Lost Yesterday

Chapter 4

Beatrice Pimser Dolomo was happy. Rubin Dolomo, the guiding genius of Poweressence, the spiritual force, was feeling almost good enough to get out of bed. Cutting his minimum daily requirement of Valium down to a single triple dose helped, but it was always easier getting out of bed when Beatrice was happy. Everything was easier when Beatrice was happy.

But the Dolomos' lawyer was not happy.

“I don't know what you two are giggling about, but the feds have got us nailed.”

“If you would only renounce your failure mechanism you would reap success and power. The only thing between you and your new dynamic life is yourself,” said Rubin.

“You want a Poweressence convert or you want to try to stay out of jail?” asked Barry Glidden, one of the foremost criminal lawyers in California. The Dolomos had hired him because he was known as a no-nonsense, no-holds-barred defender of clients, provided those clients had a no-holds-barred attitude toward payment.

Barry rested his arms on the table of the beautifully lit Dolomo day room, overlooking the magnificent Dolomo estate. He already had plans to buy it from them when they went to jail and turn it into a condominium development. There was enough prime land here to build an airport if he wanted.

“Let me tell you two happy people what they got on you, in case you think this hocus-pocus you make so much money on can work miracles. One, they got the alligators you put in that columnist's pool. That's Exhibit A. They got a wonderful witness, one of your former devotees, who says that Exhibit A was what you, Beatrice, told her to put into the pool. Because you aren't going to pass that off as stocking of wildlife, and because no one is going to believe an alligator walked from Florida homing in on a columnists' negative forces, that leaves any reasonable jury only one option: attempted murder.”

“That was Rubin's idea,” said Beatrice, displaying her charms in a halter and slacks. She knew Glidden wanted the property. One of Rubin's Poweressence converts was a movie star who had already been approached to invest in the consortium Glidden was organizing to make the purchase. She did not tell him she knew this, however.

She had told him simply that if he lost this case his children would be boiled in oil, alive.

He had offered to resign the case. She had told him she was only joking. Mostly. She had laughed coquettishly when she had said that. Barry Glidden had not thought it a thing of mirth.

“In Dance of the Alarkin Planet, a creature very much like a crocodile kills people with negative vibrations,” said Rubin. “Animals sense these things. Their instincts are a lot purer than the twisted products of the human brain.”

“He's not interested in your short stories, Rubin. He's interested in money. Right?” said Beatrice.

“I'm interested in the law. You put an alligator in a person's swimming pool to kill him. I've told you a hundred times, Beatrice, that you can't threaten, maim, buy, destroy, and knife your way out of everything. There comes a time when the world catches up to you. You are going to do time on this alligator thing. That's it. We can cop a plea and with a little bit of finagling here and there, get it down to six months. That is a light sentence for attempted murder.”

“No plea,” said Beatrice.

“I cannot get anyone on a jury to believe that cockamamie negative-force nonsense. You're going to do serious time if you don't plead. Jurors do not read Dance of the Alarkin Planet. And if they did, they wouldn't believe it.”

“They have been programmed by failure not to believe,” said Rubin.

“Rubin, you have not paid taxes for twenty years. No jury is going to accept that you owe your first allegiance to the universe. Not when they pay their taxes for sewer systems, national defense, police forces, and various other things that make a civilization.”

“We're in religion,” said Rubin. “They cannot tax religion. We have a right to be free of governmental oppression.”

“This is not exactly a church here,” said Glidden, pointing to the rolling California landscape of the Dolomo estate.

“Have you ever seen the Vatican?” said Beatrice.

“You are comparing yourself to the Roman Catholic Church?”

“So they have been here a bit longer,” said Beatrice. “But they, too, were persecuted in their time.”

“And we offer two more sacraments— the holy character analysis and blessed success on earth. Granted, they have been here longer,” said Rubin. “But in a time warp a couple of thousand years is nothing.”

“I don't know which one of you is crazier. The lady who thinks any threat to anyone will do, or you and your cockamamie fairy tales.”

