"John Dalmas - The Puppet Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

the best description.
About halfway through his talk and three-quarters of the way through his audience, one of them got up and
shouted that Ashkenazi should be thrown out. That what he was spieling was astrology, not astronomy. And
another guy stood up then, apparently an officer of the meeting, and told the guy yelling that he’d either have to
sit down and be quiet, or leave. The guy left, madder than hell, most of the remaining audience following him out
in a bunch. Ashkenazi finished to a dozen listeners, probably mostly reporters, and didn’t seem upset at the
exodus. I suppose he wasn’t surprised.
Basically what Ashkenazi was reporting was, he’d run correlations of events of one sort and another against
the positions of stars and planets. Which did amount to astrology, as far as I could see. And while I’m no
statistical analyst, I do know that the kind of correlation coefficients he was claiming aren’t the sort of thing you
get by chance. Not in the real world.
He’d done it the hard way, too, or that’s how it looked. He hadn’t picked a scattering of historical events that
fitted his purpose. Over a period of almost thirty years he’d predicted events, supposedly from the positions of
stars and planets, and published them in various newsletters put out by different astrology groups, New Age
groups, and groups into psychic phenomena. And a lot of his predictions came out as forecast, his scores getting
better as he improved his system. Predictions like droughts, major political shifts, uprisings, big stock market
swings, major deaths . . . If the publications were real. In 1994 he’d even predicted that a then-unknown source
of electrical power would be released in 1997 that would change the world. Which of course was Haugen’s geo-
gravitic power converter! That was uncanny.
I could see why astronomers might get spooky about stuff like that. But why was Pasco so upset? Even if
Ashkenazi made it all up, it wasn’t illegal and it wasn’t commerce. Which was what the Anti-Fraud Division was
supposed to be concerned with—criminal fraud in commerce. This was something the astronomers could take
care of themselves if they wanted to, by kicking Ashkenazi out of their society. Which in fact they had, for
misrepresenting his talk to the program committee.
From the recording of the meeting with Pasco, I could see that Joe felt uncomfortable with the job, the same
as I did. Because what Pasco wanted was a fishing expedition at taxpayers’ expense. We were supposed to
investigate every damned thing about Arthur Ashkenazi. Everything but his finances; the California Commerce
Department’s Audit Division would cover that. To quote Pasco: “Find something discreditable about this
Ashkenazi, preferably something criminal.”
I asked Carlos why Joe had accepted the contract. I guess I knew, but Joe spelled it out for me: “A fair amount
of our business comes from Commerce. We’re their number one contractor in southern California, and we can’t
afford their turning to another investigation firm.”
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I could have turned the assignment down. Joe’s used to my being a hardhead, and I’d earned enough points with
him and Carlos that they wouldn’t have been too mad at me. But somehow I took it.
Back in my office, I sat down at my computer, accessed the L.A. library and called up what the media—print,
Webworks, and TV—had said about Ashkenazi’s talk. The professional media had had people there of course—-
probably stringers and junior staff. And since the news had been dull for a while, they’d played up the Ashkenazi
flap pretty big. Mostly tongue in cheek, but pretty much without ridiculing it. The syndicates had gotten hold of
it then, pontificating. Then Time magazine did a feature on it, treating it straight, and Ashkenazi made the talk
show circuit.
All of which had burned Pasco up, and he was using his position, and us, to try to punish Ashkenazi at pubic
expense.
Usually you start a case with evidence of a crime, and that gives you something to orient on. This one was
different.
Since it was almost five o’clock, I killed a few minutes, then left the office promptly at quitting time. It wasn’t
a workout day, and I had a date that evening, so I went straight home, showered, re-shaved, dressed semi-dressy,
and picked up Tuuli. We took my car—hers is nicer, but she’s considerate about things like that—and drove to
Mr. Ethel’s on North La Cienega. They specialize in health foods, especially low-fat foods, but the quality is