Dead-Bang (17 page)

“Not a thing.”

Bruno nodded. “Fine. From the officers' questions and attitude I felt they already knew a good deal, and it must have been necessary for you to inform your friend of most or all that occurred last night. So I simply told them everything I knew myself. Therefore, our stories should be identical. If they had not agreed, I would guess your friend might have taken further action by now.”

“That's not a guess, Doc. It's a statement of fact. Actually, it's a good thing Sam and the police do know.”

He nodded again. “Yes, my major concern was the effect on the public, particularly Lemmings of the Lord, of news about André's death. But there appears to have been no commotion.”

“That's because the police haven't, as far as I know, found the bodies yet. When they do, the news will be made public.”

Bruno stood up. “That was one of the reasons I wanted to see you, Sheldon. The other is—excuse me a moment. I have something for you.” He walked to his house and disappeared inside, came back in about a minute carrying something in his hand. “Catch,” he said, and tossed it to me.

I grabbed it, fumbled it, finally got a grip on the bottle—for that's what it was, a round brown pint bottle filled with liquid, but without any label on it.

“Erovite!” said the Doc grandly.

“So this is it, huh? This is what all the fuss is about. Looks harmless enough.”

“It is, it is, Sheldon. Harmless, at least, for those who desire health, energy,
more
of life. For those who believe life is best when lived least, why, undoubtedly it is iniquitous, a corrosive poison. Therefore, and quite properly, they are justified in their efforts to prevent everyone from poisoning themselves with an excess of life.”

“Somehow I get the impression you don't have a very high opinion of the mass of mankind, Doc.”

“I have an astonishingly
low
opinion of the mass of mankind. But only because they have earned it.” He sat down again, across the table from me, and studied his long thumb.

“Erovite merely improves the function of the
physical
man, his glands, nerves, blood, cells, lymph, and so on. However, I believe mind, and whatever is spirit for that matter, and I suppose some might even say whatever is God—you need not agree with me, Sheldon, this is merely my opinion—resides within every cell and atom of man's body. Thus to improve man's cellular, muscular, glandular, nervous, and other functions is to at least make more possible, more probable, parallel improvement in the functioning of brain, of mind, perhaps even of spirit.…”

He folded up his thumb and glanced at me. “Be that as it may, Erovite's enemies, in the main, oppose it because it isn't
spiritual
enough.”

I blinked. “Come again? Neither is aspirin. Or how about vegetable soup—”

“I may have misled you. We are not speaking of pills to suppress symptoms or even overprocessed foods to keep the body in a state of suspended animation. We are speaking of … well, of
life, and that more abundantly
. There is no question that Erovite stimulates, energizes, improves the physical body of most men and women who use it—I stress the physical—the flesh, the carnal, the animal body of man. Including, as we have discussed, as you know, the sexual or most ‘base' part of his nature.”

“Yeah, well, that's first base as far as I'm—”

“I am not speaking of you, Sheldon. I would be offended if you failed to realize it. Essentially, I am speaking of individuals like the Lemmings of the Lord, and others less fanatical and less miserable but almost equally misled. Misled by ideas that have become dominant in Christian doctrine over the last sixteen hundred years. Long ago …”

He stopped, examined both sides of his thumb, then folded his hands on the table and looked at me. “No, I will not burden you with the full catalogue of names and dates, chapters and verses. We would be here throughout the day and into the night. We would have to examine all major influences on Christianity, from times both before and after the birth of the first Christian, who, as you recall, was crucified—or hanged on a tree, according to Peter and Paul and other Apostles … but no matter. We would be required to examine very carefully the singular influence upon Christian origins of Gotama the Buddha, who for presumably good reasons is vastly revered to this day, and who in a huge burst of brightness, concluded that life was pain, sorrow, suffering, misery—not merely for him, but for everybody—so the only solution was to get out of it.”

“Get.… How do you do that without killing yourself?”

“I don't know. Buddha knows.”

“Doesn't sound like a burst of brightness to me.”

