Criminal Carma

CHAPTER TWENTY

Shortly, I followed Baba downstairs. As I came to the bottom of the steps, the muscle I’d seen on the boardwalk came out of the hallway beside the staircase that led to the back of the house.

He went on point when he saw me. “What you doing up there?”

“Looking for the bathroom,” I said. “Do you know where it is?”

“It’s down here,” he said, very unfriendly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction he had come from. “Don’t go up there no more. That’s for staff and clients, understand?”

“Sure. No sweat. How much do you bench, anyway?”

“Three-eighty.”

“Wow,” I said, giving him a wide-eyed look. “That’s a lot. You’re really strong.”

“I get by,” he said, slightly mollified.

“You work out down on Muscle Beach?”

“Yeah, I’m usually down there ‘round four in the afternoon.”

“Neat. Be careful no one drops a barbell on your throat tomorrow.”

“Yer the one better be careful,” he snarled.

I walked around him into the narrow hallway.

The bathroom was ten feet down on the left. I went in and locked the door behind me. There was a handwritten sign on the wall by the shower asking people to be considerate of others and not use an excessive amount of hot water, always a precious commodity in a crowded ashram. The sign by the toilet-there always is one-instructed residents and guests not to put paper towels, tampons, or anything but toilet paper in the commode because they would cause a clog.

I splashed cold water on my face and dried off with a damp towel. I shouldn’t have antagonized Baba’s tough guy, but I was irritable. I wasn’t sure why. My upstairs adventure had been successful. I hadn’t found the diamonds, but I had found out where they were and, more importantly, where they were going to be on Tuesday morning. That was big. I had also discovered Baba’s alternate career and learned the nature of his hold on Evelyn. I should have been happy. But I wasn’t.

The muscle was gone when I went back out into the hall and everybody else was in the library, so I decided to do some more exploring. The swinging door at the end of the hall opened into a big old-fashioned kitchen with white wooden cabinets and yellow linoleum.

The blond girl Baba was trying to rename, whose lithe limbs and sexy energy would have drawn the eyes of every man in the stands at a World Series game if she walked by when the count was three and two in the bottom of the ninth, was arranging some snacks on a wooden tray at the table. She looked up when I came in and smiled when she recognized me, a pleased smile, bright with surprise. It lasted only a couple of seconds before she tucked it away behind the bored, supercilious look that comes naturally to beautiful girls, but we both knew it had been smiled. The fact was added to our unique store of shared knowledge, things only she and I were aware of.

“What are you doing back here?” she asked in the same taunting tone she had used on the beach.

“Just looking around. What are you doing?”

“Making prasad.”

“Can I help?”

She shrugged her small sturdy shoulders. “I don’t see why not. Get those dates and the powdered sugar from the counter and bring them over here.”

I took the wooden bowl of dates and cardboard box of sugar over to the table and sat down beside her. She smelled like castile soap. I resisted an impulse to bury my face in her shiny hair. I seemed to have a lot of impulses when she was around.

“Here.” She handed me a paring knife. “Cut a slit in each date and put one of these almonds in, then arrange them in a circle on these little paper plates and sprinkle powdered sugar on them.”

She was peeling oranges, tangerines, and grapefruits, arranging the segments in parallel rows on the wooden tray.

“That looks nice,” I said.

“Prasad has to be really tasty and attractive,” she said, primly. Then, giving me a sidelong look, “You probably don’t even know what prasad is.”

“Actually, I do.”

“Oh, yeah? What is it?” Though she was obviously all grown up in the ways of the world, she had a childish pride and possessiveness about her knowledge of the esoteric. It made me like her that much more.

“It’s food offered to a divinity like Krishna that takes on divine energy in the process. It is then shared among the god’s devotees as a way of receiving his blessing.”

“Wow,” she said, her attitude changing easily from superiority to admiration. “That’s pretty good. I never heard anyone say it so simple before. I mean, I kind of knew that’s what it was, but I couldn’t have put it so neatly.”

