Psych: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read

Chapter Eight

“ Stop!” Gus shouted.

Tara stomped on the brakes, and the Mercedes left rubber along a hundred yards of narrow mountain road before it came to a screeching halt. Shawn felt his appendix sliced neatly in two by the seat belt.

“What is it?” Shawn said, clutching at the belt release.

Gus was already out of the car. He walked the few feet to the top of the mountain’s summit, then stopped, gazing down at the valley below him. It was like an enormous cereal bowl carved out of granite, deep, almost perfectly round, with enormous boulders protruding from the walls like stray Lucky Charms stranded after the milk was gone. A one-lane road spiraled around the bowl, taking three full revolutions before it finally reached the bottom of the valley and straightened out into the mansion’s long driveway.

And exactly in the center of the circle, Eagle’s View sprawled majestically, an artistic testament to attention-deficit disorder. Elias Adler was a man of great and sudden passions who could fall in love with an architectural style as quickly as a chorus girl, and dump it just as easily. When Adler first commissioned this house, he had just come back from a month in Italy, and the entrance was designed to look like a Roman villa’s. But before construction could be completed, Adler took a trip to Germany, where he fell in love with Ludwig’s Bavarian castle. So behind the villa’s atrium there rose three stone towers, each one topped with crenellated watchtowers. Apparently, however, Adler’s attention drifted away again during this construction, because the rearmost third of the house seemed to be modeled on a Japanese palace.

Even from half a mile away, the house was everything Gus had ever dreamed it would be. He was so totally engrossed in studying it, he didn’t notice Shawn come up behind him.

“That has got to be the ugliest house in the world,” Shawn said. “It’s like an aerial view of Disneyland, if each different land was a building and they were all crammed up against one another.”

“Spectacular, isn’t it?” Gus agreed.

“If you’re a lunatic.”

A car door slammed and Tara tottered up to them on her spike heels. She was about to say something when she saw the landscape spread out in front of them.

“What a beautiful house,” she cooed.

“There you go,” Shawn said.

To be fair, Tara hadn’t acted particularly crazy on the long trip. Even her driving was shockingly sane on the road’s tight turns, although Gus supposed she was still acting under Shawn’s earlier instruction to drive safely and obey almost all traffic laws.

Even that wasn’t enough to keep him from spending the first half hour of the ride ducking under the window every time they passed a police cruiser. A stolen car was a stolen car, no matter how considerately driven. Finally Gus decided he needed to tackle the question head-on. Or at least slightly to the left of head-on.

“Say, Shawn,” Gus said as insouciantly as he could with his head lying on the armrest, “how’s that other case going? You know, the one in Arcata?”

“I don’t know, Gus,” Shawn said. “Why don’t you tell me? After all, you’re the one who insists there’s a case in the first place.”

Gus studied Tara closely to see how she’d react to the mention of the scene of her crime. She didn’t seem to notice at all. At least, the small lock of her hair Gus could see poking around the headrest didn’t. From his position, he couldn’t see the rest of her. After a quick check for police vehicles, Gus sat up and tried again.

“You remember what I’m talking about, don’t you, Shawn? The Enid Blalock case?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Gus realized he’d made a terrible mistake. If Tara was as crazy as he feared, what was there to stop her from driving them right off the edge of this twisty road, sending them all plummeting down to a fiery death? Gus didn’t know the odds against surviving two cliff plunges within a twenty-four-hour period, but he didn’t want to test them.

“I’m sorry, Gus. I couldn’t hear you over the all the subtlety flying around in the car,” Shawn said. “What was that name again?”

“Enid Blalock.”

“Not the Enid Blalock,” Shawn said.

“It’s hard to imagine there could be more than one,” Gus said.

“I wonder if Tara has an opinion on the subject,” Shawn said.

Gus realized he didn’t know what he was expecting from Tara. A stern denial, possibly, or a look of fake incomprehension. Or worse, a look of real incomprehension, which would suggest pretty strongly that she’d never learned the name of the woman whose car she had stolen. And of course, that long shot in the back of his mind: the terrifying plunge off the cliff after she deliberately missed a turn.

The one thing he definitely didn’t expect was what he saw-one tear running down her cheek.

“What’s wrong?” Shawn asked.

“That name,” Tara said. “It reminds me of my own aunt Enid.”

