Fear itself

them, now that the shock and anger had passed. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I believe you, but I want to run a little test, a little experiment, just to be on the safe side,” Simon explained, gagging her again.

“I’ll be right back.”

He stepped over the man’s body and strolled down the hall to the back door. He brushed the glittering glass dust off the leather gauntlet, unzipped the canvas travel bag lying next to the getaway satchel, and used the pencil flashlight to peer inside. The snakes were asleep again. Simon recited to himself the mnemonic used to distinguish between the venomous coral and its various look-alikes (if red touches yellow, it kills a fellow; snout of black, bad for Jack) as he reached into the bag and grabbed the scarlet king (that was the one with the red snout and the black rings intervening between the red and yellow ones) just behind the head.

When Simon returned to the living room with the scarlet king, he knew within seconds that Skairdykat, or rather, Gloria, had been telling the truth. She was frightened half to death-who wouldn’t be? — but she was no ophidiophobe. He couldn’t provoke a syncope, or anything resembling a true panic attack, even when he jabbed the king’s head directly toward her eyes, though the terrified snake did its part by baring its harmless teeth and flicking its narrow forked tongue out to smell her.

He left the room, returned the king to the travel bag; the coral glanced up disinterestedly. Simon tiptoed back, stuck his head around the archway. Gloria was staring at the man on the floor. When she saw Simon, she quickly looked away, but it was too late. Simon had followed her glance, seen the smeared blood trail on the carpet, realized that the man was feigning unconsciousness: he had managed to drag himself a few inches closer to the desk, to the telephone. Simon wasn’t worried-he still had a long way to go. And the poor fellow might even come in handier, awake.

“Is it him?” he asked Gloria, sitting down beside her. “Is he the one who’s afraid of snakes?”

“Not so far as I know.”

He knew she was telling him the truth. Most of them did, once they’d gotten past their resentment and realized that in addition to being the man who was going to kill them, Simon was also the only one who could spare them. He liked this phase of the game.

“Think real hard then, Gloria. Think as if your life depended on it. Is there anyone else who had access to your computer last week?”

She didn’t have to say anything-he could read the answer in her eyes. “Who was it, Gloria?” he asked gently.

“Linda.”

“Linda who?”

“Linda Abruzzi.”

“And who’s Linda Abruzzi.”

“An FBI agent.”

A decoy, then-Skairdykat was only a decoy, Simon realized with a start. Which meant this was all a trap. Was it about to snap shut on him? “You’re not, are you?”

“What?”

“An FBI agent.”

“No. No, I swear. I swear to God. She was my roommate at college. She was staying with us until she found her own place. I told her-goddammit, God damn the bitch, I told her not to-”

Simon cuffed her lightly across the side of the head. “Watch your language.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven.” He never felt more magnanimous than when he was totally in control. “Go on.”

“Just, I told her not to use the computer. She moved out last Thursday. That’s all.”

“I bet she left a forwarding address, though, your old roomie?”

Gloria didn’t hesitate. “There’s a yellow Post-it on the side of the computer hutch.”

On his way across the room, Simon stopped briefly to check on the superfluous Mr. Gee; he seemed to be coming around a little. Have to remember to tie that puppy down, thought Simon as he glanced at the address on the Post-it: “Care of E. L. Pender” was as far as he got.

“Well, I’ll be blessed,” he murmured, thunderstruck, as he slipped the yellow square of paper into his trouser pocket.

Not that he needed it-he already had Pender’s address on Zap’s printout, along with driving instructions Pender had so thoughtfully provided to the invaluable Mr. Bellcock.

9

Okay, so Gloria wasn’t Skairdykat-Simon hadn’t always restricted himself to pure phobics. But try as he might, he couldn’t seem to get the game off the ground-there was something wrong, something missing. Then he spotted the pill bottle on the floor beside the couch, next to the goody box of sex toys and lubricants. The label had been removed from the bottle, which was a red flag for an old doper such as himself, and an X drawn on the lid; inside were two hand-milled tablets. Simon knew the code.

“X for Ecstasy,” he said aloud. “Why, Gloria, you raver, you. And you haven’t even offered one to your guest.”

“Please-they’re yours.”

“As are you, Mrs. Gee-as are you.”

It was true, however, that without a pure phobic at its center, the game could never be at its best. But Simon, who took another crosstop while waiting for the Ecstasy to kick in, was happy to improvise. When he wasn’t able to provoke a satisfactory reaction by threatening Gloria directly, he tried to reach her through her husband, using him as a sort of dress rehearsal for the upcoming game with Pender.

But just about the time things were starting to go purple around the edges from the Ecstasy, Gloria turned away in horror-maybe even disgust. That had given Simon the clue he needed. Her hair alone should have told me, he thought. All the time and trouble it must cost her. A grown woman with hair down to her ass has to be vain. And the flip side of vanity is…? Fear of disfigurement. But of course.

In order to get Gloria away from the mess he’d made of her husband, Simon brought her, along with his luggage, up to the second-floor bedroom. Leaving Gloria bound and gagged on the bed, he went into the bathroom to answer nature’s call, which, probably due to the speed, turned out to be what Missy used to call a stinky. And the whole time he was in there, Simon found himself unable to shake the feeling that he was not alone.

That kind of paranoia, he told himself, had to stem from an imbalance-too much speed or not enough Ecstasy. So since he couldn’t take less speed, he popped the last tablet from the bottle marked X, and was at the sink filling the bathroom glass with tap water when he happened to glance up, and suddenly the mystery about not feeling alone was solved.

“It’s you,” he said to the grim-visaged old man in the mirror.

“It’s you,” Grandfather Childs replied.

It shouldn’t have jarred Simon as badly as it did-after all, he’d been seeing the creepy old face in the mirror for four days now. But not on a double dose of crosstops and phenylethylamine-based psychedelics: this time the entity on the far side of the looking glass seemed to have taken on a life of its own. It wasn’t exactly a hallucination, more like the little girl old Senor Wences used to paint on the side of his hand: you knew she wasn’t real, but you couldn’t help suspending your disbelief anyway.

Simon decided to have some fun with it.

“S’awright,” said Simon, just like Senor Wences.

“S’awright,” said Grandfather Childs simultaneously.

“Shitfuckpisscuntsuck,” said Simon, who never swore.

“Shitfuckpisscuntsuck,” said Grandfather Childs, who never swore either.

“You deserved it, you know,” said Simon.