“Our money is not crazy,” said Beatrice. “The checks are good.”

“Listen. I am just a human being. I have weaknesses. Juries are made up of human beings. They have weaknesses too. But don't underestimate the strength of their beliefs. They may not believe in negative vibrations. Most of them will not believe that the planet Alarkin exists. But they do believe that the President of the United States exists. Now, do you want to tell me about that, Beatrice?”

Beatrice Dolomo adjusted her halter. She cleared her throat.

“No,” she said.

“Some Americans might find it disturbing to hear that you have threatened the President of the United States. Did you do that, Beatrice?”

“I take whatever actions I have to. If I let the world bully me, I would be bullied by everything. Rubin and I would be nowhere if I listened to people who said I should know when to quit. I never quit. If I listened to them I would be the wife of a nobody science-fiction writer, at a time when science fiction is not selling.”

“So you threatened the President of the United States,” said Glidden.

“We used to eat tuna fish for Sunday dinner. Rubin wore vinyl belts and polyester suits. We were intimately familiar with every tenant-protection law on the books. We learned how to delay evictions by months.”

“So you threatened the President of the United States. You did,” said Glidden.

“Diamonds? Hah. I had a glass ring. It cost two dollars and thirty-five cents. When Rubin proposed to me he promised he would buy me a ring as soon as he sold his next book. He said every penny he made from Dromoids of Muir would go toward getting me that ring. And do you want to know something?” said Beatrice, her temples throbbing, her face flushing with the heat of her anger. “Do you want to know something?”

“Beatrice, please let go of my face. I can't talk,” said Glidden. His client had risen from her seat in fury. Her red-lacquered fingernails were now digging into his cheeks.

“You want to know something?” she yelled again.

“Yes, please. I certainly do,” cried Barry, who wanted his cheeks back with as little puncturing as possible.

“He kept his word. Rubin wasn't lying. He spent the entire proceeds of Dromoids of Muir on that two-buck ring. And you're telling me to back off?”

Barry felt his cheeks go free, and quickly began dabbing at the blood with his handkerchief.

“Yes, Beatrice. I want you to back off. I will be no good to you if you get still another charge against you. I can't keep up with them.”

“We didn't threaten,” said Rubin.

“The attorney general of the United States phoned me last night to tell me one of your Poweressence nuts at a formal state dinner mentioned to the President that the only way he could save himself from death was to have all federal charges against you dropped. That is not a threat? It seems like a threat to me.”

“You mean Kathy Bowen, that lovely, talented actress? That sweet girl who has seen her career blossom since she joined Poweressence? The Kathy Bowen we knew would be attending that state dinner? She did it on her own.”

“With Kathy Bowen's boobs, I could have been Jayne Mansfield. Yes, that Kathy Bowen— the one who danced with the President and said he was going to die if he didn't lay off you. That lovely girl who will never be invited to the White House again. That one.”

“She's a movie star,” said Rubin. “Lots of movie stars understand Poweressence because they already receive positive vibrations from the universal force.”

“I have movie stars as clients too. I know movie stars. They receive their vibrations from the universal farce. I got one movie star who believes he is the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. I got another star who bathes her duff in seaweed. I got another star who believes that blowing up children's hospitals will further the Marxist cause. I got more movie stars than I know what to do with, and I have yet to meet one with enough sound judgment to make it legitimately into junior high school.”

“Not only are we not copping a plea but we are going to be found innocent,” said Beatrice.

“She's right,” said Rubin.

“Well, if you get nearly eternal terms, don't blame me.”

“Of course I will,” said Beatrice. “If you don't have a witness against us, then I certainly will blame you if we are found guilty.”

“Don't count on that kind of luck,” said Glidden. “Less than one percent of witnesses retract their testimony. The odds are a hundred to one against you.”

“On the contrary,” said Beatrice. “The odds are in our favor. Can I get you a bandage for your cheek wounds?”

“You might try letting the blood flow stem itself naturally,” said Rubin. “In course number thirty-eight, we offer that technique for $1,285, but you can have it free. It's a general-health maintenance program.”

