Time Bomb (35 page)

“Mr. Burden?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“This is Dr. Alex Delaware. I called before.”

“Yeah, I know who you are.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“It’s always a bad time.”

“Your father suggested I talk to you. About Hol—”

“I know what it’s about.”

“Let’s set up an appointment then—”

“How much is he paying you?”

“We haven’t discussed that.”

“Uh-huh. Doing the charity circuit? You a Schweitzer protégé?”

“I know you’ve been through a lot and—”

“Cut,”
he said. “Dump the script and be straight. You want to talk about Holly? I’m gonna be here all night anyway, you might as well be my coffee break. You show up anytime before, say, ten-thirty, you can have ten minutes.”

Not much. But I sensed that ten minutes with this one would be interesting. “Where are you located?”

He rattled off an address in the sixteen-thousand block of Ventura Boulevard. Heart of Eucino. At this time of day, getting over the Glen into the Valley would take at least half an hour, add another twenty minutes braving the slog on Ventura, and I figured I’d be able to make it within an hour. Returning to the city would be faster. My date with Linda was for eight-thirty. Ample time.

I said, “I’ll be there within the hour.”

“Like I said, ten-thirty. Ten minutes.”

Encino had been built up since the last time I’d been there. It always seemed that way with Encino. Pierce, Sloan, and Marder: Consulting Actuaries. “Benefits and Pension Specialists” occupied the top floor of a narrow, seven-story pink limestone and mirrored-glass rectangle squeezed between a medical building with a Thai restaurant on the ground floor and a Rolls-Royce/Jaguar/Land Rover dealer.

The lobby was layered with rust-colored granite. There were two elevators on the south wall, both of them open. I rode up alone, stepped into a long hallway carpeted in gray plush and papered in white vinyl textured to look like troweled plaster. Track lights shone overhead. Mapplethorpe flower photos in Lucite frames lined the walls, looking disturbingly visceral in such a passionless place.

The main entrance was at the north end of the corridor, through a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass lettered in gilt that listed the partners of the actuarial firm and informed the uninitiated that Pierce, Sloan, and Marder had branches in San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and Baltimore. I counted twenty-two partners in the L.A. office. Howard Burden’s name was fourth from the top. Not bad for a thirty-year-old with poor manners.

Watch those value judgments, Delaware. Maybe, but for grief, he was the Prince of Charm.

On the other side of the glass the reception area was brightly lit. And empty. The door was bolted by a heavy slab of polished brass. I knocked, felt the glass tremble. Waited. Knocked again. Waited some more. Knocked harder.

So much for my ten minutes. Nothing like a drive into the Valley at rush hour to get the old juices flowing.

Just as I turned to leave, one of the elevator doors opened and a man stepped out. He was corpulent and walked with a flat-footed waddle. Fortyish, five-eleven, totally bald on top, thin brown hair fringing the sides, florid skin, a bushy brown mustache carelessly trimmed. Sixty extra pounds, all of it soft, most of it hanging over his belt. Gold buckle on the belt that glinted as he approached. Long-sleeved white shirt, double-pleated navy slacks, black loafers, a blue tie patterned with lavender squares and loosened at the neck. All of it expensive-looking but it seemed as much a costume as DeJon Jonson’s getup—as if someone had dressed him up.

He huffed toward me, using his arms the way race-walkers do, carrying a ring of keys in one hand, a wet-looking sandwich wrapped in cellophane in the other. Under the cellophane, a wilted pickle clung to the sandwich for dear life.

“You Delaware?” His voice was deep, slightly hoarse. He rattled his keys. The chain had a Mercedes-Benz logo. His neck was furrowed and sweaty. There was a grease spot on the pocket of his shirt, just under the
HJB
monogram.

I’d been expecting someone who looked ten years younger. Trying to hide my surprise, I said, “Hello, Mr. Burden—”

“You said an hour. It’s only been”—he raised the sandwich hand and flashed a gold Rolex Oyster—“forty-eight minutes.”

