His eyes moved to me and stopped. "To appreciate that, you need to realize that within the Gnostic community, rumors are rare. We are not—not—a gossiping people. So this has concerned me. It's been three and a half months since the Christmas event, and nothing more has been heard from Ray, at least not publicly. And if he was around, even on a remote island in the Indian Ocean or someplace like that, he'd know, be psychically aware of, anything like a power struggle within his Church. And take immediate and effective steps to end it.
"This does not seem to have happened, and I'm troubled by it. It may seem unreal to you, but Ray Christman is the hope of mankind and the world, so I want you to find him for me, and find out whether he's all right." Butzburger's gaze fell away then. "It may be that I'm simply lacking in faith," he added slowly, "and that what I'm doing here is harmful to his cause. I'm not as—perceptive as I should be; I'm well aware of that. But I've decided." He looked back up at me, then at Joe. "I realize that this is a very difficult undertaking. It may well prove impossible. But my attorney tells me that Prudential is the best investigation firm in the country, probably the world, and very ethical. So if you're interested in the case, I'm ready to discuss an agreement."
That's when I left the room; the negotiating aspects weren't anything I needed to sit through. Prudential has a standard contract with standard clauses. Individual agreements can vary within limits, but we're expensive. That's why most of our contracts are with corporations and government agencies, especially the city and state. Documented reports would be sent to Butzburger at regular intervals and sometimes in between.
I figured he must have deep pockets, and wondered how someone like him got mixed up with something like the Church of the New Gnosis. I'd thought of it as an outfit that attracted the weak and wishful, not the strong and wealthy. I knew it had wealthy members, but to the extent I'd thought about it, I'd assumed they were playboys and playgirls who'd inherited their money. Butzburger didn't seem to fit that image.
* * *
I went to my office and started calling stuff up on my computer from the L.A. City Library, mostly articles in the L.A. Times. I read about 800 to 1,200 words a minute, maybe the most useful single skill I have, and I was getting quite an education. After about half an hour, someone knocked at my door. It was Butzburger; he wanted to know if I'd have lunch with him, his treat.
He'd already called a cab. We rode to downtown Hollywood, to Musso and Frank's Grill. It's a place where you're apt to find yourself at a table near some holo star. But we didn't; he'd reserved a small private room. He wanted to ask questions, to get a better feel for the kind of guy who'd be working for him. Until I'd finished my ranch-size prime rib, though, all he made was small talk. Then, while we waited for dessert, he asked about my earlier case involving the church. Without naming names or going into the matter of the Child Nurture Center, I gave him the picture.
"So your experience is very limited," he said.
"With the church, right. Most of what I know, I have from news articles. I was reading one of them when you knocked." He nodded. I could see he wanted to say something and was trying to decide whether he should. Or more likely how. Finally he asked for my initial view of the case.
"Usually," I told him, "we go into a case with definite evidence of a crime, and a set of additional information that seems pertinent. And work from there. This time we don't have much, which is going to make it tough. And what will make it tougher is that the church is— It's been described as impenetrable, and that fits my experience. Mine and others'. If the church is right, and Mr. Christman is holed up in some out-of-the-way place doing his research, they're not going to give me his address. So the best way to approach it is to look for evidence of kidnaping or murder."
Again Butzburger nodded. "There is evil on this planet, Mr. Seppanen, and the Church has many enemies. People, governments—forces that want to harm it. Destroy it if they can, legally or otherwise. Thus it has to be impenetrable. Impenetrable and formidable."
There was that word again: evil. "Right," I said. "And those enemies are another part of the problem. If he's not lying up somewhere, then it seems highly probable that someone's killed him."
Butzburger's face pinched a little.
"As you said," I went on, "the church has a lot of enemies. It was born with enemies, and it's created a lot more, with lawsuits, the breaking up of families . . . things like that. There are a lot of people who'd like to see Ray Christman dead. So the opening question becomes who had the resources and the opportunity.
"I presume that Mr. Christman went around well guarded. The buildings on the Campus have guards at the entrances. That I know. At least the Neophyte Building does. And that nine-foot chain-link fence around the parking lot, with the razor wire on top, is obviously HardSteel. Plus I noticed men on the roofs who aren't up there to enjoy the view. So he wasn't all that vulnerable."
I was thinking out loud, feeling my way through the situation. "The Institute of Noetic Technology might have the necessary resources. They certainly regard themselves as the church's enemy, and when they lost that lawsuit against the church, and their appeal, they probably figured they had no further legal recourse. If they still wanted revenge, they'd have to get it some other way.
"Then there's the COGS, the Church of God in Science. Or actually its various and apparently numerous extremist groups. There's got to be some well-heeled people among them. They'd be nearly impossible to investigate, because the extremist groups don't have formal memberships. Mostly they seem to be ad hoc groups, and they're all hostile to anyone who asks questions. We can assume that various local police agencies throughout the country have moles in them, along with the FBI, but they certainly aren't going to give us any information about Christman, assuming there is any and they have it."
Butzburger was taking it pretty well. He looked serious but not upset. "My guess," I went on, "is that neither of those groups has the expertise necessary to get to Mr. Christman and kidnap him. But presumably they have the money necessary to contract the job out to some underworld outfit that does have that expertise. And it would make sense for them to contract with an L.A. mob—people who know the city. So one thing I'll do is talk to information sources in the underworld, and see what they may have heard.
"Then there are the families of converts who've broken their family ties and joined the church. Especially those who've joined church staffs. How many centers are there, worldwide? Seventy-eight?"
"Something like that."
"So the number of hostile family members has got to be large," I went on. "Again though, the only way they could get at Christman would seem to be through the underworld.
"But why would any of these want Christman to disappear quietly? It would be a lot easier to have him ambushed, or his office bombed—something like that."
I paused, examining the man sitting across from me, his face, his eyes. "I'll look into all those possibilities as best I can. But I'll tell you, Mr. Butzburger, if Mr. Christman has been kidnaped or quietly killed, it's likeliest to have been by some faction within the church. They had access to him. They knew his habits, his patterns of movement, his vulnerabilities. They could approach him without arousing his suspicion.
"You talked about a power struggle in the hierarchy. I can imagine a faction that is less interested in saving the world than in getting rich and powerful." Actually I could imagine both factions like that. "And the Church of the New Gnosis has a large income, even if the published estimates are high by a factor of ten. Maybe one of those factions feels that they could really take over if Christman was out of the way."