LaSalle   Street

        The man who had authorized the building project that could be seen from Jeffcott's farm was rather vigilant now, several years later.  He had been, and would be for a long time.  From that point on the farm's boundary someone who had been told what to look for might actually see a corner of the house built by the newcomer.  Then if he climbed a tree he could get the more spectacular view: a good-sized clearing that contained the full form of someone's enviable residence.  Ed Githens took steps to make sure his home would remain more or less a secret.  Along with his vigilance, though, was a playfulness that often seemed hard to defend.  It was one of his experiments to give his new cell phone number to just one person outside his family.  This would be a complete stranger.  The question was, how long before additional strangers would be using the number?  He'd subject these people to some long-winded greetings.

        The first example was heard by Bill Burkheimer, the man who got the number directly from Ed Githens.  Bill heard the entire message.

        Ed proclaimed, "There's good news from a coalition of medical research groups who care about the citizen's right to enjoy the longest life span possible.  These experts have done more than laboratory miracles.  They've secured favorable decisions by judges, and these decisions have bolstered the markets in thirty seven states."  He paused long enough to produce tension in the listener.  "Unfortunately, Congress and its pharmaceutical cronies have no tolerance for these innovations.  That being the case, you're invited to a confab that's held on the last weekend of June in Kelso, Washington.  This event is the best of its kind.  You'll meet the activists who really stand up to the corporatocracy."  Ed gave the address for the confab and the website of its promoters.  "Do yourself a favor.  Get to know the ideas and the products that make a longer life not just possible, but inevitable."

        "I stay in condition," Bill said.

        He didn't give up on the man who had approached him, even though the man wasn't answering his calls, and even though Bill had no clues about Ed's financial standing.  He could have seen the man's name if he had ever studied registers of the fabulously wealthy.  Ed's profile had been as low as possible.  It was as if Bill sensed by intuition that the contact with Ed would be opportune.  He wondered how serious the Kelso meeting would be.

        "I might as well hear their promotional stuff," he told a friend.

        "I'll care about medicine someday," was the friend's answer.

        "I care now, as long as I can take it to market."

        In fact Mr. Githens had the ability to exaggerate a business prospect without committing fraud.  But it was more grating than that.  He held the entertainer's - not the activist's - pose about waging war against fascism, and there were times when he made sure people had to be uncomfortable.  He suspected that Bill would call once more, sometime after the meeting in Kelso.  His opinions about the event would be amusing.

        To begin with, Ed knew that the closest residence to his own house was the one at Jeffcott's farm.  He had bothered to learn some things about their family.  It seemed that Bill Burkheimer's relatives had been associated with the late Cynthia Jeffcott.  Learning about this woman, he learned about the Burkheimers, who had lived in the state since 1925.

        Cynthia's friends knew that she had never lived on the farm, the place being property of her eldest brother.  She was known in southwest Washington State as an inspirational civic achiever as well as a marginal mystic.  By making what he thought was a trivial donation to her philanthropic legacy, Ed increased her posthumous name-value, and this had some unexpected results.  He could be clumsy about such things.

        He could also be friendly with different social elements, but he wanted to choose the time and place.  He exerted himself in doing that.  He considered a person's repute, sought more opinions and then reconsidered, having learned more of the repute.  He then decided whether to make the acquaintance.

        His channels of information were the kind available to anyone of his plutocratic standing.  Accurate descriptions of them could be terse, with plain language.  Even in these times there was such a thing as information so confidential that its disclosure would only be to one person.  It was almost never about private relationships, but rather about points of high-level corporate strategy.  His phone conferences were done with useful, indirect statements.  He'd be perched outside on a balcony as he spoke.  This, the southern side of the house, was the busiest.  For some reason it was the best place to concentrate.  He almost never noticed the display of the herbs that were maintained with planters along the railing from one end to the other - his wife's cheerful task.  Now and then, though, he'd perceive activity or some other surprising feature beyond the clearing.  Some hills, farther away than the forest he could see, had their signs of human purpose.  But nothing there would interrupt his work.  Neither would his residential extravagance.  And for him work amounted to privileged options which, in theory, could usually be enforced by prosectors.  He always got more messages from subordinates and colleagues, day by day.

        Though he continued to be pleased with business, not everything he heard was pleasing.  The reports that annoyed him right now pertained to a mildly wealthy character named Glen Robertson.  The man had gained the attention of some leaders in Congress.  Ed feared that Robertson would be able to profit excessively from the situation.  He thought no one should profit excessively as a favor from Congress.  With everything he'd heard about Robertson, Ed's view of the man was understandably jaundiced.

        After a phone conversation about this, Ed lurked with a sullen demeanor in the house.  But he was thinking about something else.  Janet, his wife, noticed the peculiar mood.

        "Having to deal with a difficult colleague?" she asked.

        "Maybe not so difficult," he said.  "And he's not really a colleague."

        "But he wants you to help him."

        Her husband frowned.  "It's just that guy in Sanderlin.  The guy at the motel.  He's been getting some odd visitors."

        "And he's worried about it."

        "He's puzzled and he wants my opinion," Ed replied.  "I agreed to listen to him, but I'd rather do it there."  He recalled the motel proprietor's most emphatic statement.

        "They're not government people," the man had said.

        Mrs. Githens hardly ever inquired about her husband's reasons for leaving the house, even though his departures were unpredictable and not especially frequent.  She didn't worry about his motivations or safety.  But right now she was mystified as he walked along the hallway towards the bedroom.

        After he put on some clothes that were less casual Ed went to the garage and got into the driver's seat of the oldest vehicle.  Sanderlin was reasonably close.  From the mansion it was a ten-minute ride to the southwest.  On the way there he tried to come up with a crushing gibe he would send in some email.  The target was a detested celebrity.  Humiliation is more legal than homicide.

        Poor Janet Githens - not really knowing the monster she slept with.

        Sanderlin boasted a motel, a cafe, very few houses and not much more.  Its origin was quite recent, caused in fact by one of Ed's decisions.  The route he was taking to get there had only existed for a quarter century, and its terminus - three miles beyond Sanderlin - presented nothing more than a campground with a modest barrack.  This was the only road on which he drove more slowly than he had to.  Scenic value, he told himself, using that to partly account for his introspection.  He somehow associated parts of the landscape with persons or anecdotes he remembered.  As always, looking to the southeast, he noticed the distant rampike.  Was it supposed to be the average rampike, not worth mentioning?  That was hard to believe.  As for the matter at hand, it might be hard to care about.  He'd know in a few minutes.  The man running the motel was rational.  He wouldn't exaggerate the problem if there was one, and he had more to gain by being honest instead of dishonest with the man who was about to meet him.  Ed smugly recalled the bits of advice he had chosen to ignore at various turning points in his life.  Now, with his destination coming into view he told himself that no matter what, he wouldn't be wasting his time.  He drove into the parking lot at the motel.

        The proprietor was always attentive when Ed Githens talked to him.  He answered Ed's question.

        "No one's come in within the last two days," he told him.

        "Any special phone calls?"

        "No, sir."

        Ed looked through the wide window, with its outside view of landscape and some buildings.

        He commented, "They see a place that has potential.  Anyone who drives through here has his own vision for the future."

        Corey, the proprietor, assumed that Ed would have legitimate reasons for being curious.  He'd been telling Ed about the men who seemed to be scouting the area recently.  Most of them were dressed as if they might be close to the top rung of leaders in big business.  They had avoided Corey and the motel, but he'd seen one man talking to a homeowner near one of the houses.  On one afternoon several men had been walking through the fields.  Now Corey pointed out the directions of their movements.

        "They walked over to the ridge," he said, "but they didn't climb it.  They moved quite a ways along the base of the ridge before they came back to the signpost where they were parked.  The next day some different men came out and were talking to some residents."

        "Did they talk to everyone?"

        "I saw them over at that one house, and I'm told they made some other visits around here.  They couldn't care less about the motel."

        "Even though they saw you with your camcorder."

        "It didn't bother them, I guess.  Of course, it was only two days ago.  They might still be thinking about it."

        The situation couldn't be frightening, could it?  Was there an indication one way or the other?

        "No reason to assume the worst," Ed remarked.

        "I called because I couldn't tell what it meant."

        The financier would play almost anything down.  He said, "I can find out what they really want."

        "You mean what they're trying to do?" the other man asked.  "I get the feeling those people are well organized."

        "And they're traipsing across my land," Ed muttered.  "Like you say, probably not government people.  Businessmen, but not ones we invited."  He said to Corey, "Nothing comes of it."

        Ed spent the next half hour chatting with the proprietor.  No one else came to the room.  This man running the motel thought he could learn something from Ed, if he could only be alert for the crucial sentence.  He honestly thought there was something virtuous in the man's confidence.

        Finally Ed told Corey, "Keep up the good work," and walked out to his car.

        He returned home.

        Ed wasn't really that confident.  Such explorers of his land could stoke his phobias.  His kernel of a fear was that these were men who represented, somehow, the variety and chaos of the difficult social elements - the community - from which he had relocated.  It wasn't just a family situation that formed the problem.  Conspirators working against him would have substantial resources.  But his reason for moving was about dignity as much as about safety.  He believed that the most convincing and comfortable way to flaunt one's independence was to become established in such a region as this.  He shared the impressions of so many fellow citizens arriving here.  He saw what they meant, 'virgin soil.'

        Along with the chance to relocate so expensively, there was something else going for him.  He showed some skill in talking to journalists.  He dealt with criticism in such a way that the arguments against his work and lifestyle had to be revised.  Journalists were usually willing to make the revisions.

        As for his family right now, the problems were tame.  The day after the Sanderlin conference Ed's wife began talking about their two daughters in a way that she never had before - expressing a deep psychological study.  Their son was kept out of it.  All three children had started their own families and would come to the mansion once or twice a year, spending a few days.  The son admitted that he'd be glad to live here decades hence.  But the daughters lacked affection for the place.  This was prompting the psychological study.  Janet displayed for the first time some sort of empty nest maladjustment.  The glazed look in her husband's eyes was authentic instead of satirical.  He kept his mouth shut.  Ed always tried to be generous to the acquaintances he spent much time with.

        It became undeniable, during the summer, that his business concerns were being investigated.  He was contributing to the massive development efforts underway near Mineral Cliffs, a place in the Rocky Mountains.  Ed perceived it as the closest thing he'd ever know to the ideal project.  He'd first gotten useful information about it three years ago.  The region centered on the cliffs had value for manufacturing as well as telecommunications, and the National Security State preferred the area's topography for some reason having to do with continuity of government.  The trouble was crime.  There had already been a prosecutor's move against more than a dozen workers at the central site, most of them charged with industrial espionage.  These men were being held in a private prison maintained by a corporation that Ed thought highly of.  Hearing the reports about trouble, he was briefly distracted.  He felt secure, at least in regard to Mineral Cliffs.

        The summer was how he thought summer must be according to its nature - lethargic.  That is, he found himself taking it easier than he would admit.  And for some reason his wife was discouraging any continental travel he might have in mind.  Apart from three sluggish days on the Olympic Peninsula, they didn't leave home.

        At some point in the summer Ed observed, with wisdom he was adding to a memoir, "The combination of power and fame is quite rare."  He'd been working on the memoir since early June.

        His addition at this time was the one sentence.  He'd have serious challenges to meet before he could come back to the survey of his past.  Until then it would be less than a survey.  His decisive experience predated by four years his relocation to Washington State.  The change was the beginning of his deals with certain power brokers.  He knew the deals would continue as long as he was ambitious.

        One morning he finally answered a call from Bill Burkheimer.  He had some explaining to do.  Bill had gone to the meeting in Kelso.  But the experience was less galvanizing than he'd been led to expect.  He complained at length.

        "It sounds like they weren't very specific," the rich man said, after listening for a while.

        "That could be my summary of it," Bill agreed.

        "I'm told not many people showed up."

        The young man seemed to hesitate in replying.  "About a dozen of us at 2 P. M."

        "Real dynamic outreach," Ed inferred, with gentle mockery.  "Did you hear the main speaker?"

        "Yeah, but he was a substitute," Bill said.  "I can't even remember his name."

        "A smarmy kind of guy with pockmarks?"

        "That's him."

        Ed supposed the man would be a poor choice, at that.  "I've seen him a few times, but I don't know his name, either."

        It seemed a good idea for the older man to steer the discussion - somewhere.  He asked Bill a few questions about relevant details.  Bill answered quickly and sharply.

        Ed continued, "Well, the event was intended to provide help for anyone having the right attitude.  I was thinking they would give advice on how to organize.  Did they do that?"

        "They covered some ground, but it was pretty thin."

        Ed gave a show of indignation.  "I've already been hearing some bad things about what happened in Kelso.  I think the main guy behind the confab deserves to be put through the wringer.  I'll see to that."

        "Yes - thank you, sir."

        The call ended without Bill hearing much that he wanted to hear.  Young people could be pathetic, but Ed wasn't feeling remorse.  Compared to some other way that Bill might have spent that weekend, Kelso wouldn't be bad.  Bill had learned something, just what the older man had no idea.  That brought to mind Ed's new cell phone number.

        He thought that Bill was probably keeping the number to himself.  Through that number he wasn't getting calls from anyone else, including Cynthia Jeffcott's organization.  On the basis of this call and a message left earlier by Bill, the tycoon began developing esteem for the young man.  He thought he might even give some autobiographical data, next time around.  He kept thinking about some of the data.

        He'd grown up not far from New York City, but his most useful connection had been established in the Midwest.  In a sense this puzzled him, not that he was complaining.  The geographic reference was kept from being obvious.  At times in conversation with businessmen he'd make some enigmatic statement about his 'helpers on LaSalle Street.'  It was ridiculous how many Americans had never heard of that neighborhood.  But they always got the gist of it when he told them, "LaSalle Street is to Chicago what Wall Street is to New York."

        His critics had solved some of the mystery about the plutocrat in question.  For example, his influence on a group known as the States Development Authority wasn't the best kept secret.  To exist, each group of this type - interstate compacts - had to be recognized by Congress.  Polemicists made the vague insinuation that the Authority was a puppet for the likes of Ed Githens.  But this charge didn't seem to be much of a problem.  No one really bothered him about it.  He liked the idea that he belonged to the managerial sovereign class, with its bloc of corporations, policy institutes and the National Security State.  On the other hand he thought his life was too sheltered and he wanted to change that, but he wasn't sure he knew how to leave the shelter without doing something stupid.  He received advice from plenty of people.  He was visited one day by two such coaches, men who came to the guesthouse.  These men had done some clandestine work that was supposed to benefit the SDA.  They prided themselves on the fact that they only used weapons when there was no other choice.  They hadn't been here before, and they walked slowly towards the guesthouse, wondering what to expect.  Ed looked amiable as he greeted them from the porch.

        They stood there outside the house for a while.  They spoke in a fitful manner about a well-known organization.  The weather was pleasant.  Finally, for the more serious talk, they entered the house.  The building was expensive but no bigger than it had to be, and situated a hundred feet from the edge of the forest.  Before they went in the visitors naturally glanced more than once towards the center of attraction, the object at the center of the clearing.  Ed might have looked, also, if it hadn't been his own residence. 

        Inside the smaller building the men quickly took their places.  Mike Prather, a man still in his thirties, was seated by the basalt hearth.  His peer was on a couch across the room.  Ed occupied a chair at a table.  They were still talking about the well-known organization.

        "Their committee can't do that much," Ed asserted.  "It defers to the SDA.  You agree?"

        "No question about it," Mike said.

        "Which means that elections are beside the point."

        Darren Tellock was amused, for some reason.  "And you think that philosophical depth is more important than the will of the people.  It's easy to say, but I wonder if we can do something with it."

        "I suppose it would look unfriendly," Ed suggested, "if the entire panel was replaced."

        Mike laughed.

        "That we can actually do," Darren said.  The claim caught the wealthy man off guard.  Mr. Tellock wasn't just a guy who enforced the managers' directives.  He also knew something about managers. 

        "Then so much for the will of the people," Ed replied.  He was intrigued.  "I like the sound of a clean sweep, philosophical or not."

        "A clean sweep shouldn't be necessary," Mike said.

        "I agree," Darren added.  He believed what he had said about replacement, but that didn't mean he'd be enthusiastic.

        Mike expressed bewilderment about the SDA's relation to Congress.  It's own committee's work wasn't just hard to predict.  It was unpredictable.

        Ed saw the problem as something different.  "I think the Authority's been there long enough.  Anyone can see what happens now and then: they change their methods for appointing new members.  No one complains about the charter being violated."

        "Your point is," Mike said, "that their freedom is what helps us gain our objectives."

        "Pretty much."

        For a half hour the conversation dealt with pros and cons, mostly the pros.  One of these - according to their mindset - was the informal partnership they cultivated.  They had little, if any, fear of betrayal.  But sometimes the partnership needed maintenance.  In this regard they mentioned the most qualified specialists, and the adverse possibilities were dismissed in less than five minutes.

        In his perception of the two men, Ed was more impressed by Darren.  He always proved to be better-spoken, making recommendations that Ed could usually accept.  This time the final choice of agreed upon plan was what each had expected.

        "I'll take my turn like the other sponsors," Ed concluded.  "You guys make your presence known where you have to.  The components have a way of falling into place."

        Darren said, "If there's a first time when they don't, I'm in trouble."

        Mike answered, "You wouldn't be in trouble."

        Ed was used to dealing with the States Development Authority.  He had no experience with the other group he had just mentioned - the lesser group.  In any case the lesser group would be reasonable.  He wouldn't have any member of their committee killed or falsely accused.  But he'd manage to induce a change in their policies.

        This little conference was held on the fifth day of October.  Ed knew he was likely to question, in the gloom of the coming season, the statements by these men.  But so far there was no disagreement.  Like him they accepted the Authority as a fact: a collection of states extending from Wisconsin to Connecticut that had some influence over the rest of the nation.  Darren Tellock, a man good with narrative related to his work, told some anecdotes before he left.  These were instructive though they couldn't be enjoyed.  In this case Ed's hirelings were tactically shrewd but not filled with idealism.  As the operatives left the guesthouse and then the clearing, Ed was glad some things didn't depend on this meeting.  He compared the two men's advice with what he was told by several worthy performers on LaSalle Street.  Those performers came across as relatively encouraging.  They went so far as to allay his fears about the corporation agents who were having a look at Sanderlin.  They informed him that the agents were employed by an eccentric filmmaker to scout the location.  Ed welcomed this news.  The brigade on LaSalle Street had never let him down.

        Still, some things were bound to go wrong.  The leaders in Congress denied that they had granted a title of nobility to Glen Robertson.  They'd never admit they had violated a principle established by the Founding Fathers.  Their defensive argument sufficed without being sound.  Few people could see how a title might be granted, and the controversy about this didn't last very long.  The West Coast representative making the accusation knew that he had to shut up.  The journalists making the accusation found other topics to investigate.

        Despite his power, Mr. Githens failed to prevent this conferring of unique status on the obscure gentleman - the man being identified in the newscasts as Glen Thomas Robertson.

