Everglades, page 5
“I’ll explain later.”
“Is he out there now?”
“No. We’ve got about an hour.”
She returned to her scrubbing. “Good. I’m almost done.”
I stared at her, perplexed, as she returned to her work. “Sally? Sally. What’re you doing? The kitchen may be a little messy, but I’ll take care of it. You used to kid me about it, what a neat-freak I am. Remember? I keep this kitchen the same way I keep my lab. Spotless.”
Which was a lie. I’d kept the lab up to standards, but, the last six months or so ago, I’d been slipping, doing less and less housework, less and less laundry.
She said, “I’m happy to help. All the beer cans? I put them in your recycle bin.”
She continued to scrub as she added, “No offense, but this kitchen isn’t what I’d call spotless. You’ve got cobwebs in the corners, grease everywhere. And it could use some paint. Plus some new furniture.”
Once again, her voice had a troubled, manic quality that was disconcerting. Made the little hairs on the back on my neck stand up like hackles.
She was still kneeling, so I leaned and placed my hand gently around her left arm. The cinnamon blouse had a silky quality. Her skin was cooler than the April air.
“Sally. I want you to stop now. Please. Have a seat. There’s no need for you to clean my house. It’s not . . . it’s not an appropriate thing for you to be doing.”
The word appropriate seemed to key in her an involuntary response that was like a mixture of distress and comprehension. I watched her glazed eyes clear momentarily, and she touched a hand to her mouth.
“Oh my Lord, I’m doing it again. I’m so sorry. My therapist has been working with me—we’re doing biofeedback; some hypnosis. She’s trying to help me condition myself to recognize the symptoms and stop myself before the behavior takes control. Inappropriate behavior. That’s what I’m trying my best to stop.”
I was still holding her arm, feeling the gooseflesh sensation that accompanies alarm. I said gently, “What behavior?”
She stood, her expression gloomy, vulnerable. “Something happened to me. I’m not the same person you used to know. They call it manic behavior. Or obsessive. I might even be bipolar, but my therapist wants to get some other opinions before she commits to that diagnosis. I get my mind fixed on something, and I completely lose control. I can clean for hours. Or sew. Or . . . or pray.”
I said softly, “Pray?”
She nodded. “I can tell you about it, if you want.”
“I want.”
“Okay. Well . . . about three years back, Geoff and I began a hard time in our marriage—it was around the time you called and invited me to Guava Key. You don’t know how close I came to saying yes.”
I said, “I remember.”
“You never met him, but he was one of the biggest developers in Dade County. All he thought about was his business. And he was so critical. I just couldn’t do enough. I wasn’t sociable enough, smart enough. Pretty enough.
“He worked twelve, fourteen hours a day, just pushing and pushing until I think something in him finally broke.” She stopped for a moment, thinking about it. “Not long after that, something happened to me, too.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Geoff—Mr. Dade County Entrepreneur of the Year—got involved with a cult religious group. I’ve read enough about it to call it a ‘cult’ now. You’ve heard probably of it: the International Church of Ashram Meditation. Everyone has. The founder—the guy gave me the creeps from day one—calls himself Bhagwan Shiva, supposedly some kind of charismatic prophet.”
She said, “He’s got Ashram Centers all over the world, plus a big compound on Palm Beach. You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
I said, “He’s the one who collects expensive cars, right?”
“Rolls-Royces, yes.”
“I read something about his group trying to take control of some western town a few years back.”
“Exactly. He sends his followers to live in a small town, enough of them so they become a voting majority. Then they take over the place. Literally. They change the zoning laws, build whatever they want, do whatever they want. He did it in Washington State, Alabama, now he’s doing it in Florida.”
I was nodding. “I know who you mean.”
“The Church of Ashram, that’s the group Geoff got involved with. He met Shiva at some Palm Beach fund-raiser. At the time, we were having cash-flow problems—later, I can tell you about the housing developments we were building. Shiva’s group got financially involved. In a big way, they got involved.