“Aunt Enid?” Shawn shot a chiding look back at Gus.

“She was so kind to me.” Tara sniffed. “When I needed a place to live, she helped me find an apartment, even though she specialized in houses.”

“So she’s a Realtor?” Shawn said, barely trying to hide the victory in his voice.

“She was,” Tara said. “She got her license after the divorce.”

“That is something new and different,” Shawn said. “Where is she now?”

“I hope she’s in Heaven,” Tara said. “I mean, I know they say gluttony is a sin, but do you really think someone would get sent to Hell just because she could polish off a pound of See’s Soft Centers for breakfast?”

“We try to leave those heavy theological questions for the experts,” Gus said. “Are you saying that Aunt Enid is dead?”

Tara sniffed back a tear. “I was with her until the very end. I think she was finally at peace.”

“I’m sure she’d be happy to know you were driving her car.” Shawn’s face was alight with triumph. “Almost as happy as Gus.”

“That’s very kind of you, Gus,” she said, sniffling. “She would have liked you a lot.”

Gus didn’t know what to say. Again, he was feeling that same guilt at having misjudged another person. And it wasn’t fair. There was every reason to believe Tara had stolen this car. Just like there was every reason to make fun of Bobby Fleckstein’s glasses-they were thick black horn-rims, and they had made him look like a ’tard. Just once, Gus wanted the freedom to think terrible thoughts about other people and not feel bad about it afterward. The woman had hit him with her car, after all. She was a dangerous, delusional psychotic. And even so, Gus was nearly overwhelmed with the urge to sit in the nearest corner.

Apart from the guilt, the revelation about Tara’s aunt freed Gus from his fear of riding in a stolen car driven by a remorseless psychopath, and as the road wound its way toward the top of the mountain, he began to enjoy the trip. He was finally going to see Eagle’s View. And for all of Shawn’s complaining, there was something particularly exciting about being summoned by one of America’s most brilliant investors. Maybe he’d give them some tips. Maybe he’d even give them some money. At the very least he was giving Gus something to think about besides the prospect of being arrested for murder.

Gus spent the rest of the ride to the summit happily switching between thoughts of Eagle’s View and dreams of actually being paid enough to cover all the bills. Until he saw the gates flanking the road ahead of them and ordered Tara to stop the car.

“It’s easy to call the house ugly,” Gus explained to Shawn and Tara as they looked down on the valley. “But that’s just the first, visceral reaction. Once you get past the initial impression, you can begin to appreciate just how momentous an architectural accomplishment it is.”

“So when I call it ugly now, that’s ignorance,” Shawn said. “But if I go to architecture school and spend years studying it-”

“You can call it ugly and really know what you’re talking about,” Gus said.

“Then let’s get our education started,” Shawn said. “You know how much I hate an uninformed opinion.”

Although they were no more than half a mile from the house, it took them another twenty minutes before the Mercedes pulled up in the circular drive outside the villa’s front door. There was no straight road from the summit to the valley floor; instead, the drive hugged the side of the bowl, running slowly down in three concentric rings.

When Shawn and Gus stepped out onto the flagstone driveway, the house’s mammoth front door yawned open and a small man in a precisely tailored gray pin-striped suit stepped out, checking his watch. His razor-cut hair seemed to have been combed with tweezers, each strand placed exactly in the right location. When he walked over to them, he placed his feet so deliberately Gus found himself looking for the marks he appeared to be hitting.

“You’re thirteen minutes late,” the man said. “The bulldozers were on their way.”

“No point in wasting them,” Shawn said. “Maybe they could knock down this monstrosity while they’re on the clock.”

“I am Devon Shepler,” the man said. “You must be Mr. Spencer.”

“Or what?”

Gus had gotten used to Shepler’s pauses on the phone, but to see one in person was unexpected. It was as if Shepler existed only on a DVD, and someone had pressed the PAUSE button. His muscles froze; his breathing stopped. Gus couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the breeze even stopped rustling through his hair as he decided on the appropriate response. Then, after a few seconds, Shepler came back to life.

“Mr. Steele is waiting for you,” he said. “Come this way.”

Shepler turned and marched toward the front door without checking to see if they were following him.

“If Steele asks us to invest in his robot factory, we are so in,” Shawn said. “That thing is amazing.”

