A Thousand Steps

33

He sleeps past noon and wakes up feeling better. Stronger, less pain, and ready for his labors.

First he calls Laurel and apologizes, tells her he really isn’t changing — he’s the same as ever — then goes downtown for more Taco Bell, then to the Fade in the Shade thrift shop for some bigger clothes. Shirts and shorts, two pairs of jeans, and one pair of black Converse All-Stars high-tops only a little too big — one dollar and seventy-five cents.

By one o’clock he’s in the Mystic Arts World back office with Johnny Grail, who takes an enormous toke on his desktop hookah, holds it in a long time, finally exhales a cloud of fragrant smoke. Matt declines. Grail slides a plastic-wrapped Tibetan Book of the Dead across the table to Matt, who squares it up and runs his fingers over the heavily embossed letters.

“Thanks again,” says Johnny, setting a five-dollar bill beside the book.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was for Marlon Sungaard?”

“I try to respect the privacy of my customers.”

“Well, thanks for the money.”

A conspirative smile from Grail. “Matt? I’m going to give you more than money. I’m going to give you something you might need even more someday. Come.”

Grail walks not to the door but to the far wall, which is lined with bookshelves. He pulls down a copy of the Holy Bible, and Matt thinks he’s about to get preached at by the founder of the BEL who has more than once told him that Jesus is LSD.

Instead, Grail reaches into the space where the Bible had been, and turns to Matt.

“Button on the wall,” he says. “Open, you door of perception!”

Followed by his dry cackle of a laugh, as the entire shelf swings inward, leaving an opening easily big enough for a man.

Matt follows him in.

“Lights to your right, shoulder high.”

On they come, revealing another room, probably for storage when it was designed, now outfitted with old furniture, a refrigerator, four small beds, a small kitchen and bath. Two floor heaters. No windows. Psychedelic paintings on the wall, some Christian’s and some Matt doesn’t recognize. In the back are shelves of what looks to be MAW merchandise.

“This is where you come to hide,” says Grail. “From people like, say, Furlong. We call it the Bat Cave. The kitchen is stocked and there are books to read. Nobody knows about it but us.”

“Nice.”

“I’ve used it more than once. Most of us have.”

“Cool, Johnny.”

Grail turns to him with his eyes gleaming and a smile on his elfin face. “Matt, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love welcomes you as a friend. Not a member of our congregation but as a friend of our church. But who can know? Life is Karma and Karma is life. Maybe someday... you’ll want to join us.”

“I feel honored.”

“Obviously this is our secret. Tell no one.”

“I absolutely will not. Ever.”

Matt interrupts his paper route to deliver the second Tibetan Book of the Dead. It looks identical to Matt, beautifully bound in gold-embossed leather, wrapped tightly in heavy, clear plastic.

He pushes his bike into the bougainvillea-walled front yard, hears the chime of the bell as before, notes the three gurgling birdbaths on his way to the porch. The blue milk box is as before, but Matt sees, with a slump of sadness, no white envelope. He sets the book in the box, and the front door opens.

“Matt. I’m Marlon Sungaard.”

“Yes, sir. I have your book.”

Sungaard looks old, at least forty. Bushy gray hair and a tanned, lined, handsome face. Prominent chin and nose. He wears a black turtleneck and strikes Matt as foreign. Unusual music — rhythmic but mechanical — throbs lightly from inside.

“Come in.”

“I’m on my paper route.”

“For only a moment, please.”

The foyer is arched and paneled in dark wood. There’s a wrought iron chandelier. Sungaard leads Matt into the great room, which has a beam ceiling and a hardwood floor. Sunlight slants through the blinds. The walls are white and hung with large black-and-white photo portraits in steel frames, mostly beautiful celebrities. There are Persian rugs and funny furniture — all chrome, black leather, and pale wood.

Standing in the middle of the room is a beautiful woman in black jeans and boots, and a sleeveless green blouse. She’s tall, tan, and flagrantly blond.

In a slat of sunlight that cleaves her shadowed face like a mask, she smiles. Matt recognizes that mouth. Unmistakable. He’s seen it with his own eyes: Cavore’s cohost at the Sapphire Cove orgy, the woman with the little black mask and the long lighter.

“This is my wife, Neldra. Neldra, Matt Anthony. Johnny’s friend.”

She strides to Matt, hand extended. Her grip is cool and surprisingly strong. She looks her husband’s age and Matt sees nothing light or cheery in her face.

Then, a swoosh in Matt’s eardrums and a thump of heart, as he remembers the line in Jasmine’s diary:

Neldra says I might be able to visit some time.

“My pleasure to meet you, Matt,” says Neldra. “So, you work with Christian at Mystic Arts?”

“Yes, I assist in the art hanging.”

“I think the psychedelic paintings are absurd. I’ve browsed there but never bought.”

“I guess you like photography.”

“I love the simple drama of black and white.”

Matt looks to her husband. “Here’s your book, Mr. Sungaard.”

“Marlon is just fine,” he says, taking the book without a look at it.

Matt’s gaze follows a curving wooden stairway up to the second floor.

“I read the article about you and your sister in the Register,” says Neldra. “And yesterday in the News-Post and the Times. You were so close to rescuing her. And I think the police were wrong to have kept your story quiet.”

“They’re not happy that I went to the papers. I hope they do some good. The stories.”

“How many doors have you knocked on in Laguna?” she asks.

“Three hundred and thirty-one.”

“Have you considered the danger of actually finding her? What you would do against violent men?”

“I don’t know,” Matt says.

“Do be careful,” says Neldra.

Matt thinks that Neldra Sungaard may well have invited Jasmine to a Sapphire Cove orgy. The van. The diary entry. The many pretty girls Jasmine’s age that night. How did she react to all that sex? Did she laugh? Run? Join in? Was Marlon Sungaard there, too?

