Time Bomb

about. He looked around- he was really jumpy, as if he was scared of being watched. Then he said, ‘I know this will blow you away, Linda, but you were his lady. You’ve got a right to know.” Then he told me he’d found out Mondo hadn’t been pulled off patrol because of his excellent performance. The opposite was true: He had a bad record- demerits for subordination, the long hair, borderline probation, low competence ratings. He’d been given dangerous assignments as a favor to someone.”

She stopped, touched her gut. “Lord, even after all these years it gets to me.”

“Your dad.”

Dull nod. “He and his old buddy, the commander. They set him up, put him in a situation they knew he couldn’t handle. Like throwing a new recruit into the jungle- sooner or later, you know what’s going to happen. Lamb to the slaughter. Damned close to premeditated murder, said Rudy, but nothing anyone could ever prove. Just knowing it put him in jeopardy, which was why he was getting the hell out of town.

“He left the coffee shop, looking over his shoulder all the while. I drove away at about ninety per- feeling out of my body, numb, like a player in my own nightmare. When I got home Daddy was sitting in the parlor. Fiddling. Grinning. After one look at my face, he put his bow down- he knew. I started screaming at him, hitting him. He reacted very calmly. He said, ‘Pretty One, what’s done is done. No sense fretting.’ I just looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Feeling nauseated, wanting to throw up, but determined he wouldn’t see me weak. I snatched the fiddle out of his hands- an old Czechoslovakian one that he really loved. He’d been buying and trading them for years until he’d found a keeper. He tried to grab it but I was too fast for him. I held it by the peg head and smashed it against the mantelpiece. Kept smashing until it was splinters. Then I ran from that house and never returned. Haven’t spoken to him since, though a couple of years ago we started exchanging Christmas cards again. He’s remarried- one of those men who needs a woman around. Some bimbo from Houston, half his age. She’ll get his pension, and the house I grew up in, and she’ll be the one tending his old bones.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Cops and guitars.”

I said, “A long time ago.”

She shook her head. “Nine years. God. Haven’t had much of a taste for music for a long time- don’t even own a phonograph- and here I am humming to you and playing geisha and I barely know you.”

Before I could answer, she said, “Haven’t had anything to do with cops, either, till this mess.”

But I remembered that she’d mentioned being a Ranger’s daughter to Milo. Pushing the door open a crack.

“Maybe the time’s ripe for change, Linda.”

A tear made its way down her cheek. I moved closer to be able to hold her.

15

After a while she got up and said, “There’re some things I have to take care of. Boring stuff- shopping, cleaning. Been putting it off for too long.”

“What are you planning to do for transportation?”

“I’ll manage.” Restless. Embarrassed by it.

I said, “I’ve got some things to take care of too. The glories of the single life.”

“Oh, yeah.”

We left the bedroom and walked to the front door, not touching. I opened the door and stepped out into the green corridor. Weekend-silent. The mildew smell seemed stronger. Newspapers lay in front of several doors. The headline was something about Afghanistan.

She said, “Thanks. You’ve been wonderful.”

I held her chin and kissed her cheek. She gave me her mouth and tongue and gripped me for a moment, then pulled away and said, “Out, before I yank you back in.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

She smiled, but so briefly it made me wonder if I’d imagined it. “You understand, I just need to…”

“Breathe?”

She nodded.

“Nothing like breathing to liven things up,” I said. “Would asking you out for tomorrow night lower the oxygen level?”

She laughed and her damp hair shook stiffly. “No.”

“Then how about tomorrow? Eight P.M. Take in a couple of art galleries, then dinner.”

“That would be great.”

We squeezed hands and I left, feeling a curious mixture of melancholy and relief. No doubt she viewed me as Mr. Sensitive. But I was happy to have some breathing space of my own.

When I got home, I called Milo.

He said, “How’s she doing?”

“Coping.”

“Called you an hour ago. No one home. Must have been an extended consultation.”

“Gosh, you must be a detective or something.”

“Hey, I’m happy for you. The two of you are cute together- a regular Ken and Barbie.”

“Thanks for your blessing, Dad. What’d you learn at Ferguson’s?”

“Good old Esme? That was fun. She reminded me of the kind of teachers I used to have- more into what lines had to be skipped than what you actually wrote in the composition. Her house had this permanent Lysol smell- made me feel as if I was polluting it just by being there. Porcelain poodles on the hearth, little groupings of miniature doggies in glass cases. But nothing animate. She had me leave my shoes at the door- thank God I’d worn the socks without the holes. But for all the spick and span, she has a nasty little mind. Textbook bigot to boot. First she tested the waters with a few sly comments about the city changing, all those Mexicans and Asians invading, and when I didn’t argue, really got into how the coloreds and the other outsiders have ruined things. Listening to her, the school used to be a regular junior Harvard, chock full of genius white kids. Refined families. Fabulous school spirit, fabulous extracurricular activities. All her star pupils going on to bigger and better things. She showed me a collection of Dear Teacher postcards. The most recent one was ten years old.”

“What did she have to say about the latest illustrious alumna?”

“Holly was a very dull student-wholly unmemorable. A strange girl- the whole family was strange. Clannish, unfriendly, no pride of ownership in their house. The fact that no one really knows what Burden Senior does for a living bugs her. She kept asking me about it, didn’t believe me when I told her I had no idea what New Frontiers Tech was all about. This is a lady who mainlines conformity, Alex. Sounds like the Burdens broke too many rules.”

“Behavioral niggers,” I said.

He paused. “You always did know how to turn a phrase.”

“In what way was Holly strange?”

“Didn’t go to school, didn’t work, rarely left the house except to take walks at night- skulking, Ferguson called it. Said she saw her a few times when she was out trimming her flowers. Holly was skulking along, staring at the sidewalk.”

“Old Esme trims her flowers at night?”

“Twice a day. That tell you something about her?”

“Did Holly always skulk alone?”

“Far as she knows.”

“What about the boyfriend?”

“Sounds as if she was overstating, calling him a boyfriend. Just a colored boy she saw Holly talking to a few times. In old Esme’s world view, that implies fornication, but since we know Holly was a