by Sarah Lovett
When the “human element” takes one more step.
The military calls this an expedient firing device system.
M has added his own embellishments—for some serious fun.
Delivery made in the name of Operation Inferno. Yes, he still believes he will recapture the glory days when he and Dantes lived as one.
Now he will wait; the next speech belongs to Dantes—this one will be about trust, betrayal, sacrifice in honor of the Fat Cats. They must begin to understand how serious he is about revenge.
Every civilization ends. It’s only a tragedy when the dust settles in our lifetime.
Mole’s Manifesto
10:37 A.M. “Dantes isn’t finished with me yet,” Sylvia whispered.
Special Agent Purcell shook her head, looking dyspeptic, looking just plain grumpy.
Church took three steps toward Sylvia, flexing his fingers in a backward wave. “So talk to us, what’s he want?”
“You heard the interview. All that talk about Bunker Hill, his mother, the railroad—he’s sending me to Angels Flight.”
“Why?”
“To see if I’ll play. To see if you’ll play.”
“We don’t do scavenger hunts.” Detective Church was chewing gum with such manic energy the ligaments in his jaw looked as if they’d snap.
“What if I come back for more?” Sylvia kept moving, kept talking. “He’s parsing out information, running a subtext between the lines. Inmates do it all the time.” She spun around, backpeddling across hot concrete. “The quote from Cicero—and Angels Flight.”
She turned again just as Church stepped in her path, arms crossed like a fence over his wide chest. “If you’re right, has it occurred to you he and his asshole buddy are sending you out to find the real bomb?”
Silent for a moment, Sylvia slowed. “That’s why you’re coming, too,” she said finally.
Church exchanged a look with Purcell.
Sylvia said, “Look, I’m going to Angels Flight—it’s worth a gamble—and I need to talk to Dantes when I get there.”
“We can put Dantes on the secure line,” Church said. “Maybe he’ll hang himself.”
Purcell flipped open her tiny phone and pressed one button. Her speech was clipped: “We’ve got Strange—she says she can get more from Dantes.”
Sylvia’s eyes widened.
“Let’s boogie.” Detective Church was already moving toward the perimeter barrier and the street.
Sylvia started to follow, but Purcell held out the phone. “For you.”
Sylvia heard an unfamiliar voice.
“Dr. Strange, forgive the theatrics”—transmission cut out for an instant, then—“look forward to meeting you.”
“Who is this?”
“—Sweetheart,” the voice stammered in, “—second opinion on terrorists—”
Out.
And in. “—psycholinguistics, encryption. My friends at the FBI have asked for my cooperation.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Sylvia said. She deliberately inclined her head toward the phone, as if a miniature of the man lived inside the tiny plastic handset, as if she might lure him out.
“Looks like your friend put you in a tight spot,” the voice said, startling her, so that she pulled back physically. “I’ll try to stay in contact.” The satellite transmission was faint but steady.
“The caller mentioned the third circle,” she said. “And the previous message—”
“No more Limbo,” Sweetheart interrupted. “How well do you remember the Inferno? Dante Alighieri envisioned a hierarchical hell. Nine circles.” Sweetheart paused as a background hum grew increasingly loud. “The poet Virgil guides the pilgrim through outer hell to the first circle, or limbo—where the heathens exist in a state of nothingness. The second circle belongs to those guilty of lust. Basically, the higher the numerical value of the circle, the more grievous the sin. Capisce?”
“He’s escalating.”
“They’ll keep Dantes by the phone,” Sweetheart said. “You handle the call—only you. Don’t make him wait. Don’t hide your feelings. If you’re scared, show him you’re scared.”
“I can do that,” she said softly, “Hey—what’s three?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Third circle; what’s the third sin?”
“A ravenous appetite for any number of things,” he said briskly.
After a second’s hesitation, she guessed, “Gluttony?”
“Exactly. Dr. Strange—looks like we’ve got one bomber behind bars but the other’s out there on the streets. Please watch your back.”
