The Boys from Santa Cruz

overhead lamp with a stained-glass shade shaped like a mushroom.

“I’m compiling the late Mr. Sweet’s so-called fantasy revenge list, which I’m presuming Asmador is using as his guide.”

As much as he hated the ’suming words, ass and pre, Pender told Skip, he had to agree that sounded likely enough.

“He never actually makes the list,” Skip pointed out, “he just adds to it. But here’s what I’ve come up with.” He tilted the legal pad toward Pender. There were six names on it: F. Harris, E. Harris, Pender, Brobauer, Oliver, Epstein; Skip had drawn a line through the first two and the fourth. “From what I can tell, there was no particular order to the first three attacks. Or at least nothing obvious or chronological that would give us a hint as to who’s next.”

Pender took a thoughtful slurp of coffee. “I can think of a set of circumstances under which the question of who comes next is irrelevant, no ’suming required,” he announced. “Care to take a guess?”

Skip, an only child who unconsciously tended to assign older males the role of surrogate big brother, really wanted to get this one right. Stalling, he took a sip of the now lukewarm coffee in his mustard yellow mug. And another, and another, until it came to him: “If we’re all three in the same place at the same time!”

“Bingo!” Pender raised the Far Side cup in a mock toast to Skip, who gave him a strained smile. “You know, you don’t have to do this,” Pender told him. “You have no client-nobody’s going to think less of you if you decide to take a pass.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…” Skip picked up the photocopied pages and riffled idly through them. “I’ve been through this two or three times since yesterday, and I can’t help wondering-don’t laugh now-but I can’t help wondering, what if Little Luke was telling the truth?” He absentmindedly jogged the pages until the edges were lined up, then carefully put them back down on the table. “I mean, taken as a whole, his story kind of holds up in a way, doesn’t it? So what are the chances he was just some poor kid who had a shitload of hard luck, and got railroaded all the way to the funny farm? With our help, I might add.”

Pender blew a blubbery raspberry and blithely waved away the possibility with his free hand. “Remember how Hillovi said the kid racked up a thirty-nine on the Psychopathy Checklist when he was admitted?”

“Vaguely. Why?”

“The PCL scale only goes as high as forty. Charlie Manson barely made thirty-eight.”

“No shit?” said Skip, brightening visibly.

“Scout’s honor,” said Pender, who had of course pulled the Manson number out of his enormous ass. “And now that we’ve got that out of the way, do you think you can locate Dr. Oliver’s whereabouts for us? If not, I could try contacting a friend of mine at the CJIS, but I’m not sure-”

Skip cut him off. “Let me put it this way: if I can’t find him, neither can Asmador.”

2

Awakened early Sunday morning by the mournful bleat of a foghorn, Asmador throws back the quilted counterpane, rolls out of bed, and pads barefoot out onto the balcony of an overpriced hotel room in Fort Bragg, overlooking the mouth of the Noyo River, where a squat, weather-beaten fishing trawler is just putting out to sea.

The sky is ablaze to the east, casting a fiery glow over the estuary; bare-masted sailboats rock and creak in the tidal swell. Leaning out over the wooden railing of the balcony, Asmador is startled at first to see a grotesquely naked, hunchbacked, rat-tailed demon capering on the raised bridge of the trawler, cupping its misshapen genitals in one hand and gesturing lewdly toward the oblivious crewmen with the other. But along with the shock comes a strong sense of familiarity, even homecoming. This was how it had been in the time before, when the Blasted Land resembled Santa Cruz, and demons danced on the Boardwalk and swung from the hands of the town clock.

After rolling a joint and brewing a cup of complimentary coffee in the little machine on the counter outside the bathroom, Asmador tries calling the number the librarian had given him. He reaches an answering machine, which refers him to a second number, where a second answering machine informs him that although the Oliver Institute will be closed through May 15 for its annual two-week residential training at Braxton Hot Springs, Dr. Oliver will be checking his messages from time to time. So if you’d care to leave a message…

Asmador does not care to leave a message. Instead he calls the front desk. “This is Mr. Daniel in room 230.” Peter Daniel was the name on the dead archer’s driver’s license and credit cards. “Do you know where Braxton Hot Springs is?”

“I believe it’s in Lake County. If you give me a few minutes, I could probably find out for sure.”

“Would you?” says Asmador, scratching absentmindedly at his pubic hair. “That would be terrif.”

3

Pender and Epstein reached Braxton Hot Springs, a New Age retreat center in the heart of Lake County, shortly after one o’clock on Sunday afternoon. ABSOLUTELY NO MOTOR VEHICLES BEYOND THIS POINT, declared the hand-painted wooden sign on the gate at the end of the winding, two-and-a-half-mile-long driveway. A half dozen vehicles, ranging from a handsome new Lexus to a rusted-out VW bus with a psychedelic paint job, were parked in a dirt lot by the side of the road.

ELDERS, DELIVERIES, DIFFERENTLY ABLED, USE FOR ASSISTANCE, read a second, smaller sign nailed to the last telephone pole. Skip opened the rusty metal cabinet mounted beneath the sign, picked up the handset inside it, and clicked the hook with his forefinger like a character in an old-timey movie-Hello, Operator, give me Central!

Figuring that the chances of smoking being permitted beyond the gate were slim, Pender fired up a Marlboro while Skip talked to somebody at the other end. He only managed to sneak a few puffs before a lovely, fresh-faced, wet-haired young woman in a damp caftan arrived in a four-seater golf cart. “Are you here for the ceremony tonight?” she asked, looking them over dubiously.

“Could be,” said Pender, buttoning his tomato soup sport coat to hide the Smith amp; Wesson Model 10 in his shoulder holster.

“You never know,” added Skip-he was wearing a tan, zipper-front working man’s jacket long enough to cover the Beretta in his kidney holster.

The young woman dropped them off in front of the Center, a two-story, wood-and-glass building with a cantilevered roof. “O’s probably out on the deck,” she called over her shoulder, casually stripping off her caftan as she trotted up the dusty road in the direction of the hot springs.

“Welcome to California,” said Skip, smugly.

Pender rapped on the aluminum-framed screen door.

“Come on up!”

An open-treaded spiral staircase led to a carpeted, glass-enclosed room as sparsely furnished as a dance studio. Sliding glass doors opened onto a hardwood deck where an overweight, middle-aged man with a shaved head and a bushy, gray-blond beard was standing on one foot. The sole of his other foot was pressed flat against the inside of the opposite knee, and both hands were raised over his head, palms together like a football referee signaling a safety. “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry,” called Pender, who remembered Dr. O as a slender, beardless preppy with sandy hair. “We were looking for Dr. Oliver.”

“You found him.” Oliver, who was wearing a pair of white cotton meditation pajamas, abandoned his yoga posture. “What can I do for you?”

Obviously, Dr. O had failed to recognize Pender from their previous meeting, which meant Skip was free to launch into the cover story he and Pender had agreed to try first. They were, he told Oliver, two freelance writers working on a book about the evolution of the spiritual movement in the West from Be Here Now to, well, now. Skip apologized for not having contacted Dr. Oliver in