“In the late seventies, I was a deprogrammer. There wasn’t much literature about cult psychology yet and what there was was primitive. I had a ‘patient’ abducted and subjected to involuntary deprogramming in a locked hotel suite. I was young and enthusiastic and knew all the answers. On the third day, Joel slashed his wrists using glass from the bathroom mirror. They teach them that, you see, because it gets them to the hospital, where they can phone the cult leadership. The cult shows up with lawyers, frees the member, presses charges—you get the picture. But Joel was overzealous. After seventy-two hours, I can hardly blame him.” A doleful grin. “He lost too much blood.” His hands parted, then clapped faintly together. “I came apart afterward—spent a few years mired in self-loathing. My marriage didn’t survive.”
Tim glanced around—no pictures in sight.
“I’m a doer, you see. Just like Tom Altman.” Bederman’s tone regained its briskness. “My wife’s remarried now, her high-school sweetheart. They’re good enough to send a card every year at the holidays. And so it’s just me and this little house. All these years I’ve been unable to change it. I keep wanting to do something to make it my own, but I suppose... I don’t know. I put everything I have into my work, trying to get it right this time around, and the next, and the next.” A melancholy chuckle. “I suppose I hope that’ll redeem me.”
“I know that hope.”
They sat silent for a few moments.
Finally Tim said, “I want to save Leah, and I want to keep her intact.”
Bederman’s smile warmed his face. “She’s not just a passive victim. She’s a sensitive, intelligent person with feelings and doubts of her own. Encourage her to imagine other possibilities. Make it safe for her to express her doubts, to reconnect with her former life, with herself.”
“How?”
He laughed. “How much time you got?”
“Until eight A.M. tomorrow.”
He favored Tim with a little dip of his head. “You’ve got to play them as they play you, staying one step ahead of the game. A key strategy will be winning the confidence, even the trust, of the group. Leah has to know you’re able to see it from her perspective. Once you know the Program doctrine, you’ll be able to identify internal hypocrisies and inconsistencies. Stay focused on how cult members behave, not what they believe. You’ll be interacting with her in a milieu where everything is carefully orchestrated to control her. See if you can establish enough trust to get her to agree to a consensual intervention, a meeting on neutral ground with family, friends, former cult members if you can find them, and a counselor.”
“Maybe when I’m done doing all that, I could end world hunger.”
“World hunger is passé. I’d recommend striving for peace on earth. Then if you perform well in the swimsuit competition, you can write your own ticket.” With a professorial tilt of his head, he took note of the discouragement on Tim’s face. “I’ll help you.”
Before Tim could express his gratitude, the doorbell rang.
“My eleven-o’clock.”
Tim moved to rise, but Bederman gestured for him to stay put. He made his way to the adjoining foyer. On the doorstep waited a kid in his early twenties gripping a briefcase and wearing a black knit tie, a shortsleeved button-up, and dark slacks. The gold lettering on the bound book he clasped threw off a glint of the morning sun.
“Hi, Glen. Matthew Gallagher from the Brotherhood of the Kingdom. I came by Thursday evening...?”
“Yes, of course. Come in.” Bederman stepped back, letting the kid enter. “I appreciate your agreeing to come back to see me on a Sunday.”
“It’s vital to spread the word, no matter the day or hour.”
Bederman rested a hand on his back. “Impressive nonetheless. I’d bet you’ve always found outlets for that initiative.”
Matthew moved stiffly, with little bend at the elbows. “I guess. But I’m here today to talk with you about the Kingdom of the Spirit.”
“My friend here would like to join us. I trust that’s all right with you?”
“The more the merrier.” Matthew shook hands with Tim, sat on the opposing couch, and began to spread out pamphlets on the coffee table.
Settling back into his chair, Bederman folded his hands across the slight bulge of his belly and shot Tim a wink. “Well,” he said, “we’d best get started.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Greeting him at the Hennings’ front door was a bodybuilder duo; it seemed at first glance that Rooch had been cloned in Tim’s absence. Tim managed to distinguish Rooch from his thick-necked playmate an instant before the squeaky articulation removed all doubt. “Mr. Henning expecting you?”