“Fine,” she snapped, clicking off. Fear made her cranky.
10:52 A.M. Once they escaped the mare’s nest of the Civic Center, Church burned rubber. Sylvia watched the blur of passing street scenes as the detective guided the town car south on Hill. Yellow tape and red cones marked the road where crews had torn up asphalt for subway improvements or utility repairs; the car slalomed around these and other obstacles, including the rare pedestrian who had ventured out from the shadows cast by the narrow multistoried buildings, the museums, the billboards.
She shivered at the shrill, slicing cry of sirens. Leo Carreras had edited a book on criminal profiling. Sylvia’s contribution had been a chapter on narcissism and attachment disorders. Leo’s chapter had focused on bombers; according to his data, a small percentage of them registered as polar opposites on the trait spectrum. Nihilist versus moralist, in opposition, yet sharing the tension of absolutes.
Dantes qualified as the moralist.
Sylvia had the feeling they were just beginning to search for missing pieces of the theoretical puzzle.
“Bombers tend to be Caucasian, male, single, or married only for the sake of convenience—but most crime is committed by men, and most males in the U.S. are white. And the bomber’s life—concocting deadly explosives—doesn’t lend itself easily to a social context. So, how to narrow the profiling field?
“In the late 1970s, Macdonald divided the profile six non-mutually exclusive ways: the compulsive bomber, the psychotic bomber, the sociopathic bomber, the political bomber, the Mafia bomber, and the military bomber.”
As Detective Church braked in a no-parking zone, quiet chatter from the radio filled the unmarked car.
“Let’s go call your boyfriend.”
Angels Flight, the world’s shortest funicular railroad, ran east-west, traversing a small hill. On their frequent runs, the two identical red passenger cars were polarized, passing side by side only briefly where the zipper of the track opened for roughly thirty feet.
While Church escorted Sylvia across the street, Purcell stayed put at the base of the hill to monitor the cell transmission—and to keep an eye out for stray bombers.
The car named Olivet, empty and at rest on Hill St., met the sidewalk at a forty-five-degree angle. Followed by Church, Sylvia stepped under the distinctive fire-engine archway, passing through the small turnstile to board. She chose a seat from tiny benches reminiscent of an old schoolhouse. Church doubled over to fit his rangy frame inside the small car. They had the Olivet to themselves.
Almost instantly, the ride began with a lurch.
“Two decades after Macdonald, the political bomber and the compulsive bomber seem the most relevant. The political bomber has a cause in need of attention—and he truly believes any method is justifiable in the quest for ideological change. The compulsive bomber is the man who nurtures a lifelong obsession with, and commitment to, explosives, perhaps even deriving—although it has always been a point of controversy—sexual gratification from explosive initiation.
“Again, the categories are not mutually exclusive. The anarchist bomber Ravachol was known for his political extremism, his antisocial personality, and his sexual eccentricities; he wore rouge and carried lipstick and explosives in his purse.”
About fifteen seconds into the ascent, Sylvia noticed the second car, Sinai, passing downhill on the northern zipper. As far as s
he could see, it held one passenger.
“He’s one of ours,” Church murmured.
The Olivet came to rest with a clank and a jolt. Sylvia debarked, accompanied by Church, ready to hand her fare to the girl inside the ticket booth. History for a quarter. Five rides for a buck. Inflation on hiatus.
But Church flashed his credential at the attendant and she waved them on with a startled look.
“Hey, two bits is two bits,” Church drawled.
At first glance, the Water Court was deserted; then Sylvia noticed the other couple. She guessed they were cops.
She picked up speed, crossing to the far edge of the viewing patio.
“Various and sundry theories factor in personality variables such as the death wish, suicidal tendencies, a low arousal threshold. It is called a ‘coward’s crime,’ but the bomber’s life offers the barest apportionment for cowardice. The risk of injury and/or death is extremely high. The overwhelming majority of bombing victims are the bombers themselves, killed in the act of construction or transportation.”
