Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1)

by Michael Stiles

  Sarah returned his hug. “Thanks, Terry.”

  “He always treated people with respect. Always.” Releasing Sarah, Melcher turned to Ed. “And you’re Ed. I remember you.”

  “Me too,” said Ed.

  “You know, the Guru thought very highly of you. You’re practically all he talked about near the end. C’mon in, kids, let’s talk.”

  He led the way into the house. Three other men were lounging in the spacious living room. One sat on a couch, reading a book that appeared to be Homer, while another stood looking nervously out of the window. A third man sat cross-legged on the floor, sipping from a glass of wine. A song by Buffalo Springfield was playing softly on a record player in the corner.

  “So he wouldn’t even go out on stage,” the man on the floor was saying to the one at the window. “Imagine that! Bob Dylan, petrified with stage fright. He had a pair of dark glasses on, and I turned off all the lights so he couldn’t see the crowd. An old trick I had up my sleeve, but never thought I’d have to use it on him.” He trailed off when he noticed Melcher and his two guests.

  “Ed Terwilliger,” Melcher said, “meet a couple friends of mine.” He motioned to the man on the couch. “This is Dennis”—the man turned, and Ed recognized him instantly as one of the Beach Boys—“and the guy by the window is Gregg.” Gregg nodded in greeting and went back to gazing out the window.

  “How are you, Ed?” said Dennis, reaching over the back of the sofa to shake Ed’s hand. Ed smiled, afraid that if he spoke he would say something stupid.

  “And that’s Kim Fowley, over there on the floor. He’s in the Business too. Produced some interesting records. Hey, Kim! Say hello to Ed.”

  Fowley, who was sitting directly in front of a large speaker, said, “Who’s this?”

  Melcher stepped over to turn down the volume, then introduced Ed and Sarah again. “They were friends of the Guru,” he explained.

  “That Guru?” said Fowley, giving Ed a deeply skeptical look. “The one who just kicked it?”

  “Terry,” Sarah put in, somewhat impatiently, “the Guru left us a note. He wanted us to come see you right away.” She held the note up for Melcher, who read it with a deepening frown on his face.

  “The Guru always warned me to keep an eye on Arthur,” he muttered. “He’s going to be trouble, I just know it. Have a seat, you two. You both look exhausted.” Ed sank gratefully into one of Melcher’s thickly-cushioned armchairs, and Dennis moved over to make room for Sarah on the sofa.

  Feeling miniaturized in the overstuffed chair, Ed looked around at the others. There was a tension in the room, a sense of palpable fear. Melcher’s friend Gregg continued looking out the front window as though expecting a predator to sneak up out of the dark canyon. Dennis fidgeted nervously on the couch, and Melcher fiddled with his mustache from time to time. Only Fowley seemed unconcerned as he sat listening to the music.

  “The Guru asked me to help with something he was working on,” said Terry.

  “Will you be taking over for him, then?” asked Sarah.

  “Leading his little crew, you mean? No,” Melcher said with a grin, “I don’t think they’d want me in charge. I never got very far with all his mystical mumbo-jumbo.” Sarah gave him a dark look, which he appeared not to notice. “I did promise to take care of some things. Like keeping tabs on this Arthur person. The Guru thought Arthur was planning to take over the world or something. Did he ever tell you his whole William Blake spiel?”

  “I’m familiar with it,” said Ed as he poured himself a glass of wine from the decanter on the table. Sarah snatched the glass out of his hand and took it for herself, forcing him to pour another one.

  “Arthur’s been calling himself Orc,” Gregg said.

  “Do you think there’s anything to that Urizen and Orc stuff?” Sarah asked between sips of wine.

  Terry shrugged. “Maybe. Far as I’m concerned, as long as guys like Arthur think it’s real, we have to act as though it is. He’s raising an army.”

  “Urizen is real,” Dennis put in. “Just ask my brother, or Van Dyke, or Charlie Manson. They all know. Brian and Van Dyke even wrote a song about him.”

  Fowley grunted in amusement.

  “Why don’t you tell them about Charlie?” Melcher said to Dennis, who had opened his mouth to give Fowley a piece of his mind. “This whole thing begins with him.”

