room, a middle-aged woman with neon-blue hair and plastic jewelry played a video game. The final room was more to the executive's liking. It was a lounge, with soft music and a bar where he could help himself.
“You remember your address in Norfolk?” asked Rubin.
“Sure,” said the executive.
“Then take yourself a drink, and go home.”
“What is this? What is all this?”
“This is the latest scientific advancement created by one of the great minds of the Western world. And Eastern world, too. It is a gift to mankind from the great spiritual and scientific leader Rubin Dolomo,” said Rubin.
“Doesn't he run Poweressence?”
“He has brought that enlightenment, yes,” said Rubin.
“I remember seeing a picture of him. Yes. On a book cover, I think. Good book, too.”
“Do you notice any resemblance?” asked Rubin, pushing back the thin remnants of his once full flowing hair.
“None.”
“Well, then, forget the drink. Just get out of here,” he said.
“Fine. I don't know what I'm doing here anyway.”
Rubin went into the lounge and poured himself a stiff drink. He had the formula prepared, which was good. Now he needed another delivery person. This had cost them too much already. But the entertainment rooms were necessities. Because the formulas' effects could vary widely, Poweressence had to have a good test of the memory remission of someone affected by the formula. A fresh spill could send the deliverer back into childhood if he touched it with bare skin. Once the formula had dried, it could be counted on to shave a year or two off of the memory if touched within a week. Beyond that, somehow it got so powerful it was too dangerous to use. Rubin had spent a half-dozen lives finding out how to make the stuff and deliver it. Sometimes he thought he might slip a few drops into Beatrice's coffee and send her back to childhood. There was one horrible thought that stopped him. If Rubin should ever miss and Beatrice should find out, Rubin's life would be worth less than yesterday's garbage. Beatrice was ruthless.
A full-bodied woman sidled up to him.
“Hi,” she said.
“Save it,” said Rubin. “I run the place.”
“Do you want some? You're paying for it.”
Rubin looked longingly at the round rich curves, at the young curves, at the curves he wanted in his hands. But Beatrice meant more to him than a single wild exotic fling with a bar girl they had hired to work the recovery rooms. In her own way Beatrice had established a protocol for affection. She might, if she needed it to reaffirm her womanliness, take young men. Rubin might, if he needed other female companionship, face the loss of his sexual organs through the pounding of a frying pan upon those sensitive parts. Rubin, therefore, had been as faithful as a monk throughout the years.
“Thank you, no,” said Rubin. He had to buy another Powie, another dedicated devotee of Poweressence. The problem with getting a good one, one who truly believed, was that the Powie was worth anywhere from three to five thousand dollars a year in Poweressence courses. If he lost one, like those now kept in the rehab rooms, he could safely multiply those figures by ten to cover all the years of lost revenues. Every chapter franchise could understand that. They would withhold a percentage of the Dolomo dues until that loss was recouped.
As a responsible religious leader, Dolomo had to inform the Norfolk chapter head that he had lost a tenth- level member. The chapter head was furious.
“I had him signed up for every course. I had him doing regressions to clear out his astral lives. Do you know what we are getting for that in Norfolk, Virginia? I was in his damned will. What about that?”
“We'll make it up to you,” said Rubin.
“How? By getting convicted for attempted murder, fraud? Every time you two get nailed for something, Poweressence becomes a harder sell here.”
“Beatrice is doing something about that.”
“What is she going to do, put a cobra in the President's bed?”
“Don't talk about Beatrice like that.”
“Why not?”
“She might be listening.”
“Dolomo. We're in trouble, all around the country.”
“Don't worry. We're not going to be convicted. I just phoned to let you know that your Level Ten might not be coming back. Of course, if he does come back, you get a bonus. Since he has forgotten everything, you might be able to work him through the whole thing again. In which case we don't owe you salt,” said Dolomo.
“I'll never send you another.”
“We don't need you. This is California. This is gold country for this sort of stuff.”
“Then why did you call me in the first place?”
“I want to spread these things around the country. If you believe anything, believe we are going to beat this charge,” said Rubin Dolomo.
“I believe we'll lose half our membership when you're convicted.”
Rubin Dolomo hung up and had another Powie in the house within the hour, from a local chapter they still owned. The Powie was a problem, however. When she heard it was Rubin Dolomo himself she was talking to, she wanted him to take her through an astral regression.
“I get a sense that my planets are not organized within me. That I still retain negative memories,” she said. She was twenty, with the trim build of a gymnast. She said she had almost made it to the Olympics. If she had had Poweressence then, as she had now, she would have won the gold medal. But because she still harbored violent tendencies from another life, she was not allowed to win.
“Look, girlie,” said Rubin. “Take this pink letter. Do not touch the upper-left-hand corner, but deliver it. Do not tell who sent you because the evil forces will try to destroy your religion if you do. Do you understand?”
“Are you willing to risk using someone who hasn't totally cleared her memory of negative forces?”
“Have you been through Level One?”
“Yes.”
“Then you're strong enough,” said Rubin.
The Powie looked at the pink letter on the floor. “What is it doing there? Why don't you pick it up?”
“I have a bad back,” said Rubin. “And don't forget about the corner. Do not touch the upper-left-hand corner. The guards will probably want to read it. Let them, but you hold the letter. Only the witness touches the left-hand corner. Got it?”
“Upper left. Only the witness touches it.”
“Right.”
“I feel better already. Your power forces just reflected through my toes.”
“Yeah. I am like that,” said Rubin, who badly needed a Dexamyl, two aspirins, a Valium, and six cups of coffee to give him enough strength to get to bed for an afternoon nap.
“And don't forget. Be pleasant and open and they won't stop the letter.”
“I'll use my positive essence.”
She picked up the letter by the lower-right-hand corner and walked out of the Dolomo mansion refreshed. How true was Poweressence. How profound were the lessons she'd learned. When she smiled she felt better. When she smiled at others, they treated her better. All this from only a first-level course discount-priced at $325.
* * *
Ordinarily the U.S. attorney would have the witness secreted in a safe location where only prescreened mail could reach him. But since that didn't seem to protect all the witnesses lately and since this witness wanted to go home even more badly than most, the U.S. attorney relented. He allowed the witness to live in his own home. There was a special advantage in that. That hysterical pair, the Dolomos, seemed very likely to attempt some trick. And some government agency was going to lay a trap for them.
The reasoning was that anyone who would put an alligator in a columnist's swimming pool would try anything. And this might lead to finding out how witnesses were being turned. It was so secret the U.S. attorney