                                                                                        The Hutchman File

    

        A backyard having a swale to one side and loose thicket to the other might be plenty of space for someone's abiding presence.  It'll have to do.  A stricken man in his fifties will be here for the rest of his life. He tries to remember the decisive things that happened in the past three years.  The story's available to him in a few fragments that he has trouble with.  He knows it took place in a distant part of the country.  One question is, does it have anything to do with the murder of the journalist Nathan Keefe?  It's hard to see how.  Nathan became too famous because of his blog, and he was trying to stay virtuously independent when he rejected the offer of employment as part of a radio talk show team.  His body was found in one of the storage buildings behind a house in Skamania County.  Now the fifty-something man has the idea that he should be able to relate this to a fragment of memory, so he's at this again.  But he looks over at his cottage when he hears the back door opening.  Shelly, his wife, walks out to where he's resting at the picnic table.  She tells him something about their planned visit to Battle Ground, set for the next morning.  Soon she walks to the front yard, leaving her companion to drift back in thought towards Nathan.  There's the problem of how to evaluate the dead man's influence on a certain corrupting movement.  It's been denied by his friends and relatives that Nathan agreed to the contractual obligations of those who take part in the movement's vile practices.  And as far as the television commentators would care, it's only in the last five days that these practices have become worth mentioning.  When he begins to feel more discomfort, Leonard Hutchman arises from the bench at the picnic table and somehow begins to stagger towards the back door.  He enters the house.  In the afternoon and evening he keeps trying to remember the fragments.         

     The next day Shelly takes him to Battle Ground.  They spend some time in a coffee shop, occupying one corner and listening a while before they talk.  It triggers a fleeting response when she says something about the accident.  He doesn't remember the accident or much of anything about the following two years of 'convalescence,' - a time in which he never saw Shelly.  His wife had told the authorities that someone abducted or killed her husband.  She'd gotten one message that claimed Leonard was unharmed and would soon be released.  When he was finally set free two years later, she wasn't able to learn anything else.  Now, instead of talking about the accident Leonard talks about something he can remember.  He liked the way the coffee shop was furnished the last time he was here.  Why did they have to change that?  Eventually he notices a solemn gentleman entering the shop.  It's Don Minoli, a person he first met after being released.  Shelly had informed the man where they'd be this morning.  He called a week ago, trying to reach Leonard, and she told him the man in her care sometimes conversed better in a public place.  Don comes therefore at the right time, though to Leonard it seems like happenstance. Is it just as well that his thoughts would be interrupted?  He makes a typical esthetic judgment right before Don gets there.  A young man who works in the shop opens the door to one of the back rooms.  He leaves the door open when he goes in and Leonard sees a portrait on the wall in the room.  It's the standard portrait of the most famous man in history.  Leonard has his recurring thought about this.  He'd prefer that the Messiah was clean-shaven.

     Don goes to the person at the counter, places his order, then goes to the chair on Leonard's right.  His jacket shows traces of late winter weather.  Unlike yesterday, this morning makes a return to the slop of March.  But
the rain doesn't bar pedestrian traffic.  In fact the nearby commercial firms are more enticing to Leonard's wife
than any discussion the two men might have.  She leaves the coffee shop.  Obviously Don's order won't get there in time to share the table with Leonard's cream cheese-and-bacon sandwich.  In the meantime Don has his coffee.  He's thought about the story that Leonard has trouble remembering.  Here in the shop he begins their meeting with light conversation, and it's a few minutes before he seems purposeful . 

     Finally he says, "You talked to Fred Parks a couple of times, didn't you?"

     "Yes," Leonard answers, "now that you mention it."

     "And I think you said that was before the injury."

     Leonard recalls the transition.  "Two weeks, maybe three weeks before the injury.  He described himself as 'company spokesman' for that firm I'd never heard of.  Naturally I've wondered if there was a link between him and my captors, but nothing tells me there was.  I can't pay someone to look into it."

     "And for that matter, you wouldn't trust any kind of investigator.  Correct?"

     "I could change my mind," Leonard says, "depending on circumstances."

     Don's after something new in terms of considered opinions.  He states, "The esoteric treatments you received, including hypnosis - you don't sound very impressed."

     "I'm not."

     Don's plate of food is delivered, and the conversation slows a bit.  He lets the other man talk.  Don's been speculating about a subject he has an inkling of - the data that someone gathers in regard to Leonard.  Now and then selected comments from the file have been revealed to certain interest groups.  It's possible that Fred Parks maintains the file.  This matters to Don the bureaucrat, who was a key factor in getting Leonard released.  He has to consider the likely consequences.  It isn't that the interest groups would attack the former prisoner, but they could manipulate his associates, or they could do something else... 

     "We still don't know where they were keeping you," Don says.

     "I'd like to know the reason more than the location."

     Don glances at the other customers.  "I agree with your idea that some respected person in senior management was behind the abduction.  It would just be a matter of identifying the person.  I wish I could make promises."

     Leonard's a bit skeptical.  "Investigation isn't your job," he says.  "I understand that, but you still care about my history.  How come?" 

     It takes a while for Don to state the suspicions he has regarding Fred Parks, and he admits that his department would be indirectly concerned, at most.  He thinks Fred is a dunce who lives a charmed life.  The crime wouldn't have been Fred's idea, but he would know the perpetrators.  Leonard's reaction is cautious.

     He tells Don, "I guess those things could be true.  Maybe something will come to light."

     "Maybe, if we can get some help from the right people.  I'm not sure we can."

     "Because," Leonard says, "you're not law enforcement as such."

     "Right," the other man acknowledges.  "But we can do some things the cops can't do."

     "Including," Leonard points out, "some things I used to be able to do, myself." 

     Both men have finished their breakfast.  Wanting to learn more about Leonard's mentality, Don suggests various items for pondering.  Before he leaves, he might even talk about Nathan's unpleasant ritual.  If he does, he might hear something candid.

     Leonard isn't suffering from his lack of employment.  Given his age and his condition, there's no pressure about it.  There'd been a time when he was doing very well, but three years before the accident he'd had quite the setback in his business affairs.  Calculations told him to sell the expensive house.  He and his wife adjusted well enough.  The location of their cottage has them less than a hundred feet from a calm, substantial stream at the edge of hill country.  Infirm as he is, he likes the location.    

     For Don the shop's a little too public, and he goes easy here, talking to Leonard.  The oft-reviled bureaucrat is able to believe what he's been told about the other man's ordeal.  It's a medical expert instead of the victim who has told him.  Few of Don's acquaintances have the nerve to ask him about his own desperate experience - that of being falsely accused by a woman.   It's true that he handled the problem adroitly, and he can testify that there's life after nightmare.

     Leonard's experience was passive rather than desperate.  He says, "One of the memories gives the impression that there's a lot more to it."

     "And what's the memory?"

     "I'm lying in what seems like a hospital bed, and two other persons are there, talking about me.  But they're not talking about my medical treatment, that's all I know."

     "Still," Don replies, "they're probably doctors.  By the way, did you give up on that high-powered specialist?"

     "I gave up.  It's just the way he does things - "

     "Makes everything too complicated,"  Don says.  "I know what you mean."

     They have a subject that's always close to the fore.  The onetime prisoner in a 'secret facility' makes a few assertions and gets a mild response before asking what he really wants to know.   

     "I guess you won't tell me much," Leonard says, "about how you got me out of that place."

     Don's body language makes it clear he won't. 

     Leonard isn't too disappointed.  "Fair enough.  Is there anything else, now that you've told me about Fred?"

     "Yeah, something else - "  Don hesitates.

     A torrent of rain suddenly splatters the window.  People keep moving past the shop.  Don continues, this time referring to a sheriff's department and its problem with a minor celebrity. 

     "They've changed the official version on the Keefe case," he says.  "They were calling it murder, but now they
claim it was death according to the suicide pact.  Nathan told his dad he was coming down from Seattle to see a friend who lives near the Columbia River, but the friend insists he never saw Nathan.  So there was some other rendezvous, and that's what killed Nathan."

     This example, unlike that of Leonard's earlier plight, concerns Don's organization directly.

     "It sounds like the movement's a cult, after all,"  the broken man replies.

     "That word doesn't tell you much,"  Don says.  "And they don't have the group structure a cult has.  There's no central, presiding official.  Each group with a contract has its own arrangement." 

     But Don's still asking himself a question:  how big a problem is the file?  So far he hasn't revealed that he knows Leonard was preparing, sometime before the accident, to help a prosecutor.  Data from the file had somehow come to the prosecutor, who got in touch with his witness.  The accident changed their plans.  

     Leonard comes up with several questions about Nathan, most of which the other man can answer.  Naturally the Keefe case was given exposure in the mass media, with most of the leads pursued by investigators near Puget Sound.  So the facts have already become clear to some of these investigators.  Nathan was targeted by the corporate elite, for unknown reasons.  The highest-level managers have studied the psychological development, including the liberation concept, of those persons who accept the mortuary practice. As they move on to a presumed paradise, the group's members leave behind some benefits for survivors.  And before their departure they deeply antagonize the social system.  One of the corporate officials' late recruits has been such a person.  Who says that fascists can't believe in liberation?  The woman they recruited was motivated to establish the pact with Nathan and she finally got his consent.  He submitted to the procedure.  His body was discovered by someone coming to the place for the first time - a man renting the storage unit behind the house in Skamania County.  Nathan, espousing the movement, has fallen victim to the fascists. 

     This will be Leonard's way to relate his memory fragments to Nathan's demise.  It occurs to him that his own views about the sovereign class were publicly expressed long before his accident.  He feels that the same social element had kept him prisoner, and his final talk with Parks could have shown the need for wariness.  The man had told him that the ruling class is directed by an occult, superhuman being - one who flouts the Almighty.  The fiend's willing servants are lavishly compensated.  If that point was supposed to be public relations, it was lost on Leonard.  Good job, Fred.

     "Our department shouldn't have been brought into this," Don says, not quite sincerely. 

     "Your people seem capable enough," Leonard teases.

     "That's not the point, and you know it."  

     Something else Don isn't telling this man is that he's actually met Nathan and talked politics with him several times in the last year and a half.  That fact would only give Leonard one more excuse to blame things on most of the officials he's dealt with.  Don's resources abound within the world of agencies, but his informal alliance with this or that person can sometimes be the most productive.  And the people involved in Nathan's death?  Some
inferences could be made.  They knew about that property in Skamania County.  Though the same person has owned the house for almost half a century, it's been vacant since last August, when the tenant - the owner's daughter - moved out.  Don asks the other man what he makes of the scenario.

     Leonard says, "It's a test conducted by the grandees.  I think they're trying to anticipate the changes in civil rights."

     "You mean because of the proposed regulations about the transfer of estates."

     "It makes sense, doesn't it?" Leonard replies.

     "It might to the experts."

     Don thinks that Nathan's death ties in with Leonard's hypothetical court case.  The ones to be prosecuted would be members of the sovereign class or they'd be adversaries of that class.  If Leonard doesn't inform him, there's no way to tell which.  Not that Don sees it as a practical problem.      

     Shelly returns to the coffee shop, without any new possessions.  The timing is pretty good.  She stands there looking at the men, who happen to be finishing their conference.

     Here at the table they've encouraged each other's intuitive sense that there's a social background of collusion.  This marks an advance over their first meetings.  Don's rather dull nature as conveyed by TV and radio has no resemblance to what he's like in person.  He surprises Leonard with assertions that are implicit or merely incidental.    

     After several months of knowing him, Don still tries to help Leonard.  He asks, now that they're about to leave, "Is there anyone else in the department you'd like to get in touch with?"

     Leonard can't think of anyone.

     He's troubled by this on the way home - regretful that he's turned down an opportunity given by Don.  The misgiving is no less conscious when Shelly drives the final stretch before turning onto the road that arrives at the cottage.  On the final stretch he looks at the concentration of mobile homes that flank the stream right before it runs into the acres of thicket.  He sees the historic, dutifully maintained pioneer's house on the other side of the stream, and then Shelly turns in towards the cottage.  He's still frustrated about the opportunity, despite his lack of trust in the officials.

     Inside the house they spend some time reviewing his plans for gaining a sense of what was done to him.  Shelly thinks he should rely more on this improbably helpful bureaucrat.  Leonard doesn't admit that he's tempted.  He's considering the full range of his options.    

     Time works on Leonard as it works on others.  A vigorous example of the process is the fragment he described to Don in the coffee shop.  For a while the change is scarcely noticeable.  It may just be a matter of the broken man reaching a point where he admits that he should tell someone the remarks contained in the fragment.  In this way the fragment becomes whole and becomes available.  Despite that, the weeks go by monotonously.  Leonard wants to call Don even though Don isn't the first man he should confide in.  It's as if he's harboring a secret that must be impermissible.  The recollection's been fully developed.

     In the recollection, Fred Parks and his young assistant can be seen, but not constantly.  The subject of their interest - the aging man - lies in bed.  He's unable to speak, unable to move.  The other two men don't seem to care if he knows what they're saying.  Or maybe they have reason to think he'll forget.  Fred talks as though he's reading Hutchman-related information from the screen of a laptop.  But Leonard can't see the laptop.

     "This is worth something if it's true," Fred tells the assistant.  "They've got their names on the list that specifies 'compelling reasons of despair.'  The source appears to be trustworthy."

     "Do I release that information?" the younger man asks.

     "There may come a time for that," Fred answers, and then says some more things about the document.

     The flashbacks recur to Leonard now and then, with subtle differences.  One evening as he sits in the swivel chair in the small room he calls his study, he begins to speculate.  It's people such as Nathan who keep the list of reasons for despair.  Leonard wants to know why someone claims that the Hutchmans accept the suicide pact.  The claim is inaccurate.

     In the remembered sequence Fred sounds pessimistic.  He says to the younger man, "I'd suggest that we co-opt the movement, but we'll probably give in to accommodation.  In other words, conforming to it.  That's the way things are done in this country."

     The assistant replies, "Here's the judicial reference you wanted."  Evidently using the Internet, he reads aloud two sentences.

     "Gotcha," Fred says.

     There follows a series of comments that might as well be gibberish to Leonard.  Then it clears up.

     "I forget who first heard about the accident," Fred says.  "It really was an accident, but guess who wanted to make use of the situation."

     "I never guess about those things."

      Leonard supposes the deception could come from Fred's associates or superiors without Fred knowing it.

     Fred looks at the captive.  "I think we're done with today's little exercise.  The medical people can have him again." 

     Not inclined to think highly of his place in the social order, Leonard isn't very startled by the sequence.  He was regarded as cattle by Fred, but the important thing is that even such regaining of knowledge is possible.  The medical and psychic treatments have been productive, after all.  He doesn't know the sequence verbatim, but now it's clear that a criminal - Fred himself - really does maintain a sneaking file on Leonard Hutchman.  It isn't that Leonard should worry about this when he's having supper.  He's brought back to the present.  All during the time he's been in the swivel chair, noise from the kitchen has told him Shelly was busy.

     He enjoys the meal and then he watches the only TV show he can care about.  He had seen some episodes of the show's first season prior to having his accident.  But by now there have been some unfortunate changes in casting.  The reason he still watches the series is that the story happens in a northern city, and the crimes referred to - all commissioned by the elite - are never shown on the screen or described in detail.  This time the show can't hold his attention as completely as usual.  At some point in the episode Leonard repeats a thought he had at supper.  He decides he won't inform Shelly about his memory of Fred reading from the laptop, at least not yet.       

     In the morning he makes a phone call to a law enforcement officer.  He's talked to this man previously.  Of course there's no guarantee of results, but he has to make the attempt.  He can finally identify one of his abductors.

     The officer says, "That's a long time before having the recollection."

     "I know," Leonard answers, "but I'm sure it was him."

     They consider some details thoroughly.  When the call is finished, the man that Leonard spoke with walks over to the office of a co-worker.

     He likes the news he just received, and he tells the co-worker, "We have an allegation about Fred Parks."  The man at the desk finds this interesting.

     "You remember Fred Parks," the first man suggests.

     "The promoter,"  the second man says.  "He's the one who does that lecture circuit on ETs running the government."

     "Promoter," the first man adds, "official spokesman, something like that.  I think we have more evidence this time."

     The man at the desk admits, "I'll have to brush up on my VIP conspiracies."

     "I won't have to."

     Leonard, after the call, wonders about the person he just now spoke with.  Once before, the man expressed interest in Fred Parks.  If that suspicion gets rekindled by these comments, Leonard might be seeing various officials in the near future.  He tells himself that he has no regrets about spouting his social views.     

     Later that day Don Minoli stands on a hilltop from which he can see vehicles going along the I-5 corridor.  He likes the scene, but that isn't why he's here.  Before long he gives up the distraction, comes down from the hill and walks through a verdant, secluded graveyard.  He comes to a flat-lying tombstone that shows the inscribed name of Nathan Keefe.  Also inscribed, above his epitaph, is a diagram.  The information on the marker is dangerous.  A relative - perhaps his brother - could supply this knowledge if he knew that much about Nathan's personal associations.  It would take some courage to put it on the marker.  True, the dangerous people might never come here and read the epitaph.  Don stands there at the grave much longer than a stranger would be expected to.  He recalls the sporadic sanity of Nathan's opinions.  The table talk they had more than once at that roadhouse in Federal Way was informative, but only now does he realize Nathan was preparing to help a prosecutor.  He should have been better informed all along, especially concerning Fred's involvement.  There's still some of that data reaching the abusive interest groups.  After Don leaves the graveyard he keeps thinking about the file.       

     In the next week Leonard begins to take one more kind of medicine.  He's at a lower point than the previous week.  He has a unique encounter one day when Shelly's gone from the house on some errand.  A man comes to the cottage to see him.  The man's an attorney, one with a strong reputation even though his manner is diffident.  Sure enough, as the conference goes on he proves that he knows what he's talking about.  He says the legal prospects of the movement are quite limited.  Their activism will soon be defeated.  That's easy to believe, but this meeting frustrates the disabled man.  He wants information about the sovereign class, even if the attorney thinks it's off subject.  The meeting had been scheduled after the two men exchanged emails about Nathan Keefe and his ilk.  The attorney wants to learn something, too.  He's always assumed that the bastards never slip up.  The rumors that Nathan was their victim seem outrageous, but they might be confirmed.  And now the disabled man gives him a name he can use.  Though the attorney's never heard of this Parks character, the initial comments are promising.  As for Leonard, he has an unrelated thought during the dialogue:  if he were to die, what would his wife do?  He doesn't think she'd keep residing at this location.  His mind wanders a little more.  He thinks about his brothers and his in-laws.  But then he becomes aware that the visitor, having asked a question, waits for an answer.  Once again Leonard assures the man that he rejects the suicide pact mentality.

     More days go by before Don and Leonard have another talk, and Leonard knows this won't be their last one.  In his private reasoning he's tried to explain why he was a prisoner. Don, with a similar view, finally mentions the court case.  Prosecutors wanted Leonard testifying against a high official, and it had to be done by a certain deadline.  That didn't happen.  This is one result of being a prisoner.  Leonard senses another:  he's had a sigh of relief that makes up for something, somewhere.

     Anyway the new medicine is working.  He starts to feel better.

 

 

The  Sweven

 

 

 

     One of the houses on a street in the Portland area gained a new feature in 2005 - a reading room that was open to the public.  After that, visitors to the place could sometimes find people they'd heard of, people coming to use the resources.  A favorite example was Bonnie Darsaloux.  She would actually consult reference books there, and she didn't mind talking to strangers.  The group she belonged to was described more or less as a literary circle.  According to a notice received by a select few, the house with the reading room was owned by some easy-going proponents of the group's worldview.  Naturally the adherents of the group gave a degree of mutual support.    

