Your Love Incomplete

YOUR LOVE INCOMPLETE

  BY

  ROBERT BONOMO

  [email protected]

  Kamchatka

  2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Robert Bonomo

  Cover image, Expulsion of the Demons, 17th century anonymous engraving

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Jim Horky for his invaluable

  help bringing this book to fruition and to

  Terence McKenna and Stehpan Hoeller

  for giving me a taste

  of the gnosis.

  For Roger Jerome Radloff

  We are in the soup that is going to be cooked for us.

  Carl Gustav Jung

  They will attempt to destroy anything

  That differs from their own

  Not being able to create art

  They will not understand art

  They will consider their failure as creators

  Only as a failure of the world

  Not being able to love fully

  They will believe your love incomplete

  And then they will hate you

  And their hatred will be perfect

  From Genius of the Crowd

  by

  Charles Bukowski

  Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

  0 - THE FOOL

   Sitting in the audience, I was half listening to Kip while trying to figure out who the other shills were. “Scraping my way by, working ten hours a day, bogged down in debt and full of stress,” Kip explained to the thirty odd member audience, “No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to break out of the cycle. Now I work by the pool of my million dollar home when I am not on the road sharing my good fortune with people like yourselves.”

  The anxious hand and the leading question made it obvious, “Kip, do you have to be glued to a computer screen all day while the markets are open to be able to trade options?” Kip’s black hair was blow dried, giving him a retro seventies feel. He was in his late forties, disarmingly chubby and wearing a loose fitting, short sleeve pink shirt and tan pants.

  “Great question and the answer is no. In fact, at our upcoming weekend training, we’ll teach you how to trade with just ten minutes a day, that’s right, you heard it correctly, just ten minutes a day! How does that sound?” The shills voiced their approval and I squirmed.

  It was my charge in life to get butts in the seats, as we put it, for these “free” two hour seminars that claimed to initiate anyone with a computer and an internet connection to the wonders of options trading. Once we had them there the goal was to sell them a $4,000 seminar. I knew almost exactly what percent of these attendees would buy. These people were usually just numbers on a spreadsheet and to see the conversion event first hand dampened my usual enthusiasm for seducing people out of hard-earned money by engaging their greed.

  Kip discussed the very basics of options, always referring to the weekend training where things would be learned in detail. Then he changed tack and put a picture up on the screen of a girl in her early twenties with a smiling baby. “Now I want to let you all in on a secret, there’s more to life than money and I learned that lesson very well two years ago when I got a call from my daughter Kelly who was a freshman at USC. She was pregnant. I’m sure you can imagine the shock of seeing her life turned upside down but my wife Sage and I were ready to support her anyway we could because we had a prosperous trading business and were confident we could get through it. But that phone call was only the beginning. Our grandson was born with a serious heart condition, but we were able to engage the best doctors and surgeons. Money was not an issue. And now, you can see.” He pointed to a picture of a smiling child. “Could I have done this when I was working ten hours a day for eighty grand? What would have happened to him?” He pointed again to the smiling baby while nodding his head in the poignant silence.

  The hook in all con schemes is greed, and teaching people how to trade was one of the easiest to peddle since there were so many mainstream media outlets dedicated entirely to treating the markets as a winnable casino. The great thing about this racket was the long-term income stream. First, there was the $4,000 weekend training where they were taught to trade using the platform of the brokerage firm that owned or had a stake in the education company. On top of that, they were sold another thousand bucks of software and newsletters. Teach them strategies that need lots of trading, and you make commissions on them until they blow up their accounts.

  But it wasn’t enough to teach them how to play the game, they had to be sold the dream. Kip mixed teaser information on trading with a heavy dose of lifestyle, seasoned with a little God and country until he got to the big finale. “How many people here are ready to change their lives today?” He lifted his hands up high over his head as if he where a prophet; the shills rising on his command. Kip moved down the center aisle of the conference room of the Holiday Inn in San Mateo encouraging the thirty odd attendees to follow him to the back of the room, credit cards in hand, and cough up the money for the two-day weekend seminar that would supposedly change their lives.

  I meandered my way out of the hotel and walked down to the water to smoke a cigarette. I was keeping an eye out for Laurence Gilmore, our CEO, who I was to meet for lunch after the performance. Halfway through my cigarette he waved anxiously for me to follow him into the restaurant. These guys couldn’t imagine letting you finish a cigarette after listening to Kip for two hours.

  Laurence Gilmore had a creepy smile that terrified me. “Tell me Arthur, what did you think of Kip?” I would have loved to tell him the truth.

  “The best I have seen. It helped me see why the key is really the lifestyle pitch, not the actual nuts and bolts of trading. I’m very glad I came.” I hadn’t always been so ingratiating to my bosses but I had taken enough licks to at least, when sober, attempt to conceal my total and utter disdain for the Laurence Gilmore’s of the world. But he wasn’t fooled. He could smell me a mile away but he also needed me because mining the Internet gold was still a mystery to these guys. They were very good at direct mail and television, but they hadn’t figured out the Internet yet and I was making him lots of money, money that he had been leaving on the table before I’d begun to work for him.

  “Arthur,” he paused, the English accent reaching for its most annoyingly pedantic tone. “People want dreams and it’s our job to make them happen. But we also have our own dreams. You know I built this company from nothing, from a one room operation to close to a hundred million dollar business.” He was actually the lawyer for the trader who had started the business and whom Gilmore finagled out of his equity in the post 9/11 pinch. That trader stayed on as the guru brand, but Gilmore owned and ran the show. “I like your work and I want you to play a greater role in our management team. You’ve done a good job for us, but I like to know people more before I begin to offer them key positions, and with that, equity. That’s why I invited you to lunch today.”

  I was afraid to say anything but fortunately he wasn’t waiting for an answer. “We need good, creative, hard working people to bring us to the next level, and those that bring us there will be rewarded handsomely not only with salaries but with equity stakes that will convert nicely once we exit.”

  “What’s your time frame?”

  “Well.” He buttered his bread while the waitress laid down his Caesar salad and my BLT. “2006 is almost in the books, and my plan from here is about two years, say the end of 2008 would be a rough target.” I felt like the suckers who had just been sold a four grand weekend. I had moved to the SF Bay Area two
years before after a long expatriate stint in Europe and the reverse culture shock was at its most sublime. I wanted nothing to do with careers, homes, wives or families. Maybe it was my upcoming fortieth birthday, maybe it was something else, but his pitches were way out of the strike zone and he knew it.

  “Tell me Arthur, what is it you want?” I looked too openly surprised.

  “You mean, in general?” I immediately realized that was not what he meant, but it was too late.

  “Yes, tell me, what are you looking for in life?” He forced an expression of interest.

  “I’m looking for a challenge. I like what I do and I’m good at it, manipulating people’s thoughts in order to change their behavior. In this case, getting them to buy seminars, open trading accounts etc. But I want to do something bigger and I think we can, from this educational structure we have created, from this very good brand...” I was losing him; he smelled a northern California freak show.

  I was locked up in my bat cave office and did my stuff without having to bother too many people and without them bothering me. This had an upside of course, but the downside was that I had lost the rhythm of corporate speak and instead had created a personal brand out of speaking my mind. Being blunt can be cute in a manager, but it’s is not a sought after quality in folks higher up on the food chain.

  I wanted to tell him what I thought of his company, of his con men speakers and his entire pack of lies operation. What I had started out to say was just that, but in a good way. Let’s do something with this platform we have, let’s try and change the world and make some cash doing it. I started out with passion but wound up my speech feeling like I was looking up at him from a bean bag chair.

  “Very interesting Arthur, next month at our yearly brainstorming weekend, bring that up, show us the plan, you know I’m not afraid to take risks. But I wanted to talk specifically about your role in this company. As you know, Karen has a great marketing background and has done wonders for us, but you’re the Internet expert and that’s clearly where things are headed, so we are considering moving some of the pieces around. One idea we had was to move Karen over to lead the new Forex company and have you take over as the Director of Marketing.”

