Fitz remembered one session when Tim’s New York contingent was there, Maynard and Flora Lu and a couple of others, along with a few of the subsidiaries and hangers-on who were increasingly showing up to make the scene, as they called it, and a beatnik in beard and beret with a bota bag slung over one shoulder extracted a marijuana cigarette from his shirt pocket, casually lit it and began puffing away. Fitz had never seen Tim so angry—had never seen him angry at all, actually. In any case, Tim snatched the thing right out of the man’s mouth, flung it into the fireplace and read him the riot act. Which really didn’t help as far as mind-set was concerned, or at least not for that particular individual. But Tim was right—psilocybin was legal, LSD was legal, but marijuana was not.

The professor, who was driving up from New York, was due in the late afternoon, which really didn’t give Fitz a whole lot of time to try to make things presentable, and he kicked himself for not getting there sooner. It was a Saturday, just past noon, and he’d spent the morning dealing with his own exponentially multiplying obligations, taking Corey to Little League practice, making a run to the storage unit with a bunch of odds and ends—crap—stuffed in boxes, scrubbing stains out of the sink and toilet with an eye to getting his deposit back at the end of the month. That was something he could exert some control over, but Tim’s place was a disaster. Worst of all were the mandalas, which could only be painted over—either that or all the paneling would have to be stripped and refinished, and how could he hope to accomplish that short of waving a magic wand? As much as he owed Tim—and he owed him everything at this juncture—it really wasn’t his problem. His problem was to pitch in as best he could, haul trash, sweep up, vacuum—air the place out, for Christsake. Whatever came next was between Tim and Professor Sokoloff, who was going to be keeping the deposit no matter what, that was for sure.