by John Dalmas
So Angela DeSmet had hired an investigator from Monterey—the DeSmets lived in nearby Pacific Grove—but the guy couldn't even learn where the daughter was, let alone get to her. He said the church might have sent her to any one of its locations in or out of the country.
Angela had wanted to hire a serious investigation then, but her husband, Alex DeSmet, wouldn't go for it. Gloria was a grown woman, he'd said. She had the right to live her own life, and if she got unhappy with the church, she could always walk out. And come home if she wanted to.
Then DeSmet had gotten a consulting job with the Republic of India, and a few weeks after their daughter left, he and his wife had gone to New Delhi to live. He was a retired technical specialist with the State Department, she said. After a couple of years, India started having severe civil disturbances, the ones that led to it splitting off from ECOTEB, the Eastern Co-Prosperity Technical and Economic Bloc. Splitting off and starting SACU, the Southeast Asian Co-Prosperity Union. Anyway, Alex DeSmet had sent his wife back to the States, and she'd decided it was time to find her daughter. Carlos and Joe had decided I was the one to do it.
* * *
My own case! I had nervous stomach. The first thing I did was sit down at my terminal and call up the accessible information on DeSmet. Which was not a lot, because the case didn't get us access to the State Data Center. It takes a contract from the city or county or state for that. The DeSmet family, I learned, was big in shipping. It also had a family history of public service dating back to Gerhard DeSmet, a New York banker who'd helped finance the colonial army during the Revolution. Every generation of the DeSmet family had had a career officer in either the State Department or the armed forces or both. Alex DeSmet hadn't been in the State Department though, regardless of what his wife claimed. He'd been in the CIA until '96 or '97, when President Haugen took its Office of Special Projects and recreated the old OSS out of it. DeSmet ended up being deputy director there, after the Great Flu killed the guy who'd been holding the job.
I suppose Gloria had grown up mainly with her mother. Odds were that Alex had been away a lot.
Then I keyed up the L.A. City Library and selected a summary article on the Church of the New Gnosis. It was interesting but not particularly helpful. Some of it I'd read before, here and there. Before I'd finish that case and the Christman case, I'd know a lot about the church that the writer hadn't. Meanwhile, the only lead I had on Gloria DeSmet was her married name, Gloria Hamilton.
California has the world's largest concentration of cults, and there are more every year, but the Church of the New Gnosis has got to be the biggest, even bigger then the Institute of Noetic Technology when it was going strong. Its world headquarters—what it calls its "World Episcopate"—is here in L.A., on what used to be the campus of Pacific Southern University.
I signed out a car and drove over there. I'd never really paid any attention to the place before. It still looked pretty much like a mid-city college, built after real estate got so expensive. After the GPC boomed the economy, and Congress passed the Education Rights Bill. Including its parking lots, the campus covers what originally had been four large city blocks, containing several large buildings. Unfortunately it failed—went bankrupt when the Great Flu and Epidemic Viral Meningitis cut populations, enrollments, and faculty too drastically.
The surrounding neighborhood is mostly post-plague apartment houses, built around security courtyards with swimming pools. The streets are lined with tall Washingtonia palms, and the campus grounds have well-tended lawns, flowerbeds, and night jasmine, with ornamental-orange hedges.
One of the buildings has a sign in front that reads neophyte building. That sounded about right for me, so I went in to ask questions. Careful questions. Sneaky questions. The church has a reputation for secrecy, and I was there to get answers, not thrown out. I had no trouble recognizing staff. They wore one-piece, sky blue space-cadet uniforms, with tapered legs tucked into light weight white boots that had to be a nuisance to keep clean. Also, staff members tend to walk fast or even jog, as if they're in a hurry.
It turned out that the staff who deal with new people are trained to control the conversation. Mostly they seem friendly, but all you learn is what they want you to know. I went along with their pitch, figuring that if I became part of the scene, I'd learn things. I ended up registering for a free introductory lecture that evening. That introductory lecture's about the only thing they don't charge for, and even then they practically insisted that I buy A Beginner's Book on the New Gnosis, written by their guru, Raymond Arthur Christman, whom they call "Ray."
