by Robert Roper
I don’t need to tell you this, but a well-put-together look is important in many ways. You need to stay well rested and go to the barber before any court dates. We have a professional cosmetologist who works with us, if you don’t have your own person. Turtleneck shirts are okay, but the look of an ironed broadcloth shirt with a clean tie can’t be beat. While you’re at it, why not buy yourself a couple of new suits. If I am impinging on your personal prerogative please forgive me! I just want things to work out for you.
Signed with emoticons.
Son Jad, now here was a topic. Landau observed him throughout the evening, wondering if he wasn’t seeming melancholic. The towering son was a no-big-deal sort of host, friendly but offhand—oh, thirty-five people are coming for dinner, dear, is that what you said? Fine, although I’d rather watch TV by myself. His son’s ADD hangover or Asperger’s or whatever it was looked to Landau like nothing more than a case of torturing awkwardness sometimes, and he sympathized. His peers seemed to enjoy him nevertheless and to listen to him with close attention—maybe what Landau saw as a social deficit was a generational marker, something that the children of PlayStation, Ritalin, and the hard drive all recognized. No, I will never understand him, not entirely, but the reason for that may be that he was screwing my girlfriend, his putative stepmother. No wonder things got strange between us.
Do I believe that, though? No, no, I don’t. Too bizarre. Although my life has at times flirted with the truly strange, never has it crossed over into genuine weirdness. It has remained within hailing distance of the normal, or so I’ve always felt.
“Jad. We should talk sometime, Son.”
“All right, Dad. Lunch this week? The hospital?”
“Fine. Tell me what your workdays are.”
Jad told him, and they made a date.
“Jad, when was the last time you saw Samantha?”
“Samantha Beevors? Hmm…2003? Somewhere in there I think.”
“Not very recently, then.”
“No.”
A fire was burning in the hearth. It was Christmas Eve, after all. A tall tree stood in the giant living room, curiously without ornament—not a shred of tinsel, no candy canes, nothing. Lots of presents on the rugs, but the tree was empty.
“Why do you ask?”
“Eh, no reason. She gave you lots of presents, didn’t she? There was a Sony Walkman the year when that was all the rage. And one year a saxophone, I believe.”
“No, a drum set. A junior set. You put up with that for a while, then when I came home from school one day you had taken it to Goodwill.”
“Are you terribly-terribly angry about that, Jad?”
“Yes. Some wounds, you don’t get over.”
Landau looked closely at his son.
“You look a little sad, Jad. Just a little bit sad.”
“Actually, I feel fine. The look on my face—I’ve never been able to help that. It’s just there.”
“Okay, so you’re not sad. Good.”
“Things are going well. Job is good, life with wife is good. There was a corkscrew-shaped hole in society and I found it. It took some wiggling to fit in but I did.”
“You were always going to be all right—it was just a matter of time.”
“That sounds oddly positive, Dad. You were always more tart than that. But what’s with you, man? You’re the main object of concern these days. What the hell’s going on?”
“Oh, legal nightmare, what else. Don’t worry—it’ll turn out okay.”
Here came some small children. Karin and another woman were leading them, holding in their arms baskets full of Christmas tree ornaments. Now some other young mothers came forward, also some fathers, also the anti-Israel lady. They were having a formal hanging.
Japanese people, Peruvians. Black fathers, Jewish mothers, someone who looked Turkish to Landau—Levantish, in any case. A man who might have been an Inuit. You couldn’t throw a stone in Berkeley-North Oakland these days without summoning the whole UN, it was extraordinary. The children about half white and half mixed, whatever those terms meant anymore. Beautiful, healthful, excited kids. Kids were fun to watch, especially at a Christmas party.
Landau sat down on a white couch. The anti-Israel lady sat down near him.
“I really want some grandchildren,” she whispered behind her hand, smiling. “No, I really want some. I lust for them, from the deep-deep well of my being.”
