Karma

by Susan Dunlap

  “You were married, then?”

  “Nah. I just took his name. It was better than my own.”

  “Which was?”

  “Moore.”

  Obviously, a subtle difference. “And where can we find him now?”

  Her scowl lines deepened. She opened her mouth and shut it again. “I don’t know. I don’t keep in touch. He was on his way to Mexico.”

  “You don’t get child support?”

  “Are you kidding? Would I be living in a tepee if some sucker were sending me cash?” She slipped the braid onto her shoulder, staring down at the escaping sprigs of hair.

  “What about Chupa-da?” I asked.

  “What do you mean? What about him?”

  “Well, you say you were drawn by the religion. You must know something about the rules. Does Chupa-da automatically succeed Padmasvana? I mean—”

  “What!”

  “Well, Chupa-da’s taken over Padmasvana’s study, and he’s acting head of the ashram, and—”

  “He’s in Padma’s study? The one on the third floor?”

  “Right.”

  “You said he was acting head?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Well, that damn well is all he is. He’s got no more right to pretend to be the guru than you do, you hear me? And if he’s saying anything else, he’s got another thing coming!”

  “Heather, are you saying Chupa-da’s breaking the tradition?”

  She stood up, ignoring my question.

  “Heather, what is the tradition? Do you know?”

  “What I know is that Chupa-da just better not think he can step into Padmasvana’s shoes!”

  “Heather—” But she had rushed out of the tepee and was heading across the lawn to the temple.

  I followed Heather, waited while she stormed into the temple and trailed after her as she burst out of the empty building and careered across the lawn to the ashram. Without a look she passed Leah, who was sitting on the porch holding the baby, and made for the stairs, nearly knocking over a dazed Penlop. Following her to the second-floor landing, I braced for the explosion when Heather would come upon Chupa-da.

  But there was silence—broken only by a clumping of feet as Heather barged past me down to the porch.

  “Where is he?” she demanded of Leah. As I descended, she added, “I can see he’s not here!”

  Heather loomed over Leah, hands on Gypsy-clad hips. Leah, still holding the baby, had the forbearing look of eternal motherhood.

  “Calm down, Heather. Chupa-da’s gone out. He doesn’t tell me where he goes. He’s the guru, not me.”

  “Guru! He’s got no right. My son, Preston, has more right than him. Who does he think he is?”

  Leah shrugged.

  “Lot of good it does talking to you. You’re one of them. You don’t give a damn what happens here, as long as no one rocks the boat. You can just go on being mommy. Give me that kid. You can take your neuroses out on one less little boy!” She grabbed the baby, stomped down the steps and strode past the tepee to the street. In a moment, I heard the revving of an automobile engine and then the squealing of wheels.

  Looking down at Leah, I asked, “What was all that about?”

  Her head was bowed, her shoulders hunched over the empty space in her lap.

  “You really care a lot about the baby, don’t you?” I asked.

  She nodded. “He’s so little; he needs someone stable. Heather’s just not ready to be a mother. She’s only a child herself. It’s an awful thing to say, but I’m surprised nothing’s happened to him. It’s not that Heather would ever hurt him, not intentionally; it’s just that she doesn’t have the maturity to think beyond herself. When she feels pressed, she puts up her defenses, and she’s only got room for ‘me.’ ”

  Sitting down opposite Leah, I asked, “Why was she so outraged when she heard Chupa-da was acting head of the temple?”

  “Because she doesn’t understand.”

  I waited.

  “Heather is very Western. She thinks that being a guru is like being president of General Motors—you have piles of money and endless power and prestige.”

  “And?”

  “Bhutanese Buddhists believe that each person comes into this incarnation for a purpose and, if your purpose is to learn what’s involved in being head of a temple, fine. But if you have to learn about being a janitor, that’s just as important.”

  “But surely you must have to be holier than most people to be the guru?”

