“Go on,” he said.
“I made three copies of the file, added a page of
interpretation to each one, and put them in separate safe places. Along with
the pictures and instructions to several attorneys in the event of my untimely
demise. Before I copied I read through it several times. Fascinating.”
He looked composed but his right hand gave him away.
The bony white fingers had clawed the ground and ripped out a handful of grass.
“Generalities are worthless,” he whispered harshly. “If
you have something to say, say it.”
“All right,” I said, “Let’s flash back a little over
twenty years ago. Long before you discovered the guru scam. You’re sitting in
your office on Camden Drive. A mousy little woman named Emma is on the other
side of the desk. She’s traveled all the way from a hick town called La Vista
to Beverly Hills and has paid you a hundred dollars for a confidential legal
consultation. A lot of money in those days.
“Emma’s story is a sad one, though no doubt you think
of it as third-rate melodrama. Finding herself trapped in a loveless marriage
she’d sought comfort in the arms of another man. A man who made her feel things
she’d never imagined possible. The affair had been heavenly, true refuge. Until
she became pregnant by her lover. Panicked, she hid the fact for as long as
possible and when she started showing, told her husband the child was his. The
cuckold had been ecstatic, ready to celebrate, and when he uncorked the
champagne she nearly died of guilt.
“She’d considered an abortion but had been too scared
to go through with it. She prayed for a miscarriage but none came. You ask her
if she’s told her lover about the problem and she says no, horrified at the
thought. He’s a pillar of the community, a deputy sheriff charged with
upholding the law. On top of that, he’s married, with a pregnant wife of his
own. Why destroy two families? Besides he hasn’t called in a long time,
confirming her suspicions that for him the relationship had been primarily
carnal all along. Does she feel abandoned? No. She’s sinned and now she’s
paying for it.
“As the fetus grows in her womb so does the burden of
her secret. She lives the lie for eight and a half months until she can’t take
it any longer. On a day when her husband is out of town she gets on the bus and
heads north, to Beverly Hills.
“Now she sits in your big glossy office, so out of her
element, just weeks from delivery, confused and terrified. She’s considered her
options for plenty of sleepless nights and has finally come to a decision. She
wants out. A divorce, quick and easy, with no explanation. She’ll leave town,
have the baby in solitude, maybe in Mexico, put it up for adoption, and start a
new life far away from the site of her transgression. She’s read about you in
the pages of a Hollywood fan magazine and is sure you’re the man for the job.
“As you listen to her, it’s clear that quick and easy
is out of the question. The case would be a messy one. That by itself wouldn’t
have stopped you from taking it on, because the messy cases bring in the
fattest fees. But Emma Swope wasn’t your type of client. Drab and unglamorous
and strictly small town. Most important, she didn’t smell of money.
“You took her hundred, and discouraged her from
engaging your services. Gave her a line about doing better with a local
attorney. She left red-eyed and heavy-bellied and you filed it away and forgot
about it.
“Years later you get shot in the head and decide to
make a career switch. You’ve built up lots of connections with the big money
people, which in L.A. includes the dope trade. I don’t know who suggested it
first, you or one of them, but you decide to go for megabucks as a coke and
smack middleman. The fact that it’s illegal adds to the appeal because you see
yourself as a victim, as having been failed by the system you’d served
faithfully. Dealing dope is your way of saying fuck the system. The money and
power aren’t too shabby, either.
“For the enterprise to be successful you’ll need a
place close to the Mexican border and a good cover. Your new partners suggest
one of the small agricultural towns south of San Diego. La Vista. They know of
an old monastery for sale just outside the town limits. Secluded and quiet.
They’ve been considering it for a while but need a way of keeping the locals
from prying. You look at a map and something flashes. The bullet didn’t destroy
the old memory. Back into the files. How am I doing so far?”
“Keep talking.” His palm was wet and green from
compressing the torn grass into a ball.
