spears, and some damned good potato salad.
To me a diet is something to fall off of, and I'd been holding to mine fairly well—I'd weighed 226 pounds that morning—so when I finished, I ordered a milkshake, which turned out to be a jumbo. When I'd finished that, I went to see what sort of stuff got posted on the notice board. Some of it was advertisements, which from the jargon seemed to be by small Gnostie businesses. A few were hand-scrawled notes from one person to another, or 'to anyone traveling to the such-and-such area.'
Most, though, bore the official logo of the church, some of them notices of special-price offers for what appeared to be services that the church sold its members—counseling and classes. Several were headed DECLARATION OF EXPULSION, or even DECLARATION OF APOSTASY AND EXPULSION. Each of these began with a stock statement:
As I stood looking at it, a hand touched my shoulder.
'Don't let the declarations disturb you.' It was the guy I'd sat with. 'Staff members are an elite, and when one of us refuses correction, he has to be pruned away. To refuse correction is to hold to one's weaknesses and evil impulses, and that is a further act of evil. Most people who get expelled will eventually desire correction, and return to be saved. But if their intentions are evil enough to threaten the Church, something invariably happens to them, something unpleasant. I could give you examples. The Church doesn't do it—don't take me wrong. The
Then he turned and left, leaving me staring after him, my scalp crawling.
* * *
Back at the office I called up the directory listings under EMERGENCY AID > CULT WITHDRAWAL, and found one that called itself Gnostic Withdrawal Assistance, at 1764 Hillhurst. I dialed their number and learned they had someone on the desk twenty-four hours a day. They did not discuss business over the phone.
So I drove over there. The guy on duty was black, about six-five and maybe 280 pounds; could have played defensive end for the Steelers. His eyes were calm, and as direct as any I'd ever seen. His face had multiple scars, and his nose had been flattened badly enough that it looked like the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, yet he didn't look mean or even hard, just someone who was in charge of himself. The church had a reputation for intimidating people it considered its enemies, but I couldn't picture anyone intimidating that guy. I told him I wanted to get in touch with someone named Fred Hamilton, who'd gotten kicked out about three months earlier. Did he know him?
'Yeah, I know Fred,' he told me. 'I've known him for years. When they kicked him out, they hadn't paid staff their weekly ten dollars for four weeks. As punishment because church income was down. He came in here in grief, without a dime. I let him use my phone to call his parents, so he could ask them for skybus fare. They weren't home, so he stayed with me overnight.'
'Could you give me his address?'
'We don't give out addresses. For all I know, you could be one of Lonnie's goons—Lonnie Thomas'—looking to harass him.'
Lon Thomas. I remembered the name from the summary article. The author called him the administrative chief of the Gnosties, the guy in charge of day-to-day operations. The goals, the directions, and the central policies, on the other hand, supposedly came from Ray Christman.
I took out my wallet and showed the guy my Prudential ID plate. He couldn't have looked less impressed. 'Look,' I told him, 'I don't care one way or another about whether Hamilton is in or out of the church. He has a wife, and her mother wants to know how she is. And where.'
He appraised me with dark, reddish brown eyes. 'Our standard offer for something like that is, you give me twenty-five George in cash, and I'll call and give him your phone number. And tell him what you want. If he wants to, he'll get in touch with you. If not . . .' He shrugged.
I took one of my business cards and two bills out of my wallet, gave them to him and asked for a receipt. 'One more question,' I added. 'You told me you've known Fred Hamilton for years. How'd you get to know him?'
'We were on staff together at the Campus. Shared a room, along with ten other guys. They kicked me out a year and a half ago, for thinking for myself—asking questions and being critical.' He shrugged again. 'You live in the church like that a while, it takes some adjusting to live in the real world again. For some people it's pretty bad, so I started this place.'
'Got it,' I said. 'Where'd you get the money?'
'To start this? Same way I got money before I joined. In the ring.' He grinned. 'I wasn't much for finesse, but people liked to watch me. Now I run this place on money from people I help, after they get their feet on the ground. People like Fred. Or from their families.' He held up the bills. 'And now and then someone like you, who wants a line to one of them.'
Then he gave me a receipt and I left, hoping he was making it all right. Providing a service that depended on gratitude for pay sounded pretty uncertain to me.
Back at the office I read the book by Christman. It was kind of fascinating, actually. I could see how it might hook people. My main problem with it was, I kept dozing off, interest notwithstanding. Then I checked out early and went to the health club for an hour before going home.
* * *
That evening at 7:57, my phone rang. It was Hamilton. He looked older than I'd expected, probably in his thirties, intelligent and well groomed. I asked him if I could record our conversation and he said, 'Sure, go ahead.'
The guy at Withdrawal Assistance had told him what I was after, but Hamilton waited for me to ask. 'Gloria lives right there at the Campus,' he answered. 'When she first joined church staff, on the same day we got married, the church sent her to Australia for a while, to put distance between her and her parents. She had money—she'd
