Los Alamos
HIGH PRAISE FOR
JOSEPH KANON’S
SENSATIONAL
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER
LOS ALAMOS
“THRILLING … Kanon writes with the sure hand of a veteran and does a marvelous job of portraying the various personalities involved … he has the talent to be any kind of writer he wants.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“Kanon evokes the time and place of the atomic bomb’s birth with a minimalist’s eye and a storyteller’s gift. He seamlessly weaves fictional extras together with actual figures like scientists Edward Teller and Robert Oppenheimer in a way that brings this portentous page of history to vivid life.”
—
People
“UNLIKE ALMOST ANY OTHER THRILLER … Most mysteries build their atmosphere on menace and suspense, but Kanon works an intriguing reversal of the usual formula, stressing instead the camaraderie, the ease and excitement, the high spirits of the Los Alamos Project.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A SPLENDID, CEREBRAL SUCCESS … Kanon’s wholly remarkable use of real-life people … and his weaving of the actual and the fictional, are seamless. The explosive conclusion is a dazzling feast for the imagination.”
—
The Plain Dealer
(Cleveland)
“A FASCINATING BOOK … A PROFOUNDLY PROVOCATIVE TALE.”
—
USA Today
“KANON SEAMLESSLY MELDS FACT WITH FICTION, historical personages with imaginary characters. The novel reverberates with atmosphere, authenticity, and moral ambiguity.”
—
The Orlando Sentinel
“A THINKING PERSON’S THRILLER, deliberate in pace but on its way to heights as rarefied as the plateau where its namesake sits.”
—
Daily News
(New York)
“LOS ALAMOS
IS THE WORK OF A NATURAL WRITER, an intricately plotted, highly atmospheric and stunningly authentic tale … [Kanon] has created characters who are both true to their actual selves and three-dimensional actors in a convincing fiction.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“A COMPELLING MYSTERY that meditates on the moral dilemmas of the era without slackening the page-turner pace.”
—
New York
“SATISFYING LITERARY ENTERTAINMENT … [a] sinuous, ingenious blend of history and fiction.”
—
The Miami Herald
“If you enjoyed the literary style of
Snow Falling on Cedars
and the plot and pace of
Enigma
, then Joseph Kanon’s
Los Alamos
is a treat in store. This is one of those novels that make you feel that you are being spoken to personally.”
—
The Bookseller
“COMPELLING AND LITERATE … A murder mystery some critics will have a hard time not calling ‘explosive.’ ”
—
Time
“Los Alamos
, besides being a terrific mystery, wonderfully evokes the Southwest in the 40s, reminding us in a dozen subtle ways that life goes on even while history is being made.”
—
Newsweek
“INFINITELY ENTERTAINING … Kanon interweaves historical fact with a superbly constructed plot … utterly compelling.”
—
Booklist
“So exhaustively researched and cannily plotted is Joseph Kanon’s spellbinding thriller … that the novel feels not so much written as unearthed.”
—
Newsday
“A suspenseful, well-written story with believable characters and an intricate plot. DON’T MISS IT.”
—
The Chattanooga Times
“Kanon unreels his intertwining tales of intrigue with the economy, grace, and fluidity of a master movie-maker. Beyond his very evident skills in plotting and character-building, Kanon is equally good at capturing the details, mood, and feel of the times. The heat and glare of the desert seem to radiate from the page.”
—
BookPage
“The atmospherics are exactly right:
Los Alamos
brings back an era when a secret was really a secret and a lie wasn’t necessarily a sin.”
—
Entertainment Weekly
“ASTONISHINGLY WELL-DONE, expertly paced and plotted, and deeply thought-out. [Kanon] gives an uncanny sense of what it must have been like among the men and women who, for better or worse, worked on that remote mountaintop, soon to become the center of the world.”
—
American Way
“There really were heroes, spies, and lovers at Los Alamos in the days when they built the first atomic bombs, and in this compelling novel Joe Kanon has imagined those soaring, harrowing days back to life. It’s written with verve and intelligence; it’s authentic from beginning to end; and I couldn’t put it down.”
—Richard Rhodes, author of
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
“RIVETING … This book has such authenticity that readers feel they are there. Characters are beautifully drawn and the mystery is compelling.”
—
The Montgomery Advertiser
“INTRIGUING … well-researched … Kanon’s debut novel blends fact and fiction perfectly into a suspenseful and intellectually stimulating tale.”
