Ganesha looked up as I walked into the shop.

“Hey,” he said.

“How’s it going?”

He shook his head. “Not so great.”

“What’s the problem?”

Our eyes locked and I could see that he wanted to confide in someone. I had gained some stature by fixing the roof, and by being cool about his lapse in manners, but he had no reason to trust me or even think that I was truly interested.

“It’s ashram business,” he said. “I can’t talk about it. I’m waiting for Swami Ramananda’s assistant to call me back from New York. Swami Ramananda will know what to do.” The last sentence was addressed more to himself than to me.

“Wasn’t Ramananda a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda?”

“Yes!” Ganesha’s spiritual enthusiasm broke through his other concerns. “How do you know about him?”

“He’s mentioned in a biography of Yogananda that I read one time. Is this center part of the Self Realization Fellowship?” That was the name of the stellar spiritual organization founded by Yogananda. The group had a beautiful ashram in Hollywood, a shrine in Malibu, and a domed temple on a cliff overlooking the sea in Cardiff, in north San Diego County. Swamis have even better taste in real estate than gay guys.

“No. Ramananda studied at the feet of Yogananda when he was very young but eventually recognized Sri Brahmananda as his guru. This ashram is owned by the Divine Light Society.”

“What is the Murshid Center for Enlightened Beings?”

“That’s an organization Baba Raba founded. He operates it from here, but he doesn’t own the ashram.”

“Sounds like a complicated setup.”

“It has confused a lot of people,” Ganesha said somewhat grimly. “Baba is an ordained monk in the Divine Light Society, and Ramananda made him head of this ashram when Swami Sankarananda left his physical body two years ago. But he has his own organization, too, in which he calls himself the Murshid, which is a term for teacher that comes from Sufism. I guess he studied with some Sufi masters at one time and adopted some of their teachings. He has studied with many different teachers, including Trungpa and the Maharishi and claims to be a synthesizer of traditions.”

“It sounds like you have some doubts about him.”

“I didn’t at first. He has so much spiritual insight, and his siddhis are so strong. But now…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head again. “I really shouldn’t be talking about ashram business. I’m sorry. What can I do for you? Meditation doesn’t start for two hours-if we even have it tonight.”

“I came to see Mary. Is she around?”

His glum face fell further. “She is here but she is not available.”

“Why?”

“She is with Baba.”

“Doing what?”

“He is initiating her.”

My heart sped up and I felt the way a lion does before it roars.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” Ganesha said, annoyed. I wasn’t sure if he was irritated at me or at his own ignorance or at Baba’s shenanigans.

“Forget ‘exactly.’ Get me in the ballpark.”

“He is giving her a personal mantra and making her a high rank within the Murshid organization. It is supposed to be a big deal that he only does for people with great spiritual talent. Mary was all pumped up.” He sounded angry and disgusted.

“Why her?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what goes on inside that organization. It doesn’t make any sense to me. She is a girl off the streets who has only been in the ashram a few months.”

It made plenty of sense to me-and maybe to Ganesha, too.

“Where are they?” I said.

“They just went upstairs.”

I turned and walked out of the shop toward the staircase.

“You can’t go up there!” Ganesha said, following me into the hallway. “Only staff are allowed up there.”

“What’s the hubbub, Bub?” Namo drifted out into the hallway from the library, where he had apparently been lurking. He blocked the base of the stairs with his lumpy body.

“We already been through this once, haven’t we, Bub?” Namo asked me.

“Get ready to go through it again,” I said.

Namo grinned. He was missing his top canine tooth and the one behind it on both sides. “Sounds like my kind of game,” he said, crouching flat-footed and bringing his clenched fists up in front of his chest.

“Stop it, both of you!” Ganesha yelled.

“You keep out of this, you fucking pansy,” Namo said.

“Shut up,” Ganesha said forcefully. “I’m in charge here, not you!”

“Yer the one better shut up,” Namo snarled. “The big man ain’t gonna be too happy when he hears how you been running your mouth to this prick.”

“Doing a little eavesdropping?” I said.

“What if I was?”

“Sounds like something a snitch would do,” I said to get his goat.

“Who the fuck you calling a snitch?” he yelled, shuffling toward me, swaying his overdeveloped upper body. A snitch is the lowest thing you can be in prison. Nobody wants to be called one because it can get you shanked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean a snitch. I meant a sissy.” That’s someone who has acquiesced to playing the female part in a prison relationship, either a homosexual who enjoys the role or someone who has been beaten into sexual submission.

With an inarticulate but seemingly hostile sound, Namo charged me.

I leaped back five feet, landing with my guard up and my left side toward the bodybuilder. Enraged, he had given up on the idea of a boxing match and was going for a tackle, coming in with his head down. I met his charge by pushing his greasy melon down and away from me with both hands at the same time as I skipped to the right, letting his momentum carry him past me, like a bull past a matador. As he went by to my left, I pivoted and kneed him solidly in the gut with my right knee, forcing a grunt out of his thick torso and sending him sprawling on the hall floor.

When he scrambled to his feet, he had a sheath knife with a four-inch blade in his hand. Before he could make a move, Ganesha ran between us.

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to call the police!” he shouted at Namo, then turned to me: “I mean it, man. We have enough problems around here without this kind of shit. I will have you arrested if you keep it up.”

Namo shared my disinclination toward the Venice Beach police. The knife disappeared and he didn’t try to renew hostilities. Red-faced and panting, holding his side with one hand, he contented himself by giving me a threatening look as he stalked away, shoving past Ganesha and disappearing into the hallway beside the stairs that led back to the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, Ganesha,” I said. “I don’t want to make trouble.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“He attacked me. You saw that. I was defending myself.”

“You shouldn’t have been trying to go upstairs.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He was right. It was stupid of me to try and charge upstairs and stop whatever was going on. What was I going to do? Mary was of age. If she let Baba take advantage of her, that was her karma, not mine.

As if my mental image had conjured her up, the blonde appeared at the top of the stairs, paused when she saw us, then came tripping down. She was wearing one of the flimsy white robes.

“Hi, Rob,” she said casually, hurrying past me on her way to the meditation room.

“Hi,” I said to her back as she went through the French doors.

When she reemerged a few moments later, she had two candles, some sticks of incense, and a bell clutched in her eager hands.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Baba is initiating me as Murshida! He says we need this stuff.”

“Mary-”

“I can’t talk now.” She sounded excited and happy and a little dazed, like a girl getting ready for the big dance with her girlfriends, caught up in preparations and anticipation. As she passed me on her way back upstairs I noticed that her pupils were big.