“No.”
Behind them the tile floors amplified a baby’s cries. Rooch’s twin chomped his gum. The bulge beneath his knockoff jacket was a pretty good indication that the death threats had rattled the Hennings more than they’d let on. His voice, accompanied by a waft of fruity breath, was better suited to his build. “You in the practice of just dropping in on people Sunday afternoons?” He offered a broad ledge of a grin, his dark hair pulled tight against his skull and taken up in a rabbit’s foot of a ponytail. He was the kind of guy who’d had his ego rewarded enough that he’d arrived at the conclusion that his dickhead temperament constituted a kind of charm.
“Listen, princess, when you’re teaching etiquette, I’ll be sure to sign up. In the meantime, tell him I’m here.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Have it your way. Please inform Mr. Henning that I’m no longer available to speak with him. This was his window, and he missed it.”
Tim started down the walk. He didn’t get three steps before Rooch’s hand clamped down over his shoulder, squeezing so tight he felt the bones grind. “Come on, hard-on. Don’t let Doug scare you off.”
“Doug just annoys me, Rooch. Does he scare you?”
Doug stood in the doorway. When Tim knocked shoulders with him on his way in, it felt like clipping a wall. Emma sat at the kitchen bar, bouncing the baby awkwardly in her lap, a pear-shaped Latina nanny looking on with concern. The baby’s mouth was an almost perfect O; the volume issuing forth seemed an anatomical impossibility. A woman with wrenched-back hair to match her facial skin cupped a frothy cappuccino in both well-manicured hands, her smile like a slit in a sheet of Saran Wrap. Will and a young man in a pilled sweater were hunkered over something at the kitchen table.
Will and Emma noticed Tim at the same time. The baby’s cries ceased the minute she was enfolded in the nanny’s plump arms. Will brusquely rose and directed a dismissive nod in the direction of the table. The young man gathered a profusion of red-penned pages to his chest and scooted out.
Will rocked on his heels and said, “Word guy,” by way of explanation. Emma’s friend gathered her purse. “Say hello to Leah. She’s doing well at Pepperdine?”
Emma’s eyes regarded Tim joylessly, even as she shoulder-clutched her friend and pressed cheeks. “Yes, wonderfully.”
Rooch showed the friend out; it seemed Doug wasn’t sufficiently housebroken to escort proper company.
“It’s for Leah’s own sake,” Emma said with a ferocity Tim was surprised she could muster. She scurried beside Tim down the hall. “Janice’s daughter, Leah’s age, is going to be a physician.”
“You don’t say.”
Once they’d descended into the oversize conversation pit of a living room, Will topped off a rocks glass. He’d yet to acknowledge Tim.
“You didn’t have me fired,” Tim said.
“You’re still our best shot.”
“I have some conditions.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Next thing you’ll show up with representation.”
“Representation?”
“Never mind. What are your conditions, Mr. Rackley?”
“I’m going to try to convince Leah to come to an intervention.” Emma sank heavily to the couch. “This isn’t some eating disorder.” Tim had Will’s attention
, so he forged ahead. “If I’m successful in getting her to a specified location, you’re gonna play it at her comfort level. That means you don’t so much as lock the door.”
Rooch and Doug had taken up posts on either side of the living-room entrance. Tim cast a wary eye in their direction. They stood still and watchful, exuding intelligence.
“And you’ll keep your help heeled.”
“She climbed out a window last time,” Will said. “It’s for her benefit for us to be a bit more... forceful at the early stages.”
“That’ll only lead to more problems.”
“I’m a producer. My job is to manage problems.”
“Not this one.”
“What about Betters?”
“Leave Betters to me.”
Tim’s tone seemed to conclude the matter satisfactorily for Will. “What are we supposed to do at this intervention?”
Tim offered Bederman’s card to Will, who held it by his waist and frowned down at it. “This is the leading guy in the area. He’ll take your call.”
