"No… but I may have found someone who does know."

He leaned closer. "Who?"

Don't, she told herself. Don't say it.

But she was caught in the grip of the moment. This man had challenged her credulity—more like sucker punched it—and so now it was her turn.

"I think I've found Cooper Blascoe."

11

Maggie had known the call would come, but not so soon. And not on the convent phone. Her stomach quivered when she recognized the voice.

"I really can't speak now," she said, looking up and down the hall. She was alone but she'd have to keep her voice down.

"Then just listen. I want to know when I'm going to see the money you owe me."

"Owe you?" She felt a spear of anger jab through her anxiety. "I don't owe you."

"The hell you don't! I'm saving your holy-roller ass by keeping those photos under wraps. So you owe me. And by the way, it's a nice-looking ass you've got there."

Maggie felt her cheeks burn.

"I don't have it," she said, remembering what Jack had told her. "I'll get it for you but I need more time."

"You know where you can get it."

"I'm trying but it's not easy."

"It's easy as pie. Just start skimming a little every day."

"It's closely watched."

"Find a way, sissy, or your pretty little ass and lots more will be plastered all over the neighborhood."

"But that won't be good for you either. You'll get no more from me after that. At least this way you're getting something."

"Don't try to play games with me. You're just a tiny part of my action. I'll cut you loose without a second thought."

Maggie thought she detected a note of desperation in his voice.

"I'm doing my best," she told him, sounding plaintive. "I can't give you what I don't have."

"Then get it! I'm in a generous mood today, so I'll give you till next week."

"Next week?" Would she have to suffer through another of these calls next week? How long before he gave up? "Okay. I'll see what I can do."

"No, you'll do it. By next week. All of it."

And then he hung up.

Her hand was shaking as she replaced the receiver. He'd sounded desperate. A thought struck her like a blow: Was he calling all his victims and trying to squeeze them? That meant Michael would be on his list. She knew Jack had said to tell no one, but… but how could she let someone go on paying this serpent when he didn't have to? She was sure Michael could keep a secret.

She headed for the street to a public phone.

12

Jack leaned back in the booth. He imagined his expression right now looked like Jamie's when he'd told her about Anya's skin.

"Yeah, right," he said. "Now who's playing 'Can You Top This'? He's dead."

Her eyes widened. "Yeah? Says who?"

"Says Occam's Razor."

He frowned. That particular razor had lost its edge lately. Occam's but-terknife was more like it.

She flashed a yellow smile. "I can't believe you're such a cynic. How can you possibly have the slightest doubt that he's in suspended animation?"

"Let's see… dead or in suspended animation: which requires the fewer assumptions?"

She shrugged. "Dead, of course."

"Exactly. How does a cult that's supposed to prepare you to be a survivor of doomsday handle the death of its founder?"

"Hide it. Or find a way to explain it. The Scientologists got around it by telling their members that L. Ron Hubbard had 'causatively discarded' his body because it had become an impediment to the research he was doing for the betterment of mankind."

"So, knowing all that, why do you think Blascoe's alive?"

Another shrug. "I agree with everything you've said. You'd expect them to cover up his death, not his longevity. Unless…"

"Unless he's got some terminal illness or is completely off his rocker."

"Rüüght. A dead guru is an embarrassment, sure, but one with dementia is even worse. Doesn't say much about the value of fusing your personal xelton with its Hokano half, does it?"

Jack had been watching Jamie's eyes. She was onto something. Question was, how much would she tell him?

"And you say you've found him."

"I say 1 think 1 may have found him. You see, getting kicked out of the temple made it impossible for me to investigate Dementedism from the inside, so I did it from the outside. I've learned that Brady rarely leaves the temple unless it's for a public appearance. And then he's always driven back and forth in a limo. But Sunday nights are a different situation. Sunday nights—at least three out of four as far as I can tell—he drives himself."

"Where?"

"Wish I knew. He and Jensen and the High Council guys keep their cars in a garage around the corner from the temple. I've seen him pull out a number of times and tried to tail him, but always lost him."

"He ditched you?"

"I don't think so. I'm just not very good at it. But I tailed the GP a few times and had better luck with him."

Jack had to laugh. "You've been following him too? That's dedication."

"That's me, all right. Dedicated to a fault."

Jack saw a strange flash in her eyes as she took a sip of her Scotch.

"It's more than professional, isn't it."

She shrugged. "A journalist's credo is impartiality and objectivity. But you might say I have a thing for cult situations. You might say I think they're poisonous, that they prey—sometimes knowingly and sometimes unwittingly—on confused people and exploit their weaknesses."

An idea was taking root in Jack's head. "Were you ever in one?"

"Uh-uh. No way. Never. But my sister Susie was. She died of exposure on a hilltop in West Virginia. You may have read about it a few years back."

Jack nodded. Half a dozen bodies, two males, four females, found stiff and cold by some hikers. They'd been dead since New Year's Eve. It had been all over the news for a day or two, then dropped.

"She and her fellow cultists literally froze to death while standing naked in the cold waiting to be 'taken home.' So yeah, it might be personal, and my articles may have an adversarial edge. I'm looking for dirt, I won't deny that, but my facts are facts and all double- or triple-checked. That's why I follow the Dementedist bigwigs. Because that cult is dirty at the top. They're hiding something."

"Like their founder, for instance?"

"I get a feeling it's bigger than that. But getting back to Blascoe: On two occasions I followed Jensen and one of his TPs to a supermarket where they packed Jensen's car full of groceries. Then he dropped off the TP and headed for the hills—literally. I followed him up 684 and lost him the first time. But then, back in September, I managed to tail him all the way into

Putnam County. Way up in the hills there I saw him unload the groceries at a house in the woods, then leave."

"Maybe it's a relative."

"An old white man with long hair and a scraggly beard came out on the front porch and shook his fist at Jensen as he was leaving. Not exactly the way I'd picture his daddy."

"Blascoe?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. In any pictures I've ever seen of Cooper Blascoe he's been a hale and hearty fellowT with this blond mane. This guy was skinny and kind of stooped. I've heard Blascoe had some kind of germ phobia, but this guy looked like he hadn't seen soap and water since the Beame administration."

"And yet…?"

"And yet, something about his hairline, something about his profile…" She shook her head. "I don't know. Somewhere in my brain a circuit closed and lit up a neon sign that kept flashing Cooper Blascoe … Cooper Blascoe . . . and wouldn't stop."

Jack knew the feeling. His own subconscious had recognized immediately the pattern on Brady's globe, but it had taken his conscious mind a while to catch up.