“So you’re on board—you’re definitely coming with us?” I straightened in my plastic chair and let out a slow breath.
“Oh, yeah. I’m getting in on the ground floor, bro. The first few disciples in successful cults always get to live in the big house in the compound. Plus they get to boss people around and later commit crimes and then cover them up and have lots of sex.”
“I think we might try to do things differently,” I said.
“Ah, don’t tell me that. I just flew a zillion miles and ate bad pizza. I need an incentive. Where’s my spiritual babe with bare boobs?” He looked around as though she might be lurking nearby. “Hey,” he said. “There’s a giant Samoan-looking guy out on the sidewalk. Is that Jason?”
I glanced out the window. “Yeah. That’s him. He’s a specimen, isn’t he?”
Jason wore a pinstriped charcoal suit with a light blue shirt and a red tie. He looked as though he might be heading to a photo shoot for a magazine cover. Fortunately, he walked by without spying us.
A moment later one of my brothers strolled by, too.
“Whoa,” Chris said. “Look at that. That’s surreal.”
My doppelgänger spotted us and waved cheerily. We waved back. He kept walking.
“If you think that’s weird, just wait ten minutes for the next crazy thing to happen,” I told Chris. “Let’s see who walks by next. It’ll probably be your middle school girlfriend or a Beatle.”
It was Marco and Lucy.
“That’s him,” I said. “That’s Marco.”
“You’re in this country a few days, and now you know everybody that strolls by?”
Marco locked eyes with Chris through the window glass and smiled.
“Whoa,” Chris said. “I’m feeling all this shit in my chest.”
“Yeah. He does that.”
“Whoa,” Chris kept repeating every few seconds as Marco did whatever he was doing.
The waitress showed up with our check while he was still at it. “Is he okay?” she asked, gesturing at Chris with ring-laden fingers.
“He’s undergoing a spiritual transformation,” I told her. “Just ignore him.”
“Okay, no worries,” she said, ambling away.
By the time I paid with a few of the colorful New Zealand bills that Marco had given me back on the island, our mentor was gone. Chris still had the “whoas,” though. I wondered if I should slap him or something. It would have been fun, but he came back to himself before I got around to doing it.
“I feel more alive now,” Chris said.
“Yes.”
“I like it.”
“Yes.”
“It’s hard to talk.”
“Yes.”
“What’ll we do now?” Chris asked.
“Beats me.”
So we sat. Chris was quiet for once in his life. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and we probably needed to check in for our flight soon. In a half hour, we’d rendezvous with Bhante or his people—probably Jason. I was a bit concerned that my brother had seen us and knew where we were, but it looked as though Marco would join us soon, and he could probably handle whatever arose.
He showed up a few minutes later without his beagle companion and sat down at our table. “Lucy will meet us in India,” Marco told me. “I like your backpack,” he said to Chris.
“Here’s my first question,” Chris said, suddenly coming back on line and staring at him. “Which came first—the chicken or the egg?”
“That’s what you want to know?” I asked. “That’s the first thing you want to say?”
“It’s a test,” Marco said. “He’s been saving this up for a long time.”
Chris nodded.
“Actually, neither comes first,” Marco said. “There is a mutual arising of all so-called events, which only appear to us to be sequential, given our inability to directly perceive the broadband of now in which all illusion emerges. So-called paradoxes and other logical dilemmas are simply particularly challenging iterations of what we are called upon to face in each moment—that there is a transcendental realm beyond our experience in which nothing is pitted against anything else, largely because there are actually no separate parts (or people) to play those roles. So truth embodies paradox. There is no time. There are no chickens. And there is nothing for you to wonder about because there is no you.”
After a few beats, while I was still working my way through that, Chris said, “Okay. That totally makes sense to me. Modern physics says just about the same thing, only with a lot more math. What about the meaning of life?”
“The word meaning is, ironically, a meaningless concept when one is attempting to summate that which is meta to the observer.”
“Hey, I never got answers like these,” I complained. “This is good stuff.”
“One size does not fit all,” Marcus said.
“Well, in human terms, then,” Chris said. “What’s the best approximation of the meaning of life?”
“Loving connectedness,” Marco said and smiled. “We need to get moving.”
There were no nonstops to Mumbai, but Marco had booked us on a flight with a brief layover in Sydney, Australia. We were flying first class, so the young man who checked us in—and almost broke his back dragging Chris’s backpack—offered us the refuge of the airline’s VIP lounge. It wasn’t far, and it was a much more comfortable environment than the airport at large.
“We’ll be safer here,” Marco said once we’d settled into three adjacent leather armchairs.
“What’s the plan for giving the car keys back?” I asked him.
“Chris will meet whoever’s at the information desk and say he’s me.” Aside from his more edifying answers, Marco also spoke with more animation around Chris than he had with me.
“Say what?” Chris said.
“It’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll be nearby, and I’ll intercede if necessary,” Marco said. “We can’t send Sid out there, or they might grab him again. And they don’t need to know who I am. That’s our ace in the hole.”
