Criminal Carma

by Steven M. Thomas

“Yeah, Vedanta is a cool religion. What brought you to this ashram?”

  “My roommate graduated last semester-I go to City College-and I couldn’t afford the rent, so Baba let me move in here. I help out with karma yoga and he doesn’t make me pay anything. He’s pretty cool.”

  “What all does karma yoga include?”

  “Mostly working in the kitchen,” she said flatly. “But I kind of help manage the place, too. What about you? What do you do? How do you know about Vedanta?”

  “I studied it years ago when I lived in Florida.” I didn’t mention that my scholarship took place in a prison library in between card games and yard fights. “I spent some time with Muktananda when he was in Miami.” That was after prison, when I was a dewy-eyed spiritual seeker, through forever with lying and stealing and all forms of dishonesty.

  “Wow! You met Muktananda? He was one of the great teachers of this age.”

  “Yeah, he was. Maybe I can tell you about him sometime.”

  “What do you do now?” she said, slightly cooler, sensing a spiritual come-on.

  “I own a construction company.”

  That was the cover story I’d used for the past several years. I had business cards, stationery, sample cases, and a phone number that was answered by a professional-sounding woman who always said the same thing: “Coast Construction. No, Mr. Rivers is out on a bid. If you leave your number, I’ll have him call you.”

  “A construction company? Really?” Mary sounded skeptical. “You have a job going down on the beach?”

  “No,” I laughed. “I’m on vacation.”

  “Let me see your hands.”

  I held my right hand out to her. She took it and turned it over in a businesslike way, unself-conscious about her raw fingertips. “No calluses,” she said, looking up from my palm. Her bright blue eyes were fringed with exceptionally long, exceptionally light eyelashes that gave her a fairy-like appearance.

  “I’m an executive, not a carpenter.”

  “I doubt it,” she said, letting go of my hand. “That cat you are with is some kind of player, for sure. I think you are, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Female intuition. I grew up around players and I know one when I see one. For my money, you are some kind of naughty fellow. Maybe a con man or a bank robber. Tell the truth-I’m right, aren’t I?”

  I was flattered by her estimate of my criminal standing. Bank robbery-not walking in with a scrawled note in a trembling hand, but planning and executing a major heist-is a high-class crime. Those guys get a lot of respect in the joint. At the same time, her flash of insight caught me off guard. To distract her from further speculation, and because I could hardly help myself, I scooted my chair closer to her and put my right arm around her.

  “You’re projecting,” I said, taking a chance and lightly nuzzling her neck. She got still when I touched her, but didn’t shy away. “I think you are the naughty one. I’m not a bank robber, but I make plenty of cash in construction, and I wouldn’t mind spending some of it on you.”

  I didn’t know if she was a temple prostitute like the other gowned girls or just an easygoing ashram lass who believed in free love, but she had showed us her breasts and I was getting such a warm and lively vibe from her that I thought there was at least an outside chance she would let me slide my hand between her thighs and lay her on the table while everyone else in the building talked about ultimate truth and spiritual transformation.

  “I’m not for sale,” she said, placing her left hand against my ribs and pushing me away with calm, steady strength.

  “I didn’t mean to imply that you are,” I said, backing off a little. “I just meant I’d like to take you out sometime and get to know you.”

  “That’s sweet,” she said, sardonically but thoughtfully, too. “I’m flattered. But I don’t even know you. Maybe if you came around and took some yoga classes we’d have a chance to get acquainted.”

  “We have a chance right now.” I leaned toward her again and tried to turn her head so that I could kiss her red lips. I don’t know why I was being so aggressive. It wasn’t like me. Maybe it was because she hadn’t seemed to mind Reggie’s direct approach in the hallway and because I wanted to cut him off before he got another chance with her. Maybe because sex was in the air in the ashram and she radiated an intoxicating female energy that stirred me to my core. I wanted to put my tongue in her mouth, to taste her and touch her intimately.

