Goodbye California - Alistair [86]
Ryder said: ‘My wife described Morro as being a broad-shouldered six-footer.’
‘And Japanese answering to that description are not thick on the ground. I’m beginning to lose faith in the University of California.’ Leroy sighed. ‘Well, with the possible – and I’m now beginning to regard it as only faintly possible – exception of Carlton, we don’t appear to have been making much headway. However, we may have something more encouraging for you in the way of those odd-ball organizations you wanted us to enquire about. You specified a year in existence and a large group. We’re not saying you’re wrong, but it did occur to us that it could conceivably be a smaller group, or one that has been in existence for a considerably longer period than a year and that may have been infiltrated or taken over by Morro and his friends. Here’s the list. I’m not saying that it’s a complete one: there’s no State law that says you have to register yourself, or yourself and your like-minded friends as a nut or nuts. But I should imagine it’s as complete as we can get, certainly within the limited time available.’
Ryder glanced at the list, handed it to Jeff, turned to say a few words to Sergeant Parker, who had just entered, then returned his attention to Leroy.
‘List’s fine as far as it goes, dates and existence, approximate numbers, but it doesn’t tell me what they’re nutty about.’
‘Could that be important?’
‘How should I know?’ Ryder was understandably a mite irritable. ‘Might give me an idea, even an inkling, just the shadow of a clue just by looking at such a list. God knows, I can’t come up with one by myself.’
With the air of a conjurer producing a rabbit from a hat, Leroy produced another sheet of paper. ‘And here we have what you want.’ He looked at the paper with some disfavour. ‘They’re so damned long-winded about their reasons, their motivations for existence as groups, that it was impossible to get it all on one sheet. They tend to be a forthcoming, not to say garrulous, lot about their ideals.’
‘Any religious nuts among them?’
‘Why?’
‘Carlton is said to be associated, or have associated, with one. Okay, so it’s a far-out connection, but any straw for a drowning man.’
‘I think you’re mixing your metaphors,’ Leroy said kindly. ‘But I see what you mean.’ He eyed the sheet. ‘Well, most of them are religious organizations. I think one would expect that. But quite a number have been established too long – long enough to achieve a measure of respectability – to be classified as nuts. The followers of Zen Buddhism, the Hindu Guru groups, the Zoroastrians and some home-grown Californian groups – at least eight of those – you can’t go around calling them nuts without having a lawsuit slapped on you.’
‘Call them what you want.’ Ryder took the sheet, and examined it more in hope than expectation. He said in complaint: ‘Can’t pronounce half of them, far less understand them.’
‘This is a very cosmopolitan State, Sergeant Ryder.’ Ryder looked at him in suspicion but Leroy’s face was perfectly straight.
‘Borundians,’ Ryder went on. ‘Corinthians. The Judges. The Knights of Calvary. The Blue Cross. The Blue Cross?’
‘Not the hospital insurance people, Sergeant.’
‘The Seekers?’
‘Not the singing group.’
‘Nineteen-ninety-nine?’
‘That’s the day the world ends.’
‘Ararat?’
‘Splinter group of nineteen-ninety-nine. Where Noah’s ark fetched up. Working with a group called the Revelations, high up in the