such students who’ve come to Boulder and Naropa—are doing what they call ‘interior work.’ ”
“Based on Vajrayana teachings on finding and applying internal esoteric energies,” whispered Sato.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Nick. “It maxes out on the BQ meter.”
“BQ meter, Bottom-san?”
“Bullshit Quotient.”
“Ah, so.”
“The Naropa Institute’s also into your Japanese Tea Ceremony,
“Ikebana and the Tea Ceremony are worthy forms of meditation,” the huge security chief said softly. “But not, perhaps, in the hands of these charlatans.”
One of the saffron-robed medics came up a ramp to where Nick and Sato waited by the door. The man looked to be American but had the shaved head of all the teachers and students here. He put his hands together, bowed low, and said, “
Since no one in the group was from India, Nick replied with “How ya doin’?”
The monk or teacher or medic or whatever he was showed no irritation, but neither did he identify himself. “You are here to meet with Mr. Dean?”
“We are,” said Nick, flashing his Advisor’s black card badge. “Is he awake yet?”
“Oh, yes,” said the monk. “It has been more than three hours since his awakening from the Previous Reality. Mr. Dean has done his exercises, enjoyed his meal, and spent an hour with one of our transpersonal counselors reviewing his most recent Previous Reality experience.”
“So where is he?” asked Nick.
“In the contemplation garden to the rear of this building,” said the monk. “Would you wish me to escort you?”
“No, we’ll find him,” said Nick. “I’ll just look for a bald guy in an orange bathrobe.”
“
“Later, reincarnator,” said Nick.
Nick and Sato reviewed notes as they walked out to the garden. It had rained a little in Denver before they left Six Flags, then let up during the drive up to the People’s Republic, but now more gray clouds were moving in low just yards above the sharp tops of the five sandstone Flatirons. But the day remained comfortably warm. Nick took off his sports coat and draped it over his shoulder.
Derek Dean had been a young millionaire exec in the last days of the Google empire. He’d lived in a world high above the messy post–Day It All Hit The Fan world that almost everyone else wallowed and struggled in. Dean had spent most of his adult life in New York penthouses, Malibu beach houses, armored limos, and private executive jets while having his own private bodyguards make sure that he was not disturbed. After his company’s last tech investment googled down the drain, Dean’s diversified investments and connections only made him richer.
Then, seven years ago, at the age of forty-five, Dean found religion. As far as Nick and the other Denver detectives could tell, Derek Dean had no connections with Keigo Nakamura or Keigo’s daddy before the video interview a day before Keigo’s murder. But Dean had been the only Total Immersion Naropa student that Keigo had chosen to interview on camera. He’d only been in Total Immersion a year at that point, but according to the interview with Dean that Nick had flashed on the night before, the exec was a true believer.
One had to be a true believer to pay for the Naropa Total Immersion soul-therapy. Flashback was cheap—a dollar for every minute to be relived—but the Naropa people insisted on using a more potent and sacred version of flashback that they called
Nick knew that there was no such thing as a more potent version of flashback. Flashback was flashback. Always and everywhere. It couldn’t be attenuated and still work and it couldn’t be improved upon. It was what it was.
But where street flash sold for $15 for a fifteen-minute flash, the same amount at Naropa cost $375.
So Derek Dean was under the flash for eighteen hours a day at $25 a minute. Beyond that, he was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the medical monitoring, for the special diet, and for the “spiritual counseling.”
And these were old dollars.
“Even a fortune of hundreds of millions would disappear quickly in such a quest for enlightenment,” Sato said softly as they approached the garden. It was a hedge maze, but the hedges were only four feet tall so the chances of becoming lost in the maze were low.
“And our friend is only seven years into the process of reliving his entire life,” said Nick. “He has thirty-eight years more to go under the Naropa version of the flash before he catches up to where he started the year before Keigo interviewed him.”
“Does he then have to relive the decades spent reliving?” asked Sato.
Nick glanced quickly, but the security chief’s expression was as stern and unchanging as ever. “That’s a good question,” said Nick. “Shall we ask him?”
“No,” said Sato. “As you might put it, Bottom-san, neither of us gives the slightest shit as to what the answer might be.”
Nick grinned despite himself and they entered the maze.
The change in Derek Dean was shocking. Nick had seen the man just hours ago while flashbacking the interview, but six years of Total Immersion had taken their toll. Dean had been slightly stocky six years earlier but very energetic, quick, and fit: the kind of country club tennis player who can give the resident pro a decent game. Now Dean had lost at least forty pounds. The once-strong and -florid face, almost always graced with a CEO’s confident smile during Nick’s first interview, was now gaunt and expressionless save for the vague, confused stare that Nick associated with Down syndrome children. Dean’s arms emerging from the loose saffron robe were skeletal stems with flaccid vestiges of muscles hanging loose beneath the bones. The formerly sturdy hands were now an old man’s extension of quivering and twitching sticks in lieu of fingers. Perhaps most disturbing to Nick were Dean’s fingernails, which were three inches long, curved, and piss-yellow.
Dean was sitting on a low bench between the hedge and gravel path, his haunted gaze firmly fixed on the rear door of the auditorium.
Nick sat down on the bench opposite and introduced himself. He did not introduce Sato or offer to shake hands.
“It’s almost time for me to go back… into… under… back,” mumbled Derek Dean in a brittle husk of a voice. “Almost time.”
“Do you remember me, Mr. Dean?” demanded Nick, sharpening his voice to get the man’s attention.
The unfocused gaze moved across Nick’s face. “Yes. Detective Bottom… they told me… Detective Bottom come to see me again. But it’s almost time to go, you see… to go back… you see.”
“We’ll keep it short,” said Nick, not disabusing the former exec of his mistake regarding Nick’s detective status. If Dean’s believing that he was still a cop would move the interview along, then so be it. Nick had identified himself only by name.
Dean had been a shaven-head acolyte six years ago, but Nick had seen photos of the exec with a full head of short, sandy-colored hair. His skin had looked tanned and healthy. Now Dean’s shaven skull was fishbelly white and pocked with small sores.
“Do you remember our earlier interview, Mr. Dean?” asked Nick, resisting the urge to snap his fingers to get the man’s attention.
The limpid but hungry gaze tore itself away from the auditorium door and tried to focus on Nick. “Yes, several weeks ago… yes, Detective. About that Japanese boy who just died. Yes. But you see, since then, Mrs. Howe has said I can work on the Alamo mural in the art room during recess. Did you know that Davy Crockett died at the Alamo?”
Sato made a grumbling interrogative noise.
