She rose gracefully. The skirt reached below her
knees.
“He’s waiting for you.”
She led us to the left of the sanctuary down a long
hallway unadorned except for potted palms placed at ten-foot intervals. There
was a single door at the end, which she held open for us.
The room was dim and lined with books on three walls.
The floor was pine plank. The incense smell was stronger. There was no desk,
only three plain wooden chairs arranged in an isosceles triangle. At the peak
of the triangle sat a man.
He was long, lean, and angular and wore a tunic and
drawstring trousers of the same raw cotton as Maria’s dress. His feet were
bare, but a pair of sandals lay on the floor by his chair. His hair was the
waxy, amber-tinted white that is the heritage of some blonds grown to maturity,
and was cropped short. His beard was a shade darker—more amber and less snow—and
hung across his chest. It curled luxuriantly and he stroked it as if it were a
pet. His brow was high and domed and I saw the crease just below the hairline,
an indentation you could rest your thumb in. The eyes, cradled in deep sockets,
were gray-blue in color, not dissimilar from mine. But I hoped mine gave off
more warmth.
“Please sit.” His voice was powerful and somewhat
metallic.
“This is Dr. Delaware, Matthias. Doctor, Noble
Matthias.”
The imperial title sounded silly. I searched for mirth
on Houten’s face but he looked dead-serious.
Matthias kept stroking his beard. He sat meditatively
still, a man not uncomfortable with silence.
“Thanks for cooperating,” said Houten stiffly. “Hopefully
we can clear this thing up and move along.”
The white head nodded. “Whatever will help.”
“Dr. Delaware would like to ask you a few questions
and then we’ll take a stroll around.”
Matthias remained in repose.
Houten turned to me.
“It’s your show.”
“Mr. Matthias,” I began.
“Just Matthias, please. We eschew titles.”
“Matthias, I’m not here to intrude upon you or your—”
He interrupted me with a wave of his hand.
“I’m well aware of the nature of your visit. Ask what
you need to ask.”
“Thank you. Dr. Melendez-Lynch feels you had something
to do with the removal of Woody Swope from the hospital and the family’s
subsequent disappearance.”
“Urban madness,” said the guru. “Madness.” He repeated
the word as if testing it for suitability as a mantra.
“I’d appreciate hearing any theories you might have
about it.”
He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, opened them, and
spoke.
“I can’t help you. They were private people. As are
we. We barely knew them. There were brief encounters—passing each other on the
road, perfunctory smiles. Once or twice we purchased seeds from them. In the
summer of our first season the girl worked for us as a scullery maid.”
“Temporary job?”
“Correct. In the beginning we were not yet
self-sufficient and we hired several of the local youngsters to help. Her
duties were in the kitchen, as I recall. Scrubbing, scouring, readying the
ovens for use.”
“How was she as a worker?”
A smile vented the cotton-candy beard.
“We are rather ascetic by contemporary standards. Most
young people would not be attracted to that.”
Houten broke in. “Nona was—is a live one. Not a bad
kid, just a little on the wild side.”
The message was clear: she’d been a problem. I
remembered Carmichael’s story about the stag party. That kind of spontaneity
could wreak havoc in a place that prized discipline. She’d probably come on to
the men. But if that had anything to do with the issue at hand I couldn’t see
it.
“Anything else you could tell me that might help?”
He stared at me. His gaze was intense, almost
tangible. It was hard not to look away.
“I’m afraid not.”
Houten shifted restlessly in his chair. Nicotine
fidgets. His hand went up to his cigarette pocket then stopped.
“I’m gonna take some air,” he said and walked out.
Matthias didn’t seem to notice his exit.
“You didn’t know the family well,” I went on. “Yet two
of your people visited them at the hospital. I’m not doubting your word but it’s
a question you’re bound to be asked again.”
He sighed.
“We had business in Los Angeles. Baron and Delilah
were assigned to handle it. We felt it would be gracious for them to visit the
Swopes. They brought the family fresh fruit from our orchards.”
“Not,” I smiled, “for medicinal purposes.”
“No,” he said, amused. “For nourishment. And pleasure.”
“So this was a social call.”
“In a sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not sociable. We don’t make small talk.
Visiting them was an act of good will, not part of some nefarious scheme. No
attempt was made to interfere with the child’s medical care. I’ve notified
Baron and Delilah to join us momentarily so you’ll have a chance to obtain
additional details.”
“I appreciate that.”
A vein throbbed in the center of the crater in his brow.
He held out his hands as if to ask, What next? The remote look on his face
reminded me of someone else. The association triggered my next question.
“There’s a doctor who treated Woody by the name of
August Valcroix. He told me he visited here. Do you remember him?”
He twirled the ends of his beard around one long
finger.
“Once or twice a year we offer seminars on organic
gardening and meditation. Not to proselytise, but to enlighten. He may have
attended one of those. I don’t remember him specifically.”
I gave him a physical description of Valcroix but it
didn’t evoke recognition.
“That’s it, then. I appreciate your help.”
He sat there, unblinking and unmoving. In the stingy
light of the room his pupils had expanded so that only a thin rim of pale iris
was visible. He had hypnotic eyes. A prerequisite for charisma.
“If you have any more questions you may ask them.”
“No questions, but I would like to hear more about
your philosophy.”
He nodded.
“We are refugees from a former life. We’ve chosen a
new life that emphasizes purity and industry. We avoid environmental poisons
and seek self-sufficiency. We believe that by changing ourselves we increase
the positive energy in the world.”