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” She brushed off her skirt as if dusting off the remnants of her scene with Heather. The skin on her face was loose, and pouches sagged at either side of her mouth. She could never have been pretty, even as a young woman—her features were too big for her face. But her maternal expression softened their angles and created an impression of pleasant warmth.

  She leaned back. “Padma said you must experience it all. It just happens to have been his job in this incarnation to be the leader.”

  “And Heather doesn’t think that Chupa-da needs that experience?”

  “No, no. Heather couldn’t care less about Chupa-da or his karmic growth. She thinks there’s gain to be had, and she wants it.”

  “Heather wants to be guru!”

  “Oh, dear, I guess I’m not making myself plain. Heather wants to be regent, for her son.”

  I pulled out my pad and made a note. “So you’re saying Heather wants her son—the baby—to be the guru. And she wants to run the place till he’s of age?”

  “Right. I guess I am making sense.”

  “Well, only to a point, I’m afraid. Why would Heather think her baby should be guru?”

  “Succession.”

  “Succession?” I recalled something about deceased gurus being reincarnated, but I assumed that they had to be dead before their spirit moved to another body. For Heather’s baby to be an embodiment of Padmasvana, one of them would have had to be without a spirit for nearly a year. “Heather doesn’t strike me as that involved in religion to see her son as a reincarnation of Padmasvana.”

  “Oh, dear, now I’m not being clear again. That’s what my ex-husband always said. I don’t mean anything about incarnations or cosmic-ness or anything like that. I don’t really understand it all, though I have made some effort. Despite what Heather says, she has made none. She does nothing but sit in her tepee and listen to country music on the radio. What Heather thinks is that Preston is the logical one to succeed Padmasvana.”

  At last I was beginning to catch her drift. Still, I asked, “Why?”

  “Maybe you’d better have a look at Preston.”

  Chapter 8

  PRESTON, OF COURSE, WAS off with his mother. Everyone in this case seemed to be absent when I wanted them. I tramped back to the temple for another try at Braga.

  He, too, was still missing, but I did find Chupa-da. The robed Bhutanese was seated at Braga’s desk, hunched over a pile of papers.

  “Heather is very angry with you,” I said, for openers.

  Chupa-da looked up, only very mild signs of annoyance breaking through the blankness of his expression.

  “She says you have no right to succeed Padmasvana.”

  “She is ignorant.” He turned his attention back to the papers.

  “Is Preston Padmasvana’s child?”

  His face flushed, but he controlled it before speaking. “Padmasvana was celibate. His mind was on things higher than … Heather.”

  “Then what is she doing here?”

  “I do not know. Padmasvana in his wisdom let her remain.”

  I could see that I was getting nowhere. Moving closer to the desk, I glanced at the top paper, a list of names and amounts.

  “Is that the contributors’ list?”

  He turned the sheet over. “This is the business of the temple.”

  “I want to see the books.”

  “You cannot.”

  “Of course I can.”

  Chupa-d
a hesitated. “The books are locked in the safe.”

  I nodded.

  “Only Mr. Braga can open the safe. He has the combination.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  From the strained look on Chupa-da’s face, he was employing all his monastic training in order to preserve his equanimity. “There is nothing to see. The temple takes in money from contributors and from ceremonies. It is not much. We are many people. We have expenses.”

  “Such as?”

  He took a breath. “We pay for our light, our heat, for the water we drink, for what we eat and for our robes. And we pay a large amount for the land and buildings.”

  “You’re buying the land?”

  “Not I. Not Padmasvana. Mr. Braga.”

  “Rexford Braga’s using the temple’s money to buy the land?”

  Chupa-da nodded slowly. “It is the foolishness of the Western mind. In Bhutan we know that it is foolish to think that a little man can possess the earth. The earth and the rivers are like the air and the rain. But here men play a game with each other; they pretend they can possess the earth; they trade it back and forth, like children with trinkets.”

  Before I could speak, Chupa-da added, “This land is a sought-after trinket. Mr. Braga has been forced to evict the realtor seeking it. Mr. Braga ordered him to stay away.”