  It was the last thing I had expected. I had always considered myself a lone wolf, and this would mean coming in from the cold. I would have to take a big slug of Kool-Aid, put up with the tirades, the megalomania and all the lies. Laurence squinted then moved himself back in his chair. Mine had never been a poker face and he had gotten a good glimpse of my horror.

  What I would have done to have had that poker face. I hadn’t only lost the director’s job that I didn’t want; I was pretty sure I had lost the cushy job I did have. These guys don’t like being looked at that way. I was done and I knew it.

  “Just an idea Arthur, think it over, let me know next week. In the meantime, we’ll keep tossing around options.”

  Driving south down 101 I had the feeling that I would have to move on when all I wanted was to keep my comfortable, empty life exactly as it was. I had become an old man at thirty-nine. I’d had enough adventures and all I wanted at that point was steady work, my small rented apartment, my bottle of wine, and two or three whiskeys a day, with a couple of packs of cigarettes to boot. I was already starting to get that bloated drunk look but I’d given up caring. I had left a live-in girl in Europe two years before and hadn’t had so much as a date since. I had no savings but no debt, no friends, and practically no interests except for my conspiratorial obsessions that I did my best to keep hidden behind anonymous online avatars.

  The farther down the road I went toward lonely, middle aged, alcoholic oblivion, the more conspiracies I saw. They were everywhere but I had an inkling of what was behind them. I wasn’t delusional; each new conspiracy gave me one more excuse.

  I almost turned off my own exit at San Carlos before I realized that I had another appointment that Saturday, an appointment that suddenly seemed fateful. A few days before I’d received an email from a man named Dr. Razanoff. He said he’d found my email through an online search and that he had been a friend of my father and asked me to come see him on that Saturday. It seemed like a strange coincidence to meet him right after my chat with the boss.

  I took an exit west in Woodside and began an ascent on a winding road beneath the overhang of massive trees. It seemed like a different world from the sunny sprawling freeway of five minutes ago. Down a small road to a long gravel driveway, the dark wooden house was set in among the massive redwoods and sequoias. It was apparently his home and office and he had asked that I enter a side entrance and wait for him in the library. There was an ashtray outside the door, so I smoked before entering. The cool, moist, forest air and the immense trees gave the place a very mysterious feel.

  My father had worked for the CIA as a civilian in Vietnam and had gone MIA in 1969 when I was two. I had no recollection of him and knew him only through pictures. My grandfather had been a professor of religion in Colorado and my father had studied Classics and did a Masters in Russian studies before joining the CIA. What he actually did in Vietnam had always been a mystery, as were the events surrounding his death.

  My mother simply told me that he was a good man, a brave man and that he was someone to be proud of but I was sure she had no idea what he was doing in Vietnam. I went into the waiting room and sat in one of the two chairs. I had never seen a library quite like it. It was about thirty by twenty feet, wall to wall books with a bottom shelf wrapping the room with hundreds of LP’s. There were many large leather bound editions, some with his initials on the binding. The Classical radio station played and I sat in wonder at the variety, from the complete works of Jung to Dashiel Hammet and a big section of esoteric volumes, including some ominous grimoires.

  After a few moments the door opened and he approached with a warm smile, a handshake and a pat on the shoulder. “Arthur, so good to meet you. Mikhail Razanoff, please call me Misha. Come in.” He led me through what I assumed was his consultation room into the house itself. We we sat in a big sitting room that looked out through large glass doors to the forest beyond. There was a standing metal ashtray and without asking if I smoked he told me I could. After the formalities he explained that he was a psychotherapist and this was his home and office. He was very precise in his movements. He wore an expensive suit without a tie and had a mustache and goatee, with thinning salt and pepper hair, served straight back with some gel. He didn’t seem American and there was some remnant of an accent, but too slight to place.

  He looked at me directly and just as I was going to ask him how he knew my father, he began. “I suppose you are wondering how I knew your father and why I waited so long to get in touch with you. He would have been sixty-five this December; we had the same birthday, same day same year, two Sagittarius’s. We shared a flat in London for a year and became very close. He studied Russian language and as I’m Russian that only created a closer bond. His Russian was quite good; he had a true gift for language. I even understand that he’d become proficient in Vietnamese.”

  A middle aged man walked into the room with a tray with coffee, tea, and pastries. He placed it down on the table and exited after a slight nod from Misha. Misha served me coffee and himself tea and continued. “I saw your father for the last time in Washington six months before he died. Do you speak any other languages?”

  “Spanish fluently, reasonable Italian, and a very spotty French.” He began to speak in Italian, asking me a few questions about my travels. His Italian was almost flawless, with just the slightest hint of a French accent. He then switched back to English to inquire about my current situation.

  “Have you ever been married Arthur?”

  “Never, a few long-term live in arrangements, but never a marriage.” I had the distinct feeling he knew the answers before he asked.

  “Were you given any details regarding your father’s disappearance
?”

  “Nothing, my mother was told that it was a classified mission and that he most certainly had been killed in action though they had never recovered a body. Strange thing is that she thought he was out of harm´s way, translating. I understand the shock was quite severe, though of course I was too young to remember any of it.”

  And he moved on, which seemed to be the keynote, at least that day. “As we live in a time of constant wars, Vietnam seems a long way off. It was an interesting time, not only because of the debate surrounding the war, there really was a widespread awakening, particularly in this area of California. When your father entered the CIA, I came out here and began my PhD in psychology at Stanford. Strange as it may seem, we were both working for the CIA, though I indirectly, as they were funding my research into psychedelics. Your father actually was involved in that program, I’m not sure if your mother was aware of that.”

  “I’d never heard about it from her, or anyone for that matter. Did you know my mother passed away? It was two-years ago. What exactly was being investigated in your research?”

  “Yes, I’m very sorry about your mother. We were studying ways to improve the physical and mental performance of soldiers. It was serendipitous to be linked to your father. It was a very interesting time and we were closer than ever working on that project, when suddenly all the funding was cut off with no warning. Just an official notification to cease all experimentation with hallucinogens, but the genie was out of the bottle. It’s no coincidence that Silicon Valley is where it is.”

  “So my father experimented with them?”

  “Yes, of course, we all did, those of us involved in the program that is.” He looked at me rather intensely. I was quite certain he was contemplating which side of the river I was on.

  “Can you tell if someone has dropped acid or not, just by having a brief conversation, like this one?” I asked and he chuckled.

  “I see you want me to give you a little show, well, lets see. LSD, yes, Mescaline, yes, Ayahuasca, no, DMT no. And, I would say, around fifteen times or so.” He didn’t wait for confirmation and he didn’t need any- he was right on, eerily so. “Arthur, are you religious? Do you have a spiritual life?”

  “More spiritum than spiritus, unfortunately, but I have poked around a lot. Of course I was raised Episcopalian, got pretty serious about Zen for a while after a long bout of atheism and now I am in one of those vague states of mostly spiritum.” He nodded.

  “Yes, your father Jim was also fond of drinking and it played a role in his death. That’s a habit you need to kick; if not you’ll waste it all. But that will happen on its own, I’m quite certain.” I wanted to ask what he meant by waste “it all” and my father’s death, but I let it go for some reason. “Nonetheless, Jim and I spent many a pleasurable evening drinking and discussing the world. I miss him, even after all these years. One doesn’t make friends like that more than once or twice in a lifetime. In that spirit, excuse the pun, what are your plans for this evening? I believe you live near San Carlos Airport?”

  “Yes, just a few miles from there, in Redwood Shores.” I hadn’t told him where I lived. I could often be short with people who I thought where pushing it, and he was pushing it. But there was something about him that wouldn’t allow me to get angry. I had no feeling whatsoever that he was playing with me; he was simply telling me in no uncertain terms that he knew quite a lot about me. Moreover, my tin hat alter ego was ecstatic. “I don’t have any plans for the evening.”