“I'll take the bandage,” said Glidden.

“I'll get it for you,” said Beatrice. “Rubin has a lot to do.”

Rubin Dolomo shuffled out of the room, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He wheezed his way down to the spacious basement and ground out his cigarette on the concrete floor. Neatly hung up on one wall were several dozen rubber suits. He got into one with great effort. He hated the way it stuck to him, hated the weight and heat it concentrated on his body. Normal breathing was hard enough for him, but the suit made it almost impossible. But Beatrice was right— he had a lot to do and no time to waste. He snapped on the rubber face mask and adjusted the goggles.

The founder of Poweressence, the hope of humanity, waddled to the rear of the basement, where an airtight door, like that of a submarine compartment, was set into the wall. He turned the wheel unlocking the door, and entered. The five herbs and three chemicals that made up the formula lay in separate barrels. As Rubin ground the herbs, his goggles began darkening, a sign he was going to pass out soon. But he knew he could make it. He'd made it before.

While the fresh potion dripped through a sieve and into a container, Rubin nearly collapsed into one of the large gray plastic barrels. He heard his heart beat in the suit, but did not hear the container close. He could smell the rubber, even taste it on his tongue.

He got out of the room just in time to make it to the shower. With his last ounce of energy, he kicked the large button on the floor and the room flooded with a harsh hot spray. Dolomo lay down to conserve his vanishing breath. When he felt the spray stop he put the container into a small vat and pushed the vat to a small conveyor belt set into one wall.

Rubin Dolomo cut himself free of the suit with an X-Acto knife and a great deal of effort. When he regained his breath he met the little container again in another room, but this time he was separated from it by a glass wall fitted with protective rubber arms. The container had been jostled along the conveyor route and now it rested on its side. Rubin slipped his arms into the rubber sheaths set into a window and set it right atop a little table. On the table was a single sheet of pink stationery and a matching envelope addressed to a former Poweressence devotee, one who felt he had been robbed. With his rubber fingers, Rubin opened the container of fresh formula, then took a small cotton swab from underneath the table and dipped it into the vial. He dabbed a touch of the formula in the upper-left-hand corner of the pink sheet of paper. Then he put the swab back into the formula and resealed the container.

Now came the hard part. Rubin had to fold the paper and put it in the envelope. Using rubber hands, this simple task took twenty minutes. By the time he was finished Rubin was sweating.

He lit a cigarette, threw a Valium and a high-blood pressure pill into his mouth, and then wheezed his way to a reception room, where the messenger waited for the letter.

He was a middle-aged executive who credited his rise to the vice-presidency of his corporation to his new self-confidence, and he credited his confidence to Poweressence. He believed that the United States government was persecuting the one religion that could save the world. He had nurtured that belief in an Idaho chapter.

Rubin had paid the chapter chairman fifteen hundred dollars for this volunteer. But he was worth it.

“Let me get this straight. I make sure no one but the traitor touches the upper-left-hand corner of the letter inside this envelope. I go directly to the building he is being kept in, and I announce that I am a friend who has a message from his sweetheart. And that is it. Simple.”

With that, the executive opened the letter just to make sure that his perception of an upper-left-hand corner jibed with Rubin Dolomo's. That determined, he shook hands with the man who had pulled his life back from the brink of wretchedness.

“Mr. Dolomo, you are one of the great minds of our time. And I am honored, deeply honored, to have this opportunity to serve Poweressence.”

“Watch the letter. Your finger is touching the corner. Watch the letter.”

“What letter?” asked the executive.

“The one in your hand,” said Rubin.

The executive looked down at his hand and the pink paper, which he was gripping by the corner.

“Did you just give me this letter? Or am I supposed to give it to you? Who is it for?”

“All right,” said Rubin wearily. “Put down that thing you have in your hand. We're going to the recovery rooms.”

The executive handed the letter to Rubin. Rubin stepped back.

“Put it down. Down. On the floor. Down,” said Rubin. Then he guided the man by an elbow to the rear of the mansion.