     It hadn't taken Bonnie long to gain some real status among these personalities.  Her own written accounts of their beliefs were popular and less difficult than the original exposition, a book by an unprolific author named Tom Noakes.  After 'founding' the circle, Noakes didn't have much to do with it.  He lived a very quiet life in a suburb of Rochester.  For practical purposes a more significant influence felt by Bonnie was one that took the form of Peter Howard.  Both he and Bonnie belonged to the exclusive nucleus of the small organization.  Besides them the coterie included three other persons.  Also involved were more than a dozen artists and writers, making minor contributions to the worldview.  The more exclusive members had composed their own philosophical statement, a collaborative work whose purpose was to serve as a guiding message to the public.  But its original text had never been published, and was quite different than Tom's groundbreaker.  A revised version of their work - the actual manifesto - could eventually be found online.  One member of the group had, with outside help, achieved the manifesto.  It summarized their cosmology.  In some ways it was a definite improvement.  That this revision would be a problem, though, was guaranteed by the man who paid for its appearance: Chad Wilkins, a financier. 

     Peter Howard would never be famous, even after his Facebook declaration that struck everyone as misanthropic : "The worst thing about being poor is that you're surrounded by poor people."  He spoke from experience.  Though he was a latecomer to the group, he did more than the others to refine its assumptions.  When he discussed his own ideas with the other members, they seemed to give them serious thought.  For two years he'd thought there was only one problem: what would he do with Tom's and Bonnie's ideas?  Now he needed to assess the revised, online text, but he had a ways to go.  Like the others, he hadn't foreseen the legal significance and problem of the website.  The sponsor knew more about such matters than they did - more about his role of representing the group within the world of business law.  Peter didn't give much reply when Bonnie first expressed her concerns on the same subject.

     She commented, "This changes the nature of our status, doesn't it?  We've got a different purpose now."  The woman was having a twinge of pessimism.

     It bothered both Peter and Bonnie that some secret conferring had led up to the revision.  People would have objected.  Once, when Chad gave what he considered an inspirational talk at a Portland university, Peter was in the second row of the audience.  He had never seen a photo of the speaker, but he knew better than to expect much.  The speaker was tall, and that was about it.  His performance at the podium was no more than competent.  When he had finished, the audience went away more intrigued than inspired.  An exception was a second member of the Noakes adherents who had come to learn something, but he and Peter had arrived separately and a week went by before they talked to each other about the event.  The lack of immediate communication served someone's veiled strategy.  There was a problem here - more than a misunderstanding.  As a result of this occasion, a continuous exchange of email notes took place between this other man and Wilkins.  You could say that one of these men prevailed in the exchange.  The decisive interval was less than a week.  The group's documented ideas about the universe began to be amended.

     So the final product was controversial within the group.  As such formulations go, their cosmology met the usual standard, and it seemed impossible to pin them down regarding sources.  They pandered to a readership that was entertained, if not educated.   As in many cosmic systems, most of what really counted in their version was invisible.  They assumed that sometimes a creative, mystifying act would occur in which a spiritual being - a person but not a human - was derived from some human.  Usually the spirit would continue to live without a body, and it could still bring its mischief among humans.  In some cases, though, a spirit could achieve a human-like incarnation.  It generated the body it required.  With dubious convenience the word 'goblin' was sometimes applied to these creatures.  Bonnie hinted that only a few thousand remained in this part of the universe, but a few thousand were enough.  This was one version of the worldview.  There were members who believed the generation was an unexplainable, natural process.  According to others it wasn't the lowly spirit, but a higher power such as an archangel or deity who controlled the event.  Somehow the spirits contributed to government policies across the planet.  They were also involved in the most sensational crimes.  Peter avoided mentioning the details he didn't like - the new features of the system.  In fact the originators of the worldview failed to give a coherent account that related the upper echelons to this murky chicanery happening on Earth.  But now and then they made some ingenious additions - fable presented as truth.

     It's hard to imagine who would believe much of this.  It did make for a good story if something was said to occur near a small town adjacent to wilderness.  Several of these locations were considered by the adherents.  There'd be a nearby lake or a boulder-strewn frontage to innumerable fir trees.  A dimly seen human-like form would move along the open fields.  Peter gave the most elaborate report of seeing such an embodied spirit.  This happened at some such isolated place - a facility that enabled wildlife experts to make studies of the surrounding region.  He was sure that the moving form was a nonhuman spirit, but he didn't say anything very unusual about its action.  He had seen the creature "getting back into a car that was parked on a lonely stretch of road in Colorado."  Bonnie had known that Peter was spending so much time in the region, and she'd anticipated a full report on the research facility.  The news he'd brought from there was rich in detail.  He claimed that various workers at the center had been harassed by something superhuman.  The experience continued.  The problem was so tangible, of course, that the leadership had to achieve a cover-up, threatening the employees with termination.  One witness, a certain McGreevy, seemed indispensible for making the case.  But even the adherents could seldom reach him.  No doubt there was a smart way as well as a stupid way to bring this story to the public.  In his outreach, Peter wanted to achieve a kind of Town Hall effect.  On one occasion, for a very nonexclusive group in the reading room, he played an audio recording of comments by Tom Noakes, who gave his blessing to this project.  Tom's rejection of the website's modified content was delicately expressed.  Those familiar with his work suspected he wanted to avoid a debate.    

     The adherents had some things to fear.  Their dogmatic assertions about the occult gave energy to the conspiratorial.  In this case it looked as if the assertions were well-crafted and that McGreevy would come to the surface before long, big time.  His statements were unpredictable to the point of being a nuisance.  He was thirty-seven, had worked at the site for five years and was unquestionably suffering an arcane disease, one that he claimed was the stamp of disapproval from a sapient creature.  Though the claim was risky, there might be no other way of turning the story into a news report.  Would his testimony be enough?  Would it be useful to the people trying to help him? 

     Bonnie pretended to believe Peter's anecdote.  This didn't mean there was a secret verbal agreement guiding their deceptive partnership.  She had, over the years of their acquaintance, understood him and cooperated with him in good conscience.  But there were times when she had to be less obvious about the arrangement.  This happened in terms of their newsletter, to which he contributed.  She was in charge of the newsletter, and she called it The Sweven.  A sweven is a dream.  She performed an editing job on Peter's work at times because she thought he wouldn't notice.  Eventually she tried to make his narrative seem credible when she spoke to Gina Sundberg, a skillful investigator who approached with questions about the literary circle.  Bonnie agreed to answer Gina's questions even though she wasn't able to reach the woman's employer for comments.  It was publicity for the circle in any case, and the writer took it easy the day of the interview.  She wouldn't be intimidated.  Sure enough, when Gina walked into the office that Bonnie used, the first impression was of a self-confident, prosecutor's or military commander's lack of mercy.  This was also the impression when Gina left.  But the mystic refused to make much of that.  She spent some time trying to relate the woman's comments to her background.  The investigator had published a few short polemical works.  Bonnie read one of these and saw no reason for alarm.  She was unimpressed by the main burden of the piece: a standard progressive's harangue against white men.  Towards the end of the interview she had to supply bits of geographic information about Peter's anecdote.  Gina didn't know the back roads of Oregon, let alone the ones in Colorado.  She'd been a resident of Portland for three years, after coming north from San Jose.  When Bonnie left the office that evening after the interview, she considered and quickly discounted the likelihood that she'd be the target of accusations.  Her little group wasn't Gina's kind of prey. 

     Bonnie had a sense of what the reaction from her associates would be if she told them about the interview.  It might go like this: "Be prepared for disinformation.  Then again, if we can use her somehow, it's worth it.  These people are so predictable."  The interview was the last time Bonnie heard from Gina - even in terms of email.

     The ideas of the adherents comprised a pop-cultural trickle - either downward or outward.  This wasn't threatened, and it wasn't bolstered, by the manifesto's revision.  But their creative work might not continue as before, depending on the strength of a few contractual terms added to the text.  Chad, or his consultants, had known what they were doing.  The adherents' division of labor, strengths and weaknesses was fairly clear.  It was clearest between the two most prominent members.  Bonnie was less inventive than Peter, but more adept in terms of gaining acceptance.  The footnotes in books of the paranormal described her activities.  These were familiar to Gina, who seemed rather typical of the people showing serious interest in the adherents.  Those people considered the Tom Noakes heritage to be a distraction from the pursuit of truth.  Peter seemed especially unfortunate.  They knew about his lackluster background.  Still, Gina's allies muffled any scorn they might have.  The adherents would be made use of, but not persecuted.  

     It was actually predicted by Larry Deal, a man who studied the ruling class, that Chad Wilkins would have more trouble than Peter Howard.  The philosophical views of Wilkins were more difficult for the aristocrats to ignore.  And his business firm was very successful.  His followers included more than his employees.  Quite a few were young disciples from privileged families.  Their kind of enthusiasm had been seen often enough in the nation's youth subculture.  The leader himself was of two extremes: a dreary personal style on the one hand compared with frightening politics on the other.  Larry found out several important facts about Chad, and he was able to do this in spite of a disadvantage.  He resembled Peter in this respect.  He was a talented researcher, but he was the kind who falls through the cracks in American education.  He didn't know any more about software than he knew about hardware.  He worked intermittently as instructor in some junior colleges.  He paid a graduate student to help him start his website, and the young man continued giving assistance after he gained his own professional place in the academic ranks. Because of Chad's elite standing as well as a special concern that he had for federal policies, he came to Larry's attention.  The researcher held that most governments, including the so-called secular kind, presupposed a theological system as a social context.  Whether it was obvious to the public or not, national regimes enforced their standing as if beholden to a deity.  Arguably, communist governments might be an exception, but these appeared to be a short-lived species.  In this case, administrators felt the unfriendly current.  Chad was interfering with accepted theology.

     "There's no room for sinister globalists," Larry said to another man in his line of work.  "I mean they don't exist.  As an active group that poses a danger, they've been invented by nationalists.  But try telling that to the proletarians."

     If such globalists really did exist, Chad might be one of them.  He had fellowship with tycoons in several countries, and the hobnobbing was unrelated to practical contact between businesses.  In casual meetings with lesser associates he had described the personalities, also revealing his opinions about life.  In some of these opinions, for example, different social classes were evaluated.  Larry thought he could see what Chad was doing: contributing to the belief in global conspiracy without himself believing that such organizations really existed.  Then did he profit somehow by using such delusion?  In movies or novels it might work that way.  As applied to the real world, Larry couldn't see it.  He might have been able to, had he known about the difference between the adherents' original text and the revision.  The difference might profit the financier.  Eventually a comparison of Chad's philosophy and Peter's would be richly academic.  By and large the Wilkins factor involved privilege in the marketplace.  He made ideological statements when he felt he had to.  One other difference between the two men was Peter's lack of concern about the government.  Instead he found fault with the broader, persisting social system.  He seemed to think the main problems would be overcome by an increase in the number of dedicated researchers and zealous commentators.  He didn't complain much about the suppression of data.  People just had to be more inspired.

     And more vigilant.  Nights were almost never eventful at the small office building where Peter and the others did much of their work.  The most important exception happened one evening when the security and surveillance devices had been rendered useless.  A visitor, walking past the willow saplings in the still darkness, approached the building.  He went through the offices and helped himself to data without having to see his accomplice.  The coterie would never complain about this event, and its technological features appeared essentially mysterious to them, though the intruder was no goblin.  It wasn't that he learned much he could care about.  But he enjoyed the ability to sift through someone else's possessions.  He appreciated that the effort happening in this building on a daily basis was a business of sorts, albeit frivolous.  First he smiled at the images, then he got bored.  He left a snotty written message on Peter's desk.  The message told why the adherent's metaphysical beliefs would never be widely accepted.  The man gave it some more thought, then rose from the desk.  The visit was a pointless effrontery.  He got back in his car and began the long drive home.          

     The accomplice in the episode was talented, being esteemed  among the adherents.  In any case he knew what to expect.  When the manifesto had appeared online it seemed clear that something  duplicitous had happened within the literary group.  Bonnie knew she'd have to be cautious, aligning this different slant with her own reputation.  It surprised her that Peter was even more taken aback by the website.  Two days later they had the group discussion.  Certain things were brought to light with a candid talk about this in the reading room after it was closed for the evening.  But nothing was resolved.  Even if no one made faces or said anything nasty, one of the members adamantly refused to see that there was a problem.  What offended Peter about the revised text was its call for a kind of direct action that would cause unnecessary trouble.  Such action already had, in previous applications by Wilkins' people - unknown to members of the coterie.  Citing his own exotic notion of a deity, the successful capitalist was ready to exploit such measures.  He wanted to replace the federal system with one more useful - what exactly, he wouldn't say.  He'd sacrifice any number of subordinates or associates.  Peter's instinctive suspicion was close to the mark, but his actual knowledge about Chad Wilkins was very limited.  He claimed that Chad exemplified the sinister globalists, and in trying to convince his readers of this he told stories of lurid iniquities the wealthy man was thought to be fond of.  The funny thing was, Peter didn't know the half of it.  Bonnie was likewise ignorant, her qualms about the manifesto being based on the text itself as well as fears about unspecified power brokers who might have induced the changes.  Gina could have told Bonnie some scary things about Chad if she had known of the interaction already taking place.  In the previous year she had researched his followers.  She was aware that you could have some very fine debates about the difference between those people and the Rajneeshees.  

     A tension therefore persisted within the group.  No one was invited to leave, but everyone could tell that pressure from the outside might be experienced without advance notice.  They could have talked about which was more destructive - treachery or a lack of maintenance.  Duplicity can precede still another problem, such as technical failure.  Something that effected Peter and the others happened rather quickly.  The reading room was closed down, Bonnie's publisher folded and the adherents' main website became neglected.  Bonnie began trying to find a more independent way in the world of publishing.  Peter suffered, having always relied on the group's website.  He convinced the others that he was resigned - amicably - to the failure.  In fact the coterie's fading away wasn't something to be blamed on the pressure that came from Chad Wilkins or the government.  It was just bound to happen - a result of peculiar incompetence.     

     One setback, though, could be attributed to high-level hostility.  The most intense competition is rarely perceived by those who are not directly involved.  A group of landowners and technocratic investors had received useful data from the NSA.  They knew they really had something here.  They were so frightened they took the option described by the formal security system as last resort.  Chad was no longer permitted his main residence, which happened to be north of the Bay Area.  When hired gunmen stormed his country estate, he had been gone from the place less than an hour.  The only suggestion from comments in the mass media was of home invasion and a missing resident.  They didn't cite a word of Chad's invective against the Judeo-Christian heritage.  Instead they mentioned his drug-abused right hand man.  This character's flamboyance was the obvious alternative to his employer's body language.  Irresponsible or not, the subordinate had manipulated people in such a way that a flood of confessional data came forth.  Federal agents pounced victoriously, but some officials knew that the wealthy man had escaped.  His retinue dissolved more slowly than expected.  Later the news media reported that he had gained a secure niche that was offshore.  Some European government was involved, and they could tolerate a person like Chad.  Meanwhile his right hand man benefited from sound remedial treatment. 

     Larry was guilty of gloating somewhat when he learned about the finale.  He had never heard of Gina before she sent him information about Chad's activities.  The woman had found Larry's online discussion and saw that it also mentioned Peter's work.  Gina's study of Mr. Wilkins and company was only one of several to sound the alarm.  By now few people would give the malefactor benefit of the doubt.   Chad's views on the federal system were a dead giveaway, and Larry knew the disease for what it was.  He had guessed the kind of outcome.  The accurate prediction was in keeping with his background.  His essays about theology and the state were very perceptive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                             Pat  Wymark

 

 

 

        Something was out of place at one family's late spring event : a person from outside the family.  People gathered at a house which had several acres and was close to the interstate.  Various nonrelatives were there, but the one not seen previously was the youngest of those, a mere thirty-four.  He arrived when expected and didn't stay long.  His physical appearance, intended to be outrageous, would be forgotten by the other guests even before his visit was.  He claimed to be producing and directing a documentary film about the most notorious participant in the region's late twentieth century scandals.  It was true that he could claim some prior accomplishments.  He had written a screenplay for another film, and after doing that he had found a big time publisher for a story that few readers could be expected to stomach.  The story was skillfully written, but it was, in the figurative sense, unspeakable.  He didn't mention it here at the family event, when meeting a young man who also happened to be a writer.  The twenty page prose composition wasn't helping its author.  He couldn't find anyone who had finished reading it. 

        Friendly voices of relatives who were grouped on the patio comprised the background for the second writer - the one who stayed with the gathering after the film director left.  This encounter between the men hadn't been troubling for Pat Wymark.  He forgot the visitor, and remained in a chair some distance from his relatives.  What troubled him was a peculiar sense of his own failure.  The feeling, unrelated to anything mentioned today, stemmed from awkward behavior that had lasted for several years.  The shame wouldn't be expunged from his reputation. 

        But on this occasion he appeared content.  Before long his vision came to be applied in a different manner, across the lawn and past his parents, finally reaching the target : Rollie Wymark, eldest of brothers.  Rollie was a chrome-dome who drank tea instead of beer.  At the moment he was laughing, not drinking.  His chat with the others had until now been outside the younger man's awareness.  Pat couldn't understand why his brother had become such a different person in recent years.  Rollie pressured him in a way that was hard to believe.  These days the stories Pat wrote conformed somewhat to the other man's character.  Pat's reasoning about this influence had not changed.  He could accept Rollie's choices of subject matter, up to a point.  This wasn't a contest, but rather something that might give both of them what they wanted.  He suddenly realized he'd been ignoring the group which included his righteous parents and his playful sisters.  He felt the dying of the breeze on this overcast, warm afternoon in Corbett, Oregon.  Now, after looking at his brother he closed his eyes.

        He also thought of that influence on his idealism, Neil Richards.  The man had been known as a skilled activist, and a person reviled more than praised.  His bombast could be relished by his listeners.  That is, until he had died the previous week.  Death was from natural causes.  He was fifty-six.

        "I know about your politics," he had told Pat, when the writer made his last visit to Neil's house.  "With me you avoid the subject for some reason, and it's good that you're not too outspoken.  You like to write fiction, but what you should be doing is putting out some sort of magazine.  I could help you do that.  It's feasible even in this town as long as it has a peculiar slant."

        Steve Prahl, one of Neil's associates, was also there during the conversation, and he occupied the room's finest armchair.  He was a man well-versed in electronic record keeping.  Through most of the talk he seemed unconcerned about the things being disclosed.

        As for Neil, he never said anything about Pat's disgrace.  He thought he was giving the young man some philosophical nurture.  He had spent a few minutes in conversation with these men before he spoke of a magazine.  It occurred to him that he may have offered the wrong man his help, though he discounted that possibility in a moment. 

        Before proceeding further he exhaled audibly.  "I may have told you about Mark Lewis, that guy in New York.  I'm not saying he'll introduce you to the right people or anything like that, but he gathers the kind of data you seem to care about."  Neil was careful with his next remark.  "Don't try to understand his ideological statements.  They have nothing to do with how he runs his business."  Not that it was business in the conventional sense.  Lewis, director of a nonprofit organization, more or less claimed to be altruism personified.  

