Blood Test by Kellerman, Jonathan

lives of comfort and authority.

217

Norman Matthews had been described to me as-an

aggressive and ambitious man. A hustler. As

Matthias he’d tried tocome across a holy man but

there was enough cynicism in me to wonder if he

hadn’t simply traded one hustle for another.

The Touch was a gold mine: offer the prosperous

simplicity amid lush surroundings, remove the burden

of personal responsibility, substitute an ethos

that equated health and vitality with righteousness,

and pass the collection plate. How could it

mis s ?

But even if the whole thing was a scam it didn’t

spell kidnapping and murder. As Seth had pointed

out, loss of privacy was the last thing Matthias

wanted, be he prophet or con man.

“Let’s take a look around,!’ said Houten, “and be

done with it.”

I was allowed free access to the grounds, permitted

to open any d.oor. The sanctuary was domed

and majestic, with clerestory windows and biblical

murals on the ceiling. The pews had been removed

and the floor covered with padded mats. There was

a rough pine table in the center of the room and

little else. A woman in white dusted and swept,

stopping only to smile at us maternally.

The sleeping rooms were indeed cells–no larger

than the one in which Baou! was confined–tow-ceilinged,

thick-walled, and cool, with a single window

the size of a hardbound book and grilled with

wood. Each room was furnished with a cot and a

chest of drawers. Matthias’s differed only in that it

had a small bookcase. His literary taste was eclectic–the

Bible, the Koran, Perls, Jung, Cousins’s Anatomy

of An Illness, Toffler’s Future Shock, the Bha-

gavad-Gita; several texts on organic gardening-and

ecology.

I took a tour of the kitchen, where cauldrons of

broth simmered on industrial stoves and bread baked

sweetly in brick ovens. There was a member’s library,

its stock leaning toward health and agriculture,

and a conference room with textured adobe

walls. And everywhere people .in white working,

smiling, bright-eyed and friendly.

Houten and I traipsed through the fields, watching

Touch members tend the grapes. A black-bearded

giant put down his shears and offered us a freshly

picked cluster. The fruit was moist to the touch

and it burst electrically upon my tongue. I complimented

the man on the flavor. He nodded and returned

to’ his work.

It was well into the afternoon but the sun continued

to rage. My unprotected head began to ache

and after cursorily inspecting the sheepyard and

the vegetable plots I told Houten I’d had enough.

We turned and walked back toward the viaduct. I

wondered .what I’d accomplished, for the search

had been symbolic, at best. There wasn’t any’tea-son

to believe the Swope children were there. And

if they were, there’d be no way to find them. The

Retreat was surrounded by hundreds of acres, much

of it forest. Nothing short of a bloodhound pack

could cover it all. Besides, monasteries are secret

places, designed for refuge, arid the compound might

very well ‘harbor a maze of underground caverns,

secret compartments, and hidden passages that only

an archaeologist could unravel.

It had been -a futile day, I thought, but if it

helped Raoul confront reality it was worth it. Then

I realiZed what reality meant and craved the balm

of denial.

Houten had Bragdon bring Raoul’s personal effects

in a large manila envelope. In the end he’d

agreed to accept the oncologist’s check for six hundred

eighty-seven dollars worth of fines and while

he recorded the amount in triplicate, I walked

around the room restlessly, eager to get going.

The county map caught my eye. I located La

Vista and noticed a back road to the east that seemed

to skirt the town, allowing entry to the region from

the outly’mg woodlands without actually passing

through the-commercial district. If that was the

case, avoiding Houten’s scrutiny was easier than

he’d let on.

After some hesitation I asked him about it. He

fiddled with a piece of carbon paper and continued

writing.

“Oil companybought up the land, got the county

to seal off the road. There was big talk of deep

deposits, prosperity just around the corner.”

“Did they strike it rich ?”

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