  “Okay,” said Dennis. “Sure.” He set his cigarette down on an ashtray. “Okay,” he said again. “So one day this past spring, I’m driving down Sunset Boulevard. It’s a nice day. I’m tooling along, top down, and I see these two girls at the side of the road. Cute girls, you know, young but not too young. They were hitchhiking. I picked them up and gave them a lift. Nothing seedy, you know, I just gave ’em a ride and dropped ’em off. Never thought I’d see them again. All right?”

  “With you so far,” said Ed.

  “So then, I think it was later that same day, I saw the same two chicks hitching a few miles up the same road. I thought that was pretty funny, seeing those same girls again, so I picked ’em up a second time. This time I took them to my house to show them around, you know, to show them my gold records. Then they left and I had to go to a session. Well, I come home late, after dark, and I pull into the driveway. And there’s this guy standing there waiting for me.”

  “You didn’t get out of the car, did you?” said Sarah.

  “Sure, he wasn’t a real big guy. I thought he might want to rob me or something, but he said he wasn’t going to hurt me. He called me ‘brother.’ And then, get this, he drops down on his knees and kisses my feet like somebody out of the Bible. My feet! I mean, I didn’t know what to say to the guy. Then he gets up and invites me in―”

  “Into your own house?” Sarah said.

  “—and there’s all these people in there having a party. There’s chicks running around with their bazookas hanging out.” Glancing sheepishly at Sarah, who was frowning at him in disapproval, he said, “I mean, they were half-dressed, how could I not look?”

  “So what did you do?” Ed asked.

  “What did I do? I let them have their party.”

  “You didn’t call the cops?”

  “It’s not like they were hurting anybody. I didn’t mind. And then they just sort of moved in. They’re still living there now.”

  Ed laughed in disbelief. “But it’s your house,” he said, echoing Sarah. “You could kick them out.”

  “I could if I wanted to. But it’s pretty nice to have people around. The girls are real nice. And their leader, Charlie, he’s a decent guy.” Melcher made a face at this. Dennis turned to him and said, “He is, Terry. You don’t know him like I do.” Turning back to Ed, Dennis continued. “He writes music, and he thinks a lot. He and I stay up late talking after everyone else is in bed.”

  “Charlie’s been upset with me for not helping him cut a record,” Melcher told Ed.

  “His music is great,” said Dennis. “I don’t see what your problem is.”

  “You were just getting to the part about that big guy,” Melcher said, a little testily.

  “Okay, fine. Anyway, more people started moving in after a while. And one of them, a guy named John, he looks like a Hell’s Angel or something, but he’s the nicest of all of them. He’s like a gentle giant, you know?”

  “Does he shave his head?” Ed asked.

  “No, but his hair’s pretty short. Buzz cut, you know?”

  “I think I might know him.”

  “Yeah? Well, he’s been in the house a few weeks now; spends more time with Charlie than just about anybody. Charlie sends him out to do a lot of errands. So last Friday I drove over to Ralphs for some groceries, and John came along to help me carry stuff. It was him and one of the girls and me, and we finished our shopping and were getting back in the car when this freak walked over and started yelling at John. He was bald and skinny, maybe a hundred pounds if he put rocks in his pockets. So there he was, screaming at John, who’s three times hi
s size, and I could tell John just wanted to get out of there. John tried to get in the car, but the kid grabbed the door and wouldn’t let him close it. He was real worked up.”

  “What was he saying?” Sarah asked.

  “Nothing; he just wanted to get in the car.”

  “No. What was the other guy saying?”

  Dennis frowned for a moment. “I didn’t catch it all. I guess they knew each other, ’cause the kid kept talking about some guy they both knew.”

  “Arthur,” Terry murmured.

  “Yeah. He kept calling John a traitor. He said Arthur’s people are gonna kill John for betraying their cause, and the rest of us would be next. Then he said Arthur only ever wanted John around because John knows some guy named Twitchinger that they’re after―”

  “This is the guy named Twitchinger,” Melcher said, interrupting him. “You’re talking to him.”

  “Terwilliger,” Ed offered.