        Neil hadn't made himself clear about the worth of entertainment literature.  He treasured fiction more in theory than in terms of his own reading choices.  He glanced at the bookshelves in the room.  "Well, how much of your own work has been accepted - maybe two dozen stories altogether?"

        "About that many," Pat said.

        "You could write about the domestic problems of the upper crust," Neil stated.  The choice of genre was quite serious.

        "I wouldn't know how cohesive the Waltons are," Pat replied.

        At his location a vivid image was provided, thanks to a large window.  The near distance outside held a masonry of terracing.  Beyond that was a stream, and further beyond, grazing in the level pasture, were some range cattle.  Pat noticed that alder trees put shadows on the terracing.

        The older man wanted to keep New York in the conversation.  "If my health was better," he said, "I'd go back there with you and show you the facilities we've made use of, and I'd find out if certain people are still active."

        He made some definite promises and tried to encourage Pat's ambition, but it didn't matter.  His health was worse than he thought.

        This meeting, like others they'd had, was worthwhile for the most part.  But one thing about Neil and friends was clear to Steve: they hadn't told the writer what he should be told about the governing elite and especially about Neil's involvement with said elite.  Before he had moved into this house he was approached.  A working relationship had intensified over the past year, and the big shots monitored the broad range of publishers more than you'd think.  Steve knew some things about the nation's most powerful men.  They weren't the legislators.  They made the most crucial decisions about the economy, and they could always pay some people to act as criminals or heretics.  Though Steve hadn't been told much either, what he knew could have been disturbing to Pat.  Of course Neil himself could have told the writer something very significant.  He was holding back for some reason.  Pat might have to learn a few things the hard way.  Or he might remain blissfully naive.  In any case, though the propaganda session wasn't very long, Neil felt he had accomplished quite a bit.  Pat and Steve departed the house at the same time.  

        "And don't approach Mark Lewis," the technical expert whispered to himself as they left.  The others didn't hear.

        Pat's thoughts moved immediately to a different concern.  The men had covered their favorite topics on that occasion, but his life at the time was about something else.  He expected his own status to change very soon.  The woman planning to become his spouse was an office worker named Lynn McQuiston.  They had both always lived in Gresham but hadn't met until recently.  Their friendship had become more than the casual interest that started the previous November.  He thought of her as a sound investment.  Their families weren't very much alike, but he'd work on that if it needed work.  For him the prospect of marriage dwarfed all considerations about society, publishing or Neil Richards.  He pictured Lynn walking across the campus of the school where he taught history.  She'd make those strolls in the years to come.  Pat speculated as much as anyone about the future.  He hadn't gotten very far into adult life, and he'd pry some wisdom from his parents if he could, but they were noncommittal about his decision for marriage.  He liked to hear Lynn describe the books that she read even if he didn't give her much response.  Now he wanted to make up for the fact that they had communicated only by email in two weeks.  He called her and left a recorded message that asked for a discussion.  They conversed the day after the family gathering, just before they spent some time in a gift shop. 

        She said, following some pointless chatter, "I hope your teaching job isn't starting to look worse and worse."

        The comment surprised him.  "It's the same job I've always had," he answered.

        "But you've gotten some offers to work with publishing firms.  I know you're tempted by it."

        He recalled an earlier talk they'd had about this.  He explained, "Maybe I gave you the wrong impression."

        She considered this.  In fact she had little, if any, anxiety about their future as man and wife.

        "If you're thinking of campus politics," he added, "the place is too drab for anything dangerous."  He made specific assertions that Lynn found convincing.

        "I didn't say that sort of life is unreasonable," she told him.  "But you'll always be plagued by those people in administration.  That woman - "  She tried to think of the name.

        "Clara," Pat reminded her.

        Lynn glowered.  "She's the dumbest chick I've ever met!"

        The conversation was actually winding down.

        "Okay," Pat said.  "You think I should be doing something different.  You may be right for all I know."  He looked at her more closely.  "I still have to get a decent offer."

        They were walking along the edge of a large, vacant lot.  He said some things about Neil's memorial service.  He sounded appropriately glum.  It seemed to Lynn that his way of being serious was most authentic when talking with his future spouse.  Talking to non-academic people he usually came across as light and harmless.  Now she caught sight of their destination, the gift shop.

        Lynn said, "There's something in here that might look good on the podium at school."

        They entered the shop, and for ten minutes Pat almost forgot about his writing.

        His latest work to be published, a novella, gave a lucid chronology.  Most critics would find it easy to despise, but not much was being said one way or the other.  The story was written to commence a family saga.  In these vague terms the suggestion had been Rollie's.  Pat came up with more than enough characters for such a work, and he admitted that their similarities with some persons in real life might be obvious.  It was hard to see how the reminiscent characters would cause offense.  The writing was nevertheless polemical, and someone was bound to react.  The story's peculiar slant was to vilify people who spent large amounts of money on their house pets.  It was more sympathetic to a man whose cultivated, backyard floral display withered prematurely for no determined reason.  Aside from this, the text included a careless description of the powers that be.

        One of Pat's friends, Ted LaRowe, had gained access to the novella's text prior to publication.

        "I have some editorial skills," he told Pat.

        "For an amateur," the writer said, without harshness.

        Pat regarded his friend as a clergyman of rare quality.  He could use Ted's opinions about the story.  Still, the preacher sometimes wondered if it was a good idea to read the other man's work.  He felt this more and more often.  His other reading began to be hindered.  At times he'd set aside some theological book and take it easy, but having a look of despair.  Sometimes when he did this he was thinking of Pat's narrative.

        "There's too much LaRowe in that picture," he'd fret.

        Some things about his career pleased him a great deal.  He could say he was innovative.  His group had - as others, but with a difference - branched away from the main tradition of decorum in Protestant circles.  Esthetically their practice had compelling features.  But his position in leadership was uncomfortable. 

        Meanwhile Pat could see his own consequence.  His achievements were trivial compared to some things in his life that happened without his permission.  Noreen Thompson, a woman whose coziness with Steve Prahl had been tapering off, sent some information to a person in New York City.  She couldn't really be blamed for the results of this.  The information made its way into a gallery of citizens' profiles that were kept by Mark Lewis.  Then some attorney brought charges, not against Pat but against a man Pat was acquainted with.  The litigation was supposedly prompted by something in Pat's narrative.  A nonfinancial motivation for the lawsuit was hard to imagine.  The fascinating part came with the critics' mass media portrayals of certain characters in the novella.  These portrayals were combined with accusations against real persons - prominent businessmen.  The implied representation of the country's most fabled managers was unflattering in the extreme, but the managers didn't have much to lose.  None of them were vulnerable to the diatribe.  The author's assessment: if the novella had touched a nerve, it was a nerve previously unkown to physicians.  The story's inspirational consequence appeared to be negative.  

        And something relevant happened a year later.  The story's description of horticultural mishap seemed cogently predictive when a huge garden belonging to one of the real, accused persons was struck with a unique blight.  This didn't look like someone's deliberate effort.

        Articles about the litigation furnished a certain amount of entertainment, and the more pervasive media coverage was a definite sensation.  Mark Lewis contributed, but he kept his name out of it. 

        Pat was able to concentrate on life closer to home.  So far, the marriage with Lynn kept solving problems more than causing them.  A somewhat isolated house close to a winding, private road was the couple's residence.  This place was, compared to others he had frequented, less connected with suburbia.  He could tolerate that.  But one thing he didn't like about the vicinity was the gorse.  It was on the west, extending to the southeast.  He'd have to do something about it.  That being the case, he also had a contrary intuition - that the gorse provided a feeling of being shielded from the public.  He couldn't believe the feeling, isolated though the place was.  Of course these thoughts didn't prevent him from doing what he wanted to do.  He concentrated on research in his spare time for several months after he published the novella.  His wife kept up very well with homemaking when she wasn't at the office and when she wasn't reading something by or about William Dean Howells.  For Lynn the main purpose in life was to remain on good terms with at least a few people, no matter how busy you were.  In keeping with this the relatives came over to visit as often as they should.  Pat didn't mind the activities of Lynn and her sister: various remodeling projects.  His oldest brother made some visits, but now he had less to say.  On occasion someone from the world of publishing or someone from a university - always a person that Pat had never seen before - would get in touch.  They'd be curious or aggressive, but it didn't amount to anything significant.

        A few years earlier Pat had confided in Ted LaRowe concerning his regrets about some of his behavior - regrets he'd felt for most of a decade.  The preacher suffered his own torments, usually thoughts about the chance of his being surpassed by some ungracious acquaintance.  He advised  his friend, who had announced that he was about to begin his longest fictional work.  Ted suggested a plot premise which became the story's kernel. 

        "You'll confess by writing it down," he told the other man.

        "Would it be all right if I work in here today?" Pat replied.

        "Go ahead."

        The writer spent four hours in the church auditorium, using the keyboard of his laptop.  At times the painted, symbolic forms on the ceiling distracted him.  He finished the session with a note of disappointment, sure that the text would be more of a challenge than he wanted.

        "Make any progress?" Ted asked, when Pat was leaving.

        "Not enough, but that's typical at the start."

        He didn't follow up on it the next day.  For quite some time the story remained a sideline interest.  Pat's other pieces were much easier to finish.

        Both men really had a stake in the publication.  The preacher's closest friends and relatives might be as perplexed as anyone by what he revealed.  The story mentioned a new devotional feature he had introduced at the church.  This feature involved a Delphian statement being made by the worshiper.  Now a problem was obvious.  Without telling anyone who deserved to be told, some of these worshipers had gone elsewhere, to establish the same new practice in a different group.  Ted could see an even more important reason to feel uneasy about the new practice.  Neil's patrician sponsors were messing with it.  Ted was subject to criticism from so many more people because of the novella.  But he never worried about keeping his job.  In any case Pat accepted the premise with some enthusiasm.  The religious feature supplemented the details he really cared about.  But the narrative gave him more trouble than anything else he'd written.  He had to keep rethinking the plot, and he couldn't be satisfied with the final product.  His confessional statement, as part of the story, was impossible to comprehend.  On the other hand his text conveyed his dogmatic social views.  He had a fanatic's belief in literature as something that should correct the masses of humanity.  His earlier stories were mild by comparison.

        It didn't take Noreen and Steve long to get a pretty good idea what had spurred the media tumult.  Some of Neil's friends were objectionable, a fact very well attested.  Readers who had followed the controversy could imagine the worst about them and the unscrupulous actions that weren't confined to their Long Island headquarters.  It figured that the most interesting allegation was hard to believe.  Neil's friends were said to be not merely criminal but well connected and treasonous.

        Eventually Pat saw that he was being defended by the film director he had spoken to in Corbett.  This was an alliance he could do without.  Extravagant statements were being made.  Why the director chose to take his side wasn't known, and it didn't seem wise to communicate with him.  In fact his decision to take sides was in the spirit, so to speak, of Neil Richards.  He had associated with Neil, though Pat hadn't been told of this.  The older man's influence wasn't hard to imagine.  His opinions had often evoked a drastic response even from sensible people.  In his talks with the director he could have misrepresented Pat Wymark.  The situation gave no reassurance.  Apparently the director was having his own problems.  Production of the film had been delayed by factors that no one in his position should have to think about.  Pat felt relief when his defender became silent.

        In some form the controversy lingered.  One critic who had favored Pat's work seemed to be changing his mind.  At least there was the consolation that Lynn didn't fear the publicity.  When there was a last flare up of the invective, she didn't pay attention.

        One day, about a week after the worst of it, Pat drove to his office.  It was Saturday, the best time for his own reading.  As he entered the campus, taking care to drive slowly, he had the sense of solemn dignity that he always felt when few people were here.  He parked his car and moved towards the entry.  Just before he got to his office he looked over the collection of posters and plaques that covered one wall inside the building.  The social views expressed here were sometimes an echo of Neil Richards.  The individual personal messages could be harder to ignore.  They might be troublesome, as Pat had experienced in one instance.  That problem, though, led to one of his better tales.  Today the panel seemed more cluttered than usual.  He turned away from the panel, and as he did so his main reason for being here at the school was forgotten because he found a handwritten message, on paper, taped to his office door.  The message included a phone number and was signed 'Steve Prahl.' 

        He hadn't heard from Steve since his last visit with Neil, not even seeing him at the memorial service.  Today's greeting was welcome.  They got together in the afternnon, dining at one of the tables that graced a promenade overlooking the Willamette River.  For ten minutes or so they spoke of construction work that was underway at places between here and the river.  Steve was absurdly knowledgeable on the topic.  Then they spoke in vague terms about Steve's own work.  He spent much of each year on the road, consulting with firms from San Francisco to British Columbia.  His friend listened to his surprising descriptions of executives and security officers.  Steve became rather indignant as he neared the end of this portrait series: offensive colleagues.  When he was done with that they concentrated on some recent developments.

        Pat said, "I don't think Neil could have told me anything to help me through this nightmare."

        "Maybe not," Steve answered.  He began to speak of the man who was producing a documentary.  He made some thoughtful statements.  He expressed his belief that the man had a mistaken sense of political kinship with Pat.

        "I can't rely on him," the author had to admit, after listening.

        Steve drank the rest of his coffee, then remembered another point.  It was philosophical.

        He said, "I don't believe any work of fiction has that much effect on society."  He looked at the river.

        "So you think my story's a very small part of what's been going on."

        "Right, it's the least of excuses for all that bullshit.  Neil didn't tell you much about Mark Lewis, did he?"

        "Well, he may have told me all that he knew about him," Pat said.  "I guess it wasn't enough."

        On the promenade they felt the slightest, discernible start of rainfall.

        "Noreen was privileged with some information," Steve continued.  "It doesn't refer directly to Mark Lewis.  But she got some clues from Neil even if Neil died before he could see them as clues to something.  He thought the real-life characters you've been using are more vain and petty than you can imagine.  It's too close to your story."

        "That still doesn't explain much," Pat said, with a frown.

        "Just keep thinking about it," Steve suggested.  "That stuff that happened wasn't contrived by the sovereign class.  It happened because the sovereign class refused to bother with it."

        Pat said, "I don't think I've really hurt anybody."

        His friend agreed.  "You've got the right to publish."

        When they got up to leave the promenade, the gist of Noreen's clues was obvious to Pat.

        He declared, "She believes that Neil tried to incriminate one of his supposed allies."

        "And she helped him do it," Steve answered.

        Some of the less noticed adjustments in life can be fortunate, as Ted's experience confirmed.  He had confessed, in effect.  Because he was getting older, and because of the novella's reception, he would no longer agonize about his place in the eternal hierarchy.  Peace of mind is a great victory.

        And Pat made some progress against the gorse.  There was much less of it within a few weeks after he talked to Steve.  But having cleared so much away he could now see some odd, ramshackle buildings near his property.  He told himself not to regret his campaign against the gorse. 

        At least his employment at the school would always be secure.  When he got a sabbatical he began devoting himself to the longer forms in fiction.  He surprised himself by starting to believe in what he espoused.  If the world had not changed because of his novella, he could think of some persons who had.  

     

 

 

 

 

                                                                                             Endowments

        Some houses make up in terms of their surroundings for what they lack in value as construction.  Raymond Kron felt this was true of his house with its acreage and its view of the Sound.  Today as he spent some time in the living room with a friend, he had this notion again.  The thought was quick and then gone, because he wouldn't ponder geographic details.

        Despite what he and his wife both intended, his concern right now wasn't with the room's furnishings, either.  They wanted to rearrange various objects, but that could wait.  And the walls needed to be repainted, plastered, or something.  His attention was elsewhere.  His wife, gone for a few hours to see her sister, was making it a point to stay out of his way.  He concentrated on his guest, Gene Williams.

        Raymond asked, "Any final thoughts about this business - everything that happened on Tuesday?"  He expected some definite opinions.

        "Tuesday, right," Gene said, as if it just now occurred to him that something had faded into history.  He may have been reluctant to express his view of this, though he knew it was the subject of interest.  He sat in a chair by the lampstand.  He adjusted his position in the chair.

        Finally he stated, "Henry Moak will always have problems because of what happened."  That remark shouldn't have to be explained.

        "Someone set the example for him," Raymond said.  "His family, of course."

        Gene answered, "Well, his great-grandfather sure got away with murder."

        "As much as anyone ever does." 

        The predecessor they spoke of held his place in the history books for his achievements combined with his extravagant beliefs.  Born in 1902, Clarence Moak was notorious at mid-century though quite a few businessmen received more attention in the news reports.  People remembered him as a source of generous grants, remembering also that he'd been suspected of covert, malevolent politics.  The trouble was, if you went back through his public statements it was hard to find evidence for the truth of accusations against him.  Supposedly Clarence believed he'd be worshipped by his descendants.  Yes, he made fanciful references to nonhuman powers, but it wasn't this kind of statement, so hard to believe, that alarmed his contemporaries.  A few journalists and merchants described him as a potential despot.  By some standards Henry Moak appeared to be very different.  He had attended the University of Chicago, with moderate standing as a scholar.  His Ph.D. seemed irrelevant to his business, but it was respectable.  His treatise expounded the sense in which lexicography is prior to mathematics.  These days people were discussing the two men as if both were brand new to the journalists.  There was a storm of pertinent activity.  Beth Curtis, a woman who worked for the States Development Authority, had come to Seattle to consult with Henry, his corporate officers and a power broker named Ed Githens.  Beth was getting more press than such officials were likely to get.  That was a lot of press.  Also having become a factor was a man named Rick Sifton, previously unknown in the metropolitan area.  His arrival coincided with earnest public statements about Henry's great-grandfather.  Deservedly or not the views of Clarence Moak still had proponents.  For some reason people often compared him favorably with L. Ron Hubbard.  One thing his competitors were willing to admit: Clarence had started a substantial philanthropic organization.

        "Did you hear anything about Rick Sifton?" Gene asked.  "I mean - before he came here just recently?"  Judging from the look on Gene's face he was deliberately being unpleasant.

        "Not me," Raymond said.  "But last week they referred him to me and I talked to him."  When he met Sifton he couldn't have had a clue about the man's purpose except that he was approaching some officer of Moak Enterprises.  Now Raymond thought of something else that seemed to tie in.  "Henry's drawn fire from that progressive congressman.  You know that guy - Duncan.  He's part of the noise everyone's making about the corporation.  He claims to have incriminating knowledge.  He could be a problem, but I doubt it.  Duncan's being arraigned."

        "Arraigned for what?" Gene asked.

        "Oh, the usual form of corruption in those circles."

        "That's too bad," Gene declared.  "Now he won't be able to crack down on homophobia." 

        Gene's politics never offended Raymond.  They were so infrequently expressed, yet familiar without being too predictable.  Even if you disagreed with him it was possible to enjoy his opinions. 

        But Raymond changed the subject.  "Yesterday you made some wistful reference to the kind of cushy jobs handed out by Henry and his ilk.  I thought you might be referring to Beth as an example, though you didn't say that."

        Gene sort of recalled the conversation.  It wasn't so much about Beth's credentials, which were sufficient.  It was more about the arbitrary decisions that elevate certain people.