  “Stop,” she said sharply, jerking her head away. “I can’t. You seem like an interesting guy and all, but I’m with Baba now. I can’t fool around with you.”

  That chilled me. I saw the tangled jeans on the orange bedspread again and knew why I had felt irritated when I came downstairs.

  “So-what? You’re part of his string? You let him rent you out in those nice little rooms upstairs?”

  “Screw you, pal. No one turns me out. No one ever has and no one ever will. Why don’t you get the hell out of here?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t understand why a gorgeous girl like you would waste your time with an overgrown fakir like Baba. He’s got to be at least twice your age and three times your weight. And you can’t tell me that he isn’t pimping those other girls out.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, reverting to a bored tone. Her anger had faded as fast as it came. Calling her gorgeous hadn’t hurt. “Baba’s not a Boy Scout, but he is a real guru. There are people at this ashram who have seen him levitate during meditation. He helps people, too. I’ve seen him do it. Like that kid who was with you on the beach-we found him bawling his eyes out on the boardwalk one day and after Baba talked to him for a few minutes he was all happy and smiling. Could you do that for someone?”

  “Why was he crying?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I think he said his mom was supposed to meet him and didn’t show up, or something like that. But Baba made him feel better. That’s the point. And it’s not like you think with the other girls. They do it with the guys Baba tells them to do it with, sure, but it’s, like, tantra, you know? It has a spiritual purpose.”

  “Yeah, and I bet it puts a lot of spiritual dough in Baba’s dhoti, too.”

  “So what? Money makes the world go round, pal. He uses it to keep the center open so people can learn about yoga and enlightenment.”

  Ganesha chose that moment to hurry into the kitchen from the hall. He practically skidded to a stop when he saw me sitting with the blonde. Confusion, anger, jealousy, and sorrow played across his transparent face. He took refuge in the anger.

  “You aren’t supposed to be back here,” he said to me, angrily.

  “It’s okay,” Mary said. “He’s helping he make prasad.”

  “It’s not okay,” he said, helplessly turning his anger on her. “You don’t run this ashram, Shakti. You have to follow the rules, same as everyone else. Only staff are allowed in the kitchen. Your friend has to leave.” He put some stink on the word “friend.”

  “You should try not being an asshole sometime, Ganesha,” the girl said. “You might like it.”

  Her contempt wobbled the boy’s knees.

  “It’s not a problem,” I said, standing up. “I have to go anyway.” I didn’t want to provoke a conflict that would draw attention. “Maybe I’ll come back and try one of those yoga classes. When are they?”

  “There’s a schedule in the rack by the front door,” the girl said in her default tone of indifference.

  “You should take up meditation, bro,” I said to Ganesha as I walked past him. “It would help you relax.”

  “Hey,” the girl said as I was going out the door. “We’re having a karma yoga day tomorrow if you want to come. Starts after morning mediation, and there’s a free lunch for everyone who helps. I’m cooking.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, matching her indifference.

  “Hurry up with prasad” I heard the boy’s thwarted voic
e say as the door swung shut behind me. “Baba is waiting for it.”

  “I bet he is,” I said to myself. “The fat bastard.”

  Looking into the library as I passed, I saw twenty or so people sitting on the couch and floor, gazing raptly at Baba, who was enthroned like a tribal god in a big chair by the fireplace, where flames now crackled. He was staring balefully at a young woman with round glasses who was perched on an arm of the couch with an expectant look on her face.

  “That is so basic,” he said angrily. “How many times do I have to answer the same question for you people? Atman and Brahman are one and the same. That is the essence of Advaita Vedanta. If you can’t grasp that simple principle, I am wasting my time with you.”

  The girl looked like she might start crying, but Baba didn’t seem to notice. He shook his head in disgust and called on the next questioner.

  Reggie was sitting on the front steps.

  “It’s about time,” he said. “Where were you?”

  “Prospecting.”

  “Find any gold?”

