Karma (9 page)

“Yessir.”

“So?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about the temple’s finances. They’ve been having two ceremonies a week, at five bucks a head. The night I was there the place was packed—about a hundred twenty people.”

“Six hundred dollars,” he said immediately.

“Twelve hundred a week. Contrary to what Chupa-da told me, there’s no mortgage—someone willed them the property. Utilities and the type of food they eat couldn’t run over five hundred a month. Make it a thousand, with clothing and light bulbs and the like.”

“So they net forty-two hundred a month.”

It was a moment before I trudged through the calculations for four-and-a-third weeks. “Yeah.”

“And where does that forty-two hundred go?” I shook my head. “I hope Braga tells me, but somehow I can’t believe it’s so on the up-and-up that he’ll be willing to publicize it.”

The lieutenant sat, fingering his mustache. “Okay, Smith. Use what overtime you have to. I want this cleared up before it begins to smell, you understand? But watch you don’t step on any toes over there.”

“You’re asking me to walk a pretty fine line.”

“You can do it, Smith.” He nodded and looked down at the top paper on his pile.

I stood up, basking in this rare expression of confidence. But if I wanted that confidence there tomorrow, I’d have to produce.

Half an hour later in Wally’s Donut Shop, I wiped a dab of synthetic grape jelly from the corner of my mouth, swallowed the rest of the cup of sour coffee, paid Wally and headed back toward the temple. Pressed for time, I’d had to choose between dictating and food. The dictating machine, I’d figured, wasn’t likely to growl in the midst of an interview.

As I came within a block of the temple, I heard a voice, the words unclear, bellowing over a loudspeaker. Cars were parked in every conceivable place—every corner curb was full, every red zone taken, every fireplug blocked. I double-parked.

The temple, likewise, was packed. All the seats were filled, the aisles were crammed with squatters, the walls draped with standees. If the candles sent the altar up in flames, not everyone would be able to escape in time.

Shutting the door behind me, I watched the proceedings.

The huge picture of Padmasvana behind the altar was framed by white draperies. Chupa-da sat on one raised seat. The other, Padmasvana’s, held a spray of lilies. Chupa-da was speaking in a singsong voice that droned past my consciousness with only an occasional word breaking through. Braga sat to the side of the stage in his white outfit, watching. I noted that his expression of interest looked forced.

The atmosphere of the room was different from my previous visit. Despite the mob scene there was none of the excitement of the last ceremony. The whir of the electric fans was barely audible over the swish of crossing and uncrossing legs.

Deciding to try for a better vantage point, I stepped back outside and circled the building till I came to the basement door. It was locked but, as I suspected, the lock wasn’t much of a deterrent.

I made my way down the steps to the main basement room. Along all four walls piles of tea cartons loomed, and deep shadows draped off them. When Bobby Felcher died, there had been questions about all that tea and about Chupa-da’s weekly supply run to Chinatown in San Francisco.

Above, the stage creaked.

Instinctively, my hand poised over my holster.

I moved slowly to the small door, part of the supporting wall of the stage. I would have had to bend to get through it; it was only four feet high. I pulled it in toward me.

I had intended the movement to be inconspicuous. The night I had been in the audience all twenty-four Penlops could have paraded through the door unnoticed. But tonight heads turned and eyes stared. My watchers appeared to be in no hurry to return their attention to the stage above me. Since the light in the basement room was off, I stayed motionless, waiting them out, and in a minute or two most people looked away though the performance above me failed to hold their interest and a disconcerting number kept glancing back at me.

I checked the room for familiar faces. Halfway back I spotted Ginny Daly. Her face was drawn, her eyes were pink and puffy from crying, and her frizzy hair hung limp. But her expression was one of boredom.

Looking across the aisle, I saw more faces like Ginny’s—faces that bespoke the grief of Padmasvana’s death. But they, too, had wandering eyes and mouths set in annoyance. I wondered how Chupa-da could fail to hold the attention of Padmasvana’s devotees at this, of all times.

The only people whose eyes remained on Chupa-da were seated near the front on the far side of the aisle from my vantage point—Leah and Heather.

