'Yeah, the time machine.' She rolled her eyes. 'How'd you know? Your lieutenant must have told you.'
Martinez nodded. 'I was just talking to some of my colleagues who had been spending the night in Central City. Did you know that your father had purchased a chicken ranch up there for the Order-'
'A chicken ranch?' She laughed. 'Okay.'
'The hired hand up there - his name is Benton - told us your father had a telescope up there. He often took it out to look at the nighttime skies.'
'And your point is... ?'
'He said that your father had revived his interest in time machines.'
Europa looked blank. 'Really?'
'What do you think about that?'
'About time machines or my father's interest in them?'
'How about time machines in general?'
'My specialty is subatomical particle spin. I leave the time machines to H.G.Wells.'
'What do you think about your father's recent interest in them?'
'I don't know what to think. The tragic part is my dad's ideas about superluminal links had scientific data to back him up.'
'What kind of data?' Webster asked.
She smiled. 'Do you really want to know the answer?'
'It's complicated?'
'Technical. It has to do with photons given off as electrons descend from an excited delta position to one at rest. There are theories that if the same photons shared the same space and were given off at the same time, they'd forever have instantaneous communication. Hence, superluminal - faster than light - travel. That was Dad's starting point. The trouble was, his entire project... it took on a paranoid quality. I remember only in bits because Mom shielded us from most of his erratic behavior. But I do remember him saying that he had to build this machine to escape the aliens who had already planted evil thoughts in his friends' brains. We'd be next if we didn't escape soon. As a kid and coming from Dad, I was very frightened. Not only by aliens but by my father's belief in them. Back then, Emil Euler Ganz had a lot of cosmic credibility.'
'I can see that,' Martinez answered. 'How old were you?'
'Twelve, maybe. I was fifteen when Dad disappeared. At first, Mom was concerned, but not overly so. As the days passed, she became frantic. I was petrified. Because deep down, even at fifteen, I thought that the aliens had succeeded. Given what he had been talking about, I thought it was eminently logical that he had been kidnapped by space creatures.'
She didn't speak for a moment.
'Somewhere...in my child's mind... I still believe it. Because how else do you explain a ten-year absence?'
"There are mountaintops in Nepal,' Webster said.
'True. For all I know, he took off somewhere. But being kidnapped by space creatures sounds so much less mundane.'
Martinez said, 'Was Bob interested in your father's time machines?'
'If he was, he never told me.' She drummed the photo album she was still hugging. 'The Order suited Bob. Lots of easy marks to boss around and plenty of young, vulnerable girls to have sex with. Plus, he really did admire my father's work. I'm sure he kissed Jupiter's butt. Dad was a hopeless sucker for flattery. It sure worked in Jilliam's case - excuse me, Venus. You know that I knew Venus. She was my childhood friend.'
'Do you think it's possible that Bob and Venus are an item?'
Europa thought about it. 'Maybe. But I don't think so. Sex wasn't Jilliam's thing. When I knew her, she was searching for the spiritual. Although if she did hook up with Bob, sex has to be a factor.'
'Although he wasn't good,' Webster answered.
'Not with me.'
Martinez said, 'Without getting graphic, can you fill us in on why he wasn't good?'
'I can get graphic. Doesn't bother me.' A shrug. 'He was never fully tumescent. Which I thought was strange because he always climaxed even with the flag at half-mast. It wasn't very satisfying.'
'I wouldn't think so,' Webster said. 'Did he need things to make him interested?'
'No kinks that I could ascertain. He liked the usual adult hetero porno. I don't remember seeing homosexual stuff or child stuff. He did have a couple of B and D magazines. But we never did that kind of thing. He just never got fully hard. I suppose I didn't thrill him.'
'Why do you think he embezzled money?' Webster asked. 'Was he poor?'
'Nah. Besides money isn't the calling card at Southwest. Brains is the ticket. My opinion? He stole for kicks.'
She sat back in her chair.
'I saw him in the cafeteria a couple of times pulling his shtick. Taking the money and changing it from his own stash. He winked at me when he did it.' She waited a moment. 'I looked down at his pants for some reason. He had a hard-on. Unbelievable what comes back from the memory banks. It's when you don't think about things... that's when they come to you.'
She threw up her hands, glancing at the TV.
'I hope this ordeal resolves. The Order has a lot of children. I have a couple of half-sibs inside - a sister and a brother. The boy's from Venus, the girl's from another one of my dad's lovers.'
Martinez said, 'And you've never met them?'
'I suppose I could have set it up. But I didn't want to.' She shook her head. 'Just too damn sad!'
Webster's pager went off. He glanced at the number. To Martinez, he said, 'The boss.'
Europa said, 'Phone's over there.'
He thanked her and called the number. Decker answered midway through the first ring. 'Where are you?'
Uptight and all business. Webster answered, 'At Dr Ganz's-'
'Learn anything?'
