“No,” I said.

“The money?”

“Sure,” I said. “We brought the money. Where’s Oz?”

“He’s at a safe location. Show me the money and I will tell you where to find him.”

I walked over to Namo. He was giving me a dirty look. He didn’t seem quite as worried as he should have been.

“Where’s Ozone?” I asked.

“Fuck you,” he said.

I lowered the muzzle of the Tomcat and shot him in his meaty calf. He exploded out of the chair with a shocked scream and landed on his back on the linoleum, clutching his leg and cursing.

Standing over him, my ears ringing, I pointed the.32 at his face. “Did you kill Ganesha?”

Face scrunched with pain, he shook his head back and forth so rapidly that his features blurred. I took the snubnose.38 from his belt and stuck it in my back pocket.

Reggie walked over to Pete.

“Where’s the kid?” he said.

“Don’t say anything, Pete,” Baba warned. “It’s a Mexican standoff! They have to pay for that information.”

Reggie’s left hand shot out suddenly and grabbed Pete by the throat. He bent the ex-sailor back over the counter, pushing the.25 against his cheek.

“Um gonna count to three,” he said. “One…”

“He’s in the closet under the stairs,” Pete shrieked. “Don’t shoot me. I’m a veteran!”

Jerking Pete upright, Reggie slung him toward the table. “Get over there with your punk friends.”

“Keep an eye on them,” I said, heading for the hallway.

“He’s not in there!” Baba said. “You’re wasting your time!”

The door, which had an angled top, wasn’t locked. Crowded in among folding chairs and cardboard boxes, Oz lay gagged, blindfolded, and bound hand and foot. I pulled the blindfold off first, so he could see who I was, then half-dragged, half-lifted him out into the hall, where I could get at the ropes to untie him.

“Baba Raba and Pete tied me up and put me in there,” he said in a trembling voice when I removed the gag. “I told them I wasn’t supposed to cross Pacific, but they made me come here. Why did they do that, Rob?”

“They’re bad men.”

Ganesha’s body was in the closet beneath the stairs, too, crammed in a cobwebbed corner. I had that curious urge to lay him out neatly on a bed or table, to cover his body with a blanket and make him comfortable. But he wasn’t his body. He never had been. His spirit was far in flight now, God knew where. And I didn’t want to leave my DNA on him in a stray hair or drop of salt water. The police would be going over his body carefully, seeking his killer.

So I left him in the closet and took Ozone back through the swinging door into the kitchen. When he saw Baba Raba, his body jerked and stiffened.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re safe now.”

“You are a bad man!” Oz said angrily to Baba.

Baba’s face flickered at the bitter words, registering an unwelcome stab of self-realization.

“Where’s my picture at, you fat baby robber!”

“I know where it is, Oz,” I said.

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. “It’s the one you gave Evelyn, isn’t it, Baba?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get the diary?”

“I found it,” Pete chimed in, eager to cooperate.

“Where?”

“In the crawl space under a house we tore down over on Navy. It was under what was left of the body.”

“Christina’s body?”

“I don’t know who the cunt was,” Pete said. “Her skull was smashed and there was nothing left but bones and clothes and that notebook I sold to-”

“You have a big mouth for such a little man,” Baba said. “You just squandered our last bargaining chip.”

“So you knew Evelyn’s daughter was dead the whole time you were stringing her along?”

“Yes, my criminal compadre, I did,” he said. “What’s wrong with that? I gave her hope and hid the ugly fact that her own actions caused the foolish girl’s demise, just as her earlier behavior contributed to the incest. If you read the diary, you know that Christina contacted Evelyn shortly before her death asking for a sum of money to settle a debt. When she was free of the people she had been involved with, she planned to go home to her mother. Evelyn sent the money and the girl was killed for it, leaving this pathetic child to fend for himself.”

“How long we gonna stay here jawin’?” Reggie demanded.

“I just have a couple more questions,” I said.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Pete said. “I’ll sing like a canary if you let me walk. I wasn’t in on any of the really bad shit. I just did what Baba Raba and Discenza told me to do.”

“Like burning down buildings and smashing the windows of inhabited dwellings to drive the tenants away?” Baba said.

“Discenza told me to,” Pete snarled. “You knew about it, fatso.”

“Knowing about it and doing it are two different things,” Baba said.

“Who killed Ganesha?” I asked.

“Namo did,” Pete said.

“You fucking snitch,” Namo said. He was sitting up against the wall by the table, holding a bandana over the bullet hole in his leg. “Yer gonna get shanked in the joint, you little faggot.”

“Fuck you!” Pete said. “I’ll keelhaul your blunky ass.”

“Why did you do it?” I asked Namo.

Namo shrugged, indifferent, hanging tough. “He was gonna call the cops.”

“About what?”

“The cunts.”

“Ganesha was a good man,” I said, raising the Tomcat so that it pointed at his head.

“Don’t,” he said, losing his nerve as he looked down the bore of the weapon. “Baba told me to do it.”

“Who’s the snitch now?” Pete said.

“I did not tell you to kill him!” Baba roared. “I told you to stop him!”

“What happened to you, Baba?” I asked the false teacher. “How did you go from studying with Muktananda to murdering monks in your own ashram?”

His shoulders lifted in a heavy shrug and then subsided back into the massive pyramid of his Buddha’s body.

“Judge not, lest you be judged,” he said sarcastically. “You don’t know what I’ve been through or how hard I strived to lead a Sattvic life. You don’t have any idea of the good I have done in the world, the spiritual heights I’ve scaled. I meditated eight hours a day for six months in the Himalayas. I saw into the center of reality and worked tirelessly for three spiritual organizations. And what did it get me? I was turned out of Naropa when Trungpa died with nothing but my robe and bowl. That was my reward for six years of service. They blamed me for the AIDS, but I was only doing the will of my guru!

“After Naropa, I came here and tried again. This place was a lukewarm backwater with no dynamism. I built it up. We have hundreds of students taking classes here. But half of them never pay, or pay late, and there’s a mortgage on the building, and utility costs are sky-high. I found ways to make money and keep it afloat, but it all became too much of a hassle. You serve only yourself, so you have no way of knowing. It is exhausting trying to do good all the time. Having people come to you constantly to solve their stupid problems. I just want to enjoy life a little bit instead of slaving for a bunch of rich dilettantes who can’t comprehend the first thing about meditation or enlightenment. They don’t have any idea of the discipline and sacrifice it takes. I’m fifty-five years old and I have nothing to fall back on if this place closes. Monks don’t have 401(k) accounts. I had to start putting something aside for retirement-or end up a crazy bastard on the street.”

“Is that why you started playing the stock market?”

“Yes. There is nothing wrong with that, or with what I am doing now. Tantra is a true spiritual path, and the resort will be good for the community. Jobs and a place for people to relax and forget their cares. I have decided to take my spiritual knowledge into the business world. That’s where the real energy is in this age. I will use the energy of money to better the planet. We will have hatha yoga classes and meditations at this resort, and others that I plan to build. It will be beautiful. I will be the first yogic billionaire. Wait and see. I’ll be on the cover of Time magazine someday. Ganesha should have been obedient and not tried to interfere with my activities. You should not be interfering, either.”