  We’d been over this ground before. I nodded. “And did he? Stay away, I mean.”

  “At first, no. Each time the man came, a Penlop found Mr. Braga and Mr. Braga had the Penlops remove him. The realtor was always in the temple or inside the ashram. He was not hard to find.”

  “What was the man’s name?”

  “I do not know. I know him only to see him.”

  Glancing back at the desk, I said, “About those papers…”

  “Wait. I will think. He was part of a company. Will that help?”

  “It might.”

  “He is the age of Mr. Braga. He is not tall. He has little hair left. He has a very large nose and stomach.”

  “His company?”

  “It is called Comfort.”

  “Okay, I’ll check him out.”

  It was getting toward dusk as I drove across town. If I had been higher in the hills, I might have caught a glimpse of sunlight on the Bay; if I’d been in San Francisco, I could have seen the sun set over the Pacific. That thought always made me smile. When Nat and I had first come to Berkeley, he wanted to take me across the Bay of the Cliff House to see the sun set. Blasé, I’d asked why we should make a special effort when he had grown up on the East Coast and could have watched the sun set over the Atlantic anytime. Nat had been appalled when he’d realized I believed the sun set in the east.

  But now, as dusk neared, my thoughts were on Comfort Realty. I hoped the offending realtor was an eager beaver and didn’t close shop at five. Another missing witness I didn’t need.

  But Comfort Realty was an establishment even Lt. Davis would have approved of. Though the stores around were closing, it was brightly lit and, through the picture window, I could see the paunchy, balding realtor of Chupa-da’s description.

  The man’s movements as he hurried to unlock the door belied his comfortable appearance. They were the nervous gestures of a nail biter. “Can I help you? Residential property?” He stared. “Oh, a policewoman. Nothing wrong, I hope?”

  I followed him inside. The room was warm and the air stale. “I’m Officer Smith. I’m investigating the death of Padmasvana, the guru over by Telegraph.”

  “That son of a bitch.” The realtor sunk into his chair and, grabbing a pen, began flicking the ballpoint in and out.

  “Do you mean Padmasvana or Rexford Braga?”

  “The whole lot of them. Pack of frauds, trapping kids with their mumbo jumbo.”

  “I understand you were kept off the premises.”

  “Yeah, can you believe it? That Braga thinks he’s big stuff, but he’s got no head for business.”

  I waited.

  “Well, lady, I’ll tell you what went down. See, that’s a good parcel of land there. There ain’t but one or two unimproved lots in all Berkeley. I could knock down that temple and the house in a couple of days. Cheap.”

  “And build.”

  A smile flickered briefly on the realtor’s face and departed as if unsure of its welcome. He riffled through a drawer and smacked a paper on the desk in front of me. On it was an artist’s conception of a ten-story apartment house with picture windows and wrought-iron railings, but essentially the shape of a refrigerator box. The sketch was complete, to the suggestion of plants in the upper units and lettering on the windows of the first floor.

  One of Berkeley’s great charms was its old houses: Victorians; brown-shingles tucked under live oak trees. Even less-antique frame cottages, painted salmon and rust or brown and violet, had their appeal. I shuddered as I imagined this monstrosity in place of the ashram. It could wreck the entire neighborhood.

  “See,” the realtor said, “we could all make a killing. Now look, lady, I’ve pulled no punches with these people. I told that fool Braga I’d pay him the market value for that lot. A hundred and twenty thousand is nothing to sneeze at. The guy’s a fool.”

  “Did you talk to Padmasvana?”

  “Nah. Wasn’t for lack of trying. Believe me. I tried to get those red-robed page boys to let me in to see him. Once, I buttonholed the other monk. But everybody kept the big boy covered.”