He walked past me and unlocked the brass bolt, letting the glass door fly back at me. I caught it, followed him to the right of the reception desk and around the walnut wall. Behind it was another ten yards of gray carpet. He stopped at double doors. Gold letters on the left one said:

HOWARD J. BURDEN, A.B., M.A.
FELLOW, SOCIETY OF ACTUARIES

He pushed it open, race-walked through an outer office and into a large walnut-paneled room. Not much wood showed through; the walls were blanketed with diplomas, certificates, and photographs. The desk was heavy-looking, very shiny and inlaid with elm burl bordered in ebony. The desk top was shaped like the letter
P
and piled high with books, magazines, mail, interoffice envelopes, tilting piles of papers. Behind it was a high-backed blue leather chair; behind that, a credenza. In the center of the cre-denza was an IBM PC; on either side of the computer, more clutter.

Above the credenza a plate-glass window offered a northern view: the high-rise profile of Ventura Boulevard dipping past housing tracts and mini-malls and the stone-colored ribbon of the 134 Freeway, vibrating like an enervated nerve fiber. Then onward, toward the brown ex-panse past Sylmar that stretched to the base of the Santa Susana mountains. The mountaintops had begun to fade into evening. Wisps of cinnabar and silver from the west alluded to a glorious sunset that had never quite made it. Smog pigments. Pollution art.

Howard Burden saw me looking, drew the drapes, and sat down behind the desk. Shoving papers aside, he began unwrapping his sandwich. Corned beef and sauerkraut on rye, the bread half-sodden.

I looked for somewhere to sit. The two chairs opposite his desk were filled with documents. So was a long blue leather chesterfield couch running perpendicular to the window. Some of the stacks looked ready to topple. The muddle and disarray lent the room a frantic but human energy—so different from his father’s sterile sanctum. I permitted myself some sidewalk psychoanalysis.

Burden liberated the sandwich and took a big bite, not bothering to swallow before saying, “Just throw some of that shit on the floor.”

I cleared one of the chairs and sat down. He continued to eat, using a paper napkin to dab at the sauerkraut juice that trailed down his chin. I glanced over at the photos on the wall. Burden and a pleasant-looking blond woman with a penchant for sleeveless knit tops, white slacks, and Top-Siders.
She
appeared to be around thirty; in some of the shots he looked like her father. About half the photos also featured a little girl of around five. Dark-haired. Eyeglasses on her, too. Something familiar . . .

Happy family poses. Smiles that seemed genuine. Disneyland. Sea World. Universal Studios. A water park. Miniature golf. The three of them in frog hats, both parents hugging the little girl. She, clutching an all-day sucker. Eating ice cream cones together. The little girl in a school play, dressed as an elf. Graduating from kindergarten in a miniature cap and gown. I realized what had struck me about her. She resembled the driver’s license picture Milo had shown me. A young Holly with something to smile about.

I said, “You have a lovely family.”

He put down his sandwich and crumpled his napkin in a pudgy fist.

“Look,” he said, “let me lay my cards on the table right now: I’m doing this under
duress.
My father is a complete and total asshole. I don’t
like
him, okay? Any bullshit he may have handed you about him and me having anything in common is bullshit, okay? So the fact that you’re working for him puts you immediately on my shit list. You’ve got to work your way off, which I doubt is possible because you’re
high
on the list. The only reason I agreed to see you is because he was calling the fucking office ten times a day, bugging the shit out of my secretary. And when
she
wouldn’t put him through, hounding Gwen—my wife—at home. I knew if I didn’t give him his way, he’d drop in, the way he did before, making an ass out of himself, embarrassing me. Six years I’ve been here, three promotion parties plus an open house, and he never showed up. We haven’t goddam
talked
in five years; Amy hasn’t seen a
birthday
gift from the bastard. Now all of a sudden he wants something, here he is.”

“When was this? His showing up?”

“About a month ago. I was in a meeting. He waltzed right past the secretary, came in here, sat and waited and played his goddam chamber music on a cassette deck for an hour. Anyone else, she would have called Security and had him thrown out on his ass. Which would have been okay with me. But she didn’t know that. All she knew was that he’s her boss’s father—what the fuck can she do? So she let him stay and when I got here, he made like it was nothing—he fucking
invades
me and it’s
nothing.”

“What did he want?”

