“I know where that is,” Marissa said.
“May I offer you a cool drink or a coffee?” Brother Jonathan asked.
“We don’t want to put you to any trouble. We’ll just run up to the village.”
“No trouble at all. We’ll just go over to the commissary.”
We followed him down the corridor to the dining room. We could hear sounds of people working in the kitchen. No sooner did we sit down than a bearded young man appeared. We all asked for coffee.
“You’re doing very well, I understand,” Brother Jonathan said. “I’m really pleased for you.”
“Thank you.” The young man came back with the coffee. “How long have you been out here?”
“Two years now. I helped build the place. Most of it was built with leftover material from the hotel construction.”
“Don’t you miss home?”
“No. My home is where my work takes me. If Reverend Sam feels I can serve him better here, then I am content.”
I tasted the coffee. One sip was enough. I put it down without saying anything. “This is a school?”
“Not really. It is more of a seminary. We bring members to the second plane, so that they can go forward and teach.”
“How long does that take?”
“It varies. Some have more problems disconnecting than others. Two years, three years, who knows? When they are ready, they move out. We have no formal time limit.”
“What about Denise?”
He hesitated a moment before answering. “Yes. She’s here.”
“Can we see her?”
“You can. But I would prefer that you do not. For her sake,” he added quickly. “As you know, she felt very strongly about you. It has been extremely difficult for her to disconnect and I am afraid that if she saw you, she would have a severe setback.”
“You make it sound as if I were a communicable disease.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that she has come a long way. I would not like to see her lose the ground she has gained. She is just beginning to achieve tranquility.”
“I understand. But when the time is right, could you tell her that we asked for her?”
I thought a look of relief crossed his face. “Of course, I will do that.”
“I think we’ll get on to the session. Thank you for the coffee.”
He rose. “My pleasure.”
“If there is anything I can do for you back home, just drop me a line and it will be done.”
“Thank you. But Reverend Sam provides us with all we need.”
He followed us out to the car. I waved to him through the open window. “Peace and love.”
He raised his hand in a kind of benediction. “Peace and love.”
He was still there as the car went out the gate and turned up the road toward the Indian village.
42
The road wound through the fields that belonged to the Retreat. In each of the fields we could see four or five men and women at work tending the crops. They did not seem under any great pressure and moved almost languidly in the heat. They wore tan cotton khaki shirts and pants, and native wide-brimmed straw hats shielded their faces. They did not look up as we drove by, although they must have heard the sound of the car. We passed the last field about a mile and a half from the Retreat and entered a small forest glade.
“We are now on the property of Señor Carillo,” Marissa said. “You met him at the reception. He is the largest landowner in the area and a first cousin to the governor. His brother is the mayor.”
“What does he do?”
“Nothing,” Marissa said. “He is rich.”
“I mean, is he in farming? Cattle?”
“A little of both. But mostly it is his tenants that do those things. He collects rents. The Indian village is also on his property. He is from the oldest family in the state.” She continued in a faintly bitter tone. “They do not threaten him with expropriation of his lands as they did my cousin and he owns four times as much as they do.”
The village, just on the other side of the glade, consisted of a collection of timeworn adobe and wooden shacks. It seemed completely deserted.
“Where is everybody?” I asked.
“No one has lived here for twenty years,” Marissa answered. “The last of the Indians are supposed to have moved into the hills. But no one really knows for sure.”
“That doesn’t make sense. People just don’t vanish. They must have some contacts.”
“There are none.” She hesitated a moment. “It has been whispered that Carillo has done away with them. But they are only Indians. No one seems to care.”
We drove through the dusty street of the village, entered still another small forest on the far side and a moment later came into an open field, where the photo session was taking place.
The first thing I noticed were the uniformed armed guards standing about nonchalantly with M-1 rifles in the crooks of their arms. I saw them glance at our car and, just as quickly, glance away. There were at least thirty or forty of them.
“Policemen?” I asked Marissa.
“No. They are Carillo’s private guards.”
“What are they doing here?”
“They are protecting the visitors. There are many bandits in these parts. It is not wise to travel alone here.”
She stopped the car and we walked over to the group. Bobby looked up and saw us. He checked his watch and held up his hand. “Okay. Break for lunch.”
“How’s it coming?” I asked.
“Pretty good. I got four setups done already. If I can get five in this afternoon, we’ve got it made. We brought box lunches from the hotel if you’d like to join us.”
“You’re on,” I said. I turned in time to catch Eileen and Marissa staring at King Dong slipping into his pants. It wasn’t easy for him. It took some care to arrange the pants so that they fitted over his bulge. I laughed. “You girls want to join us for lunch?”
We sat in the shade under some trees, eating the box lunch of cold beer and wine, chicken, roast beef, fish in aspic, tortillas and French bread.
