Another difficulty in using his skills was the initial contact, psychically "finding" the person he wanted to eavesdrop on, or possibly control. Once a contact was made, it left him with a connection which, while tenuous and subliminal, made the person easy to reach again. But to make that first contact, he needed an intermediary, a live introduction, so to speak. He hadn't learned to surmount that requirement, though he expected to. Thus he'd found and connected with Alex DeSmet by first controlling an old student in Monterey, and implanting a post-hypnotic command to meet and cultivate DeSmet.
Then, after cautiously infiltrating DeSmet, he'd prodded and peered, and learned about a man named Kelly Masters.
* * *
When one of his out-of-use contacts had a shock of some sort, it sometimes caught the old man's attention from a distance. The criterion seemed to be whether or not the event had anything to do with his own interests. Lon Thomas had just received not a shock, but a troubling report, and it was that which had interrupted the old man's reading.
It had been months since he'd eavesdropped on Thomas' mind. He'd long since learned what he'd needed from Thomas, and the man seemed quite able to scuttle the Church of the New Gnosis unintentionally and unassisted, given time. Now though— Something clearly was wrong.
Thomas was at Christman's mountain retreat. The old man listened, then ferreted out what had preceded it.
It had begun the night before. The sentry dogs had barked furiously and at length, and finally Thomas had roused enough to call Security. The chief told him that the perimeter alarms had not been triggered. The dogs' attention had been on the ridgetop, in the direction of the observatory. Perhaps a bear was prowling up there.
Thomas had had a patrol sent out, well armed and with the dogs. Then he'd lain back down. He was not very alert mentally. He'd rutted till late with his latest lady, maintaining his lust and capacity with Harem Smoke—illegal but readily available. The result had been deep exhaustion, and with the dogs shut up, he was asleep again as soon as his eyes closed.
What had drawn the old man's attention was not what had happened that night, however. It was Thomas' reaction to the security chief's report after breakfast. There were fresh landing marks in the snow on the ridgetop, on the other side of the fence. And foot tracks, several sets of them, ending at a point near the observatory.
The Gnostie chief didn't know the significance of the report, but it alarmed him in an undefined sort of way. The old man, on the other hand, sensed in a general way what it meant, and was possessed by a cold, intense anger. Two valuable tools were endangered, tools he'd cultivated carefully and with no little risk to himself, to his life. He wouldn't take action through Thomas, though. Thomas, it seemed to him now, was nothing. A fool! Like Christman had been a fool in the last analysis.
He'd use one of the endangered tools instead.
25
CLOUD MAN AND STEINHORN
The UCLA researcher removed the syringe from the flat, velvet-lined box. She knew that Martti had stopped at the mens' room again when they'd returned from Canter's, but she asked anyway. "Any last-minute business to take care of?"
"Nope. Let's do it."
She nodded, took his hand and held the syringe against the back of it, then pulled the trigger. The syringe hissed, and she put it back in the box. Martti watched, vision already blurring. Again he closed his eyes and began to talk.
On the day after we got back, I went into Morey's for breakfast. Indian was there at his favorite table, and waved me over. There was a strong-looking guy with him I hadn't seen before. He wore well-worn jeans and a new twill work shirt. I assumed he was from Yitzhak's, probably a Gnostie.
After I'd ordered my breakfast, I went over to them. "Martti," Indian said, "meet my friend Cloud Man. He's a new brother that lives at our house. He's started working for Yitzhak, too. Cloud Man, this is Martti Seppanen I told you about." He looked at me again. "I didn't tell him anything I shouldn't," he added.
Cloud Man and I shook hands. A Loonie? I doubted it. The Loonies I'd met, admittedly not very many, didn't have Cloud Man's watchful, appraising eyes. They tended to be easygoing, sometimes spaced out.
"Nothing doing today, eh?" I said.
"Nah. The turn of the month rush is over. Him and me got in fifty-eight hours in four days; I'm just as glad it's come up slow now. A real slate pool table and two baby grands, for chrissake! The pool table took eight of us, up thirty-one steps to this house in Woodland Hills! You shoulda been there. We could've used your muscle."
"No thanks. I thought Yitzhak generally didn't hire anyone but New Gnus."
"I guess I broke the ice. Now he'll hire other guys that's religious, if they come in recommended and they ain't druggies. How you doin' with them? The Gnus, I mean."
"As little as possible." I didn't want anything more said about the Gnosties and myself in front of Cloud Man, so I changed the subject. "A slate pool table and two pianos, eh? Sounds like a workout all right."
"Yeah, and the world's biggest Murphy bed. That was on the fourth job. It must have weighed four hundred pounds, and opened out queen sized! No shit! We never did figure out how anyone got the sonofabitch into that fourth-floor apartment. It was one of those old buildings with narrow inside halls and narrow doors. We finally took it out through a bay window; used tie-straps tied together for rope. To keep it from bustin' the windows below it, we tied another rope to it, and a big guy—you know Bill Brawn? No? That's his real name! He was out on the lawn with the rope belayed around a tree, keepin' the Murphy bed away from the wall. I tell you, when we pushed it out the window, I almost shit my pants. I didn't know what would happen, whether it'd get away from us or what."
My food came, and while I ate, we talked about this and that, mostly the Dodgers. Then I left. I couldn't help wondering if Cloud Man was an undercover Gnostie. That would account for Yitzhak hiring him, and he could have been sent by Lon Thomas. No, I told myself, not after what happened. Thomas isn't that stupid. And just because the guy might see me in Morey's now and then, he'd be in no position to learn what we're doing.
So, was he LAPD? If he was, it was none of my business, which didn't make me less curious. I spent awhile that morning with Carlos, shuffling the photos, staring at them. To the cost of Charles Tomasic's services, add my travel and lodging and everybody else's, and the charter costs for the skyvan, including Hamilton's and my earlier trip . . . Altogether those photos had cost Butzburger more than six thousand dollars, not including my hours. And I still had no idea who the kidnappers were, or how to find out; only what they looked like. The main thing I'd learned was that Christman had been abducted, that he hadn't just run off somewhere to a life of wealthy anonymity with a lady love.
Maybe that would be enough for Butzburger. I hoped not. It would be worse than coitus interruptus to pull out of this case now.
* * *
Most of that day and evening I spent on the unpromising cycle of calling and visiting informants, with the usual total lack of success. One thing had changed though. Melanie wasn't seeing me anymore. I wasn't surprised. Someone could easily have an informer in her place, one she was aware of, working for someone who wouldn't like her having anything to do with an investigator of any kind.
The next morning I slept in, then spent most of the afternoon at Gold's, working off my frustrations. Maybe I hoped, subliminally, that some ideas would grow out of my sweat. They didn't. I spent the next few working days doing other stuff, for Carlos, till he felt he had to nudge me to get me back on the Christman case again. Nudging like that was something Carlos didn't like to do to his investigators, which tells you something about my mental state at the time.