The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  “I suggest you go through the proper channels next time,” the guard said, perhaps believing that he was indeed the patient’s attorney. “Don’t come back without,” the guard said as he waited for Andrew to step into the elevator when the doors opened.

  “Fine,” Andrew said, straightening his suit and tie like he had never been so manhandled in his entire life. “You’ll be hearing from my office,” he said to the jaded officer just before the doors closed.

  While working his way back to his office on the forty-first floor of the downtown skyscraper, Andrew tried to get his head around what had just happened. If Henry had indeed recognized him, then it could only mean that not only was he blaming Andrew, in some way, for what happened to him but he also feared that it might happen again, or maybe something even worse. Was Henry beaten as a punishment for talking to Andrew when he had last visited him? If so, then why; and who would even have known that the visit had ever taken place?

  He may have told Fiona about the visit and she could have mentioned it to her father but that seemed a long shot and something that he could easily prove or disprove by asking her. The only other person he remembered speaking to about the visit was Lily.

  Lily. There’s that name again. It would seem that her name kept coming up anytime there was some kind of leak or a breach of confidentiality. She talked and acted like she could be trusted but what did he know about her, aside from the fact that she was pretty and dressed like a hipster when not at work?

  Were his movements being watched? Turning around at the entrance to the building in search for a possible interested party that was paying him undue attention, he spied some possible suspects. Confronting each of them with a look that said, ‘I know who you are,’ he made a note to remember their faces should they ever appear again in the future.

  “We have another situation,” he said cautiously into his cell phone when he called Fiona from the ground floor lobby of the building.

  “What now?” Fiona asked, the call waking her up from an afternoon nap.

  “I went to visit my old cellmate in prison and guess what?” he asked, watching closely everyone that passed or walked close by.

  “What?”

  “He got put in hospital, probably as a punishment for talking to me when I went to visit him. Did I ever tell you about that? That I visited my old cell mate in prison a few weeks ago?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Fiona replied uncertainly. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m heading back to work, going to stick to the normal routine and carry on like I don’t know anything.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Fiona remarked. “Do you?”

  “You know what I mean,” he then said impatiently. “The plot is thickening, that’s all I’m saying. Over and out,” he then said and hung up.

  Fiona looked at the silent phone in her hand with a worried look. What was happening to the innocent and naïve young Andrew she used to know and love? When the phone rang, she smiled when she saw that he was calling her back. “Hi, lover boy,” she said seductively.

  “Do me a favor and look something up,” he said, like time was running out. “I want you to look for a person that may live out in Twentynine Palms,” he said, trying to remember the details. “That’s out in the boonies, past Riverside County, in the desert,” he then said.

  “I know where it is,” Fiona said, sounding insulted. “It’s out past Joshua Tree.”

  “Yeah, past Joshua Tree,” he confirmed. “First name R, last name Juna,” he said, hoping not to have to repeat himself. “Got that?”

  “R is not a first name, Andrew,” she corrected. “What does the R stand for?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted meekly. “Look up all possibilities; Robert, Richard, Ronny, whatever. Can’t be many people with a last name Juna.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s probably the only guy we know that can help us at this point.”

  “You know him?”

  “No, I don’t know him, that’s why I’m asking you to look him up. He’s the guy that knows way more than even Henry knows. Henry said that he’d help us. I see a road trip in our future,” he then said, his tone brightening up.

  “Oh, cool,” Fiona said excitedly. “I love road trips.”

  Chapter 9

  When Andrew and Fiona got together at his mom’s house that evening, Fiona came prepared. Having spent most of the afternoon in a fruitless search for R. Juna on the internet, she finally figured it out. Having bookmarked relevant sites of interest, she opened up her laptop to explain her findings to Andrew. “First of all, there is no R. Juna that I can find anywhere,” she said as an introduction.

  “Crap,” Andrew said frustratingly.

  “However,” Fiona continued, her voice sounding hopeful, “I did find an Arjuna that will be giving a talk at the Saddle Back Coffee shop in Twentynine palms this coming Sunday!”

  “Excellent!” Andrew said, raising his hand for a high-five which Fiona quickly and half-heartedly engaged. “Arjuna, one word, is the comrade of Krishna,” she said, reading from her notes. “And they play a big part in the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the best-selling books of all time in India.”

  “Wow,” Andrew said, impressed by her homework. “From India?” he asked, wondering what the connections might be. “What’s he doing in Twentyine Palms?”

  “He’s not a real person, obviously,” Fiona said kindly.

  “You just said he was going to be giving a speech?”

  “That’s a different Arjuna,” Fiona explained. “It’s a common name in India, I’d imagine.”

  “Okay, start over,” Andrew said, looking but failing to decipher her hand-written notes. “There’s a guy called Arjuna giving a speech on Sunday but he’s not the guy from the book.”

  “Correct.”

  “So, this guy may or may not be from India?” Andrew asked.

  “I doubt if he’s from there originally,” Fiona said, checking her notes. “His last name is Cassidy.”

  “Arjuna Cassidy?” Andrew asked, like it didn’t very well mesh together. “Were his parents Indian?”

