Steven Thomas - Criminal Carma

“He said a lot of stuff about crystals, how they focus and magnify psychic energy,” Evermore told me. “It didn’t make sense to me at first, but after I did some research, I understood what he was talking about. Crystals are very powerful and mysterious. They really are. That is how early radios worked, you know, with crystals that sent energy waves through space.”

Baba told her that the diamonds were contaminated with negative energy because she had taken them in exchange for her daughter’s innocence, and that the crystals were broadcasting a kind of force field that was keeping the girl away. That was why all their plans had fallen through and all the money gone to waste. He said that the best thing would be to give the necklace to him so that he could sell it and use the money in a worthy cause. That would destroy the force field and allow Christina to return.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Evermore said, “but I told him he could have the necklace after I wore it to this big charity bash we have out in the desert every winter.”

“How much is the necklace worth?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, exactly. It was valued at a quarter of a million the last time it was appraised for the insurance rider, but a jeweler who cleaned it several years ago told me it was worth twice that.”

“That’s quite a gift to give someone you’ve only known six months.”

“My sister would kill me if she found out.”

“I can see her point,” I said. “Has it ever occurred to you that Baba is conning you?”

“Of course it has!” Evelyn said sharply, with a flash of alcoholic anger. “I wonder about it almost every day. But I have to believe him. If he is lying it means I will never get her back. I couldn’t live with that now, not after coming so close. And he must be telling the truth. How else could he know all those things about her? He knew the name of her horse and the kinds of trees that grew along the trails we rode on at the ranch. He knew which suite we stayed in that winter at the Fairmont and the names of the kids she ran away with. He even gave me a picture of her and little Kelly that he got from one of those people. I’ll show you.”

Half leaning, half falling sideways, propping herself up on her elbow, she opened the nightstand drawer and took out a snapshot. It was a photo of the girl whose pictures I had seen in the jewelry box at the Oasis Palms. The girl was holding a baby dressed in pink footsie pajamas and smiling toothlessly at the camera.

“Baba’s psychic powers could explain some of what he knows about Christina, but not this picture. I took it myself the Christmas before she ran away.” Evelyn paused, looking down at the creased photograph. “Those pajama’s were Christina’s when she was little. She dressed the baby in them for the picture. We had a wonderful time that day. Everyone was happy. Look at the way little Kelly is smiling! Christina kept the picture in a frame on her dresser, and she took it with her when she ran away. It could only have come to Baba through someone who knows my daughter.”

“What kind of psychic powers does he have?” I asked, still worried about him rummaging around in my neurons.

“They’re called siddhis in yoga,” Evermore said. “He can tell what you are thinking sometimes, and he knows about things that are going to happen ahead of time. He sent a kind of a bodyguard to the desert with me because he sensed danger. I told him it was silly, but he insisted, and it turned out he was right. Someone broke into my hotel room and tried to steal the necklace. They would have gotten away with it, too, if the guard hadn’t gone back to my room.”

“Why did he go back?”

“When we were on our way to dinner, he asked me if I had put the necklace in the room safe. When I told him no, he got angry and turned around and went back to the hotel. That’s when he caught the burglar in the room and got beat up. He is still in the hospital out there.”

“Where were you when he went back up?”

“In my car in front of the hotel, why?”

“It’s just lucky you didn’t go up, too,” I said. “You could have been hurt.”

If she was in her car in front, Jimmy must have gone in through the lobby as I suspected and slipped past my partner.

“Were you able to wear the necklace at your charity event?” I asked.

“No. I was too upset to go. The Indian Wells police have it now. My lawyer is driving out to get it tomorrow afternoon so Baba can have it appraised on Tuesday.”

“Why is he having it appraised?”

“So he can use it as equity in a real estate deal. He and Councilman Discenza are planning to build a resort down at the beach. That is his worthy cause. He says he is going to use the money he makes on the deal to fund yoga centers all over the world.”

“Who is your lawyer?” I asked casually.

“Armand Hildebrand.”

“Where’s his office?”

“In Santa Monica,” she said, looking befuddled. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

“I need to find a good lawyer up here to help me set up a limited liability partnership,” I said. “Does Hildebrand handle that kind of work?”

“I’m not sure. Probably.”

“Where does Baba have to take the necklace to get it appraised?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” she said, suddenly weary, retreating into the arms of intoxication. She had been talking lucidly for someone with at least two bottles of wine in her, the way drunk people often do when booze dissolves mental barriers and lubricates the hesitant tongue. But the emotional pressure driving her confession had run down when I steered the conversation to business details. She finished her chardonnay, set the glass on the floor, and looked at me, blinking slowly. “I don’t care about the jewels or the money. I have more money than I can ever spend. I just want my daughter back. I’m lonely, Robert. I need someone to love, someone to love me.”

We were looking into each other’s eyes and the look became intense and expansive, with that feeling of falling into the other person’s irises.

“Could you love me?” She mouthed the words silently.

I moved from the chair and sat beside her on the bed, putting my arm around her as she leaned heavily against me, turning her face to mine. I felt more compassion than lust as I kissed her the first time, a sense of sharing in her loss that was so like my own. But when she took my hand and placed it on her breast, a chakra well below my heart chakra began to whirl.

We merged in a second deep wine-flavored kiss while I felt her breasts, thumbing the nipples stiff through red satin. Rubbing against Mary at the beach had stirred me up. The latent sexual charge that had gathered while we walked and touched and talked about tantra surged back to the forefront now, urging me toward Evelyn.

Besides being amorous, I was angry at Mary for not giving in to me. She had known that she was driving me wild and had played hard to get, in part because of the globular guru, in part for other reasons of her own. Now I had a lovely woman in my arms, another of Baba’s victims, who wanted to give me the gift that Mary had withheld and I was tempted to take her not just for the physical pleasure but as a form of revenge.

When Evelyn reached for my genitals, though, I pulled away. She was too drunk. She wanted sex now, but when she woke up tomorrow she might feel degraded. I didn’t want that. Also, surprisingly, despite my resentment toward Mary, I couldn’t bring myself to betray the connection I felt between us.

I lifted Evelyn’s hand and kissed it, then kissed her lips again, lightly, and stood up.

“You’ve had a lot to drink,” I said. “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”