“You do a little research and find out that Emma Swope
never did get another lawyer. Her visit to you had been a single burst of
initiative in an otherwise timid existence. She reverted to type, swallowed the
secret and lived with it. Gave birth to a beautiful little red-headed daughter
who’s now grown up into a wild young teenager. Lover Boy’s still around, too,
busy enforcing the law. But he’s no longer a deputy. He’s the head honcho. The
man everyone looks up to. So powerful he sets the emotional tone of the town.
With him in your pocket you’ll have a free ride.”
All traces of serenity had passed from the long
bearded face. He touched his beard and stained it green, tasted grass and spat.
“Sleazy little people with their stinking little
intrigues,” he snarled. “Laboring under the delusion that there’s some meaning
to their lives.”
“You sent him a copy of the file, invited him to
Beverly Hills for a chat, half-expecting him to ignore you or tell you to go to
hell. What’s the worst that would have happened? A minor scandal? Early
pension? But he was there the next day, wasn’t he?”
Matthias laughed out loud. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.
“Bright and early,” he said, nodding, “in that
ridiculous cowboy costume. Trying to look macho but quaking in his boots—the
fool.”
He reveled cruelly in the memory.
“You knew, right away,” I continued, “that you’d
touched on something vital. Of course, it wasn’t until the following summer,
when the girl worked for you, that you figured it out, but you didn’t have to
understand the fear to capitalize on it.”
“He was a yokel,” said Matthias. “A sucker for a
bluff.”
“That summer,” I said, “must have been an interesting
one. Your brand-new social structure threatened by a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“She was a little nympho,” he said contemptuously. “Had
a thing for older men. Went after them like a vacuum cleaner. I heard rumors
from the time she got here. One day I discovered her blowing a sixty year old
in the pantry. Pulled her off and called Houten. The way they looked at each
other tipped me off as to why the file had turned him to jelly. He’d been
screwing his own daughter without knowing it. I knew then that his balls were
in my pocket. Forever. From that point on I pressed him into service.”
“Must have come in handy.”
“Exceedingly,” he grinned. “Before elections, when the
Border Patrol came down hard, he’d go into Mexico and pick up the cargo for us.
Nothing like a personal police escort.”
“It’s a hell of nice setup,” I said. “Well worth
preserving. If I were you I’d view the hundred and fifty as a bargain.”
He shifted his weight. I took the opportunity to
recross my legs. One foot had fallen asleep and I shook it gently to restore
circulation.
“All I’ve heard up to this point is pure supposition,”
he said coolly. “Nothing worth trading for.”
“There’s more. Let’s talk about Dr. August Valcroix. A
refugee from the sixties and a devotee of situational ethics. I’m not sure how
the two of you got together but he’d probably been dealing up in Canada and
knew some of your partners. He became one of your salesmen, handling the
hospital trade. What better cover for it than a bona fide M.D.?
“The way I see it, he could have gotten hold of the
stuff in two ways. Sometimes he came down here to collect, under the guise of
attending a seminar. When that was inconvenient, you sent it up to him. Which
is what Graffius and Delilah were doing in L.A. the day they visited the
Swopes. A courtesy call after a dope transfer. They had nothing to do with the
Swopes’ reluctance to treat Woody or the abduction, despite Melendez-Lynch’s
suspicions.
“Valcroix wasn’t much of a human being but he knew how
to listen to patients and get them to open up. He used that talent to seduce
and—sometimes—to heal. He developed a good rapport with Emma Swope—he’s the
only one who described her as other than a nonentity, as being strong. Because
he knew something about her no one else did.
“The diagnosis of cancer in a child can throw a family
off-kilter, disrupt old patterns of behavior. I’ve seen it happen plenty of
times. For the Swopes, the stress was crushing; it turned Garland into a
pompous jester and caused Emma to sit and brood about the past. No doubt
Valcroix caught her at a particularly vulnerable moment. She got in touch with
her guilt and spilled out her confession because he seemed like such a
compassionate fellow.