Shawn and Gus followed Shepler through the door into a wide-open atrium flanked with ancient columns that reached up to the sky. A shallow still pool glowed blue in the sunlight.

“This is based on the Villa Uffizi, the most famous house in Rome,” Gus whispered as if they were walking through a museum and a guard was glaring at them.

“I guess they spent all their money on the pool, so they couldn’t afford a roof,” Shawn said. “And would it have killed them to dig the swimming pool a little deeper? I like to get in above my ankles.”

At the end of the atrium, Shepler was holding another door open for them. They passed through into a wide corridor, its walls covered with elaborate tapestries. Their footsteps rang out on the gleaming marble floor.

“This place would be a lot less noisy if they put some of those carpets on the floor where they belong,” Shawn said.

Shepler stopped outside a stained oak door and rapped sharply on it with his knuckles, then swung it open. “Mr. Spencer and Mr. Guster are here,” he said, then moved out of the way to let them through.

The room was the size of the international terminal at a major airport. All four walls appeared to be lined with antique books, but they were too far away for Gus to be sure.

“Shawn! Gus! Great to see you!” The voice seemed to be coming from right next to them. Gus jumped, then turned in all directions. He didn’t see anyone.

“You didn’t tell me Steele was a ghost,” Shawn said to Shepler.

“It’s the acoustics,” the disembodied voice said cheerfully. “Amazing, isn’t it? The design was based on the fortress citadel of Golconda, the famous sixteenth-century Indian palace built by Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah Wali. They said you could clap your hands at the main gate and they’d hear it at the top of the citadel.”

“That’s a really useful invention,” Shawn said.“I mean, it would be if no one had ever invented the doorbell.”

Gus squinted his eyes, and in the far distance, he was able to see the outlines of an enormous desk. There seemed to be a person behind it, waving at them.

Shawn and Gus crossed the great expanse of office, finally reaching a mahogany desk the size of the Hindenburg. By the time they got there, Dallas Steele was coming from behind it, his hand outstretched in welcome.

“Shawn! Gus!” Steele’s pearly teeth flashed in a warm smile. Gus could hardly believe what he saw. The years hadn’t just been kind to Steele-they’d been his best friend in the world. Somehow he’d become even more handsome now than he had been as quarterback and homecoming king in high school. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Why?” Shawn said. “Need someone to tie your shoes?”

Gus slapped Shawn’s arm. But Steele just let out another booming laugh. “Devon told me how you remembered that nursery school thing. What a memory you have! I’d forgotten all about it-but you were right. I cried my eyes out for a week after that humiliation.”

“Some people would be bitter about things like that,” Gus said. “Some people can’t ever seem to get over what happened to them in school.”

“Got to move on, right?” Steele said.

“Possibly,” Shawn said.

“Besides, there were no hard feelings. Especially not after I bought the company that made those shoes, drove it into the ground, and sent the CEO to prison on trumped-up embezzlement charges.”

Shawn and Gus stared at Steele, who burst out laughing again. “I’m joking,” he said. “Not all businessmen are evil, any more than all psychics are frauds.”

“Who’s a fraud?” Shawn said.

“No one, no one,” Steele said. “That’s why you’re here, because I believe you’re the real deal. But let’s not stand around my crummy old office. Let’s go somewhere we can be comfortable.”

“Is it far?” Shawn said. “Because I forgot my hiking boots.”

Gus hit Shawn again. “That sounds great, Mr. Steele.”

“It’s Dallas. But to you, it’s Dal. Just like the old days.”

Steele led them back across the office toward the door.

“What old days?” Shawn whispered. “We don’t have any old days with this guy.”

“Sure, back in high school-”

“When he was the king of all he surveyed, and we were nothing. In four years of high school, did you ever once call him ‘Dal’?”

“I don’t think anyone called him ‘Dal.’ The teachers used to call him ‘sir.’”

“Exactly,” Shawn said. “He’s up to something.”

Gus took one last look around the office as they stepped back into the corridor, trying to calculate just how much bigger it was than every place he’d ever lived put together.

“Yeah, he’s up to about four billion dollars as far as I can tell.”

“And how do you think he got all that money?”

“His official biography says he took his inheritance and invested it in-”

Shawn raised a hand to cut him off. “Does the phrase ‘massive criminal conspiracy that reaches into the highest echelons of Santa Barbara society’ mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Yes, it does,” Shawn said. “I saw it on your face. Isn’t it suspicious that a day after we stumble across the Impound Lot Massacre-”

“What massacre?”