  “Superb. We’ll follow you home, you can drop your car off and then we can have dinner at a chop house that’s adjacent to the airport. I have to catch a flight tonight and Harold can then drop you back home. It will be my great pleasure to invite you to dinner, Arthur.” I don’t think I had ever been treated with such dignity.

  He seemed very comfortable and it made me feel like we had known each other for a long time. Once we got settled into a bottle of wine I even had the feeling he might be imagining he was with my father. When we began talking of music I told him I had dug into my father's old LP’s and latched on to a few. He asked which ones and I told him the Carl Shurict version of Beethoven’s 7th was a favorite. He paused for a moment then ordered a second bottle of wine and I was beginning to lose the fear of indulging in a few of my conspiratorial ideas. “Misha, what do you think my father would have thought of the situation we are in? Here we are, more than five years after 9/11 and we’re still fighting two wars, the one in Iraq, it seems for no good reason.”

  “Why do you say no good reason? Do you believe it was an accident, a simple foreign policy miscalculation?” This was a man who spoke eloquently but directly and I’d heard from many people that my father was not one to mince words either. He was inviting me to be frank, and I was tremendously grateful.

  “No, I don’t. I think it was clearly on the agenda of the neo-cons from the mid 1990’s, but they couldn’t get the leverage they needed until 9/11.” The world first divided into those who had taken hallucinogens and those who hadn’t and now was dividing again on those who believed the official version of 9/11 and those who didn’t.

  He asked, “So you believe the official version?” I smiled, and took a drink of wine. There was no need for clarification.

  “Shall we step outside and smoke?” He agreed. Once out on the deck in the night I inhaled deeply and began. “I frankly don’t know, but I would speculate that the probability of the attacks occurring as the official version has it are very low. I won’t harp on the obvious, but what really did it for me was the lack of any serious journalism regarding that day. It has all become sacred taboo, which is a very good indication that something big is being hidden.”

  He nodded, “Well put. It brings to mind that dubious quote from Goebbels about the size of the lie and how often it has to be told. I don’t know if he actually said it, but if he didn’t he should have. You know, I remember having conversations similar to this with your father regarding Vietnam. When he came back from his first tour something had changed in him. For me, not being American, it was different; I had other dragons to slay. Of course there are many, the most important ones being the dogmas that block our spiritual lives. You know Arthur, if it were only about the politics of war, as horrible as it is, it wouldn’t be so bad. But the lie is all pervasive.”

  We had finished two bottles of wine and were both sipping good Scotch. I didn’t notice the alcohol on him in the least and I was making an effort to keep from getting sloppy. His big lie statement had me intrigued.

  “I see, in a small way, what you mean about the lie. All I do at work is lie, that’s my job, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating if I say my work consists in misleading people. Sure, we tell the truth about some things- the price, the dates, who the speaker will be, etc. But the essence of what I do is sell people fantasies, pseudo philosopher’s stones. And of course, this is not the first place I’ve worked, it’s always been the same. And, as they say, As is above, is below. I really don’t think it’s any different at the top.”

  “Arthur, no matter where you look, dig and you will find it. From Yahweh to the dollars we all race after, romantic love, the history we study and the products we buy. But it takes a certain amount of maturity to see this. It’s hard to tell a twenty-five year old that there’s something other then sex, love and money. And that’s as it should be. That’s what should be underpinning the worldview of people that age, but once you reach forty or so something should change. You know Jung said he wasn’t interested in patients under forty.” It didn’t escape me that my fortieth birthday was looming.

  For the first time that day his phone sounded. “Thank you Harold.” He hung up and smiled. “We should be going; my plane will be arriving soon. Maybe we can stretch our legs and have a smoke?” San Carlos Airport was a small private complex serving the Silicon Valley crowd. Harold waited in the car as we walked through the small entra
nce where the guard greeted him silently as we walked out to the tarmac. The runway was dark and we navigated our way through tied down planes to the where the pavement met the grass and he asked me for a cigarette. He had no luggage, not even a briefcase. “Arthur, do you think you will be staying in California?”

  “I have a feeling I will be moving on, maybe to New York; all the evil makes it homier. It can get a little lonely out here.”

  “Yes, I think New York might be the right place at this point. I’m there quite often, even more so since I am winding down my practice here and working on some other projects.” Suddenly, from the far end of the landing strip the runway lights began flickering and turning on, two by two, until they reached our end. I looked up into the sky and heard the sound of a plane and could make out the lights in the distance as they quickly descended. We watched the twin engine turbo prop land and taxi toward us, its lights blinking. “Arthur, it has been a wonderful pleasure getting to know you. We will be in touch.” He shook my hand, squeezed my shoulder then walked toward the plane.

  A door opened and the small ladder slid down to the ground. Once he was on the plane we waved to each other and he pulled the door up and secured it. Quickly the engines were restarted and the aircraft moved back out onto the runway and in what seemed a matter of seconds, was airborne. I stood looking at the lights as they began going off again, two by two.

  I - THE MAGICIAN

  Sixty unread emails glared at me on a Wednesday afternoon. A knock, the door opened and a small twenty-three year old nervously began. “Arthur, what am I supposed to do about getting those leads for Columbus University?” I breathed deeply trying to invent something, but nothing came out. Mercifully, Ted Baine from Human Resources interrupted.

  “Arthur, your four o’clock interview is here.”

  “Okay, Shelley, comeback in before you leave and we’ll think of something for those leads, Ted, who is this one?”

  “The Russian, remember I told you about her?”

  I had moved to New York right before Christmas and began the new job on January 2, 2007. What I thought was a real ad network turned out to be just a chop shop that bought cheap leads and sold them expensive.

  Bernstein Media was an affiliate network which was supposed to be a group of websites with a software platform that allows advertisers to place their ads across all the sites and to create sales and leads. The advertiser should be able to track which websites and advertisements (‘creatives’ in ad parlance) their best sales leads come from and optimize accordingly, but in practice it was all about smoke and mirrors. Bernstein bought leads from shady characters who had those ‘click here and win a cruise’ type of advertisements known as incentivized funnels, so in reality Bernstein Media had no idea where its leads came from. Bernstein would buy them, slap a code on them that gave them a fictitious origin and sell them at double what he bought them for. Most of his customers were half baked online universities, get rich quick schemes and hair replacement therapies; I’d gone from one class of con men to another.

  It was the end of February and seven of the eight media buyers on my team when I arrived had already left. My friendly New York bosses had forgotten to inform me that just before I came on board they were going to change the commission structure for the buyers, basically cutting all their salaries by twenty-percent in a buoyant job market. The honeymoon literally lasted about five days when the first one left, and one left just about every week after that until I just had one experienced buyer left. I had to hire and train an entirely new team before I had any real idea how the agency worked. I’d completely forgotten who the Russian was. “Sorry Ted, I’ll be right there.” I raced through my stack of unfiled papers for the resume and saw the Russian name- Irina Petrovna Morozova.

  “She’s here for Tuccis’s spot, right?”

  “Yes sir.” His Midwestern manners were a godsend in that evil corner of the world. “I like this girl; she’s tough as nails, not like the rich little bimbos these guys like to hire. Give her a talking to and let me know what you think.”

  These almost daily interviews in the late afternoons had become a reprieve; I probably talked to them more than I should have but I found it relaxing. I walked into the big conference room, shook her hand and sat at the head of the long table and she sat to my left. She was slight, teeth a little big, full lips, a strong nose and long sandy hair pulled back and hanging over her forehead in bangs. She was in her late twenties and seemed much more mature than team of the youngsters I had put together in the last two months. The tan blouse, long skirt, and black boots all seemed too big for her. I started off with the general questions about the degree from Russia in journalism and the current job, secretary for a Russian business man paying $29,000.

  “Did you tell them you were making twenty-nine?”

  “No, Ted didn’t ask.” The accent was there but it wasn’t overwhelming.