By the time I'd gotten registered, it was noon. It turned out they have a staff dining room, but some staff members who can afford to, eat out. So I followed a couple of them across the street to a place called the Saints' Deli, carrying my book to mark me as a would-be new member. I figured to get into a conversation, or maybe eavesdrop.
The Saints' Deli is a Gnostie hangout run by Gnosties. It's a strange kind of place for L.A.; it felt as if everyone there, including the waitresses, belonged to a family. And I was an outsider. They had a big menu board on the wall, chalk on green, and I ordered "Saint's Delight." It turned out to be cream cheese and ripe olives on sourdough bread, with kosher dills on the side. It was a day for new experiences. Then I got my coffee and number tag, and looked for a place to sit.
Almost everyone was sitting with friends and talking, a lot of them animatedly, most of them wearing civvies. But at a table for two, a skinny guy in his late thirties or so, wearing a staff uniform, sat alone by an empty chili bowl, sipping coffee and reading a paperback. I went over. He drank his coffee black, and from what I could see of the cover, the book was science fiction. His uniform was threadbare and too big for him, but clean except for ring around the collar.
"Mind if I sit here?" I asked.
He looked at me, then at my beginner's book. "If you insist," he said, "but please don't open a conversation with me. I deal with neophytes eight hours a day, seven days a week, and three further hours a day I attend class. On my free time I like to sit alone and relax with some light reading."
"Class?" I said.
"Staff are required to be on some approved course or other at all times. I'm studying to be a Gnostic counselor. Now if you please . . ."
He withdrew his attention as if I wasn't there. I sipped my coffee and people-watched. Some would stop by a notice board and browse the stuff posted there. After a few minutes a waitress came with my sandwich, dill pickle spears, and some damned good potato salad.
To me a diet is something to fall off of, and I'd been holding to mine fairly well—I'd weighed 226 pounds that morning—so when I finished, I ordered a milkshake, which turned out to be a jumbo. When I'd finished that, I went to see what sort of stuff got posted on the notice board. Some of it was advertisements, which from the jargon seemed to be by small Gnostie businesses. A few were hand-scrawled notes from one person to another, or "to anyone traveling to the such-and-such area."
Most, though, bore the official logo of the church, some of them notices of special-price offers for what appeared to be services that the church sold its members—counseling and classes. Several were headed DECLARATION OF EXPULSION, or even DECLARATION OF APOSTASY AND EXPULSION. Each of these began with a stock statement: Further unauthorized contact with the below named is an act of treason. Below that, in bold black capitals, would be one or more names. From one of them, the name jumped out at me: FREDERICK L. HAMILTON. It was dated nearly three months earlier. Below it was a short list of what appeared to be statute numbers, presumably of church laws he'd broken. It seemed to me I had my lead.
As I stood looking at it, a hand touched my shoulder.
"Don't let the declarations disturb you." It was the guy I'd sat with. "Staff members are an elite, and when one of us refuses correction, he has to be pruned away. To refuse correction is to hold to one's weaknesses and evil impulses, and that is a further act of evil. Most people who get expelle
d will eventually desire correction, and return to be saved. But if their intentions are evil enough to threaten the Church, something invariably happens to them, something unpleasant. I could give you examples. The Church doesn't do it—don't take me wrong. The universe punishes them."
Then he turned and left, leaving me staring after him, my scalp crawling. Evil, he'd said. I wondered if the evil wasn't inside the church instead of out.
* * *
Back at the office I called up the directory listings under EMERGENCY AID > CULT WITHDRAWAL, and found one that called itself Gnostic Withdrawal Assistance, at 1764 Hillhurst. I dialed their number and learned they had someone on the desk twenty-four hours a day. They did not discuss business over the phone.
