by John Case
‘So, what happened?’ Frank asked.
Stern shrugged. ‘They reached critical mass. One day there’s this deep ecology thing called “Verdure,” with maybe two hundred members. Two years later there are thousands of people, their eyes are glazed, and they’re calling themselves the “Temple of Light.”’
‘Where’s the sugar?’ Annie called out from the kitchen.
‘I’m all out,’ Stern said.
‘So how many people are in the Temple?’ Frank asked.
‘According to them?’ Stern replied. ‘Thirty thousand. But actually? Maybe a quarter of that. But even that number – there’s an inner and outer order.’
‘And how does that work?’
‘Like you’d expect. The ones on the inside are hardcore – round-the-clock staffers. Maybe a thousand people in half a dozen cities. Plus the ones at the compound. They’ve got about three hundred there.’
‘Where?’
‘At the compound – outside Lake Placid. They bought a private school, turned it into their headquarters.’
‘And the outer order?’
‘They send their checks in, subscribe to the newsletter, and buy Solange’s vitamins.’
‘Tell us about that,’ Annie said, coming into the room with a pot of tea on a tray. ‘Tell us about the vitamin factory at the compound.’ Setting the tray on the steamer trunk, she poured a cup for herself and carried it over to the window.
‘It’s not that exotic,’ Stern went on. ‘I mean, they make homeopathic remedies and aromatherapy products. Ginseng. Juniper oil. Plus the vitamins.’
‘And this brings in a lot of revenue?’
‘It brings in some. Plus, they’ve got patents.’
‘On what?’ Annie asked, turning away from the window.
‘Time-release things. Where you put chemicals in polymers so they’ll dissolve at different rates.’
‘Like what? What kind of chemicals?’ Frank asked.
‘All kinds. Painkillers. Insulin. B-12. Whatever you want. It’s like those little colored things in Contac, except smaller.’
‘He’s talking about microencapsulation,’ Annie said over her shoulder as she looked out the window.
‘Right! That’s what I said. Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I was telling Frank how there’s an inner order – and an inner order within that! And this is something you need to know about that, because they’re the ones who are gonna come after you – the Office of Special Affairs.’
‘What’s that?’ Frank asked.
‘Spooks,’ Stern replied. ‘They’re the Temple’s in-house intelligence agency. And they’re good, too. Very professional. Lots of firewalls. Lots of money to play with. Also, a lot of outside people on the payroll – private investigators, journalists, cops, academics . . . you name it.’
‘Sounds formidable.’
‘It is. In fact, it’s a nightmare. And then they’ve got the special teams.’
‘For what? Punt returns?’
Stern smiled. Thinly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘For grabbing people.’
‘You’re kidding.’
Stern shook his head. ‘Look, what I’m telling you is this: if you piss them, they’ll come after you One day you’ll wake up and – boom! You’ll be gone.’
‘That’s the part I hate,’ Frank said, stirring his tea. ‘I always hate it when I disappear.’
‘It isn’t funny,’ Stern said.
Frank nodded. ‘I’m not laughing. But getting back to what you were saying, about the money . . . they get most of their money from what? Vitamins? Patents?’
Stern shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Plus the gifts,’ Frank said. ‘From the members. And I suppose they tithe –’
‘That’s not the point,’ Stern said. ‘That’s not where the big bucks are from. The big bucks come from somewhere else.’
Frank looked puzzled. ‘Where?’ he asked.
Stern stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. ‘Chosen Soren,’ he said.
Frank thought about it, and then remembered. ‘Oh, you mean the Japanese guys,’ he said. ‘In your newsletter.’
‘Right,’ Stern replied. ‘Except, Chosen Soren isn’t Japanese, really. It’s for Koreans who work in Japan. Mostly North Koreans. They do the shit work for the Japanese, and they send a lot of their money home. It’s a big foreign-exchange earner.’
‘And that’s where the Temple gets its money?’
