“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. What 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.
“An hour,” he said. “Looking forward to it.”
No pride of ownership. I’d expected something flagrantly deviant- slovenly- at 1723 Jubilo. But at first glance the house was like all the others on the block. Single-story ranch, the walls sided with aluminum designed to resemble wood, painted the green-gray of a stormy sea. The window casements and front door were the same gray- ah, the first bit of deviance, a monochrome statement when viewed alongside the neighboring houses with their carefully contrasting color schemes.
I parked, began noticing other misdemeanors. The small lawn, mowed and neatly edged but a half-shade paler than the sprinkler-fed emerald of all the others on the block. A few thin spots in the grass that threatened to raise the offense to felony level.
No flower beds. Just a girdle of creeping juniper separating grass from house. No trees, either- none of the dwarf citrus, avocados, or birch triplets that graced the lawns of the other homes.
The gestalt: austere, but hardly quirky. Ocean Heights was easily offended.
The front door had been left slightly ajar. I rang the bell anyway, waited, then walked into an entry hall carpeted with a disc of mock-Persian. Before me was a compact, square living room, white-walled, flat-ceilinged, and rimmed with an obtrusively ornate band of egg-and-dart crown molding. The carpeting was green wool, spotless but thin as the lawn, and looked to be about thirty years old. The furniture was of similar vintage, the wood stained oxblood, the chairs and sofas quilted and upholstered in a chrysanthemum print that shouted spring, pleat-skirted and sheathed in condom-snug dear plastic. Everything matched, every piece arranged with showroom precision. An ensemble. I was certain all of it had been bought at the same time.
I cleared my throat. No one responded. I waited and gave myself over to fantasy. A young couple Sunday shopping in some suburban department store- Sears or a counterpart. The smell of popcorn, the ding of elevator bells. One child in tow- a boy. The parents anxious, budget-conscious, but intent on acquisition. Furniture, appliances, soft rolls of carpeting. Cookware, dishes, all the brand-new, optimistic words it took to fill a proper 50’s populuxe home: Pyrex, stainless, vinyl, Formica, rayon, nylon. Sheaves of receipts. Warranties. More promises. A shopping spree worthy of a game-show winner…
All these dreams reduced to an ensemble, static as a museum exhibit.
I said, “Hello?”
A white-painted brick mantel framed a fireplace that was too clean ever to have been used. No screen, andirons, or tools. The top of the mantel was as bare as the walls. White walls, blank as giant sheets of virgin notepaper.
The tabula rasa approach to domestic life…
Across the living room was a dining room two thirds its size. Crenelated molding. More green carpet, more notepaper walls. Pecan-finish china cabinet, matching buffet. A couple of souvenir plates on one of the cabinet shelves. Grand Coulee Dam. Disneyland. The rest of the shelves empty. An oval table surrounded by eight straight-backed, plastic-sheathed chairs and topped with a brown pad filled most of the floor space. A pass-through with sliding wooden doors was cut into the wall behind the head of the table, offering a view of a yellow kitchen.
I went over and peeked in. Thirty-year-old refrigerator and stove glazed with yellow porcelain. No magnets or reminders on the fridge. No cooking smells.
There was a doorway leading to the rear of the house. A note was tacked onto the threshold.
DR. D.: IN THE BACK. M.B.
Beyond the note, an unlit hallway lined with closed doors. White space deepening to gray. I stepped closer, made out the sound of music. A string quartet. Haydn.
I walked toward it, followed the right turn of the hallway, and came to a final door. The music was loud and clear enough to be live.
I turned the knob, stepped into a large, peak-ceilinged room, the planks and cross-beams painted white. Dark hardwood floor. Three walls of blond birch paneling; the fourth, a bank of sliding glass doors that looked out to a small backyard that was mostly cement driveway. A silver-gray Honda sat in front of a corrugated aluminum garage door.
The glass gave the room an indoor-outdoor look. What realtors used to call a lanai, back in the days when they were peddling tropical dreams. What had become, in this age of transience and marital fracture, the family room.
The Burden family room was big and cold and devoid of furniture. Devoid of nearly everything, except for six-figures’ worth of stereo equipment arranged in a bank against one of the birch walls. Black-matte cases, black-glass instrument panels. Dials and digital readouts bleeping green and yellow and scarlet and gas-flame blue. Oscilloscopic sine waves. Fluctuating columns of liquid laser. Pinpoints of bouncing light.
Amps and preamps, tuners, graphic equalizers, bass-boosters, treble-clarifiers, filters, a reel-to-reel tape player, a pair of cassette decks, a pair of turntables, a compact disc player, a laser-disc player. All of it connected via a tangle of cable to a Stonehenge arrangement of black, fabric-faced speaker columns. Eight obelisks, spread throughout the room, big enough to project a heavy metal band into the bleachers of a baseball stadium.
A string quartet flowed out at medium volume.
Three quarters of a quartet. Both violin parts and the viola.
Mahlon Burden sat on a backless stool in the center of the room cradling a cello. Playing by ear, eyes closed, swaying in tempo, thin lips pursed as if for a kiss. He had on a white shirt, dark trousers, black socks, white canvas tennis shoes. His shirt sleeves were bunched carelessly at the elbows. Gray stubble flecked his chin, and his hair looked unkempt.
Seemingly unaware of my presence, he played on, fingers assuming positions along the ebony board, bearing down, quivering with vibrato. Floating the bow across the strings in a horsehair caress. Controlling his volume so perfectly that the cello meshed seamlessly with the recorded sounds regurgitated by the speakers.