Fear itself

12

Nelson wept. Someone with strong hands, someone smelling of witch hazel, helped him to his feet and led him over to the bed, where he sat with his legs outstretched, his arms still tied behind his back, resting his sore shoulders against the walnut headboard.

The blindfold was removed. Nelson opened his eyes and was blinded by a fierce white light; as he looked away, he caught a silhouetted glimpse of a hooded figure seated on the edge of the bed, training the beam from a six-volt lantern directly into his eyes.

Courage, Nelson resolved; for once in your life, courage. “Simon? Is that you?”

“Yes and no.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” As Nelson’s eyes grew accustomed to the penumbra effect, he realized that Simon had borrowed one of his sweatshirts and pulled the hood up, covering his head and throwing his face into shadow.

“All part of the game, Nellie, all part of the game.”

“I’m not playing your goddamn game,” said Nelson, too loudly, sounding more doubtful than defiant even to his own ears; he could feel his courage, or at least his resolve to be courageous, draining away.

“Aren’t you?” said a harsh new voice, both familiar and unfamiliar, more nasal than Simon’s normal speaking voice, with a hint of a quaver in it. Nelson recognized it immediately, though he hadn’t heard it since he was a boy.

And as the figure let fall the hood and slowly turned the lantern that had been shining into Nelson’s eyes upon himself, Nelson felt as if he were passing through a sort of prism-the kind where beams of light converge and condense themselves into a single point before emerging on the other side with their spectrums all reversed.

No, he whispered, trying to close his eyes again, trying to unsee what he told himself he couldn’t possibly have seen, but it was too late. Nelson had already crossed over to the other side of the prism, where he found himself staring into the lashless, browless, reptilian eyes of the bald old man whom he’d last seen over thirty-five years ago, lying in a pool of blood on the floor of a smoke-filled bathroom, with his throat cut from ear to ear, and a straight razor still clutched in his lifeless hand.

A Good Shaking 1

Pender’s cell phone woke him a little after six o’clock on Saturday morning, chirping the first two bars of “Moon River” from somewhere in his pants, which were on the floor next to Dorie’s bed. Retirement or no retirement, after twenty-seven years with the Bureau, it never occurred to him not to answer it. He grabbed the pants and took them into the hall, shook the phone out just before it kicked over to the message center.

It was Steve McDougal, Pender’s longtime boss and longer-time friend. “Jesus H. Christ, Pender, did I or did I not attend your retirement party earlier this week?”

“I was poking around a little, doing a favor for Abruzzi-it got personal.”

“And what the screaming fuck possessed you to enter a suspect’s home without a warrant or backup?”

“The sister invited me in.”

“Ed, she was a fucking mongoloid idiot! And what were you doing on his doorstep in the first place?”

“That’s Down syndrome. And Dorie had mentioned Childs’s name the night before. When she disappeared, I became concerned for his safety as well.” That was the story Pender had been giving out since the first cops arrived on the scene yesterday afternoon. Might as well stick with it-it would make things go more smoothly for all concerned. “I decided to drop in and check on him-not as a suspect but as a potential victim. The sister invited me in, he attacked me. It’ll stand up. And by the way-I did try to get in touch with you Thursday afternoon, but you never returned my call.”

Irrelevant as the reason for Thursday’s call had been to the matter under discussion, Pender had decided to throw it in anyway-when you’re low on ammunition, you toss anything you can find into the cannon: grapeshot, scrap metal, whatever. And sometimes you even hit something.

“All right, all right,” said McDougal. “You’re talking to me now, and I want your word, both as your friend and as your boss, that from this day on, the word retirement will mean more to you than putting a new set of Michelins on the Barracuda. No poking around, no favors for Abruzzi, no nothing. Agreed?”

“You bet. Word up, as the kids say.” Pender decided there was no point bringing up the fact that he had just launched an affair with one of the victims in the case. “Speaking of Abruzzi, can you get Maheu off her ass?”

“Why, what’s going on?”

Pender told him. “And the worst part of it is, if there was ever a case where Liaison Support could be useful, this is it. Childs is wealthy, he’s slick, he’s mobile, there are probably victims we don’t know about scattered all over the country, and unless I miss my guess, he’s going to be leaving a trail of new ones. Plus Abruzzi’s had some bad breaks lately-why not give her a chance?”

“I’ll think about it. We do have a personnel drain, what with this Y2K flap on. But if I give her the point on this one, I want it understood, I’m giving it to her, not you. You’re still out.”

“I’m out, I’m out. One more favor, though-do you still have that cane I gave you after your knee operation…?”

2

Zap Strum, who was not a morning person-he wasn’t even a daylight person-surprised Simon by answering the phone on the first ring.

“Duude, saw you on the news again,” he said, even before Simon had identified himself. “You’re famous. And how are you enjoying your visit with Mr. Nelson Carpenter of 1211 Baja Way in scenic Concord?”

“How did you know that?” demanded Simon.

“Dude, please.” Strum sounded vaguely offended, as if somebody had asked Houdini how he’d worked the got-your-nose trick on a toddler. “You have nothing to worry about, though-if I was going to turn you in, I’d have done it last night.”

“Did you get the information I asked you for?”

“Sure thing. It’s going to cost you a little more than we discussed, though-you being a fugitive from justice and all.”

“No problem,” said Simon. You being a dead man and all.

Before leaving, Simon popped in on Nelson, who had spent the latter half of the night naked in the bathtub, not out of choice, but because Simon had superglued him to the porcelain after the game.

“I have to go out for a little while,” Simon told him pleasantly. “I’ll be borrowing your car-try to stay out of mischief while I’m gone.”

There was no response, which was not surprising, since Nelson’s lips had been superglued as well. The idea had come from a recurring childhood nightmare of Nelson’s that Simon had kept in mind all these years. Young Nellie used to have dreams in which he’d been captured by witches who erased his mouth as cleanly as if he’d been a cartoon figure, to keep him from crying out; in real life the effect, the panicked jerking and stretching of the seamed lips, would have been more satisfying to Simon had it not been for the unmistakable madness in Nelson’s eyes.

Fear stimulated Simon, but insanity only repelled him-when he returned, he decided, if he returned, he would seal those eyes as well.