When Reason Sleeps

by Rex Burns

  “I’m not a symbol. I don’t want to be owned.”

  But he had shown her a collective yearning that far outweighed her isolated and lonely struggle for self. He had also shown her the power that was in that yearning—a spiritual embrace that healed without embarrassment because she could admit what she really was and what she had done; she could join those who either did or wanted to do things as bad. And Dwayne had shown her the widening dimensions of sexual power, as well as the mindless, totally submerged enjoyment of it.

  Jerry, however, had a certain distance. His was a love less of her as embodied symbol than of the act of love itself—at first, anyway. He, like Dwayne, sought. But unlike Dwayne, he had not found certitude, and there was something temporary in his joining the Kabbal. He was testing, trying, and—still dissatisfied—moving on. He had some kind of vision that differed from Dwayne’s. It was more … not self-confident; that wasn’t the term. Nobody she’d ever met was more self-confident than Dwayne. More … sincere. Perhaps even spiritually innocent. As if, in contrast to Dwayne, Jerry would be open to any truths his search brought him rather than measuring them against a certitude he already had. It was something she’d tried to explain to Dwayne but at the time he had only smiled and said Jerry just refused to admit truths that were self-evident.

  “But he’s sincere. He really wants to know.”

  “Up to a point. If he was all that sincere, he’d admit the truth of what I’ve shown him.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “I think he’s just another dabbler. We’ll see in time.”

  But she knew that the same earnestness that attracted her drew Dwayne as well. Jerry was for Dwayne a challenge, a prize. In some ways, he was to Dwayne what she was to those men who saw whatever it was they longed for in her. And, ironically, perhaps it was Dwayne’s fascination with Jerry that stirred her own. And then, of course, he had begun to show interest. And had begun to ask questions.

  “You’re trying to make me feel ashamed. Well, I don’t! Not one bit—”

  “No, I’m not trying to make you feel ashamed. Why the hell should I? You’re acting out of belief, Dori, and I respect that. In a world where there’s so little belief, where so few commit their souls to something other than money, I’m not going to scoff at any act of real belief.” He handed her the toke and, with a long drag, she soothed the hazy anger that had been stirred by his questions. “What I’m asking about isn’t your act of belief, but its object: Dwayne’s whole value system. Despite what he says, he’s still in the material world—for him the world of the spirit is just a device, a means to get more things. Look what we ask: O Dark Lord Satan, we demand your help in winning gold and gaining power over our enemies.’ ”

  “And tell me people don’t pray to God for a good price on their stocks or for a winning lottery ticket!”

  “Sure they do. It’s no different. And there are the hypocrites who say they have money because they’re blessed by God, therefore their money’s blessed, too. What I’m saying is Dwayne’s approach ignores a whole spectrum of possibilities. There’s strength and knowledge in denial, too.”

  “He doesn’t believe in denial.”

  “That’s my point, Dori! He won’t even accept the possibility of a value system outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.” He waved an arm at the books stacked in the board-and-concrete-block bookcases on each side of his desk. “Read some of these—they’re by people who’ve searched for the same things and thought as deeply—deeper—about them than Dwayne. He’s closed off possibility; these keep it open.”

  From down the hall, a door slammed loudly, its echo twanging against the muffled jumble of stereo sets in neighboring dorm rooms. Outside, a squeal of rubber on the asphalt parking lot followed by the loud, drunken laughter of students coming back from town. Saturday night.

  “Are you going to leave the Kabbal?”

  “It’s given me all the answers it can. But I still have more questions. I don’t know if anyone or anything can give me answers to all the questions, but I know I have to keep looking.” He squinted into the smoke of the final end of the roach. “I’d like you to look with me, Dori.”

  It was the way she had felt, too, when she first came to Oxy. That same kind of excitement at being on the borders of knowing, the daring involved in pushing out from the familiar. Even a sense of exhilaration at the chance to leave behind and forget. But that had been before she was with Dwayne again. Before she once more accepted his catechism as the limits of search. Now she felt a tingle of envy: Jerry still had the yearning. He was still willing to voyage outward. She, in trying to master those nagging fears, had become static. “Maybe we won’t know it all until we cross over.”

  “Maybe we won’t know it all even then. But that’s not the issue—it’s how much can we know here and now. And now the Kabbal is more restrictive than liberating. The road goes on, Dori; it doesn’t stop with Dwayne. Not for me, not for you.”

  But it had stopped with Dwayne. She wasn’t sure how he did it, but Dwayne had some role in Jerry’s suicide. And, God help her, so did she. She would not join him in leaving the Kabbal; she who, despite what they said in each other’s arms, would not let her feelings for Jerry become the kind of love that gave without asking in return. His had been, and she had not known its value until it was gone. Jerry’s suicide was as much out of jealousy over her role in the Kabbal, Dwayne said, as despair for his search in this world. He said that Jerry talked about the power of denial and the trap of materialism, but when it came to Dori’s role in the Kabbal, he couldn’t get beyond jealousy. Dwayne had been with him for two days and on the third, Jerry finally saw no other way.