“Next thing I know, my husband was attending Shiva’s lectures, taking classes, going to meetings. Then he joined the church. I don’t know how many tens of thousands of dollars he gave them, how much property. But it was a lot.”
Sally told me that, worse, Geoff insisted that she join him in the church and go through what she called “Introductory Auditing.”
“It was like hell,” she told me. “They kept us awake day and night, screaming at us, making us memorize Shiva’s prophecies, telling us all that we were worthless. I was nobody, nothing. Over and over, they shouted that into my head. That we were dead people. Meaningless.”
I noticed that her voice was trembling, on the verge of tears, as she added, “I spent a month listening to it. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
I was still holding her arm; had finally stopped her from using the scrub brush. I said, “Calm down. You’re getting upset. There’s no need.”
“It makes me so furious!”
“I understand. Take all the time you need. Have a seat—stop cleaning, please. I’ll fix myself a drink, then we can sit down and talk about it.”
I felt her eyes on me as I half-filled a tumbler with Nicaraguan rum, added ice, juice from a whole key lime, and topped it with seltzer water.
The marina’s black cat, Crunch & Des, sat next to me on the outdoor teak table between two rockers, on the northeastern side of my porch. It’s the portion of porch that hangs over my shark pen, and looks out over the bay.
Unseen below us, beneath dark water, two bull sharks and a smaller, seventy-pound hammerhead circled. They were always moving.
The cat was close enough that I could reach over and scratch his ears if I wanted to. He’d never been an affectionate cat, but, in the last half year, he’d become more attentive toward me. Spent more time following me around the house than he did hanging out by the marina’s fish-cleaning table.
Unusual.
I’d dismissed Tomlinson’s explanation out of hand (“You’re fighting demons and he wants to provide comfort”) but it was nice having the cat around more. Crunch & Des was good company. Tail twitching, he liked to lie on the stainless-steel dissecting table in my lab, beneath the rows of bubbling aquarium tanks, and stare down octopi.
I scratched the cat’s ears now, sipping my drink. I’d given Sally the abbreviated version of my encounter with Frank DeAntoni, and told her that he was interested in talking to her. Didn’t mention the photo.
While we waited, I sat quietly and let her vent. Told her I’d have one drink before showering, so it was a good time to help me catch up on what had happened in her life. It was a nice night to play the patient, friendly ear. A southern breeze, water-dense, weighted with salt and iodine, drifted out of the shadows while the rim of the moon ascended above mangroves.
I listened to her say, “At first with Geoff, our marriage was pretty good. We live—we lived—in Coconut Grove, just off Bayshore, a great view of Biscayne Bay. This little gated community called Ironwood. You have to cross a canal that’s more like a moat, and there’s not a home under four thousand square feet allowed. Luxury homes, that’s the real estate term. Screened infinity pools, boatlifts, everything. Most people’s dream place.
“Our next-door neighbor is a U.S. senator. Another owns part of the Dolphins. You add up all the wealth, all the political power, there’s no place in Florida that probably compares.”
She said, “When my husband got involved with Shiva, he would stand around at parties, barbecues, whatever, telling our neighbors how great Shiva was. That’s when invitations started dropping off, potential investors started avoiding us. Then our whole business operation began to slide right into the tank.”
I said, “The more your husband promoted the cult leader, the more he became dependent on the cult leader’s money.”
I watched her smile as she lifted the mug of tea to her lips. “Marion Ford. Back when I was a little girl, and you were the big, star high-school jock, people used to say you were strange because you collected bugs and fish and all kinds of stuff. But I always stuck up for you. I told them it was because you were so smart, not weird. My opinion hasn’t changed.”
Smart? I felt an urge to tell her: I’ve done so many stupid things in the recent past that it’s laughable. Instead, I said, “You both went through the organization’s programming process. Geoff broke, you didn’t. Any idea why?”
