The Case of the Vanishing Beauty (9 page)

"Listen to me. Listen to me. Ye shall follow whither I lead and I shall make you whole. Ye shall follow me; ye shall follow me; ye shall follow me. Ye shall follow, and I will lead you to the Cosmic Truth that is all-present and all-pervading.

"Listen to me. The mind is all. The mind is all.

"I will take your hand; I will lead you; I will strike away your fetters. Follow me. Listen to me. Follow me and I will make the Great Mysteries your Truths.

"I, Narda, say it, and it is therefore so."

There was more, a lot more, but all of it in the same vein. I jerked my eyes away from Narda and looked around me. On my left an elderly woman stared fixedly up at Narda, her lips parted, breathing deeply as she watched him. The people all around me appeared rapt; they didn't seem to notice my inspection.

I vaguely heard Narda saying, "As Christ, the Great Healer, the Son of God, gave unto His disciples food and drink, so shall I, Narda, give unto you." He talked on, but then I noticed the two women down front were again carrying their lighted candles, this time on trays burdened with glasses of liquid and what looked like cheese crackers.

Goody, breakfast. Old Narda was doing this thing up brown.

The women passed among the seats, giving each person food and drink, as Narda put it. Me, I could have used some prime ribs. The woman who'd led me across the grass extended the tray to me. I took a cracker and a glass and started to raise the glass to my lips. She quickly raised one hand before her face, palm out, fingers curled. This was the second time I'd seen that cute "No!" I'll bet they practiced in front of mirrors.

Apparently Narda was to give the signal. I looked back up at him and noticed something. No picture. Apparently while he'd talked, the light on the picture behind him had faded slowly till now Narda was alone, suspended, floating over our heads. Then he brought his hands into the light, holding a glass and a wafer. He placed the wafer on his tongue and slowly drank from the glass.

He didn't have to tell anybody. Of common accord arms raised around me and everyone I could see followed suit. Me too. I still guessed the wafer was a cheese cracker, and the liquid tasted like flat limeade, bitter as hell. Cheapskate. Keep down the overhead.

On my right, a middle-aged man drank fervently, his eyes closed and his Adam's apple gliding up and down accompanied by horrible noises issuing from inside his throat, glurk, glurk, glurk. Then he lowered his arm and returned his fixed gaze to Narda.

I liked to bust out laughing. It struck me funny, but I knew if I let out a peep I'd probably land on my behind outside. That made it worse; I came close to strangling. Nobody even looked at me. I wasn't there; I'd missed the cloud.

The girls collected the glasses quietly while Narda continued his spiel. I wondered how he was going to end this thing.

He did all right. He spoke for another minute, then stopped and threw back his turbaned head, his arms raised high. In that resonant voice he cried, "I, Narda, say it," and the light on his face winked out. A fiery corona suddenly grew around his head like a halo.

I blinked and tried to figure it out. Cute. The big picture behind him had blocked out the eastern horizon, toward which we faced. Timed to the split second, Narda had waited till the just rising sun would outline his head and upper body. Then, down with the picture, out with the spot. Miracle. I had to hand it to him.

The women very neatly herded us out and got the people started on their dazed way. I hung around outside. This was just the beginning for me. I felt a little dazed myself, and I was dying for a smoke.

I dug in my pocket, found a cigarette, lit it, and dragged deep while I thought about Narda. I took a couple more big drags and damn near threw the cigarette over the fence. Ugh, I stopped myself just in time, lit a match, and looked at the weed. It was the little item I'd picked up in Maggie's office. I pinched it out and stuck it in my inside coat pocket.

The women were off in the direction of the street, getting the last stragglers on their way. I leaned up against the fence and waited for them to come back. There was a little cold, murky light from the rising sun, so I slipped back inside the enclosure and walked over to the spot from which Narda had made his speech. There was a platform draped in black cloth, steps leading up from behind it. Farther back was the huge picture flat on the ground. Overhead I could barely see a dark blob that was probably a spotlight. I scooted back outside and waited.

The two women came back chatting together as if they were telling about their operations. I stepped away from the fence and conversation died a miserable death. They stopped still and gawked at me as I walked up to them.

"You may not remember me," I said. "You showed me the way here."

The women looked at me as if I had nine heads and they were all bald.

I added, "For which I shall be eternally grateful."

I went back to one head.

"I am Francis Joyne," I went on. "You may have heard of me, of my philanthropies. I feel that," I raised my eyes and lowered my voice, "Narda," I lowered my eyes and raised my voice again, "is leading a great work. I am most interested. I should like to help."
 

I think the best word I used was "philanthropies." They looked a little more interested, at least.

"If I could discuss the movement with you, or with someone else connected with the movement…I do not expect, of course, that Narda himself would…but anyone. I was extremely moved." I didn't tell her where I was moved, but I let myself choke up a little. All I had to do was think about the taste of that damn cigarette.

"Come," one said, and led the way.

It was light enough now so that the walk back across the grass wasn't so eerie. We made it to the temple and I followed the women inside the front door and into a massive room covered on all four walls with black draperies. The woman I'd followed about half my time here, the one with the round, pixie face, seated me on the floor—no furniture, not a stick and seated herself cross-legged opposite me. I thought maybe she was going to contemplate her navel, yoga fashion, but no such luck. This deal was on a high plane.

The other woman went through the draperies at the back of the room and disappeared. Maybe it was coincidence, but thirty seconds after she was out of sight, organ music swelled and throbbed in the room.

We sat in silence relieved by the organ tones for another thirty seconds. I looked at the woman, wondering what I was supposed to do now. Maybe get myself shot.

I still wanted a smoke.

On my right, on the floor, appeared a couple of big, black shoes. Above them, hanging down to their tops, was a shirtlike circle of heavy black cloth. I looked up.