  But even Dwayne had finally felt remorse. He wrote to her in Tahoe where she had fled the ghosts of voices and arguments and memories, trying to find peace in the mountains with their timeless, vast power that dwarfed the self and, wordless, argued against the vanities of human struggle.

  “We’ve Broken the Circle, Dori. I guess it’s Jerry—I can’t quit thinking about him and the talks we had when he was planning on leaving the Kabbal. Maybe there was some truth in it, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m moving away from The Practice. I know there’s something for me somewhere and I intend to find it. Keep in touch, I’ll let you know what I find. And you let me know, too, if you find what you want. …”

  CHAPTER 24

  KAREN ANSWERED THE telephone. “Dad—are you all right?”

  “Yes, fine. Is something wrong there? You sound pretty tense.”

  She didn’t answer his question. Instead, she asked, “Do you know anybody named Aleister LaVey?”

  The skin at the back of my neck prickled with lifting hairs. “The name sounds familiar.” Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey—well-known in Satanism, and the combination of the names was a thinly disguised code. “Why?”

  “I found a strange note slipped under our front door. It’s signed by this man.”

  “Read it to me.”

  “ ‘Karen—Tell your father to leave things alone. We know about you and Rebecca. Aleister LaVey.’ ”

  “That’s it? Nothing else?”

  “That’s it.” The line was silent a moment. “I don’t like what I hear in your voice, Dad. Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on. Are you really retired?”

  “Yes, Karen. This is something else. A little job to help some friends.”

  “What kind of job? And who is this Aleister LaVey?” They must have found some reference to Karen and Rebecca when they searched my house. My address book—they’d have read through that. But how would they know by Karen’s married name that she was my daughter?

  “Dad? Are you there?”

  “Yes. Listen, I want you to call the Sacramento police as soon as you hang up. Tell them you’ve been threatened and give them my name and number. Tell them to call me and I’ll fill them in with as much detail as I know.”

  “How about filling me in, too, Dad? It involves Chuck and Rebecca and me, and we have a
right to know what we’re faced with.”

  They had a stronger right not to be involved at all. I told her about Dorcas Wilcox and Dwayne Vengley, and added that I wished I knew what we were faced with, too.

  “Satanism? This Aleister LaVey’s a Satanist?”

  “It’s a phony name, but, yes, that’s what it means.”

  “What can we do, Dad? What about Rebecca? I don’t like her being in danger.”

  I didn’t like endangering any of them. “I’ll telephone her as soon as I can. Listen, Karen, I don’t know how long it will take me to straighten things out. That’s why I want you to notify the police. Does your firm make use of private detectives?”

  “Yes. I don’t know any of them personally, but we do have several names.”

  “I’ll send a check. Hire a man to see if he can find out who left the note. But you and Chuck go on about your lives. Just use some caution and common sense, okay? Lock your home and car, stay away from isolated areas, be suspicious of any strangers hanging around or any packages, okay?”

  “Yes … of course. But how long will we have to do that?”

  “I don’t know, Karen. Not long.”

  “I feel like we’re suddenly in a state of siege. I feel as if all the things around us have suddenly become enemies.” She added, “I’m frightened, Dad.”

  “That’s what this person wants, Karen—to scare me off through you.”

  “Well, he’s succeeded in part!” A sigh. “But I know he won’t ever scare you off. And, Daddy, when I think about it, I don’t want him to.” Her voice gained a fierceness. “It makes me angry. No, it makes me goddamned mad! Nail him, Daddy. Nail his ass to the barn wall! And Chuck and I’ll do everything we can to help. So don’t worry about us!”

  It crossed my mind that my elder daughter was going to make a pretty good lawyer.

  Shaughnessy wasn’t all that excited to hear from me, especially so close to quitting time. But when he heard about the threat, the man’s voice quickened. “ ‘Aleister LaVey’? I guess they couldn’t have said it any clearer.”

  “It’s a serious threat, Sergeant.”

  “Yeah. The crummy shits.” Then, “How’d they find out about your daughters?”

  I’d been thinking about that. And about the teakettle I’d found on the stove. “I had a letter from Karen in my mailbox when they went through the house. I think they steamed it open, read it, and resealed it.”

  “When was that?”

  “While I was in Colorado. Two, three days ago.”

  “I see.”

  It gave them time to fly up to Sacramento, to check out Karen’s return address, to leave the threat. It was a not-too-subtle hint how easy it would be to harm or kidnap her, and I made an effort to modulate my icy anger. It had gradually replaced the spasm of fear that came when Karen first told me about the threat. Old Beltline wisdom: don’t get mad, just get even. Granted there were times when it was best to fight mad, but this wasn’t one of them. “Is there any way I can make sure the Sacramento PD takes this seriously?”

  “I got a contact up there. I’ll call and talk to him.” Shaughnessy added, “Not that they wouldn’t do their job anyway.”

  “Just so they know Karen’s not a crank complainer.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “I haven’t been able to find Vengley.”

  “The work address didn’t pan out?”

  I told Shaughnessy about that and my visit to Ralph Lyles and the Aguirres.

