“You and your group of mystics confronted him and Minster? But you said you never met Shiva.”
“I said we performed a spiritual intervention to stop construction. The group I’m talking about, they can get into some dark mojo if it’s required. You ever hear of a voodoo thing called an ‘assault obeah’? Get the right shamans involved, you can suck the life energy right out of your target.”
I said, “You can’t be telling me your friends are capable of murder.”
“What I’m telling you is, someone can die without being murdered. But what they decided to use on Minster was all positive, man. Lots of meditation and some heavy-duty prayers.
“But Minster had been drained by the non-Bhagwan. Shiva, he’s like
… well, remember, in the movie The Wizard of Oz? That scene with the witch’s soldiers, the ones with the tails and spears? They’re marching into the castle, shouldering their spears, chanting what you think is ‘OH-eee- ohhhhhh… weeee-OHHH-one.’”
Tomlinson was singing it now. “‘OH-eee-ohhhhhh… weeee-OHHH-one.’”
I said, “Sure. Even I know that scene.”
Tomlinson said, “What the witch’s soldiers are actually singing are lyrics. Only you have to listen close to understand them. What they’re singing, over and over, is: ‘Oh, we loath-h-h-h-he… the OLD one.’ We loathe the Old One. Meaning the Evil One. That’s Shiva. He’s evil, man.”
I asked, “How do you know this stuff?” I was still back on The Wizard of Oz.
He flapped his bony hands at me- forget it -as he continued, “What I’m saying is, Minster was under Shiva’s control. So mind-zapping him was like trying to drill through solid steel. Which is why we went to see Minster. Two of our group’s leaders and myself.”
“You made an appointment at his office.”
“You kidding? People like us, we’d have a better chance getting an audience with the governor. No, we confronted him at the construction site.
“When he shook hands with me, he had this expression, like he was touching someone’s dirty handkerchief. We didn’t exactly become chums. But there was one of us, a woman, he really seemed to dig her. So she did most of the talking. A very cool lady-she doesn’t want anyone to know she really has the powers she has. She’s the private kind.”
I said, “It’s hard to believe that she convinced Minster and Shiva not to build their condo complex. Not with that much money involved.”
Tomlinson shrugged. “I don’t know. After the first meeting, I was out of the picture. My services were no longer needed. But construction stopped on the Tequesta Circle-that’s what we called it. So something happened.”
“You said this was about two years ago.”
“Yeah. Maybe a little more.”
“Could you contact your lady friend and ask her about Minster? Six months back, he disappeared. Fell off a fishing boat, presumed dead. Now Sally’s stuck with a lot of emotional baggage, plus some big financial decisions to make. It would be good to find out what we can. It might help her.”
“Minster’s disappeared? Jesus, you’re kidding.” Tomlinson had stopped again; sobered even more at the news. “Did they find the body?”
“No. But the court has, apparently, been presented with enough evidence to order that a death certificate be issued.”
He was tugging at his ponytail, biting the ends of his stringy hair-a familiar nervous mannerism. “That sounds exactly like it, man. Just what I was talking about.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Sometimes saving a sacred place takes extreme methods. What happened to Minster, Doc, it sounds just like an assault obeah. A very dark and powerful force. The body disappears, right along with the soul.”
chapter eleven
Karlita told us, “Why not let me try? Let me hold the photo, tune in on the vibrations. The Key West police, the Dade County Sheriff’s Department, they’ve all used me to find missing people. It’s one of my specialties.”
We were sitting on the stern of Tomlinson’s trunk- cabined, salt-bleached Morgan Out Island sailboat, No Mas. He’d recently had her hauled, scraped, painted and refitted for an extended cruise he had planned-another symptom of his desire to escape.
She now had a new little Yanmar diesel (though the man seldom resorted to using power), a high-amp alternator, inverter, wind generator, an autopilot and a very powerful Bose sound system. Even so, the cabin retained the familiar odors of oiled teak, kerosene, electronic wiring, patchouli incense, sandalwood and the musky smell of marijuana.
It was crowded. There were five of us sitting around the stern cockpit and on the roof of the cabin bulkhead: Karlita, Tomlinson, DeAntoni, myself and Sally. Tomlinson was sitting cross-legged, meditation style to my right. When Karlita spoke, I nudged his knee with mine and, in the glow of blazing moonlight, did my best to glare at him.
The entire evening, I’d tried to avoid her, yet, over and over, Tomlinson had steered her to me, smiling his mild, Buddha smile. Which is how she’d met Sally, then DeAntoni, who, it turned out, was a fan of her weekly television show as well as of her nightly cable TV infomercials.
“I got what you call insomnia, Miz Karlita, so you and me, we’ve spent lots’a late nights together.”
The woman loved that, vamping a little as she replied, “Oh really? You lying there in bed all alone? I bet we’ve shared some very special moments, just you and me. Am I right?”
DeAntoni missed the implications of that; continued to smile and nod as he told her, “I think you’re one of the most beautiful women on the tube. Honest. I’m not just saying that.”
Which guaranteed Karlita would be with us the rest of the night, tagging along, listening to everything we had to say and not shy about commenting.
Now here she was on Tomlinson’s boat, hair hanging long over her right shoulder, dressed in Arabic-looking scarves, red and black, that showed that she was braless, very comfortable with her body, bare legs and thighs visible when she walked or sat with legs crossed, which she was doing now.
DeAntoni said, “Know what the weirdest thing is? I almost called you. It was the night you had the guy on who could bend metal just touching it. I’m sitting there and it comes to me: Hey, maybe the beautiful psychic could help me with Mrs. Minster’s case.”
He’d already told her about Sally’s husband, and the photo.
Sounding flattered, Sally said to him, “You really seem to care.”
DeAntoni said, “Sure, it’s my job. Plus, I think you’re one nice lady.”
“That’s a very kind thing to say.”
“I mean it. Which is why I’ve started feeling, well, I guess protective’s the word. It’s the kind of guy I am. I live alone, not even a cat, so who else I got to look after? All that insurance money involved, you could attract every kind of shark and con man around. Plus, your husband was hanging with a rough crowd. You ever do any reading about the Church of Ashram?”
“Enough to know that the people there scare me.”
DeAntoni said, “That’s good. I’m glad to hear it. From what I’ve read, they’re nasty when it comes to revenge. People who piss them.. . people who cross them, make them mad. Out west, in this one little town, his followers went to the only restaurant and contaminated the salad bar with salmonella. The whole town got sick, so they couldn’t get out and vote. Murder, too-they’ve been accused of that. Of making people disappear.”
“Like Geoff,” Sally said softly.
DeAntoni said, “Yeah, like your husband. So I’ve been keeping a real close eye on you.”
To the television psychic, Sally said, “You’re right. He’s kind.”
Then, looking at me, she said, “I’d like her to hold the photograph. If she has a power, it was given to her by God, not any sort of witchcraft. So let’s give her a chance.”
Holding the photo in both hands, eyes closed, the television psychic did her act.