“Fine, the day after a refugee from a chain gang tries to kill us for revealing his identity at the impound lot and ends up murdered,” Shawn said. “Although I think Impound Lot Massacre is a lot punchier. Anyway, one day after that, Dallas Steele drags us up here for a chat. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Not necessarily,” Gus said. “It could be a complete coincidence.”

“Exactly!”

“Exactly what?”

“Exactly what Auric Goldfinger said: First time it’s happenstance. Second time it’s coincidence. Third time is enemy action.”

Gus tried to follow the logic. “Then this isn’t even a coincidence. We’re still on happenstance. You know, I was prepared to share your prejudices and suspicions about this man, but I think he’s pretty clearly proved you wrong. He’s been nothing but friendly and welcoming since we got here.”

“If you ignore the fact that we only did get here because he threatened to tear down our office.”

“You can’t stand this guy because he’s one man who isn’t going to let you manipulate him. You can’t take advantage of Dallas Steele, so you have to find some way to say he’s a bad guy.”

“I do not take advantage of people.”

“Then why is there a delusional woman sitting in the driveway, spending her afternoon waiting to drive us back to Santa Barbara?”

“Because it makes her happy,” Shawn said. “Just like it makes you happy to believe that this Dallas Steele is a great guy. And because I want you to be happy, I’m going to put everything I know on hold and treat him the way you would. I’ll give him every benefit of every doubt. And at the end of the day, we’ll see who’s right.”

Steele stopped outside another door. “I thought we’d be more comfortable in the game room.”

“Sure,” Shawn said. “If you need to relive those few moments of adolescent glory when you still played football, I guess a room dedicated to childish games is the place to hang.”

Steele swung open the door and led them into the middle of a nighttime forest. At least, that was what it seemed like at first. It took Gus a moment to realize that the close-growing stands of firs were actually a mural painted on the walls of another huge room. The moon and stars that shone down were artfully designed electric lights, and the pine needles that crackled underfoot were woven into the carpet.

“So which moments of adolescent glory do you think he relives in here?” Gus whispered to Shawn.

“I’m not sure, but if he suggests we join him in a hunt, we’d better make sure he’s not using us as his target,” Shawn said. “There’s a long tradition in this country of rich people hunting the less well-to-do.”

“That tradition only exists in Jean-Claude Van Damme movies,” Gus said.

“Right, and the army isn’t resurrecting dead soldiers as zombie warriors, either,” Shawn said.

Somewhere in the forest, Dallas must have flipped a light switch. The moon and stars winked out, replaced by a blazing sun of a chandelier.

“Elias Adler, who built this house, loved to hunt,” Dallas said as emerged from behind the door and led them to a rectangle of four leather sofas in the middle of the room. “But he realized once he’d moved in that there was no game in this valley, aside from the occasional skunk or coyote.”

“Or hobo,” Shawn muttered to Gus, who slapped his arm again.

“So he commissioned this room, where he’d sit for hours, dreaming about the hunt. If you look hard, you can still see patch marks in the murals from when Adler forgot he was only dreaming and pulled out his rifle. I’m not much of a hunter myself, but I do like to sit in here and meditate.”

Gus settled into a wicker chair the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

“Comfy, isn’t it?” Steele said, dropping down onto a large leather sofa.

The jungle door opened, and a waiter came in carrying a sliver tray laden with an ornate coffee service that probably cost more than Shawn and Gus had ever made in their lives. He placed the tray on the table, then stepped back and stood absolutely still.

Steele reached for the coffeepot, then stopped himself. “I’m sorry. I should have asked if there’s anything other than coffee you’d like.”

“Coffee’s great,” Gus said.

“I guess it will do,” Shawn said. He paced around the room like he was looking for booby traps. “I mean, if it’s good enough for you, why would anyone want anything else, right?”

“Whatever you want,” Dallas said. “We’ve got it.”

“I’d love a Coca-Cola Blak,” Shawn said. “But that’s probably something that never even crossed your radar, what with your being a multibillionaire and all. I mean, you can’t be expected to keep up with the popular culture when you’re sitting all the way up here in your eagle’s nest.”

“Mr. Spencer would like a Coca-Cola Blak,” Steele told the waiter.