“We don’t need some counselor to teach us how to talk to our daughter.”
“We need an expert to help us talk to someone indoctrinated by a cult.”
“We know how to talk to Leah.”
“Right. You can just slap her when she gets frustrating.”
The glass froze against Will’s lips. He lowered it slowly. “I was trying to reason with her. She’d shut herself off like a robot. Whenever I spoke, she murmured these self-help platitudes to herself, right over my voice.”
“So you figured if you hit her, she might listen better?”
Blotches of red were starting to bloom on Will’s cheeks and neck. “I never said I was a great parent. It doesn’t happen to be one of my strengths. But the fault doesn’t rest with me. There are a lot of parents who don’t provide at all. Their kids don’t join cults.”
“I don’t care about fault.”
“What do you care about?”
“Your daughter.”
Very slowly, Will set his glass down on the bar.
“I just here to get Leah out of this mess,” Tim said. “The rest is up to you. I’m not a shrink—hell, I’m not even a parent. But I do know that if I was in your shoes, I’d want to give some thought to the things this cult offers her that you didn’t.”
Emma came up off the couch. “Who are you to talk to us that way?”
“Tomorrow night, at possible risk to my life, I’m infiltrating the ranch of a cult to try to help your daughter. That buys me the right to talk to you however I want.” He turned to Will, who’d grown surprisingly quiet and thoughtful, his downbent head taking in Leah’s graduation picture on the bar. “What’s it gonna be?”
“Fine,” Will said. “No power moves.”
Tim offered his hand, and they shook.
The weedy front lawn brushed Tim’s calves. Boston stuck his muzzle through a rip in the screen door and tried to bark, but his constrained jaws managed only a muffled woof. Tim entered and crossed the stained carpet, junk mail and flyers crinkling underfoot, Boston threading his legs like a cat with a thyroid problem. He found Bear at the modest breakfast table placed injudiciously in the middle of the square of peeling linoleum that passed for the kitchen. Bear occupied the single chair accompanying the table; he’d removed the other three due to space considerations, a sensible decision but one that chipped away at Tim’s heart every time he dropped by.
Bear was eating turkey chili out of the can and, judging from the smears on his chin, enjoying it greatly.
“Reggie Rondell called,” Tim said. “He wants his housekeeper back.” Bear gestured around with a kidney bean-laden fork. “I keep telling Boston to clean up. Guess he’s not trained.” He retrieved a second chair from the garage and, gripping one leg, handed it to Tim over the table. They sat. Bear tilted the can toward Tim. “I think I got an extra fork around here somewhere.”
Tim gestured a blackjack stay. “How’d it go with Tannino?”
“Your pitch made him scowl, but it also put a gleam in his eyes. He says you have one shot at it. Bring him back something concrete and we’ll put Betters’s dick in the dirt.”
“I will. You insert a false death notice for Jenny Altman in the Hall of Records?”
“Yup. And injected Tommy Altman’s name into academic records at Pepperdine. And left you a getaway car where we discussed. And took care of everything else.”
“I got your message about Aaronson. He called with the breakdown on the food samples?”
“No pot or hash in the brownie, which was disappointing, but it had four times the normal amount of sugar.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I thought it tasted too sweet.”
“And the punch?”
“The punch was loaded up pretty good. Calms forte, kava kava, and valerian.”
“They sound like Caribbean dances. Or venereal diseases.”
“Those Caribbean venereal diseases are a bitch.” Bear tapped a ba-dum-bum on the wood with two fingers. “They’re roots. Kava kava and valerian are like nature’s valium. They mellow out your nervous system, impair judgment, cause intense muscle relaxation—sort of like listening to Al Gore. Calms forte is a homeopathic remedy, does the same but more intensely.”
“Can we move on it?”
“Nope. They’re all legal over-the-counter substances. Aaronson said they’ve seen them used before by brainy little fucks looking to date-rape but not wanting a visit from DEA. He found melatonin in the mix, too, but again, manufactured hormones ain’t illegal.”