Overhead, on the stage, came a thump and footsteps. More clearly, I heard Chupa-da’s voice. “Death,” he said, in his singsong voice, “as you call it, is an extension of life. Life goes on. Life did not begin in this incarnation. It did not begin in the incarnation before this. It did not begin in the incarnation before that. It did not…”

I turned my attention back to the two women. Leah, in her red Penlop robe, looked as worried as any mother when one of her boys was not doing well. Heather, dressed all in black, sat coolly appraising the debacle.

And in the rear of the audience, standing near the door, was Vernon Felcher. I couldn’t make out his expression, but I could guess at it.

Felcher was glancing around the temple, probably calculating what the demolition would cost.

I looked for Garrett Kleinfeld, wondering if he, too, had been drawn to the ceremony, but he was not there.

I was about to close the door, when the clash of a gong reverberated above my head. The audience rose, and with a minimum of ado, the squatters in the aisles clambered up and began pushing toward the exit. They moved fast, except to the left of the door, where there was a delay of some kind. As I sorted out the bodies involved, I realized that the problem was caused by Vernon Felcher, fighting his way against the moving throng. He propelled his rotund person toward the front of the auditorium and, brooking no interference, made his way to the row where Leah and Heather sat. Here he stopped, and his expression changed from the single-mindedness that had moved there to a flush of anger. He leaned over the pair of seated women and spoke.

I stepped through the doorway into the temple.

Felcher moved past Heather and stood looming over Leah.

I pushed through the crowd toward them, but even in uniform I didn’t have the success that the obstreperous realtor had enjoyed. When I reached the center aisle I could see their faces—Felcher’s angry, his mouth moving rapidly; Leah’s fearful. Felcher leaned down and grabbed Leah’s arm. She jerked it away. Heather stood up. Still talking, Felcher pushed her back in the chair.

Braga appeared behind him with two large Penlops. The red-clad figures grabbed Felcher and dragged him to the aisle, where Braga cleared a path. In another minute, Vernon Felcher had been thrown out of the temple again.

“What was all that about?” I asked as I came abreast of the women.

Heather looked at Leah.

Swallowing, Leah said, “That was Vern—Vernon Felcher…”

When she didn’t continue, I asked, “What did he want?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never even talked to him before.” She looked down a moment, pulling herself together. “I guess you know he was Bobby Felcher’s father.”

“Yes.”

Heather stood up. “That man’s caused us a lot of trouble. I didn’t think he’d have the nerve to come here, not now.”

“What did he want?” I repeated.

“He probably just wanted to make trouble,” Heather said. “He grabbed Leah’s arm. Did you see that? Look, you can still see the marks. He said, ‘So you’re the housemother. Where were you when Bobby needed you?’ I mean, Leah wasn’t even here till months after Bobby died. That man’s crazy, and he’s dangerous. Look what he did to Leah’s arm!”

I looked. The marks were still visible. I recalled Felcher’s meaty hands, and I thought how unpleasant it would be to be caught by them.

“Has he done anything like this before?” I asked Heather.

“Nothing physical. I mean, he never got the chance. But he threatened a lot. He threatened Chupa-da. That was at first. Then he got a lot calmer. I guess when he decided to buy the temple he figured he’d better cool it. But you can see how dangerous he is, can’t you? Who knows what he would have done if the Penlops hadn’t stopped him?”

Leah said nothing. Her face was still white. Her hands quivered against her thighs.

The temple was empty now. “Why don’t you take Leah to her room,” I suggested to Heather.

As I made my way to my car I wondered about Vernon Felcher. Maybe Heather was right. Maybe he was crazy. There had been no reason for him to attack Leah. He knew she hadn’t been at the ashram when his son died. I had told him that myself.

I called into the station and left a long memo for Pereira, filling her in on most of what I’d learned that day and asking her to check out the relevant parts of it in her interview with Braga. She could handle Braga and his books alone. Whatever secrets the temple’s accounting system hid Pereira would ferret out.

I headed the car north along Telegraph, briefly considering whether I should call in again and get Felcher’s home address. Or should I check Comfort Realty first? It was after ten; there was no reason for Felcher to go back to work, but the office was close and I circled by.

