“One of them,” said Nick. Except for the huge rise in honor killings and of gays and lesbians having walls dropped on them.
Besides the occasional rickshaw or pedicab, the streets were filled with spandexed and heavily helmeted cyclists on featherlight bikes that cost a million new bucks or more. There were also joggers and runners everywhere—hundreds and thousands of joggers and runners, many in sweaty spandex but some almost nude and others totally nude.
“The People’s Republic seems to be a very healthy place,” Sato said. “Not modest, but healthy.”
“Oh, yes,” said Nick. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘Body Nazi’? Lots and lots of Body Nazis in the People’s Republic.”
Sato snorted what could have been a laugh. “ ‘Body Nazi,’ ” he repeated. “No, I have not heard that term before, but I believe it appropriate nonetheless.”
Joggers passed the rickshaw on the left and right, their fists and lean forearms pumping, their distracted gazes fixed on some distant but reachable goal of physical immortality.
With the foothills of Flagstaff Mountain looming, the rickshaw cyclists turned left into the broad-lawned and leafy expanse of the Chautauqua grounds. The huge auditorium higher on the hill loomed over the Arts and Crafts dining hall and other structures.
After Sato had paid off the two pedalers, Nick said, “What do you know about this place? Not Chautauqua, but the Naropa Institute that rents it most of the year?”
The big security chief shrugged. “Only what the telephone told me, Bottom-san. The university was founded in nineteen seventy-four by the exiled Tibetan tulku Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The name Naropa comes from an eleventh-century Buddhist sage from India. The university was officially accredited sometime in the late nineteen-eighties but unlike most religious universities in your country, it hasn’t really distanced itself from its larger Buddhist organization—Shambhala International, I believe.”
“Are you Buddhist, Sato?” Nick asked.
Sato stared until Nick got tired of seeing himself in the security chief’s sunglasses. Finally the big man spoke. “This way to the administration building, I believe. We’ll have to hurry or be late for our interview with Mr. Dean.”
“Our interview?” demanded Nick.
“I have interest in hearing what this gentleman has to say,” said Sato. “As chief investigator, you may, of course, ask all the questions, Bottom-san.”
“Fuck you,” said Nick. But he stayed away from the word motherfucker.
They hurried.
NICK HAD HEARD THAT the big wood-framed Chautauqua Auditorium, despite being little more than an oversized barn, had—for almost a century and a half—earned performing artists’ praise for its outstanding acoustics. When Nick had come here with his parents as a kid to watch and hear such twentieth-century marvels as Bobby McFerrin, the Chautauqua people had finally patched the roof—previous generations of audiences had been able to look up and see the moon and stars through the cracks and missing shingles—but one could still see the leaves of the trees and sky through gaps in the ancient wooden sidewalls. Now Naropa had rebuilt the walls so there was no view through them any longer.
The stage of the auditorium remained but the rest of the space had been altered for winter institute use, the ancient, rock-hard folding seats taken out and scores of low platforms set up to level the floor. On each platform were dozens of comfortable beds and each bed was ringed by a fortune’s worth of monitoring devices showing pulse, blood pressure, EEG, and the various spikes and sine waves of sleep. Men and women—it was sometimes hard to tell which because of the shaved heads—wearing saffron robes monitored the monitors. Nick guessed that the room held at least a thousand beds.
Nick instantly saw the place for what it was—an infinitely cleaner version of Mickey Grossven’s flashcave: a place where flashers who wanted to go long under the flash had someone to guard them and their belongings and make sure they didn’t stay under so long that their muscles atrophied or their digestive systems shut down from receiving only IV fluids. And where Mickey’s cave had a staff-to-sleeping-flasher ratio of about one to three hundred, the Naropa Institute must have had at least one hovering “expert” to each four bodies under the flash.
Their escort had just left them so Nick was free to say to Sato, “This is where Naropa has made its real fortune the last decade or so. Somebody on the Naropa board of directors decided that the Buddhist goal of ‘being present in the moment’ included having to relive that moment… all moments. The Naropa students here and at NCAR and the former Bureau of Standards building—I think there are about fifteen thousand such students who’ve come to Boulder and Naropa—are doing what they call ‘interior work.’ ”
“Based on Vajrayana teachings on finding and applying internal esoteric energies,” whispered Sato.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Nick. “It maxes out on the BQ meter.”
