"The truth is that a parishioner has to go through certain steps for a refund. We try to determine what, if anything, went wrong. If the fault was ours, we try to ensure that it doesn't happen again. It's a necessary step in quality control. We're the only church I know of that has a quality control division and offers refunds. Mr. Christman realized when he established the refund policy that it invited trouble. But he considered it the only ethical thing to do."
I jotted notes in speed-writing, as if I was doing more than chumming the water for serious fishing. "Two people have told me they've been trying to get refunds for more than a year, and have been sent to one office after another for a long list of approvals. From people who were 'in conference or out of town'—that sort of thing. After having had appointments with them. Do you know anything about that?"
"Mr. Eberly, fewer than two tenths of one percent of the people who receive services from the church apply for refunds. So. What sort of person does request one, do you suppose?" He paused, then answered his own question. "The malcontent, Mr. Eberly, the troublemaker. The compulsive liar. Someone who wants something for nothing. Gnosis isn't for everyone—we don't deceive ourselves that it is. But even people who resign from the church seldom request refunds, often despite extreme pressure from family members, and often under the influence of the psychiatric establishment or predatory lawyers. Until you realize these simple facts, you'll have difficulty writing a factual account of the church."
I nodded, wondering if that figure, two tenths of one percent, was correct, or something he'd plucked out of the air. In my business, you learn that some people create lies as easily as they breathe, and I remembered what Ole had said about lying drills. And Thomas' eyes didn't tell me a thing.
"I've also been told," I said—actually I'd only read it—"that Mr. Christman ordered the church to frustrate all refund requests until the requester gave up. What truth is there to that?"
Thomas' lips thinned and tightened. "None. That is patent slander. For years Mr. Christman has paid no attention whatever to the financial activities of the church. They distracted him from his key and vital function, his central purpose—his research. He established basic financial and other policies years ago, and left management to the managers he appointed, and their successors."
Now it was time to bring up serious business. "Is it true that threats have been made against Mr. Christman's life?"
He handled it without blinking. "Of course. Any major public figure, especially one who runs counter to various establishments, receives threats. He'd have felt he wasn't doing his duty if he didn't get death threats."
"You feel no concern then for Mr. Christman's safety?"
He sighed, an act somewhere between impatience and being worn out by stupid questions. "Mr. Eberly, I can't imagine they could even find Mr. Christman to harm him. Even I don't know where he is. He has retired to carry on his spiritual researches in virtually complete seclusion. His written message to me was that he'd employed three persons to see to his personal needs."
Three persons. That was up two from the "message" read at the Palladium. "He must have financial needs," I said. "How does the church get money to him?"
"Mr. Christman was a wealthy man before he established the church. He then sold his business and converted the funds into more fluid and convenient investments. My impression is that many of them survived the Crash of '96, and subsequently became profitable again. The key point is, he receives no money from the church, none, and never did. I presume he lives on investment income."
Not for the first time I wished we had a contract with the state or city for some aspect of this case. Then I could use the State Data Center and maybe track down his whereabouts from credit flows. If he was still alive.
"Not long ago," I said, "the church was the victor in a lawsuit brought against it by the Institute of Noetic Technology. Is the institute a possible danger to Mr. Christman in his retirement?"
He stared at me for a long moment. Something was going on with him, but I didn't know what.
"Mr. Eberly," he said slowly and deliberately, "this interview is wasting my time. Either you don't grasp what I tell you, or you ignore it. Write your book or article and send me a copy of the manuscript, and I'll either critique it for you myself, or have one of our attorneys do it."
He stood up. "And now— And now, Mr. Eberly, I want you off these premises."
At that point something flared in him, a focused anger. Generally when someone gets mad, it splashes; his anger was as hard and sharp as a laser. "AND I MEAN NOW! GET YOUR . . . "
He mixed his obscenities in unlikely combinations, leaning over his desk at me and pointing at the door. At the time it shook me, shook me deeply, and it takes a lot to do that. If it had come down to it, if he'd attacked me physically, I could have stomped the seeds out of him without any trouble at all. And looking back at what happened and what didn't, I think he suspected as much, or knew it, but it didn't matter to him.
At the time though, like I said, it shook hell out of me, and it was more than fear I felt. It was the sheer blasting force of his anger. It knocked the breath out of me. I backed out of his office door, then turned and hurried through his secretary's office and into the hall. I didn't even pause to see what kind of look she had on her face.
* * *
I didn't slow down in the hall, either, or wait for an elevator. Both cabs were down, so I used the stairwell. The crash-door at the bottom opened into a first-floor corridor. I followed it to the lobby, and went out the front door into the bright April afternoon. The entry guard paid no attention to me at all, just chewed his gum. Pausing, I pulled myself together, relieved to find my attaché case in my right hand, then strode north down Kinglet Place toward the parking lot. My personal antennae were up even higher than usual, and I was aware that someone was walking behind me, not quite as fast as I was. Not trying to catch up, but there. There was no reason there shouldn't be, of course. People walk on the sidewalk all the time. I angled across the street, looking both ways as I did, and catching a look at the person behind me. He was neither black nor bearded; one of the uniformed teenagers I'd seen earlier, running errands in the Admin Building.
I took another look when I turned in at the parking lot gate. He'd stopped at the sidewalk to the Neophyte Building, not seeming to do anything, just standing there as if waiting, or listening to the birds.
A minute later, as I stopped my car to pay the gateman, I saw the kid still there, watching the gate now. He saw me, then looked the other way and started to walk back toward the Admin Building. That, it seemed, was a signal. There was a parking lot across the street, with a sign that said Staff Only, and by the time I'd rolled out into the street, a veteran white Dodge Westerner was nosing out. I turned north and so did it.
It hadn't been near enough that I knew what the driver looked like, beyond being white and beardless.
I drove to the next cross street, Villamere, and turned west. I'd gone maybe half a block when the Dodge turned west too. I stayed on Villamere west to Vermont, and turned north. So did he. Vermont had a lot a traffic, but he stayed near enough to keep me in sight, and when I came to the on-ramp to the Hollywood Freeway east, I took it. He did too. He still had me in sight when I exited onto the Harbor Freeway south. He did the same. Which almost guaranteed he was following me: If he'd wanted to go south on the Harbor from the Campus, it would have been shorter and quicker to take Wilshire.
But how could Thomas have gotten someone on me that quickly? Or had he set this up before he had me brought to him?