignitaries, presenting trophies, holding aloft official proclamations crowded with calligraphy, gripping chromium-plated groundbreaking shovels, doing the banquet circuit surrounded by alcohol-glazed, tuxedoed, rubber-chicken eaters. And mixing with the people :wheelchair-trapped oldsters, sooty-faced firefighters, children in Halloween costumes, athletic team mascots dressed as hyperthyroid animals.

  She said, “He’s a beloved man. Twenty-eight years representing this district.”

  It sounded like a warning.

  We made a sharp left turn, came to a door marked PRIVATE. She rapped once, opened it, stepped back, and ushered me in. When the door closed she was gone.

  The office was small and beige, borderline-shabby. Massengil sat behind a plain, scuffed walnut desk. A gray suit jacket was draped over a gray metal file cabinet. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and tie. The desk top was protected by a sheet of glass and bare except for two phones, a legal pad, and a bell jar of cellophane-wrapped hard candies. On the wall behind him were more photos and a diploma—a forty-year-old degree in engineering from a state college in the Central Valley.

  Perpendicular to the desk was a hard brown sofa with wooden legs. A man sat on it, portly, white-bearded. Loose face, ruddy complexion. Santa Claus with indigestion. Just like on TV. Another vested suit, this one lead-heavy loden green, bunched up around the shoulders. Shiny gold watch chain and fob, which he toyed with. A fly-straining melon of belly protruded beneath the points of the vest. His shirt was yellow with a starched spread collar; his tie, a green paisley fastened in an enormous Windsor knot. He kept playing with the chain, avoiding my eyes.

  Massengil stood. “Dr. Delaware, Sam Massengil. Appreciate your dropping by.” His voice was thin as charity soup, louder than it had to be.

  We shook hands. His was large, hard with callus, and he squeezed my fingers a bit too tightly for the camaraderie he was trying to fake. A man prone to excess, though that didn’t apply to fashion. His shirt was wash-and-wear out of the sale bin, his tie a riot of powder-blue eagles soaring across a beige polyester sky. The short sleeves revealed arms too long even for his protracted body, scrawny but knotted with muscle and coiled with white hairs. Arms lathed by manual labor. A face sun-spotted and wrinkled as dried fruit. One side of the white toothbrush mustache was longer than the other, as if he’d shaved with his eyes closed. He looked every day of his age, but hard and fit. Rail-splitting? I couldn’t see him jogging with the yogurt crowd.

  He sat back down, continued to look me over.

  I said, “I didn’t realize there were going to be three of us, Assemblyman.”

  “Yes, yes. This is a distinguished colleague of yours, Dr. Lance Dobbs. Dr. Dobbs, Dr. Delaware.”

  “I’ve seen Dr. Dobbs on television.”

  Dobbs gave a faint smile and nodded, made no effort to rise or shake hands.

  I said, “What can I do for you, Assemblyman?”

  Massengil and Dobbs exchanged glances. “Have a seat, won’t you?”

  I took a chair facing the desk. Dobbs shifted position, the better to study me, and the brown couch squeaked.

  Massengil held up the bell jar. “Candy?”

  “No thanks.” No sign of the promised coffee.

  “How ’bout you, Lance?”

  Dobbs took the jar, palmed some candy, unwrapped a green one, and put it between his lips. He made wet noises, turning it between tongue and lips. Gazing past me, over at Massengil. Expectant. I thought of a soft, spoiled kid used to parental protection.

  As if cued, Massengil cleared his throat and said, “We appreciate your coming down on such short notice, Doctor.”

  “All in the interests of good government, Assemblyman.”

  He frowned, exchanged another look with Dobbs. Dobbs ate another candy and made a lateral move with his eyes—some kind of signal. I began to wonder about their relationship. Who was the parent.

  Massengil said, “Well, no sense shilly-shallying. Obviously, this is about the tragedy at the school. It’s been some couple of days, hasn’t it, Doctor?”

  “Yes, it has, Assemblyman.”

  “Now we know you’ve been working with those kids. Which is fine, as it stands, absolutely fine.” A smile that looked as if it hurt. “Now, exactly how did you get involved?”

  “The police asked me to get involved.”

  “The police.” Another smile. Photo-opportunity caliber. I put a black frame around it. “I see, I see. Wasn’t aware the police did that kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing is that, Assemblyman?”

  “Referring to specialists. Getting involved in social welfare issues. Are you on some kind of official police referral list?”