—
The Hartford Courant
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 1997 by Joseph Kanon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Broadway Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
The trademark Dell
®
is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
eISBN: 978-0-307-76539-0
Reprinted by arrangement with Broadway Books
March 1998
v3.1
for Robin
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
April 1945
A
MRS. ROSA ORTIZ
found the body. She was used to getting up with the sun, but this morning she was early, too early even for mass, so she took the long way, cutting through the park along the Alameda, where mist was still rising from the old riverbed. If she had been hurrying she might have missed it, but as it happened she was walking slowly, enjoying the first light. She had not heard it rain during the night, so the moisture on the trees surprised her, and she stopped once to look at the shine on the leaves. The sky was already a sharp cloudless blue, promising heat. It was when she glanced down from the sky, temporarily blinded, that she saw the shoes.
The legs were sticking out from the bushes, and her first impulse was to hurry away and let him sleep it off.
Pobrecito
, too drunk to come in out of the rain, she thought as she passed. But it was a disgrace all the same, sleeping by the Alameda, like the Indians hunched over in the plaza, pretending to sell blankets. Then she stopped and turned around. The legs were wrong, twisted one on closer to the bush, slowly pushed a branch aside, then gasped. In that second she took in the head, splotched red from the blood, with its mouth fixed open, still trying to draw in air. It was the only recognizable feature left in his face. But what shocked her was his body. The trousers had been pulled down below the knees, exposing his genitals. Why? Mrs. Ortiz had not seen a man since her husband died and never one in public. It seemed incomprehensible to her, this exposure of flesh. She clutched her shawl and, in a gesture centuries old, crossed herself. This was what evil felt like; you could feel it around you, taste it in the air. The ground itself might be soaked with blood, spreading under her. Dizzy, she grabbed the bush to steady herself, but the branch shook its drops onto the body, spattering rain on his private parts, and she backed away. She took little gulps of air and looked around her, expecting to be attacked, as if the scene before her had just happened. But there was no one. The noise in her head was her own breathing. The Alameda itself was quiet and fresh with morning. The world had not noticed.
She hurried toward the cathedral, her mind a jumble. She knew she should tell the police, but her English was poor and what would they think? The man was Anglo, she could tell that from her shameful glance at his body, and that might mean even more trouble. Perhaps it was best to say nothing—no one had seen her, after all. Someone else was bound to find him and go to the police. But now she kept seeing the body in front of her, naked, exposed. She had not even had the decency to cover him. And of course God had seen her. So she decided, as so often in the past, to talk to the priest.
But Father Bernardo was already preparing for mass when she arrived and she couldn’t interrupt that, so she knelt with the others and waited. The congregation was small, the usual group of old women draped in shawls, atoning for blameless lives. Her neighbors must have felt that she was especially devout that morning, for she prayed noisily and sometimes even seemed to sway. Surrounded by candles, the familiar words, the solid feel of her beads, she began to feel calmer, but the feeling of disquiet would not go away. She had done nothing, but now somehow she had the ache of a guilty secret. Why had she looked at him so long? This was what bothered her most. She should have turned her eyes away; there was nothing so remarkable about a man, not even one without a foreskin. But she had never seen this before, and it troubled her that in all that scene of horror, this was what she had noticed. No one would have to know that, certainly not Father Bernardo. She would not have to describe the body; it would be enough to say she saw a dead man. If she said anything at all.
So it was another hour before Mrs. Ortiz approached the priest with her story and another hour after that before he telephoned the police, in English, and a car was dispatched. By that time the dew had dried along the Alameda and the day was hot.
Sergeant O’Neill had never seen a corpse before. There had been murders in Santa Fe, mostly Mexicans with knives solving domestic arguments, but he had never been assigned one. The last real murder, during a jewel robbery, had happened while he was fishing in the mountains. So the man in the park was his first official corpse, and it made him sick.
“You all right, Tom?” Chief Holliday asked him while the photographers snapped pictures. Inevitably, Holliday was “Doc.”
O’Neill nodded, embarrassed. “He’s a mess, all right. Where’s Doc Ritter, anyway? Don’t you think we should cover him up?”
Chief Holliday was crouched near the body, turning the head with a stick he’d picked up.
“Don’t be so squeamish—he doesn’t mind. Christ, look at this.” The back of the man’s head was crusted over with blood and pulp. “Here’s where he got it. The face looks like decoration—maybe a few good kicks, just for the hell of it.”
O’Neill was writing on his pad. “Weapon.”
“A blunt instrument. What do you think?”
“Blunt instrument.”
“Hammer, wrench, could have been anything. Anyway, it cracked his skull. Funny, though, there’s not much blood around. You’d think to look at him he wouldn’t have any left.”
“It rained last night. Maybe it washed away.”
“Maybe. No ID. Boys find anything further along?”
“Nothing. They’ve been checking up and down the Alameda. Broken bushes here where we found him, but that’s it. Can’t you at least shut his mouth?”
Holliday looked up and grinned. “Not now I can’t. Take it easy, O’Neill. Once the doc gets here, we’ll haul him off. You get used to it.”
“Yeah.”
