“Look, they just want to talk, and they’re not bad guys, so maybe you should just do it,” he finished.
Roger looked as if he were going to puke. Susan said, “Not bad guys? I can’t believe they fooled you. The FBI are a bunch of liars.” She had a baked potato in front of her and waved around a piece of it on the end of her fork.
This was his daughter, flourishing a hunk of spud and hissing at him in a restaurant full of people. Well, they hadn’t agreed on everything these past few years, but Howard had always been able to lump it all, these disagreements, into a pile of minor wrangles: you know, like painting her room a funny color or wearing something that came up to here. Kicking-over-the-traces stuff. Even getting on the TV and hollering about the SLA seemed isolated, a passing thing. Until now he hadn’t realized that she was heading in the direction of being a totally different person.
Susan said, “They’re liars.”
Susan said, “You can’t trust anything they say.”
Susan said, “We’re using the PO box ’cause someone was stealing the mail off our front steps.”
Susan said, “I was upset about Angela. That’s all. It’s better now.”
Susan said, “I’ve never used any name but Rorvik.”
Susan said, “I did visit a prisoner for a while, some guy I don’t remember his name, part of this volunteer program I signed up for. It was a drag getting there so I quit.”
Susan said, “I’ve never even heard of Joan Shimada. I do work with a Meg, but I don’t know her last name.”
Susan said, “I haven’t even talked to Guy Mock since he left for Oberlin maybe two years ago.”
She was so good, the complete actress. It struck Howard as a shame that she’d missed her calling. He knew she was fibbing, though he couldn’t really believe that she’d had a hand in any of the bomb throwing, but what he wondered was why she’d chucked this golden talent of hers to do … what? Wait tables and publish propaganda? At least with acting you got your big break one day. Did that happen with left-wing pamphleteers? He doubted it. Maybe her whole life was an act now, a matter of slipping fluidly from one invented personality to another. Susan Anger, what a name. He hoped someone else was writing her material if that was the stuff she was coming up with.
The restaurant was emptying out. Two waitresses sat at a table in the corner, eating dinner salads. One had kicked her shoes off and was kneading the ball of her left foot, tucked under her thigh, with her right hand. Some men at the bar watched a ballgame, Phillies leading the Giants in the eighth. Nobody wanted any dessert.
It was chilly outside now, and Howard was wearing only a polo shirt. Hugging himself, he asked Susan: “Look, where are you living now? Are you together?”
“We’re sort of in between spaces right now. We’re staying at different friends’ houses. Dad, it happens all the time. People just don’t settle into one place like they used to.”
He must have gaped at her. It was true; even this was difficult for him to understand. Why don’t they?
“It’s nothing serious. Dad, you look so tragic.”
He reached out for her. The bar at the steak house had a separate door, and just then it flew open, expelling a sour odor of stale beer and crushed cigarettes. Three men exited.
“Fucking Tug McGraw,” said one.
“Fucking Halicki,” corrected another.
The third cast a glance at Howard and Susan. “Too fucking young for you, pops.”
“Fuck you,” said Roger.
“Bet you’d like it, faggot. Get back to Castro Street.”
The men disappeared, jaunty, bustling down the street as if they’d approached them to ask the time of day. That the entire encounter had generated so little heat, had been hostile for the sake of hostility alone, bowled Howard over. This was the city of peace and love? Maybe he was just in the wrong neighborhood.
“God,” he said suddenly. “Is this any way to live? What are you doing here? Why don’t we all fly back together? Look, you’ve got no place to live, and you’re what? Waiting tables? And you’re painting houses? Let’s get the hell out of here. Come back home. Breathe clean desert air, instead of—” He hadn’t been planning on this, but suddenly he wanted to gather them up, be a family under one roof again. What had happened was that things had fallen apart little by little. Decisions he hadn’t approved of but kept his mouth shut about had built up, it was clear, into something huge, uncontrollable, something he would never have kept quiet about if he’d seen it coming. Did every father, at some point, urge his children to just quit it, come home, they weren’t fooling anyone? On the whole, he thought he was being reasonable. He could accept a certain amount of foolishness up to a certain level. When you had a houseful of kids, it was normal to expect a certain number of matters that would have you tearing your hair out by the handful. But none of this was normaclass="underline" the FBI at your door with a dossier about your own kid? Time to come in now. They’d made their point, but listen, things are getting serious. The FBI is not horsing around. But all he could think of to say was: “Dog shit. How can you live here? This whole god damn place is Dog Shit Heaven. You can’t walk. You can’t breathe.”
It ended up being exhausting. Like a dope, instead of taking them to task for doing whatever it was they’d done to arouse the interest of the FBI, he’d broadly censured their adult lives. He should have just let Rose write them another letter. They argued for two hours, wandering the downtown streets until, bushed, he allowed them to steer him back to the Hilton. Susan, the official spokesperson, cried.
“Dad, there’s nothing to worry about. We can come down in a few weeks and spend some time with you and Mom.”
“I can’t urge you enough. Call these men. Tell them what you told me.” At least he’d gotten back to the point, but he felt useless, old, contemptible, traitorous. And now he’d have to go back upstairs and tell Nietfeldt that he’d told his kids that the FBI was on to them. If he could only get them all home again, he’d take the old patterned sheets out of the linen closet, cowboys and Raggedy Anns, make the beds himself. Read to them, the forgotten books on the low shelves, until they were asleep, get back to some time when he was supposed to be having an influence.
Thomas Polhaus takes Nietfeldt’s memo and folds it in half. What he wants to do is fold it into fourths, place stiff cardboard covers on both sides, drill a three-quarter-inch hole in the center, and then drive a bolt through the thing and straight into his forehead because if he’s going to walk around looking like a fucking asshole he might as well go whole hog.
“Nietfeldt, what happened?”
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“I believe it all. I’m doting, overcredulous, and naive.”
“You wouldn’t believe this.”
“Go ahead and test my faith. I’m sitting here on a Sunday.”
“The guy said he wouldn’t meet with the kids if we tailed him. So we didn’t break surveillance, but we hid it a little. I mean, no one in the restaurant. Which is a shame. I hear the fish is very fresh, locally caught. Anyway, they moved around a lot. A bar, the restaurant, then just walked around. The thing is, L.A. gives him this cover; he’s supposed to say he’s up on business. He’s a high school teacher out in the desert, it’s summer vacation. I mean, what kind of business? Good deals on number two pencils? How’s he supposed to not blow it when you give him a cover like that?”