Brilliant perps aren’t the norm, she thought.
“I’m going to call Roybal. Get the transmission set up with Dantes,” Church said, joining Sylvia.
“Give me two more minutes,” she said, not taking her eyes from the surrounding cityscape. She pushed away the unpleasant thought that she’d better produce results—pray this is a wild goose chase and we can all go home safe and sound.
She imagined Dantes standing in her place. Los Angeles was more than his home, it was his ego, and he’d written about its nooks and crannies, its noir secrets, in detail. The result was a tome—part urban history, part ecosociology—an architecture-as-destiny treatise, with a healthy dose of social psychology by a man who claimed no use for psychologists. Meanwhile, he’d lived a double life as an outlaw, an anarchist.
John Dantes’ infernal machines—his bombs—were special. His creations brought destruction—to a small section of the aqueduct, to a Water & Power building, to an oil derrick. But he had no one signature—no definitive method of construction—that he left on each and every device. Some were utilitarian, designed to provide the most bang for the buck. Some were duds—hoax devices. And some were beautiful—created especially to attract the curious.
Not unlike the bomb that killed ten-year-old Jason Redding.
“One man’s revolutionary is another man’s coldblooded killer. At the turn of the twentieth century, the political bomber is the most dangerous animal in the pack—his psychopathology, hence his motivation, still maintains a hiding place, a safe house deep in the recesses of ideology.”
Dantes was sending her on errands. First, to the top of Angels Flight. And she had taken the damn choo-choo because—
In the distance, light fired up the glass and metallic surface of the Bonaventure Hotel. Her heart caught, but it was just the glare of the sun.
No explosions. Not yet.
The sun burned one shoulder, the side of her face. When she looked over at Church, light stung her eyes. A sliver of fractured memory jabbed at her for an instant.
“Call him now,” she told the detective with a sharp nod.
Church placed the call.
Less than thirty seconds later, Dantes was on the phone.
“Dr. Strange. How’s the view from Angels Flight?”
“Your friend called the FBI,” Sylvia said. “He mentioned the third circle.”
“Where a cold rain falls, and the three-headed hound of hell guards the damned.”
“Is he punishing LA, the city fathers, for the sin of gluttony?”
“Only Ciacco knows the future of the city,” Dantes cut her off, “and he’s in hell. You’ll have to do this all by yourself, Dr. Strange. Tell me what you see.”
“A city under siege,” she answered quietly.
“I want details, not melodrama,” he said. “Grand Central Market to the east. Pershing Square. The Metropolitan Water District, a Wells Fargo bank, a bar, those old hotels from the Chandler days.” He paused. “What’s behind you?”
“More city,” she said, adrenaline level rising like an internal tide. She reached automatically for her pills, but found her pockets empty.
“Facing north, talk to me.”
“Wilshire Boulevard. Olympic, Pico.”
“North, not west.”
She turned slowly. Three-dimensional Monopoly. She could see half the damn city, including the traffic-clogged recesses of the Civic Center. The Hollywood Freeway. The Harbor interchange. Millions of people traveling along the massive concrete river every day. Such easy victims.
“Why am I here, Dantes? I put my ass on the line for you.”
“Be patient,” he said.
“While you’re getting off on some power games? You against the FBI?”
“They can’t give you the answers,” he snapped. “I can.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re just playing with innocent lives.”
Silence. Was he gone? This was a five-way transmission: in addition to Sylvia and Dantes, Detective Church, SA Purcell, and the U.S. marshals at Roybal were all monitoring the call. The Feds’ party line.
“Hello?” Sylvia breathed. “Shit.”
“Don’t jump to stupid conclusions,” he said sharply. “You’re in way over your head, so listen very carefully. Did you follow my trial before they so rudely and unconstitutionally gagged me?”
“Yes—I—”
“Do you remember Judge Heron’s response to my final refusal to undergo a psychiatric evaluation?”
