Lost Yesterday

“Remo, are you there?”

“I'm thinking about it, Smitty,” he said.

Chapter 4

Beatrice Pimser Dolomo was happy. Rubin Dolomo, the guiding genius of Poweressence, the spiritual force, was feeling almost good enough to get out of bed. Cutting his minimum daily requirement of Valium down to a single triple dose helped, but it was always easier getting out of bed when Beatrice was happy. Everything was easier when Beatrice was happy.

But the Dolomos' lawyer was not happy.

“I don't know what you two are giggling about, but the feds have got us nailed.”

“If you would only renounce your failure mechanism you would reap success and power. The only thing between you and your new dynamic life is yourself,” said Rubin.

“You want a Poweressence convert or you want to try to stay out of jail?” asked Barry Glidden, one of the foremost criminal lawyers in California. The Dolomos had hired him because he was known as a no-nonsense, no- holds-barred defender of clients, provided those clients had a no-holds-barred attitude toward payment.

Barry rested his arms on the table of the beautifully lit Dolomo day room, overlooking the magnificent Dolomo estate. He already had plans to buy it from them when they went to jail and turn it into a condominium development. There was enough prime land here to build an airport if he wanted.

“Let me tell you two happy people what they got on you, in case you think this hocus-pocus you make so much money on can work miracles. One, they got the alligators you put in that columnist's pool. That's Exhibit A. They got a wonderful witness, one of your former devotees, who says that Exhibit A was what you, Beatrice, told her to put into the pool. Because you aren't going to pass that off as stocking of wildlife, and because no one is going to believe an alligator walked from Florida homing in on a columnists' negative forces, that leaves any reasonable jury only one option: attempted murder.”

“That was Rubin's idea,” said Beatrice, displaying her charms in a halter and slacks. She knew Glidden wanted the property. One of Rubin's Poweressence converts was a movie star who had already been approached to invest in the consortium Glidden was organizing to make the purchase. She did not tell him she knew this, however.

She had told him simply that if he lost this case his children would be boiled in oil, alive.

He had offered to resign the case. She had told him she was only joking. Mostly. She had laughed coquettishly when she had said that. Barry Glidden had not thought it a thing of mirth.

“In Dance of the Alarkin Planet, a creature very much like a crocodile kills people with negative vibrations,” said Rubin. “Animals sense these things. Their instincts are a lot purer than the twisted products of the human brain.”

“He's not interested in your short stories, Rubin. He's interested in money. Right?” said Beatrice.

“I'm interested in the law. You put an alligator in a person's swimming pool to kill him. I've told you a hundred times, Beatrice, that you can't threaten, maim, buy, destroy, and knife your way out of everything. There comes a time when the world catches up to you. You are going to do time on this alligator thing. That's it. We can cop a plea and with a little bit of finagling here and there, get it down to six months. That is a light sentence for attempted murder.”

“No plea,” said Beatrice.

“I cannot get anyone on a jury to believe that cockamamie negative-force nonsense. You're going to do serious time if you don't plead. Jurors do not read Dance of the Alarkin Planet. And if they did, they wouldn't believe it.”

“They have been programmed by failure not to believe,” said Rubin.

“Rubin, you have not paid taxes for twenty years. No jury is going to accept that you owe your first allegiance to the universe. Not when they pay their taxes for sewer systems, national defense, police forces, and various other things that make a civilization.”

“We're in religion,” said Rubin. “They cannot tax religion. We have a right to be free of governmental oppression.”

“This is not exactly a church here,” said Glidden, pointing to the rolling California landscape of the Dolomo estate.

“Have you ever seen the Vatican?” said Beatrice.

“You are comparing yourself to the Roman Catholic Church?”

“So they have been here a bit longer,” said Beatrice. “But they, too, were persecuted in their time.”

“And we offer two more sacraments— the holy character analysis and blessed success on earth. Granted, they have been here longer,” said Rubin. “But in a time warp a couple of thousand years is nothing.”

“I don't know which one of you is crazier. The lady who thinks any threat to anyone will do, or you and your cockamamie fairy tales.”

“Our money is not crazy,” said Beatrice. “The checks are good.”

“Listen. I am just a human being. I have weaknesses. Juries are made up of human beings. They have weaknesses too. But don't underestimate the strength of their beliefs. They may not believe in negative vibrations. Most of them will not believe that the planet Alarkin exists. But they do believe that the President of the United States exists. Now, do you want to tell me about that, Beatrice?”

Beatrice Dolomo adjusted her halter. She cleared her throat.

“No,” she said.

“Some Americans might find it disturbing to hear that you have threatened the President of the United States. Did you do that, Beatrice?”

“I take whatever actions I have to. If I let the world bully me, I would be bullied by everything. Rubin and I would be nowhere if I listened to people who said I should know when to quit. I never quit. If I listened to them I would be the wife of a nobody science-fiction writer, at a time when science fiction is not selling.”

“So you threatened the President of the United States,” said Glidden.

“We used to eat tuna fish for Sunday dinner. Rubin wore vinyl belts and polyester suits. We were intimately familiar with every tenant-protection law on the books. We learned how to delay evictions by months.”

“So you threatened the President of the United States. You did,” said Glidden.

“Diamonds? Hah. I had a glass ring. It cost two dollars and thirty-five cents. When Rubin proposed to me he promised he would buy me a ring as soon as he sold his next book. He said every penny he made from Dromoids of Muir would go toward getting me that ring. And do you want to know something?” said Beatrice, her temples throbbing, her face flushing with the heat of her anger. “Do you want to know something?”

“Beatrice, please let go of my face. I can't talk,” said Glidden. His client had risen from her seat in fury. Her red-lacquered fingernails were now digging into his cheeks.

“You want to know something?” she yelled again.

“Yes, please. I certainly do,” cried Barry, who wanted his cheeks back with as little puncturing as possible.

“He kept his word. Rubin wasn't lying. He spent the entire proceeds of Dromoids of Muir on that two-buck ring. And you're telling me to back off?”

Barry felt his cheeks go free, and quickly began dabbing at the blood with his handkerchief.

“Yes, Beatrice. I want you to back off. I will be no good to you if you get still another charge against you. I can't keep up with them.”

“We didn't threaten,” said Rubin.

“The attorney general of the United States phoned me last night to tell me one of your Poweressence nuts at a formal state dinner mentioned to the President that the only way he could save himself from death was to have all