Twenty

Ellen drove me to the beach house and put me to bed. I stayed there for the next two days. I had a fever, and nightmares, and a constant need for her hand on my forehead, her voice in my ear, saying, “It’s all right, Eddie. Go to sleep, now, and rest.”

Gradually I managed to pull out of it. On the third day she showed me the newspaper stories about the fire at Vista Canyon.

The house had burned: the fire had risen through the basement over the photo lab, and by the time an alarm was given it was too late. Jake, Sylvestro and the Professor were presumed to have perished in the flames. As for Miss Bauer—they must have disposed of her remains immediately after I found the deep-freeze, because there was no mention of her at all. Rogers was at the bottom of the hill, his neck broken. They surmised he’d been fleeing from the fire in the cable car when the cable broke.

Of course an investigation was in progress. Police were “linking Otto Hermann, well-known psychological consultant, with an organized cult-racket run from his hideout in the Canyon house.”

Apparently they hadn’t found much to go on. The fire had taken care of that. My name wasn’t mentioned. Judson Roberts wasn’t tied into this deal, and Eddie Haines never had been. He never need be.

I’ve gone back to the office and closed it up. May, the secretary, had already shown enough sense to disappear. She left the Judson Roberts record file behind, though, and I destroyed it completely. Since there’s no connection between Judson Roberts and Eddie Haines, officially, I’m in the clear.

I can leave town with Ellen now, and nobody will ever know what happened. I can even go to work for Caldwell if I like—he’s grateful enough, and he has reason to keep his mouth shut. On the other hand, I can spill the works. I can go to the authorities and lay the whole mess on the table.

There’s no need to “confess” anything. I don’t feel that compulsion. My own part in the racket was no better and no worse than the role played by thousands who still operate their phony “self-help” swindles today.

But that’s just the point. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Maybe it would help someone if I told the truth. Maybe it would make it a little easier for the suckers and a little harder for those who prey upon them. I have no illusions about breaking up the whole system, but it might do some good.

Ellen and I can go away, today. Or I can stay here and face the music, risk taking a rap if they want to pin one on me for what happened. Writing it all down here, the way I have these past weeks, I’ve been trying to make up my mind. I can turn it over to the authorities tomorrow. Or I can burn it, the way the Professor was burned, the way the past was burned.

What should I do? Will I be a seeker or a sucker? And which is which? I think I’m going to leave those questions for Ellen to decide. She’ll know what’s best for me and for both of us.

Yes, I’ll ask her. And whatever she says, I’ll do. Just as long as she remembers to call me “Eddie.”