“I’ll give Matt the grand tour,” says Sungaard. “We’ve got a project to discuss.”

Matt follows Sungaard up the stairs.

It’s warmer and brighter up here. Three bedrooms with big windows and the odd leather-chrome-blond wood furniture.

“What kind of chairs and tables are these?” Matt asks.

“Danish Modern — Bauhaus meets the human anatomy. Some original Klint pieces, some Ole Wanscher and Juhi. Of course, the swan and egg chairs are Jacobsen.”

“Are you Danish?”

“No.”

The bedrooms look clean and unlived in. “What’s this project you talked about, Mr. Sungaard?”

“Marlon, please. Let’s talk in my office.”

Sungaard’s second-floor office is spacious and bright; the blinds are open and the air conditioner drones quietly. A very large steel desk dominates from the middle, dense with space-age gadgetry: three phones with what appear to be tape recorders attached to two of them; teletype and maybe telex machines, an IBM ball-typewriter like some of Matt’s teachers have, a wire-service news terminal, and a glass-domed stock ticker like he’s seen in movies. There’s a Xerox copier so big it stands on the floor. A globe of planet Earth nearly five feet high glows, lit from within. Matt takes in the tall black filing cabinets and the walls lined with bookshelves. A black leather-and-chrome sofa and chairs surround a glass coffee table with bright magazines arranged in orderly fans. The bookshelves are full with what look like reference books.

Sungaard sits in a leather chair before a big blank desk blotter, gestures to a facing egg-shaped chair.

It’s surprisingly comfortable. “A Jacobsen?” Matt asks.

A smile on the tan, lined face. He slides a small, square white envelope with M.A. typed on the front. “Ten dollars, for taking the time to deliver the book.”

Making this much money, this easily, embarrasses Matt. Along with the five dollars Johnny gave him to make the delivery, he has just earned fifteen dollars for what, half an hour of his time? He does wonder how anyone can get rich enough to own houses all over the world.

“Thank you.”

Matt also wonders if Marlon Sungaard knows his wife is involved in for-pay sex orgies. How could he not? And why are old people so hornily fucked up?

“Do you know Jordan Cavore?” Matt asks.

“No, should I?”

“Jasmine went to one of his parties in Sapphire Cove not long after she disappeared from home.”

Sungaard looks baffled. “And?”

“You must know a lot of rich people, is all.”

“I certainly do. I manage fortunes. Some are considerable. I invest money profitably and I take a percentage. I travel constantly to meet with clients, educate them, show them the way forward. They need to feel valued. The tools in this office help keep me one small step ahead of the markets, and my competition. Small steps can mean big things. But I don’t know every rich man in America. Not this Cavore you asked about.”

“Sorry. I was just looking for something that isn’t there. Again. Everything I do to find my sister ends up empty.”

“You’re going to find her. She’s going to come home.”

“Everyone says that, Mr. Sungaard. I used to say that. Now, not so much. I think she knows it, that I’m losing faith.”

An almost silence between them, the air conditioner humming. Matt knows why he’s confided something this personal to someone he doesn’t know. Something in Sungaard reminds him of his father. Suddenly a teletype machine is on, clattering a band of printed paper into a basket.

“Your machines are cool,” he says. “But I don’t know what most of them do.”

“They all do the same thing. They transfer information from one place to another, instantly.”

“What’s our project?”

“Matt, do you surf?”

“Only a little, sir. Why?”

“I have twelve surfboards I want picked up and brought to a rental space here in town. They’re a brand-new design made up in Huntington Beach, called a fish. A shaper friend of mine got the idea from the inventor in San Diego who never bothered to patent the fish. So, a very expensive mistake for that inventor. My lawyers are close to securing the patent for me. The fish will revolutionize surfing. Hundreds of thousands will be sold, just here in the U.S., and millions throughout the world. I’m going to be selling them through Stoke Sixty-Six here in town. And seventy-five other surf shops I’ve lined up, worldwide. Probably be closer to a hundred by the time I can get them product. Millions of dollars over the years. Too many millions to estimate.”

“Cool. How’s it going to revolutionize surfing?”

“The fish is a short, thick twin-fin with a swallowtail. The combination creates incredible acceleration and speed, so you can make almost any wave that’s got power. It’s for crisp clean waves like New Break or Black’s. But it rides well in the softer stuff, too.”

“Do you surf?” Matt asks.

“With passion.”

Matt has been wondering just why one of the richest men in the world wants to corner the fish surfboard market, and now he has at least a partial answer.

He sees nothing wrong with this job, which he guesses will take two trips, one hour each. He won’t have to wrestle eight thousand pounds of logs up and down a steep driveway. He can fit six short boards into the Westfalia. If he can do it late at night, it won’t interfere with his search for Jazz.

“What does it pay?”

“Thirty dollars.”

Matt tries to keeps the smile off his face. A fortune like that, and he doesn’t even have to take time away from his quest to find his sister. Added to Sara’s fifteen dollars and the fifteen he’s just made, this thirty dollars would launch his net worth into the stratosphere. He’s never had this much money except for snagging that hundred of Johnny’s that day on Coast Highway.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“A good decision. Like I said, the fishes are short, so they’ll fit in your van. Two trips. No surfboard racks. I don’t want anyone even seeing them until they hit showroom floor. It has to be done tonight. I’ll give you the storage unit number and key. And here’s the thirty.”

Sungaard hands Matt the second envelope of the last half hour.

“You knew I’d take the job,” he says.

“I know I would if I were sixteen and delivering papers.”

“I can only do it late.”

“The later the better. Less eyes.”