He ignored me and stared off into space. I tolerated it for a few minutes then made a show of losing my patience.
“Cut the holy-man, crap, Matthews. It’s time to talk business.”
A fly settled on his forehead, walked nimbly along the edge of the crater-scar. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“State your business,” he said softly.
“I thought I was pretty clear over the phone.”
He picked a stalk of clover and twirled it in his long fingers.
“About certain things, yes. You confessed to trespassing, assault on Brother Baron, and burglary. What remains unclear is why there should be any—business for you and me to conduct.”
“And yet you’re here. Listening.”
He smiled.
“I pride myself on maintaining an open mind.”
“Listen,” I said, turning to go. “I’ve had a rough couple of days and my tolerance for bullshit is at an all time low. What I’ve got will keep. You want to think about it, go ahead. Just add a thousand a day in late fees.”
“Sit down,” he said.
I settled opposite him, crossing my legs and tucking them under me. The ground was as hot as a waffle iron. The itch in my chest and belly had intensified. Off in the distance the cultists bowed and scraped.
His hand left his beard and stroked the grass idly.
“You mentioned a substantial sum of money over the phone,” he said.
“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Three installments of fifty thousand each. The first today, the following two at six-month intervals.”
He worked hard at looking amused.
“Why in the world would I pay you that kind of money?”
“For you it’s petty cash. If the party I saw a couple of nights ago is typical, you and your zombies shovel that much up your noses in a week.”
“Are you implying that we use illicit drugs?” he asked, mockingly.
“Perish the thought. No doubt you’ve removed the stash, stowed it somewhere else, and would welcome a police search with open arms. Just like you did the first time I was here. But I’ve got Polaroids from the party that would make great porno for the geriatric set. All those worn-out bodies grinding away. Bowls of snow and straws up noses. Not to mention a couple of clear shots of the cache under your bookcase.”
“Photographs of consenting adults having sex,” he recited, sounding suddenly like an attorney, “bowls on a table containing an unknown substance. Plastic bags. It doesn’t add up to much. Certainly not a hundred and fifty thousand.”
“How much is avoiding a murder rap worth?”
His eyes narrowed and his face changed into something lupine and predatory. He tried to stare me down but it was no contest. The itch had grown nearly unbearable and gazing back at the brutal mask was a welcome distraction.
“Go on,” he said.
“I made three copies of the file, added a page of interpretation to each one, and put them in separate safe places. Along with the pictures and instructions to several attorneys in the event of my untimely demise. Before I copied I read through it several times. Fascinating.”
He looked composed but his right hand gave him away. The bony white fingers had clawed the ground and ripped out a handful of grass.
“Generalities are worthless,” he whispered harshly. “If you have something to say, say it.”
“All right,” I said, “Let’s flash back a little over twenty years ago. Long before you discovered the guru scam. You’re sitting in your office on Camden Drive. A mousy little woman named Emma is on the other side of the desk. She’s traveled all the way from a hick town called La Vista to Beverly Hills and has paid you a hundred dollars for a confidential legal consultation. A lot of money in those days.
“Emma’s story is a sad one, though no doubt you think of it as third-rate melodrama. Finding herself trapped in a loveless marriage she’d sought comfort in the arms of another man. A man who made her feel things she’d never imagined possible. The affair had been heavenly, true refuge. Until she became pregnant by her lover. Panicked, she hid the fact for as long as possible and when she started showing, told her husband the child was his. The cuckold had been ecstatic, ready to celebrate, and when he uncorked the champagne she nearly died of guilt.
“She’d considered an abortion but had been too scared to go through with it. She prayed for a miscarriage but none came. You ask her if she’s told her lover about the problem and she says no, horrified at the thought. He’s a pillar of the community, a deputy sheriff charged with upholding the law. On top of that, he’s married, with a pregnant wife of his own. Why destroy two families? Besides he hasn’t called in a long time, confirming her suspicions that for him the relationship had been primarily carnal all along. Does she feel abandoned? No. She’s sinned and now she’s paying for it.
“As the fetus grows in her womb so does the burden of her secret. She lives the lie for eight and a half months until she can’t take it any longer. On a day when her husband is out of town she gets on the bus and heads north, to Beverly Hills.
“Now she sits in your big glossy office, so out of her element, just weeks from delivery, confused and terrified. She’s considered her options for plenty of sleepless nights and has finally come to a decision. She wants out. A divorce, quick and easy, with no explanation. She’ll leave town, have the baby in solitude, maybe in Mexico, put it up for adoption, and start a new life far away from the site of her transgression. She’s read about you in the pages of a Hollywood fan magazine and is sure you’re the man for the job.
“As you listen to her, it’s clear that quick and easy is out of the question. The case would be a messy one. That by itself wouldn’t have stopped you from taking it on, because the messy cases bring in the fattest fees. But Emma Swope wasn’t your type of client. Drab and unglamorous and strictly small town. Most important, she didn’t smell of money.