  “No. One of the detectives is a friend of mine. I’ve worked with traumatized children before. He thought—”

  “One of the detectives,” said Massengil. “I’m a great friend of the police, you know. Best friend they have in Sacramento, in fact. Crime bill needs pushing, I’m the first one the police chief comes to. County sheriff too.”

  He turned to Dobbs, was prompted again by a small nod. “So. A detective referred you. Which detective might that be?”

  “Detective Sturgis. Milo Sturgis. He’s the new D-Three—the new supervising detective at Westside Robbery-Homicide.”

  “Sturgis,” he said, contemplative. “Ah, yes, the big, heavy fellow with the bad skin. They didn’t let him in when they conducted the interrogation.” Throat clear. Another exchange of glances. Pause. “He’s homasexual, I’m told, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him.”

  He waited for an explanation. When I offered none, Dobbs made a small, satisfied sound, as if I’d behaved predictably.

  “Well,” said Massengil, “is he?”

  “Is he what?”

  “Homosexual.”

  “Assemblyman, I don’t think Detective Sturgis’ sex life is—”

  “No need to shilly-shally. Sturgis’ sex life is common knowledge in the Police Department. Quite a bit of resentment, too—colleague-wise—regarding his promotion. His being in the Department in the first place, what with all the diseases and related hazards.”

  My nails were digging into the arms of my chair. “Is there anything else, Assemblyman? I’ve got to be getting over to the school.”r />
  “Ah, the school. How’s it going with those youngsters?”

  “Fine.”

  “That’s good.” He leaned forward, put his hands on the desk, fingers blunt and splayed, yellow-nailed. “Let me ask you this point-blank. You one too?”

  “One what?”

  “Homosexual.”

  “Assemblyman, I don’t—”

  “The thing is, Doctor, everything’s a real mess, societally speaking. I think we can all agree on that, right? My responsibility is to make sure things don’t get any messier than they’ve already gotten. It’s a crazy world we’re living in—punks shooting at elected public servants, big government forcing alternative life-styles down people’s throats, moving children around like truck produce. Pushing ivory tower theories not backed up by real life experiences. Making no one happy at either end—not the people or the youngsters. You, being in your line of work, should know all about that, though I’ve got to tell you it seems to me more often than not that people in your line of work forget all about reality, push for this’n that, quick fix here, quick fix there. Causing more erosion.”

  He picked up the bell jar, caressed it, said, “Erosion. That’s an important word—the soil’s got a lot to teach us. ’Cause when you boil it all down, we’re talking erosion of standards. Boundaries. Gradual but severely deleterious, just like it is when the soil erodes. Everything boils down to that. Preservation or erosion—what stays; what goes. This is my district, son, my responsibility. For close to thirty years it’s been my responsibility. I fly up and down between here and Sacramento three times a week, using airplanes the way other people use cars, because this world we live in’s a big one, this district is the part of that world that’s my responsibility, and I’ve got to cover it, know what’s going on in terms of every part of it. And when I see changes I don’t like—erosion—I step in.”

  He paused for dramatic effect, a dime-store Cicero.

  Dobbs said, “Sam—”

  “Hold on a minute, Lance. I want the doctor here to know... where I’m coming from.” Another big smile. “How’s that for your contemporary lingo? Where I’m coming from. And where I’m coming from is a posture of professional responsibility for my district, wanting... needing to know if standards are being compromised, the boundaries loosened up any further. Wanting to know exactly who’s in charge.”

  “In charge of what?”

  “Systems. Systems of influence. Educational systems. Psychiatric treatment systems. Anything that influences impressionable young minds.”

  Dobbs smiled and said, “Dr. Delaware, given what the children have been through, we obviously need to make sure they’re being given optimal treatment.”

  “We?”

  “We,” said Massengil. “My team.”

  “Dr. Dobbs is part of your team?”

  Another flash of ocular Morse code.

  “He’s on the team,” said Massengil, boasting but sounding oddly defensive. “Along with lots of other good people.”

  Dobbs said, “I’ve worked extensively with the Assemblyman’s staff—management seminars.”

  “You bet,” said Massengil, too quickly. “Top-notch stuff.” He ticked off on his fingers.“Foundations of Character. Pathways to Leadership. Spiritual Growth in Service of the Soul.”

  Dobbs smiled, but seemed wary, a drama coach watching the performance of an unreliable ingénue.

