“Thank you, no,” said Rubin. He had to buy another Powie, another dedicated devotee of Poweressence. The problem with getting a good one, one who truly believed, was that the Powie was worth anywhere from three to five thousand dollars a year in Poweressence courses. If he lost one, like those now kept in the rehab rooms, he could safely multiply those figures by ten to cover all the years of lost revenues. Every chapter franchise could understand that. They would withhold a percentage of the Dolomo dues until that loss was recouped.
As a responsible religious leader, Dolomo had to inform the Norfolk chapter head that he had lost a tenth-level member. The chapter head was furious.
“I had him signed up for every course. I had him doing regressions to clear out his astral lives. Do you know what we are getting for that in Norfolk, Virginia? I was in his damned will. What about that?”
“We'll make it up to you,” said Rubin.
“How? By getting convicted for attempted murder, fraud? Every time you two get nailed for something, Poweressence becomes a harder sell here.”
“Beatrice is doing something about that.”
“What is she going to do, put a cobra in the President's bed?”
“Don't talk about Beatrice like that.”
“Why not?”
“She might be listening.”
“Dolomo. We're in trouble, all around the country.”
“Don't worry. We're not going to be convicted. I just phoned to let you know that your Level Ten might not be coming back. Of course, if he does come back, you get a bonus. Since he has forgotten everything, you might be able to work him through the whole thing again. In which case we don't owe you salt,” said Dolomo.
“I'll never send you another.”
“We don't need you. This is California. This is gold country for this sort of stuff.”
“Then why did you call me in the first place?”
“I want to spread these things around the country. If you believe anything, believe we are going to beat this charge,” said Rubin Dolomo.
“I believe we'll lose half our membership when you're convicted.”
Rubin Dolomo hung up and had another Powie in the house within the hour, from a local chapter they still owned. The Powie was a problem, however. When she heard it was Rubin Dolomo himself she was talking to, she wanted him to take her through an astral regression.
“I get a sense that my planets are not organized within me. That I still retain negative memories,” she said. She was twenty, with the trim build of a gymnast. She said she had almost made it to the Olympics. If she had had Poweressence then, as she had now, she would have won the gold medal. But because she still harbored violent tendencies from another life, she was not allowed to win.
“Look, girlie,” said Rubin. “Take this pink letter. Do not touch the upper-left-hand corner, but deliver it. Do not tell who sent you because the evil forces will try to destroy your religion if you do. Do you understand?”
“Are you willing to risk using someone who hasn't totally cleared her memory of negative forces?”
“Have you been through Level One?”
“Yes.”
“Then you're strong enough,” said Rubin.
The Powie looked at the pink letter on the floor. “What is it doing there? Why don't you pick it up?”
“I have a bad back,” said Rubin. “And don't forget about the corner. Do not touch the upper-left-hand corner. The guards will probably want to read it. Let them, but you hold the letter. Only the witness touches the left-hand corner. Got it?”
“Upper left. Only the witness touches it.”
“Right.”
“I feel better already. Your power forces just reflected through my toes.”
“Yeah. I am like that,” said Rubin, who badly needed a Dexamyl, two aspirins, a Valium, and six cups of coffee to give him enough strength to get to bed for an afternoon nap.
“And don't forget. Be pleasant and open and they won't stop the letter.”
“I'll use my positive essence.”
She picked up the letter by the lower-right-hand corner and walked out of the Dolomo mansion refreshed. How true was Poweressence. How profound were the lessons she'd learned. When she smiled she felt better. When she smiled at others, they treated her better. All this from only a first-level course discount-priced at $325.
* * *
Ordinarily the U.S. attorney would have the witness secreted in a safe location where only prescreened mail could reach him. But since that didn't seem to protect all the witnesses lately and since this witness wanted to go home even more badly than most, the U.S. attorney relented. He allowed the witness to live in his own home. There was a special advantage in that. That hysterical pair, the Dolomos, seemed very likely to attempt some trick. And some government agency was going to lay a trap for them.
The reasoning was that anyone who would put an alligator in a columnist's swimming pool would try anything. And this might lead to finding out how witnesses were being turned. It was so secret the U.S. attorney was not sure which department was involved in the ambush, but when a thin man with dark eyes and thick wrists arrived outside the witness's home, the attorney knew not to question him. He just called off the normal guards.
The home was in a middle-class neighborhood of Palo Alto; needless to say, it was a neighborhood in which no middle-class worker could afford to live anymore.
Remo sat on the steps to avoid questions from the witness inside. The man wanted to know what his badge number was and where the guards were. He wanted to know how one lone unarmed person could protect him. Remo locked him in a closet for twenty minutes until he stopped yelling. Then he let the man out.
The man did not question him anymore but Remo had been put in a foul temper. He knew that anger could kill him, for it was the one emotion that blocked strength, turning it into unfocused energy. He had just decided to breathe himself out of it when a sweet young thing came up the walk to the house carrying a pink envelope.
“Hi. I've got a letter for the occupant of the house.”
“No,” said Remo.
The girl smiled, very broad, very bright. Continuously.
“I understand he is part of the government witness program and I understand that his mail has to be screened because it might contain a threat to him.”
“No letters.”
“Why not?”
“Because that means I'll have to open the door and hand him the letter. He'll expect me to speak to him and I don't like him. I don't like you either, to be honest.”
“You have a lot of negativity, you know. May I ask you if it is doing you any good? Because it isn't, you know. I can help you be as happy and free as me. Would you like that?”
“No,” said Remo.
“May I read you the letter, then, and then slip it under the door?”
“Nope.”
“It's a beautiful love letter,” said the Powie. She knew what she was up against: guard types were chosen just because of their unflagging slavery to negative forces. And what could be more negative than force that wanted to limit the freedom of Poweressence?
“'My dearest Ralph, my love forever,' signed 'Angela,'” said the Powie.
“Not good enough. Rewrite it.”
“But it's his love letter.”
“I don't like it. I don't like Angela. And I don't think I like you,” said Remo.
“How can you be so negative?”
“Easy. I like it.”
The Powie stepped back and yelled at the house.
“Ralph. Ralph. I have a letter for you. It's from Angela, but your guard won't let me give it to you.”