Well, lo and behold. Nards. The old boy was going to handle this part of the caper all by himself. Strike while the iron is hot. I started to stand up but he stuck out a long, thin-fingered hand to indicate that I wasn't to rise. I couldn't, I'd have smacked into his paw. I eased myself back down and looked up at him. With that turban on his head he looked about nine feet tall. His head scraped the lofty ceiling. Eyestrain, huh? O.K., chum, get on with it.

So far nobody had said a word. Now the woman rose gracefully, faced Nards, and quickly and softly told him who I was and that I was interested in the "Secret Ritual of the Master Plan of the Inner World Society of Truth Believers." She called him Father, but the way she looked at him I guessed she'd rather have been calling him Daddy.

He said, "Thank you, Loren."

She skipped over the word "philanthropies" so fast I hardly caught it myself, but you can bet Nards got it. Then she bowed in front of him, the loose robes revealing, as they draped from her shoulders, not much to me, but I'll bet plenty to him. The word to describe what he did with his eyes is "ogle." The look he gave out was hardly fatherly, and not exactly in character, even from where I still sat on the floor.

She went out and he pulled his eyes away from her and back to me.

"I am Narda," he said as if he enjoyed it. "What, exactly, is your interest in the Inner World Society, my son?"

Son, he says. He probably wasn't much over forty himself, if any. A neat trick.

"I was present this morning," I said. "It was a revelation to me. Beautiful. It is what I have needed since…since the death of my beloved sister. I have been alone till now." I shut up and waited to see if he swallowed it. He'd have swallowed anything that smelled like money. I continued, "I should like to help."

He nodded solemnly.

My legs were starting to feel as if I had lumbago, and my neck was getting a crick in it. I took a deep breath and looked up at him, feeling a little dizzy and very damned silly. "I have a great deal of money. I should like to aid in the movement, the Society. I feel that I have been given a new reason for being and I am grateful to you." I almost threw up when I said it, but I didn't want to spoil the play. Not just yet.

"I am thankful," he said, "to have been the instrument of your salvation, my son. We are, in fact, in dire need of material assistance. Our spiritual wealth is great, but—"

The front door opened and two men walked in. They still looked like two prints from the same negative.

The hard-faced gent in front spotted me on the floor. His eyes narrowed, and like a spring uncoiling his left hand leaped to his right armpit and came out with a small, vicious-looking automatic. His lips curled back from his teeth and he drawled, "I'll be gawdamned."

I uncrossed my legs and started to get up. The twin's face didn't change, but he squeezed down on the trigger of his gun and blasted at me. The slug ripped through the padding of the left shoulder of my coat, and wound up somewhere in the floor behind me.

I glared at him, starting to burn.

"Thet wasn't no accident, Scott," he drawled. "Thet's where I was aimin'."

I got both feet under me and started up again. He sent another slug through the padding on the other side.

"Set!" he snapped. "Till I tell ya." He looked at me for a moment, then said, "O.K., Scott. You can git up now. Easy-like."

I stood up and hated him across the room. "You're good," I said. "You must be proud. That's going to cost you just two hundred fish, mister. If you stay alive."

He laughed. He jerked his head at the other twin. "Git his gun, Paul."

Narda looked as if he'd bet on four aces and was staring dismally at a small straight flush. "What…what…" he sputtered.

I took a good look at him. Now that I was on my feet, he wasn't nine feet tall. Without the turban, he would have stood three or four inches shorter than me, which would make him about five-ten or five-eleven—a little less than six feet—and in the heavy black robe that hung nearly to the floor, the only garment he wore other than the turban, he looked pretty stocky. But his face was thin, and filled with bewilderment now.

I said, "You should have looked into the future, Narda. It was all there."

"Shet your face." The twin with the gun waved it at me. He spoke to Narda out of the side of his mouth, barely moving his lips. "This jerk's a shamus. A private dick. He's playin' you for a sucker, Narda. He's workin' for the Martin dame."

Narda recovered his composure. He snapped his head around to me, then said to the gunman, "Take care of him, Peter. You know where to put him. Hold him there." Peter said, "I got a better idea."

"Hold him," Narda said quietly. He turned and went stiffly out of the room as if he was walking on eggs.

The twin called Paul walked up to my side, reached under my coat, and lifted out my revolver. I looked down at him, at the padded, extremely draped suit, the tight mouth, the cold blue eyes, and the dark wavy hair, carefully combed and pushed into place. I looked back to Peter.

"Which one of you guys has the Toni?"

I didn't see it coming. Paul had my gun clutched in his left hand. He threw up his arm and slammed the gun hard against my jaw.

I stumbled on still cramped legs and went flat on my back. I lay there a moment trying to get a grip on the rage building inside me. It didn't hurt, but when I put my hand against my jaw I brought it away with a spot of blood in the palm. I wiped my hand on the smooth tan gabardine of my coat; it was ruined, anyway. So was my jaw, probably.

"You bastards play rough."

"Be nice. We wouldn't hurt you, pal. We like peepers." It was the twin called Paul, the first time he'd spoken. He even sounded like his brother.

I said, "That's what I figured," and got up.

Paul turned to his brother and said, "Shall we kill him here? How about it?"

"Naw. Let's do it someplace else. Let's do it right."

They were having a kick for themselves. From what Narda had said, though, I didn't think I was supposed to be cooled. Not right now, anyway. I hoped I was right.

They didn't scare me, but they brought up a question. I said to Peter, "Tell me, sharpie. Just what are two hired gunmen doing working for a religious organization? You two the Inner World missionaries? You go out and cram your particular slogans down the chosen throats?"

Peter made a clucking sound with his tongue. "You talk like a unbeliever, Scott. Too bad. A unbeliever. Why, we send unbelievers to hell, Scott."