SUMMER of FEAR (29 page)

"The first key to understanding other people, Russ, is to remember
that they don't think like you do. If you aren't ready to respect my answer,
you shouldn't have asked the question."

"I stand corrected. Please go on."

"She basically just dumped me on the plane, Russ. Without a word
of explanation beyond the clucking about her men. That's an example, a typical
event. There was a coldness about how she moved me around her world like a
piece of jewelry. I tried just to understand her. I forgave Amber a lot—I
rationalized her behavior, figuring that was just the way she was. I'm not an
unforgiving person, Russ. But by the time I was taken on
a...
desert sight-seeing tour by the fat
man and his crew-cut friend, I was finally broken. I was terrified. I felt...
hated."

"I'm not tracking."

Grace studied me silently for a long while. I could tell by the shadow
the hair of her turned head made across my sun-struck face.

"Well, Russell, the desert tour was quite simple. Fat man and crew
cut—they called themselves Sam and Gary—met me as I was getting into my car one
evening to leave work. Gary had a gun—a Glock Nineteen, I believe. This was
about eight weeks ago. They stuffed me into the front seat of a red Bronco and
squeezed me in between them. A bloodhound was on the backseat, huge and
slobbering. Name of Tex. Funny. The ride down was two hours of silence and BO
from Sam. No gropes or suggestive talk, so I was half-wondering if they might
not rape me. We went out by Joshua Tree, off on a dirt road, into the desert.
They brought me out, rather gently I remember, then knocked me on the ground
and burned the bottoms of my feet with cigarettes. Gary allowed me to chew on
his shoe, to quiet me. They didn't say anything. Well, they said one thing,
which was the whole purpose of the exercise. Gary said, and I quote, 'Show some
respect, or you're out of the money.' Amber's been threatening to write me out
of the trusts. I'm supposed to get a really big piece of it when I turn
twenty-one. She's holding the money over me like some kind of glue, like she
can put us back together with it. The truth of it is, I don't want the money I
can work. I have some savings. It's just like that stupid netsuke she believes
I stole from her. She makes up something, then reacts to her own illusion. She
scares me to death. Which exactly what she wants."

"To scare you
into...
what?"

"Submitting to her. Talking. Calling. Begging to be let back into
her heart. Gad, I don't know, Russell. Ask
her.
I've given up
trying."

She regarded me, and her face came into better focus and I saw the look
of near exasperation on it. Her pupils were small and I sensed depths behind
their depths, layers beneath the layers—fear and courage, truth and falsehood,
youth and maturity—all tapering back toward the point in her life, all those
years ago, when she felt betrayed by her mother. And I saw for my Grace no
place where she might fall and hope to land safe! She seemed to be balanced
above the abyss, like a dancer on one flexed toe, the question not being if but
when
she would tire and fall. And I felt myself tracking her through the same
gaping wound that Amber had opened in her all those years ago, her violation
making possible my own.

If one can feel a fissure open in the heart, that is exact what I felt.
A helicopter roared past, straight overhead, low. The windows rattled.

"Let me see the bottoms of your feet."

"It's comforting, Russell, to see you trust me as much as Amber
does."

"Then I withdraw the request. I believe you and
I trust you."

"Good. You should."

Then she reached down and untied her tennis shoes, peeled off her socks,
and exposed first the left, then the right foot. The circular pits of distorted
skin, the chaotic healing of burned flesh, were a living fossil record of pain.
There were seven burns on each.

"It hurt so bad, I broke three of my back teeth, gnashing. You may
see the new crowns, if you'd like."

"I wish you had come to me."

"I thought I could handle this myself, Russell. I am not
inexperienced in taking care of my own problems. I tried. I am still
trying."

"May I hold you?"

"Yeah."

She melted against me, burying her sobbing face in the crook of my neck.
She did not cry long, did not cry hard. She did not speak. A few minutes later,
when her breathing had evened, she stood, went to the bathroom, blew her nose,
then came back out to the deck.

"I'm looking forward to helping with Isabella tonight," she
said. "It will be a chance for me to do something good."

"We'll do something good for Isabella," I said. "She's
the most beautiful woman in the world."

"More beautiful than Amber?"

"It's not even close, girl."

"I love her too, Russ."

She gazed out at the canyon, tracking the flight of a chopper as it
banked low over the hills.

"I didn't want to add to your miseries, Russell. I didn't want to
burden you. But I am scared of Mother and what she might do next, or have
her...
friends do for her. I'm sorry to
have complicated your life. And I wish I could have been a better
daughter."

The phone rang. Grace was kind enough to answer and bring the cordless
out to me. "Dan Winters," she said.

I took the phone.

"Dan."

"Sh-sh-sh-sh... fooled again. I can sound just like a nigger lawman
when I want to. How's the tracer working?"

"I told you, we decided against it."

"I'll make this quick. I just wanted to know what you thought of my
statement."

"I hope you hang for it."

"An erection and climax at the moment of death. Better than lethal
injection."

"Nice job, Billy."

The silence that followed was long.

"W-w-what?"

"William Fredrick Ing. Billy. Crazy Billy."

"Explain yourself."

"You're dead in the water, Billy. We've got an ID on your photo and
one on your voice. You left a clean right index print at the Wynns." This,
of course, was a lie. "It took us about two days to make your ass. You're
not the Midnight Eye. You're selfish fat little kid who got chewed by his own
dogs. You got slapped around for walking in on your parents doing it. You think
you're a great racial cleanser, but you're a fraud. By the time tomorrow,
everybody in the county will know who you are."