“Tell me,” said Rubin. “If you had a choice of something to play with, would it be a rattle, a toy train, a video game, or a woman and fifth of bourbon?”

“A choice? Wonderful. Why are you so nice?”

“It helps us figure which room you go in.”

“I'll take the bourbon,” said the executive.

“Good,” said Rubin. “You didn't get much. I'm getting pretty good with dosages.”

They passed one room that was a din of screaming. The executive could not help peering in a small glass opening in the door. The inside was a horror. Grown men and women were rolling around on the floor, some wetting their pants, others pulling hair, still others were crying.

“I didn't know the dose then,” said Rubin. “But we take care of them. We are a responsible religion.”

“That's awful,” said the executive. “There's a grown man there sucking his thumb.”

“That's Wilbur Smot.”

“He's smiling.”

“A lot of them do,” said Rubin. “How do you feel?”

“Not that good. Average, really. I just can't seem to recall what I'm doing here.”

“Do you remember joining Poweressence?”

“I remember taking a character test back in Norfolk, Virginia. Did I join?”

“You'll be all right in a while,” said Rubin.

They passed another room full of grown-ups but these were engrossed in electric trains and dolls. In the next room, a middle-aged woman with neon-blue hair and plastic jewelry played a video game. The final room was more to the executive's liking. It was a lounge, with soft music and a bar where he could help himself.

“You remember your address in Norfolk?” asked Rubin.

“Sure,” said the executive.

“Then take yourself a drink, and go home.”

“What is this? What is all this?”

“This is the latest scientific advancement created by one of the great minds of the Western world. And Eastern world, too. It is a gift to mankind from the great spiritual and scientific leader Rubin Dolomo,” said Rubin.

“Doesn't he run Poweressence?”

“He has brought that enlightenment, yes,” said Rubin.

“I remember seeing a picture of him. Yes. On a book cover, I think. Good book, too.”

“Do you notice any resemblance?” asked Rubin, pushing back the thin remnants of his once full flowing hair.

“None.”

“Well, then, forget the drink. Just get out of here,” he said.

“Fine. I don't know what I'm doing here anyway.”

Rubin went into the lounge and poured himself a stiff drink. He had the formula prepared, which was good. Now he needed another delivery person. This had cost them too much already. But the entertainment rooms were necessities. Because the formulas' effects could vary widely, Poweressence had to have a good test of the memory remission of someone affected by the formula. A fresh spill could send the deliverer back into childhood if he touched it with bare skin. Once the formula had dried, it could be counted on to shave a year or two off of the memory if touched within a week. Beyond that, somehow it got so powerful it was too dangerous to use. Rubin had spent a half-dozen lives finding out how to make the stuff and deliver it. Sometimes he thought he might slip a few drops into Beatrice's coffee and send her back to childhood. There was one horrible thought that stopped him. If Rubin should ever miss and Beatrice should find out, Rubin's life would be worth less than yesterday's garbage. Beatrice was ruthless.

A full-bodied woman sidled up to him.

“Hi,” she said.

“Save it,” said Rubin. “I run the place.”

“Do you want some? You're paying for it.”

Rubin looked longingly at the round rich curves, at the young curves, at the curves he wanted in his hands. But Beatrice meant more to him than a single wild exotic fling with a bar girl they had hired to work the recovery rooms. In her own way Beatrice had established a protocol for affection. She might, if she needed it to reaffirm her womanliness, take young men. Rubin might, if he needed other female companionship, face the loss of his sexual organs through the pounding of a frying pan upon those sensitive parts. Rubin, therefore, had been as faithful as a monk throughout the years.

“Thank you, no,” said Rubin. He had to buy another Powie, another dedicated devotee of Poweressence. The problem with getting a good one, one who truly believed, was that the Powie was worth anywhere from three to five thousand dollars a year in Poweressence courses. If he lost one, like those now kept in the rehab rooms, he could safely multiply those figures by ten to cover all the years of lost revenues. Every chapter franchise could understand that. They would withhold a percentage of the Dolomo dues until that loss was recouped.

