by Sarah Lovett
He’s seen a bit of the world.
Shaking off the memory, and slowing pace in a city of baking asphalt, steel, and glass, he turns in a direction that will take him past the transients. Going by several, he scatters coins toward their extended arms. When he walks in front of a thin, bleary-eyed man sitting cross-legged like any holy beggar in any holy city, he tosses a larger, shinier coin into the air.
The Kennedy half-dollar falls, spiraling, reflecting sharp, fast splinters of light.
It lands in the transient’s lap. For luck.
He moves faster now, past a row of about-to-be-gentrified brick buildings. Here, in this concrete forest primeval, there isn’t much pedestrian traffic because of the heat; the few people he passes, eyes cast downward according to urban etiquette and for protection from the glare, don’t dare look up.
But he does. The green-blue walls of Metro Detention Center rise above him. Hotel Metro. He smiles up at his old friend.
Can you feel me? Because I feel you, Dantes.
I feel your every breath. Hey, I promised, didn’t I?
I’m Ulysses. Or is that you?
Both of us pilgrims, you and me together again in Babylon.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Time to settle a very old score.
Smiling, still moving, continuing westward toward a dusty park and a street of buildings awaiting renovation. While he walks, he tastes the exhaust from car engines and the heat of cooked earth. He absorbs the hum of traffic, the rumble of jets high over his head, the vibration of transformers and underground trains. All these things form the pulse of the city.
Dantes’ City of Angels with her pure-sex curves, her dazzling smile, her leggy nonchalance. She even wears the priceless jewels of powerful men: a gleaming ziggurat, a pyramid-shaped Tower of Babel. Dantes’ girl . . .
As he stares out at this world, he pulls a carved bone figurine from his pocket; it is the size of a child’s thumb, and like a child, he rubs its smooth skin between his fingers: Enkidu, companion of the hero Gilgamesh, who journeyed up from the Assyro-Babylonian underworld to tell his friend the sad story of the regions of eternal darkness.
In the house of dust
Live lord and priest.
Live the wizard and the prophet . . .
Live those whom the great gods
Have anointed in the abyss.
Dusk is their nourishment
And their food is mud.
Welcome to LA, where innocence can’t survive.
Welcome to Operation Inferno.
Systematically and with an outlaw brilliance, John Freeman Dantes took on the powers that were and the powers that be by targeting water, oil, boosters, regulators, and planners, and the political machinery that created mythic Los Angeles. The two innocent victims of the aqueduct bombing were victims of war. It was only when he bombed the Getty that Dantes faltered on his course, crossing over the line from prophetic anarchist to coldblooded assassin. I for one mourned his fall from grace.
Letter to the editor, LA Weekly, December 1, 2001
7:55 A.M. Purcell and Church finished briefing Sylvia in the empty corridor as they waited for the elevator.
“We’ll keep you under audio surveillance as long as you’re in there,” Purcell explained. “Dantes will expect that. He won’t try anything. He can’t try anything.”
“Take your time, be direct, let him set the pace,” Church said, coaching. “You’d better give me that.” He held out his hand for the file on Dantes.
Sylvia relinquished it willingly. She’d just finished skimming the three hundred pages; much of the material was familiar from her previous research in preparation for the BPP, but some of it was new—for instance, the lab reports of the forensic evidence left at each bomb scene, and the postmortem photographs of the surveyor and the security guard killed when a section of the California aqueduct exploded. The photographs were full color and very graphic—insurance she’d never forget John Dantes was a murderer.
She leaned wearily against the wall, sipping burnt coffee from a Styrofoam cup; the fluorescent lights in the corridor made her eyes sting.
Purcell pressed the down button for the third time. Nothing happened. She pressed it again, mumbling, “Damn elevators are slower than molasses.”