“BQ meter, Bottom-san?”
“Bullshit Quotient.”
“Ah, so.”
“The Naropa Institute’s also into your Japanese Tea Ceremony, faux-Christian labyrinth stuff, ikebana, healing crystals, out-of-body experiences, Druid ritual, and Wikkan ceremonies… that’s witchcraft to you, Sato-san.”
“Ikebana and the Tea Ceremony are worthy forms of meditation,” the huge security chief said softly. “But not, perhaps, in the hands of these charlatans.”
One of the saffron-robed medics came up a ramp to where Nick and Sato waited by the door. The man looked to be American but had the shaved head of all the teachers and students here. He put his hands together, bowed low, and said, “Namaste.”
Since no one in the group was from India, Nick replied with “How ya doin’?”
The monk or teacher or medic or whatever he was showed no irritation, but neither did he identify himself. “You are here to meet with Mr. Dean?”
“We are,” said Nick, flashing his Advisor’s black card badge. “Is he awake yet?”
“Oh, yes,” said the monk. “It has been more than three hours since his awakening from the Previous Reality. Mr. Dean has done his exercises, enjoyed his meal, and spent an hour with one of our transpersonal counselors reviewing his most recent Previous Reality experience.”
“So where is he?” asked Nick.
“In the contemplation garden to the rear of this building,” said the monk. “Would you wish me to escort you?”
“No, we’ll find him,” said Nick. “I’ll just look for a bald guy in an orange bathrobe.”
“Namaste,” said the bowing monk, hands together again.
“Later, reincarnator,” said Nick.
NICK AND SATO REVIEWED notes as they walked out to the garden. It had rained a little in Denver before they left Six Flags, then let up during the drive up to the People’s Republic, but now more gray clouds were moving in low just yards above the sharp tops of the five sandstone Flatirons. But the day remained comfortably warm. Nick took off his sports coat and draped it over his shoulder.
Derek Dean had been a young millionaire exec in the last days of the Google empire. He’d lived in a world high above the messy post–Day It All Hit The Fan world that almost everyone else wallowed and struggled in. Dean had spent most of his adult life in New York penthouses, Malibu beach houses, armored limos, and private executive jets while having his own private bodyguards make sure that he was not disturbed. After his company’s last tech investment googled down the drain, Dean’s diversified investments and connections only made him richer.
Then, seven years ago, at the age of forty-five, Dean found religion. As far as Nick and the other Denver detectives could tell, Derek Dean had no connections with Keigo Nakamura or Keigo’s daddy before the video interview a day before Keigo’s murder. But Dean had been the only Total Immersion Naropa student that Keigo had chosen to interview on camera. He’d only been in Total Immersion a year at that point, but according to the interview with Dean that Nick had flashed on the night before, the exec was a true bel
iever.
One had to be a true believer to pay for the Naropa Total Immersion soul-therapy. Flashback was cheap—a dollar for every minute to be relived—but the Naropa people insisted on using a more potent and sacred version of flashback that they called stotra.
Nick knew that there was no such thing as a more potent version of flashback. Flashback was flashback. Always and everywhere. It couldn’t be attenuated and still work and it couldn’t be improved upon. It was what it was.
But where street flash sold for $15 for a fifteen-minute flash, the same amount at Naropa cost $375.
So Derek Dean was under the flash for eighteen hours a day at $25 a minute. Beyond that, he was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the medical monitoring, for the special diet, and for the “spiritual counseling.”
And these were old dollars.
“Even a fortune of hundreds of millions would disappear quickly in such a quest for enlightenment,” Sato said softly as they approached the garden. It was a hedge maze, but the hedges were only four feet tall so the chances of becoming lost in the maze were low.
“And our friend is only seven years into the process of reliving his entire life,” said Nick. “He has thirty-eight years more to go under the Naropa version of the flash before he catches up to where he started the year before Keigo interviewed him.”