“No wallet, I suppose? Keys? Anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“Great. John Doe for sure.”
“Doc—”
“Yeah?” Holliday said distractedly, turning the head back gently.
“What about the pants?”
“What about them?”
“I mean, what the hell is a guy doing in the park at night with his pants down?”
“What would anybody be doing? Taking a leak, probably.”
“No. You don’t pull your pants down below your knees to take a leak.”
Holliday looked at him, amused. “You’ll make detective yet, Tommy. Sounds right to me.”
“Well, then—”
“Look, a guy’s out at night in the park bushes. He’s got his pants down and his head kicked in. What the hell do you
think
happened?”
“You mean like that guy in Albuquerque? We never had nothing like that here.”
“We do now. Pretty sight, isn’t it?” Holliday said, gesturing toward the man’s groin. “Looks like he’s been kicked there too.” He moved the testicles to one side with the stick. “A little discolored, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, what color are yours? Come to think of it, maybe they’re blue too. Anyway, they shouldn’t look like this. He’s circumcised, by the way.”
“I noticed.”
“I mean for the report.”
“Oh,” O’Neill said, jotting it down. “Time of death?”
“We’d better let the doc tell us that. You got rigor, but I don’t know what effect the rain would have on that. Cold too, last night.”
“I can’t remember that far back,” O’Neill said, wiping his forehead in the unexpected heat.
“This is interesting,” Holliday said, poking tentatively at the man’s mouth. “He’s got a full plate here. No teeth at all. Kinda young for false teeth.”
O’Neill shrugged.
“Well, now at least we got a motive. Probably isn’t used to them and bit down too hard on the guy’s dick.”
“Jesus, Doc.”
By the time the coroner arrived, O’Neill had already completed the area search. “Shame about the rain. I’ll get Fred to look downstream just in case anything got thrown in the river. Like his wallet.”
“Yeah, if God wants to throw you a bone this week,” Holliday said. “Don’t figure on the wallet. Keys, though. Funny, taking his keys.”
“What have you got here, Ben?” Doc Ritter said, using Holliday’s real name. “Been a long time since I’ve been called out on a murder.”
“Well, you tell me. Careful of the clothes, though—I’m still hoping to get some prints.”
“After the rain?”
“Well, I can hope. We sure don’t have much else. John Doe with his head smashed in and his pants down.”
The coroner looked at him.
“Yeah, I know. Sounds like that case down in Albuquerque. I guess the papers will be all over us, but let’s try to keep them out of it until I can talk to the boys down there. We could use a head start.”
“You’ve got the whole police force out on the Alameda in broad daylight and you’re trying to keep this quiet? You’ve got yourself some news here, Ben, is what you’ve got.”
“I don’t know what I’ve got, except a corpse. Take a look at his teeth for me, will you? He’s got a plate but not like one I’ve seen around here before. Maybe he’s from back east.”
“Who is he?”
“No idea. Clothes don’t tell me anything. Civilian, but he could be on leave. Maybe a tourist.”
“Yeah, welcome to Santa Fe, where the Old World meets the New. Not too many in April, though, usually.”
“Not since the war, that’s for sure. I’ll check the hotels, though, just in case. It’ll give them something to do.”
“Maybe he’s from the Hill.”
Holliday sighed. “Don’t say it.”
“But he may be.”
Holliday nodded. “Then we’ll have the whole fucking army breathing down our necks.”
“Better call post security anyhow. Maybe they’ve got somebody missing.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. Maybe post security should be checking with us, instead of telling us how top secret they are and what a bunch of assholes we are. Besides, if they’ve got somebody missing, we’ll hear about it—not so easy to get lost up there, I wouldn’t think. Place is a fort. Meanwhile, all I’ve got here is a John Doe with a cracked skull. A month ago some queer down in Albuquerque gets knifed and it makes all the papers, and now I’ve got a boy looks like he was up to the same fun and games. So before I take on the U.S. Army and all the crap we usually have to take from our secret project friends, I think I’ll have a little talk with Albuquerque and see if they’d like to take this off our hands.”
“Suit yourself. They find the guy who did it in Albuquerque?”
“Not yet. But maybe they haven’t been looking very hard.”
“So it might—”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to check it out before I tell anybody on the Hill we’ve got a dead pansy and by the way are they looking for one. I can hear them yelling now. Just in case, though, you’d better do a good job on the autopsy. Don’t want your cleaver work making us look bad up there.”
Ritter laughed. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, be sure to check for any anal penetration.”
O’Neill, who had been standing quietly at his side, looked up. “What do you mean?”
Holliday laughed. “Tommy, you need to have a talk with your dad someday so he can explain things.” Then he looked down at the body, still twisted and pale and dead. “Poor son of a bitch. I wonder what he did to deserve this.”