I shrugged. “How long have you lived here?”

“I’ve only been here a couple of months, but I’ve lived in other ashrams before. I really groove on Hinduism and yoga, you know?”

“Yeah, Vedanta is a cool religion. What brought you to this ashram?”

“My roommate graduated last semester-I go to City College-and I couldn’t afford the rent, so Baba let me move in here. I help out with karma yoga and he doesn’t make me pay anything. He’s pretty cool.”

“What all does karma yoga include?”

“Mostly working in the kitchen,” she said flatly. “But I kind of help manage the place, too. What about you? What do you do? How do you know about Vedanta?”

“I studied it years ago when I lived in Florida.” I didn’t mention that my scholarship took place in a prison library in between card games and yard fights. “I spent some time with Muktananda when he was in Miami.” That was after prison, when I was a dewy-eyed spiritual seeker, through forever with lying and stealing and all forms of dishonesty.

“Wow! You met Muktananda? He was one of the great teachers of this age.”

“Yeah, he was. Maybe I can tell you about him sometime.”

“What do you do now?” she said, slightly cooler, sensing a spiritual come-on.

“I own a construction company.”

That was the cover story I’d used for the past several years. I had business cards, stationery, sample cases, and a phone number that was answered by a professional-sounding woman who always said the same thing: “Coast Construction. No, Mr. Rivers is out on a bid. If you leave your number, I’ll have him call you.”

“A construction company? Really?” Mary sounded skeptical. “You have a job going down on the beach?”

“No,” I laughed. “I’m on vacation.”

“Let me see your hands.”

I held my right hand out to her. She took it and turned it over in a businesslike way, unself-conscious about her raw fingertips. “No calluses,” she said, looking up from my palm. Her bright blue eyes were fringed with exceptionally long, exceptionally light eyelashes that gave her a fairy-like appearance.

“I’m an executive, not a carpenter.”

“I doubt it,” she said, letting go of my hand. “That cat you are with is some kind of player, for sure. I think you are, too.”

“Why?”

“Female intuition. I grew up around players and I know one when I see one. For my money, you are some kind of naughty fellow. Maybe a con man or a bank robber. Tell the truth-I’m right, aren’t I?”

I was flattered by her estimate of my criminal standing. Bank robbery-not walking in with a scrawled note in a trembling hand, but planning and executing a major heist-is a high-class crime. Those guys get a lot of respect in the joint. At the same time, her flash of insight caught me off guard. To distract her from further speculation, and because I could hardly help myself, I scooted my chair closer to her and put my right arm around her.

“You’re projecting,” I said, taking a chance and lightly nuzzling her neck. She got still when I touched her, but didn’t shy away. “I think you are the naughty one. I’m not a bank robber, but I make plenty of cash in construction, and I wouldn’t mind spending some of it on you.”

I didn’t know if she was a temple prostitute like the other gowned girls or just an easygoing ashram lass who believed in free love, but she had showed us her breasts and I was getting such a warm and lively vibe from her that I thought there was at least an outside chance she would let me slide my hand between her thighs and lay her on the table while everyone else in the building talked about ultimate truth and spiritual transformation.

“I’m not for sale,” she said, placing her left hand against my ribs and pushing me away with calm, steady strength.

“I didn’t mean to imply that you are,” I said, backing off a little. “I just meant I’d like to take you out sometime and get to know you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, sardonically but thoughtfully, too. “I’m flattered. But I don’t even know you. Maybe if you came around and took some yoga classes we’d have a chance to get acquainted.”

“We have a chance right now.” I leaned toward her again and tried to turn her head so that I could kiss her red lips. I don’t know why I was being so aggressive. It wasn’t like me. Maybe it was because she hadn’t seemed to mind Reggie’s direct approach in the hallway and because I wanted to cut him off before he got another chance with her. Maybe because sex was in the air in the ashram and she radiated an intoxicating female energy that stirred me to my core. I wanted to put my tongue in her mouth, to taste her and touch her intimately.