  “Good, tell them you are making 39K and you want 42K to change.” I immediately liked this girl a lot but that wasn’t so strange. I had been out of the country for almost ten years before coming back in 2005 for the gig out west and I still couldn’t tune in to American women. She was smart, direct and sensual without ever doing or saying anything sexual. She had no superfluous expressions or smiles, it was all real. I talked to her about the business, gave her a mini-lesson on media buying then began my requisite criticism test.

  “You know Irina, looking at your resume, there are some things I would change.” I always found some random details and offered the criticism- how they responded was what counted. “I would get rid of this job as a waitress, it’s irrelevant and distracts from the bigger picture. Also, don’t put your age here; we don’t do that in the US.” Twenty-nine. Good age I thought, for a forty-year old.

  “Okay.” She took a pen from a cup on the table and scratched out the age and the other job. That was the correct answer.

  “Tell me. What do you want?” It came out wrong, but before I could fix it, she began to answer.

  “You mean, in life?” I didn’t want to get that direct, but on the other hand, she intrigued me more that was good for me, so I nodded.

  “I want house, with a swing, a child and dog.” I chuckled, knowing she was trouble.

  “Let me have you talk to Rich Winde, the VP of Operations. Hold on while I check to see if he has a minute.” I got up and left to see Winde who was a fat pothead a few years younger than me, a really good salesman but he knew nothing about media.

  “Winde, I’m interviewing a girl for Tucci’s spot. I like her.”

  “Show me the resume.” The Long Island accent was very strong.

  He glanced up at me and the glow from his eyes made it clear he had just smoked a bomber. “I don’t like Russians, the accent, it turns people off.”

  “But I thought you said your grandfather was Russian; the accent’s not so bad.”

  “Russian Jew.” As if it made a difference to me.

  “Just talk to her.” I insisted but it didn’t go well and she picked up on it as Winde was pushing back. I had the strong urge to just to cut her loose and God only knows where I would have wound up if I had.

  But I didn’t. There was another media buyer’s spot open and I pitched it to Winde. He said I had to clear it with the sales woman she would be working with, Saperstein. Saperstein was a piece of work but she was also the best salesperson at the firm. I went back into the conference room and leaned back in the big chair. “As you probably can imagine, Winde is not completely convinced, but I think you would be a good fit for the team so let’s try one more angle, okay?” She nodded. She had seen the collapse of the Soviet Union so I didn’t think this was going to overwhelm her. I picked up the phone, dialed and looked at Irina. “This will be interesting.”

  “Get in here. I need to talk to you now. It’s urgent.” And I hung up. Irina was unfazed. The door opened and Sapperstein stuck her head in. />
  "What?" She demanded.

  “Debbie darling, this is Irina, Irina, this is Debbie Sapperstein. I think she would be a great fit for us as the media buyer to handle the Just Trade account. If you could just give us a few minutes to chat and see what you think. I explained to Irina that she would be working very closely with you.” Saperstein was in her early forties and was wearing tight pants, lots of makeup, hair in a pony tail and exposing a big cleavage, an interesting contrast to the waify Irina. After a few minutes of chit chat she got up and asked me to leave the room with her for a moment.

  “You really think this girl can handle the account?”

  “This is the type of person I need: bright, serious and good with numbers. Do me a favor, talk to Winde, tell him you want her; he’ll listen to you.”

  “I think you want to fuck her.”

  “And? I closed that account for you. Without me, no account, so be a sweetheart and talk to Winde. Let me know, I’ll keep her here for another ten minutes.” Winde had just come out of the bathroom after doing a few lines of blow and Saperstein caught him in the hall in full ecstasy while I followed at reasonable distance.

  “Winde, I want to hire the Russian.” Winde was terrified of Saperstein. Once in his office, after posing minor opposition he began to yell loudly.

  “Okay, okay.” He screamed with all 320 pounds of his flesh. “Edwards, bring the Russian in here.”

  Saperstein gave him a look of motherly scorn. “Winde, her name is Irina. Don’t scream.”

  “Okay, okay.” He was breathing hard, pulling up his pants and standing behind his desk. Everyone’s attention was now on the room. I walked her into his office where all the interested parties were standing. “Irina, welcome to Bernstein Media, I hope you have a great career!”

  Bain jumped in. “Winde, remember the protocol of hiring? References, approval from Tom, etc.?”

  Winde was unimpressed. “Ahh, she’s hired.” I walked her to the door and she squeezed my wrist and smiled. “Thank you Arthur, I see how that wasn’t easy.”

  But the day wasn’t over. I had closed the Just Trade account for Saperstein but now we had to explain what we were going to do for them. Bernstein Media was not in the habit of actually buying media and creating leads and the owner and CEO, Tom Bernstein, was slow, dull and cheap. The sales manager, Barry Friedman, was a good looking fifty year old who had done very well in the direct mail days but had never really made the transition to online. Winde was mercifully lost somewhere in cocaine paradise and Saperstein was presiding. We all sat in the conference room and Saperstein began, “Arthur has done this for two other companies, he knows what works and he told them we would build a website, make the creatives, and generate the leads.”

  Bernstein was ready to begin his long drone. He was tall, big lipped, and had the annoying habit of playing with his tie too much. “Are you charging them for building the website?”

  “Tom, we are charging them $100 a lead, Edwards says we can generate them for about $40, the website is included.”

  “What if he’s wrong, are you going to go back and charge them? We don’t know how much this stuff costs.” I was always amazed how they could talk about me as if I weren’t there.

  Barry began to roll his eyes which was his nervous twitch, then began talking. “Why don’t we just buy leads from the regular sources? We can get leads like this for $10.”

  Bernstein now was ready for his Soup Speech and Barry began another massive rolling of his eyes. “Arthur, the key to this business is creating the right soup, the right combination of good, converting leads, and not so good cheap leads. You are giving them champagne and they are paying for beer.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Well, remember how I got here? Buying your leads for $10. I believe we talked about how they converted. Not one converted to a sale. These companies buy leads to get sales, if there are no sales, the money is thrown away. Don’t forget, I worked on the marketing side and they will source the leads as I did, meaning they will identify where each lead came from.” I looked directly at Bernstein. “If the client has no idea what he’s doing, has no other source of leads, then yes, I agree with you. On the other hand, if they have some semblance of intelligence and ability to look at data, as I believe these folks do, after they have the first batch of a hundred leads they will cut us off. Sure, we will make a very nice margin, $90 a lead, about nine grand. And then we are done. On the other hand, if we can actually generate some good leads ourselves buying financial media instead of just buying the leads cheap from someone else, then we not only establish a profitable, long term account, but we can expand this side of the business.”

  Bernstein began to roll his pen instead of play with his tie and Barry gave me an exaggerated nod but I wondered if they understood anything I’d said. Bernstein began. “We work for a minimum of a 40% margin. Less than that it’s not interesting for us, how do you know you can do that?”

  “By looking at the data,” I insisted but he shrugged his shoulders as if I were pitching him a vacuum cleaner. I decided to call his bluff. “Okay, look, let’s do it your way. We’re guaranteed a very good margin and maybe we can generate some quality leads on the search side to improve the soup, as you like to say. We will certainly save a lot of work that way.”

  Saperstein jumped in. “Tom, I told them we would create an exclusive website for them, and Arthur told them what the conversions would be, that’s how I got them to sign a 100k contract. Let’s not fuck this up being cheap. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

  “All right, go ahead.” As Tom gave the okay, Barry began shaking in some weird ecstasy.

  I decided to tie up the loose ends while I had them all in the room. “Okay, can we bring Stein, Ryan and Rudy in here? I want it clear what we need and when.” Tom called them from the conference room phone.

  Stein, a Yale grad, strolled in. He was way too classy for that shop and should have been at Walter Thompson or something of the like. Stein greeted us and then asked. “How can I help you?” Bernstein explained. Stein came from the world of print magazines and was the Creative Director at Bernstein Media. He had no idea how the internet worked but at least he realized it, and his best designer was Ryan, a California surfer kid I liked to drink with. I told them what I needed from a design and copy standpoint, knowing Ryan would get the gist of it and knock out a reasonable mock up. The Russian Rudakoff, or Rudy, a complete basket case, would build the site. I got along with him and apparently I was the only one in the whole agency who could get him to do anything.

