Fear itself

satchel beside him on the passenger’s seat and what seemed like every emergency vehicle in Alameda County passing him in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens blaring, that it began to sink in: this is actually happening, buckaroo-this is Plan B for real.

But not Plan B as he’d envisioned it. It was all happening too fast. Forget Mexico-they’d have a description of the Mercedes out before he made it to South San Francisco, much less south of the border. Which meant he had to get it off the road pronto. But where? And then what? And what about-

No. He couldn’t allow himself to start thinking about Missy just yet. He felt so guilty about leaving her. Not that Pender had left him with any choice. Hiding behind her like that-what a coward. And of course if Pender hadn’t taken advantage of Missy’s disability by tricking her into letting him into the house, where he had no right to be, or if Pender hadn’t stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong in the first place…

Pender, Pender, Pender-it all came down to Pender, didn’t it?

For Simon, it was a calming revelation, even comforting somehow; he turned his attention back to his more immediate concern: getting this red-hot, highly conspicuous car off the road as soon as possible.

2

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, which Nelson Carpenter consulted every morning of his life, adjusting as always for a latitude of 37°50’ and allowing for daylight saving time, which still had another week to run, the sun would be setting at 6:23 P.M. on Friday, October 22.

Nelson, once known as Nervous Nellie (a sobriquet that, given his first name, the cruelty of children, and the severity of his polyphobia, was probably inevitable), needed at least an hour to complete his preparations for nightfall. It wasn’t a large house, just a standard suburban colonial in Concord, California, the kind of place where horror movies (at least the horror movies Nelson and his former best friend Simon had been addicted to as adolescents) were never set, but still it took time to ready it for darkness. There were lights to be turned on (two in every room, in case a bulb burned out in one), blinds and curtains to be drawn, doors and windows to be locked. He also had to inspect and lock every closet, then look under every bed and examine every corner of the house where an intruder might conceivably be hiding, both before and after all entrances had been secured.

So as soon as Nelson’s watch went off at 4:00 to remind him to watch Oprah, he reset the alarm for 5:23 and eagerly turned on the television. Phobias were the theme of today’s show; it was Dr. Phil’s contention that whatever the specific phobia, all phobics were afraid of the same thing: loss of control.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” muttered Nelson. Just then the front doorbell rang, throwing him into an agony of indecision. There was no chance he’d be opening the door, of course-he didn’t have many friends, but the few he did have would have known better than to show up at his doorstep without calling first. Nelson’s dilemma, rather, was whether to get up and look through the Securit-Eye peephole or simply hole up in the living room with Dr. Phil and wait for whoever it was to go away.

Both options had their downsides. On the one hand, the prospect of peering through the peephole at an unannounced visitor was an intimidating one for a man with as overactive an imagination as Nelson Carpenter’s. On the other hand, it might be important-a police officer going door to door to warn residents about a chemical spill or an escaped convict, for instance. But on the other, other hand, it might be the convict himself.

Nelson understood from years of behavioral therapy that what he needed to do at this point was evaluate the prospective threats. It was probably only a Witness or a kid selling magazine subscriptions-in which case there was nothing to be afraid of. And of the other possibilities, the prospect of a toxic cloud from a refinery fire was more realistic than the possibility of finding an escaped convict on the doorstep.

So Nelson gathered up his courage (and it would be a mistake to think that severe phobics are lacking in courage: it took more nerve for Nelson to leave his house once a week than it would for most of us to bungee-jump off the Golden Gate Bridge), muted the television, tiptoed over to the door, and put his eye to the peephole.

Oh, Mama! He gasped and drew his head back sharply. Toxic clouds, escaped convicts? Bring ’em on-there was nothing Nelson wouldn’t rather have seen through the fish-eye lens than what he saw, no monster that wouldn’t have been more welcome at his door than the one standing there now. He tried to tell himself he might have been mistaken-after all, he hadn’t seen his childhood companion since the sixties-but in his bones, and by the fluttering of his heart and the tightening of his scrotum, Nelson knew better. This was it, this was what he’d really been afraid of all these years, this was the worst-case scenario.

“Open the door, Nellie,” called Simon, when he saw the peephole darken. “Open the door, ol’ buddy.”

“Go away.”

“Is that any way to treat an old friend?” Nice and calm, Simon told himself-you owned the boy, you own the man.

“We had a deal.”

“Circumstances have changed.”

“I’ll call the police. I’ll tell them about your grandfather-I’ll tell them everything.”

“Yesterday’s news.”

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

Manslaughter, thought Simon-then it occurred to him he could turn Nelson’s misconception to his own advantage. “There’s no bail, either-perhaps they’ll let us share a cell.”

Simon waited for the click of a lock or the snick of a bolt, and was faintly surprised not to hear one. That should have done it, he thought; and maybe it had-although it had been quite a few years since he’d last seen Nelson paralyzed by fear, Simon had never forgotten what a moving sight it was.

“Nellie…? Nellie, we both know you’re going to open this door; let’s just get it-”

And for the first time in thirty years, the childhood friends were face-to-face. The pale young gentleman had aged, but his hair was still the same shade of washed-out blond, still too long-he’d always been afraid of barbers. “How did you find me?” he asked dully.

“My spies are everywhere,” said Simon, slipping past him into the house. He glanced around disapprovingly at the avocado walls and beige carpeting, track lighting, built-in knickknack crannies, faux-white-brick facing on the fireplace; Julia Morgan would have puked. “We’ll catch up later-right now we need to get my car out of your driveway before anybody notices it.”

“There’s no room in the garage.”

“Make room.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Nelson locked the front door behind him.

Simon slipped his arm around Nelson companionably. “Buddy, I’m in all kinds of trouble.”

“If I help you, will you leave me alone?”

“It doesn’t work that way, Nellie,” Simon whispered into his ear; his breath was warm and moist, his tone unbearably intimate. “Not for you and me.”

3

Emergency rooms, with their gurneys, sparsely furnished cubicles, rolling carts, folding screens, and curtained-off beds, had always seemed to Pender to have a sort of makeshift feel about them, as if they were temporary, and not very well suited, accommodations to be utilized until permanent quarters were ready. He couldn’t wait to get out; as soon as his cast was dry and his arm in a sling, he went searching for Dorie.

She wasn’t hard to find-a uniformed cop was stationed on a folding chair outside the door of her cubicle. He recognized Pender, tipped him a little salute, then leaned over without getting up, and opened the door for him.

“Helluva job,” said the cop.