“Couldn’t they have seen you with us just now?” I asked.
“They didn’t,” Marco stated matter-of-factly.
“How do you know that?” Chris asked, cocking his head.
Marco offered up his customary enigmatic smile.
“Okay, whatever,” Chris said after a while. “But dude, I can’t pull that off. I’m just a chubby nerd. It’s true that I now know the answers to all of life’s mysteries, but that and a quarter will still get my ass kicked.”
“I sent you energy, and you can send it to them,” Marco said.
“Really? Cool.”
“Aim your right forefinger at whoever’s the scariest person you meet at the information booth,” Marco said. “Then say ‘Marco’s energy’ to yourself. The rest will take care of itself.”
“What’ll I say out loud, wordwise, to them?”
“Ask random people in the area if they’re from ‘Kasriti Sanganika.’ Say that back to me.”
Chris obliged. It took him three tries to get it right.
“That’s the secret name of Bhante’s organization,” Marco explained. “No one’s supposed to know it.”
“What does it mean?” I asked. I was dying to know.
“The Secret Path Society.”
“Hey, they should write a screenplay, too,” Chris said. “That’s the lamest secret name I ever heard.”
“Have you ever done any improv?” Marco asked.
“Improv comedy?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Pretend you have,” Marco said. “Here are the keys. Let’s go.”
So they left me in the lounge. I would’ve been nervous in the past, but I was fine. Whatever happened was just the next scene in this quirky movie that my life had become. I was interested in how it turned out, but I wasn’t attached to it in the same old way. In fact, I was able to close my eyes and take a nap in my cushy leather chair.
Chri
s nudged me awake some time later. “Oh man,” he said. “That was great. Those fuckers don’t know what hit them.”
“Where’s Marco?”
“In the bathroom.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“So I got there, and there’s Jason and the guy who looks just like you by the kiosk. Jason’s got a crowd around him, and he’s signing autographs, but the other guy waves to me. I guess he recognized me from through the window of the restaurant. So I start throwing their secret name around, and they rush over. Jason is really fast, isn’t he? I wonder how he would’ve done in his prime in the NFL.” He’d been gesturing wildly, but now he held his hands together in his ample lap.
“These musings are not advancing your narrative arc,” I pointed out.
“Calm down, bro. We’ve got nothing to do until the plane takes off, right?”
“We still have to go through security,” I said, reaching down to pull up a sock.
“Whatever. So they’re really riled up. ‘How do you know that name?’ Jason asked me. I told him I was Marco, and that I knew everything. ‘Everything?’ he asks. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Ask me something.’ ”
“Chris, do you really think that was a good idea?”
“You bet. What do you think he asked me?” His expression was challenging. I needed to guess.
“The egg and the chicken thing?”
“Yes! And I remembered it almost word for word. So there we are in the middle of the airport, and people keep coming up to the guy and asking him for autographs while I’m blowing him away with my metaphysical knowledge. It was perfectly safe, too. It was totally public.”
“So you didn’t need to send any energy?” I would’ve liked to hear how that turned out.
“Well, I had to try it out, didn’t I? So I aimed it at your brother or whoever the hell he is.”
“Let me guess what happened,” I said, and then I described Pat the boatman’s response to receiving what came out of my finger.
“Yup. That’s exactly what happened. Then I handed Jason the keys and walked away.”
“So it was fun?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Marco ambled over and told us it was time to head to the gate, so we grabbed our bags and strode out of the lounge. On the way, I asked for details about Lucy. My understanding was you couldn’t just fly dogs across international borders like they were extra luggage.
“She’s traveling on her own. We’ll see her there,” was all I got.
“How did Chris’s impersonation help us become more affiliated with Bhante’s organization?” I asked next. “Wasn’t that the idea? We were supposed to hook up with them so we could use the clone scam to get the word out, right?”
Marco just shrugged. Chris got his questions comprehensively answered in concise, elegant language. I had to make do with shrugs.
The line at security wasn’t too long, and it moved along smoothly, but just after I passed through the x-ray machine, an older man in a blue suit told me to wait as the others moved ahead.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“We’ll need to go talk in another room,” he said, lifting my bag up off the conveyor belt. He was probably in his fifties, beefy with black curly hair and dark eyes. His badge said that his name was Vlad Goric. His parents could’ve been Croatian.
“I’m not going anywhere with you unless you explain what’s going on,” I told him.
“Sir, we believe your suitcase is made from an endangered species. We take that particular crime very seriously here in New Zealand. Please come with me.”
Chapter Twelve
A younger, pale-skinned security guard stepped forward and gripped my upper arm. He was built like a swimmer, with big shoulders. The two men marched me toward an unmarked door behind the security machines.
I looked around for Marco and Chris. They stood in the corridor just past us. Chris seemed concerned—his eyes were wide, and he was frowning. Marco’s affect was flat and neutral. It would take a lot more than this to erode his poise. As if they’d rehearsed it, Chris shrugged and Marco winked simultaneously. Then my escorts ushered me through the door into a brightly lit, institutional-looking hallway. I could’ve been in a school or a hospital. As the guard released my arm, and I walked between the two men down the hall, I was struck by how nonsensical the situation was. It just didn’t compute.