  Barry began pointing to his massive Rolex and making faces. Time to leave. I headed back to my office to finish up but was cut off in the hall by my best media buyer, Ricky Perlini. “Arthur, let’s go down to the street and have cigarette.”

  “Good idea, but you don’t smoke.” As I turned to head out the door and to the elevator Ryan met us. “This looks like a conspiracy in the making.”

  “It is.” said Perlini. We stood on 3rd Ave and 43rd street and Ryan and I smoked. Perlini was the only one of the original eight media buyers left and hopefully he wouldn’t be leaving soon. Why a twenty-three year old with a Princeton education would want to work in that place for 40K when he could have been at an investment bank making 125K was beyond me. He was small, ambitious, sneaky, and but I needed him, at least until I got a new team up and running.

  “So what’s up with the new hire?” Ryan asked and Perlini looked on curiously.

  “She seems smart and serious and I need someone to handle the Just Trade account. Poor thing. Saperstein is going to make her miserable.” I watched the people walk toward Grand Central in droves and wondered why I was in New York.

  We got out of the elevator and walked down the hall and my team of media buyers stood by my desk, Shelly smiling sweetly at me, a bottle of Bastardo wine in hand and everyone began to sing happy birthday to me. “Happy Birthday, boss!
” Perlini gave me a carton of Marlboro Lights and they told me they were taking me out for drinks. As I closed up my office I looked at my emails and saw one from Irina.

  “Thank you so much for all you did, I promise to be a good worker.” And right behind hers one from Misha.

  Dear Arthur,

  I am glad to see that you have made a change. This is going to be an exciting and challenging time for you. You have some dragons to slay, but you will slay them. I will be in New York sometime in the near future and I hope we can see each other.

  Warm Regards,

  Dr. Mikhail Razanoff

  As we walked toward the bar someone shouted out to Winde who was walking behind us with Barry the VP of Sales. He looked like Ariel Sharon swinging his fat belly with Barry’s artificial tan glowing beside him.

  Once at the bar Winde lined up Irish car bombs for the boys and by the third one everyone was lit up. Barry, who up until that point had kept me at an arms length not sure I could cut with them, was doing his best schmoozing. “Richy, you should have seen him. I thought Tom was going to blow a gasket. Kid, you really know how to handle him. The Sap told me you did a great job closing the Just Trade account. You gotta help us more. We need more accounts like that one. I want to set you up a meeting with Ebony Magazine; we’ve been talking to them and I know you can close them.”

  “Sure, I’d be glad to. Those kinds of accounts can open up a lot of other interesting ones.” It felt good to be on top of my game.

  Ryan and Rudy grabbed me to go out and have a smoke. I could feel Rudy was cooking something up as he asked me about the Just Trade account. “Arthur, are they really selling those trading leads for $100 a pop?”

  “Yeah, good price.” I told him.

  “Are you going to manage the whole buy, or is Sap gonna be in control?” Rudy inquired.

  “She will be looking things over but it’s pretty much in my hands. I come from that sector. Why do you ask?” The three of us had been out a few times drinking and had let each other know we weren’t averse to making an extra buck if the opportunity presented itself.

  Rudy nervously flicked his cigarette and asked, “If you can approve affiliate websites for the account maybe we can do a little business on the side?”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Look, I can re-source say 15% of the leads from Bernstein’s website to another one I own, and then we can sell them back to Bernstein.”

  I nodded. What he wanted to do was basically take 15% of the leads we got from advertising and change the code to make it look like they came from another website that he owned and sell them back to Bernstein media for around $50. He and Ryan had been doing this through some guys they had set up in Astoria. I had been thinking the same thing but I hadn’t told them that I had stolen the database of my old company, 60K emails of people who had bought similar products. Sober, I would have thought it over before blurting it out but between the drinks and the good day I’d had, I spelled it out for them. Ryan, apart from designing, also handled our internal emailing and Rudy was the IT Director. We would mail to my list, on Bernstein’s dime, and source the leads to an affiliate we owned, and then sell the leads back to Bernstein. I also had a pal in Florida who could work as a front for a 20% cut, giving us two new sources to sell leads back to Bernstein. We would become the “source” of a nice chunk of the leads and pocket an extra five grand or so each a month. I could see in their eyes that this wasn’t the booze talking; they wanted to do it.

  “All right guys.” I told them. “I’ll give you the database, mail to them as if we were sending from the source of the guy in Florida and the guy in Astoria, split it up. We give them 20%, they give us the difference in cash once they get paid.” We were all in.

  I’d had enough of Bernstein Media for one day and I made my exit claiming I had to meet my cousin for a birthday drink. A successful day, but what had I done? Only swindled and cajoled. It would have been easy to think I had done something for the Russian girl but I knew I had ulterior motives. That was New York and it scared me to think how much I was enjoying being a rascal.

  I took a long walk in the cold down 3rd Ave and decided to have a few in my local on 39th and 2nd Ave at an Irish place three blocks from my apartment. It was a relief to be among people whose only motivation was to get loaded.

  The place was empty except for a Wall Street type sitting in the middle of the bar. I pulled up a few stools away from him and Merv, the bartender, set me up. I was deep in my cups but still coherent and I felt like talking so I struck up a conversation with the Wall Street guy who turned out to be a very bright gas trader on the NYMEX. We talked markets a bit and then got onto the topic of insider trading. There had been rumors of a few people cashing in on some big money options trades placed on the airlines before 9/11 but the official version was that they had simply been following a trading newsletter that had recommended shorting the airlines. Something about him pushed me to pop the question.

  “So, Kevin, do you think there was anyone who knew, maybe from Al Qaeda, or from Saudi Arabia, about what was going to happen on 9/11 and traded on it?” I’d just had a haircut so my salt and pepper hair was very short and the suit was not an expensive one; it wasn’t unfathomable that I was some kind of government employee. Looking somewhat Irish and being a regular didn’t help. He tensed up.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious, always seemed strange to me that there was no follow up that way. As far as I understand it, it’s pretty simple to see who makes a trade and if they have made similar type trades before.”

  “Uh huh, strange how you brought the conversation around to that. Do you work for the government?”

  “Of course not.” I showed him my card and Merv confirmed that I was drunk advertising hack.

  “Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to get paranoid, it’s just that I have gotten some flack for airing my non-official story opinions. To answer your question, not really. I haven’t seen anything in that area that really smelled of a smoking gun, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something there.”

  Merv set us up with a round on the house and came to our side of the bar, sitting between us. It was just the three of us and I had never seen Merv get too engaged in any conversation. He was one of those bartenders who know how to jab and move conversationally, keep everyone happy without ever really satisfying them. I had a spectacular buzz on, a very rare, wonderful drunken euphoria that keeps you drinking for years and years trying to find another one.

  Merv must have heard this guy before, and respected him. “Tell me Kevin, what flipped you, what made you stop believing the official version of 9/11?” Merv asked.

  “The first thing was watching how Building 7, the building that didn’t get hit by a plane, fell. I watched that video many times and it looked too much like a controlled demolition for me to believe it fell because of fire damage. And the other thing was and the piloting maneuver into the Pentagon. A guy who had never flown a jet in his life performed a maneuver that the most experienced airline pilots could probably not do. Merv, you remember that conversation we had with the airline pilot?”