“Doc?” Church tapped the side of his head. “Use whatever it takes to build up your connection with him, but don’t try to outfox the fox.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Scared?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You should be . . .” Abruptly, his voice died away as if he’d been cut off. But he was simply changing cognitive lanes. He studied Sylvia’s face and asked, “Do you know why Dantes asked for you?”
“I’m outside the system. He’s planning to use me, manipulate me—maybe he even thinks he can turn me. I become his ally.” She shrugged grimly. “But those are the obvious reasons.”
“What’s not obvious?”
“Don’t know yet. If yesterday was the test—somehow I passed. Take into consideration it was our first meeting face-to-face—there are issues of transference.” She paused, glancing speculatively at Church.
“As in, you remind him of his mother, his lover, whatever,” the detective said. “I took Psych 101, Doc.”
“Close enough,” Sylvia said. “Psychologically, Dantes needs my help.”
“Therapy?” Purcell spit out the word just as the elevator rumbled to a stop.
Eyeing the FBI agent, Church snorted. “Fucker’s bombs are a cry for help.”
The elevator doors opened silently.
“I thought you took Psych 101,” Sylvia said dryly, following the investigators into the small metal box. She closed her dark eyes for a moment. “Dantes thinks I’m vulnerable.” Opening her eyes wide, she added, “That’s crucial to him.”
Church kept his voice even. “You feeling vulnerable?”
“Oh, yeah,” she answered softly.
As if on cue, Purcell punched a button and the elevator descended, picking up speed, passing ground level and two lower floors, to brake smoothly on a third subterranean level.
“Dantes isn’t at MDC?” Sylvia asked, fighting back panic. It frightened her to think he wasn’t locked inside a cell.
“We’ve transported him over here for security considerations,” Purcell said.
“Mine or his?” Sylvia asked. She swallowed coffee, spilling some from the Styrofoam cup; a blue pill nestled secretly in the palm of her hand.
“Ours,” Purcell said flatly.
The elevator doors glided open, admitting stale, warm air. Followed closely by both investigators, Sylvia stepped out into a dimly lit concrete garage. “What is this place?” she asked.
“A basement, with utility access, and tunnel access to MDC,” Purcell said, moving forward briskly. She nodded toward a double door marked No Entry. “The U.S. marshals use it for prisoner transport, which is why it’s equipped with a cage.”
“Terrific.” Sylvia took another sip of coffee and tipped her head back slightly, ready to catch the blue pill in her mouth.
A wide hand gripped her wrist, fingers clamped tight around the tendons in her arm. Slowly—involuntarily—her muscles let go and the pill slipped away.
“You always eat the breakfast of champions?” Church asked in a very quiet voice. His mouth was almost pressed against her ear, and he hadn’t released her yet.
She stared up at him. “Only when I’m having a breakdown.”
“Welcome to LA,” he said sharply, with a quick dip of his red head.
She didn’t answer; instead she took two steps toward the double doors where Purcell and a U.S. marshall waited stiffly.
“Hey, Doc?”
She turned to glance back at Church, catching the faintest wink. He said, “Don’t fumble.” He tossed something in the air—a pack of cigarettes—and she caught them automatically, neatly.
She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. The palms of her hands hit the col
d metal doors of the transport cage. She was pushing a glacier uphill.
8:13 A.M. The room—about fifteen by twenty—was windowless, hot, designed to hold a dozen maximum security inmates. It could best be described as a mesh-lined metal bunker with built-in benches.
John Dantes was still wearing his prison colors, still sporting his bullet-proof vest. A chain bracelet courtesy of the state linked arms, waist, ankles—the chains also kept him from straying more than a few inches from the mesh wall. He was seated behind a narrow table, but his fingers barely reached the edge.
Sylvia stood in place, conscious of adrenaline, dread, and flowing underneath, a strong current of expectation. She waited, unwilling to be the first to speak.
“Dr. Strange. I want to thank you,” he said, oddly formal in speech and posture. His face showed deeper strain than it had twenty-four hours earlier. “I wasn’t sure you’d accept my invitation.”