“That is because you are not spiritual enough—which brings me back to my point. The Buddha was an unusually sheltered youth of twenty-nine when he left his parents' home and set forth to find wisdom, and though it took him perhaps seven years to achieve illumination under a tree, he
did
find it.”

“The tree?”

“Wisdom.”

“In that case, I think I'll settle for dumbness.”

“In this case,
that
is wisdom.”

“Something is cracked—”

“Something, perhaps. But it could not have been Gotama—Buddha is merely a title, by the way, meaning teacher, and the man was named Gotama as other men are named Bill or Tom or Pete—for Gotama
the Buddha
was an
Avatar
, one cosmically enlightened, who discovered Truths. That's with a capital ‘T,' Sheldon. People like you or me, or Bill or Tom or Pete, may stumble upon little truths, but we must depend upon
Avatars
like Gotama, and the cosmically illumined, and our religious teachers, to discover Truths. Particularly Spiritual Truths.”

“Who says so?”

“They do.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“And that is how we know—as found to be one of the greatest, if not
the
greatest, of Truths by Buddha—that the reason life is so miserable is
desire
. And desire at its very worst is exemplified by woman, whom we must therefore avoid like the seven-year itch.”

“You're kidding.”

“I'm quoting. Well, accurately paraphrasing.”

“But, pretty quick, nobody would be
left
—”

“Precisely. That is the idea. Is it not brilliant? Our interest is that, from Buddhist wisdom, this idea sneaked into and became part of the Truth ennobling and glorifying Christianity. You see, possessed of all this wisdom—I shall not burden you with the rest of it—Gotama became consumed by the desire to share with others, hopefully all mankind, these pearls of his wisdom. So he did. At least, he did his very best, which turned out to be quite good, with the result that even today hundreds of millions of people, including the majority of Christians, while perhaps renouncing Buddhism by name, have unknowingly absorbed its pearls. Such as,
the flesh is evil and woman a snare
—”

“Wait
a minute. You say Buddha was consumed with desire to spread this bilge to everybody?”

“Yes. Precisely. Well put, Sheldon.”

“But—consumed with
desire?
Isn't he the same
Avatar
who said desire is undesirable?”

“Yes. Precisely.”

“This is maybe a different desire?”

“No. Same one.”

“Then how …?”

“You ask very perceptive questions, Sheldon. Of course, I practically forced this one upon you. Still, you asked it. Therefore I shall insist that you answer it.”

“But I can't.”

“Ah.” Bruno smiled. “Then we are all in the same leaky boat, aren't we?” He leaned back, crossed one long leg over the other, and clasped his hands around his knee. “Enough of the Buddha. More, we shall not even look at similar views of the major author of our New Testament, Saint Paul of Tarsus, or at the Manichaeans and their one-time disciple, Saint Augustine, not at the numerous major and minor Popes and popes and innumerable life-hating poops, not at Wesley or Calvin or Saints or even Festus Lemming.”

“I'm glad of that. I've got to go to the john, Doc.”

“Suffer a little. It is good for the soul.”

“The hell with that. I could get constipated.”

“Naturally. You are
supposed
to get constipated. Now, we are discovering why so many loving Christians hate Erovite—”

“We are?”

“More correctly,
you
are discovering it.
I
already know. Very simply, there is a belief, a rumor, an assumption abroad that the God of all the Universe made man of flesh and of spirit, and that the spirit part of man is marvelously good, but the flesh part of man is marvelously evil. It is clear to discerning minds, then, that God goofed. Obviously, He did not know what He was doing—”

“How—”

“Please. I am telling you what our teachers tell us. And, because I cannot, I will not explain it. Ah, well.” He straightened up, stretched his long arms. Then he relaxed once more and said, looking not at me but at one of his trees, “Surely, the fall of man came, not when we are told it came, but when some men declared the flesh evil and other men believed the lie. Festus Lemming is the logical abortion of that bastard conception. And he
must
oppose Erovite, or else admit
to himself
that his entire life has been a waste and a ruin.”