        "I'm sure she got her job from someone like Henry," he said.  "If you think about it, organizers like Henry and his pal Ed Githens really make their mark.  They don't just boss their workers around, but on the other hand they're not geniuses in finance, either.  They know the right businessmen in the first place.  That helps."

        "Yesterday you made it sound like it's more than luck."

        "Sure, and it's more than just knowing the right people."  Even so, Gene was uncertain.  "It's an impression," he said.  "I admit I can't give the best examples of what Henry Moak does."

        Gene's comment about the generous bestowing of employment wasn't suspicious.  He didn't assume the favor came with unsavory strings attached.  He did think it came with unpredictable associations.

        The point he wanted to clarify most of all this afternoon was the relation these wealthy men had with Beth's employer.  There were two definite opinions about the States Development Authority.  Gene's view was the minority view.  He and some others were accused of overstating the SDA's danger to the nation.  He couldn't be sure if either Moak or Githens was providing support to the system that extended from east coast communities through consecutive states to the Midwest.  But that assistance would be in keeping with what he knew of those men.  He could base the belief on one meager statement made by the underground press.  He'd had his own frightful experience involving the universal cult of surveillance, and he wanted to identify that cult with the SDA.  The Authority could make trouble for the curious.  There were plenty of stories about gratuitous cases brought by prosecutors, as well as disappearances.  Missing persons included one of his best friends.  The thing was, he couldn't make much of the situation no matter how ghastly it might be.

        When he said something along these lines, his friend tried to give some reassurance.

        "It would be obvious," Raymond told him, "if the country was that far gone.  I don't see the signs of downfall."

        "It doesn't have to be obvious," Gene insisted.

        Raymond made another point about this.  "I've known the VIPs a long time.  I see 'em talking to Sifton, it's no big deal.  There's not that much you can anticipate.  Everyone says purge the system, but they're not realistic."

        "That's right, you said you once worked in Personnel.  You know the true grounds for termination."

        Gene had no problem with Raymond, and he had never met Henry, who meant nothing to him one way or the other.  He had met several of Henry's other subordinates, though.  Something about them and something about the firm rankled him.  He was glad he could be detached about the problems his friend might have at work.

        Raymond said, "So far the SDA's reach in the Northwest is limited.  But that'll change."

        The other man replied, "Whether we hear about it or not."

        The phone in Raymond's pocket made a noise.  He looked at the phone but decided not to answer.  The call was from Bob Geidl, someone he didn't need.

        He continued, "I wasn't sure that Beth Curtis could achieve much.  It seems to me the oligarch would get more out of this meeting than the SDA would."

        "He might," Gene said, "but like I'm suggesting, he deserves some kudos for various things."

        "He props up that foundation," Raymond admitted.  The Moak Foundation.

        "More than props up," Gene said.  There was that offensive look again.

        "All right, poor choice of words." 

        These two men had known each other for a dozen years.  Gene was well into retirement.  The other man had a few more years to go at his job, and was known as one of the most reliable performers despite never being much promoted.  Their friendship somehow gained vitality from the fact that one was retired and the other still working.  Even hindered by inertia Raymond felt he had been fortunate.  The job category he had finally gotten - information officer - was very secure and suited him quite well.  It wasn't long before he'd been able to escape his dreary first house.  He expected to live at this address until they took him to the morgue - a plausible belief.  There'd be some renovation projects in the meantime.

        Now and then Gene would tilt his head back so he could look through the living room's wide skylight.  He thought he had seen movement.  He looked again and there it was for sure: the face of Raymond's housecat.  This time the cat looked down through the glass, and then he jumped over the skylight.

        Raymond saw Gene glancing up towards the cat.  The moment epitomized the tranquility that prevailed here.

        Gene said, "I've heard the story of the so-called malplasm."  He referred to a condition supposedly caused by a new chemical technique.

        His friend had heard of the technique, too, and dismissed it.  He answered, "Maybe someone could use that as a weapon.  I don't think Henry's the type to do that.  Let's face it, he's never innovated."  Raymond had given this point some thought.  "Henry the Beast, good story.  What else would we get from those mass media dimwits?" 

        'Malplasm' was a snide reference, nothing more.  It worked as flippant science fiction.  After being used in a carefree way concerning a fabulously wealthy person - a supposed victim of people using the weapon -  the term had been applied to several entertainers as additional victims.  You couldn't find official documents describing the supposed victims.  Gene's attitude had previously been on the surface at times, but never this tangible.  He believed there was a perennial core group that handled the dirtiest, unacknowledged work of Henry's business.  In his imagination he tried but failed to place this element somewhere between polite society and the denizens of bus stops.  It left him baffled.  He listened for a while as the other man spent some time on the profession's pros and cons.  When Raymond finally saw that Gene was unimpressed he toned it down.  

        Having done that, he still expressed admiration for Moak the person.  Besides the Foundation, there was a partnership that Henry had formed with a few minor, unfortunate legends who thought of him as their only hope for further glory.  Their destructive potential couldn't be ignored.  But why was more fear inspired by the Foundation?  Because it received worse publicity?  In fact the wariness had to do with administrative disguise.  Henry could make use of an adroit financial mechanism devised by Clarence.  Even a philanthropic resource could be misapplied.  Amazingly, Clarence himself had never been prosecuted for doing that, and few if any people ever mentioned the stratagem.  But someone obviously knew.  Because of this mechanism, some experts were considering the likelihood that the funds from Henry Moak were a danger.  These men and some others could only assume that Moak's officers planned a spectacular, strong-arm thrust against various groups.  They believed the predecessor's ideals were about to be enacted. 

        Who would protect society's best interests?  Raymond wasn't so sure about the SDA.  What made things look as dark as possible was the information they were getting about Rick Sifton.  The character's background could frighten anyone.  The authorities had done nothing to limit his actions even though more than one person testified to his brutality.  Regional investigators had begun to examine his background only in the last four days.  

        Raymond declared, "Beth Curtis may be as well-intentioned as others, but it's hard to see what her colleagues would have to do with the Foundation.  It might be for show more than anything else.  The world is told that she comes to an island in Puget Sound, and they practically make it look like she's signing a treaty."  Raymond's manner changed.  "All right, call it negotiation."  Then he said, "Excuse me for a minute."  He grabbed his TV remote and checked a talk show he sometimes watched.  He quickly saw that today's guest was a dud.  He turned the set off.  "I thought her views were incompatible with those of the Authority."  He frowned.  "I'm not saying she changed her views to be promoted, and I can't say it makes a difference in my life.  But I'd like to know what's going on.  I actually heard people talking about her yesterday when I went to see my barber in Port Orchard."  

        "They talk about her in barber shops?" - hard to believe.

        "One of the customers there.  He has some gripe about the SDA."

        Gene said, "Maybe his gripe's about the negotiation.  I can tell that the ones involved are uncomfortable with this.  It must be pretty serious."

        The other man replied, "And I've been too busy at the office.  Rick Sifton wasn't the only one I had to spend time with for the authorities' sake."

        "Because you're working with Moak's group of people," Gene said.

        "I am," Raymond answered.  He'd been with the firm twenty-three years.

        "Authorities, huh?"  Gene sounded intrigued.

        The problem at Moak Enterprises wasn't a separation of ownership and control.  Henry kept a tight grip.  Even though he must have been amused by his reputation for indulging in medical experiments, there could be some eerie situations he didn't know about.  The journalists hadn't picked up on these.  His politics were still a question mark to almost anyone outside his immediate circle, so it was hard to see how he could have a following in politics as distinguished from commerce.

        "There's this idea," Raymond said, "that the citizens who make such huge donations are given special protection from judges.  And from the enforcement groups - the police and other investigators."

        "Henry might need special protection," Gene admitted.

        "There's also the other kind of safeguard,' Raymond said.  "His own precautions.  I've heard the anecdote about some of the managers visiting his house, and how you can spot the surveillance devices that are tucked away just about everywhere, even through the maples and the groundcover.  Beyond state of the art.  So what's Henry like?  More or less a technocrat the same way Clarence was, for all the phony mysticism."

        Over the years Gene had made attempts to learn about the corporation's unwholesome activities.  He made no discoveries.  He didn't think of himself as an important social critic, and his repugnance wasn't caused by knowledge of crimes.  He couldn't get his friend to be informative or even defensive.

        Now Raymond thought of Bob Geidl's latest exploit and what had provoked it.  He told Gene, "People from the press are mistaken if they think they understand Henry's social views.  That's why some things are getting exaggerated.  I've answered questions from all those investigators.  They ignore the reality.  They make so much of the idea that the big time benefactors become targets."

        "People stalking the grandees?"

        "The grandees - " Raymond said, "I guess you could call them that.  Yeah, they're vulnerable in their own way."

        "But not as worried about security as most people think."

        Raymond agreed.  He asked, "Have you ever met one?"

        Gene answered, "There's that guy in Florida who belongs to the Wrigley chewing gum dynasty."  He described an encounter of no significance.

        Raymond would mull that over later.  For now he was trying to get helpful suggestions from his friend.  He'd done that before, but Gene would never make it easy.

        Commoner that he'd always been, he certainly wasn't providing Raymond with helpful information about Ed Githens or Beth Curtis.  Githens apparently was a billionaire from some place like New York or Philadelphia who in recent years had taken up residence in southwest Washington State.  His involvement with Moak had been the object of conspiracy-minded blather for several years.  And until this week his reason for talking to the SDA's envoy couldn't have been clear to Raymond.  But his reputation was straightforward.  He enjoyed messing, or toying, with business leaders in different parts of the country.  By conventional standards he was able to keep his hands clean.

        Publicity must have been a nuisance.  Raymond had seen an article about Beth in a weekly news magazine.  He'd persuaded Gene to look at it, and they agreed that the woman's depiction was contradictory.  The writer acknowledged the serious nature of her work as well as giving a frivolous note about her mannerisms and grooming.

        Gene asked, "Why do they keep talking about her scrunchie?"  He was exasperated.

        The other man shrugged.

        For ten minutes there was mostly silence and woolgathering.  Subject led to subject in Raymond's mind with no obvious connection.  He thought about the massive substructure of a developer's apartment complex - left on the landscape almost two years before.  It was down the road a ways and covered with brambles.  The building project had been stalled if not cancelled.  Thinking of his own limitations, it occurred to Raymond that he didn't get around much, even in Washington State.  Only once had he caught a glimpse of the island where Henry made his home. 

        "There's more of this trouble coming," Gene finally said.  "I can't say why, in terms of educated sociology.  There just seem to be some groups that don't like each other.  And there's something about this region - the fortunes that have been made here - "

        Raymond, who could have welcomed an excuse for not saying anything more about this, was given such an excuse when his phone sounded again.  He could answer the caller and spend too long on the phone.  But it was the same caller as before, and again he wasn't answering.  Did this mean he had to listen to Gene's warning?  He'd rather think instead about Henry's favorite organization.  

        That partnership reminded people of the one Clarence established in 1949, because the great-grandson's effort appeared to be likewise philanthropic.  The main office building dazzled everyone.  Its marble and ivory were grand, but they were definitely surpassed in prestige by the fabulous electronics.  The group's members concealed the partnership's true purpose.  Their criminal method may have seemed foolproof, and most experts were convinced the group never made use of the Foundation.  But it was maintaining the old ways.  In the last years before Clarence died his own group had conducted incursions into some elite neighborhoods.  The public hadn't learned the nature of these, and the journalists or executives who looked askance at the latest partnership believed its controversial action was a minor element.  Some of them could tell in specific terms that it was outclassed.  An organization centered in the northeastern part of the country was what they really feared.  Even Gene Williams had written to a newspaper editor, describing 'the greater alliance that stifles all of us.'  In the Moak family example, though, the outcome of generations appeared to be miraculous.  More surprising than Tuesday's occurrence was the fact that Henry had repudiated the values of Clarence.  But his donations continued the family's original boosting of technology.  The Foundation aimed its most publicized flow of largess at a Massachusetts facility: Bainbridge Nuclear Physics.

        There had always been a deliberate attempt to strain credibility.  Gene remembered the time when Clarence gave a very succinct message about 'representatives from the interstellar dominion.'  These agents from off world were described as fearsomely consequential.

        Clarence's efforts had failed.  Belief in such aliens didn't take with Henry, and he was getting his group to change the terms of the partnership.  This revision might not yet be complete.  Along with this were some documents that, filed by Clarence and now coming to light, revealed a devious tactic worse than anything he'd been known for.  How did the federal authorities interpret this?  Not very wisely.  For some reason they thought the predecessor's ambitions were being promoted by the current leadership.  But it was the private sector, not the feds, that made a desperate response.  They believed some reports that they got from the government.  These included warnings of espionage.  For this reason a man had been sent to kill Henry Moak, and when he was just outside Henry's office he pointed his gun and fired.  But someone foiled the attempt.

        "Working conditions at headquarters are bound to change," Raymond said.  "For the worse, I assume."

        "He'll be paranoid from now on?"

        Raymond shook his head.  "He wouldn't be affected that way.  Not so we could tell.  But others would be affected."

        With what they knew today Gene and Raymond could understand the situation.  Something had poisoned Henry's arrangement with land use planners in different parts of the country, especially the Rust Belt.  After this, Beth Curtis had conspired with Rick Sifton against the brilliant executive.  Mr. Githens had sided with Henry and played a deceptive role in talking to Beth.  It was less than a week later when Raymond witnessed the attack on Moak.  He'd begun to speculate about Beth's future, which couldn't be rosy even if she escaped prosecution.  The SDA's equivalent of Ed Githens wouldn't have to be merciful.

        Gene commented, "You say Moak's getting rid of people everywhere."

        "He's letting people go, and he's doing it the hard way.  He'll be facing lawsuits, nasty reports in the media, you name it."  Then Raymond added, "Well, that's an understatement." 

        He didn't believe Henry would ever again be the target of gunmen.  But there were possibilities, in view of what had just happened.  Certainly the event was too dreamlike.  The thought of Bob Geidl pointing a gun at someone, pulling the trigger and slaying, was a thought Raymond couldn't process.

        He said, "Nobody writes a history of these things.  Not an accurate history."

        Gene's thinking about all this could be developed at his leisure.  He wasn't gloating, exactly.  He knew that people would still believe Henry was dangerous even if he didn't resemble Clarence.

        With that in mind he told Raymond, "It's interesting to learn that Sifton was a man who killed people.  I wish they'd tell us who he worked for."

        "We can find out."

        But Rick Sifton would still be a mystery in death, if anyone looked into it.  With details coming to light, there had to be legal repercussions, perhaps more for Henry's company than for Henry.

        "I bet this thing has already been traced back to the instigators," Gene said. 

        "If that's true," Raymond answered, "then someone somewhere pays a price.  Maybe someone disappears."

        The other man nodded.  "Maybe."

        Raymond had worked with some of the persons directly involved in the fatal gunplay.  It seemed very precise and very delicate - the way they'd kept him uninformed as long as they wanted.  He claimed that Tuesday had been extremely stressful, the worst day of his life.

        Personnel decisions were now candidly regretted.  The embarrassing link between Henry's organization and the SDA was exposed, and one person in the main offices had been identified as complicit.  Raymond was already talking too much about this.  He remembered some details that had not previously seemed important. 

        Could it matter now?  Such aberrations hardly ever amounted to something.  Of course you couldn't convince Geidl of that.  The security man finally got through on the cell phone and began a very long talk with his fellow employee.  Gene could see they'd be dwelling on this.  He had the feeling that loyalty to the corporation would prevail.

        When he left Raymond's house that afternoon, he liked to think it wasn't his problem.

       

                                                                                      The  Danger  Chronicle

        February 15 )       

        By announcing a policy adjustment in the federal bureaucratic system, officials cause an unusual series of results.  These are decisive everywhere, but most deeply affected is the Justice Department.

        February 19, 20 )

        A direct action group with tenuous connections to universities gathers near the Berkeley campus.  They issue a public statement reviling the system of political parties established in the U. S.  According to them the system is the chief causal influence on corruption in the federal government.  They reject the label 'anarchist.'  Reforming society, not abolishing the government, is their professed purpose.  Expressions of idealism during the conclave are sporadic, alternating with malice.  They denounce in particular several 'outstanding contributors' to the nation's civic dementia.  The greatest contributor is Bill Clinton.  More than other former presidents he represents the decision-making elite, though somewhat vulgarly.  Of course the main problem with the system of authority is the private sector framework, not some famous person.  The activists' prediction about the government's near future is carefully worded so as to avoid the charge of sedition.

        February 25 )

        Prosecutors in the state of New York discern a well-crafted conspiracy to defame several prominent citizens.   

        March 18 )

        At Reed College, Professor Keith McNary sets up an online forum to discuss the public and private elements of Deep State, Deep Society and so forth.  He posts excerpts from his classroom lectures, with editorial notes.  His own views are moderate and clearly stated.  In the days to come he will be misrepresented in the West Coast publishing media.

        March 22, 23 )

        The American Liberation Alliance publishes the definitive list of its major objectives.  These include a congressional scrutiny of NSA programs that "may be or have been used to oppress disadvantaged groups in society."  The reform imposes an additional oath to be taken by employees of the agency.  The spokesman for the pressure group alleges especial corruption and claims to have supplied prosecutors with evidence of misdeeds involving federal officials.  There's no immediate confirmation that the charges are being seriously considered.  Another stated objective has to do with reparations for marginal groups of citizens.  The Alliance proposes that a 'supreme enforcing brigade' appropriate funds from private holdings everywhere.  Anyone interfering with this process will be sent to prison.  The mechanics of the process are described at length.  Later the same day a blog maintained by the diva, Pam Edgar, mentions the Alliance and begins to have cryptic references to security agencies of the U. S.  The singer's lyrics have had the same slant.  The idea seems to be that surveillance and law enforcement are part of unfair convention - restricting the licentious experience of Edgar and others.

        March 24, 25 )

        Geopolitical schools of thought are gaining publicity.  A report surfaces in the press regarding JAMBEAU, a secret organizaton that serves U. S. corporate interests and promotes - according to some scholars - the efforts of Harsh Atlanticism.  The report describes policies of enforcement and the methods used for making these activities appear to be nothing more than the standard violence of organized crime.  The great majority, but not all, of these operations are domestic instead of international.  The most audacious writers on the subject of conspiracy announce a foregone conclusion about JAMBEAU: that it deliberately contributed to the fall of the Twin Towers.  But their picture of what happened that day is too subtle.  It isn't clear that JAMBEAU dates from the time of Eisenhower, but certainly it served the Reagan Administration.  No one believes that its main purpose is to defend the West against Russian military ambitions.  The aim is more broadly cultural, with unscrupulous measures taken against powerful groups that are deemed anti-capitalist.  The report even identifies prominent victims and their alleged victimizers.  The news is harmless in the sense that the only public figures implicated are deceased or long-retired bureaucrats.  No elected federal or state officials defend the policies the documents reveal.  The disclosure gives no definite sense that JAMBEAU is subordinate to the NSA, and the scenario cannot be explicitly related to the published advocacy of Harsh Atlanticism. 

        March 29 )

        An extremist collusion begins, one that's directed by various Wall Street executives.  Those behind the push comprise a secret, militant faction trying to restructure the national system of emergency management.  The group is able to use an accepted component of the federal security system.  