She thought for a moment. “I think he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He was vulnerable. It was awful, those three weeks. They just about killed my self-confidence. My therapist says it may take me years to recover. But I never gave in because . . . I’m not sure why. I used to think I was a fairly strong person. Not the smartest, but fairly bright—”
I said, “You were a strong person. You still are. And you’re among the brightest people I know. So there’s my answer. You were too strong to be brainwashed. Congratulations.”
“It was more than that, Doc. I think . . . I think God was there. I think He helped me and I didn’t even know it. That’s why I pray so much. Even now. You asked me, so I’m going to tell you.”
She said, “You’ve been to Coconut Grove, south Miami. It’s kind of an old Bohemian kind of village, so it changes every couple of blocks. That’s one of the reasons I love it.
“The reason I know God was with me is, not far from our house, three blocks off Dixie Highway, there’s this little Pentecostal church. A couple of days after I got out of Shiva’s compound, a Sunday afternoon, I was about at the end of my rope. I was alone, wandering around like a crazy person, and I heard an organ. It was like angels playing. I followed the music to a two-room church. Inside, I could hear people singing. I walked in—just like someone’s hand was steering me.
“It’s a poor church. Mostly Haitians, Cuban refugee types and poor whites. But that little church changed my life. I’ve never felt such unconditional love. It became my lifeline, Reverend Wilson and his wife, the whole congregation. Lots of clapping and dancing and hugging. That pretty little white church is still my favorite place in the world.”
Sally had been staring at the deck as she spoke, but now she looked up at me with eyes that were shadowed, dark. “Look, Doc, I know that lots of people make fun of religion. Us Born-Again types. We maybe scare them for some reason. But it’s changed my life. I think it saved my life.”
I smiled at her, as I said, “A person who makes fun of anyone’s religion lacks the brains to be taken seriously.”
“It doesn’t bother you that I’ve accepted Jesus as my savior? That I’ve changed?”
Yes, it bothered me that she’d changed, but only because her transformation exceeded any new passion for religion. There was pathology involved—to what degree, I didn’t yet know. But I told her, “We’re friends. So, no, it makes no difference. Right now, I’m more concerned with why you’re here. Something weird’s going on, or the insurance company wouldn’t have hired DeAntoni to follow you.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “My gosh, I’d already forgotten him. He’s going to be here soon, right?”
“If you want to talk to him, yes. If you don’t, no problem. I’ll send him away.”
She said, “That’s another symptom, by the way. More inappropriate behavior. A bad memory, a short attention span.”
She walked across the deck, retrieved her purse from a teak table and checked her watch. “No wonder,” she said. “I forgot to take my medication. The doctor’s been giving me Neurontin, plus some Valium. That’s how bad Shiva’s group screwed me up. Shiva. I even hate the sound of his name.”
Her smile seemed too theatrical, her laughter too loud, as she added, “But the pills can’t work if Miss Forgetful doesn’t remember to take her meds on schedule!”
chapter six
izzy
Lying on a table in a steam room built of herbal wood and tile, Shiva opened his eyes, lifted his left arm toward his eyes and looked at a bare wrist.
He’d dozed during the massage, and now remembered: His watch was outside, on the vanity.
To the oldest of the three women attending to him, he said, “Sister Mary, please check. What time is it?”
The women were naked beneath white robes, but Mary still wore her rubber Timex.
“It’s a little after six, Teacher.”
Shiva closed his eyes again, relaxing. The office at his Ashram Center in downtown San Francisco closed at five on Fridays, and he had a conference call scheduled with the office manger and two advisors at four-fifteen Pacific time. The Sacramento Bee had just published the last of a scathing, three-part series on the International Church of Ashram Meditation Center, in which three former women disciples claimed they had been drugged with something, then raped by “one or more church leaders.”
There were quotes from the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office promising an investigation, and quotes from an IRS spokesman saying that the personal files of Bhagwan Shiva and the files of the San Francisco Ashram were already being subpoenaed.