  “A nugget as big as your thumb.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I had two short days to plan the robbery. Everything would have to be in place by Monday night if we were going to pounce on Tuesday morning. In the next forty-eight hours, I had to find out where Evermore’s financial institution was and pick a spot to intercept the lawyer before he took the necklace into the high-security environment inside the bank. To do that, I would have to find out his name and locate his office. It would help to know what he looked like, the kind of car he drove, and the route he would be following to the bank.

  If I could track him to his office, that might actually be a better place to do the robbery than a bank. If he was driving out to the desert on Monday afternoon and returning late that evening, he would have to keep the necklace someplace overnight. Evermore said he would keep it at his office, but it was possible he wouldn’t want the jewels out of his sight and might take them to his house. Both scenarios offered possibilities. I liked the idea of robbing him in a leafy suburb or burglarizing an empty office building on Monday night much better than pulling an armed robbery in a bank parking lot on a busy weekday morning.

  “Well?” Reggie said, irritated. “Whud you find out?” It was the second time he had asked the question. We were halfway back to Pacific Avenue. The temperature had dropped a few degrees and the offshore breeze had picked up, tossing the tops of the tall palm trees and blowing trash along the street. It was an uneasy combination. The Santa Anas usually brought warmer temperatures.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was trying to sort some things out. I found out where the diamonds are.”

  Reggie made saucer eyes. “Where?”

  “They’re still in Indian Wells, but Evermore’s attorney is bringing them back here Monday night. Depending on how things shape up, we’ll hit Monday or midmorning on Tuesday.”

  “Stickup?” He made a gun out of his hand to illustrate his question.

  “Could go either way. We might be able to burgle them or it might be strong-arm. The lawyer will be traveling with a security guard.”

  “Rent-a-cops ain’t shit,” Reggie said. “I’ll take care of ‘em.”

  “I’m not worried about the junior G-man. If it’s a stickup we’ll come down on him like a brick chimney.”

  Somewhere to the south, I heard a siren drifting toward us. As we came to the juncture of Westminster and Pacific, a medium-size engine honked its way through the busy intersection. Looking north, in the direction it was going, I saw a storefront with flames boiling out the front. Another fire engine was coming down Pacific from Santa Monica. As we walked the four blocks south to Sharpnick’s, I looked back several times. The fire seemed to be spreading.

  When we were half a block from the flophouse, the front door flew open and a jolly-looking girl who could not accurately have been described as petite scampered out onto the porch, shrieking. She was wearing a pair of plaid boxer shorts and nothing else. Her melon-size breasts flopped as she ran. Budge came out right behind her. He was wearing the same flowered board shorts he’d had on earlier and was topless like the girl. His breasts and belly jiggled, too. The pair of them ran around the side of the house into the backyard, laughing like lunatics.

  “Looks like the party’s started,” Reggie said, putting some giddyap in his short-legged stride. A series of motorcycle accidents had left one of his legs two inches shorter than the other. His boot was built up to compensate for the differential, but he still limped. If you were trying to get him to go someplace on foot that he thought was too far to walk, he would exaggerate the limp, hobbling like Chester on Gunsmoke and bitching until you agreed to go back and get your car or hire a cab. But he could stump along at high speed if he wanted to, and the topless girl had piqued his interest. He enjoyed the company of drunk chicks.

  We entered the house, leaning forward against a blast of soul music pouring out into the windy night. Two black guys I’d seen around and a Mexican who worked at the café where I ate breakfast were shooting dice against one wall. Candyman was curled up on the couch, necking with a white girl who could have been the twin of Budge’s quarry. Two black women who looked like part-time hookers were sitting by the stereo, laughing and drinking wine from paper cups, bobbing their heads and swaying their shoulders in time to the music.

  “Look! It’s Reggie and the other guy,” one of the black girls said. “Come ‘ere an gimme some sugar, Reggie.” She stretched out her arms toward him and wiggled her fingers.

  “I got something sweet for you, all right,” Reggie growled, heading her way.