Stern nodded. ‘Most of it.’
Frank was dumbfounded. ‘But . . . why?’
‘I don’t know,’ Stern replied, ‘but the Koreans have given them fifty million bucks since ’ninety-five.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Customs report. I got it from the A.G.’s office in California. They busted this guy who was riding circuit – L.A., Tokyo, Geneva – back to L.A. And like that. I guess they found a lot of cash on him that he wasn’t supposed to have. Anyway, they questioned the guy, and he cracked. He told them everything he was doing.’
‘Which was what?’
‘Moving money, lots of money, in and out of different accounts, so no one could tell where it came from.’
‘And this was that . . . Chosen Soren money?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So where is this guy?’
Stern blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. ‘They fucked up. Instead of pursuing the case, Customs had him deported. Next thing you know, he gets off the plane at Narita, and that’s it. He never gets out of the Customs hall. His wife is standing there with two kids, right outside Passport Control and – forget about it. All they found were his suitcases, sitting on a cart in the hall. End of story.’
‘They never found him?’
‘No. It’s like I said: end of story.’
‘Hey!’ The shout was Annie’s. She was standing at the window with her teacup in her hand, crouching slightly to yell at someone outside. ‘Hey!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Frank said, moving quickly to her side.
‘Someone’s in your car.’
He pushed the curtain aside and, looking out, saw that she was right. The Saab was at the curb in front of the apartment house, and the driver’s door was wide open. A woman in a blue dress was leaning inside, half in and half out of the car.
‘Be right back,’ Frank said, and without waiting for Annie, went through the front door, past the elevator, and down the stairs, two at a time. A few seconds later he was in the lobby, and then he was in the street. His car door was closed and the woman was about twenty yards away, pushing a stroller toward the corner.
‘Wait a second!’ he called, and loped after her. ‘Hey! Excuse me?’
The woman turned, raising a hand to shade the sunlight from her eyes, and he saw that she was young – just a girl, really – with the freckled innocence of a 4-H beauty queen. ‘Hi’ she said, bathing him in a bright and glittering smile.
He found himself unexpectedly out of breath, more from the excitement than the exercise, so his voice was choppy. ‘Sorry I yelled, but – I was looking out the window and – you were – you know – you were in my car.
The smile exploded. ‘Was that your car?’ she asked, rolling the stroller back and forth to keep the baby happy.
‘Yeah,’ Frank said, feeling a little foolish in the searchlight of her friendliness. ‘It was.’
‘Oh! Well, I turned out the lights for you. You left them on.’
‘I did?’ He thought about it for a second. ‘I don’t think so. Why would I have the lights on? It’s –’
She shook her head, and he saw that she had green eyes. ‘I don’t know. Were you, like, in a tunnel or something?’
The baby gurgled, and Frank glanced in its direction. He couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, but like its mother, it was adorable. ‘Cute kid,’ he said.
‘Thanks!’ she replied, cocking her head like a cheerleader at the end of a routine. Then she turned and gave the stroller a little push. ‘I have to go now,’ she said.
‘Papa’s coming home.’
‘Well . . . thanks for the help,’ Frank said.
As he walked back to Stern’s apartment, he saw that the car lights were off – which was good (though, of course, the battery might still be dead). He’d try it in a minute, but first he had to get Annie.
‘Who was it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. I guess I left the lights on. She turned them off.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘I didn’t notice any lights.’
Frank shrugged. ‘Well, it’s good she did. Anyway . . .’ Turning to Stern, he offered his hand. ‘We better get going,’ he said. ‘But . . . thanks for the help – really.’
‘No problem.’
‘If I have to, can I get back to you?’
‘Well ‘Stern said, thinking about it. ‘I guess . . . but . . . if you and the Temple are going at it – don’t call me from your house. And for chrissake, don’t just drop by. Send smoke signals or something.’
Frank laughed.