  “Sure do.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  Merv began to recount the story. “Basically, this guy was a captain for American Airlines, about fifty-five. Had been an F-15 pilot and had flown a bunch of missions in the first Gulf War. He was no Truther, you know, the people who don’t believe the official story, he was a serious chap. Anyway, he was telling us a story of how he was taking off from Kennedy for Europe, fully loaded, and just as he gets airborne he loses an engine, stalled, maybe a few hundred meters in the air, and with that, we started talking about maneuvers and what a plane like that can handle. He was a bit juiced, but under control, and I popped the question to him about what he thought regarding 9/11 and if those terrorist pilots could have really flown those planes as remarkably as they did.” />
  Merv got up to lock the door and grab a few ashtrays and Kevin continued the story for him. “I asked him what he thought of the terrorist’s training, I eased him into it. I said they must have got some really good training to pull off that incredible feat of putting those planes on the bull’s eyes like they did. And this guy, a real rocket jock, all American type if you ever saw one, lets us in a little secret. He says first off that he is no Truther and is sure that these Arab guys did this stuff but he says something was not right about the official story on the Pentagon plane. He explained the maneuver of the aircraft, the 7,000 ft descent in two and a half minutes, and the final 270 degree turn and the perfect hit on the side of the Pentagon. He said it was like a normal driver getting into an Indy car for the first time and doing three perfect laps at 200 mph, possible but extremely unlikely. But then he buttons up all of a sudden, like he let the cat out of the bag and then Merv here throws this guy one hell of a knuckle ball.” They both laugh.

  “Merv he tells him ‘So the Feds did the maneuver on the simulator and the plane cracked up. I know, I have heard that from some other folks.’ The guy starts looking around. ‘Where did you hear that, that’s classified information?’ Merv here gives him the Irish mafia wink and nod, and this guy, he’s from Alabama or something, he buys it. Then Merv squares up to him and asks him for the real deal, what is the story on the Pentagon plane and this guy says he is sure that something is not right, he said he wasn’t even sure the plane would hold together at that speed and altititude.”

  I look at Merv. “You pulled it right out of your ass? Unfuckingbelievable!” He nods, both of them laughing.

  “Look.” Merv starts. “I don’t know what the fuck happened that day, but I sure as fuck would like to know and what we do know is that the official story is a crock of shit.” I had never heard him talk about politics. “You know, people tell things to bartenders; we hear a lot of stuff. I don’t talk about this to many people but I know what’s up with folks, you’re okay. But in general, I don’t go into these things. Too controversial. But I know one guy, drinks in here once every blue moon. You’ve seen him, low key, good fellow. Works for a big paper, very big. So I am in here one night closing up with him and I let him know about this story. Arthur, nothing, no expression. Guy just nods, good guy. I ask him, ‘Why don’t you follow this up, the fucking story of the century?’ You know what he says? He says ‘We don’t go there.’ And I ask why, and he just says, fucking dead on, he says, ‘It ain’t in the script’ and changes the subject, starts talking about fucking football. That, that’s how I know what the score is. The rest, I don’t fucking know shit about planes or falling buildings. Even the pilot, just because a simulator says it can’t happen, doesn’t mean the simulator isn’t wrong. But when a reporter for a big paper says, ‘Ain’t in the script’, that’s how I know, that’s my thermometer.”

  “I see lots of stuff in the markets, very wild stuff.” Kevin said. “Then I read the papers, all this bullshit financial news. Most of the time, they just make it up, really. They have no idea why oil is up or equities are down. But sometimes there are big things happening, things that just about everyone who is someone knows, and it never gets out. You never hear about it. The key is to pay attention to what they don’t say, what they don’t talk about. That’s where the truth is, in the blank spaces.”

  II - THE HIGH PRIESTESS

  I couldn’t figure out if she looked Indian or Polynesian in the blue silk robe as she sat at the kitchen counter of her posh midtown apartment and drank tea from a big yellow cup. “Monsieur, your coffee.” She slid the mug across the counter. “And here is your assignment for the morning.” She handed me the text of a speech on climate change that I'd offered to proof before her boss presented it at a UN meeting the following week. “In the meantime, I’ll take a look at your natal chart.”

  As she spoke I remembered how we met. She was sitting uncomfortably at midtown bar popular with folks from the UN. When I began talking to her she seemed strange and quirky and my crazy alarm was ready to sound general quarters when she looked deep in my eyes and said. “You’re a Pisces, aren’t you?” That threw a wrench in everything. I have always had a soft spot for wacky, but her wacky, creepy, witchy was too much to resist. From that moment we began to see each other a few times a week and we were spending our first weekend together.

  She was creepy and cute at the same time. In her bedroom she had a big framed picture of Madam Blavatsky whose piercing eyes gazed down on our most intimate moments. I’d known her for two weeks and was enjoying the mystique of our after hours meetings in the Malagasy Embassy to the United Nations. As much as I would have liked to find something to correct in the text, it was flawless. “So, what do the stars say?”

  “Did you know you had your natal sun and moon in the 12th house? No wonder I’m attracted to you; it’s that deep dark side you hide behind the Pisces easygoing charm.” She spoke with something like an Indian accent, but not quite.

  “How did you learn about astrology?” I asked

  “I did psychology at Oxford, that was my thing, I loved it.” She came from an elite family from Madagascar and had been a news broadcaster there before coming to New York to take up the number three spot at their mission to the UN. “And at that time I began to see a Jungian analyst in London and the first thing he did was to ask the location and exact time of my birth. The first two sessions were spent looking at my chart; I couldn’t believe the things he saw. Since then I see psychology as the poor man’s astrology.” She pointed across the room to a large framed Kabalistic tree of life. “And once I really learned it, I began to understand the Kabbalah and the Tarot cards. Astrology is the mother of all religions, all doctrines and without it you understand nothing.

  Look, we live in cycles and dualities, the day and the night, man and woman, the cycles of the moon, the four seasons, youth, adulthood and old age. Astrology explains those cycles through the Zodiac and the forces that bring them to fruition through the planets. Only by understanding those cycles and forces can we glimpse the higher meaning. For example, you studied history, right? How can you understand religion, or psychology for that matter, without having a clear understanding of the Zodiac and the seven classical planets?”

  I nodded in approval, not really understanding what she meant but intrigued. “How does psychology connect to astrology?”

  “It’s really a great conspiracy how Freud took his whole theory from astrology. Mars is the Id, Saturn is the Superego, the Sun the Self, and the Moon is the unconscious. It was just sitting there waiting for someone to come along and convert its ancient wisdom into a modern pseudo science. Jung said it, that astrology is the psychology of the ancients, and for that matter, the moderns. That’s why Freud was so reticent about giving any positive attributes to religion because he stole his whole theory from the mother of all religions. The real ugly secret is that Saturn is also Yahweh, that nasty fellow from the Bible who has been hoisted on half the world as “God” when he is really a warped megalomaniac and probably also a psychopath.”

  “God is a psychopath?” I laughed. While an aficionado of conspiracy theories concerning governments and history, I’d never really entertained the same about God and religion. It was a strange moment, drinking coffee, looking at the Tree of Life and wondering if maybe they had manipulated religion in the same way they had history.

  “Look.” She reached over for my cigarettes and I was thrilled to be able to smoke inside in late February, so I put on a big smile and braced myself for a Luciferian sermon; an indoor cigarette in winter was worth a black-mass. “What kind of a God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son for him then goes ahead and sacrifices his own son as if he were some kind of an animal? Remember the flood, ‘Ah, wipe them all out like a bunch of rats.’ ‘I am a jealous God, a vengeful God’. He’s the sick creation of a bunch of animal sacrificers. Did you ever
wonder why Judaism has no Goddess? What happened to the Goddess? Yahweh was a local Egyptian god, a regional god within the great Egyptian pantheon, like the patron saints and virgins in Catholic countries. When the Jews left Egypt of course they had to make sure to cut out Isis, Osiris, Horus, Thoth etc. - all the old higher Gods he was jealous of. That’s the tragedy of Christianity, just when Jesus had brought back the great ancient learning, the Latins go and hoist Yahweh on top of the whole scheme.”

  “But Jesus was a Jew, he believed in Yahweh, right?” She was beginning to scare me; I’d never heard anyone speak quite that way about God and something gave me the impression maybe she was evil but I resisted the temptation to marginalize her that way because I knew she was good.

  “Ah, Monsieur, have you read the Nag Hammadi Gospels? It gives a whole new twist to that.”