Gus heard a polite throat clearing behind him and turned to see that Shepler had materialized there. “Would you prefer the American version or the European? As I’m sure you’re aware, the American formula is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium, while the one made in France and sold mostly in Slovenia uses sugar and is said to be less sweet, but with a more pronounced coffee flavor.”

“Why don’t we give him my special blend?” Steele said.

Shepler signaled to the waiter, who disappeared without a sound.

“I like to mix the two in a sixty-forty American-to-European ratio, which gives it the stronger coffee flavor while still providing the jolt of sweetness we all love in this country,” Steele said. “And then I top it off with a twist of Pepsi Tarik, a rival cola-coffee blend that’s all the rage in Malaysia. I think you’re really going to like it.”

“I’m sure I will, Dal. I’m an easy man to please. I like to travel light, move fast, and keep myself from being burdened by too many possessions.” Shawn paced around the room as if demonstrating his freedom.

“I envy you, Shawn,” Steele said. “People read about me in the press, and they assume my life is easy. And I’m not complaining. I know that I’ve got what most people can only dream of. But there are times when I’d throw it all away to live simply and peacefully again.”

Shawn stopped. His hands gripped his temples. His eyes squeezed shut, then flashed open. “That’s why you called us,” Shawn said. “I see it all. You’ve planned your escape already. You’re going to fake your death and assume a fictional identity you’ve created. But you’re not completely sure you’ve covered all the angles, so you need us to investigate the fake you and make sure there are no holes in the story.”

“That’s a very intriguing idea, Shawn, but I have to say no,” Steele said.

For a moment, Shawn looked like he was going to argue the point. Gus shot him a look, and he reconsidered. “Of course not,” Shawn said. “Because a man as famous as you can’t escape just by changing his name. You’ll always be Dallas Steele. The only escape for you is death. And one night, when the pressure was too much to take, you picked up that phone and dialed the number you’d been carrying in your wallet for months. The untraceable number. You let the phone ring three times, then hung up and dialed again. This time a man answered. You said no more than a dozen words, and it was all done.”

“What was?” Steele said.

“Yeah, what was?” Gus said.

“He was in motion,” Shawn said.

“Who?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Shawn said. “Because part of the deal is you don’t know his name. You’ve never seen his face. You’ll never even know he exists until the moment he steps up behind you. Until then you live knowing he could be anyone. Even Gus.”

“Who could I be?” Gus said.

“The hit man, Gus,” Shawn said. “The one Dal put in motion, but can never stop. The money’s been wired into his account, and now he’s going to be coming after you relentlessly. That’s why you called us. Because we’re the only ones who can track down his identity and stop him before it’s too late.”

“If I had hired someone like that, it’s good to know that you’d be able to call him off,” Steele said. “But when I bring a new person into my work family, I like to meet them face-to-face first. Talk over the parameters of the job, get a good feel for how the other guy thinks. And let him know that while I do appreciate individual initiative, I also need to know that if I want an employee to make a major course correction-such as, for instance, not carrying out a hit on me-he’ll be responsive.”

“That’s good management,” Gus said.

“Bad plotting, though,” Shawn said. “How would Barnaby Jones ever have made it through a single season if people didn’t hire hit men they couldn’t call off?”

Before anyone could come up with an answer, the waiter came back into the room, this time carrying a junior version of the original silver tray. On it was a crystal highball glass, filled to the brim with sparkling black liquid. “Your beverage, sir,” the waiter said as he handed the drink to Shawn.

“You might want to think twice before you drink that,” Steele said with a smile. “I’ve got to warn you, it can be pretty addictive.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Shawn said, and took a large gulp of the drink. As soon as the tiny bubbles started popping on his tongue, he knew that he’d be lying awake night after night craving another taste. “Not bad.”

“And, Gus, how’s your coffee?”

Gus took a sip and swirled it over his tongue. “Intriguing,” he said. “My first thought was Sulawesi, but there’s an undercurrent I can’t place.” He took another sip. “Wait a minute-this isn’t Kopi Luwak?”

“I’m impressed,” Steele said. “It is. Have you had it before?”

“Only in my dreams,” Gus said.

“Since when do you dream about coffee?” Shawn asked. “Especially coffee with such a stupid name?”

“Since that time I studied to be a professional nose,” Gus said.

“Professional brown nose, more like it.”

