"I'm tired," he said, at last seating himself.
Bethel placed empty bowls, a glass, a cup, and a plate before him. "Guess what the 'pape says this morning," she said as she retired discreetly to the living room so that he, too, could disgorge. "That thug fanatic is coming here, that Raymond Roberts person. On a pug."
"Hmm," he said, enjoying the hot, liquid taste of coffee as he ruminated it up into his weary mouth.
"The Los Angeles chief of police estimates that four _million_ people will turn out to see him; he's performing the sacrament of Divine Unification in Dodger Stadium, and of course it'll all be on TV until we're ready to go clear out of our minds. All day long--that's what the 'pape says; I'm not making it up."
"Four million," Tinbane echoed, thinking, professionally, how many peace officers it would take to handle crowd control when the crowd consisted of that many. Everybody on the force, including Skyway Patrol and special deputies. What a job. He groaned inwardly.
"They use those drugs," Bethel said, "for that unification they practice; there's a long article on it, here. The drug's a derivative from DNT; it's illegal here, but when he goes to perform the sacrament they'll let him--them all--use it that one time. Because the California law states--"
"I know what it states," Tinbane said. "It states that a psychedelic drug can he used in a bona fide religious ceremony." God knew he had had this drummed into him by his superiors.
Bethel said, "I have half a mind to go there. And participate. It's the only time, unless we want to fly to, ugh, the F.N.M. And I frankly don't feel much like doing _that_."
"You do that," he said, happily disgorging cereal, sliced peaches and milk and sugar, in that order.
"Want to come? It'll be exciting. Just think: thousands of people unified into one entity. The Udi, he calls it. Which is everyone and no one. Possessing absolute knowledge because it has no single, limiting viewpoint." She came to the kitchen door, eyes shut. "Well?"
"No thanks," Tinbane said, his mouth embarrassingly full. "And don't watch me; you know how I can't stand to have anyone around when I'm having victual momentum, even if they can't see me. They might hear me--chewing."
He could feel her there; he sensed her resentment.
"You never take me anywhere," Bethel said presently.
"Okay," he agreed, "I never take you anywhere." He added, "And if I did, it wouldn't be there, to hear about religion." We have enough religious nuts in Los Angeles anyhow, he thought. I wonder why Roberts didn't think of making a pilg here a long time ago. I wonder why just now... of all possible times.
Earnestly, Bethel said, "Do you think he's a fake? That there's no such state as Udi?"
He shrugged. "DNT is a potent drug." Maybe it was so. In any case it didn't matter; not to him, anyhow. "Another unexpected rebirth," he said to his wife. "At Forest Knolls, naturally. They're never watching those minor cemeteries; they know we'll handle it--with city equipment." Anyhow, Tilly M. Benton was safely at the L.A. receiving hospital, thanks to Seb Hermes. Within a week she would be disgorging like the rest of them.
"Eerie," Bethel said, still at the doorway to the kitchen.
"How do you know? You never saw it happen."
"You and your damn job," Bethel said. "Don't take it out on me, just because you can't stand it. If it's so awful, quit. Fish or cut bait, as the Romans said."
"I can handle the job; matter of fact, I've already put in for a reassignment." What's hard, he thought, is you. "Let me disgorge in private, will you?" he said angrily. "Go off; read the 'pape."
"Will you be affected?" Bethel asked. "By Ray Roberts coming here to the Coast?"
"Probably not," he said. He did, after all, have a regular beat. Nothing ever seemed to change _that_.
"They won't have you out with your popgun protecting him?"
"Protecting him?" he said. "I'd shoot him."
"Oh dear," Bethel said mockingly. "Such ambition. And then you could go down in history."
"I'll go down in history anyhow," Tinbane said.
"What for? What have you done? And what in the future do you intend to do? Keep on digging up old ladies out at Forest Knolls Cemetery?" Her tone lacerated him. "Or for being married to me?"
"That's right; for being married to you." His tone was equally scathing; he had learned it from her, over the long, dead months of their alleged marriage.
Bethel returned, then, to the living room. Left alone, he continued to disgorge, now left in peace. He appreciated it.
Anyhow, he thought gloomily, Tilly M. Benton of South Pasadena likes me.
3
Eternity is a kind of measure. But to be measured belongs not to God. Therefore it does not belong to Him to be eternal.
--St. Thomas Aquinas
It had always been difficult for Officer Joe Tinbane to determine precisely what official rank George Gore held in the Los Angeles Police Department; he wore an ordinary citizen's cape, natty turned-up Italian shoes and a bright, fashionable shirt which looked even a bit gaudy. Gore was a relatively slender man, tall, in his mid-forties, Tinbane guessed. He came directly to the point, as the two of them sat facing each other in Gore's office.
"Since Ray Roberts is arriving in town, we've been asked by the Governor to provide a personal bodyguard... which we planned to do anyway. Four or possibly five men; we're in agreement on that, too. You asked to be reassigned, so you're one." Gore shuffled some documents on his desk; Tinbane saw that they pertained to him. "Okay?" Gore said.
"If you say so," Tinbane said, feeling sullen--and surprised. "You don't mean for crowd control; you mean all the time. Around the clock." In proximity, he realized. By personal they meant personal.
Gore said, "You'll eat with him--excuse the expression; sorry--and sleep with him in the same room; all that. He has no bodyguard, normally. But we have a lot of people out here holding deep grudges toward the Uditi. Not that they don't in the F.N.M., but that's not our problem." He added, "Roberts hasn't asked for this, but we're not about to consult him. Whether he likes it or not he's going to get twenty-four hour protection while he's in our jurisdiction." Gore's tone was bureaucratic and stony.
"I gather we won't be relieved."
"You'll stagger your wake-sleep cycle, the four of you. But no; except for that you'll be with him all the time. It's only for forty-eight or seventy-two hours; whichever he chooses. He hasn't decided. But you probably know that; you read the 'papes."
Tinbane said, "I don't like him."
"Too bad for you. But that's not going to affect Roberts much; I doubt if he cares. He's got plenty of followers out here, and he'll get the curiosity crowd. He can survive your opinion. Anyhow, what do you know about him? You've never met him."
"My wife likes him."
Gore grinned. "Well, he can probably endure that, too. I get your point, though. It is a fact that a major part of his following are women. That seems to be generally the case. I have our file on Ray Roberts; I think you should read it over before he shows up. You can do it on your own time. You'll be interested; there're some strange things in there, things he's said and done, what Udi believes. We're allowing that communal drug experience, you know, even though it's technically illegal. That's what it is: a drug orgy; the religious aspect is just fabrication, just window-dressing. He's a weird and violent man--at least so we view him. I guess his followers don't find him so. Or maybe they do and they like it." Gore tapped a locked green metal box at the far edge of his desk. "You'll see when you've read this--all the crimes he's sanctioned for those gunsels of his, those Offspring of Might, to do." He pushed the box toward Tinbane. "And after this, I want you to go to the People's Topical Library, Section A or B. For more."