  “I should re-read them.”

  She went and got me The Gnostic Bible and I promised to read it. I could feel a whole new period was about to open up for me. Suddenly aware of my ignorance, I felt the clear need to penetrate the esoteric material and find my bearings within in a whole new worldview; right was becoming wrong and good was becoming evil.

  “Now, on to your chart. You have the potential for real depth, for authentic occult understanding because you are a very heavy 12th house guy. The 12th house is the house of dark secrets, karma, prisons, taboo but it is also where the ego finally dissolves into higher consciousness. Your path is a heavy one and your destiny is not easy but you have Venus in the 8th house, you have psychic power and you really should develop that side of you. You see this Saturn/Mars opposition? I don’t think bosses are very fond of you, you’re a born rebel. I’m afraid 2008 is going to be challenge; you have Pluto opposition your ascendant in Gemini. You will be tested to the core, shaken like a tree in a hurricane. But if you make it through, you will be quite strong.”

  “Wow, that’s a bit rough. Pluto, what is Pluto?”

  “Hades, the God of the underworld. He takes no prisoners. Don’t fight him, respect him and he will kill off all the superfluous and leave you powerful. Shaken, changed, but strong.”

  “That’s pretty heavy, Aina.” I would forget it then remember it all too well. “Do you really think that a chart like this can do more than talk therapy?”

  “People only change, only begin to know themselves, when they are ready. All the hours of talk therapy in the world aren’t going to prepare you to know yourself. It happens when you’re ready, not a moment before. I’ve helped a lot of people by just showing them how to understand the chart and its cycles. What I find very interesting is how they will come to me years later, and say, ‘Wow, I finally understood what you meant about me wanting to be alone a lot, I just realized it’. Because they realize the truth of the chart only when the planets have prepared them.”

  While she was staring at my chart the phone rang and as she picked it up her expression changed drastically. They spoke in French and I had the distinct impression she was communicating with someone of authority. She mostly listened and said yes then quickly moved into her bedroom and came back out in less than a minute, fully dressed. “Arthur, be a darling and go into my room for a moment.” She quickly put my cup in the sink and cleaned the ashtray just as there was a call from reception and shortly after the door opened and I could hear them speaking in French for about five minutes. I could make out something about flights, baggage and the like. I heard them say goodbye and then she gave me the all clear.

  The biggest Luis Vuitton suitcase I had ever seen sat by the door and there was now a worn leather briefcase lying on the bar in the kitchen. “How about some champagne? Enough with this coffee, there’s a bottle in the fridge.” I thought it better not to ask but she volunteered. “I’ll have to leave this afternoon. I have to drop off this bag in Paris, then I am off to Madagascar for a period.”

  We had never talked about our relationship which seemed to work for both of us. She always called me and we never emailed. The one time I did call her she seemed uncomfortable so the arrangement became her calling me when she had some free time and as I was usually alone; it worked out well. I sensed it was ending and a shift was coming like that first movement of an earthquake that gets you looking up at the lights right before you feel the big shaking. “Arthur, these are strange times.” That was the last I ever heard of her.

  Irina had been with the agency for about three weeks and had worked out very well. She fit in without being a protagonist, worked hard, did what she was told and was better than most of her American colleagues at manipulating numbers and cranking out spreadsheets. I could give her the framework, explain the metrics and she would get it while with the others I would have to create the reports myself and they would simply pop in the numbers. She was handling the Just Trade account and I was connecting her with my contacts in financial media whom she was handling nicely. I liked her more than I should have, but luckily she had a boyfriend so I didn’t allow myself any outlandish fantasies.

  While it was easy to treat the other very young girls with a pleasant distance, Irina was twenty-nine and it gave us a different dynamic. Half for real, half an excuse to spend some time alone with her, I took her to lunch to discuss the Just Trade account. We sat in a booth at an Irish pub that was part of a hotel right off Grand Central. She looked small across from me, sinking into the big bench and picking at the shepherd’s pie as if she didn’t know what she was eating.

  Sometimes she would go off on tangents and ramble a bit and I enjoyed listening to her. “We were in the forest, in dacha, it was autumn, cold, and it began to snow. I love the first snow of the year.” I was enthralled. “We heard this sound, like, wood, creaking.” She made a squeaking noise. “Everyone drinking vodka, we were afraid, very afraid. There wasn’t any wind. Just creak, creak. We never understood what it was.”

  “Maybe it was a thirsty Russian ghost?” She looked up with a faint smile. You could see a glimpse of Asian blood in her small thin eyes, which were hiding under her bangs.“When I lived in Savannah, there were many haunted houses. People there were very interested in that stuff. My husband’s mother was obsessed with Tarot cards and I actually got pretty interested in them too.”

  “Do you know how to read them?”

  “Sure, I will read Tarot for you one day. My husband’s mother said I was good at it, she said I had talent for it.”

  “Are you divorced?” I could feel the weakness in my voice; it came out strange.

  “Not yet. In process.” I left it at that. We walked back toward the office and I was feeling better than I had in a long time. As we got close to the main entrance I asked her if she wanted to take another walk around the building to smoke a cigarette and she agreed. The problem with being the boss was that I never knew if she was agreeing because she wanted to or if it was only a courtesy but I let myself believe to the preferable variant. We were discussing writers and she told me she loved Sherwood Anderson and Hemingway. We paused outside a big lobby on the other side of the building, she leaned up against the wall and I faced her, smoking. We were talking about For Whom the Bell Tolls and how it became the end of Casablanca.

  “You know, they had no idea how it was going to end and then apparently Jack Warner finished the last the chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and he figured it out. He got it. Seems so simple now when you watch it, so obvious, but apparently it had been a major dilemma during the making of the film.”

  She looked me square in the eye and said. “The hero always has to choose death. That’s his path.” It landed like a gaff in my heart. I’d heard it before and it had made sense intellectually but something in the way she said it left me startled. “He has to make that choice.” If there was a reason why we met, some higher order, it was to give me that message and to execute it.

  “Can I leave at four-thirty? It’s my boyfriend’s birthday.”

  “Sure.” I
watched her go into the bathroom and come out with her hair brushed. The pang of jealousy. I didn’t want it to get to that but I couldn’t help it; I was in her hands and it was scaring me. I wanted the secret she was guarding, and when I got it I would never want another.

  I remembered that last time I was in love, seven years before. It was unnerving how much both loves had in common. Both very thin, from far off places, big lips and the small, elongated eyes. The last one hadn’t ended well and as I drank a Ribeiro at the bar of a small Spanish place on 2nd Ave on a Monday afternoon I hoped that maybe I was getting a second chance. The bar area was full of pictures of famous Spaniards, mostly from the seventies and eighties, and I was chatting in Spanish to one of the Gallego owners while eating pulpo. Next to me there were two women about my age talking, both very articulate. I began chatting with them about Spain and the conversation came around to work and I bought a bottle of wine for the three of us. They were talkative, engaging and funny without being flirtatious, which suited me fine. One was black, the other white, both Ivy League, open minded and they worked together in human resources for a big publisher. It was hard to resist not talking about her.

  “Let me ask you ladies a professional question, I need some advice. I’ve got a report, I like her, maybe a lot.”

  They bit down hard on it. Sometimes you can throw things like that out and they slide off the bar and hit the floor like a dirty napkin, but not this time. “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-nine, I’m forty. She’s Russian.” They both smiled and shook their heads.

  “You’re in deep boy.” One did almost all the talking while the other one just looked on attentively. “Have you done anything with her, does she know?”

  “I think women always know, don’t they?”

  “Of course we do. Look, you’re both adults, just keep it light.” But their smiles were mischievous, as if they knew how bad it was getting, but realized there was no way out. The other one finally spoke.

  “Don’t let her get her hooks in you, or you’ll be cooked.”