So I drove over there. The guy on duty was black, about six-five and maybe 280 pounds; could have played defensive end for the Steelers. His eyes were calm, and as direct as any I'd ever seen. His face had multiple scars, and his nose had been flattened badly enough that it looked like the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, yet he didn't look mean or even hard, just someone who was in charge of himself. The church had a reputation for intimidating people it considered its enemies, but I couldn't picture anyone intimidating that guy. I told him I wanted to get in touch with someone named Fred Hamilton, who'd gotten kicked out about three months earlier. Did he know him?
"Yeah, I know Fred," he told me. "I've known him for years. When they kicked him out, they hadn't paid staff their weekly ten dollars for four weeks. As punishment because church income was down. He came in here in grief, without a dime. I let him use my phone to call his parents, so he could ask them for skybus fare. They weren't home, so he stayed with me overnight."
"Could you give me his address?"
"We don't give out addresses. For all I know, you could be one of Lonnie's goons—Lonnie Thomas'—looking to harass him."
Lon Thomas. I remembered the name from the summary article. The author called him the administrative chief of the Gnosties, the guy in charge of day-to-day operations. The goals, the directions, and the central policies, on the other hand, supposedly came from Ray Christman.
I took out my wallet and showed the guy my Prudential ID plate. He couldn't have looked less impressed. "Look," I told him, "I don't care one way or another about whether Hamilton is in or out of the church. He has a wife, and her mother wants to know how she is. And where."
He appraised me with dark, reddish brown eyes. "Our standard offer for something like that is, you give me twenty-five George in cash, and I'll call and give him your phone number. And tell him what you want. If he wants to, he'll get in touch with you. If not . . ." He shrugged.
I took one of my business cards and two bills out of my wallet, gave them to him and asked for a receipt. "One more question," I added. "You told me you've known Fred Hamilton for years. How'd you get to know him?"
"We were on staff together at the Campus. Shared a room, along with ten other guys. They kicked me out a year and a half ago, for thinking for myself—asking questions and being critical." He shrugged again. "You live in the church like that a while, it takes some adjusting to live in the real world again. For some people it's pretty bad, so I started this place."
"Got it," I said. "Where'd you get the money?"
"To start this? Same way I got money before I joined. In the ring." He grinned. "I wasn't much for finesse, but people liked to watch me. Now I run this place on money from people I help, after they get their feet on the ground. People like Fred. Or from their families." He held up the bills. "And now and then someone like you, who wants a line to one of them."
Then he gave me a receipt and I left, hoping he was making it all right. Providing a service that depended on gratitude for pay sounded pretty uncertain to me.
Back at the office I read the book by Christman. It was kind of fascinating, actually. I could see how it might hook people. My main problem with it was, I kept dozing off, interest notwithstanding. Then I checked out early and went to the health club for an hour before going home.
* * *
That evening at 7:57, my phone rang. It was Hamilton. He looked older than I'd expected, probably in his thirties, intelligent and well groomed. I asked him if I could record our conversation and he said, "Sure, go ahead."
The guy at Withdrawal Assistance had told him what I was after, but Hamilton waited for me to ask. "Gloria lives right there at the Campus," he answered. "When she first joined church staff, on the same day we got married, the church sent her to Australia for a while, to put distance between her and her parents. She had money—she'd emptied out her checking account at Pacific Grove—so while she was in Australia, she bought 'soul salvage' and 'spiritual enlightenment,' a couple of counseling levels. When she got back to L.A., she was broke." He grinned ruefully. "And a dedicated Gnostie, like her husband."
"They kick her out too, did they?"
He chuckled. "She was on the Board of Review that kicked me out! She'd decided her husband was an evil person who was trying to drag mankind the rest of the way into ruin by harming the church. Right after that she filed for divorce. I tried to get custody of our baby girl, but no luck. She already had a would-be stepfather lined up for her. Gloria is Gloria Hebner now."
Angela DeSmet was not going to be thrilled. "What's your daughter's name?" I asked him.
"Spirit," he said. "Nice, eh?"
