Time Bomb

She said, “Mr. Ahlward would know something. If he feels up to it, perhaps he could educate us.”

Latch looked over his shoulder again. “Bud? C’mere, please.”

The red-haired man raised pinkish eyebrows and stepped forward. He wore a brown suit, white shirt, solid brown knit tie, had the kind of overdeveloped upper body that makes custom tailoring a necessity. This suit was off the rack and hung on him like a tarp. His hands dangled loosely at his sides, big, pale, fuzzed with copper. His hair was tightly curled and he wore it close to his head. He had a fleshy, jutting jaw and lazy amber eyes that remained fixed on his boss.

“Councilman?” Up close he smelled of cigarette smoke.

“Bud, these good people want to know about the sniper. What can you tell them?”

“Nothing yet,” said Ahlward. He had a soft, boyish voice. “Sorry. Cops’ orders.” He zipped a finger across his mouth.

Latch said, “Nothing at all, Bud?”

“ATD was real clear on that, Councilman.”

Latch turned back to us. “Anti-Terrorist Division. You might recall them from a couple of years ago. The lovely fellows who were spending taxpayers’ money on surveilling i

“You bet,” said Ahlward.

Latch nodded. Ahlward returned to the group.

“Thank God for Bud,” said Latch, loud enough for the group to hear. Someone patted Ahlward on the back. The redheaded man appeared unmoved. Standing with the others but not one of them. A distant look had settled on his face- Zen placid, as if he’d projected himself to another place, another time. Not a hint that he’d spent his lunch hour shooting someone to death.

“Okay, my friends,” said Latch, taking a step backward. “It’s been a long day that shows no sign of ending. Dr. Overstreet, if you need anything, bypass the red tape and come straight to me. I mean it. Let’s get things on an even keel, once and for all. Dr. Delaware, sounds like the kids are in good hands, but you, too, feel free to get in touch if there’s anything I can do.”

He reached into his jacket, removed some business cards from a leather holder, and gave them to us. A two-handed grasp of Linda’s hand, then mine, and he was gone.

Linda crumpled the card. Her face had tightened.

I said, “What’s the matter?”

“Suddenly he’s Mr. Helpful,” she said, “but last spring, when the kids were being put through hell, I tried to get his help. Ocean Heights is part of his district, even though I’m sure he didn’t get too many votes here. I thought because of his reputation, all the civil rights stuff he used to be into, he’d come down, talk to the kids, show them someone with power was on their side. If for no other reason than to use it for public relations. I must have called his office half a dozen times. Not even a return call.”

“He came down today. To square off against Massengil.”

“Some kind of ulterior motive, no doubt. They’re all the same.” She blushed. “Listen to me. You must think I’m a foursquare ballbuster.”

“You might very well be,” I said, “but I’d have to study you under more optimal circumstances in order to be able to come to a conclusion vis-à-vis that issue.”

She opened her mouth, then broke into laughter. The cop down the hall pretended not to hear.

The classroom was large and bright and filled with an unaccustomed silence. Only the rain broke the quiet, sloshing against the windows in an insistent car-wash rhythm. Twenty pairs of eyes stared back at me.

I said, “I’m the kind of doctor who doesn’t give shots. I don’t look in kids’ eyes or ears, either.” Pause. “What I do is talk with kids and play with them. You guys like to play, don’t you?”

A few blinks.

“What kinds of games do you like to play?”

Silence.

“How about ball? Any of you like to play ball?”

Nods.

“Handball?”

An Asian boy with a soup-bowl haircut said, “Base-ball.”

“Baseball,” I said. “What position do you play?”

“Pitch. Soccer and football and basketball too.”

“Jumpin’ rope” said a girl.

“Pizza Party,” said the Asian boy.

“That’s a board game,” explained the teacher. A stylish black woman in her forties, she’d relinquished her desk to me with eagerness, pulled a chair into a corner, and sat, hands folded, like a punished student. “We have that here in class. We have lots of board games, don’t we, class?”

“I like to be mushrooms,” said the Asian boy.

“Peppers,” said another boy, small-boned, with long, wavy hair. “Hot peppers. Muy caliente!”

Giggles.

I said, “Okay. What other board games do you like to play?”

“Checkers.”

“Chutes and Ladders!”

“Checkers!”

“I already said that!”

“Chinese checkers!”

“You Chinese”

“No way. I’m Vietnamese!”

“Memory!”

“I like to play too,” I said. “Sometimes for fun and sometimes to help kids when they’re scared or worried.”

Return of silence. The teacher fidgeted.

“Something very scary happened today,” I said. “Right here in school.”

“Someone got killed,” said a dimpled girl with coffee-colored skin.

“A

“Yes,” insisted the girl. “There was shooting. That means killing.”

I said, “You’ve heard shooting before.”

She nodded with vehemence. “Uh-huh. On my street. The gangbangers drive by and shoot into the houses. That means killing. My papa said so. One time we had a bullet hole in our garage. Like this.” She measured a space between thumb and forefinger.

“My street too,” said a crew-cut boy with an elfin face and bat ears. “A dude got killed. Dead. Boom boom boom. I

The teacher looked ill.

A few of the boys began to pantomime shooting using their fingers for guns and half-rising out of their seats.

“Sounds scary,” I said.

A boy laughed and shot at a girl. She said, “Stop it! You’re stupid!”

The boy swore at her in Spanish.

“Ramon!” said the teacher. “Now you just settle down. Let’s all of us settle down, class.” Her glance at me said Where’d you get your degree?

I said, “It’s fun to play shooting, because it makes us feel strong. In charge- the boss over our lives. But when it really happens, when someone’s really shooting at us, it isn’t too fu

Headshakes. The boys who’d laughed hardest suddenly looked the most frightened.

I said, “What do you guys understand about what happened today?”

“Some dude was shootin’ at us,” said the Asian boy.

“Tranh,” said the teacher. “We don’t know that.”

“Yeah, he was shootin’ at us, Miz Williams!”

“Yes, Tranh. He was shooting,” she said. “But we don’t know who he was shooting at. He could have been shooting into the air.” A look to me for confirmation.

“He was shooting at us,” insisted Tranh.

I said, “Do any of you know what happened to him?”

“He got shot?” said the girl named A

“That’s right. He got shot and he’s dead. So he can’t hurt you. Can’t do anything to you.”

Silence as they appraised that.

The boy named Ramon said, “What about his friends, man?”

“What friends?”

“Like if he’s a homeboy and the other homeboys are go