"No way," he rumbled. "The little guys are great."

"Which reminds me, Jim," interrupted Kruger, "I've got to talk to you about working out a program for Rodney Broussard. Something to build up his confidence."

"You bet."

"Check you later, Jim."

"Right on. Come back again, Doc."

The hirsute body entered the water, a sleek torpedo, and swam otter like along the bottom of the pool.

We took a quarter - mile walk around the periphery of the institution. Kruger showed me the infirmary, a spotlessly white, smallish room with an examining table and a cot, sparkling of chrome and reeking of antiseptic. It was empty.

"We have a half - time R.N. who works mornings. For obvious reasons we can't afford a doctor."

I wondered why Majestic Oil or some other benefactor couldn't donate a part - time physician's salary.

"But we're lucky to have a roster of volunteer docs, some of the finest in the community, who rotate through."

As we walked, groups of youngsters and counselors passed us. Kruger waved, the counselors returned the greeting. More often than not the children were unresponsive. As Olivia had predicted and Kruger had confirmed, most had obvious physical or mental handicaps. Boys seemed to outnumber girls by about three to one and the majority of the kids were black or Hispanic.

Kruger ushered me into the cafeteria, which was high - ceilinged, stucco - walled and meticulously clean. Unspeaking Mexican women waited impassively behind a glass partition, serving tongs in hand. The food was typical institutional fare - stew, creative use of ground meat, Jello, overcooked vegetables in thick sauce.

We sat down at a picnic - type table and Kruger went behind the food counter to a back room. He emerged with a tray of Danish pastries and coffee. The baked goods looked high - quality. I hadn't seen anything like them behind the glass.

Across the room a group of children sat at a table eating and drinking under the watchful eyes of two student counselors. Actually, attempting to eat was more accurate. Even from a distance I could see that they suffered from cerebral palsy, some of them spastically rigid, others jerking in involuntary movements of head and limb, and had to struggle to get the food from table to mouth. The counselors watched and sometimes offered verbal encouragement. But they didn't help physically and lots of custard and Jello was ending up on the floor.

Kruger bit with gusto into a chocolate Danish. I took a cinnamon roll and played with it. He poured us coffee and asked me if I had any questions.

"No. Everything looks very impressive."

"Great. Then let me tell you about the Gentleman's Brigade."

He gave me a canned history of the volunteer group, stressing the wisdom of the Reverend Gus in enlisting the participation of local corporations.

"The Gentlemen are mature, successful individuals. They represent the only chance most of these kids have of being exposed to a stable male role model. They're accomplished, the cream of our society and as such give the children a rare glimpse of success. It teaches them that it's indeed possible to be successful. They spend time with the kids here, at La Casa, and take them off - campus - to sporting events, movies, plays, Disneyland. And to their homes for family dinners. It gives the children access to a lifestyle they've never known. And it's fulfilling for the men, as well. We ask for a six - month commitment and sixty percent sign up for second and third hitches."

"Can't it be frustrating, for the kids," I asked, "to get a taste of the good life that's so far out of their grasp?"

He was ready for that one.

"Good question, Doctor. But we don't emphasize anything being out of our kids' reach. We want them to feel that the only thing limiting them is their own lack of motivation. That they must take responsibility for themselves. That they can reach the sky - that's the name of a book written for children by Reverend Gus. Touch the Sky. It's got cartoons, games, coloring pages. It teaches them a positive message."

It was Norman Vincent Peale spiced up with humanistic psychological jargon. I looked over and saw the palsied children battling with their food. No amount of exposure to the members of the privileged class was going to bring them membership in the Yacht Club, an invitation to the Blue Ribbon Upper Crust Debutante Ball of San Marino, or a Mercedes in the garage.

There were limits to the power of positive thinking.

But Kruger had his script and he stuck to it. He was damned good, I had to admit, had read all the right journals and could quote statistics like a Rand Corporation whiz kid. It was the kind of spiel designed to get you reaching for your wallet.

"Can I get you anything else?" he asked after finishing a second pastry. I hadn't touched my first.

"No thanks."

"Let's head back, then. It's almost four."

We passed through the rest of the place quickly. There was a chicken coop where two dozen hens pecked at the bars like Skinnerian pigeons, a goat at the end of a long leash eating trash, hamsters treading endlessly on plastic wheels and a basset hound who bayed half - heartedly at the darkening sky. The schoolroom had once been a barracks, the gym a World War II storage depot, I was informed. Both had been remodeled artfully and creatively on a budget, by someone with a good feel for camouflage. I complimented the designer.

"That's the work of Reverend Gus. His mark is on every square inch of this place. A remarkable man."

As we headed toward McCaffrey's office I saw, once again, the cinder - block buildings at the edge of the forest. From up close I could see there were four structures, roofed in concrete, windowless, and half submerged in the earth, like bunkers, with tunnel - like ramps sloping down to iron doors. Kruger showed no indication of explaining what they were, so I asked him.

He looked over his shoulder.

"Storage," he said casually. "Come on. Let's get back."

We'd come full circle, back to the cumulus covered administration building. Kruger escorted me in, shook my hand, told me he hoped to hear from me again and that he'd be dropping off the screening materials while I talked to the Reverend. Then he handed me over to the good graces of Grandma, the receptionist, who tore herself away from her Olivetti and bade me sweetly to wait just a few moments for The Great Man.

I picked up a copy of Fortune and worked hard at building an interest in a feature on the future of microprocessors in the tool - and - die industry, but the words blurred and turned into gelatinous gray blobs. Futurespeak did that to me.

I'd barely had a chance to uncross my legs when the door opened. They were big on punctuality here. I'd started to feel like a hunk of raw material - what kind didn't really matter - being whisked along on an assembly line trough, melted, molded, tinkered with, tightened, and inspected.

"Reverend Gus will see you now," said Grandma.

The time had come, I supposed, for the final polishing.