  “Oh!” Dennis looked at Ed as though he had just appeared in the room. “That’s you? Your name came up a few times. The kid said John had messed up by not bringing you in to join them, but it doesn’t matter because Arthur has other plans for you now.”

  This sounded rather ominous to Ed, who had had quite enough of being an unwilling participant in so many people’s plans. He opened his mouth to speak, but momentarily forgot what he was going to say when a pretty blonde woman entered the room, looking mildly irritated to see so many people there.

  “I didn’t know you were having people over, Terry,” the woman said. She was smiling pleasantly at him, but something in her tone made Melcher seem to shrink before her.

  “Hello, Candice,” Dennis said brightly. “Have a drink?”

  “No thanks, Dennis, I’m going out to meet some friends.”

  “It’s a little late, isn’t it?” said Melcher.

  “I’ll be fine, Terry,” Candice replied.

  “Why don’t you take Gregg along? He could―”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said once more, in a way that indicated she had no interest in discussing the matter further. Then, her expression softening, she gave Melcher a peck on the cheek. “I’ll call you if I’ll be out past midnight, okay? Don’t worry so much.”

  Melcher returned her kiss and watched as she walked out the door. “Hard-headed chick,” he muttered after she had shut the door behind her, his gruffness marred by the hint of a smile.

  “Dennis, did that kid say anything more about Arthur’s plans?” said Sarah, drawing the attention of the four men away from the door where Candice had exited.

  “Huh?” said Dennis. “Oh, just that Arthur is almost ready to start killing people, and he’ll probably start with John and his new friends.”

  “Which would include you.”

  Dennis shrugged.

  “I don’t think any of us are safe at this point,” Terry said. “If he was able to get to the Guru, then―”

  Sarah shook her head. “It wasn’t Arthur who killed the Guru. It was Rat.”

  “And who do you think Rat’s working for?”

  Sarah frowned at the floor and didn’t answer.

  “Didn’t John say anything to the guy?” Ed asked Dennis. “The John I know would’ve cleaned his clock for talking to him that way.”

  “Well, for a minute I thought John was going to hit him. He got out of the car and grabbed the kid by the shirt, but he didn’t deck him; he just pulled him real close, till their noses were an inch apart. And he said—real quiet, but his voice was sort of shaky—he said, ‘You don’t know a thing about me, Benjamin.” Sarah’s eyes widened at the mention of that name. “Go back to Arthur. Tell everybody I’m a traitor, I don’t care. One day somebody’s gonna put you in your place, you and Larson and all the others who think you know everything.’ Then he shoved the kid away and got back in the car, and I drove us the hell out of there.”

  “Soon as Dennis told me all this,” said Melcher, “I went straight to the Guru. The whole thing made me a little nervous, I’m not ashamed to admit. I figured sooner or later one of these clowns would decide to come after the Guru or somebody in his group. So I told him about it, and he said he’d get in touch with you right away. But then, that night...” He trailed off, casting a sad look toward Sarah. “It looks like Arthur’s still got his eyes on you, Ed. If I were you, I’d disappear. Move away or something.”

  Ed finished his wine and put the empty glass on the table. “No,” he said. “Tell me how to get to Arthur’s house. I’m going to have a talk with him.” He needed to know what Arthur had been about to tell him in his dream. Whatever it was the Guru had been holding back from him, he had to know.

  “The Guru didn’t want any of us dealing with Arthur on our own,” Terry said.

  “He won’t hurt me. He thinks I’m too important for some reason. If it makes you feel better,” he said to Melcher, who was opening his mouth to protest, “I’ll bring a gun.”

  “Won’t work,” said Melcher. “They’ll search you before they let you in to see him. Even if you managed to sneak one in there, he’d never let you use it.”

  “What do you mean? How―”

  “I’m coming with you,” Sarah said abruptly. Ed and the others turned to her.

  “You stay here,” Ed replied, struggling to escape the deep, fluffy armchair and get to his feet. “I don’t want you anywhere near Arthur if he decides to―” He paused, unsure of just what Arthur might decide to do, but Sarah was already digging in her heels.