“I know. I’m desperate, too, in a quiet sort of way.”
“I’ll kidnap some if I have to.”
They laughed about it, and Landau liked her better. He was watching Karin now. Was this a performance, or did Christmas tree ornaments awaken something lovable in her? He couldn’t quite remember why he had never warmed to her; if he thought about it, probably he could come up with the usual soggy list of reasons, but forget all that, just look what she’d done for him tonight. Invited him, in the first place. Despite the ongoing madness. Then, tried to fix him up with her church friend. Phoned him over a month ago, to urge him personally to come, because it wouldn’t be a party without him, you know. He hadn’t thought of it at the time but maybe she’d been registering solidarity—her husband’s father was in trouble, and she wasn’t turning away from him, no, she was standing fast. Her father-in-law, with whom it had never been easy.
His greatest fear about her was that she wanted Jad too much—that there was something off about that, it was too intense, her Kirche und Kinder drive to settle down and share him with nobody else, not even any Kinder. But how rational was that? Better that a daughter-in-law loves your son madly, is besotted with him, than that she sort of loves him, maybe, sometimes.
He took pleasure in the unaccustomed stream of Hallmark thoughts. All I need is for her to ask me to put a star on the top of the tree—but no, she had Jad for that, all six feet five of him. Jad with a coffee-and-cream-colored little girl in his arms, a very delicious little girl, tried to do the honors. The child couldn’t quite manage it, though, so Jad handed her carefully to her father and arranged the finial star himself. Applause.
“Karin, I enjoyed myself so much,” Landau said half an hour later. “Thanks so much for asking me.”
“Dad, you can’t go yet! The serious eating hasn’t even started!”
“I know, but I have some wrapping to do. I’m going to drop off a toaster oven for you two crazy kids tomorrow.”
“Dad”—that was two Dads already, possibly a record—“did you get your own presents?”
“No, but seriously, I’m coming by tomorrow, and not with a toaster oven, either. I’ll get them then, okay?”
“Okay, if you promise.”
Big, big hug. She wanted him to kiss her, and so he did, on both cheeks.
“I’m so glad you came. What about Teresa? Yes, no, maybe?”
“She’s a very attractive woman. I need someone a little dinged round the edges. But I’m on an improving trend, look, new shirt, new Italian pants. Soon I might almost be presentable.”
“Why do you even talk that way? Of course you’re presentable.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
“You’re very self-effacing. I don’t know why you’re like that. You’re one of the least puffed-up spectacularly accomplished people I’ve ever met. You could be much more full of yourself.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that.”
Out on Alvarado again. The street the palace was on. What was it, eight thirty, nine? A sliver of pearlescent moon lay low to the horizon, clouds scudding in front of it, hustling along. When the moon emerged from the clouds it seemed to leap forward, before seeming to slow down again. Landau watched this for a while.
Alvarado Road hugged the side of a canyon, and although it had the appearance of a normal California rich-persons’ enclave, the neighborhood had been half-incinerated seventeen years ago. After that
fire, the Great Oakland Fire of ’89, the many burnt-down homes had been rebuilt, the scorched shrubbery all replanted, life had gone on. In another generation there would be another fire—it was guaranteed.
The point was that you didn’t know when it would come, how big it would be. And you built out of fire-retardant materials, and you planted no shrubbery close to your house, so that the fire, when it came, would pass over, as the Angel of Death had passed over the ancient Hebrews. That was the hope that helped you move forward.
Lots of Jews in them thar hills, as a matter of fact. Only two houses on the block had Christmas lights up, Landau noticed, and a street nearby, Gravalt Drive, was locally known as Gevalt Drive, as in oy gevalt. Landau had known a mathematician who lived there, a prominent Berkeley maths prof, who had been working at home on the day of the big fire, noticing a faint smell of woodsmoke in the air, a misty cast to the sky, when a policeman knocked at his door and told him to evacuate now. No flames in the sky yet, no signs of an approaching holocaust, and the policeman had been quite relaxed, offhand. Probably a false alarm, he’d said, but head downhill to the community center just to be safe. I’ll give you thirty minutes.