  “A large photograph of Glover and the girl?”

  “At Yosemite. Hung on the wall.”

  “Well, no shit. …”

  When the line remained silent, I added, “Alef Distributing should be looked at, too.”

  “We can’t get a warrant on guesses.”

  “Can you look at their paper trail?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t know if I’ll come up with any more than you’ve already got. I’ll do what I can, though.”

  “Want to look at Mesa and Mountain Investments while you’re at it?”

  “Hey, call it happy hour—two-fers.”

  “Anything new on the Aguirre killing?”

  “Nothing Finch wants to tell me. And I haven’t found anybody yet who corroborates that she was a Satanist.”

  “That’s not surprising, is it?”

  “Naw, I guess not. The people who’d know are in it with her, and the people not in it wouldn’t know. I’ll get back when I hear something.”

  Later, a Detective Lewis of the Sacramento police called to find out what I had to say. “You don’t have any idea who wrote the note?”

  “It could have been Vengley. No one I’ve talked to knows where he is.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, Mr. Steele, we’ll pay attention to the threat, of course. But there’s not much we can do unless the lab turns up something on that note.”

  “What about protection for my daughter and her husband?”

  “I’ve arranged for drive-bys. And I’ve given your daughter a quick-response phone number to call in case anything suspicious happens. Beyond that. …”

  “I understand.”

  Which left me pretty much where I was earlier—on my own. And worrying about Rebecca, who could pose an even more difficult security problem. Counting the difference in hours between California and western France, the school’s offices should be open now. The overseas operator took all the information and in a few minutes, I heard a woman’s voice, delayed a few beats by distance, answer in French.

  “This is Mr. Steele in the United States. I’m trying to reach my daughter, Rebecca Steele. Is she there?”

  “Is it an emergency, m’sieur?”

  “Please don’t alarm her, but it is very important. Is she there, please?”

  “I think all of our students are back now. If it is not an emergency, I will have the concierge give her a message to call you as soon as possible. Will that be satisfactory?”

  “Please. Here’s my new telephone number—she might not have it yet. Tell her it’s not an emergency—no one’s hurt. But it is very, very important that she call collect as soon as possible.”

  “I will tell her, M’sieur Steele.”

  There would be no telephone in the dormitory rooms, of course. Probably the person I talked to was the residence manager, and Rebecca would find a note in her mailbox when she came back from classes. If she looked. Then she would have to use the pay phone, a basement location probably, and maybe stand in line to get to it. But there was nothing I could do now except wait.

  The call came about two hours later as I absently chopped up an avocado and whatever for a supper salad. I watched but did not really see the daily “sunset regatta” as the neighbors took their boats out for after-work cruises. When the telephone finally rang, I almost knocked it off the shelf in my haste. When I heard Rebecca’s voice—with that familiar, slightly breathless quality that sounded so much like Eleanor—my suddenly relaxing muscles made me realize how tense I had been.

  “Dad! I got your letter—I just mailed an answer yesterday. I just can’t imagine you retired!”

  I told her a little more about it, leaving out the mandatory part. “Listen, Becky, I hope you’re not too upset about my moving to California. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time, and I’ve got a job lined up out here.”

  “That sounds great, Dad. Can you talk about it?”

  The question an intelligence operative’s daughter would ask. “I’ll tell you more about it when I write. Before I left Fairfax, I talked to the Richardsons—they say you’re welcome to stay with them and Sue this summer if you want to.”

  “I haven’t really thought that far ahead yet. I mean it’s nice of the Richardsons and all, but I was thinking of staying over here a little longer after school’s out. I can get a job—secretary or au pair or something.” She added quickly, “If it’s okay with you. There’s a real shortage of secretarial help and with the EEC and Eastern Europe and all, it’s really exciting to be he
re now.”

  “Of course it is!” I hoped the heartiness didn’t sound as false as it felt. “I put all your gear in one of the upstairs bedrooms—your bedroom, when you want it. I unpacked the clothes, but the rest is still boxed up.”

  “Leave it that way for now, Dad. Until I find out what I’m doing.”

  “Will do. Hey, I’m sitting here watching my neighbor hoist the jib on his sloop. He takes it out every evening.”

  “Neat! Is it a big one?”

  “Looks around twenty-five feet. We’ll go boat shopping when you get here. One of my old high school buddies says he has a few contacts in the boat business.”

  A pause. “You really won’t be too disappointed if I don’t come out there before school starts in the fall?”

  “Not too, no. I’d be a lot more disappointed if I thought you were coming back when you didn’t want to and didn’t have to.”

  “You’re sure? You won’t be lonesome?”

  “Hey, I’ve got plenty to do here, believe me. In fact, the last couple weeks have been a lot busier than I planned on.”

  “Good—I’m really glad to hear it, Dad. I wasn’t worried you’d turn into a couch potato. But … I don’t know. Sometimes when people retire, they sort of don’t know what to do with all their time.”

  “Believe me, Becky, retirement has not meant inactivity.”

  “Well, you’re what they call over here ‘le bel age.’ ”