  “Not judging by his picture,” she said as she scrolled through some web copy.

  “You have a picture?” Andrew asked, like maybe she should have started with that.

  “Here he is,” she then said, turning the laptop screen around so that he could get a better look at it.

  Andrew looked closely at the smiling white dude in the picture. Looking like an aging hippie, dressed all in white, he could be in his forties. “Is that a ponytail?” he asked, squinting to get a better look at the unclear photograph. “It’s hard to tell.”

  “He sounds pretty cool,” Fiona said, sounding impressed. “I read some of his stuff. He talks about the soul a lot, a real lot,” she said, like that’s maybe all that he talked about.

  “Geez, I don’t know,” Andrew said as he scrunched up his face. “How is he going to help us take down a secret organization that spans at least two continents?”

  “Is that what we’re planning to do?” Fiona asked, like that’s the first she’d heard of it. “Take down the serpents group? Like how?” she asked innocently.

  “I don’t know,” Andrew answered like that was the million-dollar question. “That’s what we need help with. That’s what we need to find out.”

  “We can ask him,” she said, looking again at his picture. “He has a smiley face.”

  “Yeah,” Andrew said sarcastically, like that was the main criteria. “He definitely has a smiley face.”

  Fiona’s body swayed to the music on the radio as they drove out of the noise, traffic and smog of Los Angeles. Heading due east, they sped past sprawling satellite cities that were more defined by their auto dealerships and shopping malls than a proud boast of a unique town center or a distinct central focus of identity.

  “What’s the story, morning glory?” she asked a preoccupied-looking Andrew who was staring blankly out the pas
senger side window. “Are we really going to take down the mob?”

  “First of all, they are not the mob,” Andrew corrected. “The mafia is generally referred to as the mob and the serpents aren’t related unless there are some connections there that I don’t know about,” he said and stopped as if he lost his train of thought. “Anyway, I think that aspiring to take them down might be a little ambitious, even for us,” he said with a knowing smirk. “Like we’re Bonnie and Clyde or something.”

  “We could be,” Fiona said as if she was considering it. “If we put our hearts and minds into it.”

  “Like, why would we want to do that? Be bank robbers?” he asked, like it was an outrageous idea.

  “We could be Nick and Nora from the Thin Man movies.”

  “I don’t even know who they are,” Andrew said, shaking his head.

  “Mulder and Scully from the X Files,” she said excitedly.

  “Yeah, we definitely could be them,” Andrew agreed, smiling.

  “Thelma and Louise.”

  “They were both women.”

  “You could be Louise,” she said, sizing him up.

  “Better than being called Thelma, that’s for sure. What kind of a name is that, anyway?” he asked. “Who have you ever met that was called Thelma? Or know someone that was called Thelma?”

  “My aunt Thelma was called Thelma,” Fiona said with a straight face.

  “Your aunt Thelma was called Thelma?” Andrew asked her like it was the funniest thing he ever heard.

  “I never met her, she lives in the United Kingdom.”

  “Your aunt Thelma was not called Thelma,” Andrew said with a huge grin.

  “Yes, she was!”

  “No, she wasn’t! Your aunt Thelma was called Louise!” he said and burst out laughing.

  “Oh, shut the front door, A-hole!” she said, slapping him with her right hand while steering with the other. “You’re such a dickwad, you know that?”

  “Okay, okay, relax, you’re weaving all over the freeway,” Andrew said, trying to avoid her swipes. “Keep your eyes on the road. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she said, softening up and placing both her hands on the steering wheel. “Seriously, what’s our plan?” she then asked.

  “I have a few schemes I’m scheming up,” Andrew said like he had secret, deadly plans. “A few aces up my sleeve.”

  “You do?” she asked, stealing a quick glance in his direction.

  “I do.”

  “Cool.”

  “Not just a pretty face.”

  “Are you going to share?”

  “Let’s wait and see what Butch Cassidy has to say for himself,” Andrew said like he was doing an impression of a James Bond villain.

  “Is that a cat on your lap or are you just happy to see me?” Fiona asked with a sexy, sultry voice.

  “It’s definitely not a cat,” Andrew said with a snigger.

  “Do you want to have the picnic before or after the coffee shop talk thing?”

  “You brought a picnic?” he asked, looking into the back of the SUV.

  “Of course. Every field trip demands a picnic.”

  “Demands a picnic?” Andrew asked with a grin.

  “Totally.”

  “So, when you plan a field trip, the field trip says, ‘I demand a picnic!?” Andrew asked.

  “No,” Fiona said demurely. “It says, ‘may I have a picnic, pretty please,’ but it’s an implicit demand which I fulfill,” she said with affected exceptional politeness.

  “You’re such a goofball.”

  “You’re such a goofball.”

  “I love you,” Andrew said, leaning closer towards her as he lovingly stroked the back of her neck.

  “I love you, too. Dickwad,” she said and turning to him, smiled and stuck out her tongue.

  “Charming,” he said, like he secretly loved her playfulness.