Standard stuff. He rattled it off like some New Age pledge
of allegiance.
“We’re not killers,” he added.
Before I could reply, two of them came into the room.
Matthias stood up and left without acknowledging their
presence. The man and woman took the two empty seats. The transaction was oddly
mechanical, as if the people were interchangeable parts in some smoothly
functioning apparatus.
They sat, hands in laps—more good schoolkids—and
smiled with the maddening serenity of the born-again and the lobotomized.
I was far from serene. Because I recognized both of
them, though in quite different ways.
The man who called himself Baron was medium-sized and
thin. Like Matthias, his hair was cut short and his beard left untrimmed. But
in his case the effect was less dramatic than untidy. His hair was medium brown
and wispy. Patches of skin showed through the sparse frizzy chin whiskers and
his cheeks were covered with soft fuzz. It was as if he’d forgotten to wash his
face.
In graduate school I’d known him as Barry Graffius. He
was older than I, in his early forties, but had been a class behind, a late
starter who’d decided to become a psychologist after trying just about
everything else.
Graffius’s family was wealthy, big in the movie
business, and he’d been one of those rich kids who couldn’t seem to settle down—
inadequate drive level because he’d never been deprived of anything. The
consensus was that family money had gotten him in, but that may have been a
jaundiced view. Because Barry Graffius had been the most unpopular person in
the department.
I’ve always tended to be charitable in my evaluations
of others but I’d despised Graffius. He was loudmouthed and contentious,
dominating seminars with irrelevant quotes and statistics aimed at impressing
the professors. He insulted his peers, bullied the meek, played devil’s
advocate with malicious glee.
And he loved to flaunt his money.
Most of us were struggling to get by, working extra
jobs in addition to our teaching assistantships. Graffius delighted in coming
to class in hand-tailored leather and suede, complaining about the repair bill
on his XKE, lamenting the tax bite. He was an outrageous name dropper,
recounting lavish Hollywood parties, offering a teasing glimpse into a
glamorous world beyond the grasp of the rest of us.
I’d heard that after graduating he’d gone into
practice on Bedford Drive—Beverly Hills Couch Row—planning to capitalize on his
connections and become Therapist to the Stars.
I could see where he’d run into Norman Matthews.
He recognized me too. I could tell by the flurry of
activity behind his watery brown eyes. As we looked at each other that activity
crystallized: fear. The fear of being discovered.
His former identity was no secret in the strict sense.
But he didn’t want to be confronted by it: for those who imagine themselves
reborn, bringing up the past has all the appeal of exhuming one’s own moldering
corpse.
I said nothing, but wondered if he’d told Matthias
about knowing me.
The woman was older, but uncommonly pretty despite the
pony-tail no-makeup look that seemed to be
de rigueur
for Touch women.
Madonna-faced with ivory skin, raven hair now streaked with silver, and
brooding gypsy eyes. Beverly Lucas had called her a hot number who’d lost it
but that seemed unfairly bitchy. Perhaps knowing the woman’s true age would
have softened the critique.
She looked a well-preserved fifty but I knew she was
at least sixty-five.
She hadn’t made a film since 1951, the year I was
born.
Desiree Layne, Queen of budget films noirs. There’d
been a revival of her movies when I was in college, with free screenings during
finals week. I’d seen them all:
Phantom Bride, Darken My Doorstep, The
Savage Place, Secret Admirer.
An eon ago, before my early retirement, I’d been a
frantic, lonely man, with little free time. But one of the few pleasures I’d
allowed myself was a Sunday afternoon in bed with a tall glass of Chivas and a
Desiree Layne flick.
It hadn’t mattered who the leading man was as long as
there were lots of closeups of those beautiful evil eyes, the dresses that
looked like lingerie. The voice husky with passion…
She emitted no passion now, sitting statue-still,
white-garbed, smiling vacantly. So goddamned
harmless.
The place was really starting to spook me. It was like
walking through a wax museum…
“Noble Matthias told us you have questions,” said
Baron.
“Yes. I just wanted to hear more about your visit to
the Swopes. It could help explain what’s happened, aid in locating the
children.”
They nodded in unison.
I waited. They looked at each other. She spoke.
“We wanted to cheer them up. Noble Matthias had us
pick fruit—oranges, grapefruit, peaches, plums—the best we could find. We put
it all in a basket, wrapped it with gay paper.”
She stopped talking and smiled, as if her narrative
had explained everything.
“Was your graciousness well received?”
Her eyes widened.
“Oh yes. Mrs. Swope said she was hungry. She ate a
plum—a Santa Rosa plum—right there. Said it was delicious.”
Baron’s face hardened as she prattled on. When she
paused he said, “You want to know if we tried to talk them out of treating the
boy.” He sat passively but there was an aggressive edge to his voice.
“Matthias told me you didn’t. Did the subject of
medical treatment come up?”
“It did,” he said. “She complained about the plastic
room, said she felt cut off from the boy, that the family was being divided.”
“Did she explain what she meant?”
“No. I assumed she was talking about the physical
separation— not being allowed to touch him without gloves, only one person in
the room at a time.”
Delilah nodded in assent.
“Such a cold place,” she said. “Physically and
spiritually.” To illustrate she gave a little shudder. Once an actress…
“They didn’t feel the doctors treated them like human
beings,” added Baron. “Especially the Cuban.”
“Poor man,” said Delilah. “When he tried to force his
way in this morning I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Overweight and
flushed red as a tomato—he must have high blood pressure.”