“Had I seen Holly recently? Did Holly seem upset to me? As if he gave a shit, ever cared about how anyone
felt.
I told him I had no idea. He tried to press me. I told him I had no idea. Doing the old broken-record routine. Finally he got the point but he just kept hanging around. Trying to make conversation, wasting my time. Pretending we were just buddy-buddy. Good old
Dad
. So now when he calls, ten fucking times, here and at my house, tells me
you’re
gonna call, I should meet with you, give my insights about Holly—
insights
—what’s my choice? Say no and have another visit? He’s a fucking
badger
, never listens, never gives an inch. My blood pressure’s no good under the
best
of circumstances, so I opt to see you, okay? So let’s do our ten minutes, say we did it, and get it the hell over with, okay?”

He opened his mouth wide and clamped it shut on the sandwich, tore off a piece like a lion working at raw meat.

“The other thing you need to understand,” he said, “is that I don’t like psychiatrists or
psychologists
in the
first
place. I think what you people do is total
bullshit
—taking money from neurotic suckers and pretending to be their friends. As if you’d continue to smile and say uh-huh if the checks stopped coming. Pretending it’s
science
, pretending you
know
something. I read tons of psychiatric reports, all the time—insurance bullshit. I consult to
major
corporations, advising them on the cost/risk patterns of setting up different kinds of health-care systems. Three
guesses
who the biggest abusers are?” He pointed at me, the Grand Inquisitor. “Hundred-and-fifty-buck-an-hour bills for
adjust-ment
reactions,
stress
syndrome, all kinds of am-biguous crap. Workers’ comp rip-offs. My standard advice to companies is, Stay away from mental health benefits. Corruption’s the name of the game: company plan pays for in-patient care, tons of employees get hospitalized. Switch over to outpatient benefits, and all of a sudden every local shrink becomes a big fan of office therapy. Funny thing about that, huh? Real
scientific
.”

“You’re right,” I said. “That kind of thing goes on all the time and it stinks.”

He pulled the sandwich away from his mouth and hefted it like a football. For a moment I thought he was going to throw it at me. “That supposed to
disarm
me? Convince me you’re a righteous guy?”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” I said. “Fact is, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

“You’re here because Mahlon Burden manipulated you here.”

“Guess that makes two of us who have trouble telling him no.”

His fingers tightened around the sandwich, turning it into something misshapen and doughy. Sauerkraut and juice leaked out and plopped onto the desk. He picked up a shred of pickled cabbage and put it in his mouth. Chewed absently and licked the edges of his mustache and suddenly looked lost. A sad, soft, fat kid, left out of the game once again.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know this is a shitty time for you and I don’t want to make it worse. We’ve both been manipulated. There’s no need to go on.”

“I
blame
him,” he said.

“For Holly?”

“For Holly, for everything. For this.” Pinching a roll of fat. “For my mother. She should have been taken to the hospital as soon as she started bleeding and shitting blood—the toilet bowl was white and she turned it red. I still remember that. I’ll never forget it.
Everything
was coming out of her. She was in pain. Any idiot could have seen she needed medical attention, but as usual
he
knew best, told her all she needed was bed rest, to take it easy. He didn’t take her in until she passed out.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t like doctors, doesn’t trust them. Can always do better himself. Can do anything better than anyone.”

His face was heated, greasy with sweat, scowling and squinting like that of a prizefighter taking punishment. Punished by his rage.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “he fucking
killed
her. I was sixteen, should have had a driver’s license, should have been able to drive her to the hospital myself. But he wouldn’t let me learn to drive until I was eighteen. Said I wasn’t
mature
enough. He kept Holly waiting until she was nineteen.”

His eyes bulged and his soft belly shook. His fists were big and meaty and the sandwich was no more than a dough-ball. He looked at it and dropped it in the trash.

I said, “He told me a different story about your mother. Routine surgery gone wrong. Medical malpractice.”

“The only malpractice was his.
Spousal
malpractice—too bad you can’t sue for that. By the time they got her to the operating room, she’d lost too much blood and her electrolytes were all screwed up. She went into shock and never came out. I know, because I used my connections a couple of years ago to pull her chart.”