  Following the GPS directions to the coffee shop, they exited the freeway and were directed to take a series of secondary roads, some of which more closely resembled dirt tracks than paved roads. Andrew looked at the sheer desert on both sides of the road and remarked to himself the absence of dwellings or civilization of any kind. “Where is this thing taking us?” he asked, checking the GPS screen for abnormalities of function. “Hope you have a full tank of gas.”

  “Are you getting hungry yet?” Fiona asked hopefully.

  “You want to stop and have a picnic, don’t you?” he asked drily.

  “Is it too hot?” she asked as she looked around for a suitable location.

  “A picnic on Mars would be cooler, sweets,” Andrew said with a shake of his head. “Let’s get to the coffee shop and pray that the engine doesn’t overheat. In the desert, no one can hear you scream.”

  “At least we’d go together.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I want to be thinking about right now,” Andrew said sardonically. “Dying of dehydration and sunstroke a hundred miles from LA. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?” he said with a smile. “You do have lots of gas, right?”

  “I think so,” Fiona said, staring at the gas gauge as if computing miles per gallon. “Are we lost? This doesn’t look right,” she said, looking around at the vastness of nothing but shrub desert.

  “She hasn’t talked to us in a while, has she?” Andrew asked, referring to the GPS.

  “No,” Fiona answered, as if trying to remember. “She does this, you know. Gives wonky directions and then goes all quiet.”

  “Well, look, it’s not like we’re in the Sahara Desert or something. If we keep driving, we’re bound to hit civilization at some stage.”

  “There’s something!” Fiona practically yelled with excitement as she pointed to a village in the distance.

  Destination ahead, the GPS voice said.

  “Yay,” Fiona exclaimed with joy. “We love you, GPS!”

  “Who’d want to drive all the way out here for a lousy cup of coffee?” Andrew asked as he squinted his eyes toward the village to get a better look.

  “Are you kidding?” Fiona asked with sincerity. “Anybody that lived out here would probably kill to get out of the house and travel into the village to meet another human being. Coffee is just an excuse, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Andrew agreed.

  The Saddle Back coffee shop was a tiny store in a tiny village in the middle of what looked like nowhere. The village itself comprised of a bank, a gift shop, a couple of diners, a few higgledy-piggledy stores of indeterminate business and a dingy-looking motel. “This better be good,” Andrew said as he took a stretch before he closed the door of the SUV.

  Aside from the middle-aged woman that served the coffee, two couples and two single guys were the only other occupants of the coffee shop. It wasn’t clear if they were there for the talk or if they were just hanging out. They didn’t look like they came from LA or any other major city, for that matter.

  As Andrew checked them out he noticed that they didn’t much care for fashionable clothes nor did they bother greatly with grooming. All the guys had either beards or stubble on their chins and – women, included – everyone looked like they could seriously use a haircut.

  “Are you here for the lecture?” the woman behind the counter asked. “Arjuna said that he expected eight people today,” she said kindly.

  “He expects eight people?” Andrew asked, unsure of her meaning.

  “What can I get you guys?” she then asked, tightening her apron.

  “Two cups of regular coffee?” he asked while looking at Fiona.

  “Make mine iced,” Fiona said. “Frappuccino.”

  “Yeah, make that two,” Andrew said but judging by the uncertain look on the woman’s face, felt like maybe he should have checked with her first to see if she could make such a drink. “Think she knows what we want?” he whispered to Fiona when the woman vanished into the kitchen.

  “Of course,” Fiona said brightly. “It’s a coffee shop, dummy.”

 
“Yeah,” Andrew said dourly as he followed her to a table and two chairs by the window. Just as they sat down, they noticed the other patrons get excited by the appearance of a middle-aged man with a pony tail that appeared on a stool on a makeshift stage in the far corner. Looking older than the picture that Fiona had found on the website, he sat gently and smiled at everyone in the room, taking time to look at each, one by one.

  With his silvery grey hair and light blue eyes, he had a soft and gentle demeanor that gave him an other-worldly presence. Looking comfortable in his own skin he seemed to possess an inner peace that looked to Fiona like he was radiating out through his eyes. “What a weird-looking dude,” Andrew whispered to Fiona.

  “I like him,” Fiona said, smiling back at the man as he looked her way.

  “Freak,” Andrew said in disagreement as he looked away to avoid direct eye contact with the stranger.

  “My name is Arjuna and I want to welcome you all to our little gathering here today,” the man said like he was everyone’s best friend. “You are here because you want to know the truth,” he said and paused to look around at each of the faces again. “The truth about what?” he asked as he looked at Andrew. “The truth about yourselves,” he then answered himself. “What else is there to know? Or to ask?” he asked, still smiling. “What else matters?”

  “Geez,” Andrew said under his breath but was surprised and disappointed that he got no supportive look from Fiona, who looked like she was actually enjoying the “talk,” so far.

  “You are all spiritual beings sharing a human experience,” he said and paused. “If you would know but one truth, know this: you are a spiritual being having a human experience.”

  “Where are our friggin’ drinks?” Andrew asked Fiona in an angry whisper. The coffee lady was sitting on a stool behind the counter and looked like she couldn’t take her eyes off the guru person, even if she tried. Thinking to himself that it was going to be a long afternoon, Andrew felt that he should at least be given some caffeine to help him get through the day.