As they went out to the car, Annie was shaking her head. ‘I’m sure you didn’t leave your lights on,’ she said.
‘Right. I didn’t leave my lights on. So what? Did you hear what he was saying? About this Chosen thing? Fifty million dollars? What’s that all about?’
‘I don’t know,’ Annie said. ‘I’m more worried about this vitamin factory, or whatever it is.’
He opened the door to the Saab and slid behind the wheel. Annie was saying something about microencapsulation as he put the key in the ignition and switched it on.
The Saab started with a roar, but the sound was almost drowned out by Frank’s exclamation: ‘What the fuck is that!?’
Annie turned to him and saw that he was looking at his hands – which, like the steering wheel, were wet with a kind of transparent grease.
‘What’s the matter?’ Annie asked.
He was holding his hands in front of him, palms up, like a Catholic saint. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s like I’ve been slimed. Get me a towel from the back, okay?’
Annie reached into the backseat, where a roll of paper towels rested on the floor. Grabbing a handful, she helped him get the grease off his fingers and the steering wheel. When they were done, Frank stuffed the towels under the front seat, shifted into gear and pulled out of the parking space, heading toward Annie’s house in Mount Pleasant.
‘She did that,’ Annie said.
‘Did what?’
‘Put that stuff on the steering wheel, what do you think?’
‘I don’t know what I think. I think it was gross.’
Annie shivered. ‘It’s not right,’ she said.
‘She had a baby. It’s probably just some kinda baby stuff,’ Frank said. ‘Something that was on her hands.’
They went up Foxhall Road to Nebraska, and cut across to Wisconsin. They sat for a couple of minutes in front of the Sidwell Friends School, which was just letting out, then turned left onto Porter and cut across the park to Mount Pleasant. The trip took about twenty minutes, and by the time they got to her house, he didn’t feel well.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m all right. I’m a little out of it, is all. I haven’t eaten anything all day.’
Annie gave him a skeptical look as she eased out of the car. Then she turned and leaned in through the window. ‘You’re certain?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. Too much tea, or something.’
And then he was off, nosing through the traffic on his way to Columbia Road, driving past the bodegas and nightclubs and cop cars . . There was so much to pay attention to – like the drunks on the corner, and the dogs, and the 7-Eleven.
When he reached Columbia Road, he realized with surprise that he was sweating, a sour, clammy sweat, like the onset of a fever. And, really, he didn’t feel well at all. His heart was racing, and he had this shaky feeling in his stomach and chest – like stage fright, except he wasn’t onstage. He was in his car, and the adrenaline was surging through him for no reason at all. It wasn’t like he was going fast. In fact, he was going – what? Six miles an hour.
No wonder they were all beeping at him.
Something was wrong, and he knew what it was: suddenly, he was intensely aware of every possibility, and saw in every possibility a threat. If for example, he turned the wheel a bit to the left, the car would cross the centerline, and crash. That there was no reason for him to turn the wheel was irrelevant. The point was: he could. And that possibility was a terrifying one because, of course, a lot of people would be hurt. And if before turning the wheel, he sped up, the car might then continue onto the sidewalk, plowing into God knows how many people.
So that there’d be blood everywhere.
The fear he felt was a kind of vertigo, irrational and uncontrollable. Anyone could walk a straight line, but try to do that on the railing of a balcony, a hundred feet above the street, and you’d go over.
And that was how he felt now, as if he were about ‘to go over,’ as if his mind were pulling him over an invisible ledge. Driving was impossibly complicated – like rubbing your stomach while patting your head. So much could go wrong so easily, and catastrophically. How could anyone do it? How could they pay attention to so many things at the same time? To the speedometer and gearshift, the clutch, brakes, and accelerator – other cars, and traffic lights, people crossing and recrossing the street. The tachometer! The world was a tidal wave of places and events, foaming with consequences.
And I’m drowning in it, Frank thought.