“Kopi Luwak is the rarest coffee in the world,” Gus said. “And the most expensive. There are at most a thousand pounds of it available for sale every year.”

“And this is actually a little rarer than that,” Dallas said.

Gus gaped. “You mean this is Vietnamese weasel coffee?”

“In a way. I find the Vietnamese weasel produces a more sophisticated product than the Asian palm civet, which they use in Indonesia. But I’m not wild about the actual Vietnamese coffee, so I ship Sulawesi beans to my own private weasel ranch outside Saigon.”

Shawn was looking from Gus to Dallas and back to Gus again, trying to make sense of the conversation. “Wait a minute. They grind up weasels and put them in the coffee?”

Gus and Dallas shared a knowing laugh. “You’ve got that backward, I’m afraid,” Dallas said. “The coffee berries are fed to the weasels.”

“So how do they get them-Oh,” Shawn said.

“The animals eat the berries, but the beans inside don’t get digested,” Gus said. “The enzymes in the weasels’ stomachs break down the proteins that make coffee bitter.”

“So you’re drinking coffee that comes out of a weasel’s butt,” Shawn said.

“Not directly,” Gus said.

“I realize the butler isn’t down in the kitchen pumping some rodent’s tail to dispense the coffee, but what you are drinking is made from beans that were crapped out of a weasel.”

“First of all,” Gus said, “the beans are cleaned extremely well. And second, you’re drinking a beverage that’s forty percent made by French people, and their women don’t even shave under their arms.”

“Does that make sense to anyone here?” Shawn said. “I only ask because I had a spicy garlic shrimp burrito before bed last night, and I think I might still be dreaming.”

Gus took a loud sip of his coffee and turned to Dallas. “So what is it we can do for you? I mean, unless Shawn wants to ask the spirits again.”

“Yes, as much as I’m enjoying catching up on old times, I guess we should get down to business. This is really about my bride-”

“You’re married?” Gus was surprised.

“Very recently.”

“I didn’t see anything about it in the papers.”

“My bride is very shy about publicity,” Steele said. “The wife of a billionaire is subjected to a lot of pressure, and we’d rather enjoy our honeymoon privately for as long as possible. I can count on your discretion, can’t I?”

“Absolutely,” Gus said. He looked over at Shawn for confirmation. Shawn was bent over double, his fingers curled around his skull. “Shawn agrees, too.”

“Is he all right?” Steele said. He motioned to Shepler, who started across the room to check. Before he could get close, Shawn bolted upright, his eyes blazing.

“A man of your wealth is prey to any number of parasites-and the worst kind of parasite is the woman who latches on to a man’s fortune and proceeds to suck him dry,” Shawn said. “You love your bride, but you need to be absolutely certain that she loves the real you, and not just your money.”

“No.”

“Of course not,” Shawn said without hesitation. “In your business you can see through people and know their real intentions. So you know she loves you for who you really are. But lately, as you’ve been planning the wedding, a cloud has come between you. She lapses into silence, and when you ask what’s wrong, she doesn’t have an answer. You’ve come to suspect that before she met you, your new wife was in a long, complex romance with a man of great beauty but little wealth. An artist. It was a torrid, passionate relationship, and she had to break it off for fear that she was losing her very selfhood in it. But break away she did, and when she ran off to some exotic resort to forget about Reynaldo-”

“Reynaldo?” Gus said.

“They’re always named Reynaldo,” Shawn said. “It’s like a law. Anyway, she went off to this resort, and there she met you, and ever since, she’s been happy. But on a recent trip back into Santa Barbara, she ran into Reynaldo again. He’s working as a landscaper, but he’s trying to put together a new show, the one that will make him famous throughout the art world. And he wants her by his side when he does. Now she’s torn between the rich, kind man who makes her feel safe and warm and the poverty-stricken artist who treats her badly but raises her passions to a level she’s never felt before.”

“Wow,” Dallas said. “That’s really incredible.”

“You mean he’s right?” Gus said.

“There is a reason we call the agency Psych, you know,” Shawn said.

“Actually, nothing you said had any relation to anything that’s ever happened in my life, but it’s such an incredibly detailed story, for a moment I felt I was actually living it,” Dallas said.