  “I’m going,” she said levelly, standing to face him. “I know how to look after myself. I did fine before you came along.” From the way she set her jaw and narrowed her eyes at him, Ed knew the argument was already lost.

  31

  What Happened to Rodney

  Ed left the car running while he ran up to his apartment and got his Ruger out of its hiding place. He and Sarah headed west on Santa Monica Boulevard, then turned toward Bel Air. After getting lost twice and getting into three minor arguments about the best way to get where they were going, they pulled up in front of a large white house—modest in comparison to its surroundings, but still a mansion in Ed’s estimation. A few of the windows were still lit despite the late hour. He shut off the lights and checked the paper on which Melcher had scribbled the directions.

  “Got the right house?” Sarah asked.

  “Think so,” Ed replied, pleased with himself for managing to sound much less anxious than he felt. “Bigger than I expected.”

  “The Guru said Arthur inherited some money.”

  “His followers probably donate their savings, too.”

  They walked up to the front door in the darkness. Ed hesitated for a moment before knocking.

  He’ll skin you like a kitty, the gnome said in the back of his head, and then it was silent. Ed thought he detected a note of fear in that voice. He stared at the door, searching his mind, but it seemed the gnome had left—at least for the moment.

  “Oh, come on,” Sarah said impatiently, giving the door a good hard knock.

  Footsteps approached inside. Then the door swung open, revealing a girl—no more than a teenager—with light brown hair and a pretty face. She wore an old gray sweatshirt and bell-bottomed jeans that were too big for her. Beneath the oversized clothes, she was frighteningly thin. Her eyes widened when she saw Ed.

  Ed cleared his throat. “We’re here to see Arthur.”

  The girl shut the door in their faces.

  Ed heard her footsteps again as she ran into the depths of the house, and after a minute or so she came running back and opened the door again. “He says come in,” she said timidly.

  They stepped past her into the entryway, a cavernous space in which Ed’s entire apartment could have fit with room to spare. A broad, curving staircase led up to the second level, where two young men with shaven heads were leaning over the railing to look down at the newcomers. Ed thought one of them was the kid the Guru had run out of the house at the party. When they saw Ed looking
back up at them, they both turned and hurried through an open doorway.

  Though lighting was dim, Ed could make out polished hardwood floors and fine furniture. A faint odor of floor wax hung in the air. Arthur certainly kept his house clean, Ed thought. Or his girls did.

  “He’s upstairs,” said the girl, setting one foot on the bottom step. When Ed and Sarah both began to follow, she turned and pointed at Sarah. “You can’t go up there. Men only, unless he asks you to come up. That’s where the Army sleeps.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but Ed headed her off before she could start any trouble. “Arthur has an army?” he asked.

  The girl smiled. “Yes! There’s only twenty-four of them now, since... well, there used to be twenty-five. They’ll fight Urizen when the True Judgment comes. Arthur doesn’t let women go up there except when we’re on duty.”

  “She’s coming up with us,” said Ed.

  The girl looked as though she was going to protest further, but she seemed afraid to challenge him. She turned back to the stairs, muttering something about girls who thought too much of themselves.

  Upstairs, their guide led them down a long hallway and into a bedroom, where she switched on a lamp on the nightstand. “You can’t go to his room,” she explained. “He’ll come here to talk to you. Don’t sit on that!”

  Ed, who had just taken a seat on the edge of the neatly-made bed, stood up again and hastily smoothed out the bedspread. With one last disapproving look at Sarah, the girl left and shut the door behind her. Sarah looked like she was very nearly out of patience with all of this.

  Several minutes passed. Ed wandered over to the window and put his face close to the glass, but it was too dark to see anything except his own reflection. His breath fogged the glass.

  “Ed, look at this.” Sarah was examining a bulletin board above the dresser, where a number of photographs had been pinned up. “It’s you!”

  Ed came over to take a look. The board was covered with pictures of him. There was a picture of him playing in his front yard as a boy, another of him walking down a corridor at Parker Center, and one of him getting out of his Barracuda in front of his apartment building. Near the bottom was a photo of him with Eleanor and Big John at a bar in Manhattan Beach. Someone had stuck several pushpins in John’s face, including two pins that went right through his eyes.