Devastating.
But they hadn’t ruined him yet, The American legal system, Shiva knew, was a calculator of wile, not a scale of justice, and it could be manipulated—if you had enough money.
He needed cash. Lots of cash. He knew how to get it.
Shiva stretched, irked by yet another problem. He had about an hour before the conference call, then he had to meet with Izzy again, go over some details. So why not enjoy the little bit of free time? One of the maxims he required all initiates to learn was a favorite: Grasp the moment and you will capture eternity.
Something to relax him, that’s what he needed. Something beyond a massage.
To Mary, he said, “My sister, please tell me. This person, the pale blonde—” He used his finger to point at a girl who could have been sixteen, could have been twenty. “Is she new? I don’t remember seeing her in the compound. What’s her name?”
When the blonde began to answer, “I’m Kirsten Williams from Lauderdale—,” she was shouted down by the older woman, who yelled, “You may not address Shiva directly. Have you already forgotten? Until you finish Basic Auditing, you’re not even alive.”
“Temper, my dear Mary,” Shiva said. “Learn patience. Be patient, and our cause will be stronger.”
The older woman bowed at the waist, touching both palms to her forehead—an ancient gesture of deference. “I know, Teacher. But I work so hard with these new ones. It’s like my words bounce off their idiotic heads.”
To the blonde, Shiva said, “You have not yet been given a name.”
Sister Mary said, “She is worthless, so she is nameless. It will be another three weeks before she has earned a name.”
“How did she come to us?”
“Another runaway. Tired of the imaginary world, no place else to go.”
“Have the parents tried to find her? Or friends?”
“The father came twice. We sent him away.”
Shiva addressed the girl. “I give you permission to speak to me. Are you happy here?”
“I . . . I think so.”
“Do you understand that I care more for you now, about your happiness and spiritual contentment, than your mother or your father ever cared?”
“Yes . . . I’d like to believe that.”
Shiva said, “Please remove your robe.”
He watched the girl hesitate, then pull the white robe over her head, willing but self-conscious. He looked at her for a few moments, smiling, before he said, “God has given you a beautiful body. It’s a gift to be shared. Your breasts—like white pears tipped with berries. My body desires my hands to touch them. Come closer, girl.”
Averting her eyes, the pale blonde moved uneasily from Bhagwan Shiva’s feet to his side, her breathing slightly more rapid as the man’s long fingers moved up the ridges of her ribs, and touched the underside of her right breast. Then he squeezed her left breast, fingers creating streaks of sweat on the swollen curvature of flesh.
His tone still conversational, he said to Mary, “What level are you now running in your search for enlightenment?”
“I’m at Level Three. I hope to soon advance.”
“Excellent, ” said the Bhagwan.
He looked at the older woman. She’d been his bed partner many times. Though she was never outwardly jealous of other disciples, having her so close was taking the pleasure out of touching the blonde.
“Sister Mary,” he said. “Please take your assistant and leave me with this nameless thing.”
Two hours later, showered, dressed in white linen, sitting at the desk in his bedroom office, Shiva listened to Izzy say,
“I’ve decided on two explosions, not three. Each one a chain of several smaller blasts. For effect, I’m saying. That’s why I came back, to let you know.”
Shiva said, “You decided.”
“That’s right, me. I decided. Two’s risky enough. I’ve done the research. I can explain it if you want. Two blasts, seven days, maybe fourteen days apart—no longer. Then I’m out of here.”
Using great patience to emphasize his sarcasm, Shiva said, “Do you mind if I know the dates? I should probably know the dates—since I’m risking the future of my entire fucking organization.”
Used to Shiva, his bullying, Izzy remained composed. “Just give me the word. Sunday, if you want. Day after tomorrow. The first will be small. A series of three or four minor blasts—we don’t want too much attention. The second will be the big boom. Earthquake in the Everglades.”