“He used your own statement.” Caught off guard, she stalled. “About society labeling radicals as criminal or mental misfits . . .”
“Wrong.”
“Remind me.”
“Pay attention to detail. Otherwise, you’re just April’s fool.”
“I remember reading about—” She broke off. “Dantes?”
“He hung up?” Church asked, mouth gone slack with alarm, earpiece protruding like some black insect. “What did he mean? Shit, fuck.”
Sylvia shook her head, warding off the sensation of sinking underwater. Her eyes were glued to the coffee stain on the detective’s shirt as she said, “The trial transcripts fill entire rooms. Leo Carreras did one evaluation; a state psychiatrist did another. What about the judge—”
“This is fucking useless,” Church groaned.
“Back off, leave me the hell alone.”
Church did.
“What did he just say? ‘Pay attention to detail. Otherwise, you’re just April’s fool.’” She stared up at Church, but she wasn’t seeing him. “That’s when Dantes called me—on April first.” She closed her eyes, traveling back in time. “I was at my house, on the deck; it was late. I asked him about . . . what?”
“What?” Church prodded.
“Object-relations theory,” Sylvia blurted out, as a mental light snapped on.
The detective watched her blankly.
“Dantes never knew his father. He lived with his grandparents, but he never bonded with them. His mother was a suicide,” she said, frustrated by the need to explain, fighting the urge to bolt. “Dantes asked me what he’d replaced her with, and I didn’t make the connection until now.”
As Sylvia’s delivery picked up speed, she used gestures for emphasis. “She used to take him all over the city, day and night, a sort of constant pilgrimage.”
“So we’re supposed to wander the damn streets?” Church exploded in exasperation.
“Shut up, Detective.” Sylvia pressed redial on the phone—it rang too many times. Just when she was about to panic, Dantes answered.
“During the trial, you told Dr. Carreras that a place—instead of a person—could be a child’s primary attachment object. You said that had happened for you.”
“And then he and Judge Heron used it against me. Bravo, Dr. Strange.”
“The city is what you love most. She’s your primary attachment. She made you feel safe, she made you belong.” Sylvia sto
od stock-still, holding her breath, then quietly asking: “What place in LA are we talking about, John?”
She heard the relief in his voice as he recited three words like a small prayer: “Home sweet home.”
Too often, the system devours its most gifted and creative children. Dostoyevsky wrote about such cannibalism, so did Conrad. At the turning of each century, the faults of humanity’s social systems are highlighted. The clues to the imminent death of a particular civilization are revealed, but only to those who have the courage to seek out the truth, and to read the signs.
Dantes’ Inferno
11:20 a.m. Home sweet home was a three-story clapboard Victorian, now boarded up and surrounded by chain-link.
She’d looked up the passage from Dantes’ Inferno: “I was raised downtown. My blood is city blood. My skin filters the same urban smog that used to diffuse the air around the white Victorian at the corner of Beaudry and Temple. As a boy I was a knock-kneed ruffian who loved his home sweet home.”
Pale and austere, the house stood alone, waiting to be razed or moved like some Hollywood back-lot prop. The lot was large, at least a half acre, and barren except for the house and a half dozen tall old trees—palm, olive, evergreen. A narrow walkway, overgrown with weeds, still marked the path to the front door.
At some point the neighborhood had been residential, but zoning changes and city expansion were rapidly altering the landscape. On bordering streets, small shops still advertised their trades, but high-rise office buildings, those vertical neighborhoods that were clearly the next wave, loomed over the modest businesses.
Detective Church parked on Temple, catty-corner to the house. He gazed out at the property, his eyes obscured by the black sunglasses. He was still chewing gum. He said, “I remember when we made the search.”
“Right after the arrest?” Sylvia asked.
“He was still on the lam. We cornered him at Llano del Rio about two weeks later,” Church said. “Forensics went through it again before the trial. They catalogued half a ton of evidence—most of it useless.”
Sylvia pushed open her car door and climbed out, saying, “So who’s got the wire cutters?”