Bad to the Bones(9)

But he didn’t look like a psycho killer. Even shirtless, with a red jewel piercing decorating his nipple on the plane of his juicy pec, he didn’t seem too threatening. A glorious, colorful tattoo decorated his buff chest—a woman’s feathery eyes, someone holding a giant black and white skull in their fingertips, and a skeletal rattler like something from a 19th century lithograph, all bordered by waves and some crazy thistle plants. It was all so beautiful, although I didn’t see why the beautiful man needed a beautiful tattoo. He had closely-shorn light brown hair and a five o’clock shadow. His eyes glittered with intelligence, and his luscious mouth bowed angelically above his lower lip pin. A hoop through his eyebrow told me he’d led a rough life, like I had. He wouldn’t mess around, but I also didn’t get the feeling he’d hurt me.

He was calm, a burning cigarette between his fingers. He regarded me without expression. “Sleep well?”

“I did. Thank you very much. Now, I’ll just be on my way—”

A flash of movement. Jamming the cig into an ashtray, he leaped to his feet, standing between me and the doorway. His hands fluttered around my shoulders as though afraid to touch me. “Not so fast. Do you even know where you are?”

I shrugged. “I don’t care. I’ll find my way home eventually.”

The guy snorted with disgust. “You don’t care. You wake up in a strange bed and don’t care where you are. Not interested in the slightest.”

“Not really. I’m used to it.”

He frowned even fiercer. “Used to waking up in stranger’s beds?”

“Not so much that. But strange places, yeah. I drink my bhang lassi and who knows where I’ll wake up? Now, if you could just hand me my skirt—”

Again, he stepped between me and the door, making sure not to lay his hands on me. He was actually a strikingly handsome older man, around forty, and his body heat slammed into me like a wall. I giggled. I know, I always have inappropriate reactions. Maybe I was nervous.

“Look, why don’t you just sit down for a while? You’re in no condition to go anywhere. Do you know that we found you lying drugged on some butte out of Slide Rock?”

This confused me a little, and I let the guy lead me to the couch.

“Do you drink coffee?” Without an answer, he vanished into a little kitchenette, giving me time to look around. A drafting table was bathed in the venetian blind pattern created by the sun. Many designs for what looked like tattoos littered the table. A file cabinet supported cups of pencils and airbrushes splattered by paint. The table looked extremely well-used, even loved. I had a passion like that for fixing motorcycles. Repairing bikes to me meant freedom. If a bike was in good repair, it purred like a hummingbird and rode just as smoothly. I always said, “Don’t ride faster than your guardian angel can fly.” I couldn’t bear to see a Harley smashed. I was one of the few allowed to own her own bike at Bihari. I sorely missed my Sporty now.

On top of the TV was a photo of two children, a boy and girl in their early teens. I had always liked teenagers. Teens were innocent victims of twisted, warped adults. That is, until they became twisted and warped by the same nasty minds that were supposed to mold them. This man obviously loved his children, though. Leaning forward, I shuffled some envelopes around on the coffee table. I saw that the beautiful, inked man’s name was Knox Hammett, he lived at 4926 Bargain Boulevard in Pure and Easy, and he owed seventy-nine dollars on his power bill.

Going to the front window, I yanked open the blind. We were across the street from a business named The Hip Quiver—a bar, I imagined. A few cafes and the slow traffic told me I was in downtown Pure and Easy.

“Here.” I took the coffee cup from Knox. “Do you know where you are?”

I looked him levelly in the eye. “Pure and Easy.”

“Okay. Do you know who you are? ‘Cause I sure would like to know. You had no ID on you.”

Knox had a voice like the Viewer Discretion narrator, low, resonant, syrupy. It was a voice that could hypnotize, like my Master’s. “My name is Asanga, and I live up in Bihari. I’d like to get back there as soon as possible. My motorcycle repair shop is there.”

His eyes lit up. “You fix bikes?”

“Yes, I do. That was the worship chosen for me as the way I could best awaken from my sleep.”

Understandably, he looked skeptical. “Your…sleep?”

“Yes.” I know I recited like an automaton, but that’s the way I spoke. We all did, when reciting truisms. “Most humans live in a state of ‘waking sleep,’ but it’s possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness.”

He frowned. He was incredibly handsome when frowning, too. “Listen, if you want to call it a higher state, fine, but we found you running from automatic weapons fire on that butte. You were drugged and f*cking abducted from your Bihari and it appears to be an inside job.”

“No one from Bihari would ever harm me. I am a special advisor to Swami Shakti.”

“You’re saying you don’t remember any semiautomatic bullets being sprayed in your general direction? Do you remember the van with all the street bums being dumped back into the desert?”

Of course I did. But my mind couldn’t reconcile what had happened yesterday with what I knew of Bihari and Swami Shakti. Loving, gentle, concerned. Above all, interested in enlightenment, not in dumping bums—or me—in the desert. So I merely said, “What happened to the others—the other, ah, disciples?” They weren’t disciples. I knew they’d been bussed in to swell the voter rolls. I just couldn’t admit to what seemed like a slightly shady tactic on Shakti’s part. It must not have been his idea.