“You took her hundred, and discouraged her from engaging your services. Gave her a line about doing better with a local attorney. She left red-eyed and heavy-bellied and you filed it away and forgot about it.
“Years later you get shot in the head and decide to make a career switch. You’ve built up lots of connections with the big money people, which in L.A. includes the dope trade. I don’t know who suggested it first, you or one of them, but you decide to go for megabucks as a coke and smack middleman. The fact that it’s illegal adds to the appeal because you see yourself as a victim, as having been failed by the system you’d served faithfully. Dealing dope is your way of saying fuck the system. The money and power aren’t too shabby, either.
“For the enterprise to be successful you’ll need a place close to the Mexican border and a good cover. Your new partners suggest one of the small agricultural towns south of San Diego. La Vista. They know of an old monastery for sale just outside the town limits. Secluded and quiet. They’ve been considering it for a while but need a way of keeping the locals from prying. You look at a map and something flashes. The bullet didn’t destroy the old memory. Back into the files. How am I doing so far?”
“Keep talking.” His palm was wet and green from compressing the torn grass into a ball.
“You do a little research and find out that Emma Swope never did get another lawyer. Her visit to you had been a single burst of initiative in an otherwise timid existence. She reverted to type, swallowed the secret and lived with it. Gave birth to a beautiful little red-headed daughter who’s now grown up into a wild young teenager. Lover Boy’s still around, too, busy enforcing the law. But he’s no longer a deputy. He’s the head honcho. The man everyone looks up to. So powerful he sets the emotional tone of the town. With him in your pocket you’ll have a free ride.”
All traces of serenity had passed from the long bearded face. He touched his beard and stained it green, tasted grass and spat.
“Sleazy little people with their stinking little intrigues,” he snarled. “Laboring under the delusion that there’s some
meaning to their lives.”
“You sent him a copy of the file, invited him to Beverly Hills for a chat, half-expecting him to ignore you or tell you to go to hell. What’s the worst that would have happened? A minor scandal? Early pension? But he was there the next day, wasn’t he?”
Matthias laughed out loud. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.
“Bright and early,” he said, nodding, “in that ridiculous cowboy costume. Trying to look macho but quaking in his boots—the fool.”
He reveled cruelly in the memory.
“You knew, right away,” I continued, “that you’d touched on something vital. Of course, it wasn’t until the following summer, when the girl worked for you, that you figured it out, but you didn’t have to understand the fear to capitalize on it.”
“He was a yokel,” said Matthias. “A sucker for a bluff.”
“That summer,” I said, “must have been an interesting one. Your brand-new social structure threatened by a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“She was a little nympho,” he said contemptuously. “Had a thing for older men. Went after them like a vacuum cleaner. I heard rumors from the time she got here. One day I discovered her blowing a sixty year old in the pantry. Pulled her off and called Houten. The way they looked at each other tipped me off as to why the file had turned him to jelly. He’d been screwing his own daughter without knowing it. I knew then that his balls were in my pocket. Forever. From that point on I pressed him into service.”
“Must have come in handy.”
“Exceedingly,” he grinned. “Before elections, when the Border Patrol came down hard, he’d go into Mexico and pick up the cargo for us. Nothing like a personal police escort.”
“It’s a hell of nice setup,” I said. “Well worth preserving. If I were you I’d view the hundred and fifty as a bargain.”
He shifted his weight. I took the opportunity to recross my legs. One foot had fallen asleep and I shook it gently to restore circulation.
“All I’ve heard up to this point is pure supposition,” he said coolly. “Nothing worth trading for.”
“There’s more. Let’s talk about Dr. August Valcroix. A refugee from the sixties and a devotee of situational ethics. I’m not sure how the two of you got together but he’d probably been dealing up in Canada and knew some of your partners. He became one of your salesmen, handling the hospital trade. What better cover for it than a bona fide M.D.?
“The way I see it, he could have gotten hold of the stuff in two ways. Sometimes he came down here to collect, under the guise of attending a seminar. When that was inconvenient, you sent it up to him. Which is what Graffius and Delilah were doing in L.A. the day they visited the Swopes. A courtesy call after a dope transfer. They had nothing to do with the Swopes’ reluctance to treat Woody or the abduction, despite Melendez-Lynch’s suspicions.
“Valcroix wasn’t much of a human being but he knew how to listen to patients and get them to open up. He used that talent to seduce and—sometimes—to heal. He developed a good rapport with Emma Swope—he’s the only one who described her as other than a nonentity, as being strong. Because he knew something about her no one else did.