  Swaggering across the living room, he narrowly missed a collision with the topless girl, who charged in from the kitchen, followed by Budge, who was still laughing in the explosive, staccato style that possessed him when he was drunk.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” he laughed loudly, spotting the girl. It sounded like the laugh of a maniac but was so good-humored that it was hilarious instead of threatening. He could keep it up for minutes at a time, pausing for a quick breath every dozen or so “ha”s.

  The girl had stopped in the middle of the room. Looking back over her shoulder at her pursuer, she wiggled her plaid behind, then scampered with small steps and upraised arms into the bedroom hallway. Budge was winding up, Jackie Gleason style, to race after her when he saw me standing by the door.

  “Hey, brother!” he shouted over the music, “come on in and join the party!”

  Roused from his clinch by Budge’s shout, Candyman looked up and gave me a lazy wave, a blissful smile, and a slurred, “Rob, mah man!” before being tugged back down by his inamorata.

  “Hey, Budge, who you say this is singing?” the black woman not necking with Reggie yelled. She was barefoot, wearing purple capris and a yellow tank top. Her hair was teased up into an impressive Angela Davis-type ‘fro.

  “My girl, Teena Marie,” Budge shouted ecstatically. “The queen of blue-eyed soul!”

  Before hooking up with Rick James and becoming the only white female soul singer to have a number-one record, Teena Marie had been a student at Venice High School in the same class as Budge. His second claim to fame was that he had taken her to the prom their junior year. It was 1973 and the Gondoliers had had a good season the previous fall. He was a popular athlete and she was a wild beauty already flaunting her irresistible voice in area talent shows, looking for a way out of her parents’ world. The way he told it, they made out on the beach afterward and she let him get his fingers wet rubbing her through her panties. For some reason, in a house full of tall tales, everyone believed him. Maybe it was because he had every record she had ever made, knew the title of every song, and still talked about her on a daily basis even though five presidents had been elected and twenty-three Southern California springs had come and gone since the two of them walked barefoot in the sand listening to the surf crash in the darkness.

  “That’s some swinging shit,” the woman sa
id, doing a sexy little double-clutch frug in front of the stereo while her girlfriend slurped on my partner.

  Budge came over to me grinning. “I got a girl in the bedroom,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, I saw her. She looks nice.”

  “Gonna get my knob polished!”

  “That should be fun,” I said. “Listen, I’m going to turn the music down a little bit so Sharpnick doesn’t get wind of the party. You don’t want her swooping in on her broomstick and spoiling all the fun.”

  “Aw-screw her,” he said with drunken courage. “She ain’t nothing but a walking skeleton. Pete knows how to handle her.”

  As if on cue, Pete entered the room from the kitchen, wearing his pea-coat with the collar turned up. I assumed he had come into the house through the back door, same as Budge and his girl. He stopped just inside the living room and glanced around with darting eyes.

  “Hey, look, it’s Party Pete!” Budge yelled, drawing everyone’s attention to the ex-sailor.

  Squaring his shoulders and sticking out his chest, Pete marched over to the stereo and turned the volume down to a conversational level.

  “Negative,” he said. “I’m not partying tonight. Got an oh-six-hundred wakeup mañana. So let’s keep the noise down. We don’t want the shore patrol showing up.”

  “Loosen up, Moe,” Reggie said, coming up for air. “It’s only ten-thirty.”

  “Yeah, man, it’s Saturday night!” Budge said. “Time for a party! Grab a girl and join in.”

  “What you mean you ain’t partying tonight?” Reggie’s hottie said, sniffing. “You smell like you just put one out.”

  “You’re crazy,” Pete said, backing away. “You better keep the noise down, if you know what’s good for you.”

  He glared at Reggie and the girl for a few seconds, then turned on his heel and marched down the hall and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He had completely dropped all pretense of respect or friendship toward me and Reggie.

  “You see that shit?” Candyman said. He was sitting up on the couch with a disgusted look on his face.