“Yes. I always took it as a compliment.”
The view from the porch was spectacular, Dorie had to admit. It occurred to her, as Pender unlocked the sliding glass door, that she could paint from up here in the morning, then go down to the canal in the afternoon. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it, she thought, following Pender into the house. God, I love my work.
5
Simon was ready. He’d been ready for hours, fussing around the house, watching TV, smoking a joint out on the porch, refining the game. At the last minute, he changed his mind about taking a chair down to the cellar beforehand. He was halfway down the stairs with it when it dawned on him that if Pender did enter the house through the porch door, he was as likely to head for the kitchen as the bedroom-best to leave everything as is.
Simon did an about-face on the steps. He was still in the kitchen when he heard a car coming down the drive. He raced into the living room, peeked out through the drawn blinds, saw the cab pulling up behind the Geo. He saw Pender climb out-nice hat, duude; wha’ happen, somebody break your arm? Then he saw a second figure climbing out.
Simon’s heart dropped-please let it be a cab-share-and when he recognized Dorie Bell, his jaw dropped as well. Last time he’d seen her, she was naked in the galvanized tub in the basement of 2500 and he was holding her head underwater. He knew she hadn’t drowned, but as the only participant ever to have survived the fear game, she had somehow slipped into another dimension of Simon’s consciousness, neither dead nor living; he wasn’t quite as surprised to see her as he would have been to see, say, Wayne Summers-but it was a near thing.
As the cabdriver dropped the suitcase by the front door and went back for the footlocker, Simon raced into Pender’s bedroom, thinking furiously. Dorie’s presence wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Snatch her first, put a gun to her head, he’d have himself a bargaining chip. Think Edward G. Robinson: Freeze, G-man, or I blow her brains out. Hero cop like Pender, he’ll freeze all right. He’ll do anything I tell him to do-she’s his sweetie pie now. Some hero: he saves ’em and screws ’em.
And as he closed the bedroom door behind him, breathing hard, as engaged and excited as a soldier going into combat, Simon realized that having a second shot at Dorie was the only thing that could possibly have improved what was already promising to be the ultimate fear game. Not just a triple-header, but a chance to erase his only loss. Because when he was finished with Dorie (and this time he would insist on having a piece of what Pender had been enjoying, if it took him all night to get it in), the final score in the fear game would be
Linda spat out her gag. Somehow she’d held on to the coral; she had it behind the neck again with her good right hand. She told herself not to panic-it hadn’t gotten her that badly. Small mouth, short fangs, Reilly had said- they have to chew their way in. And hadn’t Reilly also said the venom was only borderline lethal and that there was always a delayed reaction. Or had he said
Related question: what was going on upstairs? Linda could hear Childs running from the kitchen to the living room, then into the bedroom wing. Was Pender home? She hadn’t heard his footsteps yet-and she would have, heavy as he was. Which meant it might be too late to save herself, but she could still save him.
How? Concentrate-never mind the pain. Use it to focus. You wait until you hear a door, a heavy tread. Then you scream,
But what if Childs already has a gun on Pender? Then all you’ve done is blow your only advantage- surprise.
No, you have another advantage: he’s already told you he plans to blind Pender while you watch. So you know you have time; he’s not going to shoot Pender as soon as he comes in. You also know he has to come back down to the cellar eventually. Wouldn’t it be smarter to-
But by then the burning sensation had begun traveling up Linda’s arm: when it reached her elbow, she understood that waiting for Childs to come to her was no longer a viable strategy.
6
As Pender crossed the living room, heading for the vestibule-the bags were still out on the front doorstep-he saw the basket of mail on the table beside the answering machine. The letter on top caught his eye. Noble J. Heinz-Ida’s lawyer. The Judge, everybody in La Farge called him. An imposing, wintry man with arctic blue eyes and a mane of snowy hair. Always wore Clarence Darrow galluses and navy serge suits as dark as blue can be, and still be blue. But why would the Judge be writing him? He decided the baggage could wait.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
Pender glanced up from opening the envelope. It was good to see Dorie standing in his living room. She was looking mighty fine, too. Her cheeks were rosy from the nippy air, the discoloration around her eyes had faded to a faint yellowish green, and the blue eyes themselves were as bright as if she were high. Maybe she was, thought Pender-maybe landscapes were her drug of choice. “First door on the right or third door on the left.”
Inside Judge Heinz’s envelope was a second envelope, with Pender’s name written in Ida’s Palmer Method handwriting. He opened it with a sharp pang of dread and unfolded a sheet of her familiar lavender stationery, so thin it was almost transparent.
May 29, 1997
Dear Eddie,
If you’re reading this, that means I’m gone.
I’ve arranged to have some things sent on to you. The family papers and photo albums, Mom’s jewelry, a few knickknacks from the Cortland house, et cetera.
Everything else has been left to the Down Syndrome Foundation. Judge Heinz is handling the estate, which he says is an attorney’s dream. Most of my assets, including the title to the house, have already been transferred into a trust for the DSF, so Uncle Sam is going to reap precious little out of the transaction, which warms the cockles.
Cleland’s is handling the auction, and Seland’s Funeral Home will haul my carcass up to the crematorium in La Crosse. They have strict instructions not to bring anything back. No tarted-up corpse in an overpriced casket for me, no cremains in an overpriced urn. Ashes are ashes and dust is dust, and it is ghoulish superstition to treat them as if they were anything else.
As for a funeral or memorial service, you know how I feel about that sort of thing. I didn’t bury Walt, I didn’t bury Stanley, and I won’t have you burying me. If you want to, you can raise a glass in my memory, but don’t go off on a bender on my account.
I guess that’s about it, except to tell you that I love you dearly, as did Walt and Stanley, and that no big sister was ever prouder of her little brother than I am of you.
Your Loving Sister,
Ida
Pender was still trying to digest all that-in fact, he was still trying to digest the first sentence-when Dorie appeared in the doorway leading to the bedroom wing. “Pen?”
He looked up. The high color of a moment ago was gone, leached from her face. “Dorie, what-”
As Dorie shuffled reluctantly into the room, chin in the air, hands in the air, Pender saw first a pistol barrel against the back of her neck, then a hand yanking her tightly by the roots of her braid, then a bald Simon Childs behind her, turning her, angling her body toward Pender, to keep it between Pender and himself.
“You move, she dies,” said Childs.
Everybody dies, thought Pender, letting Ida’s letter slip from his fingers; the flimsy lavender sheet fluttered