And the other problem was: a crucial part of him was missing – his stance toward the world, or his perspective on it. It was as if he’d forgotten not so much who he was, but what it was like to be who he was. Not the facts of himself, but his interpretation of himself.
Suddenly, he knew what it was: he’d forgotten his point of view. He’d forgotten what it was like to be Frank Daly, and having forgotten that, he couldn’t imagine ever getting it back. His whole vocabulary of being had vanished, so that to be himself was like trying to speak a language he’d never learned. It was beyond his grasp. He was beyond his grasp.
And this realization filled him with a feeling of dread that was all the more profound for the fact that it was inescapable – it came from within, from the place where Frank was supposed to be, and where now there was nothing. A hole.
He knew what had happened, of course. He’d been drugged. By Stern, or by Annie, or else by the girl that he’d caught in his car. The freckled mommy with the bright smile. But knowing this was no consolation at all. Whoever had done it had taken everything from him, so that now there was less than nothing left. There was no him left. And he knew that he’d never get better because what he’d lost was about as substantial – and elusive – as Eastern Standard Time.
It was taking an awfully long time to get back to his apartment – which was where he needed to be.
So he floored it. The Saab lurched into the opposite lane and shot forward down the busy street, parting the traffic like a zipper. A man in a business suit dove toward the curb, and horns exploded from every direction. Chief Ike’s Mambo Room flashed past, followed in rapid succession by Popeye’s, Mixtec, the Crestar Bank, and a knot of bodhisattvas, waiting for the light to change at the corner of Eighteenth and Columbia Road.
He had to get to bed. He’d be safe in bed. But first he had to park the car. And, under the circumstances, there was no way he could do that. Even if he found a spot, parking the Saab would be like docking the space shuttle, maneuvering a ton of steel through three dimensions, using only his hands and feet. Impossible. No one could do it. So he slammed on the brakes with both of his feet, bringing the car to a shivering halt in the middle of the street.
As he got out, he turned on the lights, thinking it would make it easier to find the car later.
He was surprised at how woozy he felt. It was almost as if his head were on roller bearings. A man came toward
him from the sidewalk, speaking quietly in Spanish, then backed away, frightened by something in Frank’s eyes.
A moment later (or maybe it was longer – maybe it was an hour later), he was standing in his apartment, listening to his telephone messages.
‘Frank! It’s Jennifer. About these satellite expenses . . . Is this a joke? Give us a call.’
And the next message: ‘Hey, Frankie! it’s your uncle Sid. Listen, everybody’s broke up about your dad, but – hey, it was good to see ya and . . . y’know, don’t be such a stranger!’
And the third message, from a woman who wanted to wish him well: ‘Hi there! We met this afternoon? I just wanted to say, have a nice trip – and, oh yeah! If you want to come back? And stay back? Maybe you should work on something else!’
And then the phone was ringing, and the answering machine switched on, and it was Annie: ‘Frank – it’s me. I’m worried about that stuff that was on the steering wheel. Call me back, okay? Or maybe . . . maybe I’ll just come over . . . Are you there? Pick up!’
Not likely. The phone was pulsing, rising and falling like a termite queen, breathing in the dark. And his hands – Jesus, his hands! You could do such terrible things with your hands. . . .
25
THE COMPOUND
MAY 23
THE TEMPLE’S HEADQUARTERS were on the campus of what was formerly a private school. About twenty miles from Lake Placid, the old school grounds lay behind an impressive set of rusted iron gates in a long and serpentine valley.
Once past the gates, an asphalt drive twisted through a forest of tigertail spruce, arriving eventually at a small clearing that served as a parking lot. From there a gravel path led through a dark wood, emerging in a tamed meadow, where a black-water pond sat at the foot of a low and gently sloping hill.
At the western edge of the meadow were a cluster of white cottages that had formerly housed the school’s teachers but were now reserved for the Temple’s senior staff. Nearby, a pair of crumbling dormitories were home to the rank and file of the Temple’s inner order.