“That’s what this is? An invitation?” she asked softly. “It feels like a summons.”
“Then I apologize.” His eyes narrowed, jaw tensing abruptly. “Did they give you a bad time?”
“I’m fine.” She was in motion, crossing the cage, dropping the pack of cigarettes on the table. She sat on a metal folding chair. “I’m here.”
With careful movements, she tapped the pack until a cigarette protruded from the opening. She held it out, and he strained forward to reach it with his lips. She pulled a lighter from her jacket pocket. Leaning toward him across the table, she flicked the metal lip, extending the flame.
He drew on the cigarette until the tip flared orange. As he exhaled, smoke hovered on the air around his mouth. “Why not ask the question?”
She nodded, placing the lighter on the table. Her fingers found the cigarette pack, and she worried the cellophane. “Why me?”
“We both know you’ve run through the various possibilities,” he said softly. “Can we just say you’re a free agent?”
“I’m still on their side,” she answered, stretching to pick up an improvised ashtray someone had left on the floor.
“I’m betting you’re on the side of justice and equity.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is,” she said sharply. “You have information they need—”
“My hands are tied.” He shifted his arms until the chains pulled taut. His smile was mean.
Sylvia stood, walking away from the table to come to a standstill by the mesh-lined wall. She gripped metal. “They need to know about the extortion letters.”
“I only know about my private correspondence.”
“Bullshit.” She pivoted to face him.
“No,” he said sharply. “We do it my way.”
“Of course we do.” She didn’t try to mask her derision.
Dantes dipped his head, his face unreadable while he finished his cigarette. “Do you miss Santa Fe, Dr. Strange? Your friends, your family?”
When Sylvia didn’t answer, he looked up. “A thousand miles is no distance at all.”
She placed the palms of her hands on the table and leaned toward Dantes. Conscious of audio surveillance, she mouthed four words—Don’t fuck with me.
They locked eyes. Sylvia didn’t look away. Not even when she felt him read her mind; he seemed to possess that ability.
“You misunderstand me,” Dantes said.
“No, I don’t. You just threatened my family. Do it again, I’m out of here. Do you understand me?”
He let the smoldering cigarette fall from his lips to land on the concrete floor; he ground it out with the heel of his shoe. “When they shook down my cell, they stole one card,” he said. “I don’t know about anything else.”
“The FBI received another written communication yesterday.”
“Through the mail?”
“Yes.”
“Content?”
“It was a threat.” She’d rehearsed the script with Church and Purcell; so far they hadn’t veered off track. “But that doesn’t surprise you.”
“No.” He slumped back in his chair. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“The message was inscribed on the back of a photo-graph—a Polaroid of a bomb,” Sylvia said. “Who is he? What does he want?”
Dantes smiled complacently. “I could use another cigarette.”
“Is he your partner? A fan?” She sat down again, reaching for the pack, tapping on plastic. “A copycat, or a sycophant?”
“Don’t be petty.”
She held a cigarette to her lips. “The Feds will lose patience before I do.” She clipped the lighter, sparking a blue flame, tipping the cigarette to heat. She inhaled smoke—“Give them something to work with”—then exhaled.
When he didn’t respond, she extended her arm, offering the lighted cigarette and intimacy with that one gesture.
He accepted. “I used to dream about my victims,” he whispered. “The surveyor killed in the aqueduct bombing. He had a two-year-old, another baby on the way. The job wasn’t scheduled for Thursday; he came early because his wife wanted him to take a long weekend. And the security guard? She was only forty-one.” His face sharpened, and he leaned forward. “I used to dream about them, but I stopped right after the Getty. Why do you think I stopped, Dr. Strange?”
“Because you had new nightmares—new victims.” Anger sparked Sylvia’s eyes. “The Getty bombing killed a child, his teacher—”
“I’m not responsible.”
“The evidence—”
“—was circumstantial. You talk to the bomb boys and everything changes. You’ve switched sides on me.”