“How about intent? They’re obviously trying to gain some advantage.”
“That only matters if they’re trying to gain advantage to do something illegal or coerce people into doing something they don’t want to do. The stuff mellowed people out into an experience they elected to sign on for. Back to square one.” Bear took note of Tim’s expression. “Don’t go off all half-cocked now.”
“Meaning?”
“No offense, but your track record when the law doesn’t conform with your expectations isn’t exactly stellar.”
“No. It’s not. And as you’ve just pointed out, the law leaves a lot to be desired.” Tim gestured for the turkey chili, and Bear stuck the fork in and passed it, looking at him pointedly. Tim took a bite. It wasn’t half bad. “Don’t worry. I’ll do this one right.” He stood and hefted the chair back over the table, setting it by the door to the garage. He paused on his way out. “Those poor bastards at the colloquium, you should see them.”
“It’s like those short people, Rack. At the convention. Being short, they’ll find the short community. Your idiots who want to believe in stupid crap, they find other idiots who want to believe in stupid crap. It’s hard these days to believe in anything. So they bond together and get handed the community doctrine—instant download, add faith and stir.” Bear wiped his chin. His skin was sallow, sagging in folds beneath his eyes. “People like to fit in.” He leaned forward in his solitary chair, the can of chili dotting the center of the round table like a candle. “I imagine it’s easier.”
TWENTY-SIX
When Tim entered the house from the garage, smoke was seeping from the oven. Grabbing a pot holder from atop an empty Tombstone Pizza box, he yanked the charred Frisbee from the rack, doused it with the sink sprayer, and dumped it in the trash. He opened the window over the sink and waved the smoke away from the oblivious alarm. Then he slid open the glass doors in the living room to get a cross breeze.
Wiping his eyes, he returned to the kitchen. Black tendrils wisped up from the trash bin, so he poured in a few mugfuls of water until the sizzling stopped. A curled fax lay on the table beside a fan of junk mail— Dray’s bloodwork from her visit to the clinic.
Smudges dappled the paper where she’d gripped it with hands moist from the freezer-burned pizza box.
Monospot: Neg
Hepatitis A Antibody: Neg
ßhCG—Serum Pregnancy: Pos
His hand swiped for
the chair back, finally found it. He leaned heavily and stared at the fax, his breath hot in his still-raw throat. When he finally looked up, the haze had cleared from the kitchen.
He walked over to the tiny desk near the door to the garage and rested a hand on the fax machine. Still warm.
He headed through the empty living room, down the empty hall.
Dray stood in the center of Ginny’s old room, back to the door. The glow of the setting sun shone through the open blinds, silhouetting her stark form crisply—the bulge of the Beretta in her hip holster, the starched lines of her uniform, the laces of her boots.
Four walls, a rectangle of carpet marred only by the uniform stripes of the vacuum.
He tapped the open door with his knuckles, and she turned, looking at him over a shoulder. Her face was sheet white.
He moved to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. They both gazed out at the quiet street. The inextinguishable scent of Play-Doh materialized from the carpet like a ghost. One of the Hartleys’ brood of grandchildren was trying with little success to get a Chinese kite airborne. Their cheeks brushing, they watched the colorful nylon dragon tumble across the neighboring lawn.
They dozed in a tangle of limbs and sheets, using sweaty proximity to fend off the pall of uncertainty that seemed to hover about the house. They didn’t talk much, both sifting their individual thoughts first, as they’d learned to when stakes were high and vulnerabilities bared. Around three, knowing the morning promised him a reentry into sleep deprivation, Tim willed himself to unconsciousness, a capability he’d cultivated as a soldier.
The alarm pulled him from a placid sea of ink.
Lenient mattress, silky sheets, the morning smell of Dray’s hair. He opened his eyes.
Legs tucked beneath her, Dray leaned forward on the points of her elbows. One hand propped up her chin, the other she held flat-palmed before his mouth. Her face was inches from his; he could sense the warmth coming off it.
The Program Page 23