"How do you raise a kid on ten dollars a week?"
He grunted, and smiled a small wry smile. "You don't. In L.A. the staff lives in, and the church raises their kids. More or less. Unmarried staff members sleep in double- and triple-deck bunks in dorm rooms. Married staff couples get a small room to themselves in an old dorm wing, and share a coed community bathroom with about twenty others. Fun. Especially when the plumbing screws up, or someone uses newspaper for toilet paper, and a commode floods. That happens quite a bit, because you have to provide your own toilet paper, and sometimes you're broke. Lots of weeks we didn't get that ten. Five maybe, or nothing.
"The children live in another building, on a floor called the Child Nurture Center. You get to see them during 'parents' hour'—that's actually for half an hour after supper—unless your supervisor decides there's something more important you should be doing."
He was rambling. I let him.
"The Child Nurture Center is really bad. Complaining about it got me in trouble more than once. It's dirty, for one thing. A goddamn roach nest. And most of the time the kids have head lice. Twice a year, before the semiannual inspection by the County, the church assigns a bunch of parents to clean the place thoroughly and delouse the kids. The rest of the time, the church gives it bottom priority, because time and money spent on it don't produce income."
"Why do the parents put up with it?"
He grimaced. "They believe the church is out to save the world from an evil conspiracy. Sacrifices are necessary."
There was that word: evil. I told him the thought that had come to me in the Saints' Deli. He grinned lopsidedly. "There's individual evil in the church, sure, but the major problem isn't evil, it's ignorance and incompetence taken to a whole new level by incredible arrogance."
He went on to tell me more about the Child Nurture Center—a gross story of filth, mismanagement, and neglect. That spring, the ages one-to-six section was down to just two nannies; the rest had run away, deserted. Just two nannies, each working alone on a twelve-hour shift, taking care of rambunctious, undisciplined little children plus some babies in diapers; about thirty in all. After several days, one of the two remaining nannies disappeared—grabbed her own kid and took off.
"Somehow," he told me, "the one nanny who was left held on for more than thirty hours alone—no sleep, no meal breaks—until one of the Central Chancery execs showed up, an arrogant twenty-year-old little bitch named Janie Blitz. Some parent had come to get her kid for parents' hour, and complained, so Janie came storming over. Gloria and I had just come back with Spirit, and we saw the whole thing. Instead of
getting help for Trudy, Janie started raising hell with her, actually screaming at her, because the place was such a mess. 'Look at that!' she yelled, and pointed. 'You're so fucking lazy, you can't even put the lid back on the fucking diaper pail!'
"That's when Trudy broke. She was a big strapping girl, and had a juice pitcher in her hand. First she threw the juice in Janie's face, and before Janie could stop sputtering, bonged her on the head with the empty stainless-steel pitcher. Then she grabbed her by the hair and threw her down. After thirty hours without rest, she must have been running on fumes, but right then she had the strength of a Kodiak bear, and when Janie hit the deck, Trudy started kicking her.
"Gloria was shrieking obscenities at Trudy by then, and trying to help Janie, which tells you something about what Gloria had become. But I held her back. When Trudy got tired of kicking, she took a diaper pail, half full of dirty diapers soaking in detergent, and emptied the whole mess on Janie, then jammed the pail on her head.
"That's when I got hysterical. I laughed myself nearly sick, then let go of Gloria and left the building. I should have walked right on off the Campus, but—" He paused, shook his head. "I was too brainwashed. I hate to use the term, it's been politicized for so long, and the meaning's so vague and stretched out of shape. But it's the best term we've got.
"Within the hour, Janie and Gloria had reported me to the Morals Police, for not rescuing Janie or letting Gloria try. And for laughing, the ultimate insult. The next day they held a Board of Review, and offered me a chance for restitution and correction: I could volunteer to serve on the SRC—that's the Spiritual Reclamation Crew, which I won't try to describe—and when I got out I'd be assigned as a nanny. Or I could be expelled—kicked out. I told them to kiss my ass."