  The phone rang. Nodding abruptly at me, he picked it up. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course I’m still interested. I haven’t been calling to talk weather. So what’s what? No, I got to have more. Ninety or nothing. Look, if I could swing an eighty-percent loan, you think I’d be dealing with you? You’re not as reliable as Bank of America, you know!” He listened a minute, sweat beading his brow. He glared at the tightly closed transom as if it were the person on the phone. “So check, already. You can tell them Vern Felcher told you to ask.” He slammed down the phone.

  “Vern Felcher!”

  “Yeah, lady, Vernon P. Felcher. Who’d you think you were talking to?”

  Was I losing my touch? What else had I neglected to ask? “Are you any relation to Bobby Felcher?”

  Felcher’s hands were still for the first time.

  “Yeah, Bobby was my son. My only son. And if you’re going to ask how I feel about Paddy-what-sis getting his, I only wish I could have been the one who did it.”

  “Is that why you kept going there?”

  “To kill him? Make sense, wouldn’t it? But no. What I told you about the land is true. I want that land. I have a right to it. My son died there. He died because of them. I want to get that land and wipe out any trace of that bunch.” Felcher’s broad knuckles were white against the ruddiness of his hands. Sweat rolled down the side of his face, but he made no move to open the transom.

  “Mr. Felcher, you said they were responsible for Bobby’s death.”

  “Yeah. Those vultures. They lured him in there.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know what they told him.”

  “He lived with you?”

  “Only about a couple of months. I’m divorced. His mother had him before he came to me. She took him to her hometown—Visalia—in the San Joaquin Valley. We’d lived there when Bobby was small. He liked the town, he said. But as soon as he got there, he went wild. And she was too damned weak and woolly-headed to keep on him. By the time I got him, he was already up to his ass in drugs.”

  “What happened to Bobby after he came to stay with you?”

  Felcher’s fingers tapped on the edge of the desk. “Like I said, Bobby was in no great shape when he came back. We’d all lived in Berkeley before the divorce, so he knew all sorts of no-goods up on Telegraph already. I tried to keep tabs on him, but that isn’t easy when you work the hours I do. And then he spent every other weekend with his mother, and she let him lie around and pop pills and God knows what.”

  “So Bobby spent a good deal of time on Telegraph?” That su
pported what the Bobby Felcher file had said.

  “Probably. He got home late. He slept late. I don’t know what he did while I was working. Supporting him and paying alimony wasn’t easy.” Felcher leaned toward me, his heavy features stiffening as he waited for my nod. “I kept after him to do something constructive. Not school or anything as out of reach as that. Jesus, is it too much for a man to hope his only son would think about going to college? I work my ass off in this realty company. Bobby could have walked in here. He could have made forty thousand a year working part-time. You think … No. Not real estate. Not college. The kid couldn’t even get through high school.”

  “You said you’d pressed him to…”

  “Anything. Anything constructive. I tried to get him to work out, go to a gym like I used to do”—he glanced down at his stomach—“when I was thinner. It wasn’t so long ago. I was built like Bobby—lanky. I exercised; I kept in shape. He did nothing but sit and stare and take pills.”

  “And so he went to Self-Over?”

  Felcher froze.

  “I’ve already interviewed Garrett Kleinfeld.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, he’s no prize, either. But at least there, with him, Bobby was getting some kind of exercise and he was associating with a decent class of people.”

  “Oh?”

  “You wonder how I know about Kleinfeld’s setup, huh? I followed Bobby. I promised him twenty bucks a week if he did something. Vern Felcher don’t spend money for nothing.”

  “And did it help?”

  “Maybe a little; who knows. Maybe it would have, but about that time, he got involved with those damned Chinks.”

  “How’d he meet them?”

  Felcher’s face tightened. “Who knows? They’re all over. What difference does it make?”

  “So then…”

  “Then he started going over there, and next thing he’s living there, and then he’s dead.” He slumped back in his chair.

  “Do you feel they were responsible for his death?” I asked more softly, hoping my question would converge with his thoughts.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know everyone said he brought in the drugs. He probably did. But what kind of place allows that? What about that housemother, what was she doing?”