Why would I have been singled out for some sort of special attention? How could they glance at my antique suitcase and know what it was made of? I asked the older man—Vlad—that question.
“We received an anonymous tip,” he said. “And from the looks of this luggage, I’d say that no cows, pigs, or goats were sourced in its manufacture. An official is on his way here to make a final determination.”
We reached Vlad’s office, and I was surprised to see how cozy it was. There was wall-to-wall light-gray carpeting and incandescent lighting—two torchieres and an old-fashioned green banker’s desk lamp. The light blue walls were decorated with framed South Sea island travel posters. And all the modern furniture was unpainted maple—or some New Zealand equivalent. It could’ve been an upscale therapist’s office back in Santa Cruz.
I sat on a plain but elegant chair in front of a huge desk. Vlad parked himself behind it, moved a few things to the side, and placed my suitcase on top. The younger man stood behind me, his arms crossed across his chest.
“Do you really think I’m smuggling a suitcase?” I asked. “Isn’t that rather unlikely? People generally smuggle what’s in suitcases, don’t they?”
“Possession of contraband is a class III felony,” he told me. “Could I have your passport, please?”
I handed it over, and he typed my information into the black desktop computer that sat just to his right. Then he opened my bag and began sifting through its meager contents. I sat and watched his painstaking search. Eventually, Vlad returned to the computer screen and read whatever was on it. Then he began questioning me.
“Why is it we have no record of you entering this country?” he asked, leaning back.
“I came in on a private jet,” I told him, leaning forward.
“To which airport?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He leaned forward.
I shrugged. “It was dark.” I leaned back.
“I see.” Obviously, he didn’t. He stared at me, deadpan, his eyes dull. At least he could’ve pretended to be interested in my answers. “Whose aircraft was this?” he asked woodenly.
“I don’t know.”
“Where did the flight originate?” he asked.
“I don’t know that either. Some island.”
He leaned back again and stared at his hands for a moment. They were clasped together, propped on top of my suitcase. As I watched, his grip tightened until the veins on the back of his hands stood out. I’d misunderstood. This guy cared a lot.
“Have you seen police television shows?” he asked, keeping his tone modulated.
“Sure. Lots of them.” I didn’t have to work at staying calm. I couldn’t take any of this seriously enough to get upset.
“This is a bit different—I’m a customs officer—but some of the same principles apply. Giving vague, stupid, or false answers is not in your best interest. If you cooperate with me, we can probably sort things out and get you on your way in short order.”
“Even though my suitcase might constitute a felony?”
“I’ve never seen a case like this prosecuted,” he told me. “No pun intended. But we need to find out more about what’s going on. Fair enough?” He caught my eye and invited my agreement.
I nodded and considered lying to make my story sound more plausible.
“What is the purpose of your trip to India?” he asked next, fondling my air ticket.
I knew that one. I was pleased. “I’ll be hanging out in a saint’s tomb, soaking up all the good energy,” I said.
“You are a spiritual person?”
“I guess I am.”
He stared at his hands again, although they weren’t steepled anymore. They weren’t his best feature. I liked his dark, curly hair, though, and his teeth. He had very even teeth.
“How does your current behavior square with your spiritual values?” Vlad asked.
“I see where you’re going with this,” I said. “I should tell you that I’m a psychotherapist. I’m not sure it’s worthwhile to try this sort of thing with me.”
He looked me squarely in the eye. Now it was obvious that he was an intense guy hiding inside a mellow persona. “I thrive on challenge,” he said tersely. “Now tell me about the painting kits.”
“They’re just to keep the other stuff from rattling around,” I said.
“You seem to have packed exceptionally light for an international trip. Why is that?”
“I lost my stuff when I was rescued at sea,” I told him. He pursed his lips and turned to his computer screen again. I studied the travel posters. Fiji looked incredibly beautiful, but I was pretty sure I could endure Bora Bora if I had to.
“You’re the missing tourist from the Bay of Islands boating accident?”
“Yes.”
“And then you were involved in an altercation near Kawakawa?”
“If you say so.”
He cocked a bushy black eyebrow.
“I don’t know my way around,” I said. “Where’s Kawakawa?”
“Where a friend of yours disabled four thugs,” he said.
“Yeah, I was there. But they attacked us.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
He cocked his eyebrow again. It was a very expressive eyebrow. And it was about three times the size of mine.
“I guess I’d rather not say,” I added. “You wouldn’t believe me, anyway.”
He sat and stared at me for a very long time—maybe five minutes. I was accustomed to stares and silence in my work. I’d once worked with a plumber who’d sit down and ponder his first sentence for ten or fifteen minutes every session. Perhaps Vlad was employing an airport security technique that had been proven effective with less sophisticated endangered-animal luggage smugglers.
“Do you know when your expert is due?” I finally asked. “I don’t want to miss my flight.”
Coattail Karma Page 14