I could hear him breathing then, a shallow, rapid sound that hissed
across the line. "Y-y-you cannot write that. I forb-t bid you."

"What are you going to do? Kill someone?"

"Yes!
Yes! I'll d-d-do something so bad, you won't be able to believe it. And it will
be on
your
conscience, Monroe if you p-p-publish that information,
you
will be directly responsible for what I do next. I absolutely forbid
you. You talk to Winters. You talk to W-w-wald. You talk to Parish. You tell
them they cannot publish that lie. I am the Midnight Eye! If you write anything
other than
that...
I will act
t-t-terribly."

"You're scaring the sh-sh-shit out of me."

"Then consult your soul when I do the unspeakable.
It is in your
h-h-hands!"

"Cool off, man. Maybe I could use a little help myself. Maybe if
you help me, that article won't get written. Just maybe."

A long pause followed. I could hear his heavy breathing begin to slow.

"You're talking about Amber Mae again."

"That's right."

"Parish tried to k-k-kill her."

"I know that. First he wanted it to look like you. Now he's working
up a frame that will fit me perfectly. But he can't use it without damaging
himself—his reputation, his marriage, everything. Why is he risking all
that?"

"He's not."

"Explain."

"He'll fit you, but he won't use
his...
evidence, unless you threaten him."

"A bluff?"

"Partly."

"And the other part?"

"Sh-sh-sh.
Well, it's
possible, Russ, that he may still ask you to perform some act for him, to do
something he desperately needs doing, and will call on you to do it."

"Such as what?"

"It's obvious. You want to catch a pig, think like a pig. Run that
article and I'll make you sorry."

He slammed down the phone. The crack echoed in my ear as I pressed the
off
button, then dialed Carfax.

"Still no numbered line," he said. "All we can get is
area code, and it's here, it's our area code. I can't figure this out.

"He's using a scrambler," I said.

"We can override that with enough time. We had enough time. But
we've still got no active number."

"He's not calling from damned nowhere,
John."

"No. No, he's not. Shit, I just can't—"

"Patch me through to Dan."

Winters came on the line, told me that Parish and Wald were on
conference with us.

"Ing says if we print the ID, he's going to be
an extra-bad boy."

"We shouldn't let that happen," said Wald. "It's the
wrong way to play this."

"You guys are out of your goddamned minds," said Parish.

Ten heated minutes later, we had our answer. Wald and I prevailed over
Parish. Winters finally decided to pull the article identifying Ing, perhaps
using it as leverage the next time Midnight Eye called.

"We gotta stop coddling this asshole," said Martin. "'We
know what he looks like. We got a name. Christ in heaven, Dan. what else can we
do?"

"We've got to stop him, period," said Wald. "You don’t do
that by infuriating him. Not now, at least. There might be a time for
that."

"Yeah? How many more people have to die?"

The choppers were
still in the air an hour later when we left to go get Izzy. Laguna Canyon Road
was blocked off again northbound. I could see the badges leaning keen-eyed
toward the idling cars and T-shirted volunteers of the Citizens' Task Force
with handfuls of fliers to give out—no pretense to a Sobriety Checkpoint
tonight, just a flat-out blanket search for William Fredrick Ing.

There were news vans parked along the shoulder of the
road, too, reporters getting man-on-the-street segments from canyon residents,
police interviews, even a word with our mayor, whom I spotted squinting into
the lights with an expression of shock and indignation on her face. Traffic
was stopped all the way into town. Horns blared and radiators hissed and
condensers dribbled and tape decks boomed and human limbs dangled from open
windows and the heat gave no hint of abating as the sunset ended in a western
sky so clear as to appear polished.

Grace said she felt sorry for Billy Ing. I said to spend her mercies
where the exchange rate was a little better. And that was all we said, the rest
of the way down to San Juan Capistrano.

Half an hour later, we were led into the Sandoval living room by Joe,
who stood aside, revealing Isabella sitting in her wheelchair, looking up at
me, smiling. Her overnight bag sat packed and ready beside the chair. Her cane
stood next to that. She was wearing a new outfit, involving an oversized
T-shirt studded with mock gemstones and glitter. Her wig had been brushed and
styled, her face made up, and her lips reddened with a bold lipstick. She
blushed deeply when she saw me, an said, "Hi, baby."

"You,"
I said, and
knelt down and wrapped my arm around her.

"I'm coming h-h-home tonight!"

"You've been away too long."

Behind me, I could hear Grace and Corrine introducing themselves to each
other. It felt strange that my daughter had never met my in-laws.

"What a beautiful blouse," Grace said.

There was an awkward silence, finally broken by Joe "Tea,
beer?"

"No," said Isabella. "No.
We're... we're...
we're gone!

"She started getting ready three hours ago," said Corrine
"She was happy as a kid going to Disneyland."

Izzy shook her head and wheeled forward toward the door.
"H-h-happier than Mom, that."

"She has a surprise for you tonight," said Joe, a little
worriedly, I thought.

"Oh no," I said, a running joke from the days when Izz would
heap home-improvement projects on me almost as fast as I could dodge them.
Surprises, she called them.

"Oh yes," said Isabella. "But h-h-home
first." She hugged Corrine and Joe long and dearly as a person saying
good-bye forever. And with a chilling clarity, I saw in her face the fear that
this was exactly what was happening. I looked away.

Home. She
wheeled around the first floor, touching familiar objects, exclaiming in
surprise, delight, satisfaction, wonder. She seemed bedazzled as one might have
been at the Creation. She opened the refrigerator and itemized the contents.