“It doesn’t matter. We’re starting from scratch like the Mormons. They’re a worldwide powerhouse. We’re also using the recruitment techniques of the Scientologists. They’re a bright bunch.”
Sunderson sat there looking around the familiar room to make sure he hadn’t been transported to an asylum. He had ordered a bowl of chili and very much wanted a beer, which was verboten because of his upcoming appointment at the high school. Carla did look like she had been rode hard and put away wet. Her eyes were bleary as she sipped her second glass of sauvignon blanc and played with her Caesar salad (without anchovies).
“It sounds utterly deranged.”
“That’s because you’re trapped in your tiny ex-detective box. You don’t have a clue what the world has become. The real movers and shakers are out there on the peripheries discovering new forms. Think of Bill Gates thirty years ago, damn it. Dwight’s basic tenet is that semen is the most powerful fluid in the world. It’s been totally overlooked. I mean that the Bible said you’re not supposed to spill it on the ground, you know jerk off, but that’s not what he’s doing.”
“Pardon?” Sunderson felt his neck redden because four ladies at the next table had turned hearing the magic world semen.
“Jizz. Cum, for Christ’s sake. It’s the stuff of life,” Carla said loudly.
“Of course.” Sunderson felt this was the moment of truth. He reached into his sport coat and took out the folded e-mail and raised-skirt photo of Mona he had found on the cult site in Arizona.
“Where did you get this?” Carla asked looking overlong at the photo of Mona. She wadded up the material and dropped it into her Caesar salad, looking pale and staring at the ceiling.
“I have twenty copies. Perhaps we should talk in private.” He had, in fact, forgotten to make copies. He reached for the wadded paper and dabbed the salad dressing off with his napkin, glancing at Carla’s face which had hardened and become hateful.
“Fuck you!” she screamed with alarming volume. She grabbed for her coat and fled toward the door. He stood, deciding not to look around for reactions, dropped two twenties on the table, and followed. Outside the wind had subsided but thick snow was falling straight down and there was a half foot of fresh snow on the recently plowed parking lot. He tracked her easily to Queenie’s Range Rover, which she had started. He wiped away fluffy snow and got in the passenger side hoping the heater was fast because he had left his coat in the restaurant. She was curled up fetally on the driver’s seat sniffling with her back turned to him and her skirt pulled up the undersides of her thighs. Here we go again, he thought coldly, staring at the marvelous rump he had banged away at against the woodpile.
“What are you going to do?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“I don’t know. Maybe put you away for a few years. Maybe not. Mona’s not excited about testifying.”
“What’s that mean?” She curled up tighter, more fully exposing her butt in pale blue panties.
“For the time being it means it’s your duty to stay in close touch with me via cell and e-mail. Any dereliction of duty on your part and I meet with my friend the prosecutor. You are my slave informant. Agreed?”
“Yes. Get a card out of my wallet.”
When he leaned to retrieve the wallet from her purse he got a better view of her bottom, which all in all was the best in his experience. His feelings were mixed but he was becoming tumescent. His general disgust for her didn’t seem to include his dick, which was an independent compass.
“Marion said you could easily start a religion with the world’s shortest man or the world’s tallest woman. She’s seven foot eight and Chinese.”
“Fuck Marion,” she squawked. “You can play with my ass if you want.”
“I’ll pass for now.”
He was nearly to the high school, shivering and feeling virtuous. His mind, such as it was, had been diverted. He didn’t want to go back into the restaurant and face the stares which, though after the fact, were a consideration.
Mona and the gentleman were already in a small office at a desk when a secretary showed him in.
“Hey Daddy. This is Mr. Schmidt.”
“Your daughter is top-notch!” Mr. Schmidt barked. “I’m sure we can make things easy for you financially.”
“She always was smart as a whip and cute as a button,” Sunderson said stupidly.
“I find her interest in both musicology and botany fascinating. What universities is she looking at?” Mona was sitting too close to Schmidt, which seemed to be making him uncomfortable in front of her putative father.
“I’ve checked out Harvard, Tufts, and Macalester on the Web. Also the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. The trouble is that a wadded Kleenex can look like a white rose and a white rose can look like a wadded Kleenex,” Mona said thoughtfully.
“Really?” Schmidt raised his eyebrows.
Sunderson was wondering about this tangent, feeling crummy possibly because he was crummy. The work at hand was to de-crummy himself.
