Kathy said, “I think she wants to bring you into her kindergarten class for show and tell.” She patted my cheek. “Cheer up, darling, at least she’s cute.”
Sharon said, “Maybe the two of you could double with Jocelyn and Rebecca.”
“Or we could all buy a house on Staten Island,” I said. “Look, Sweetie, I’d love to have the two of you torment me all afternoon, but I have some things to discuss with Alison.”
After the two of them had exchanged “Nice to meet you’s” with Alison and wandered off to the smoking section, Alison sat back, looking at me like someone who’s discovered an extra piece in a finished jigsaw puzzle. She said, “Do you always remove your glasses when your friends come in?”
I shrugged. “It helps with the image.”
“Image?”
“You know what they say. Girls don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses. I believe that was proposition 23 from Adrienne Birth-of-Beauty’s Shout From The Skyscraper. If not, it should have been.”
“You could wear contact lenses,” she said, and I thought, Great Mother Agony, is this why she tracked me down after ten years? But then she raised an eyebrow and her voice, in perfect imitation of Kathy, and said, “That way you could see who was making the passes. You could avoid robbing the kindergarten.”
I felt oddly like an adolescent who’s just discovered that Mommy knows all those dirty words she and her friends use to show how tough they are. I said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“No, you’re right. Why did I want to see you? I suppose I wanted your take on Timmerman. I’m too close to it. Because of Jack. And my investigators—well, they’re good at research, not analysis.”
“So you thought of me.”
She paused. “Yes.”
“What do your sources say?”
“Very little. Just that Timmerman seems to have the Living World on his side and no one wants to touch him.”
“And the police?”
“I spoke with them after Jack died. They implied that Jack had entered voluntarily into a perilous state, and that since his death had resulted from contact with Benign Ones, they must consider it beneficial. They gave it the official verdict, ‘Death by ecstasy.’ ”
“In other words,” I said, “he died happy.”
“Exactly.”
“There’s something,” I said, “something just…wrong about all this. I mean, besides the obvious. Something that doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. Ellen, if you’re willing, I would like to have you come to my office where I could show you my files. Perhaps you might catch something I’ve missed.” She added quickly, “If you’d rather not, just say so.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe if you could give me a few days, let me think about it.”
“Yes, of course.” Suddenly she was looking down at her empty teacup. “And Ellen…whatever you decide, it’s good to see you again.”
“Yeah, well, thanks,” I said, then thought, come on El, give it a break. “I better get back to work,” I said. “Procrastination is its own reward, but it doesn’t pay the rent.” I caught the waitress’s eye.
“Shall I walk you back?” Alison said.
“Sure. I mean, thanks.”
In the street, it struck me that there was a time when nothing would have thrilled me more than walking side by side with Alison Birkett, having her consult me on an important case. To my surprise, I found myself wanting to cry. When we reached the lobby of my building, I told her, “I’d invite you up for tea, but it’s the sixth floor and the elevator’s broken.”
“That’s fine,” she said, just as a whirring noise signalled the arrival of the elevator from upstairs.
Though Alison pretended not to notice, I waved a hand and said, “I lied. The fact is, I just don’t like elevators.”
2
Absolutely not, I told myself. No way was I going to involve myself in some pet conspiracy project of Alison Birkett. So her friend got mashed by a mob. Maybe she could get him a gig as guardian of water coolers. She’s good at that. If I did some checking, I told myself, it wasn’t for her. I was just curious. I certainly wasn’t going to go to her office and read any of her files. But what harm would it do, just for curiosity, to do some private enquiries into Great Brother Alex and his pet Devoted Ones? And besides, I needed to keep away from the house and the telephone. Now that she’d broken the ice (smashed it was more like it), Ms Birkett could take it into her head to call me at any moment. Or worse, Joan Monteil might call. I could screen my calls, but I hated jumping every time the phone rang, then waiting nervously through the next four rings and the outgoing message before whoever it was would come on the line.
So the next morning I set out for the library, where for three days I scanned through old magazines and newspapers for articles on Alexander Timmerman and his Consumer Liberation organization. I didn’t expect any scandals or revelations. If Alison said none of the disturbing events had gotten into the newspapers I believed her. On that level I was sure she knew what she was doing. I just wanted a sense of what Timmerman was about, the kind of issues he was raising, what legal actions, if any, he’d taken against corporations or the government, what impact the Choir of Angels was having beyond raising the spiritual (read sexual) temperature at his rallies. And I wanted to see what articles had appeared on Timmerman’s dark-haired Friend, whom I was already calling in my mind, “Maggie Tunnel Light”.
About the last, not much. In fact, very little appeared on the Benign Ones at all. Spiritweek had an article in the “US Sanctification” section on Consumer Liberation, reporting that a third Devoted One had joined the “campaign to revitalize America” as Timmerman’s press person put it. There was, of course, no picture of Maggie. I remember hearing once that someone had invented a computer-linked camera that could create an “enhanced definition” image of a Bright Being. Supposedly, the SDA had slapped a restraining order on the inventor and the camera never got produced. The article did run a photo of Timmerman in his mask and grey suit, with surges of light behind him, a trick I knew I could duplicate on my computer any time I wanted. The text said precious little. Timmerman and his aides described their “profound gratitude” that the Living World was supporting their campaign to “fulfil the promise of the Revolution on all levels of society”. At the same time, they insisted that they had not sought out Margaret at all, but rather that she had approached them, appearing in their office, “in a vapour of love”, just after their yearly convention. According to the article, Ms Light would not “interact” directly with the public—no blessings in other words—but would help the inner staff “direct our spiritual resources to the massive tasks lying before us”.
As for the other two—Albert Comfort the Children 6 and Jeannette Benevolent Fire 31—Timmerman had not exactly summoned them either, not in the formal sense of an operation to secure a Benign One for personal service. According to the official Consumer Liberation line, Timmerman had suffered some personal trauma or other (they were coy about just what had happened, which probably meant sexual rejection) and had set out on a pilgrimage to the ruins of the nuclear power plant along the Hudson River. Either from accident or from deliberately coating himself in hot ash, Alexander came close to death, only to be healed by the sudden manifestation of Albert and Jeannette, who removed his burns and gave him his “true face” (the helmet mask) as a sign of service.
I wondered how much of this puff story to believe. As flattering as it was to Timmerman, it somehow rang true with my own sense of the Happy Twins (my term for them). There was something simple minded about them, as if, like so many Devoted Ones, they just wanted to help humanity lift itself from pain. In one of the articles, Timmerman’s press manager hinted that Albert and Jeannette were really one entity who appeared in two forms because of humanity’s “expectations of gender”.