Gus cleared his throat loudly. Shawn ignored him. He glared at Shawn. Shawn refused to meet his gaze. He drummed his fingers as loud as he could on the arm of his chair, but the noise was swallowed up by the padding. Finally he stood up, grabbed Shawn by the collar, and pulled him to his feet. “Excuse us for a moment,” he said to Steele. “Sometimes Shawn’s psychic batteries need a kick start.”

“You mean a jump start?” Steele said.

“We may try a jump, but a kick is coming soon.” Gus dragged Shawn into the depths of the forest. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Astonishing him with my psychic prowess,” Shawn said.

“He doesn’t look very astonished to me,” Gus said. “And you’re not even trying.”

“I’m giving him exactly as much effort as he ever gave me,” Shawn said.

“You’re dredging up cliches from seventies detective shows.”

“That’s okay. He never watched TV,” Shawn said. “He studied, practiced, and worked instead. I remember how he used to brag about it.” He shuddered in revulsion at the memory.

“And this is helping you how?” Gus said. “You’re making us look like idiots. You didn’t even know he was married.”

“I could have known if I’d wanted to,” Shawn said, casting a glance over his shoulder at Steele, who waved at him cheerily. “He’s got the beginnings of a tan line on his wedding finger, and he’s touched it a couple of times as if he’s trying to decide whether he likes it better with the ring on or off.”

“That’s good,” Gus said. “A little late, but good. What else?”

“Aside from the fact that he’s a phony?”

“Yes, aside from that. Because even if he’s phony, he’s rich, and he owns our building.”

Shawn sighed and cast another quick glance back at Steele. And then he saw. Saw the sole gray root on his temple that had somehow outgrown the last application of dye. Saw the tiny scar under his left ear. Saw the custom-made clothes designed to hug and show off every toned muscle in his body.

Shawn bent over as if in pain. “It can’t be,” he wailed.

“Of course it can,” Gus said. “Shepler called and told us-”

He broke off as he saw Dallas staring at Shawn.

“What can’t be?” Steele said.

“All this beauty, all this wealth, all this success,” Shawn moaned. “You’ve worked so hard for so long to reach this reward, and soon it will all be gone. Worse, it will still be here-but you will be gone. Age is catching up with you, and while you still have decades to live, you know they will pass like minutes. And then what happens? Is it all just gone?”

Gus looked over at Dallas and saw he was staring at Shawn as if his innermost soul had been torn out and tossed on the table in front of them.

“I need to know,” Steele said.

“You called me up here to see if I actually had a connection to the world of spirits,” Shawn said.

“To find out if that world exists,” Dallas agreed. “I have to know.” Dallas had risen from his seat, almost physically reaching for the answer.

“If I said yes, it wouldn’t help you at all,” Shawn said.

“Maybe a little,” Gus said. “Maybe enough to get our building back.”

Shawn ignored him. “You thought it would be enough for you to believe, but it’s not. That’s why I was spinning you all those ridiculous plots from seventies detective shows. It was a test.”

“Is that what they were?” Steele said. “I never watch TV. I’d rather read or work.”

Shawn worked to suppress his shudder.

“If belief was enough, you would have seized on one,” Shawn said. “But you didn’t become a billionaire by believing what people told you. You did your own research, found your own truths. You need to prove it for yourself.”

“That’s exactly right,” Steele said. “Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize it until you said it out loud. I need proof that there’s a life after this one.”

“You need to test me in a way I can’t possibly cheat. No looking at cards or bending spoons. You will test me in a field you understand and I don’t.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Gus said.

“Investments,” Dallas said. “It’s what I do. I want to take a small pool of capital and put it at your disposal. If you’re really psychic, you’ll pick winners.”

“See?” Gus whispered into Shawn’s ear. “You put in a little effort, you get something back.”

“The spirits don’t respond to money,” Shawn said.

“Some of them do,” Gus said.

“I don’t mean to insult them or you with the offer,” Steele said. “We could arrange to give all the results to charity.”

“Spirits aren’t so crazy about charity, either,” Shawn said quickly.

“Then let’s just do it this way,” Steele said. “I’ll give you a pool of money to invest. Anything you earn over that initial nut, you do with whatever you feel will please the spirits best.”

“I don’t need anything, but I think the spirits would be pretty happy if my friend Gus could raise about six thousand dollars about now.”

“I was thinking of a slightly larger pool.”

“How slightly?” Shawn asked.

“How does a hundred million dollars sound to you?”