        April 4 )

        Eric Storch, a man whose reformer zeal has always involved criminal conduct, is pardoned by the President.  The decision to pardon is first recommended by an advisor whose loyalty to the chief executive gives way to less obvious interests.  Referring to this decision and to the man who benefits, a newspaper editorial praises 'the righteous motives of political prisoners.'  Few conservatives take note of this ill-advised release.  One who does take notice has some knowledge of the convict's history.  He warns people that they can expect a flurry of misleading statements appearing soon in various media, not just emails.  After emerging from prison, Storch goes underground.

        April 6 )

        The bodies of Luke Henderson and Robin Weiss are found in a Maryland swamp.  The government operatives had been missing for nine days.

        April 11, 12 )

        Much is made of the FBI file on Pam Edgar.  Her blog begins to run its most extreme harangue.  Her hodge-podge retinue and her other associates begin to appear in videos and on talk shows even more than usual.  Implausibly, this display of personalities has undercurrents that could be traced back to serious projects within the Deep State.  The singer's Jezebel practices are the ostensible reason for the file, but the government surveillance ties in with someone else's capitalistic use of show business for manipulation.

        April 18 - 20 )

        The University of Chicago convenes a panel to review a fringe topic of literature: conspiracies that originate in the countries bordering the North Atlantic.  Much preliminary work has already been done, with hopes that the group will be able to make the definitive public statement about these ideas.  This move is a direct response to the previous week's announcement of the Brandeis Resolution, a United States-Canada pact intended to diminish corporate espionage.  Scores of allegations are considered in the review.  The most interesting story they look at refers to an elderly but still active patrician.  There's no agreement about what this man is up to.  Still, his case dominates the literature.  He's the centerpiece of rumors that say a culminating tradition began with vile subterfuge in Dallas, 1963.  These devious tactics pertained to the Cold War but didn't end with the fall of the Soviet Union.  They continue to threaten progressive societies.  Witnesses appear before the Chicago panel to supplement the range of documents.  This is the most time consuming segment.  Afterwards the panel presents a theory about the international class of hired killers.  The killers' assignments fulfill the wishes of the presumed oligarchy, itself international.  The scholars make some inferences about the aforementioned mysterious ringleader.  They also declare that, contrary to the beliefs of popular literature, the conspiracies' movement is not in the direction of one-world government.  What's going on is consistent with nationalism.  The information released by the panel will be very useful to those who promote the Brandeis Resolution.

        April 27 )

        Anti-plutocracy demonstrators embroil campuses and business districts in several big cities across the nation.  They incite youth from depressed neighborhoods and they target certain businesses, though the number of injuries and extent of property damage is downplayed in the press.  The movement's rhetorical aspects are a departure from previous examples of civil unrest.  To those in the know, the preferences of Eric Storch and the Berkeley conclave are apparent.  Investigators also find evidence of JAMBEAU's influence on the matter.  Federal agents emphasize the term 'nihilists' in reference to extreme criminals taking part as demonstrators.  

        May 10 )

        Prosecutors in New York achieve a more specific description of the persons defaming the illustrious.  At first they speak of the conspiracy's leader as a 'financial officer in the private sector.'  The ones investigating this man have already established their connections with the Chicago panel. 

        May 23, 24 )

        Frank Shaplow, CEO and former federal official, endorses the Brandeis Resolution.  To some researchers this appears to be a lack of sincerity.  His own background working for the intelligence agencies begins to be examined in greater depth.  He's been working, in a special sense, with four consecutive presidential administrations.  Investigators find evidence of his dealings with Henderson and Weiss.  These two men had named him in a report they'd filed, and the references are critical.  But Shaplow is also being rebuked for other reasons.  Beginning three decades back he's been one of the most extraordinary appointed officials.  It isn't just his durability that has made him so harmful.  He uses data processing as effectively as anyone, and the descriptions of his misconduct are ignored by those who should know better.   

        May 26 - 29 )

        Douglas Crane's dissertation on Soft Atlanticism receives the first of its coverage in the news media.  In more extravagant terms than those used by fellow proponents, he argues that the common international culture of the West is nurtured by critical theory and the performing arts, not by technology.  His liberation dogma runs roughshod.  He deplores the achievements of great thinkers in the line extending from Aristotle to Kenneth Bainbridge.  He says that 'Soft' should be uncompromising.  His argument blames the intelligentsia more than it blames lawmakers and executives.  It's no surprise that a minor personality cult begins to form around Crane.  A 'Laudation Piano Suite,' previously completed by Stephen Elrod, is now dedicated to the scholar.  The downside of celebrity in this case is obvious.  Crane's activities during his graduate years are being discussed by officials at his school, but so far nothing is revealed to the public.  He communicates his ideas and claims in a way that provokes emotions, and response to his point of view is defensive.  Previous monographs on the subject of Soft Atlanticism are obscured unfairly. 

        May 30

        Judicial hearings, prompted by evidence of corporation-sponsored secret mischief, are taking place at various locations.  Elaborate sworn testimony given in Philadelphia makes it clear that the American Liberation Alliance has itself been manipulated by a secret society.  This news causes the Alliance no discomfiture.

        May 31 )

        A book by Pam Edgar and her hired collaborator is published.  The prose is too thoughtful for such a celebrity, and the attitude expressed is commendably restrained.  But the clear suggestion is that the leaders in the music business have a strong resemblance to the competitors in the actual nether-government.  Within one week a promoter will give his opinion during a TV interview, extensively developing the theme.  His will become the accepted wisdom, for better or worse.  He says he observed one instance of the nefarious powers getting their way, and the results were achieved, not by money but by intimidation.  Techniques of mind control are much as the public imagines them to be, with refinements.  Oddly, the promoter's accusations enrich the lyrics in Edgar's most popular songs.

        June 1 )

        In a series of press conferences various entertainers apologize for their complicity with elements of the Deep State.  Federal investigators announce their own latest concerns.  They offer a lucid rationale that explains how their pursuit of the truth can be free from conflict of interest. 

        June 7 - 20 )

        Wall Street experiences a majestic ripple of influence.  A visitor, suspected of being a junior partner to the unidentified, legendary patrician, confers with executives.  He's accompanied by four persons from Western Europe.  This visit has nothing to do with what is feared by some ignorant managers to be in the offing: an attempt to remedy the excessive concentration of wealth - an astonishing move against the megabanks.  What's really happening is less conspicuous though decisive.  The managers with by far the most potential are subjected to something unprecedented.  The next day someone reports that the visitors made threats against a few businessmen.  This arm-twisting accomplished what they wanted.  Almost nothing spoken by the visitors can, if recorded, be used as evidence in legal action against them.  But the dealings are beneficial to some executives.  Among the firms given friendlier treatment is the Heikkala Group, with which the patrician has already done business.  The five 'encouragers' achieve results with many of the largest companies.

        June 23, 24 )

        Perhaps as much as Brexit, the Defense Referendum in Germany seems to jeopardize the stability of North Atlantic political relations.  American response is immediate.  Congress becomes preoccupied with the Referendum's apparent significance, and the relevant committees expand their operations.  The increased prominence of the German market in Europe changes the enforcers' practical status.  The new structure of international relations brings a new system for employing skilled assassins.

        July 8 )

        The Chicago panel concludes a painstaking study of the man who's behind the systematic assault on reputations.  He resembles the aging patrician that the scholars worry about.  The prosecutors, though, think he's a different man.  Their work discloses the actual intent of a group that's fostered by financiers and other super-wealthy organizers.  The group has no working relation with security agencies of the U. S. government.  The character assassin obeys the dictates of the businessmen who comprise this independent organization. 

        July 9 )

        Keith McNary relinquishes a promising opportunity for advancement, citing a reason that some people dismiss.  Critics believe that his forum, which was rapidly augmented, became too sensitive to suit the Deep Society.  He says his beliefs were plausible given the data previously available, but now he starts to describe a different imperative, one that departs from Soft, Harsh and all other versions.  News from a source that's in line with the JAMBEAU report seems to have prompted his change of position.  Also, he decides not to go public with a propaganda text that was sent by Eric Storch.  Regional commentaries about the Reed College professor become less disparaging. 

        July 16 )

        Wendy Heikkala gains notoriety for involvement with projects of JAMBEAU.  She and her comrades expect the nation-wide imposition of martial law.  They believe their capitalistic preference would be enhanced after an austere interim.  Somehow protected from legal action, her privileged advertising firm scores a coup by means of disinformation.  She'll follow this with a lucrative coast-to-coast lecture tour.  Pam Edgar joins her at the podium for the last few lectures.  Their commitment to the American Liberation Alliance is more obvious than before.

        July 30 )

        The following excerpt from a government classified file is delivered in emails and is gone over by university and private sector analysts.

        "If the schema comes to the attention of 'typical' scholars, investigators or conspiracy buffs it probably won't matter.  Its language means little or nothing to them.  Having it reach the JAMBEAU initiate would be something different altogether.  But the least of worries in this case would be, for example, any disclosure given to foreign governments.  Old-style subversion is merely quaint.  The genuine peril involves the likely impact on the critical members of organized crime.  The best inhibitions fail, in this case, to protect a range of informants.  This would be breakdown.  Possibly a worse result happens if the data reaches a familiar type, the victim of our much-pondered psychotropic syndrome.  In this event breakdown ravages the metropolitan and sometimes exurban, public.  These events will be scrutinized ad nauseum by the mass media professionals even more than by the police.  Not that our own position is threatened..."

        August 17 )

        Douglas Crane renounces the university system, stating reasons that don't endear him to the Left.  He makes it known he's pessimistic.  Seemingly indifferent to slurs against his character, he accepts employment with a policy institute.

        August 20 )

        Experts are astonished by the lack of critical attention given to certain developments within the Justice Department.  This will be a snag for historians.  One official, who claimed to be serving as source for an investigator, has drastically changed his recollection of policy decisions.  The investigator complains to the American press.  He soon begins working on a four hundred page expose which names, as one among several scoundrels, Frank Shaplow.

        August 30 )

        The Chicago Study of Conspiracies makes its online appearance.  The text is reasonably terse.  The Second Appendix, though, makes a strenuous defense of Atlanticism.  For the most part this is done without reference to economic theory, and it avoids the mistake of equating social prominence with oppression.  The argument is lucid: America should stop exaggerating the strategic importance of such regions as Vietnam and Afghanistan.  This military concern expresses a preference for a world empire that thrives for a season and then is swallowed up by another power.  Instead a more modest geopolitical purpose, with authority based on both sides of the Atlantic, offers the best hope for Western Civilization.  The 'elderly patrician' is mentioned without being identified.  According to this commentary he has unique status in the political culture of Atlantic dominions.  It still isn't clear how his influence works.  The writers promise a further document that gives an accurate description of conspirators' tendencies, and that document's reasoning has already been conceived in some detail.  Several arguments are skillfully presented.  One example claims that a proper understanding of Atlantic power enables you to interpret the covert security operations of the state and private sector.  References are made to recent disclosures of such operations. 

        September 9 )

        Eric Storch becomes a main suspect in several coordinated abduction attempts.  The most successful abduction will hold a Boston bureaucrat hostage for eleven days.  In the first twenty four hours following the abduction a grand ultimatum - with wording that seems artificial, coming from the group of suspects - is delivered to corporate offices on Wall Street.  Eventually the bureaucrat will be retrieved in good condition.  His account of the experience will give better understanding to those who chase the nihilists.  Eric Storch avoids capture.   

        September 12, 13 )

        Shaplow delivers the opening address at the Symposium on Crowd Management.  Some of the big names in show business attend the meetings as permitted observers.  Much of the talk at the symposium considers recent sniper attacks on high-level administrators.  The meetings' participants reach a sound conclusion: that the gunmen in these attacks are employed by private sector interests to decimate the leadership of other commercial interests.  The methods to be recommended by the symposium will select the venues in which the leaders appear, and they demand stricter screening of guests and onlookers.  Novel forms of legislation are proposed.  There's vitriolic debate between the advocates of Harsh and the advocates of Soft.  The most important news coverage of the meeting is malicious, but it gives the public a greater awareness of the policy divide.  The last day is the most troublesome.  Entertainment professionals have a sense of what's in store, and they make a nasty scene.  With Shaplow dissenting, the conference committee writes a draconian version of the Brandeis Resolution.  Shaplow's idealistic stance bemuses commentators.  

        September 14 )

        In his efforts at transforming a corrupt system, the nation's most controversial prison administrator suffers a backlash.  His methods allegedly target an alliance of ethnic minorities and rabid environmentalists.  Judgmental news coverage of the subject is unrelenting.  Stories are published regarding his treatment of Eric Storch.  Congress having begun a special investigation of the prison system, the administrator takes refuge in Denmark.

        September 18 )

        Some students of current events have reached a more knowledgeable discourse among themselves concerning Frank Shaplow's relation to the oligarchs.  They believe he has more power than any elected public official.  But they also believe his options are limited by the Defense Referendum.  One expert surmises the change in the practice of hiring assassins.

        September 21 )

        "I, Chomsky" is published in the Fall edition of Social Academia.  The essay comes from two newspapermen writing in the 'spirit' of the linguist.  They survey a wide range of officials and spare no one.  They somehow connect these matters with an evolving esthetic philosophy.  Along with this they give a new interpretation of Pax Americana.  One mild surprise: the well-known activist and philosopher Terence Berg is accused of kowtowing to the National Security State. 

        October 4 )

        An informal, unpublicized meeting to highlight corporate espionage is held under the auspices of the World Economic Forum.  The meeting happens because the Davos bigshots are merely curious about the topic of espionage.  They do have a vague feeling of righteousness that inveighs against the typical skullduggery.  But they don't expect this effort to be conclusive.  The mood is detached, and though the problems existing in several nations are considered, the NSA gets the most attention.  One result of the meeting is CAI - the Clandestine Activities Initiative.  The members are bound to seem half-hearted about this, but they make some fortunate decisions.  To Frank Shaplow the meeting is very convenient, something that may work as a salve to his reputation.  His most useful colleague is in attendance.  So is a man who works for the conspiratorial patrician.

        October 11 )

        Wendy Heikkala's brother, although not involved as a protester, is roughed up by security guards at a New York City abortion clinic.  He's been researching the background of a physician whose knavery includes other perverse applications of medical science.  

        October 14 )

        Berg resigns as president of Municipal College.  He's had a liability in terms of his wide sympathies.  He seemed to be encouraging the work of Douglas Crane, but his preference was actually Harsh.  This wasn't phoniness or mere opportunism.  Still, it's caught up with him.  The history and sociology departments are convulsed at Berkeley, Wisconsin-Madison and Rutgers.

        October 18, 19 )

        Investigators deal with trouble in Sacramento.  Several blogs and even some TV pundits discuss the hypothetical assassin thought to be stalking businessmen and government employees along the length of Erin Brockevich Boulevard.  Residents and county officials blame a recent homicide on some 'unfettered secret agency.'  On the other hand investigators describe the killer as a renegade from the Berkeley group of activists, a person manipulated by psychotropic means.

        October 27 )

        CBS announces an upcoming documentary which will, among other things, "indicate the salient features of Harsh Atlanticism."  Lengthy sessions with Oliver Stone and Sean Penn have provided many leads, a few of them fruitful.  Some aspects of the project are worth doing.  The film's interviews with Wendy Heikkala will begin to dispel some unattractive stories about the European military high command.  But the suggestion is that some civilian agents, especially in the U. S., have a commitment to aggressive and surreptitious tactics.  One source for the documentary provides the lowdown on JAMBEAU: its enforcement methods exceed the rigor of those prescribed in Harsh.  The source identifies two businessmen who helped finance these clandestine efforts.  On balance, though, the study will make superficial reference to the intrigues of Wall Street and will fail to describe the national trend of conspiracies.  To some degree the CBS production is a response to a film critics' manifesto in which Dick Cheney's militarism is countered with a 'stop and smell the roses' argument. 

        November 1 )

        The Chicago Study of Conspiracies finally publishes its Third Appendix.  This document makes a strong statement: the abductions organized by Eric Storch exemplify an impulse that's been co-opted by JAMBEAU.  In April Storch and his people received the schema later mentioned in the sensitive email of July 30.  Storch defied the pattern by not belonging to organized crime and by not experiencing the psychotropic syndrome.  Nevertheless he's been used by JAMBEAU.  That this knowledge was so quickly made available to the Chicago group indicates a remarkably close connection between the research panel and the Deep State.  It's different, though, in the case of some government agents who infiltrated the ranks of demonstrators and then were found out.  News of their astonishingly frightful treatment by the nihilists is withheld from the public.

        November 2 )

        Frank Shaplow dies from what are said to be natural causes.  Fascist or not, it soon becomes obvious that he'd been slandered as much as anyone.

        November 5 )

        Doubt has increased concerning the accuracy of the JAMBEAU report.  As a hard-to-verify disclosure, its purpose has likely been achieved.

                                                                        

 

 

 

 

The  Muttering  Homeless

 

 

 

        You've requested a guarantee about the persons I deal with.  You've also reminded me about my great limitation.  When I post a message for the public, it's on someone else's website.  That's a reason the public says, "Ron Caley, not a real high-tech sort of guy."  That's me, all right.  In fact, because of this problem I was unable to follow the journalistic turmoil that accompanied the latest political nonsense in these parts.  You may have heard about the complaints of 'Eurocentrism.'  People are demanding universal affluence, as if society would ever abolish the system of castes.  Though I missed most of the pertinent blogs and their comments, I could see that the protest was the usual outpouring of liberation drivel, and naturally they brought the Trail Blazers into it.  Just think, this is our medium of choice!  You know how it is: instead of attending a lecture, a concert or even a sports event in their community, people stay home and watch TV or use the Web.  I thought you, my connection to the big time, would be amused by the regional ruckus.  If you didn't hear, so much the better.

        Now regarding our serious business, you mentioned Jim Skov in particular.  He's the one who built most of the story centered on Tab - the guy we found in the park.  Tab was loitering and making no sense.  We 'found' him only because of a social worker Jim knows, but that's too involved to explain right now.  There were some things about this character that could be interpreted a certain way.  We've had some preparation, because over the past year we've looked at several of the indigent.  The one we're bringing along is a natural choice.  Even though he blends in with all the destitute and bonkers, he's anomalous next to them.  In the promotional-type work we do he's a real find.  With a great deal of effort some background facts have been revealed.  Though his parents are deceased he has a brother, a man who lives in California.  The brother refuses to see Tab.  Those of us who do see him have learned some things about a fabled, secluded population.  Jim has done more of this interpretive work, spending time with the vagrant, than I have.  Humanity is not pretty, and I'm squeamish!  My sister, another social worker, has taken our ward to a therapist whose beliefs make my philosophy seem colorless.  Being skeptical about the expert's promises of healing, my sister still wants to track the vagrant's improvement, if there is some.  She's idealistic to a fault, perhaps.  Well, you talked to her that time you were here in the Newberg office.  I think she may have left a lasting impression.  Was it a good one?  I'm still trying to figure the impression you left with her.  When you drove away she exclaimed, "So that's Ben Beauchamp!"  But I don't know if it was you or someone else who wanted to include her in the Giffril narrative.  Now you're saying it won't work, and I agree.  She's repelled by the concept of the secret nobility.  

