'Of what?'
'Of… history. Of progress toward the future. Of… redreaming our way out of what has gone wrong here.'
I wrote this down.
Ing stood for a long moment, apparently lost for words.
'Can I see your face?' I asked.
'Gaze.'
'The one under all the stage stuff.'
'You see my face as it is meant to be seen.'
'You're going to kill me, right?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Then let me see your face. Let me see the Midnight Eye that no one else can see. Give me this… exclusive.'
Ing seemed to ponder this. He looked at me, then at his gun, then back to me. 'When I saw your wife upstairs, I realized she would suffer more if I left her alive. How could you marry a filthy Mexican?'
'I loved her. I still do.'
'You would compromise your sperm with her egg?'
'That won't happen for us.'
'Good. Good for the place we call home. Now… next sentences: The Eye told me that the county must be cleansed, and cleansed thoroughly. After a brief sabbatical on the East Coast, the Eye returned here yesterday to continue his work. If possible, the Eye is just as impressive in person as he is through his generous and self-effacing acts.'
Generous and self-effacing acts, I thought, like the Fernandez couple. Like the Ellisons and Wynns and Steins. Like a the animals. Like Dee, and probably Izzy, and-shortly-myself.
Something then dawned on me. 'You hate couples, don’t you? Married people.'
'I loathe you.'
'Why?'
'The dependence, the way you cling to one another, the way you are… exclusive and out only for material gain.'
'You detest our happiness. Is it because you've never had it? Are you jealous?'
'Man was meant to be alone. Marriage is a necessary aberration for continuing the race. Priests are celibate for good reason.'
'You ever had a woman?'
Ing's gaze hardened and I could see his hand stiffen the gun. 'Next,' he said. 'The Eye says that any and all minorities are welcome to leave the county, but this must be done soon. No one offering a home for sale will be harmed; no packing to leave will be stopped. All who stay will live in fear of violent death.'
I wrote out the paragraph. The terrible ringing in my ears still had not abated. I was having trouble getting my fingertips to the keys of the typewriter.
Ing was behind me. I could see his reflection in the mirrored wall. He was reading, from a distance, over my shoulder. As he leaned forward, I could see the club hanging over his shoulder, exactly where Chet Singer had predicted it would be. The Eye had not cleaned it. It was clotted with hair and blood, a patina of gore now dried and blackened by time. The combined smells of the club and the Midnight Eye were almost overpowering.
'Next, Russell. The Eye stated he had to kill me because I had been dishonest with him. The Eye values honesty above all other traits in human beings. I had been led to believe that the Eye was William Ing, which he is clearly not. But because of that untruth, I must go the way of the others, whose cleansing makes the air of this place clearer and cleaner with each passing day.'
I wrote nothing. 'Are you going to sign this?' I asked.
'My signature will be left all over this house.'
In fact, I thought, it mattered not at all. But I was grasping for time, and for some idea-no matter how desperate-of how to keep him from shooting me in the back.
'A signature would help… dramatize it,' I said.
'In your blood?'
'Very good,' I said. 'And I think you should say something about what people can do to save themselves.'
'They can go away.'
'Can your offer a time? A kind of grace period while they make arrangements to leave?'
I could see the Eye pondering this. His reflection was clear. He lifted the gun hand to rub the side of his face and came a step closer to my chair.
'Offer them one month,' I continued.
'No! Too long!'
'Two weeks?'
'Shut up! Shut up while I th-th-think.'
Into the silence that surrounded Ing's thought came a shrill mechanical screech from upstairs, followed by the groan of a motor. The lift!
I watched Ing look up, startled. And in that moment, I used all of the strength I could summon to lock my hands on the typewriter, pivot, and hurl the heavy machine into the chest of the Midnight Eye. Then I was on him. My forward charge caught him low and I drove him clear across the kitchen, slamming him ferociously against the refrigerator. I heard his gun thud against the hardwood floor. I found his throat with my hands, but as I had feared-and as I had experienced as a deputy on the beat-the strength of the furious and insane can be prodigious. His hands closed over mine and pulled them from his throat in one grunting motion that left me spread-armed and looking helplessly into Ing's wide dark eyes. It can only have been luck that allowed me to act first. I brought my knee up hard and felt it penetrate the softness of his groin. He screamed and went momentarily limp as I pulled free one arm and landed a chopping right-hand blow that struck him exactly where I had hoped-on his temple. He shuddered and I felt his body sag. I threw a wide left hook, harnessing all of my momentum from the first blow and aiming for his jaw. What happened next seemed to take place in one second at the most: I saw his right hand reach up and intercept my fist in midair. His body hardens with a fresh fury and his left arm clamped around my neck and drew me-like a combine gathering a shaft of wheat-snugly against his stinking body. I pushed off from the floor with throttled groan and ran us both back against the table, into which we crashed, rolled, and landed on the carpet-both of Ing powerful arms now locked around my neck and my breathing all but choked off. With my fingers, I found his hair, which yanked-only to feel the wig slide off in my hands! Then I found his eyes and dug my thumbs in with what diminishing energy I could find. I could hear his labored piglike breathing just above ^ my head, and I could hear, too, the groaning descent of Isabella wheelchair lift as it landed in its platform on the floor. My thumbs sank in! Ing bellowed with pain, and in the instant he reflexive reached for his face, I broke free of his clench, brought both my hands from his eyes to his throat, and tightened my fingers as if over the last tree branch between me and the abyss.
I turned him over and squeezed harder, trying to bring my inferior weight to bear. But just as the air rushed into my lungs and fresh blood surged into my head, I saw Ing's hand extend and close over the gun. I yelled and called upon my last reserve of muscle to choke the life out of him before that gun could be turned at me. It was not enough. His hand closed over the grip and his finger slipped inside the trigger guard. At that instant, when I would have to release his neck in order to defend myself against the gun, I saw in the far-right side of my vision a figure standing over us. Suddenly, Isabella's quad cane smashed down over the gun, pinning wrist and weapon against the carpet. I could look up at her for only an instant, but I will never forget what I saw there: Isabella in her blue pajamas, her turbaned head and swollen face, her weakened legs unsteady as she did her best to balance her weight over the handle of that thin cane, concentrating with all her considerable might upon the task of remaining upright. She swayed like a cottonwood in a high wind. But, charged by her courage, I drew a new strength and applied myself to nothing at all on earth except wringing the life out of the monster in my hands. I glared into his fierce eyes and bellowed myself, a roar that echoed through the room around us and seemed to settle in William Fredrick Ing's very eyes, which bulged, quivered, then focused on me a look of penetrating hatred that froze in place as I roared again, felt the bones in his throat popping beneath my fingers, and began slamming his lifeless head
