"Well, be careful," he said warily. "And for God's sake don't go running off anyplace alone. I'm telling you you're not safe. Always be around people."
"I'll keep it in mind." With that I gently hung up the phone and exhaled.
Think. Some colonel from Guatemala just broke into my apartment looking for what I might know about Children of Light, where I've been going to see about having a baby. So why is he so interested in what I'm doing?
I remembered Alex Goddard wanted me to go to a "clinic" he had somewhere in Central America. Ten to one that clinic was in Guatemala. That was what this whole thing was about. And now he'd just gone back there; at least that was what he'd said.
Guatemala was a long way off, but his other operation was right up the river. I hadn't seen all of it this morning, but that was about to change. A lot of things were about to change. It was time to start getting the playing field level again.
[Chapter Twelve]
I arranged with Patrick Mooney to have his sister in Queens, a full-figured woman named Rosalyn, come in and finish the job of reconstructing my wrecked home. She arrived an hour and a half later, and was hard at work when I left. I also agonized over the police-report issue, but finally decided to forgo the bother. Lou was right: It would be a two-hour ordeal of futility. Besides, I had better things to do with my time. I was going to return the favor of an information-gathering expedition.
Alex Goddard had said he'd be absent from Quetzal Manor—who knows for how long—and this time around I was going to do the place right, the next step in my undercover research. The first, and main, thing I wanted to do was explore the new high-tech clinic that sat nestled in the woods across from the old building. Everything about it was the exact opposite of a "Manor." Not a shred of New Age "spirituality," just a lot of digital equipment and ultrasound and . . . what else? Chief among my questions: What was behind that big, white door?
Maybe I was being impulsive, but I was completely wired and the truth was, I wasn't going to sleep till I knew a lot more than I did. And if I went late tonight, Sunday, I probably wouldn't have to deal with Ramala.
I called Roger Drexel, my unshaven cameraman, and asked him to come up and meet me at Applecore. It was Sunday and he was watching the third quarter of a Knicks game and into his second six-pack, but he agreed. After all, I was his current boss.