The lights were on, the door unlocked. I walked in. Felcher was seated in his desk chair, thumbing through the Multiple Listing book as he might a magazine in the dentist’s office. On the desk was a cup half-filled with dark liquid that smelled like Scotch.

“This is my office; that’s what I’m doing here,” Felcher said in response to my question.

“You could have gone home.”

“Yeah. I could have. I didn’t.” He took a drink, put down the cup and fingered his ballpoint pen.

I leaned on the arm of the client chair. “What was that scene about at the temple? Why were you threatening Leah deVeau?”

“Threatening?” He raised his eyebrows. “I was just reminding them about their shoddy operation and about what they did to Bobby. I don’t intend to let them forget Bobby.”

“But you knew Leah wasn’t there then.”

“So? She’s there now. She’s part of the operation.” He took another drink.

“Is that all you’ve done, threaten?”

“Yeah, and it’s a shame. I know where you’re leading. But if I’d done in Paddy Guru I wouldn’t be downing Scotch or tramping over there to scream at those bums. I’d be sitting back with a big smile on my face.”

To a degree, that made sense. I slipped into the chair I’d been propped against. Obviously, Felcher cared about his son. But how much? And what form would his grief and anger have taken? “Are you here rather than at home because of Bobby?” I asked. “I mean, your home must bring back a lot of memories.”

“Nah. Don’t go making a big psychological deal. The wife did that. I’m here because I like it. I don’t dislike the apartment I live in. It’s a good place. Got a good deal on it for that neighborhood. If I owned that building, which I might yet, I could turn
it
over in a couple of years and make plenty. Nah, there’s nothing wrong with that place.” He finished the Scotch, glanced down toward his lower desk drawer, but left his hands on the table.

I stood up. So Felcher’s home was not a home but a potential investment. How much of his life would he be willing to turn over for a profit? Was that what had happened to his wife? His son?

“Let me see your plans for the temple land again,” I said.

Felcher hesitated, apparently struggling between caution and pride. Pride won. He extracted the architect’s rendering.

It was the same giant box, with the same iron railings simulating balconies. No “form follows function” here. I looked at the windows, with the lines suggesting plants in the upper floors. And the lower floor—on its storefront window the tiny letters said “Self-Over.”

“Kleinfeld’s moving in on the ground floor?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that a bit premature?”

“His money’s as good as anyone’s.” Felcher reached down and extricated the Scotch bottle.

“How did you two come to arrange this?”

“I mentioned it. He said it was a better location than where he is now. We settled.” He poured the Scotch.

“Do you put all your potential lessees on the architect’s sketch?”

Felcher slammed the bottle back into the drawer. “Look, lady, I needed something down there. What do you
want
me to put in the windows—Joe and Mildred Scott, Harry Lumpkin?” He half drained his glass. “You got something I got to answer or not?”

“Not now.”

S
ELF-OVER WAS DARK
. I thought I heard footsteps inside. I knocked, waited. The footsteps stopped. I knocked louder. Still no response. Felcher had had plenty of time to call and warn his colleague. I didn’t want to give Kleinfeld all night to perfect his story.

I circled to the alley beside the building. Two metal garbage cans blocked the entrance. I slithered between them and the wall. Leaves and papers littered the cement and garden snails crunched under my feet. I moved slowly to the rear, aware that my presence was obvious to anyone who was interested. I had radioed in my destination, but Kleinfeld didn’t know that. The alley held for me the fear it would for any cop: I could be cornered—by Kleinfeld, by another of the suspects, by one of Berkeley’s many crazies who just felt like offing a cop.

I checked behind me, then climbed the steps to the back door and knocked. Inside, in a room beyond, a light went off; I heard footsteps, first clearly, then growing softer, as though someone was moving toward the front door.

Jumping from the step, I ran down the alley, crushing more snails, pushing past the waste cans to the street.

Kleinfeld’s door was shutting. Outside it was a woman in jeans and a hooded ski parka. Was she the married woman Kleinfeld had mentioned? I hesitated.

The woman crossed the sidewalk and climbed into a yellow Triumph.

Making my choice, I remained in the shadows and noted her license plate.