As a responsible religious leader, Dolomo had to inform the Norfolk chapter head that he had lost a tenth-level member. The chapter head was furious.

“I had him signed up for every course. I had him doing regressions to clear out his astral lives. Do you know what we are getting for that in Norfolk, Virginia? I was in his damned will. What about that?”

“We'll make it up to you,” said Rubin.

“How? By getting convicted for attempted murder, fraud? Every time you two get nailed for something, Poweressence becomes a harder sell here.”

“Beatrice is doing something about that.”

“What is she going to do, put a cobra in the President's bed?”

“Don't talk about Beatrice like that.”

“Why not?”

“She might be listening.”

“Dolomo. We're in trouble, all around the country.”

“Don't worry. We're not going to be convicted. I just phoned to let you know that your Level Ten might not be coming back. Of course, if he does come back, you get a bonus. Since he has forgotten everything, you might be able to work him through the whole thing again. In which case we don't owe you salt,” said Dolomo.

“I'll never send you another.”

“We don't need you. This is California. This is gold country for this sort of stuff.”

“Then why did you call me in the first place?”

“I want to spread these things around the country. If you believe anything, believe we are going to beat this charge,” said Rubin Dolomo.

“I believe we'll lose half our membership when you're convicted.”

Rubin Dolomo hung up and had another Powie in the house within the hour, from a local chapter they still owned. The Powie was a problem, however. When she heard it was Rubin Dolomo himself she was talking to, she wanted him to take her through an astral regression.

“I get a sense that my planets are not organized within me. That I still retain negative memories,” she said. She was twenty, with the trim build of a gymnast. She said she had almost made it to the Olympics. If she had had Poweressence then, as she had now, she would have won the gold medal. But because she still harbored violent tendencies from another life, she was not allowed to win.

“Look, girlie,” said Rubin. “Take this pink letter. Do not touch the upper-left-hand corner, but deliver it. Do not tell who sent you because the evil forces will try to destroy your religion if you do. Do you understand?”

“Are you willing to risk using someone who hasn't totally cleared her memory of negative forces?”

“Have you been through Level One?”

“Yes.”

“Then you're strong enough,” said Rubin.

The Powie looked at the pink letter on the floor. “What is it doing there? Why don't you pick it up?”

“I have a bad back,” said Rubin. “And don't forget about the corner. Do not touch the upper-left-hand corner. The guards will probably want to read it. Let them, but you hold the letter. Only the witness touches the left-hand corner. Got it?”

“Upper left. Only the witness touches it.”

“Right.”

“I feel better already. Your power forces just reflected through my toes.”

“Yeah. I am like that,” said Rubin, who badly needed a Dexamyl, two aspirins, a Valium, and six cups of coffee to give him enough strength to get to bed for an afternoon nap.

“And don't forget. Be pleasant and open and they won't stop the letter.”

“I'll use my positive essence.”

She picked up the letter by the lower-right-hand corner and walked out of the Dolomo mansion refreshed. How true was Poweressence. How profound were the lessons she'd learned. When she smiled she felt better. When she smiled at others, they treated her better. All this from only a first-level course discount-priced at $325.

* * *

Ordinarily the U.S. attorney would have the witness secreted in a safe location where only prescreened mail could reach him. But since that didn't seem to protect all the witnesses lately and since this witness wanted to go home even more badly than most, the U.S. attorney relented. He allowed the witness to live in his own home. There was a special advantage in that. That hysterical pair, the Dolomos, seemed very likely to attempt some trick. And some government agency was going to lay a trap for them.

The reasoning was that anyone who would put an alligator in a columnist's swimming pool would try anything. And this might lead to finding out how witnesses were being turned. It was so secret the U.S. attorney was not sure which department was involved in the ambush, but when a thin man with dark eyes and thick wrists arrived outside the witness's home, the attorney knew not to question him. He just called off the normal guards.

The home was in a middle-class neighborhood of Palo Alto; needless to say, it was a neighborhood in which no middle-class worker could afford to live anymore.

