Blood Test (27 page)

“I don’t know. Moody was programmed for violence. He
had a violent upbringing. You remember the history—his own father was
explosive, died in a brawl.”

“History repeats itself.”

“Get that boy in therapy and maybe it won’t.”

The whitewashed walls of Anita’s Café were backlit by
lavender-tinted bulbs and trimmed with used brick. The entrance was through a
lattice-wood arch. Dwarf lemon trees had been espaliered to the lattice and the
fruit glowed turquoise in the artificial light.

The restaurant was tucked away, incongruously, in an
industrial park, flanked on three sides by black-glass office buildings, acres
of parking lot on the fourth. The songs of nightbirds mingled with the distant
roar of the highway.

Inside, it was cool and dim. Baroque harpsichord music
issued forth at low volume. The aroma of herbs and spices—cumin, marjoram,
saffron, basil—saturated the air. Three quarters of the tables were occupied.
Most of the diners looked young, hip, affluent. They spoke earnestly in subdued
tones.

A stout blond woman in peasant blouse and embroidered
skirt showed me to Maimon’s table. He rose in a courtly gesture and sat when I
did.

“Good evening, Doctor.” He was dressed as before:
spotless white shirt, pressed khaki trousers. His eyeglasses had slid down his
nose and he pushed them back into place.

“Good evening. Thank you very much for seeing me.”

He smiled.

“You stated your case eloquently.”

The waitress, a slender girl with long dark hair and a
Modigliani face, came to our table.

“They make an excellent lentil wellington,” said
Maimon.

“That sounds fine.” My mind wasn’t on food.

He ordered for both of us. The waitress returned with
ice water in cut-crystal goblets, pillowy slices of whole-wheat bread and two
small tubs of vegetable pâté that tasted uncannily like the real thing. A
paper-thin lemon slice floated in each glass.

He spread pâté on bread, took a bite, chewed slowly
and deliberately. After he swallowed he asked, “How can I help you, Doctor?”

“I’m trying to understand the Swopes. What they were
like before Woody’s illness.”

“I didn’t know them well. They were secretive people.”

“I keep hearing that.”

“I’m not surprised.” He sipped his water. “I moved to
La Vista ten years ago. My wife and I were childless. After she died I retired
from my law practice and opened up the nursery—horticulture had been my first
love. One of the first things I did after settling in was to contact the other
growers in the area. For the most part I was welcomed warmly. Traditionally,
horticulturists and orchardists are cordial people. So much of our progress
depends upon cooperation—one grower will obtain seeds from an unusual species
and distribute it to the others. It’s in the best interests of all—
scientifically and economically. A fruit that no one tastes will eventually die
out, as did so many of the old American apples and pears. One that achieves
some degree of circulation will survive.

“I’d expected to be welcomed warmly by Garland Swope,
because he was my neighbor. It was a naive expectation. I dropped in on him one
day and he stood by his gate, not inviting me in, curt, almost to the point of
hostility. Needless to say, I was taken aback. Not only by the unfriendliness
but also by his lack of desire to show off—most of us love to exhibit our prize
hybrids and rare specimens.”

The food came. It was surprisingly good, the lentils
intriguingly spiced and wrapped in filo dough. Maimon ate sparingly then put
his fork down before speaking again.

“I left quickly and never went back, though our
properties are less than a mile apart. There were other growers in the area
interested in collaboration and I quickly forgot about Swope. About a year
later I attended a convention in Florida on the cultivation of subtropical
Malaysian fruits. I met several people who’d known him and they explained his
behavior.

“It seems the man was a grower in name only. He’d been
prominent at one time, but hadn’t done anything for years. There’s no nursery
behind his gates, only an old house and acres of dust.”

“What did the family live on?”

“Inheritance. Garland’s father was a state senator,
owned a large ranch and miles of coastal land. He sold some to the government,
the rest to developers. Much of the proceeds were immediately lost to bad
investments, but apparently there was enough left to support Garland and his
family.”

He looked at me with curiosity.

“Does any of this help you?”

“I don’t know. Why did he give up horticulture?”

“Bad investments of his own. Have you heard of the
cherimoya?”

“There’s a street in Hollywood by that name. Sounds
like a fruit.”

He wiped his lips.

“You’re correct. It is a fruit. One that Mark Twain
called ‘deliciousness of deliciousness.’ Those who’ve tasted it are inclined to
agree. It’s subtropical in nature, native to the Chilean Andes. Looks somewhat
like an artichoke or a large green strawberry. The skin is inedible. The pulp
is white and textured like custard, laced with many large, hard seeds. Some
joke that the seeds were put there by the gods so the fruit wouldn’t be
consumed with undue haste. One eats it with a spoon. The taste is fantastic,
Doctor. Sweet and tangy, with perfumed overtones of peach, pear, pineapple,
banana, and citrus, but a totality that is unique.

“It’s a wonderful fruit, and according to the people
in Florida, Garland Swope was obsessed with it. He considered it the fruit of
the future and was convinced that once the public tasted it, there would be
instant demand. He dreamed of doing for the cherimoya what Sanford Dole had
done for the pineapple. Even went so far as to name his first child after it—
Annona
cherimola
is the full botanical name.”

“Was it a realistic dream?”

“Theoretically. It’s a finicky tree, requiring a
temperate climate and consant moisture, but adaptable to the subtropical strip
that runs along the coast of California from the Mexican border up through
Ventura County. Wherever avocadoes grow so can the cherimoya. But there are
complications that I’ll come to.