  The last couple of years living in isolation on the West coast seemed very far away, like an alcoholic hibernation. Not that I wasn’t drinking almost every day in New York, but at least I interacted with people. What I dreamed of out Westwas a slow, comfortable descent into oblivion. I wanted nothing more than to just fade away but I was alive again in NYC. For awhile out West I’d been beyond the great operatingsystem, but now I was completely under its spell.

  I left the Spanish place and started walking downtown and the glow of twilight glistened off the glass and metal as the temperature dropped into the cold zone. I reached Union Square just as night finally fell and a big full moon was staring down over the city. I kept walking south, past Washington Square Park and then I veered west toward 6th Ave and into the West Village. I saw a woman in front of me with short dark hair, heels and a knee length skirt. I liked the way she walked; the rhythm was mesmerizing and in the quiet night I followed the clicking of her shoes from about thirty feet. She looked to be in her mid forties but I couldn’t see her face. She turned a corner and I continued behind her as if some strange attractor were pulling me towards her.

  Another turn left and finally down some steps below the sign of a bar. I followed her through the open door and pulled back a purple curtain and continued inside where the walls were dark blue with red lighting and seven stools stood empty, perfectly aligned. She knew the bartender and they were talking about a common friend while he made her a cocktail. My natural instinct would have been to give her space and sit three or four stools apart, but something drew me closer so I sat one place away. She kept talking as I sat down and I still couldn’t see her face, just a bit of profile and a sliver of her dark red lipstick. There was an accent of some kind.

  “What would you like?” The bartender asked me.

  “A Maker´s on the rocks, thanks.” I tried to dissimulate my glances at her as if I were looking at the posters of James Dean and Marlon Brando, waiting for her to finally turn. Some old, very good, jazz was playing and then the bartender’s phone rang and he walked to the far end of the bar to speak and she finally turned toward me.

  “Why were you following me?” She had dark eyes and what seemed like an Eastern European accent. She was in her mid to late forties, very nice features but a blank stare.

  “I don’t know, something about you caught my attention and wouldn’t let go. My name is Arthur.”

  She didn’t respond and just looked at me. “Do you often follow women walking alone?” The slightest grin raised her cheeks allowing me to laugh.

  “I can promise you, I have never followed a woman on the street and into a bar before.” And it was true.

  “Okay. Maybe it was the full moon. Do you live around here?”

  “No, I live in midtown. It was just such a nice night so I started walking and wound up down here.”

  “That’s good walk, I like to walk to, it helps me clear my head.” We both were looking at each other and the electricity was palpable. She gave me her hand, “Arthur, my name is Enel. Nice to meet you.” She told me she worked with antiques and some Estonian painters, which was also where she was from. She wore black heels, a knee length maroon skirt with a blue blouse and as she spoke, she became more and more attractive. As I was ordering her another drink, pomegranate juice and vodka, someone came in the door. “Arthur, a friend of mine has arrived. Please stay; you’ll have fun.”

  A man in his fifties, very gay with his gray hair pulled back in a short ponytail, wearing a very nice sport coat walked up and took the chair between us. “Donald, this is Arthur, my stalker.” That set the tone and we drank and laughed and I was picked on in good fun for a few hours by all. After years of being an outcast I was finally tuned in and it felt good.

  At one point late in the evening Enel looked at me intensely. “Arthur, I know what you’re thinking, more than you know.” The accent was just seasoning on a flawless English. “There’s a very strong connection and of course you are an attractive, interesting man but all must not be channeled that way. Sometimes these types of things must be taken in another direction.” Then she asked my birthday just as Donald came back with his young friend and we ordered one more round before last call.

  Something about my birthday seemed to shake her up and Donald noticed it. “I think Enel likes being stalked. Why don’t I ever get stalked? But Enel, you can’t go home with a stalker, imagine the headlines tomorrow!”

  “I’m Estonian, we like stalkers and we always go home with them.” Twenty minutes later I was walking her through the very quiet streets of the West Village. “Come up to my place for a drink, I want to talk to you.” I wasn’t sure what she wanted but I was completely enthralled. The door of her apartment opened into a large room, all Deco, with a fabulous bar that lifted up and out, with lights on the lid and the paintings were first rate. I admired a Tapies print while she put on Portishead.

  “Arthur, I have certain things that come to me which I can feel. Let’s just say that I’m a bit clairvoyant. Last night I had a wonderful dream about a man I knew many years ago. He was very important to me and he helped me so much become who I am. I hadn’t dreamed of him in years and at the end of the dream he told me, ‘Enel, we need to go back to Mexico, that’s our place.’ All day I was wondering what he meant and then I meet you.” She was right, I wanted her, but not physically, not anymore. That’s what brought me to her, but at that moment to even touch her then would have been to soil her.

  “What happened in Mexico? Have you ever been there, or was it just part of the dream?”

  “Oh yes, we went to a strange village called 67 on the road to Mexico City. It was popular with hippies and people involved with hallucinogens. We spent a weekend there and took peyote; it was perhaps the most powerful experience of my life. I saw through to the other side- there’s another world you know, most people
just don’t see it.” I felt like I had found something I’d been in search of for a long time.

  “I want to see it, I want to know.”

  “You will Arthur, you will. But your path is just beginning, I can see that now. You have a long journey ahead of you which is what brought you to me, but you’re very much in the world; you need to be in the world, but not of it. You are still of it. Why did I have that dream then meet you? There’s a reason.”

  I told her about the strange meeting with my father’s old friend Misha, my conspiracy ideas and about Irina, the girl from work who’d cast a spell on me. She listened to me like I hadn’t been listened to in a long time. She nodded her head and poured us fresh drinks.

  “Arthur, there are many people now slowly waking up from a dream. The dream is our culture, though it’s very hard to let go, you must. When you do it will be painful, you will have anguish and suffering, but the pain is the only way to rid yourself of it, to see the truth, to see the other side. You know there’s something, that’s why you followed me, you intuitively felt it. But until your life, your thoughts, your words and actions are coherent and in harmony with something transcendent, you’ll be lost. Remember, the biggest step, the most profound step, is realizing that you’re ensnared in the web of illusion. You look for love with this girl you mentioned, but what kind of love are you really looking for? How many times must you wander down that path before you realize what it is you want and realize you won’t find it there?” Listening to her was like being torn in two; I knew she was right but I was also knew that I had no choice in the matter.

  “You know the man I told you about? Well, he has your birthday, the exact same day. He was a brilliant man, smart, funny and full of life but he was also very profound. That dream was for you and me. Unfortunately, he got more and more involved with money and fun and they finally took him from us. Mexic never left me. I found it and it stayed with me, but he forgot it. I think you have had your Mexicos, but you have forgotten like he did.”

  It was as if she saw into me, knew my destiny. I confessed that I was scared. Scared of being alone and turning into an old drunk.

  “You’re him, don’t you see? You must have faith in something other than this material world and this culture of ours that’s entirely devoid of spirit. You, like so many others are the walking dead. You work, make money, try and love each other but you’re empty, you’re asleep. But you know that something is wrong and that’s why you are so interested in conspiracies. There is a conspiracy, but it’s much, much bigger than you imagine. It’s so difficult for me, I try and talk to people, show them the way, but there is no response. Blank stares. I do what I can, and I keep the faith that little by little people will change. There’s no magic bullet Arthur. No sect you can join, no book you can read, no video you can watch. You must trudge through the filth and have faith that you will find a way out.”

  She told me she was leaving for Moscow in two days and I confessed how everyone that mattered to me seemed to be leaving. She just smiled as if it meant something that she couldn’t explain and said, “We crossed paths for a reason. Believe in that reason.”

  Before I left she walked into her room and came out with a small carved wooden box. She put it on the table and removed a red silk scarf that she put on the table and unfolded and inside was a well used Tarot deck. She went to her book shelf and took down a book by Dion Fortune. “Study this deck. It’s much more than just a divination tool, it’s a whole system, a path. It will help you very much. This book is a good introduction.” She wrapped up the cards again, put them in the box and gave it to me along with the book. I didn’t want to leave her, but our time was up and I never saw her again.