Remo sat on the steps to avoid questions from the witness inside. The man wanted to know what his badge number was and where the guards were. He wanted to know how one lone unarmed person could protect him. Remo locked him in a closet for twenty minutes until he stopped yelling. Then he let the man out.

The man did not question him anymore but Remo had been put in a foul temper. He knew that anger could kill him, for it was the one emotion that blocked strength, turning it into unfocused energy. He had just decided to breathe himself out of it when a sweet young thing came up the walk to the house carrying a pink envelope.

“Hi. I've got a letter for the occupant of the house.”

“No,” said Remo.

The girl smiled, very broad, very bright. Continuously.

“I understand he is part of the government witness program and I understand that his mail has to be screened because it might contain a threat to him.”

“No letters.”

“Why not?”

“Because that means I'll have to open the door and hand him the letter. He'll expect me to speak to him and I don't like him. I don't like you either, to be honest.”

“You have a lot of negativity, you know. May I ask you if it is doing you any good? Because it isn't, you know. I can help you be as happy and free as me. Would you like that?”

“No,” said Remo.

“May I read you the letter, then, and then slip it under the door?”

“Nope.”

“It's a beautiful love letter,” said the Powie. She knew what she was up against: guard types were chosen just because of their unflagging slavery to negative forces. And what could be more negative than force that wanted to limit the freedom of Poweressence?

“'My dearest Ralph, my love forever,' signed 'Angela,'” said the Powie.

“Not good enough. Rewrite it.”

“But it's his love letter.”

“I don't like it. I don't like Angela. And I don't think I like you,” said Remo.

“How can you be so negative?”

“Easy. I like it.”

The Powie stepped back and yelled at the house.

“Ralph. Ralph. I have a letter for you. It's from Angela, but your guard won't let me give it to you.”

Remo opened the door. “Want the letter, Ralph?”

“You going to throw me back in the closet?”

“No,” said Remo.

“Then I don't want the letter. Angela was a dumb Powie I used to sleep with.”

“Powies are not dumb,” said the young girl.

“They're all dumb,” said Ralph. “And I was the dumbest of them all. I stole the alligator for them.”

“Ralph, don't you even want to read your letter?”

“That's just what I don't want,” yelled back Ralph. Remo shut the door. The next day Ralph testified that under the instructions of Beatrice Dolomo, he did upon a certain night at a certain time purchase one alligator, Exhibit A, now sloshing around in a large glass pool brought into the courtroom for the viewing of the jury. The jury, watching the alligator's teeth chomp around for a day and a half, convicted the Dolomos of attempted murder.

At Folcroft Sanitarium, Harold W. Smith heard the verdict and despaired. This had seemed like the perfect witness to be attacked by a loss of memory. And he was not attacked. They had nailed two petty crooks for national fraud, and the American justice system still hung vulnerable to a strange new force. On the same day the head of the California rackets was acquitted when his chief accuser, a former strong-arm man, could not remember enough to validate notebooks full of testimony.

That same day, Angelo Muscamente thanked the justice system of the United States, his lawyer, his mother, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and the proud new force that had brought success to his life. He joined the famous actress Kathy Bowen and other celebrities in saying, for the benefit of the press, that the saddest day for American freedom was the day the Dolomos were convicted of a crime.

“It will shame America, the way Jesus' death shamed the Roman empire, the way Joan of Arc's death shamed the French, the way Moses' death shamed someone or other,” Angelo announced on the courthouse steps. “I am free but these good people now are in jail.”

“They're out on a million dollars bail,” a television reporter told Muscamente.

“Yeah? A million dollars bail?”

“They put it up in cash.”

“Well, they got the dough,” said Muscamente, who went back to his well-guarded home to confront his astral negativity and rid himself of a little more of it. And why shouldn't he? he thought. He had paid a half-million to reach Level Twenty, and at that spiritual apex no court case could ever harm him. It was guaranteed, money back if not delighted. As he explained to his bodyguards, “Don't knock what fuckin' works.”