“He bought up land on credit. Ironically, much of it
had originally been owned by his father. Then he went on expeditions to South
America and brought back young trees. Propagated seedlings and planted his
orchard. It took several years for the trees to reach fruiting size, but
finally he had the largest cherimoya grove in the state. During all this time
he’d been traveling up and down the state, talking up the fruit with produce
buyers, telling them of the wonders that would soon be blossoming in his
groves.

“It must have been an uphill battle, for the palate of
the American public is quite unadventurous. As a nation, we don’t consume much
fruit. The ones we do eat have gained familiarity over centuries. The tomato
was once believed poisonous, the eggplant thought to cause madness. Those are
just two examples. There are literally hundreds of tantalizing food plants that
would thrive in this climate but are ignored.

“However, Garland was persistent and it paid off. He
received advance orders for most of his crop. Had the cherimoya caught on he
would have cornered the market on a gourmet delicacy and ended up a rich man.
Of course, the corporate growers would have moved in eventually and coopted
everything, but that would have taken years and even then, his expertise would
have been highly marketable.

“Almost a decade after he conceived his plan the first
year’s crop set—that in itself was an achievement. In its native habitat the
cherimoya is pollinated by an indigenous wasp. Duplicating the process requires
painstaking hand pollination—pollen from the anthers of one flower is brushed
on the pistils of another. Time of day is important as well, for the plant
undergoes fertility cycles. Garland babied the trees almost as if they were
human infants.”

Maimon took off his glasses and wiped them. His eyes
were dark and unblinking.

“Two weeks before harvest a killing frost borne by
frigid air currents crept up from Mexico. There’d been a rash of tropical
storms that had battered the Caribbean and the frost was an aftershock. Most of
the trees died overnight and the ones that survived dropped their fruit. There
was a frantic attempt at rescue. Several of the people I met in Florida had
been there to help. They described it to me: Garland and Emma running through
the groves with smudgepots and blankets, trying to wrap the trees, warm the
soil, do anything to save them. The little girl watching them and crying. They
struggled for three days but it was hopeless. Garland was the last to accept
it.”

He shook his head sadly.

“Years of work were lost in a span of seventy hours.
After that he withdrew from horticulture and became a virtual hermit.”

It was a classic tragedy—dreams savaged by the Fates.
The agony of helplessness. Terminal despair.

I began to catch a glimpse of what Woody’s diagnosis
must have meant to them:

Cancer in a child was never less than monstrous. For
any parent it meant confronting a sickening sense of impotence. But for Garland
and Emma Swope the trauma would be compounded, the inability to save their
child evoking past failures. Perhaps unbearably …

“Is all of this well-known?” I asked.

“To anyone who’s lived here for a while.”

“What about Matthias and the Touch?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. They moved here a few years
ago. May or may not have found out. It’s not a topic of public conversation.”

He smiled the waitress over and ordered a pot of herb
tea. She brought it, along with two cups, which she filled.

He sipped, put his cup down, and looked at me through
the steam.

“You still harbor suspicions about the Touch,” he
said.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “There’s no real reason
to. But something about them is spooky.”

“Somewhat contrived?”

“Exactly. It all looks too programmed. Like a movie
director’s version of what a cult should be.”

“I agree with you, Doctor. When I heard Norman
Matthews had become a spiritual leader I was rather amused.”

“You knew him?”

“By reputation only. Anyone in the legal profession
had heard of him. He was the quintessential Beverly Hills attorney—bright,
flamboyant, aggressive, ruthless. None of which jibed with what he presently claims
to be. Still, I suppose odder transformations have taken place.”

“Someone took a pot shot at me yesterday. Can you see
them doing that kind of thing?”

He thought about it.

“Their public face has been anything but violent. If
you told me Matthews was a swindler I’d believe it. But a murderer…” He looked
doubtful.

I took a different tack.

“What kind of relationship was there between the Touch
and the Swopes?”

“None, I would imagine. Garland was a recluse. Never
came to town. Occasionally I’d see Emma or the girl out shopping.”

“Matthias told me Nona worked for the Touch one
summer.”

“That’s true. I’d forgotten.” He turned away and
fiddled with a container of unfiltered honey.

“Mr. Maimon, forgive me if this sounds rude, but I don’t
see you forgetting anything. When Matthias talked about Nona, the sheriff got
uncomfortable, as you just did. Broke in with a comment about what a wild kid
she was, as if to end the discussion. You’ve been very helpful until now.
Please don’t hold back.”

He put his glasses back on, stroked his chin, started
to lift his teacup but thought better of it.

“Doctor,” he said evenly, “you seem a sincere young
man and I want to help you. But let me explain the position I’m in. I’ve lived
here for a decade but still consider myself an outsider. I’m a Sephardic Jew,
descended from the great scholar Maimonides. My ancestors were expelled from
Spain in 1492, along with all the Jews. They settled in Holland, were expelled
from there, went to England, Palestine, Australia, America. Five hundred years
of wandering gets into the blood, makes one reluctant to think in terms of
permanence.

“Two years ago, a member of the Ku Klux Klan was
nominated for state assembly from this district. Part of it was subterfuge— the
man concealed his membership—but too many people knew who he was to make the
nomination an accident. He lost the election but shortly afterward there were
cross-burnings, anti-Semitic leafleting, an epidemic of racist graffiti and
harassment of Mexican-Americans along the border.

“I’m not telling you this because I think La Vista is
a hotbed of racism. On the contrary, I’ve found it an extremely tolerant town,
as witnessed by the smooth integration of the Touch. But attitudes can change
rather quickly—my forebears were court physicians to the Spanish royal family
one week, refugees the next.” He warmed both hands on his cup. “Being an
outsider means exercising discretion.”

“I know how to keep a secret,” I said. “Anything you
tell me will be kept confidential unless lives are at stake.”