'Quite a bit. Bob was kicked out of Southwest for starters.'
'Doesn't surprise me. Did Europa confirm that his last name was Ross?'
'That's what Bob told her.'
'It doesn't kick out on any of the FBI's computers.'
'She felt his background was working-class New Jersey.'
'Ethnic?'
'Maybe.'
'Ross could be a Jewish name.'
Webster turned to Europa. 'Could Bob be Jewish?'
'More like an anti-Semite. He sure was jealous of a lot of Jewish kids. Made comments to that effect. Coming from New York or Jersey, I figured he was probably Italian or Puerto Rican.'
'Did you hear that?' Webster asked Decker.
'Yes, I did.' Decker thought of Italian variants on Ross - Russo or Rizzo... that name struck a familiar chord. Then he remembered that Rizzo was a character in Grease. Then there was Ratso Rizzo in the seventies movie Midnight Cowboy. Man, he was showing his age. He lowered his voice. 'Is she being cooperative?'
'Very.'
'Put her on.' Decker squirmed, trying to get more elbow room. The van was small and McCarry was on top of him. Over the line, he heard, "This is Dr Ganz.'
'Thanks for helping us out.'
'God, I'm sorry about the situation.'
'Maybe you can help. Detective Webster tells me you know quite a bit about Bob Ross, or whatever his name is.'
'It was fifteen-sixteen years ago.'
'Let me ask you this. Do you think B ob has the technical knowledge to build bombs? I don't mean things like small pipe bombs. I'm referring to major charges.'
'An intriguing question,' Europa said. 'Let me put it to you this way. The Order was originally made up of disenfranchised engineers and scientists. If two lay-nothings could blow up half the federal building in Oklahoma City, it wouldn't surprise me if those nutcases had nuclear capacity.'
Standing outside, behind the shield of vehicular metal, Special Agent in Charge McCarry unfurled the first of many scrolled architectural plans that the Order had filed with the city planner's office. But he couldn't concentrate on an engineer's map of lines and circles. Instead, he found himself staring at the stagnant bunkers. What kind of activity was going on inside? More than that, why hadn't the son of a bitch called back and asked for Decker? Stringing them all along, but that was to be expected.
The architect leaned over the map, smoothing out the page with the palms of her hand.
She placed rocks on the corners of the paper to keep it from curling up. Then she adjusted her bifocals. In her sixties, Adele Sawyer had been only tangentially involved with the original project. She had never even seen the finalized plans. But she was the first one the feds had located, and the only one to come down on such short notice. Her gray hair was tied back into a thick ponytail. She wore a cable-knit sweater and jeans.
Adele started to explain the plans. 'As I recall, Jupiter wanted a large enough entry hall so it could double as a meeting place - a room where the members could get together to discuss common problems.'
'Where'd he get the money for something this big?' McCarry groused. 'How much did this thing cost? Four million? Five, maybe?'
The older woman was unfazed by McCarry's brusqueness. 'Actually, the external structure isn't much more than boxes strung together. Slabs of steel-reinforced concrete. Hard as hell to penetrate, but not all that expensive to build because there's no detail.'
Staring at the blue-inked dimensions, McCarry tried to get a fix on the actual size. He glanced at the command post a couple of cars away. The mayor was briefing a troop of his lackeys, getting ready to present them to the media. Los Angeles was nothing but a three-ring circus. He glanced at Decker. 'You've been inside. What can you tell us about it?'
Decker tightened his coat and waited for the first glimpse of dawn. How many hours before people turned on their television sets for the morning news? How many hours before the few gawkers became a major crowd control problem? How much time before a terrible stalemate with lives at stake became bedlam? Eyes focused back on the blueprint. He pointed to an area. 'This is the entry?'
Adele nodded.
'It's got high ceilings as I recall.'
'Fifteen feet according to the plans.'
'There's a big stained-glass window in the ceiling.'
'So we can penetrate from the top?'
'Not without a battering ram,' Decker said. 'It's steel-mesh over steel bars. At the time, I wondered why it was constructed with so much metal. But it was a big mother window so I thought the steel was necessary for support. There are some small dormer windows at the junction between wall and ceiling. They're also barred - well, you can see for yourself. Do you have the exact dimensions?'
'The exact outside dimensions are a foot by eighteen inches,' McCarry answered. 'Even without the bars, they're too small for any of my current men to penetrate. Unless they're like arrow slits. Small on the outside and bigger on the inside. What do the plans say?'
Adele said, 'Twelve by eighteen on the outside and inside.'
'Around the size of a small doggie door,' Decker said.
McCarry said, 'I'm wondering if we can take the bars off - spray them with liquid nitrogen from long distance and crack them apart - if we have anyone who's small enough to fit inside. A woman maybe.'
'Lieutenant?'
