The Program

NIGGER.

Clearly, once Leah had moved from Pepperdine, she'd turned over the rest of her money to the cult.

"I was hoping you were a prospective tenant," Adair repeated for the fourth and, Tim hoped, final time. "I have to show the unit enough as is." She finger-teased her pink-tinted bouffant, glancing around. "Can't say I notice much of a difference with her being gone."

"The neighbors mentioned she wasn't around often."

"Barely ever. I only even saw her a few times. Sneaking out in the early morning, tiptoeing in at all hours. She had a full dance card, that's for sure."

"Ms. Henning advertised a moving sale at this address. Does that ring a bell?"

"She didn't have the common decency to inform me she was moving out, but I knew she was selling a few things. I remember telling the big fella to stop propping open the front door for anyone to walk in."

"The big fellow?"

"The lug who helped her with her little sale. No, more like he oversaw her. A weird name. Skip. Skeet." Her knobby fingers snapped. "Damnit. I can't remember. He wore a frayed shirt to show off his muscles, had some kind of chain around his neck, like that Mr. T fella."

"Gold chains?"

"Don't think so. Had beads."

"Do you remember anyone who bought stuff from them? Someone from the building, maybe?"

"Nope." Her lipstick was feathered around the edges. "Look, exciting as this is standing around an empty room, do you think you could move it along? You're not a tenant or anything, and I have responsibilities I have to get back to."

Including letting her cats resume their routine of pissing on her leg.

From the Hennings to the Katie Kelners to this sad box of a room, Ms. Adair Peters ruling supreme from upstairs. With these options, Tim would've hopped the first flight to Jonestown.

The pay phone from which Will had received the threatening call sat in a Lamplighter lobby six blocks up Van Nuys Boulevard. Was the caller a friend of Leah's or her guard? The big guy who helped her move? The P.O. box was in the neighboring town – maybe cult headquarters was in the vicinity.

Something scraped against the pane. Tim crossed the room despite Adair's labored sigh and opened the window, which gave with some reluctance. Duct-taped to the sill outside were three homemade vases, made from glossy cardboard rolled into thin cones. The wind had claimed the contents of the first two, but a dead carnation leaned from the third, its brittle bud half eroded from rubbing the pane.