“Does he then have to relive the decades spent reliving?” asked Sato.
Nick glanced quickly, but the security chief’s expression was as stern and unchanging as ever. “That’s a good question,” said Nick. “Shall we ask him?”
“No,” said Sato. “As you might put it, Bottom-san, neither of us gives the slightest shit as to what the answer might be.”
Nick grinned despite himself and they entered the maze.
THE CHANGE IN DEREK Dean was shocking. Nick had seen the man just hours ago while flashbacking the interview, but six years of Total Immersion had taken their toll. Dean had been slightly stocky six years earlier but very energetic, quick, and fit: the kind of country club tennis player who can give the resident pro a decent game. Now Dean had lost at least forty pounds. The once-strong and -florid face, almost always graced with a CEO’s confident smile during Nick’s first interview, was now gaunt and expressionless save for the vague, confused stare that Nick associated with Down syndrome children. Dean’s arms emerging from the loose saffron robe were skeletal stems with flaccid vestiges of muscles hanging loose beneath the bones. The formerly sturdy hands were now an old man’s extension of quivering and twitching sticks in lieu of fingers. Perhaps most disturbing to Nick were Dean’s fingernails, which were three inches long, curved, and piss-yellow.
Dean was sitting on a low bench between the hedge and gravel path, his haunted gaze firmly fixed on the rear door of the auditorium.
Nick sat down on the bench opposite and introduced himself. He did not introduce Sato or offer to shake hands.
“It’s almost time for me to go back… into… under… back,” mumbled Derek Dean in a brittle husk of a voice. “Almost time.”
“Do you remember me, Mr. Dean?” demanded Nick, sharpening his voice to get the man’s attention.
The unfocused gaze moved across Nick’s face. “Yes. Detective Bottom… they told me… Detective Bottom come to see me again. But it’s almost time to go, you see… to go back… you see.”
“We’ll keep it short,” said Nick, not disabusing the former exec of his mistake regarding Nick’s detective status. If Dean’s believing that he was still a cop would move the interview along, then so be it. Nick had identified himself only by name.
Dean had been a shaven-head acolyte six years ago, but Nick had seen photos of the exec with a full head of short, sandy-colored hair. His skin had looked tanned and healthy. Now Dean’s shaven skull was fishbelly white and pocked with small sores.
“Do you remember our earlier interview, Mr. Dean?” asked Nick, resisting the urge to snap his fingers to get the man’s attention.
The limpid but hungry gaze tore itself away from the auditorium door and tried to focus on Nick. “Yes, several weeks ago… yes, Detective. About that Japanese boy who just died. Yes. But you see, since then, Mrs. Howe has said I can work on the Alamo mural in the art room during recess. Did you know that Davy Crockett died at the Alamo?”
Sato made a grumbling interrogative noise.
Nick said, “Is Mrs. Howe your teacher, Derek?”
Dean beamed. He’d lost several teeth in the last six years, despite the fortune he paid for constant medical and dental care here at Naropa. “Yes, Mrs. Howe is my teacher.”
“What grade are you in, Derek?”
“I’m in third grade. Just beginning third grade. And Mrs. Howe said that Calvert and Juan and Judy and I can work on the Alamo mural in the art room during recess. We have enough crayons.”
“Can you remember what I asked you about the murder of Keigo Nakamura, Derek? Do you remember the questions I asked you last time?”
Dean frowned and for a moment seemed to be on the verge of tears. “That was weeks and weeks ago you were here, Detective Bottom. I’ve been so busy since.”
“I can see that,” Nick said.
“If you’re going to shed yourself of karma, you have to visit every moment it accumulated,” said Dean in a stronger, older voice. “Total Immersion is the only possible way to achieve full, mindful awareness in a soul-transformative way, Detective. My spiritual counselors help me reintegrate everything with insight.”
The man sounded like a student reciting something in a foreign language from rote.
“Mr. Dean, did you kill Keigo Nakamura?” said Nick.