Decker turned around. It was Webster and Martinez with Europa Ganz in tow. She was also dressed in a sweater and jeans. She and Adele - with their grayish hair and fresh faces - could have passed for mother and daughter.
McCarry said, 'Who are you?'
'They're from my department,' Decker answered. 'The woman is Dr Europa Ganz - Jupiter's daughter. The one I called about Bob's capacity to fabricate explosives.'
'Of course.' McCarry shook hands with her, showing a glint of animation. 'So you must know the inside of the place.'
'Actually, the last time I was inside the Order was something like fifteen years ago.'
'Then why are you here?'
'I was wondering that myself.'
Decker said, 'Sir, she knows Bob Ross-'
'Knew Bob Ross,' Europa interrupted.
'Aka Bob Risso, Russo, Rizzo. Something about that name is sticking in my head.' Decker was exasperated. 'I can't pull it up...
McCarry said, 'Since you know Ross, what can you tell us about him?'
'Knew him!' Europa corrected again. 'As in past tense.'
Martinez said, 'I got hold of Asnikov-'
'Go for it,' Decker answered.
'Who's Asnikov?' McCarry snapped. 'The deprogrammer? What's going on here? If you're running an independent investigation and keeping us in the dark-'
'Special Agent McCarry, I'll be happy to enlighten you, just as soon as I know what's going on-'
'So what does Asnikov have to do with anything?' McCarry stiffened. 'I'm in charge of this task force-'
'Excuse me,' Adele interrupted. 'If this spat is going to take a while, I'll get a cup of coffee.'
'I'll come with you,' Europa said.
'No, you stay here,' Decker said. 'We need to talk to you-'
'But I told those two everything I know about Bob.' Europa pointed to Webster and Martinez.
'Told them what?' McCarry asked. 'What's going on?'
'Excuse me,' Adele said. 'I'll just be over-'
McCarry said, 'Someone please fucking Jill me in!'
Decker nodded to his men. They told him what they had learned from Europa in less than a minute. Europa verified their accounts with the occasional nod.
After they had finished, Decker said, 'She knows both Venus and Bob. Plus, being Jupiter's daughter, I thought she could give us a psychological profile-'
'Me?' Europa said. 'I barely knew Dad when he lived with the family. He jumped ship when I was fifteen.'
'You've been in contact with him,' Decker said.
'Strictly pleasantries,' Europa answered. '"Thanks for calling, Dad. Talk to you later." Plus, I haven't spoken to Jilliam or Bob in fifteen years-'
'Still, you know more than we do,' McCarry broke in. 'Why do you think Bob is doing this?'
'If you mean killing people, I have no idea.'
Martinez said, 'You told us he had a paranoid quality to him.'
'But back then, he'd been stealing. Plus, he was heavily involved with drugs. The combination would make anyone paranoid.'
Decker seized a thought. 'Dr Ganz, what if Bob had been caught stealing again? How do you think he might react? Maybe paranoid?'
'Who'd he be stealing from?' Webster asked.
'Jupiter's the only one with money,' Decker answered. 'It would have to be the boss.'
'But Jupiter's dead,' McCarry answered. 'Are you saying that Bob killed him?'
'Not necessarily,' Decker said. 'What I'm suggesting is maybe Bob's been slowly poisoning him - keeping him doped up and essentially brain dead - so he could rip him off-'
'Poisoning?' Europa interrupted. 'My father was poisoned to death?'
'He had arsenic in his system-'
'When did you find this out?' Europa demanded to know.
'About twelve hours ago,' Decker answered.
'Good Lord!' Europa sighed. 'How long had the poisoning been going on?'
'The coroner couldn't tell. She mentioned something about looking at his bones to get a more exact time frame.'
'Did your father start the Order of the Rings of God with independent wealth?' McCarry asked.
'I... I don't know,' Europa asked.
Decker said, 'Did your father have money when he did his disappearing act?'
'I was fifteen. How would I know?'
'Maybe your mother said something to you?'
'We never talked about Dad. The subject made her very bitter.' She tried hard to bring memories into focus. 'I never remember my mother worrying about finances. But we certainly weren't wealthy. I know she spent a great deal of money trying to locate Dad. It had to have come from somewhere.'
'But you don't know anything about your father's cash reserves when he took off.'
'No. But he must have been living on something. He was gone for ten years...' Europa paused. 'My memories are a bit cloudy. But if I recall correctly, I remember Mom having it harder financially after he came back. But by then I was an adult. I was more attuned to things like money problems.'
'Or maybe your father decided to reclaim some of the money you'd had been living on,' Martinez said.
Eu
ropa said, 'That's very possible.'
'Can we get back to Bob?' McCarry said. 'You said he was paranoid?'
'I said he had a paranoid quality to him.' A hesitation. 'Not unlike my father actually.'
'Bob admired your father,' Decker remarked.
Faye Kellerman - Decker 11 - Jupiter's Bones Page 28
