Brian shuffled, clearly uncomfortable with the option. As he should be-they weren't be thugs.

"And even if we resort to threats, given Murray 's personality, he will pretend to acquiesce, but inwardly become more resolved to leave the group. He will cover his tracks better, so we can't find him. If cornered he'll be more likely to betray us.

She let Tina's words settle over the room. Waited for everyone to absorb the idea. Give them the chance to question it. Then, when no one did, she said, slowly and carefully, "Are we agreed?"

They were.

MURRAY CAME to the next meeting, and they'd done what needed to be done. Now the others were gone and his corpse lay on the gurney. She and Don would dispose of it. There was no need to involve the entire group in that process-and safer if they didn't. Take part in the killing, yes. Know where to find the body? No.

Don was examining Murray 's naked body as if it were nothing more than a medical school cadaver.

"He's a lot bigger than that teenager," he mused. "I'd suggest removing the limbs and head and disposing of them as we did the boy-in garbage bags."

She agreed.

He glanced from his tools to the small oven, then over at her.

"Waste not, want not," she said. "The others don't need to know. It will be an excellent way to conduct a blind test of the effectiveness of adult material."

He nodded and lifted his scalpel.

AT FIVE-THIRT, I WAS BACK IN L.A. with Jeremy, walking to yet another office building, this one in a far better section of town. The directory was peopled with accounting firms, law offices and other professional sorts. The elevators coming down were jammed with fleeing workers, but going up we had one to ourselves. Hope pressed the button for the tenth-floor law office of Donovan, Murdoch and Rodriguez.

"Our contact is the head of the group," she said as the door closed. "May Donovan."

"A lawyer?" I said.

"These guys are professionals, in every sense of the word. We've got a couple of lawyers, a United Church minister, a psychiatrist, an L.A. Times journalist, a professor or two…All folks who take this kind of thing very seriously and can contribute to the cause in their own way. Like May. She does primarily commercial law, but she has a sideline helping clients fleeced by paranormal scams. Not a lot of money in it-mostly pro bono, I think-but she's very passionate about it. They all are."

The doors opened into a quiet lobby, the silence broken only by burbling water-a fountain set in the wall, water cascading over an artfully arranged rock pile. I could hear the faintest tinkle of Japanese music. The walls were done in muted shades of gray and yellow. The thick carpet absorbed all noise. Very Zen.

Though it was just past five, the office seemed empty except for a woman leaning over the receptionist counter, reaching down to peck at the keys and straining to see the distant monitor. She was tall and slender, maybe late forties, with short graying brown hair, a long patrician nose and stylish glasses. She glanced up.

"Caught me checking my stocks." Her voice was low and pleasant, with an accent I couldn't place. "Nasty habit. I know I should just wait out the bad days, but I can't help peeking." She put her hands on Hope's shoulders in a semiembrace. "Good to see you."

Hope performed the introductions.

May caught my hand in a warm, firm grasp. "Jaime Vegas. I read something about you being in town. A TV special, isn't it?"

"Yes. In Brentwood. Trying to raise the ghost of Marilyn Monroe." I rolled my eyes. "Cheesy as hell but entertaining… we hope."

"I'm sure it will be. I was at a show of yours in L.A. a few years back."

"Oh?" I managed a laugh. "Checking up on me?"

"No, actually I was taking my mother. My father had died a few months before and she was having a rough time of it. She'd never been a religious person, and I think that made it harder. She needed…" May pursed her lips, as if searching for the right word. "Reassurance. I knew from our dossier that your shows do that very well. Benign spiritualism. I was hoping that might help her, and it did."

"Oh."

"You look shocked." A mischievous glint lit her dark eyes as she laid a hand on my arm. "Rather like hearing about a temperance advocate visiting a saloon? Think of us more like MADD. We don't argue that people should turn away from the paranormal, only that it be used responsibly. For entertainment, yes. For setting a grieving mind at rest, yes. Where we become concerned is when it is misused."

She led us through the office, still talking.

"They say that if you scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist underneath. That holds true for many of our members, myself included. Some of us have had bad experiences with paranormal scams. Others, like myself, are fascinated by the paranormal, and disappointed by our inability to find proof of its existence."

She opened a door and ushered us into a huge office. "As a child, I devoured stories of witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts… I couldn't get enough. Then, in my teens, I began 'the quest' as so many do. Ghost hunting, paranormal groups, faith experimentation, I did it all. Nothing but disappointment. Or so I thought, until I realized I had gained something from it. Knowledge. Having been burned, I could see through the scams. Together with a few contacts I'd made along the way, I decided to put that experience to good use and the Ehrich Weiss Society was born." She glanced at us. "Do you know who Ehrich Weiss was?"

My mind went blank and I'm sure my face followed.

"Harry Houdini," Jeremy said.

May nodded. "Our choice of name reflects our philosophy. Harry Houdini was, in his time, both a debunker and a seeker. He uncovered many paranormal scams, and offered ten thousand dollars to any medium who could produce evidence of the afterlife under rigorous scientific conditions. Yet he gave his wife a prearranged message so that he could make contact from the afterlife. Exposing frauds while hoping for proof."

At the back of her office, she unlocked a door and pushed it open. "And here is the inner sanctum. It's a little unsettling the first time, so I'll leave the door open while I get coffee. Two other members of our group are joining us. They should be here soon."

"UNSETTLING" WAS one word for it, particularly after the Zen peace-fulness of the rest of the suite. Like big-game hunters displaying mounted heads on the wall, this group displayed its trophies-paraphernalia from scams they'd busted. Beneath each was a newspaper clipping announcing the bust. I saw everything from tarot cards to a shrunken head, a wooden wand to an ornate sacrificial knife, an "ectoplasm" photo to a jar containing something I didn't want to speculate on.

"Are these real?" I asked.

"Depends on your definition of real." Hope glanced out the door, making sure May wasn't coming back. "Like that dried-up hand. The Hand of Glory. I've heard that some real witches and sorcerers use them, but that one's a fake. Fake in the sense that it's not really magical. Not fake in the sense that… well, it's a real hand."

I glanced at the shrunken head.

"Yep, that's real too," she said. "As for how I know that, let's just say I have it on impeccable authority."

"A vision?" Jeremy asked as he sat down.

She nodded. "Completely freaked me out the first time May brought me in here. I was sucked right into the Amazon and watched the former owner of the head lose it."

"That's your power, isn't it?" I said. "You see…"

"Death, destruction and all that fun stuff. Other half-demons get a special power without a demon's attraction to chaos. That attraction is all I get. Raw deal."