  Massengil said, “We’ve all of us benefited from Dr. Dobbs’s input—the whole staff has. So you see, we’re not opposed to your line of work per se, as far as it goes. But we just need to know who’s doing it. Lance is someone we know and trust, because he understands the real world, the realities of the district. Real life and its spiritual underpinnings. That’s why he was asked to treat those kids after the earthquake, why he’s exceptionally qualified to treat these youngsters.” Wide smile. “Now, all of a sudden you’re involved, which is fine as far as it’s gone—we appreciate your enthusiasm and we thank you kindly. But we don’t know who you are, what your background is.”

  I gave him my academic credentials, using the long form.

  He half-listened and stroked the bell jar. “Sounds fine, sir. But you still haven’t answered the main, important question.”

  I said, “Am I gay? No, I’m not. But Detective Sturgis is my friend—do you think I’m in danger of catching it?”

  The creases around his eyes tightened into paper cuts and his fingers curled on the desk top. Clawing the glass, whitening the horny nails. But he kept smiling, showed those brown teeth. “No telling what can be caught nowadays, right? Bottom line, we’re all after the same thing, aren’t we?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Cleaning up the mess. Doing right by those youngsters. Seeing to it that they become good citizens. I’m sure you want that just as much as we do, now don’t you, Doctor?”

  “Right now,” I said, “I’m less interested in teaching them civics than in helping them sleep through the night.”

  His smile faded.

  Dobbs said, “All Assemblyman Massengil is saying is that values are crucial when working with these children—any children. Maintaining an order.”

  “What kind of order?”

  “A system of values. Being overt and aboveboard with one’s personal value system is a necessity in clinical work—one that’s too olden neglected. Children need that kind of security. The knowledge that their significant others believe in something. Surely you wouldn’t disagree.”

  Massengil said, “Let’s get down to brass tacks, Doc. We greatly appreciate everything you’ve done. I’m sure you’ve made a great start, psychology-wise. From now on, though, Lance’s people are gonna take over. The way it was supposed to be in the first place.”

  I said, “I can’t agree to that, Assemblyman. Breaking off and starting with someone new would only confuse the children further—weaken whatever sense of security they’ve rebuilt.”

  He gave his head a choppy wave. “Don’t you worry about that. I’m sure Lance will be able to remedy that.”

  “Absolutely,” said Dobbs. “If you’re using a standard crisis-intervention mode, it should be no problem to transfer from one attachment figure to—”

  I said, “Come on, Doctor. The last thing the children need is more unnecessary change.”

  Before he could answer I stood and looked down at Massengil. “Assemblyman, if you’re really interested in their welfare, keep your politics out of their lives and let me do my job.”

  Massengil put his hands on the arms of his chair, sucked in his breath, and rounded his shoulders as if preparing to himself up. But he stayed in place, all the tension rising to his face, compressing and darkening it, like meat turned to pemmican in the sun.

  “Politics, eh? Like that’s some sort of dirty word? Like it’s somehow criminal to want to serve God and country? I’ve got news for you, young man. People don’t want to hear that kind of libertine guff anymore. They respect competence, experience, know who their leaders are, where the bedrock lies.” He shook a finger at me. “If it’s politics you find so objectionable, let me tell you something. Your homosexual friend got his promotion ’cause of politics. He called you in ’cause of politics. And this whole mess started in the first place ’cause of politics —those kids and the agitators behind them are making a deliberate choice to bring politics into their lives every morning they get on that bus from Boyle Heights and head west! So if you want to talk about politics, let’s talk about the whole damned picture!”

  I said, “I’m not concerned with any of that. All I care about is helping them deal with being shot at.”

  “Wasn’t them. Me! I was the target. Because of what I stood for. Put in the cross-hairs by some vicious radical punk trying to erode the boundaries!”

  “Is that what you told ATD?”

  He hesitated for a moment, looked at Dobbs, then back at me. “What I know is my business. Preservation and erosion. Fact is, it’s about time someone took charge of
that school, set things right. Place is nothing but an open sore on the face of the district, social experimentation at the expense of stability. I try to talk straight about it and nearly get gunned down in cold blood. There’s your being shot at!”

  He was breathing hard and his fingers had left wet marks on the glass.

  Dobbs said, “Sam. Assemblyman.” He made a faint wiggling motion with one hand, then lowered it, like a magician de-levitating an assistant. Massengil settled back down and let out breath.

  “All right, Doctor,” said Dobbs. “Let’s emphasize cooperation, not confrontation. Work together. I’d be happy to integrate you into my program.”