“We did three setups in the village,” Bobby said. “Great backgrounds. We have one more here. Then we go on to Carillo’s place. He’s given us special permission to photograph in his gardens. They told me he has acres and acres of flowers.”
“Sounds good,” I said, popping open another Carta Blanca. “Has Dieter been around?”
Bobby shook his head. “Haven’t seen him.”
“I heard he was coming up here.”
“Never showed.”
“How about Lonergan and Julio?”
“Nope.”
Bobby’s assistant came up to us. “We’re ready to go.”
Bobby got to his feet and looked down at me. “Back to work.”
I checked Marissa and Eileen. “You girls want to stay and watch?”
That was a stupid question. They followed Bobby down to the set. I watched for a few minutes while the models got set for the next shot. King Dong was nude again and lying spread-eagled on the ground with his hands and feet fastened to stakes. This frame supposedly represented his capture and the girls presumably teasing and torturing him while making up their minds what to do with him. From the way they were acting it looked as if it could turn into reality at any moment. They could not keep their hands off him and it was getting to be more than he could take. He was almost totally erect when Bobby began to yell at him.
“For Christ’s sake, be professional! You know goddamn well that we can’t print pictures showing full erections. Soften it up, you dumb bastard!”
“I cain’t help it, Mr. Bobby,” King Dong said in a plaintive voice. “Make them girls stop foolin’ with it. I’m only human.”
“All right, girls, quit horsin’ around!” Bobby said. “This is serious business.”
“You want me to throw some cold water on it?” Bobby’s assistant asked.
“We tried that the last tim
e,” Bobby said disgustedly. “It didn’t work.”
“I don’t know what you’re all upset about, Bobby,” Samantha Jones said soothingly. “I can take care of it.”
“Oh, shit. We haven’t got time for that.”
“Really. I’m not goin’ to fuck him or anything. I used to be a nurse and there was a trick we used in the hospital. Works every time.”
“Okay,” Bobby said.
Samantha knelt on the ground beside him. Delicately she raised his phallus, holding it straight up in the air between three fingers. “How does that feel?” she asked, smiling sweetly.
King Dong’s grin was broad. “Real fine.”
Her other hand moved quickly and then there was a sound of a sharp slap. The phallus snapped against his hip.
“Ow!” he yelled.
Samantha got to her feet and looked down. The erection had gone. “Never fails,” she said smiling.
King Dong scowled at her. “Dyke cunt!”
“Okay,” Bobby shouted. “Let’s get back to work.”
I watched for a few minutes, then walked back toward the village. I didn’t mind seeing the pictures, but I had no interest in the taking of them. I noticed two of the armed guards fall in step about twenty yards behind me.
The windows in the little shacks were all gone and the doors hung on broken hinges. I stopped and looked in one of them. There was nothing inside except a few pieces of broken furniture and layers of dust and sand. When I glanced back, the guards were standing at the edge of the street.
The voice came from a building at the corner. “Gareth!”
I looked around but saw nothing.
“Up here!”
Denise was sitting on a windowsill, her legs dangling out of the building’s second story. “Catch me!” she cried.
Automatically I caught her as she jumped. “Are you nuts?” I asked angrily.
She grabbed my hand. “Quick. Follow me!”
We ran up the street, around another corner, then across the field into the forest. It took almost five minutes to reach the trees on the far side of a barbed-wire fence. We sat down at the base of a giant tree that concealed us from view.
“What’s this all about?” I asked, catching my breath.
“We’re not supposed to go on Carillo’s property,” she said.
“For Christ’s sake!”
“No,” she said seriously. “That’s why he has the guards.”
“All they can do is throw you out. They can’t shoot you.”
“They can do anything they want. It’s his property.”
“That’s crazy.”
“This is Mexico.” She looked up at me. “I didn’t want to leave you. You know that.”
I was silent for a moment. “Nobody pushed.”
“I had to. But I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“Is it bad?”
“I miss you so much. That’s what’s bad.”
“Then come back.”
“I can’t do that. If I do, I’ll never reach the second plane.”
“What the fuck is so important about that? It’s more important that you’re happy.”
“Brother Jonathan says that I will be happy when I can disconnect. He says it’s harder for some than others.”
“He didn’t want me to see you.”
“He was protecting me.”
“From whom? He knows I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“From myself. But he didn’t have to say anything. Nobody had to. I knew you were here.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I felt your aura,” she said.
“Keep that up and you’ll have me believing it.”
“It’s true,” she said. “But I wasn’t sure. Three days ago he assigned me to an awareness trip.”
“What’s that?”
“Mescaline. To expand the consciousness.” She reached out and touched my face lightly. The pupils of her eyes were dilated. “Even now I’m not sure that it’s really you and that I’m not tripping.”
“It’s really me.”
“I’m not sure.” She began to cry. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
I pulled her head down to my chest. “It’s real.”