“The diagnosis of cancer in a child can throw a family off-kilter, disrupt old patterns of behavior. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. For the Swopes, the stress was crushing; it turned Garland into a pompous jester and caused Emma to sit and brood about the past. No doubt Valcroix caught her at a particularly vulnerable moment. She got in touch with her guilt and spilled out her confession because he seemed like such a compassionate fellow.
“Anyone else would have considered it just another sad story and kept it confidential. But for Valcroix the information had larger implications. He’d probably observed Houten and wondered why he was so willing to take orders from you. Now he knew. And he was unethical—confidentiality meant nothing to him. When his future as a doctor began to look shaky, he drove down here and confronted you with his knowledge, demanding a bigger piece of the pie. You feigned concession, doped him up until he fell asleep, had one of your faithful drive him halfway back to L.A., to the Wilmington docks. Another followed in a second car. They set up a fatal accident, watched it happen, and drove off. The technique is simple enough—wedge a board between the seat and the accelerator...”
“Close.” Matthias smiled. “We used a tree branch. Apple tree. Organic. He hit the wall at fifty. Barry said he looked like a tomato omelet afterward.” Licking his mustache, he gave me a hard meaningful look. “He was a grasping, greedy pig.”
“If that’s supposed to scare me off, forget it. A hundred and fifty. Firm.”
The guru sighed.
“By itself the hundred and fifty is a nuisance,” he said. “And a palatable one. But who’s to say it’ll stop there? I’ve looked you up, Delaware. You were a top man in your field but now work only irregularly. Despite your apparent indolence, you like to live well. That worries me. Nothing feeds greed more quickly than a sizable gap between want and have. A new car, couple of fancy vacations, down payment on a condo in Mammoth, and it’s all gone. Next thing I know, you’re back with an outsretched palm.”
“I’m not greedy, Matthews, just resourceful. If your research was thorough you’d know I made a bunch of good investments that are still paying off. I’m thirty-five and stable, have lived comfortably without your money and could do so indefinitely. But I like the idea of ripping off a master rip-off artist. As a one-shot deal. When the one fifty’s safely in my hands you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
He grew thoughtful.
“Would you consider two hundred in coke?”
“Not a chance. Never touch the stuff. Hard cash.”
He pursed his lips and frowned.
“You’re a tough bastard, Doctor. You’ve got the killer instinct— which I admire in the abstract. Barry was wrong about you. He said you were a straight arrow, sickeningly self-righteous. In actuality you’re a jackal.”
“He was a lousy psychologist. Never did understand people.”
“Neither do you, apparently.” He stood suddenly and gestured to the cultists on the hill. They rose in unison and marched forward, a battalion in white.
I bounded up quickly.
“You’re making a mistake, Matthews. I’ve taken precautions for exactly this contingency. If I’m not back in L.A. by eight the files get opened. One by one.”
“You’re an ass,” he snapped. “When I was an attorney I chewed up people like you and spat them out. Shrinks were the easiest to terrorize. I made one wet his pants up on the stand. A full professor, no less. Your bush-league attempt at arm twisting is pathetic. In a matter of minutes I’ll know the location of every single one of those files. Barry wants to handle the interrogation personally. I think it’s an excellent idea—his desire for revenge is quite robust. He’s a nasty little slime, very well suited to the job. It will be excruciating, Delaware. And when the information is in my hands you’ll be dispatched. Another unfortunate accident.”
The cultists marched closer, robotlike and grim.
“Call them off, Matthews. Don’t dig yourself deeper.”
“Excruciating,” he repeated and beckoned them closer.
They formed a circle around us. Blank, middle-aged faces. Tight little mouths. Empty eyes. Empty minds...
Matthias turned his back on me.
“What if there are other copies? Ones I didn’t tell you about?”
“Good-bye, Doctor,” he said, scornfully, and began to exit the circle.
The others stepped aside to let him through and closed ranks immediately after he’d passed. I spotted Graffius. His puny frame quivered with anticipation. An ellipse of drool dotted his lower lip. When our eyes met the lip drew back hatefully.
“Take him,” he ordered.
The black-bearded giant stepped forward and grabbed one of my arms. Another large man, heavyset and gap-toothed, grasped the other. Graffius gave the signal and they dragged me toward the main bui
lding, followed by two dozen others chanting a wordless dirge.
Graffius ran alongside and slapped my face teasingly. Cackling with glee, he told me about the party he’d planned in my honor.
“We’ve got a new designer hallucinogen that makes acid seem like baby aspirin, Alex. I’ll shoot it right into your veins with a Methedrine chaser. It’ll be like being dipped in and out of hell.”
He had lots more to say but his oration was cut short by a sudden, brief stutter of gunfire, punctuating the silence like a symphony of giant bullfrogs. The second burst was longer, the unmistakable belch of heavy-duty firearms.
“What the fuck!” exclaimed Graffius, chin whiskers trembling like charged filaments.
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