“I was never on your side.”
“Oh, but I think you were, Dr. Strange. You just don’t want to admit it.” He sighed. “You and I are very much alike. We both want to play God—we both stretch beyond our reach. People get hurt.”
“You’re a murderer.”
“You’re right,” Dantes whispered. He gazed up at her, that intense sadness—manufactured or real—in his eyes again. He took a breath, physically releasing emotional weight.
He said, “We never really answered the question, Dr. Strange—why you? But you’ve guessed, haven’t you?” He smiled. “Let’s talk about Mona Carpenter.”
Sylvia stood.
“Her husband must hate you,” he said slowly. Slumping back in the hard chair with a smoky exhale, he shifted his gaze to follow wafting tendrils of smoke. “Mona had a child, a son, didn’t she? Nathan? Little Nate?”
She turned, walking straight to the door.
“We both know what it’s like to witness the death of someone who counted on you to make the world safe.” Urgency broke through Dantes’ words. “My mother counted on me. Mona Carpenter counted on you.”
Sylvia reached her hand up to tap on metal: the signal for release.
Dantes didn’t take his eyes from her back. “Have you ever seen what happens when a bomb explodes, the range of destruction?” he asked. “Walk away now, and more innocent people will die—children, mothers, grandmothers.”
Sylvia froze. She didn’t trust herself to move. Finally, she turned to face him. “That’s why you became a bomber? To hurt innocent people?” She asked. “I thought John Dantes wanted to save the world.”
“There was a time he believed he could do that . . . save the world.”
“I’m glad you believed in something,” Sylvia said. She walked back to the table.
“My targets were selected to contain damage, to avoid casualties. Obviously that’s not always possible. I had a story to tell. I had to make people listen.”
“You actually believe they heard your message?” Sylvia asked harshly. “They’ve labeled you schizophrenic, psychotic, deranged.” She spit out the words. “You should hear them on the talk shows. It’s fifty-fifty—they want to marry you or murder you. That’s your legacy.” She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to insinuate. “Nobody’s listening to John Dantes. They call you a coward
.”
“They’ll listen,” he said coldly. “Before it’s all over, they’ll listen.”
She fixed her gaze on him, as if by simply staring long enough, stubbornly enough, she might penetrate his mind.
Instead she found herself absorbed by his energy, stung by his intensity. Abruptly, she turned her head away. “We need your help.” Once again she was aware of Purcell and Church. Her body betrayed her internal shift; she felt the rift in her concentration, like an actor who breaks the fourth wall.
Dantes didn’t miss the trick. “Hello, Church,” he said cordially, tracking her thoughts. He shifted in the chair, an arrow primed. “Is the lovely Ms. Purcell with you today? Please forgive my rudeness, Dr. Strange, but I’m talking to my old pals from the task force.” Dantes’ smile was secretive. “My friends are very worried, aren’t they?”
He swung his head left, right. His demeanor altered, his calm veneer slipping away. Anxiety had begun to show through like something raw beneath the skin. Struggling to maintain control, he kept his attention focused on Sylvia. “What’s got them worried?”
“Take a wild guess,” she said harshly.
“A bomber? I don’t think so.” He straightened in the chair, tensing visibly. “They’re worried they fucked up the Getty investigation. They convicted the wrong man.” He tipped his head. “Do you really want help from me? The inmate?” He smiled, those electric eyes reaching their point of convergence. “The lunatic?”
She tried to read the fleeting emotions revealed on his pale face, but he retreated internally.
“Question, Dr. Strange,” he said sharply. “What does it feel like when you create a device, place it in a predetermined spot, detonate it—with the knowledge you will destroy property, perhaps human lives?”
“You tell me, you’re the bomb expert,” Sylvia said.
“You’re the psychologist. What does the profile suggest?”
“There’s no solid profile for bombers—the data from the nineteen ninety-two study is filled with variables,” she said. “You’re aware of that fact.”