“What… kill… a human person?” said Dean, his emaciated fingers going to his cracked lips and sunken cheeks. “Did I, Detective? Do you know? It would help if one of us knew for sure. Did I?”
“Why were you at Keigo Nakamura’s party the night of the murder, Derek?”
“Was I there? Was I really there, Detective? Reality is a relative term, you know. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie might be dead… or maybe they’re still alive somewhere on a contiguous plane.”
“Why were you at Keigo Nakamura’s party the night he was murdered, Derek? Take your time to remember.”
Dean frowned theatrically and set his bony fist under his chin to show that he was thinking hard. After a minute he looked up and showed that gapped, childish smile again. “I was invited! I went because I was invited! And my teacher said that I could go and came with me.”
“Your teacher Mrs. Howe?” asked Nick.
Dean shook his head pendulously and for too long, like a drunk or an annoying child. “No, no, my teacher here at the institute. Shantarakshita Padmasambhava. We called him Art. Art had founded the Yogachara-Madhyamika and was a Great Soul and a great blessing to the institute.”
“Is Art still here? At the Naropa Institute, I mean.”
Dean looked around apprehensively. His hungry gaze returned to the rear door to the auditorium. “Is Shantarakshita Padmasambhava still here at the institute? Yes, of course he is.”
Nick glanced at Sato, who was making a note in his phone.
“Did you…,” began Nick.
“Shantarakshita Padmasambhava died some years ago,” Dean continued happily, “but he’s still here. Yes. This afternoon at recess, Mrs. Howe will let me work on the Alamo mural with Judy and Calvert and… and… and I forget who else. I’m sorry. I try to remember, I try so hard, but I forget.”
The former Google exec began to weep. Snot ran down his cleanly shaven upper lip.
“Juan,” said Nick. “Mrs. Howe said that you could do the mural with Judy and Calvert and Juan.”
Dean beamed and wiped the mucus away with the back of his hand. “Thank you, Detective Bottom.” The fifty-two-year-old giggled. “Bottom is a funny name. Do they call you Ass Boy at school, Detective?”
“Never more than once,” said Nick. He went over to the other bench, sat next to Dean, and grasped the man firmly by the sho
ulder. It was like grabbing pure, brittle bone. Nick knew that if he squeezed hard he would hear snapping sounds. “Mr. Dean, did you kill Keigo Nakamura or do you know who did?”
Dean raised his right hand to fondle Nick’s bare wrist. “I love you, Detective Bottom.”
Sorry that he hadn’t brought a second magazine of 9mm rounds, Nick nodded and said, “I love you, too, Derek. Did you kill Keigo Nakamura or do you know who did?”
“No, Detective, I don’t think so. But I will know!”
“When?”
Dean licked his lips and made a show of counting on his fingers. “I’m seven now… almost seven and a half. That only leaves… a lot of years… before I come back to when Keigo talked to me and died the next day. I’m sorry, Detective.” He began to weep again.
“Jesus Christ,” breathed Nick.
“A great teacher,” said Dean, brightening but not wiping away his tears or snot this time. “But not able to lead us on the true path to satori as quickly or surely as… say… Bodhidharma would.” He turned to look at Sato. The security chief was still using his stylus to write in his phone. “You’re Keigo’s friend Takahishi Satoh, aren’t you? I remember you from the day we recorded the interview.”
Sato grunted.
Dean suddenly jumped to his feet. His expression radiated pure joy through his tears. Two monks had come out of the auditorium’s rear door and were headed for the garden maze and Derek Dean.
Nick and Sato also stood. Nick said, “Do we need any more of this?”
Sato shook his head.
They watched as the two monks, each grasping an elbow, led Derek Dean back into the auditorium toward the waiting bed and IV drip. Dean turned once to wave good-bye, waving his entire forearm, palm flat toward them, the way a seven-year-old would.
Nick and Sato walked down the hill and around the dining hall to where several rickshaws and pedicabs waited, their owners squatting nearby or lounging on their backs in the grass. Across the acres of the Chautauqua Green, sunlight gleamed on circles of saffron robes and bald heads in earnest conversation or silent meditation.