The mathematician took a shower. Took something out of the freezer to defrost for dinner. Locked up the house behind him, then on a whim went back in and got the manuscript of the paper he was working on, on the Cartier isomorphism. Thought about taking the cats but they’d be too much trouble, he told Landau later. Didn’t take any family photos, didn’t take his wife’s fifty years of journals going back to preschool, didn’t take his daughter’s framed crayon drawings, the family insurance policies, the bankbooks, the tax records. The Matisse litho over the mantel that was worth something. Thought about taking all of it, had time to gather everything up, and more, but didn’t.
Landau ran into the man a few years after. His house had burned to the ground, his wife had left him. That he’d had time, yet had done nothing—that had driven his wife wild, that was so typical of him. His daughter, now a teen, was in drug rehab. His mother-in-law had been out shopping on the day, and she’d declined rapidly after the fire—had some kind of dementia now. He was still working on his paper. Some days he had it almost nailed, he thought, but other days he felt it slipping away.
Landau got in his car and drifted downhill. What is the Cartier isomorphism, did I ever know? It has to do with algebraic geometry, I think, but I’m not sure beyond that, and I can’t even remember the Berkeley maths guy’s name. I would know him if I saw him again, though.
Rolled up the windows of his car. Getting cold and raw out there, rain coming, the air had a blustery storm smell, a smell of brine from the nearby sea. On a steep curve Landau’s right foot made a sticking sound and the heel of his new Italian shoe caught and then slipped, as if the floor were covered with slick glue, and he reached down and, yes, it was wet down there, it was tacky-sticky. Some glue, then? Some spilled house paint, maybe? Oh, but I know that smell, I know it. What is it?
Under a streetlamp, hand brake on, the car idling. Landau felt the floor again and the well around his feet on the driver’s side was all moist, Jesus, good God, and he suddenly threw open the door and bolted out of his car. Ran part way up the block, ran fast. Slicky-tacky sounds as he walked in tight circles on the road surface, beneath the streetlamp, leaving footprints. No, it’s not paint, it’s not salad oil, and he returned to his car and opened the left rear door with such force that the hinges partly buckled. Someone huddling there on the floor, between the back of the front seat and the bench rear seat, a dark-haired man or boy, a slender fellow, and Landau took hold of the jacket material and pulled, to get him out of there. Pulled and then let go, in horror. The torso and head had subsided onto the street, the body was half lying out now, and he had seen the shoes, the saucy cheeky shoes. Red Converse high-tops, they were. Oh God. Mary Mother of God.
Rotating police lights. Six police cruisers, a whole team of them this time, Oakland police this time. Landau sat on the curb, feeling faint, as the burly young officer asked him to tell the story in his own words.
Ambulance approaching, two ambulances. One made the standard siren sound, increasing in pitch and frequency as it neared, the other emitting some freakish whoops and bleats. The Oakland police were walking around and talking into their handsets, giving an impression of professionalism. Okay, just hang your head between your knees, Landau told himself, wait till it’s better. Take deep breaths.
“I was coming downhill from my son’s house,” he began. “I felt stickiness on the floor of my car that was getting onto my shoes, and it turned out to be blood. So I stopped.”
“You pulled over here, is that right?”
“Yes, and I called 911.”
“But then how did she get on the street like that, sir?”
“I told you, I pulled her out. Half pulled her out.”
Hard to get him to understand. It was not an accident with the door flying open and someone in the backseat half falling out, dragged fifty yards on the street, and therefore covered with blood. That wasn’t how it had happened.
“Mr. Landers, are you okay, sir? You warm enough? You look pale.”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Want this umbrella?”
Landau recognized that it was raining. It had been coming down for a while now. “Okay. I guess so.”