I'd put the bottle of Erovite on the table before me. Bruno leaned forward, picked it up, and looked at it with a gentle smile on his face, like a boy looking at a new puppy.

“Perhaps now you understand a little better why—among many others—the Sainted Most-Holy Pastor is leery of this glop.”

I grinned. “Yeah, quite a bit better.” I looked at the brown bottle in his hand, wondering about it, even wondering about a couple of things Samson had said to me last night. “Doc, does Erovite really do everything you and Dru, and apparently a lot of other people, say it does?”

He nodded a couple of times, not speaking.

“And you and Dru, and Dave Cassiday, are the
only
people alive who know the formula? The full, complete … Formula B, I think you called it?”

He looked at me, eyebrows arching upward above his bright blue eyes. “Dru and I, yes. But Dave doesn't know it What gave you that idea, Sheldon?”

I didn't answer him for a while. Finally, I said, “I suppose I assumed it because he's the manufacturer, he made the stuff for you—at the Cassiday and Quince Pharmaceutical Company. And last night you mentioned adding more glop to the glop, saying you and Dave did it. He
doesn't
know what's in Erovite?”

“Not everything. The basic formula, yes. And I meant that only Dave was present when I added the rest of the formula to the vats, not that he knew what I added. But—what difference does it make?”

“Maybe none. Maybe a lot. I figure the best chance right now of finding out who's responsible for putting the snatch on you—assuming it wasn't the bright idea of those mugs who did the job—is to get next to the two mugs still alive and loose, and lean on them. Whoever's behind it, we'll find somebody with motive—money, revenge, cleanse the world, who knows? Until this minute I assumed Cassiday had no motive because he already knew the entire formula. Hell, the way you tell it, Erovite could be worth hundreds of millions at least.”

“It is. But you can eliminate Dave from your investigations, and even suspicions, Sheldon. He's an old friend, completely trustworthy. I'm sure you realize there could be at least a thousand men, now unknown to us, who are not only aware of Erovite's value but greedy and conscienceless enough to employ any violence in the hope of gaining possession of the formula.”

“I'll go along with that. But when it comes to where and how I go on a job—and my suspicions—I'm afraid I've got to be my own buddha, Doc. Before I'm through, I may suspect you of snatching yourself.”

He smiled. “You have had no success in locating, or even identifying, the two men?”

“Not yet. Captain Samson started checking them out last night, and the police machinery has a better chance of tagging them than we do. Incidentally, Sam made a good point when I talked to him. Those two toughs might have moved the bodies of their pal and André from the house, or they might have taken those shots at Lemming, but considering the time element they couldn't have done both.…”

I stopped, as a thought sort of tickled my brain, then hauled off and smacked it. “I'll be goddamned,” I said softly. “Of course. How could I have missed it?”

“What's the matter?”

“Those two toughs who grabbed you took the shots at Festus Lemming, all right. Or, rather, they
didn't
shoot at him.”

“They did … but didn't? Sheldon, how—”

“They fired the shots, but not at Festus. They were trying to kill Regina Winsome.”

14

“Regina?” I said. “This is Shell Scott. Let me in.”

“No!”

I looked at the number on the door. Right place. Before leaving Bruno's home I had checked on Miss Winsome's address, Unit Thirty-four of the Canterbury Community, a sprawling condominium on Flower Street in L.A.

“Go away!
You—you—”

I groaned. Sure. Yeah. I hadn't phoned the luscious—but still Lemming—Regina. I had simply raced here at reckless speed to warn her, possibly save her from violent death. But I had forgotten there was a fate
worse
than death. Worse, I had failed to consider the probability that by now
I
was a fate even worse than the fate worse than death.

“Regina,” I said, “you're in trouble, a
lot
of trouble, you're in terrible danger, and I came here to—”

She screamed.

“Not danger from
me
, you idiot,” I roared. “I came here to
warn
you, to
help
you.”