“Oh no. I can only use lipstick—pink at that—and those terribly juvenile sweaters and skirts, and low heels. But when she goes out, I experiment to find my right type.”
“Are you happy here, Karma?”
After a long hesitation she nodded her head. “Everything’s so different, I have so much to learn. I think my aunt likes me, but I make a lot of mistakes and my cousins laugh at me sometimes. I wish I could laugh.”
“Can’t you?”
“Not really. I just pretend.”
A plane passed high overhead, and Karma stared up at it as if she wanted to be on it.
Quinn said, “Do you ever hear from your mother?”
“No.”
“Does your aunt?”
“No, I don’t think so. She doesn’t tell me about it, anyway.”
“What happened at the Tower that last day, Karma?”
“My aunt says I’m never to mention the Tower to anyone. I’m to act as though it never existed.”
“But it did exist. You spent a quarter of your life there, with your mother, your brother, and sister.”
“I’m supposed to forget all that,” she said in a frightened voice. “And I’m trying to. You mustn’t remind me, it’s not fair. It’s—”
“How did you get here to your aunt’s house, Karma?”
“By bus.”
“From where?”
“Bakersfield.”
“How did you get to Bakersfield?”
“In the truck.”
“Who was driving the truck?”
“Brother Crown of Thorns.”
“Who else was in it?”
“I’m not supposed to—”
“Who else, Karma?”
“A lot of us. My family, and Sister Glory of the Ascension, and Brother Behold the Vision—oh, I don’t remember all of them.” Her eyes had gone bleak, as if the mere recital of the names made the Tower too vivid, too ominously real. “I was scared, I didn’t know what was happening. At Bakers-field my mother gave me some money and told me to take a bus to Los Angeles and then a taxi to my aunt’s house.”
“How much money?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“Where did this money come from?”
“I don’t know, but I guess the Master must have given it to her before we left the Tower.”
“Why did everyone leave the Tower?”
“I think it was because of Sister Blessing being sick.”
“She wasn’t sick,” Quinn said. “She was poisoned. She died soon after we reached the hospital.”
Karma pressed her fists tight against her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes and mixed with the mascara and slid blackly down her cheeks. “She can’t really be dead?”
“She is.”
“That last day, she promised she’d get me out of the Tower, to my aunt’s, and she did, didn’t she? She kept her promise, didn’t she?”
“Yes, Karma.”
She leaned over and wiped her cheeks with the hem of her dress. There were no more tears. Sister Blessing, though she’d been a friend to her, had also been part of a life she preferred to forget.
“What happened to the others who were in the truck?” Quinn said.
“I don’t know. I was the first to get out.”
“Were you given any instructions other than to come here to your aunt’s house?”
“No.”
“No future plans were mentioned?”
“Not what you’d call real plans. But I think they intended to return when they thought it would be safe.”
“Return to the Tower?”
“Yes. They don’t give up easily. When people believe that hard in something, they can’t just stop believing in a minute.”
“When did you last see Brother Tongue, Karma?”
“When he helped you put Sister Blessing in the car to go to the hospital.”
“He wasn’t in the truck with you?”
“No. He must have gone with the Master in the new convert’s station wagon. I can’t swear to it, though, because the truck left first, and everything was so rushed and confused, with people running around, and the kids crying, and all that.”
“Was Brother Light of the Infinite in the truck?”
“No.”
“Brother of the Steady Heart?”
“He wasn’t, either.”
“The decision to leave,” Quinn said, “was made very suddenly?”
“Yes.”
“By the Master?”
“He was the Master,” Karma said simply. “No one else made decisions. How could they?”
“Think carefully now, Karma. Did you notice whether anyone else in the truck had money besides your mother?”
“Sister Glory of the Ascension did. She kept counting hers. She’s very stingy, I guess she wanted to be sure she hadn’t been cheated.”
“Cheated of her share?”
“Yes.”
“Where did the shares come from?”
“The Master, I suppose.”
“As far as I know, he had no money, and Mother Pureza’s had all been used up in the construction of the Tower.”
“Maybe she had some left that she kept secret. She was always playing tricks on people, even on the Master.”
Karma had climbed down from the railing and was staring uneasily toward the street. “You’d better go now, Mr. Quinn. My aunt will be home any minute and I have to wash my face and put my cousin’s dress away. It’s her second best, genuine silk.”
“Thanks for the information, Karma.”
“You’re welcome, I guess.”
“I’m giving you a card with my address and phone number on it. If you think of something else that you haven’t told me, call me collect, will you?”
She looked briefly at the card he offered her, then turned away without touching it. “I don’t want it.”
“Keep it anyway, just in case.”
“All right, but I won’t ever be calling you. I won’t ever be thinking of the Tower anymore.”
The door closed behind her.
Quinn drove back to San Felice and went directly to Sheriff Lassiter’s office. Ten minutes later Lassiter arrived, short of breath and temper.
“This is supposed to be my day of rest, Quinn.”
“Mine, too.”
“Well? Did you find the kid?”
“Yes.”
“What’d she have to say?”
“Not much. She doesn’t know much. Brother Crown drove the truck to Bakersfield, Karma was let off at the bus depot and told to go to her aunt’s in L.A. Her mother gave her fifty-dollars to cover the trip. Apparently all the members of the Tower were given money to help them maintain themselves until the time came to reestablish the colony.”
“I thought you said they took their poverty seriously.”
“They do.”
“Then where did the money come from?”
“Karma doesn’t know,” Quinn said. “Neither do I.”
“Perhaps George Haywood was carrying a lot of cash that he turned over to the Master.”
“I don’t think so. His savings account was untouched, and the last sizeable check against his commercial account was written two weeks before he left Chicote. It was for two hundred dollars. Divide two hundred dollars among twenty-five people and you don’t get fifty dollars or more apiece.”
“Why do you say ‘or more’?”
“Karma received fifty dollars, but she was a child on her way to a place of security. The others would need a great deal more, especially the women.”
“But you don’t actually know they all received money.”
“It seems unlikely that an entire colony would agree to disperse like that without money changing hands. I realize how loyal they are to each other, but I can’t see all those people uprooting themselves completely for the sake of one man, unless they were given some reimbursement or guarantee.”
“I can see it,” Lassiter said, “if that man happened to be the Master, the guy who issued the orders. They were used to obeying him, weren’t they?”