“Stop,” she said sharply, jerking her head away. “I can’t. You seem like an interesting guy and all, but I’m with Baba now. I can’t fool around with you.”

That chilled me. I saw the tangled jeans on the orange bedspread again and knew why I had felt irritated when I came downstairs.

“So-what? You’re part of his string? You let him rent you out in those nice little rooms upstairs?”

“Screw you, pal. No one turns me out. No one ever has and no one ever will. Why don’t you get the hell out of here?”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t understand why a gorgeous girl like you would waste your time with an overgrown fakir like Baba. He’s got to be at least twice your age and three times your weight. And you can’t tell me that he isn’t pimping those other girls out.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, reverting to a bored tone. Her anger had faded as fast as it came. Calling her gorgeous hadn’t hurt. “Baba’s not a Boy Scout, but he is a real guru. There are people at this ashram who have seen him levitate during meditation. He helps people, too. I’ve seen him do it. Like that kid who was with you on the beach-we found him bawling his eyes out on the boardwalk one day and after Baba talked to him for a few minutes he was all happy and smiling. Could you do that for someone?”

“Why was he crying?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I think he said his mom was supposed to meet him and didn’t show up, or something like that. But Baba made him feel better. That’s the point. And it’s not like you think with the other girls. They do it with the guys Baba tells them to do it with, sure, but it’s, like, tantra, you know? It has a spiritual purpose.”

“Yeah, and I bet it puts a lot of spiritual dough in Baba’s dhoti, too.”

“So what? Money makes the world go round, pal. He uses it to keep the center open so people can learn about yoga and enlightenment.”

Ganesha chose that moment to hurry into the kitchen from the hall. He practically skidded to a stop when he saw me sitting with the blonde. Confusion, anger, jealousy, and sorrow played across his transparent face. He took refuge in the anger.

“You aren’t supposed to be back here,” he said to me, angrily.

“It’s okay,” Mary said. “He’s helping he make prasad.”

“It’s not okay,” he said, helplessly turning his anger on her. “You don’t run this ashram, Shakti. You have to follow the rules, same as everyone else. Only staff are allowed in the kitchen. Your friend has to leave.” He put some stink on the word “friend.”

“You should try not being an asshole sometime, Ganesha,” the girl said. “You might like it.”

Her contempt wobbled the boy’s knees.

“It’s not a problem,” I said, standing up. “I have to go anyway.” I didn’t want to provoke a conflict that would draw attention. “Maybe I’ll come back and try one of those yoga classes. When are they?”

“There’s a schedule in the rack by the front door,” the girl said in her default tone of indifference.

“You should take up meditation, bro,” I said to Ganesha as I walked past him. “It would help you relax.”

“Hey,” the girl said as I was going out the door. “We’re having a karma yoga day tomorrow if you want to come. Starts after morning mediation, and there’s a free lunch for everyone who helps. I’m cooking.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, matching her indifference.

“Hurry up with prasad” I heard the boy’s thwarted voice say as the door swung shut behind me. “Baba is waiting for it.”

“I bet he is,” I said to myself. “The fat bastard.”

Looking into the library as I passed, I saw twenty or so people sitting on the couch and floor, gazing raptly at Baba, who was enthroned like a tribal god in a big chair by the fireplace, where flames now crackled. He was staring balefully at a young woman with round glasses who was perched on an arm of the couch with an expectant look on her face.

“That is so basic,” he said angrily. “How many times do I have to answer the same question for you people? Atman and Brahman are one and the same. That is the essence of Advaita Vedanta. If you can’t grasp that simple principle, I am wasting my time with you.”

The girl looked like she might start crying, but Baba didn’t seem to notice. He shook his head in disgust and called on the next questioner.

Reggie was sitting on the front steps.

“It’s about time,” he said. “Where were you?”

“Prospecting.”

“Find any gold?”

“A nugget as big as your thumb.”