“You might start by explaining your role in the
disappearance.”
“That will be quite simple. There is none.”
“No collaboration between you and the couple
from the Touch?”
“Absolutely not. I visited them once. That’s the
extent of it.”.
“What Was the purpose of your visit?”
“Educational. I’m interested
ties.”
“Did you learn much,’Doctor?’
Valcroix smiled.
“It was a peaceful place· They have no need for
policemen.”
“What were the names of the people Wh.o visited
the Swopes ?”
“The man was called Baron, the woman, Delilah.”
“Surnames ?”
“They don’t use them.”
“And you’ve only visited the Touch once or twice.”
“Once.”
“All. right. We’ll be verifying that.”
“Feel free.”
Milo fixed him with a hard stare. The Fellow
smiled contemptuously.
“Did Nona Swope tell you anything that would
.lead us to her family’s whereabouts?”
“We didn’t talk much· We just fucked’
·de”
“Doctor, I suggest you rethink your attitu .
“Oh really?” The squinty eyes became hyphens.
“You interrupt my work to ask me stupid ques ‘tions
about my personal life and expect me to have a
good attitude ?”
“In your case·personal and professiOnal seem
pretty enmeshed.”
“How insightfax[ of you to notice.”
“Is that all you have to say, Doctor?”
“What more would you like to hear? That I like
to fuck vomen? Ali right. I do. I crave it. I’m going
to fuck as many women as I can in this life and if
there’s a life thereafter ‘I hope it will provide an
endless chain ot: .warm, willing women so I can
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onathan Keltennan
keep fucking. Last I heard, fucking was no crime,
or have they passed a new law in America?”
“Go back to work, Doctor.”
Valcroix gathered his charts and left, dreamy-eyed.
“What an asshole,” said Milo walking back to the
car. “I wouldn’t let him near my hangnail.”..There
was an illegal parking warning from Hospital Security
taped on the windshield. He ripped it off and
put it in his pocket. “I hope he’s not typical of what
they’re passing off as doctors nowadays.”
“He’s one of a kind. He won’t last much longer
here.”‘
We headed west on Sunset.
“You going to check out his story?” I asked.
“I could ask the Touch people how well they
know him but if there is some kind of conspiracy
they’d lie. Best thing is to call the sheriff down
there and find out if the joker’s been spotted more
than once. Small town like that the law tends to
notice things.”
“I know someone who might be familiar with the
Touch. Want me to call him ?”
“Why not? Couldn’t hurt.”
He drove me home and stayed for a minute to
look at the koi. He was transfixed by the colorful
fish and smiled as they gobbled down the pellets he
tossed them. When he tore himself away to leare,
his big body seemed heavy and slow.
“Any longer, I’d stay here till my beard turned
white.”
We shook hands, he gave a little salute, turned
and ambled off for another afternoon of witnessing
the human animal at its worst.
12
I PHONED Professor Seth Fiacre at UCLA. He’s an
old classmate from grad school, a social psychologist
who’d been studying cults for several years.
“Hi, Alex,” he said, cheerful as always, “just got
back from Sacramento. Senate hearings. Stultifying.”
We reminisced and played catch-up and then I
told him why I’d called.
“The Touch? I’m surprised you’ve even heard of
them. They’re not well-known and. they don’t pros-‘
elytize. They’ve got a place called the Retreat, used
to be a monastery, down near the Mexican border.”
“What about the leader–Matthias?”
“Noble Matthias..He was a lawyer originally. Used
to call, himself Norman Matthews,”
“What kind of law did he practice?”
“I don’t know. But it was high powered. Beverly
Hills.”
Attorney to guru seemed an unlikely metamorphosis.
“Why the change of lifestyle?” I asked.
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154
“I don’t know, Alex, Most charismatic leaders
claim some sort of cosmic vision, usually after a
trauma. Your basic voice in the desert stuff. Maybe
he ran out of gas in the Mojave and saw God.”
I laughed.
“I wish I could tell you more, Alex. The group