“Anyone else would have considered it just another sad
story and kept it confidential. But for Valcroix the information had larger
implications. He’d probably observed Houten and wondered why he was so willing
to take orders from you. Now he knew. And he was unethical—confidentiality
meant nothing to him. When his future as a doctor began to look shaky, he drove
down here and confronted you with his knowledge, demanding a bigger piece of
the pie. You feigned concession, doped him up until he fell asleep, had one of
your faithful drive him halfway back to L.A., to the Wilmington docks. Another
followed in a second car. They set up a fatal accident, watched it happen, and
drove off. The technique is simple enough—wedge a board between the seat and
the accelerator…”
“Close.” Matthias smiled. “We used a tree branch.
Apple tree. Organic. He hit the wall at fifty. Barry said he looked like a
tomato omelet afterward.” Licking his mustache, he gave me a hard meaningful
look. “He was a grasping, greedy pig.”
“If that’s supposed to scare me off, forget it. A
hundred and fifty. Firm.”
The guru sighed.
“By itself the hundred and fifty is a nuisance,” he
said. “And a palatable one. But who’s to say it’ll stop there? I’ve looked you
up, Delaware. You were a top man in your field but now work only irregularly.
Despite your apparent indolence, you like to live well. That worries me.
Nothing feeds greed more quickly than a sizable gap between want and have. A
new car, couple of fancy vacations, down payment on a condo in Mammoth, and it’s
all gone. Next thing I know, you’re back with an outsretched palm.”
“I’m not greedy, Matthews, just resourceful. If your
research was thorough you’d know I made a bunch of good investments that are
still paying off. I’m thirty-five and stable, have lived comfortably without
your money and could do so indefinitely. But I like the idea of ripping off a
master rip-off artist. As a one-shot deal. When the one fifty’s safely in my
hands you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
He grew thoughtful.
“Would you consider two hundred in coke?”
“Not a chance. Never touch the stuff. Hard cash.”
He pursed his lips and frowned.
“You’re a tough bastard, Doctor. You’ve got the killer
instinct— which I admire in the abstract. Barry was wrong about you. He said
you were a straight arrow, sickeningly self-righteous. In actuality you’re a
jackal.”
“He was a lousy psychologist. Never did understand
people.”
“Neither do you, apparently.” He stood suddenly and
gestured to the cultists on the hill. They rose in unison and marched forward,
a battalion in white.
I bounded up quickly.
“You’re making a mistake, Matthews. I’ve taken
precautions for exactly this contingency. If I’m not back in L.A. by eight the
files get opened. One by one.”
“You’re an ass,” he snapped. “When I was an attorney I
chewed up people like you and spat them out. Shrinks were the easiest to
terrorize. I made one wet his pants up on the stand. A full professor, no less.
Your bush-league attempt at arm twisting is pathetic. In a matter of minutes I’ll
know the location of every single one of those files. Barry wants to handle the
interrogation personally. I think it’s an excellent idea—his desire for revenge
is quite robust. He’s a nasty little slime, very well suited to the job. It
will be excruciating, Delaware. And when the information is in my hands you’ll
be dispatched. Another unfortunate accident.”
The cultists marched closer, robotlike and grim.
“Call them off, Matthews. Don’t dig yourself deeper.”
“Excruciating,” he repeated and beckoned them closer.
They formed a circle around us. Blank, middle-aged
faces. Tight little mouths. Empty eyes. Empty minds…
Matthias turned his back on me.
“What if there are other copies? Ones I didn’t tell
you about?”
“Good-bye, Doctor,” he said, scornfully, and began to
exit the circle.
The others stepped aside to let him through and closed
ranks immediately after he’d passed. I spotted Graffius. His puny frame
quivered with anticipation. An ellipse of drool dotted his lower lip. When our
eyes met the lip drew back hatefully.