Steven Thomas - Criminal Carma

“He’s not here, but he’s probably on his way with some armed men. We need to get out quick. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I turned my first trick at Disneyland when I was thirteen years old, Robert. No pimp. Just me and a fat Shriner on the Small World ride. I can handle what they dish out. What kills me is that I fell for his bullshit. I can’t believe I let that bastard con me. You were so right about him. He’s a total fake.”

“We’ll fix his wagon,” I said. “Don’t worry about that. Right now we have to move. Where are your clothes?”

“In his bedroom,” she said. “He let me use his closet and his bathroom so that I could have some privacy from the other girls. He said it was because I had spiritual potential, but that was a lie. He was just trying to get in my pants.”

“Gather up whatever you want to take with you while I toss his desk and file cabinet.”

The oak file cabinet was sturdy but I got in, using a stone statue of Buddha to hammer the tip of the tire tool behind the lock, then prying until the tongue of the lock bent and the top drawer popped open.

There was nothing but old books and files in the cabinet. Most of the file folders were stuffed with precomputer typed research notes and manuscript drafts dealing with esoteric topics: “Splitting the Atom of Religion in the Modern Age;” “Situational Ethics vs. Absolute Morality;” “Triumph over Tradition: Renegade Teachers and Holy Fools.” The books were dusty spiritual treatises in several languages, many of them annotated in a neat masculine hand. Baba had been an ambitious scholar earlier in his career, and all five drawers were filled with the remnants of his intellectual labors, nothing of use to me.

The locked desk drawers yielded more: a loaded.38 revolver with a checkered wooden grip (nice prop for a guru to lean on); several 35-mm film containers full of black-tar opium (to fertilize the flower girls, no doubt); a shoebox full of pharmaceutical drugs, including lots of Valium and injectable Demerol, complete with a set of glass works (more fun for the girls, and maybe for Baba); several years’ worth of stock market trading records listing frequent margin calls (an explanation for Baba’s growing financial hunger); and a set of files with names and dated photographs of important-looking men engaged in rude behavior with one or more of the temple prostitutes.

Some of the blackmail files had only one compromising photograph; some contained several. All included typewritten notes about the circumstances in which the photographs were taken-the names of the girls involved, their ages, the acts performed, and in some cases the places the men had told their wives they were while they were getting their jollies. Some also listed payment dates and amounts.

I recognized several faces. One was Councilman Discenza. Another was the mayor of Venice Beach. There were high-ranking police officers and prominent local businessmen.

The files explained a lot-how Baba was able to run a spiritual whorehouse with impunity and why the mayor had pushed the city council to promptly approve every phase of the Pacific City development despite voter outrage. They left other things unexplained. Had Baba converted his blackmail of Discenza into a business partnership or was he holding the photo of the churchgoing Italian engaged in anal sex with a teenager in reserve in case he needed leverage? Was Pacific City a project of Discenza’s that Baba had wormed his thick torso into, or was it Baba’s baby, which he was using Discenza’s influence to accomplish? Judging by the fear Baba had shown earlier, it seemed more like the former-like he had gotten a piece of the project by making himself useful to Discenza and found out that he had a tiger by the tail.

“What did you find?” Mary said. She was dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a yellow blouse, and white sneakers with ankle socks. She had a small brown suitcase in her hand.

“Drugs, a gun, some stuff he’s using to blackmail people.”

She shook her head in disgust. “What a fucker. What’s that in the back of the drawer?”

There was a leather-bound notebook stuck behind the hanging files in the bottom drawer. The leather was water-stained and scuffed, the cover latched with a rusty push-button lock.

“It looks like an old journal,” I said. “Maybe Baba has been keeping a record of his badness.”

I put the drugs, stock records, blackmail files, and the notebook in a pillowcase that I stripped from Baba’s bed. I checked the cylinder on the gun to be sure it was loaded, then stuck it in my belt beneath my shirttail. It felt good to be armed again. Taking Mary’s hand, I led her downstairs and back through the big white-and-yellow kitchen where we had made prasad together. Just inside the back door, I gave her my car keys and the key card from Le Merigot.

“Do you know where Le Merigot is?” I asked her.

“It’s just south of the pier, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I’m parked on the next block. If we go straight across the backyard and cut through the hedge and the yard behind us, we should come out by the car. It’s a dark-blue Cadillac Seville. If there is any trouble, drop your bag and run for the car. If I have to stop and fight, go without me. Drive to the hotel and wait for me there.”

“Forget that, pal,” Mary said, stepping close so that her body touched mine. “I love tough guys who aren’t afraid of a fight. Especially really sweet tough guys. But if Baba shows up, I’m carving a piece of that blubber myself.”

Reaching between the lower buttons of her blouse, she pulled out a pearl-handled switchblade and pushed the button, flashing four inches of razory steel.

“You are one surprising girl,” I said. “And that is one impressive blade. But it ain’t smart to bring a knife to a gunfight. If there’s any trouble, please just get to the car.”

“All right,” she said after a moment, putting her knife away. “If it comes to that, I’ll beat feet to your car and fire it up. But I’m not leaving without you.”

We hustled out the back door and across the lawn and through the rose garden, passing the statue of the Virgin Mary. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck. I had a feeling that Baba was going to come bounding around the house at any moment, accompanied by wild-eyed Sicilians with machine guns. But we found a gap in the hedge and hurried across the adjoining yard and made it to the Caddie with no shots fired.

Mary popped the locks and tossed me the keys.

“Nice car,” she said as we pulled away from the curb.

“I bought it to impress chicks.”

“It’s working.”

At Le Merigot, I gave the valet a five and told him to keep my car in front, then took Mary in through the lobby and up to the room I had rented the night before.

“Very nice,” she said when she saw the marble whirlpool tub and the large luxurious room with a balcony and a view of the ocean. “Is this to impress chicks, too?”

“No,” I said. “This is a hideout.”

“I was right about you!”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“That’s cool!” she said. “What are we going to do now? How are we going to get Baba?”

With no discussion, it was understood between us that we were a team now, in the situation together. Briefly, I filled her in on what was at stake besides revenge-the jewels and gold and my and Reggie’s freedom.

“I heard someone tried to steal that necklace in the desert,” she said. “That was you guys?”

“Yeah.”

I finished telling her about what had happened in Indian Wells, at the lawyer’s office the night before, and at the flophouse that morning. Most people would say it was foolish of me to take her into my confidence, but I was sure I could trust her. You don’t stay free as a criminal as long as I had without accurate intuition.