“Why don’t you just put him in the prowler,” one officer said to the other.
Not long after the ambulances arrived, the two ambulances, one of Landau’s lawyers, Carl, arrived. By then the police knew who he was, that he was Landau not Landers, and they knew that the woman in the back of his car had had her throat slit, and they had discovered that she had been disemboweled. And they knew who she was, too, because Landau had told them her name. He was standing in the rain in handcuffs now, a line of cars coming slowly down Alvarado, swinging slightly left to avoid the ambulances and the police cars, and as a Land Rover passed with two handsome young people up front looking out through the windshield, he recognized them from Jad’s party—they were some of the wholesome guests, going home now.
“Officer, I’m this man’s attorney,” Carl said. “Is this man under arrest?”
“Hey, get out of the way, who the fuck are you, buddy?”
“I’m Glebefelder. I’m his attorney. Carl Glebefelder.”
“Well stay the fuck out of the way, Glebegelder, or I’ll cuff you, too.”
Not your namby-pamby Berkeley police—no, these were crack-your-head Oakland police. They had a salty reputation.
The cuffs, the swooping siren, the swerving ride to the station. It was all just like on Homicide, only you were in it. The backseat upholstered in clear plastic, no door handles to play with. Serious grillwork between you and the policemen up front. No worrying about whether he was cold now, was he maybe feeling faint. No more nice nanny-policing.
Almost a relief to be treated like a common criminal—almost. It was Christmas Eve, and they were short on staff, so they took him directly to the detention facility on Sixth Street in Oakland. His lawyer nowhere in sight now. Maybe Carl was pulling strings behind the scenes, ameliorating, but you couldn’t tell, because you couldn’t see him, and that was worrying. Landau sat cuffed to a table in a room that might have been a reception area. He heard noise outside the door. Just from the sound of it he thought that the press had been informed, and one or two voices out there sounded angry, while others sounded amused, lighthearted. A sturdy black man who looked like a police commissioner from The Wire stuck his head in and took a long, baleful look at Landau—you degraded piece of human garbage, you—then they brought him a paper cup with tap water, which he was unable to lift to his lips because of the cuffs. Then two white officers entered, and they walked him out of the room, and Raboy was around, putting a reassuring hand on Landau’s shoulder, “Okay, just let me do the talking, Anthony, how are you, you okay? Any
problems?”
“Any problems? Are you kidding?”
“Officer, take these chains off, please. This man is not under arrest.”
“Prrhmpff.”
“Would you take these chains off, please? Officer? Are you listening?”
“They ain’t chains,” someone said from somewhere. “They’s handcuffs.”
“Lieutenant? I’m talking to you.”
The upshot was two nights in the slammer. Only two nights, and not a classic jail cell, more of a minimalist dorm room. The famous legal hold, whereby they kept you without arresting you, and took away your clothes, including your nice new Italian slacks, bloodied at the cuff now, and submitted everything you wore to forensic analysis, while impounding your car—all of that happened. The BMW, as a matter of fact, went away and never came back to him—it was torn apart, the fine Beemer leather violated rudely, and he could have had it repaired but he was disgusted by it, he didn’t want it anymore. He was being a big baby but the thought of driving around in Dolores’ blood, getting a whiff of the odor every now and then—no, that wasn’t for him.
But before that, before he sold the car for salvage, on the second day of his technical non-incarceration, Landau experienced a police interview. They took him from the detention center to the Police Administration Building, at Seventh and Broadway, and Raboy was with him, but Landau found a way to speak, he pretty much said what he wanted. About last week—about encountering Ms. Huerta five days ago in the church basement. They already knew that there had been an altercation, because people had witnessed that—“Not an altercation, more of a misunderstanding, a slight misunderstanding,” Landau explained. “She had a little bit of a hotheaded gut response to seeing me there. Because of all this coverage and all this speculation about me. It would’ve passed if we could’ve talked for a minute. She wasn’t really like that, Dolores.”