Overall, things are great. Mary and I are a good fit in every way. She makes me happier than I deserve to be. She seems happy, too. She’s back in school at City College and plans to transfer to Cal State next fall to get a B.A. in comparative religion. When she doesn’t have homework, she helps out in the family business.

Sometimes I get to thinking about Baba’s demise, both spiritual and physical, and about all the dead bodies we left behind in Venice Beach, and wonder what kind of karma we incurred there. We didn’t actually kill anybody, but we left them to be killed. I wonder if I have gone off track like Baba and just don’t realize it. Sometimes I even think about getting out of the life. Stealing has an honorable history and isn’t necessarily a spiritual dead end. Among other things, it supports the dictum that people shouldn’t get too attached to their stuff. But it is a high-stakes gamble, practically and morally. It is a form of living by the sword, and everyone knows what that is supposed to lead to.

I have a lot to lose now with the waterfront digs and the sublime babe and all the cash in my safety deposit box. But I can’t imagine doing anything else. Not with the world the way it is today. Chavi told me a gypsy saying shortly after we met last December that sums it up in my mind. Reggie had told her what he and I do for a living and we were talking about our career choices-she an open-air fortune-teller, me a thief. I was trying to explain why I thought it was okay to be a criminal and she held up her hand to silence me with the gesture the swamies call “fear not,” hand open, palm toward me.

“I understand, Robert,” she said. “You can’t walk straight when the road curves.”

I think the gypsies are right about that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank my agent, Loretta Fidel, for her friendship, guidance, and support, and my editor, Mark Tavani, for his invaluable insights and suggestions at various stages of this book’s composition. Thanks also to Dennis Ambrose and everyone at Random House who worked on the book and helped take it from concept to reality.

The thoughtful advice of Marty Smith, Diane Pinnick, Patricia McFall, Len Mlodinow, and other members of the Mavericks writing group is much appreciated.

To Charles Dickens, the godfather, patron saint, and archangel of literary orphans, I bow with profound gratitude and affection.

About the Author

STEVEN M. THOMAS is the author of Criminal Paradise. He is also the award-winning author of many short stories, essays, and poems that have been published in more than fifty literary and small-press magazines in the United States and England. A magazine editor and journalist, he lives in Orange County, California, with his wife and daughter.