She was silent for a moment. “Bobby and Eileen are here with you, too?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I felt them, too.” She moved away from me. “But it was you that drew me. I followed your aura from the Retreat.”
I was silent.
She fished in her shirt pocket and came up with a machine-rolled yellow-papered joint and lit it. She took two heavy tokes, then passed it to me. I dragged deeply. It zapped me like an explosion. I’d never had grass like this.
“Where did this come from?” I asked. “It’s dynamite.”
“It grows all over the place. This is doper’s paradise. Mescaline, peyote, marijuana and a hundred others that I don’t even know the names of. All you have to do is go out into the field and pick them.” She took the joint from my fingers and pinched it out. Carefully she put it back into her pocket.
She got to her feet and looked down at me. “I’ll have to go back now. Before the people in the fields report that they saw me come down here.”
I felt very relaxed. “What difference does it make? They probably never even noticed. They didn’t even look up when we drove by in the car.”
“They saw you. But it didn’t matter. They were all stoned.”
“Stoned? Then how could they work?”
She laughed. “They don’t work.”
“But the crops—”
“That’s a big joke. We really don’t grow anything out there. We just go out to meditate. Carillo sends in all the food that we need. We don’t have to do anything except prepare ourselves for the second plane.”
“Is everybody on shit?”
“Almost everybody. Some aren’t. But they’re already second plane and they can achieve without help. Brother Jonathan is first plane. He doesn’t need anything.”
I remembered the whiskey he had hidden in the office at Fullerton. Maybe he wasn’t quite as cool as Denise thought.
“Come home with me,” I said.
“I can’t. I’m just beginning to be able to deal with the desires of my flesh. I know I can go all the way.”
“All what way?”
“Toward freedom, Gareth. To a point where I can soar far above the earth without my body and communicate my spirit to everyone I want. I will dwell on many planets and on many levels of consciousness. I will be one with the universe.”
I was silent.
She bent down over me. “You won’t tell anyone that we met?”
“I won’t.”
A faint smile came to her lips. “Goodbye, Gareth. Peace and love.”
“Peace and love,” I answered.
But she was already gone. Slowly I got to my feet. I felt dizzy and put a hand against the tree to steady myself. The whole thing felt unreal. I began to wonder whether it had ever happened or whether I was hallucinating from the grass or too much heat and sun. Then the dizziness passed and I made my way back to the village. The armed guards were waiting for me. They let me pass without speaking and then, maintaining a discreet distance, followed me back to the car.
43
The bus had moved into the field and the equipment was being loaded for the move to the next location. King Dong and the models were already aboard as I came up. Bobby turned toward me. “Coming with us?”
I shook my head. “I think I’ll go back.” I looked at Eileen and Marissa. “I can find my way if you want to go with them.”
Eileen answered for both of them. “We’ll go back with you.”
Bobby climbed into the bus. “Okay. See you tonight then.”
We walked back to our car. Marissa turned it around and we started back the way we had come. They were still working in the fields as we drove by. I looked at them more carefully this time. They had to be high. There was a languo
r about them that did not suggest heavy work.
As we came to the gate of the Retreat, I impulsively told Marissa to turn in. I asked them to wait in the car for a moment while I went inside.
Brother Jonathan wasn’t in his office. I went down to the commissary. The dining room was empty, so I went back to the kitchen, where a few men and women were working.
“Peace and love,” I said. “Is Brother Jonathan around?”
“Peace and love,” they chorused.
The man nearest me answered. “He’s not in the office?”
“No.”
They glanced at each other; then the young man stepped forward. “I’ll find him for you.”
“I don’t want to disturb your work. Just tell me where to find him.”
“No trouble. He’s probably in the laboratory.”
“Laboratory?”
He smiled. “That’s what we call the chapel down here.” I followed him into the dining room. “If you wait here, I’ll be back in a moment,” he said.
I fished a cigarette from my pocket. He returned alone a few minutes later.
“Brother Jonathan apologizes for not being able to see you,” he said. “But he is conducting a supplicant through transition and cannot leave.”
“How long will it take?”
“One never knows,” the young man answered. “Supplicants in transit can take anywhere from ten minutes to three days to disconnect.”
I thought for a moment. “Would you answer a question?”
“Of course.” The young man smiled. “We are all here to help and serve.”
“What happens if a candidate for the second plane can’t cut it?”
“Nothing. But it hasn’t happened yet. We are all very determined to reach our goal.”
“But if a candidate should change his mind, can he go home?”
He smiled again. “We’re not prisoners here. We came of our own free will. We can leave the same way.” He reached into his shirt pocket and came out with an airline ticket. He handed it to me. “On arrival all of us are given a return ticket home. One of the rules is that we always carry it on us as a reminder that we can leave if we want to.”
I looked at the ticket. It was an open return to Chicago. Prepaid. I gave it back to him without comment.
Harold Robbins Thriller Collection Page 44