        Something else that won't work are these radio interviews.  Which is OK, because we don't need any more.  I know that's heresy.  There's something impossible about show business, and I have arguments against thinking I belong to that profession.  I maintain that what we have is a calling more than a profession, something that could actually change the way people view the world.  We state certain opinions and we exhibit a few artifacts, but that doesn't make it show business.  I remember what you said about the various media: "We have to use radio, we don't have a chance at television.  The TV people detest anyone who thinks like we do."  So the truth really hurts.  We can't get around the fact that the most capable citizens avoid television like the plague.  In other words, people don't have to be meaningful.  Will this mass media problem ever be corrected?  I was willing to try radio, but that isn't workable, either.  There's always someone who wants me to accept reincarnation.  That's just one of the problems. 

        We also know that some things have gone wrong in the project since my second book was published.  I have to let go of a topic that's gotten old.  The topic is my 'unique, life-changing experience as a teenager.'  Three decades ago there was nothing else in my life like it.  Now its role is different.  At the last major conference I floundered because I was dwelling on it.  Along with a need for this adjustment we've had a slump that's hard to explain beyond thinking it's personnel problems and the fact that those are sometimes unavoidable.  You made some remarks about the situation, but I'd like to hear more. 

        We can change for the better.  It wasn't my intention to cultivate this harangue we have against the wealthy.  One of the talk show hosts or newspaper men started that, but it may be fading.  I hope so, because we could use some of those resources from on high.  It would be good to have some practical influence.  You recall the way Eliot Reeder stymied that class action suit?  Not everyone who followed the case could see what his lawyers were doing.  Let's assume the press coverage was incompetent rather than deliberately deceptive.  Even with that, Reeder's counterattack made sense.  I'd say it was decisive, and I don't know who wouldn't have done the same thing in his place - protecting his own interests.  It's also true that our people approached Reeder unsuccessfully.  In that situation I wasn't very surprised.  His financial assistance program for small towns might be doing some good, but they had nothing to say that would help us with Tab.  It probably doesn't matter, because they wouldn't face the dilemma that we face.  The question we ask is, did the leaders of Giffril find a vagrant and merely leave their imprint on his already troubled psyche, or did they inflict his impairment to begin with?  My answer to the question never convinces people.  Not much that you say makes a good impression when your sources appear to be fanciful.  But the world of private investigators does exist, and I've heard more than I want to.  It's our own fault.  We hired one. 

        This investigator followed some lateral tracks of personal association leading to and from Tab.  I don't understand how he found the tracks, but he arranged a couple of interviews with minor officials who had met the unfortunate young man.  They claimed to have gone out of their way to help him.  They said the attempts were interfered with by his 'friends' and some social workers.  Government regulations had also been a hindrance.  For the time being our sleuth is checking some leads that are more promising, but I'll believe they're tangible and useful when I see it.  You face tremendous challenges if you try to help the downtrodden, even more when you try to enlighten the most comfortable citizens.  The work of organized humanitarians has been the subject of massive books, and my view of their achievements is not very gracious.  I don't glorify this investigator, either.  He's as unglamorous a performer as they can come and still be competent.  Actually Jim's the one who hired the guy.

        As always, the work I do thrives at a small scale, each project involving no more than a cell of two or three persons.  Our current project isn't much of a secret.  Other people who do similar work have been told of our situation, and they've tried to help, but they haven't made much difference.  Two homeless, diseased witnesses told us more than we've learned from the nonprofit agencies.  They were approached by men who supposedly represented a group the witnesses had spent some time with in California.  The Mount Shasta group is still described as 'New Age and huggy.'  But our witnesses didn't enjoy the visit.  Judging from their description of the visitors' procedure, those men might have been members of a research team.  Their behavior was incomprehensible, and it was obvious they didn't care about the vagrants.  This kind of thing seems pervasive.  Incidentally, the witnesses now benefit from someone's activism, and they reside at a place called The Welcome Repose Care Center.  Does any of this mean something?  I know for a fact that we rescued Tab, not from Giffril, but from the clutches of the worst Americans.  Medical specialists have confirmed his history of drug abuse, and they admit they can't explain the outcome.  His experience being what it was, they think he should be dead.  Of course various factors might have contributed.  Everyone's aware that certain things are done for the sake of entertainment as well as cultic degradation.  By more than one person's account our vagrant was at the mercy of some callous entertainers.  Beware the underground culture.  What really gets me is the artistic flair that's demonstrated in their ceremonies.  We gave another special assignment to the sleuth we hired because we're serious about finding out who these people are, but we don't have results.  The prospects are unreasonable.  In most cases where such abusers can be identified, their legal defense protects them from the judicial system.

        One of the references we've gained may be useful.  Four miles from where I live there's a settlement of tents for the otherwise homeless.  This group adjoins an orchard which is no longer tended.  I've heard that the orchard was given up as unprofitable sometime prior to the group's arrival.  It's the same landowner, but he does nothing with the land.  He's an abrasive person making public statements about 'the social refuse piles, including the one outside my orchard.'  The camp festers, all right.  Its ugliness is more or less concealed by juniper and scotch broom, but people going by on the nearest road feel threatened.  County authorities aren't doing anything significant about this.  Jim and I have been to the settlement, and the camp doesn't seem like a spectacular example of anything.  It's what you would expect - residents unkempt, uneducated, bereft of a social anchor.  Of course that doesn't tell me much about our friend.  We're not sure if he spent some time here before we found him in the park, but we think he did.  So it's a question of what the residents or their visitors did to him.  Perhaps you could make inferences from testimony about the experience the homeless have had elsewhere.  For all I know something new and sinister could be happening in such places. 

        I can only guess what Reeder himself would say, beyond the platitudes, about this continual misery and shroud.  My estimate of the man: he's no more accessible than others of his class, he doesn't care about electoral politics, he doesn't care about taxes.  Why would he?  He's got what he wants, and in this country his kind are not threatened by popular movements.  Even though he had some money in the first place, he also has ability and imagination.  He didn't just get lucky.  It's also true that his chief agent was fair-minded, as far as I can tell.  I've known about the agent for more than a decade.  He talked to us and tried to pick Tab's brain, if you can imagine.  Very successful over the years in his own right, the agent seemed harmless and agreeable.  He said things like, "We help the down and out or else we're no better than Tricky Dick."  To be fair, it wasn't especially his fault that they couldn't help us after all.  In any case we still have momentum.  Our videos are popular.  What really works is how we emphasize the great armorial traditions of England, France, etc.  There's something about the sloping landscape and the nightmarish anecdotes of revenge.  Statements about Antiquity and the Dark Age are misleading, though.  Giffril as we know it has only materialized in the last three centuries.  I say let's keep up the good work even if we're bound to be mistaken for fearmongers.  All we're doing is giving publicity to a neglected group.  By the way, your notion of bringing the hardhats into the story worked pretty well this past week.  Very democratic.  People need to understand the things involved in the construction of medieval fortifications.  The man we used at the conference was helpful, surprisingly well-versed.  I'm impressed by anyone who can build skyscrapers and still be happy.   

        There's one more thing I haven't changed my mind about: you should start an old-style publishing firm under the name Beauchamp.  I mean the name Beauchamp should be right there by the logo.  I say 'old-style,' but with the proviso that graphic novels can be a sideline.  That medium's best imagery is what we need.  Some illustrators' pictures are better than actual photographs.  Speaking of images, you might have chosen to forget a manual that you published long ago.  It had this passage, among others: "The visual dimension is cosmic with a vitality the other senses never have.  Revelation is always pictorial but able to give a textual corollary.  This is denied by those who represent ossified culture."  You blush to identify the manual's author.  You're a sage as well as a businessman.  The truth is, of all the persons I've encountered, you're in the best position to do something constructive.  This idea bounced off when I mentioned it last July.  We felt we had to attend that banquet in D. C., and we found time to cover several topics and meet some relevant people.  You didn't like the authors I recommended, but there's plenty more.  I keep finding them at conferences and other gatherings.  Your name's a big deal with those writers.   

        Here's my latest adage about something you've heard before, a kind of composite summary of the standard arguments against us: "Caley didn't succeed in a university life, but his academic training is what still conditions his worldview.  He's never had vital experience of the occult.  He doesn't thrive in either category - science or the alternative higher wisdom.  He's a philosophical stillborn."  Mainstream science is worse, dismissing our practical work without an argument.  They say that we tamper with a lowlife's nervous system for the sake of national reputation.  That's not what we're doing.  I state this again only because you and I have had minor, if irritating, disagreements.  Here goes: observations are made and recorded, serious medical treatment is given by an expert we work with, and I write the report to be published.  Nothing that's done here is illegal or pseudo anything.  Our academy-based critics have said the very worst things about Jim Skov, despite his methodic empiricism.  Don't get me wrong.  Most of our critics are sincere, educated people.  Dogmatic believers, not skeptics, are the greatest problem.     

        You ask for additional reports.  I don't know what to tell you about the 'envoy' except that he could have been anyone.  You told me to be alert, because you'd send something my way without describing it beforehand.  It was the envoy from the Giffril communities.  And I know you have some friends among those old, established families.  He told me about some of them, assuming he's honest.  But he wouldn't tell me his residential or work address.  I couldn't identify his associates though we communicated by cell phone.  Of course I'm supposed to mention this man to our viewers and readers.  I admit I was confused.  If you were trying to startle me you can pat yourself on the back.  I didn't appreciate the visual effects that were used when I talked to him in that suite where, so he said, he was just visiting.  His helpers were lurking somewhere.  My awareness of them seemed uncanny.  The experience left a psychic residue and I'd need a shrink to clear that up.  The Giffril man obviously knew what he was doing.  He slipped out of the place like magic, and I couldn't ask him what I really wanted to know.   

        Still, I'm glad you agree that we should have an organized event in this town.  You sounded as if you thought it should be much more ambitious than anything we've done here on the coast.  So we have to hire the specialized performers and we have to do some brainstorming.  But we avoid extravagance.  That place by the community gardens, which I've mentioned before, isn't too expensive.  It would be terrific if you could be here.  I'm not sure what to call the gathering.  If it's a festival we'd better provide some entertainment.  If it's an exhibit, do we have something in a cage?  I don't mean Tab, though I think he'd appreciate exposure.  Something done for the sake of national publicity would be great, but we'd have to bring the most important people, and that's hard to do.  The mistakes we made in the early days at such events can be avoided and will be.  The mass public requires finicky treatment.  As I suggested, I can't be responsible for the social media part.  Whatever the gathering is, it should be held in September.

        Unfortunately, the 'confession' that you want me to write isn't shaping up.  Since I've never had fellowship with the followers of Edgar Cayce or John Keel, I'm not going to recall the fellowship.  No one can accuse me of having falsified my associations or credentials.  There's so much deceptive, seemingly earnest enthusiasm that needs to be rendered harmless.  You have to understand confession.  In a statement of your attitude and experience, what's required is that you get too personal.  This only works if it's handled the right way.  The person who writes, or the person who reads, or both, are supposed to be uncomfortable without losing it.  This can make for great reading.  But I couldn't see what would be relevant.  Even when we talked about my close call six months ago my discussion was reluctant.  Your sense that it might help our case was correct, sort of.  On my part it was a lack of judgment when I took that risk and got injured, going through those artifacts in that dilapidated house.  People make allowances for such eagerness.  In talking about my injury the candor's benefit only went so far.  And I can't say much to the public about Tab.  Jim's the man for that purpose.  I don't have strong emotions in favor of the most impoverished persons.  Any real example of what you requested would be embarrassing without helping to convince the audience.  I like the genre of confession, but I don't see what it would accomplish in this case.   

        Another point: I've spent lots of time with our consultant, as per the advice I received at the beginning.  The capital she inherited would be serious help, like you said.  She brought some of her friends to our first meeting, which was held in that frontier-motif restaurant that you seemed to enjoy.  My irritation with the extra company didn't last long.  She had a lot more to say than the others, even if there was no stated belief that she would.  Her demeanor surprised me, considering what I'd heard.  If she disparages anyone, she does it placidly.  We had later meetings and I found that her kind of lore is understated in private conversation.  She's very long-winded, but I can handle that.  Her friends turned out to be sympathizers, perhaps even followers, without being professional associates.  Their few comments told me some things about her that wouldn't be obvious.  Still, I can't prove that her background has much to do with Giffril, and she doesn't feel she has to prove it, either.  Incidentally, she hates the motto that her husband ascribed to her: "Care for the oppressed and for those who don't care."  Somebody else came up with that. 

        I believe you know that she lived in Maryland for a long time.  She belonged to a parapsychology group notorious in that area.  What's most improbable is the fact that she bought a house around here somewhere two years ago.  She's had time to size up the neighbors.  More than that, she expresses her considered opinions about everything from local traffic patterns to the agriculture.  I'm not complaining.  As the widow of a great man, she has a special place.  During the most recent visit she told me some good stories about her husband, ones I hadn't heard before.  Lots of people would not like the stories.  On the other hand she made a sensible recommendation about the portrayal of Giffril society.  If accepted her idea won't harm the basic scheme.  By now the features of that world have been adequately reconstructed.  Esoteric historians have cleared away the textual basis of mistaken beliefs whether many scholars know it or not.  The Giffril tradition has become the trunk.  We're the offshoot.  Those medieval standards of rectitude seem compatible with what we have in this country, but certain elements here wouldn't tolerate the more codified, austere vision of life.  They'd be led away kicking and screaming.   

        Again I have to stress that Jim has done wonders with Tab's conversation.  I expect him to be more productive than the clever therapist I mentioned.  Jim has remedial techniques of his own.  But he doesn't claim that he'd be successful with somebody else.  I'm still not sure what makes Tab different.  They put in such long days together, and with the limitations involved, I don't know how they do it.  I hate to call the results telepathy, or any other term with a difficult past, but the system works.  We're able to relay the messages from those people who reside in the obscure mountain villages of Europe.  I'm certainly willing to spend more time there myself, but to achieve much if I do I'll need some help in the arrangements.  Whether I do or don't, there's a really sobering thing about all this: the memory of my younger years when I had a severe drug problem.  Tab's potential is like the kind I had, and the scions of Giffril could have used me as they wished.  Fortunately, it's too late for that now.    

        If this memo seems awfully studied it's because my concern with these points has been growing for a long time.  We can always talk about the basics again.  Am I wrong in believing some of these things?  People say I'm dogmatic, but that's unfair.  I encourage the honest investigation of these different subcultures.  The activities that you and I witnessed in a national forest eight years ago were deftly ceremonial and compelling.  Our account of them is the most instructive report we've made to society.  It's also the least popular.  But we're not giving up.  If I have to I'll tell the audience what it is that sets our story apart from the delusive, exploitative allegations, including those that take the form of radio programs or books on the paranormal.  Yes, my latest plans are elaborate, and we need to review them in the next week.  I'm sure you'll have misgivings about some of it, and you'll let me know.

 

                                                                           -   such  until  further  notice    

 

 

 

                                                                                     Director's   Absence

 

 

 

        The last week of August gave a generous brightness to the forest clearing that had the massive, sturdy residence - the house built by a financier.  One afternoon the man who lived in the place was talking to an organizer who had served him well on some previous occasions.  Ed Githens and his visitor weren't quite able to leave the outdoors outside.  The room in which they conferred had a very large window. 

        Because of the extensive glass, along with Ed's statement that there was no air conditioning at the moment, Ralph Heimark thought the room should be much less comfortable than it was.  Ed stood there next to a cabinet that was close, but not too close, to the window.  He was sipping from a bottle of water, and he'd done a little pacing since Ralph arrived.  For some reason there was no chair in the compartment, and Ralph began to fear this would prove in effect to be a lecture hall.  Ed seemed like something displayed, yet almost concealed, in solar brilliance.  He'd already told his guest what needed to be done regarding matters at hand.  Perhaps, though, the obligation of hospitality came with the territory.  He'd let this man stay here for a few minutes.  He began telling him some things about personnel in relation to logistics - things that might appear to be of minor importance.  All this was in the context of their film production enterprise.  As businessmen supporting the enterprise they favored a genre that showed people in the real world establishing mutual commitment.  They could call it a documentary, but it could also have the nature of a malediction.  For a while the rich man spoke about someone they both knew: a producer working in this moralistic genre.  As he did so he kept gazing at the main component of this, the so-called fireside room.  Someday this main feature might be useful in different weather.  Someday there might actually be flames in it. 

        Ralph wasn't about to misunderstand Ed Githens.  He knew the man would make perceptive statements about Dave Drover.  Ed knew better than to ridicule the fim director who had vanished the day before.  He wouldn't write Dave off as a countercultural dip who folds when the going gets tough.  Something unreasonable must have happened at the location of the shoot.  The director had not returned to his family in Cabin Park.  The other man they had in mind, the one doing most of the producer's work, wasn't being very helpful at the moment. 

        Ed surprised Ralph by asking, "What's your opinion of Drover?"

        Ralph said, "I think his reputation is well-deserved.  Obviously I'd like to know if he decided to quit the project, or if something worse happened."

        "And you still can't reach him."

        "Not yet."

        Ed slowly drank more water, then said, "I take your word for it he wouldn't be that easy to replace."

        "Impossible to replace in the near future," the other man answered.  This was the first explicit acknowledgment of what they both knew to be a fact.  Without Drover the project was dead.

        "I've got a copy of the screenplay," Ed informed him, as if it mattered.  "I'll have another look at it."  The first look hadn't been very attentive.

        "I thought the screenplay was all right," Ralph said.

        Sincerely or not Ed commented, "Have to feel sorry for McPike."  He was referring to the not-so-helpful person behind the scenes - the man who had also written the dialogue.

        Ralph said, "I'd be surprised if he can't adjust to something like this.  But who knows?"

        Email the producers had received from Dave's cell phone made the blunt summary: someone had kidnapped the director, and more messages would be coming.  Certain demands would be made.  Presumably someone other than Dave was using Dave's phone to send the message.  None of the persons who worked on the set claimed to have witnessed the abduction.  But he had been missing since before the end of the workday.

        The financier had special reasons why he couldn't welcome any of this.  Around him the lore of derision and perfidy would always be swirling.  The question of Dave's absence would be used against Ed, as other things were.

        "About the PR situation," he continued, "you haven't told me much."

        "You mean the word getting out that we have lousy security?"

        "I mean the word getting out that we have problems, period.  Sure, the loss of Drover is at the top of the list." 

        "Well," Ralph conceded, "the potential is there.  It isn't just because of his family.  Some professionals and even some amateurs get concerned if they hear about interruptions of their colleagues' work.  So far the situation is what you'd expect.  I haven't seen any response that could be avoided."

        Somehow Ed was privy to special understanding.  The look on his face was a smirk.  He said, "I do know that the sheriff won't call it a crime scene." 

        Ralph had been hearing - not just reading - about Willard McPike since last year.  The writer obviously meant his behavior to seem provocative.  As an author he wasn't doing too badly.  He was still getting royalties from that stupid book about Atlantis.  The film he'd been making with Dave wouldn't be surprising to those familiar with McPike's work.  His anti-theism was predictable.  He called the abiding ecclesiastic systems 'noxious.'  The film comprised a harsh portrayal of one church group in particular. 

