Blood Test

Houten shifted restlessly in his chair. Nicotine fidgets. His hand went up to his cigarette pocket then stopped.

“I’m gonna take some air,” he said and walked out. Matthias didn’t seem to notice his exit.

“You didn’t know the family well,” I went on. “Yet two of your people visited them at the hospital. I’m not doubting your word but it’s a question you’re bound to be asked again.”

He sighed.

“We had business in Los Angeles. Baron and Delilah were assigned to handle it. We felt it would be gracious for them to visit the Swopes. They brought the family fresh fruit from our orchards.”

“Not,” I smiled, “for medicinal purposes.”

“No,” he said, amused. “For nourishment. And pleasure.”

“So this was a social call.”

“In a sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not sociable. We don’t make small talk. Visiting them was an act of good will, not part of some nefarious scheme. No attempt was made to interfere with the child’s medical care. I’ve notified Baron and Delilah to join us momentarily so you’ll have a chance to obtain additional details.”

“I appreciate that.”

A vein throbbed in the center of the crater in his brow. He held out his hands as if to ask, What next? The remote look on his face reminded me of someone else. The association triggered my next question.

“There’s a doctor who treated Woody by the name of August Valcroix. He told me he visited here. Do you remember him?”

He twirled the ends of his beard around one long finger.

“Once or twice a year we offer seminars on organic gardening and meditation. Not to proselytise, but to enlighten. He may have attended one of those. I don’t remember him specifically.”

I gave him a physical description of Valcroix but it didn’t evoke recognition.

“That’s it, then. I appreciate your help.”

He sat there, unblinking and unmoving. In the stingy light of the room his pupils had expanded so that only a thin rim of pale iris was visible. He had hypnotic eyes. A prerequisite for charisma.

“If you have any more questions you may ask them.”

“No questions, but I would like to hear more about your philosophy.”

He nodded.

“We are refugees from a former life. We’ve chosen a new life that emphasizes purity and industry. We avoid environmental poisons and seek self-sufficiency. We believe that by changing ourselves we increase the positive energy in the world.”

Standard stuff. He rattled it off like some New Age pledge of allegiance.

“We’re not killers,” he added.

Before I could reply, two of them came into the room.

Matthias stood up and left without acknowledging their presence. The man and woman took the two empty seats. The transaction was oddly mechanical, as if the people were interchangeable parts in some smoothly functioning apparatus.

They sat, hands in laps — more good schoolkids — and smiled with the maddening serenity of the born-again and the lobotomized.

I was far from serene. Because I recognized both of them, though in quite different ways.

The man who called himself Baron was medium-sized and thin. Like Matthias, his hair was cut short and his beard left untrimmed. But in his case the effect was less dramatic than untidy. His hair was medium brown and wispy. Patches of skin showed through the sparse frizzy chin whiskers and his cheeks were covered with soft fuzz. It was as if he’d forgotten to wash his face.

In graduate school I’d known him as Barry Graffius. He was older than I, in his early forties, but had been a class behind, a late starter who’d decided to become a psychologist after trying just about everything else.

Graffius’s family was wealthy, big in the movie business, and he’d been one of those rich kids who couldn’t seem to settle down — inadequate drive level because he’d never been deprived of anything. The consensus was that family money had gotten him in, but that may have been a jaundiced view. Because Barry Graffius had been the most unpopular person in the department.

I’ve always tended to be charitable in my evaluations of others but I’d despised Graffius. He was loudmouthed and contentious, dominating seminars with irrelevant quotes and statistics aimed at impressing the professors. He insulted his peers, bullied the meek, played devil’s advocate with malicious glee.

And he loved to flaunt his money.

Most of us were struggling to get by, working extra jobs in addition to our teaching assistantships. Graffius delighted in coming to class in hand-tailored leather and suede, complaining about the repair bill on his XKE, lamenting the tax bite. He was an outrageous name dropper, recounting lavish Hollywood parties, offering a teasing glimpse into a glamorous world beyond the grasp of the rest of us.

I’d heard that after graduating he’d gone into practice on Bedford Drive — Beverly Hills Couch Row — planning to capitalize on his connections and become Therapist to the Stars.

I could see where he’d run into Norman Matthews.