enough inside any of us, you’ll find a selfish bastard.”
Rocky wagged his tail.
“Stop that. Are you trying to make me feel even worse?”
With his tail swishing furiously back and forth, Rocky clambered into Spencer’s lap to be petted.
Spencer sighed. “Well, I’ll just have to avoid getting killed.”
Never lie to the dog.
“Though I think the odds are against me,” he added.
In the suburban maze of the valley once more, Roy Miro cruised through a series of commercial districts, unsure where one community ended and the next began. He was still angry but also on the edge of a depression. With increasing desperation, he sought a convenience store, where he could expect to find a full array of newspaper-vending machines. He needed a
Interestingly, in two widely separated neighborhoods, he passed what he was certain were two sophisticated surveillance operations.
The first was being conducted out of a tricked-up van with an extended wheelbase and chrome-plated wire wheels. The side of the vehicle had been decorated with an airbrush mural of palm trees, waves breaking on a beach, and a red sunset. Two surfboards were strapped to the luggage rack on the roof. To the uninitiated, it might appear to belong to a surf Gypsy who’d won the lottery.
The clues to the van’s real purpose were apparent to Roy. All glass on the vehicle, including the windshield, was heavily tinted, but two large windows on the side, around which the mural wrapped, were so black that they had to be two-way mirrors disguised with a layer of tinted film on the exterior, making it impossible to see inside, but providing agents in the van — and their video cameras — a clear view of the world beyond. Four spotlights were side by side on the roof, above the windshield; none was lit, but each bulb was seated in a cone-shaped fixture, like a small megaphone, which might have been a reflector that focused the beam forward — although, in fact, it was no such thing. One cone would be the antenna for a microwave transceiver linked to computers inside the van, allowing high volumes of encoded data to be received and sent from — or to — more than one communicant at a time. The remaining three cones were collection dishes for directional microphones.
One unlit spotlight was turned not toward the front of the van, as it should have been and as the other three were, but toward a busy sandwich shop — Submarine Dive — across the street. The agents were recording the jumble of conversations among the eight or ten people socializing on the sidewalk in front of the place. Later, a computer would analyze the host of voices: It would isolate each speaker, identify him with a number, associate one number to another based on word flow and inflection, delete most background noise such as traffic and wind, and record each conversation as a separate track.
The second surveillance operation was a mile from the first, on a cross street. It was being run out of a van disguised as a commercial vehicle that supposedly belonged to a glass-and-mirror company called Jerry’s Glass Magic. Two-way mirrors were featured boldly on the side, incorporated into the fictitious company’s logo.
Roy was always gladdened to see surveillance teams, especially super — high-tech units, because they were likely to be federal rather than local. Their discreet presence indicated that
When he saw them, he usually felt safer — and less alone.
Tonight, however, his spirits were not lifted. Tonight, he was caught in a whirlpool of negative emotions. Tonight, he could not find solace in the surveillance teams, in the good work he was doing for Thomas Summerton, or in anything else that this world had to offer.
He needed to locate his center, open the door in his soul, and stand face-to-face with the cosmic.
Before he spotted a 7-Eleven or any other convenience store, Roy saw a post office, which had what he needed. In front of it were ten or twelve battered newspaper-vending machines.
He parked at a red curb, left the car, and checked the machines. He wasn’t interested in the
Many large cities supported a weekly New Age newspaper that reported on natural foods, holistic healing, and spiritual matters ranging from reincarnation therapy to spirit channeling.
Los Angeles had three.
Roy bought them all and returned to the car.
By the dim glow of the ceiling light, he flipped through each publication, scanning only the space ads and classifieds. Gurus, swamis, psychics, Tarot-card readers, acupuncturists, herbalists to movie stars, channelers, aura interpreters, palm readers, chaos-theory dice counselors, past-life guides, high-colonic therapists, and other specialists offered their services in heartening numbers.
Roy lived in Washington, D.C., but his work took him all over the country. He had visited all the sacred places where the land, like a giant battery, accumulated vast stores of spiritual energy: Santa Fe, Taos, Woodstock, Key West, Spirit Lake, Meteor Crater, and others. He’d had moving experiences in those hallowed confluences of cosmic energy — yet he had long suspected that Los Angeles was an undiscovered nexus as powerful as any. Now, the sheer plenitude of consciousness-raising guides in the ads strengthened his suspicion.
From the myriad choices, Roy selected The Place Of The Way in Burbank. He was intrigued that they had capitalized every word in the name of their establishment, instead of using lowercase for the preposition and second article. They offered numerous methods for “seeking the self and finding the eye of the universal storm,” not from a shabby storefront but “from the peaceful sphere of our home.” He also liked the proprietors’ names — and that they were thoughtful enough to identify themselves in their ad: Guinevere and Chester.
He checked his watch. Past nine o’clock.
Still parked illegally in front of the post office, he called the number in the ad. A man answered: “This is Chester at The Place Of The Way. How may I assist you?”
Roy apologized for calling at that hour, since The Place Of The Way was located in their home, but he explained that he was slipping into a spiritual void and needed to find firm ground as quickly as possible. He was grateful to be assured that Chester and Guinevere fulfilled their mission at all hours. After he received directions, he estimated that he could be at their door by ten o’clock.
He arrived at nine-fifty.
The attractive two-story Spanish house had a tile roof and deep-set leaded windows. In the artful landscape lighting, lush palms and Australian tree ferns threw mysterious shadows against pale-yellow stucco walls.
When Roy rang the bell, he noticed an alarm-company sticker on the window next to the door. A moment later, Chester spoke to him from an intercom box. “Who’s there, please?”
Roy was only mildly surprised that an enlightened couple like this, in touch with their psychic talents, found it necessary to take security precautions. Such was the sorry state of the world in which they lived. Even mystics were marked for mayhem.
Smiling and friendly, Chester welcomed Roy into The Place Of The Way. He was potbellied, about fifty, mostly bald but with a Friar Tuck fringe of hair, deeply tanned in midwinter, bearish and strong looking in spite of his gut. He wore Rockports, khaki slacks, and a khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled to expose thick, hairy forearms.
Chester led Roy through rooms with yellow pine floors buffed to a high polish, Navajo rugs, and rough-hewn furniture that looked more suitable to a lodge in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains than to a home in Burbank. Beyond the family room, which boasted a giant-screen TV, they entered a vestibule and then a round room that was about twelve feet in diameter, with white walls and no windows other than the round skylight in the domed ceiling.
A round pine table stood in the center of the round room. Chester indicated a chair at the table. Roy sat. Chester offered a beverage—“anything from diet Coke to herbal tea”—but Roy declined because his only thirst was of the soul.
In the center of the table was a basket of plaited palm leaves, which Chester indicated. “I’m only an assistant in these matters. Guinevere is the spiritual adept. Her hands must never touch money. Though she’s transcended earthly concerns, she must eat, of course.”
“Of course,” Roy said.