        He and his crew had been making use, by the standard arrangement, of land that belonged to Ed Githens.  The compound used for producing videos was in a remote forest location.  It might have a practical advantage for such work if someone could think of it.  The property wasn't especially expensive as an installation.  The financier had acquired the land even before coming to live in the West.  The buildings were constructed several years before they began to get much use.  Nowadays quite a few people were familiar with the place.  For each impending project they talked about going to 'the camp.'  Almost all the filming was done here in these low-budget efforts.  But given his resources it seemed absurd to describe Ed Githens as an independent film producer.  Certainly for him it was a minor hobby.  The specific topic of the Drover project hadn't gotten his own stamp of approval.  He didn't always pay attention to the people using his facility, nor was he concerned about theological points.  But he had to look askance at Willard's bringing in a biologically substandard person to fill out the story line.

        He said, "Now that you've told me about the Canker, I see another reason there needs to be a parley.  You, me, Willard - as soon as possible."   

        "All right," the other man agreed.  He had figured that something would have to give.  The part about the outlandish troll - the Canker - was too hard to accept.  Even if the film was abortive, something special had to be said about casting.

        Someone had suggested the studio itself could use some work.  "I was out there two weeks ago," the boss continued.  "The setup's pretty simple, I guess.  I still think it's adequate for these modest operations."

        Ralph answered in a careful, harmless way.  The setup seemed reasonable as was.

        "Do we have any more problems in the transition here?" Ed wondered.  People had to find other work.

        Ralph said, "I've started telling them the good news and the bad news.  All the difficult issues will be settled by tomorrow."

        "That's what I like to hear."  

        Ed avoided controversy almost as much as he could.  Never having felt guilty about the social prominence of someone in his position, he didn't enjoy much latitude of discourse.  He was the type of person blamed for everyone's problems.  His reaction had always been "so what?"

        As for McPike, he was a newcomer to the genre of documentaries that portray the start of 'idealistic' brigades.  The movement resulted from the work of a few uninhibited personalities, with McPike still seeming to be too dignified.  But he wasn't bashful.  In fact, he was the one who notified the missing man's family. 

        And the family's reaction was a bit sluggish.  When Jerry Drover left his house on the way to the camp he wasn't assuming the worst.  His brother had been known to engineer some brilliant stunts.  Jerry forgot his brother as he glanced at the rear-view mirror of the sedan he was using.  He considered the dwindling image of his ordinary split-level.  He also saw that his wife was beginning some yardwork.

        The relation between the two brothers had never been strained, even with the difference in their social views.  Jerry was a year younger, and his own life was stable.  His marriage with Lisa frequently felt an influence coming by way of Lisa's friendship with Dave's wife.  Before Dave went missing she had already informed Lisa that something unusual and bad was happening with his group at the compound.  But she couldn't be very specific.  Several persons who worked with both men understood the difference between Willard and Dave in that Willard refused to accept the label 'nihilist.'  Dave had given hints about animosities of colleagues.  After Jerry got the message from Willard there was some delay before he could begin seriously searching for his brother.  Jerry had to return from an urgent consultation in Kansas City.  In the meantime Lisa, having been notified by her husband, wasn't - anymore than he was - reaching a definite, ominous conclusion.  She did take a drive later that day, moving past the portion of wetland that separated the two houses of Drover.  It was only a three minute journey on a straight road with sparse traffic.  A few hikers could be seen climbing a hill on the right as Lisa turned her car to the pathway that left the main road.  She had some very significant questions on her mind as she visited Dave's wife. 

        Jerry was thinking, as he headed for the camp, about something besides Dave's previous escapades.  He'd heard some things about Willard's target - the Church of Divine Instruction.  The group had started in Michigan, with a branch in this area from about midcentury.  Its regional administrative offices were to the east of I-5, but fairly close to it.  Jerry took the exit and spent a couple of minutes looking the place over.  The building was surprisingly large and expensive-looking.  He had seen the group's regional honcho being interviewed at length on TV.  At this moment Jerry was thinking that the group wasn't very well-known and didn't try to make people uncomfortable.  You'd think they'd be spared unfriendly treatment.  Pleased with having found the headquarters, he got back on the freeway. 

        He'd wanted to see the film production camp since first hearing about it.  He'd been told the location was in the foothills of the Cascades.  He liked to explore the woodlands, but his trips had never previously brought him in this direction.  When he reached the site he felt some disappointment, finding the land so level and well-cleared.  He'd like to see more of a slope and have a striking view of the distance.  The main building in the compound, a two-story structure, was moderately impressive.  But the smaller buildings were props that could use cosmetic improvement.  Like the location, the facility wasn't what he expected.  It might be different, he thought, if this was meant to look like part of an Old West ghost town.  He took some photos of the area, thinking he'd combine these later with sarcastic observations for his friends.  Life inside the 'studio' might be more colorful.  He got out of his Buick and was immediately approached by Dennis Russell, the man who looked after the place. 

        Dennis and Jerry talked for a while, and the camp employee was the less reserved of the two.  He readily told some anecdotes of interest.  He mentioned a series of interviews that McPike had conducted with some elders of a small church - a splinter group from the Church of Divine Instruction.  The interviews had taken place in this building and McPike didn't seem the least bit secretive about it.  Dennis was here working as the elders came and went.  He could tell what was going on.  

        "He was preparing them for the cameras," Dennis affirmed.  "Using the elders against the other group."

        "You probably saw Dave here, too," Jerry suggested.

        The custodian tried to remember.  "It ran for a couple of days - no, I don't think he was here."

        Dave's presence in the last month had been rather sporadic because of necessary interruptions.  He had collaborated the previous year with some well-known people on a film of similar message.  The response from one critic made a telling point: that the filmmakers, hostile as they were to the worshipers and the reason for worship, still wanted to exaggerate the artistic beauty of the congregation's devotional rite.  It was quite the exaggeration.  The real practice in the group wasn't very distinctive, but Dave had decided to repeat this contrast in the latest film.  He was a serious artist, at least. 

        It was also true that Jerry didn't know much about his brother's approach to the art.  Right now Dennis made some observations about the problems of organizing, not that that was his responsibility.  He usually worked alone.  But he liked to express his understanding of what such people as Ralph Heimark were faced with day in and day out. 

        He was also fond of the expression 'redneck trash.'  He'd used the phrase any number of times in previous jobs that he'd had, endearing himself to fellow workers.  Now he had a different situation.  He made it clear to Jerry that it was a pleasure having this kind of job for a change.  He wasn't surrounded by redneck trash.

        Eventually he said, "I thought Claire Simila would be here by now."

        "Someone you work with?"

        "No, she arranges things on the set for Dave and Ralph.  She was going to come by and pick up some odds and ends."  Dennis looked rather solemn.  "They had me scheduled for some night work on Tuesday and I got here at six-thirty.  McPike told me what happened."

        "He told me, too," Jerry said.  "When we talked he seemed to think there were some things here I could make sense of.  Something belonging to Dave."

        "What time did he call?"

        "Nine o'clock on Tuesday, but I had to come in from Kansas City."

        Dennis glanced over towards the back rooms.  "I don't see anything here now that doesn't belong to us.  We had some extra workers in here this morning.  They might have scooped up something Dave was using."

        "If it's all right, I'll see for myself."

        The visitor went through each of the rooms on the first floor.  He had a pretty good idea what Dave would have left at this location if he had planned further work.  The search lasted ten minutes, and he didn't find anything here that he should take.

        Then, as he was asking Dennis about storage facilities, a woman came down the stairs.  Dennis introduced her as Mindy Nelson.  Among other duties for the Githens organization, Mindy also took part in some of Ralph's projects.

        The woman said, "You wouldn't have to tell me McPike was here.  It's obvious by looking at it."

        She didn't explain the statement.

        "I've seen worse," Dennis replied.  "Of course you can tell Ed - or at least Ralph."

        She answered, "Ed knows what I think of McPike."  What she thought of him was the same as others thought.

        "I'm not sorry to see him leave," Dennis commented.

        "There's renovation here starting in three weeks," the woman added, "but it's minor."  She was pessimistic.  "Ralph could get some improvements everywhere if he had some ambition."

        "People have told him that," the custodian said.  "Let's face it, he doesn't give a damn about someone unless there's a tie-in to the interests of Ed Githens.  Then all of a sudden he's touchy-feely."

        Whatever their difference in job status, the interaction between Dennis and Mindy was comfortable.

        She took her smartphone from her handbag.  "One more attempt," she declared, "to have this thing live up to its press."  Her fingers moved on the device, but the task wasn't especially important.  She gave up in less than a minute. 

        Jerry had seen Mindy's activities described in some publications that were centered on the Portland area.  What were his impressions on meeting her?  She seemed reasonably trim and sapient.  He could sympathize if the woman had no finesse with smartphones.

        She looked at the mural that covered the wall farthest from the main entrance.  "I wish they'd replace that with something," she said.

        The painting would be hard, even for people versed in modern categories, to label.  Visitors who gave it some attention usually thought it must express a left of center viewpoint, but they couldn't argue this conclusively.  Did it have human reference, a political message?  There was no definite suggestion of groups being freed from bondage.  It had no emblematic value, and the surface bearing the imagery seemed unsuitable, Mindy thought, for just about anything.  Of course there was a more important concern than the mural.

        "Do you know when Githens will be here?" Dennis inquired.

        She didn't know, and the two of them decided to be solemn and quiet in talking about the 'victim.'  They became more casual after Jerry communicated implicit skepticism regarding the alleged kidnapping.

        "I never know if I should believe the Willard version," Dennis admitted.

        "His ideas bring out the worst in people," Mindy replied.  "Even Ralph says so."

        Ed's conference with Mindy before the start of the filming was uncomfortable for Mindy - more than usual.  He tried to convince her that McPike was nothing to be afraid of.  Perhaps before long, Ed would share Ralph's opinion.

        Jerry kept quiet.  Right now no one could think of anything else profound for the conversation.  There were some desultory statements.  After a few minutes Mindy and Dennis went up the stairs to the second floor.

        Jerry went back to the room that had cabinets which, according to Dennis, were constantly used for storage.  In his previous look he'd already found that one was locked.  Now he confirmed that all of them were.  He only had to wait two minutes before Mindy and Dennis came back down.  As they returned, the woman was using her smartphone with a purpose more comfortably routine.

        "I knew he'd have something," she said, after another minute.  "Ralph sounds encouraging about the likelihood of another film project this year, even if it won't start till November."

        "And that's all he says about it," the maintenance man guessed.

        "That's all he says about the future.  He keeps finding more problems for today - personnel problems.  I'm going to be busy."

        Dennis told her, "There was a government man from Olympia here this morning."  He gave the official's name, job title and some other information.  But then he pointed out, "I'd say he 's in no hurry to tell Ed what the problem is.  Wouldn't you know it?"  He waited for Mindy's reaction to the comment.  He could imagine Ed's reaction to something that, in this case, was probably trivial.

        She moaned.  "He'll have to be notified."

        In the long run Jerry might piece together a somewhat accurate story of the persons who had gathered here a day or two before his brother's disappearance.  Remarkably enough, they didn't include McPike's cronies.  The schedule Dennis adhered to prevented him from seeing most of the visitors, but he'd been told about most of them.  Though agreeing with the main stated viewpoint, these guests had some strong differences with Drover and McPike, and even among themselves.  Ralph had certainly been there, interacting with Dave.  He wouldn't tell Jerry much - not in refusal but because of limited perspective.  There were some other ways of learning, even if nobody else who worked for Githens would be helpful.  Jerry was already having these thoughts.  The best report he'd get would come from Dave's wife.  The director had relayed some of Willard's declarations about personalities and political persuasion.  These were too much even for Dave Drover.  But he had a professional committment to finish his work as director of the film.  Jerry wasn't the only person the woman decided to inform.  Others might make better sense of the information that she'd give.

        It wasn't clear to him that McPike and his crew had left the camp in a state of serious disarray.  Mindy saw something wrong and she wasn't obliged to describe it for Jerry.  After borrowing a key that unlocked the storage cabinets - and finding nothing - he went upstairs to check the rooms there, didn't find anything belonging to his brother, then walked out to the driveway.  He noticed that a sports car which had been parked near the main entrance was now gone.  Mindy had just now left the camp.

        As he stood there outside the main building, he also noticed the kennel.  It occupied a second clearing, a smaller one.  Right now the dogs were quiet.  Jerry could see two large, black-and-gold specimens.  He thought there were probably more.  The ones he could see regarded him with a posture that wasn't necessarily friendly.  Now he remembered something Dave had told him about the scenario that Willard chose to present for his film's audience.  His aim was to convince the viewers that a group of nefarious clergymen would use the dogs to track down and attack someone they didn't like.  The tools for tracking them down were sufficiently impressive.

        "Good buncha Hovies!" Dennis exclaimed.  He had silently emerged from the building and thought he could guess what Jerry might ask about next.  But Jerry wasn't very curious about the beasts. 

        "How big is this place?" he asked.  "Anything beyond the kennel?"

        "The kennel's it," Dennis answered.  Well, Jerry supposed, that figured.  Now he concluded that it was time to leave.  But before he could head for his Buick his new acquaintance began telling about the way policemen had used canines against the crowds in the old time southern race riots.  Dennis recalled the details of things that weren't pretty.  He really got off on that.

        Somehow this prompted Jerry to go look more closely at the dogs.  There were six altogether, each one full grown.  He asked questions and enjoyed listening to Dennis, who gave several accounts of the dogs' owners and trainers.  He said the animals hadn't yet been used in this film.

        Claire Simila made her appearance ten minutes before Jerry's departure.  She arrived in a pickup truck.  True to the description given by the custodian she was hefty and she wouldn't need help with her task, which included carrying some props out to the vehicle.

        "She was under pressure the last few days," Dennis claimed.  "I'm not sure what that was about."

        No doubt Claire had some personalities to contend with.  Jerry knew some actors in the Portland-Vancouver theater circuit, ones who were contributing a few hours to the efforts at the camp.  He'd learned more from those people than from his brother about the project.  He wasn't immune to the appeal such characters had.  He could enjoy them and their performance without seeing theirs as a natural way of life.  He knew he'd be reviled as a conventional person.  He had expressed his opinion more than once: it amazed him to think that somebody somewhere would actually marry an actress.  Now before leaving, he studied the main building's exterior.  The structure was respectable but certainly nothing approaching someone's elite standard.  There were balconies on the back and on the southern side of the building.  He recalled the sight of a dozen people standing, leaning or lounging.  They had careless body language and they made sly, miscellaneous assertions about society.  Almost anyone taking part could enjoy it.  Even Jerry liked what he saw.  Verbal and pictorial representations of the scene had been emailed from an actor that he knew.  He had various fleeting thoughts about superficial conflict between different social classes.  Finally, as he began driving out from the facility and towards the county road, he supposed that Dave was making an artist's humanistic gesture in the form of a disappearance.  Dramatic gestures had happened before.

        On the way home Jerry had the nagging suspicion that he needed to learn the nature of the stratagem Dave was using.  If he could do that he might lessen the damage being done.  In any case he was happy to see that the route he wanted to use was no longer cluttered with road crews.  He saw, when he got closer to home, the houses at the edge of Cabin Park.  In that direction the pine trees were giving way to cottonwoods, larches, whatever. 

        He knew that McPike had some grotesque ways of sending a message via film.  The Canker was one example.  Over the years McPike had cultivated his acquaintance with minor celebrities - persons with all the vices of major celebrities.  He knew their afflicted offspring.  One of the persons he hobnobbed with ran a recording studio that had some big name heavy metal artists.  This person running the studio gave his friends reason to worry.  His drug use had figured to be suicidal, but the user was alive and vigorous all these years later.  It was the man's son who bore the brunt.     

        Nowadays anyone could see the curse, but that didn't keep Willard McPike from trying.  The dysgenic offspring was brought to the compound and eventually videotaped on the set.  The problem wasn't just that the actors and crew found him physically unattractive.  His attitude - his pathological psyche - couldn't be tolerated.  His presence was vile.

        "Get rid of him," Dave had said to Willard.  Dave always displayed plenty of nerve. 

        McPike's rejoinder was iniquitous, decisive and stunning.  He seemed impossibly self-confident.  He then gave his partner the most disturbing information about the young man.

        Calling him the Canker?  How unenlightened.  The would-be performer brought with him some problems that McPike had failed to anticipate.  Claire Simila reported these and the results were quick.  After one day in front of the cameras, the Canker was sent back to Florida. 

        Their use of him contributed to the present crisis.  When the facts were made known to Jerry he didn't take it well.  He thought the conclusive turn of events at the compound wouldn't be explained, but something had revealed who the weaker man was.  McPike showed a final burst of uncanny aggression, with the result that Dave Drover had gone about thirty-five miles to the site of a marginal public monumuent, where he hung himself.  Though public, the facility was accessible by advance appointment only, and a caretaker didn't return to the job until at least twenty-four hours after the suicide.

        The day after Jerry's visit to the camp two men were there, standing in the front yard of the main building.  One of them was Ed Githens, and he had just gone through the place.  He had also just heard the news about the discovery of Dave's corpse.  He wouldn't let it dominate the conversation.  The irksome news from Olympia merely blended in with all the rest that was happening.

        The man accompanying Ed - like almost anyone a subordinate - was impressed by what he found or didn't find at the compound.  He said, "I'm surprised they got it straightened up so quickly."

        Ed replied, "My people came in and gave Dennis some help."

        The other man was amused about something.  At length he recounted the details for Ed's benefit. 

        He said, after mentioning but not identifying a cadre, "McPike was talking to Ralph on the phone.  He told Ralph that Dave was supposed to be their man in this county, but he was balking at something they wanted him to do.  That's why they strung him up."

        "What did they want him to do?"

        "Ralph didn't say."

        Ed could guess who 'they' were if they were involved.

        He stated, "So he's pretty sure about this."

        "Ralph believes it."  There was a pause.

        "If he knows this for a fact," the rich man pointed out, "then he'll be talking to the prosecutors."

        The other man shook his head.  "He says the law enforcement people are intimidated.  They won't do anything."

        Ed hissed, almost audibly expressing his opinion of McPike's naive attitude towards these matters.  'Strung him up'?  Willard was like most people.  He had no sense of how these things worked.  It was one thing if you wanted to make it more interesting by talking conspiracy.  Go ahead.  But show some understanding of the dynamics involved.  This latest reported nonsense confirmed Ed's determination to tell Willard - at the meeting scheduled for later today - that they no longer had anything to do with each other.  Willard was hopeless.

        The financier had thought about artistic work from time to time.  If he produced his own film it would be less malicious, more promotional.  It called for a degree of skill.  The archcapitalist wouldn't be so crude that the viewers could immediately tell where he was coming from. 

        Ralph's thoughts, in the week after Dave's body was found, were less comfortable than those of his employer.  He didn't try to hide the fact that he was troubled.  His anxiety on waking in the middle of the night - on several nights - kept him from returning to sleep.  Unlike those described by the ancient kings of Egypt and Babylon, Ralph's dreams never meant anything.  Until now.  He approached a psychiatric specialist. 

        The relevance of other facts became obvious.  An office building in Columbus, Ohio was the headquarters for a nonprofit that exercized unique influence on this brand of film producers.  The man in charge at the nonprofit made a public statement.  He informed the country that the customary level of funding could no longer be expected.  For this reason and perhaps others, the movement had no future.  It wouldn't be saved by Ed Githens.