SUMMER of FEAR (40 page)

Already, I could see Izzy's concentration waning, the deep exhaustion
showing forth from her lovely eyes.

She smiled dreamily, closed her eyes, and squeezed my
hand. "Nap time."

As I released her hand and set it on her chest, I saw
the blue bruising that the IV needle made, the tape that kept it the little
loop of clear tubing that would fill with blood if directional flow was
interrupted. How vicious and factual, way the steel of the needle disappeared
into her living flesh---pure insult, pure affront, pure invasion.

Soon she was snoring, her face retreating into the
turban, her chubby cheeks relaxed and pink, her mouth just slightly open,
revealing the whiteness of her teeth.

I closed
my eyes and felt my heart beating in my chest.
Remain,
I thought:
Isabella, remain.
My head dipped, righted itself. I got up from my chair,
shut the door to her room, then removed the seizure pads and lowered the
railing on the left side of her bed.

I climbed
in and worked my way up next to her. She did not stir. I reached back and
raised the railing to give me something to rest against—hospital beds are made
for only one. I placed my head beside hers, my nose up close to the clinical
gauze. I worked my hand under her hand, not disturbing tubing and needle. I
slept.

Later,
from the lobby, I made three phone calls. The first was to Wald, who confirmed
that Parish would be at Amber's sometime after eleven. The second was to Amber,
who confirmed her willingness to participate in this trap. The anger in her
voice was palpable. Last, I called Martin Parish—my second to him since the
disastrous meeting.

"You were
right," he said. "He's been working at the phone company under the
name of Stuart Bland. Mr. Bland apparently did not show up for work after his
break. The son of a bitch saw us. And I'll swear on my mother's grave that Wald
told me he'd covered them."

"I believe you. Now it's your turn to believe
me."

"What I'll believe, Monroe, is the truth," he said. "You
need to deliver."

"I'll do that."

I hung up, then I drove down to Mission San Juan Capistrano, where
Isabella and I were married those few short years ago. I yearned for the
proximity of the old adobe, the talismanic power of the crucifix and candles,
the ancient whiff of miracle. I yearned for a joyful memory.

But the mission
was closed for repair. I stood outside the tall adobe wall and read the sign. I
walked around to the north end of the grounds and sat against that wall in the
shade of a pepper tree. The noise I heard coming from the other side could have
been Father Serra's Juanenos building the original structure, if not for the
occasional buzz of an electric saw. As I sat there, I tried to imagine what
might happen at Amber's house in just a few hours, if Martin stayed true to his
own nature, and Wald to his. I felt possessed of a certain clarity of
intention, however. I felt possessed, too, of a certain violence.

Grace was not at
home when I arrived, as I suspected she would not be. She had left a note
saying she was going to visit a friend tonight and would be back late. Some
friend, I thought, and saw again in my mind's eye her image on the TV monitor
in the home of Erik Wald.

At eight that night, the Midnight Eye called.
"You've made a terrible mistake," he said. "I am not William
Fredrick Ing."

"Then there's no problem."

"Oh, there will be quite a problem, R-r-russell. And it will belong
to you and those pigs at the department."

I said nothing.

"The flatfoots finally caught up with me. Brilliant, don't you
think, to be creating my own phone lines?"

"It was brilliant. Where are you now?"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh. Out of a job, obviously. But I'm not worried. I have
savings. I'm prepared. It was funny, watching Parish and his men pour into the
phone company building at break time. I was outside eating a sandwich. Maybe
I'll have my last paycheck mailed to me. You lied, Russell, about the
intercept. I truly thought I could trust you."

"I was overridden."

"By Winters and Parish, right? They're the law-and-order types. You
and Wald held out for the more... subtle idea keeping me talking longer."

"We're talking now."

"Well, time is short. Just know that the next time you hear from
me, you can take full responsibility for the lives that have been crushed out.
To call me an overweight epileptic something you will regret. I am not Ing. I
am the Midnight Eye.”

He hung up abruptly. I dialed the intercept number at department and got
Carfax. "It was an L.A. County number---the airport. Winters is pleading
our case right now."

Los Angeles International Airport, I thought. Had we run him off?

Just before I left to pick up Amber, I went into my study and opened the
right-bottom drawer of my desk to get the Gold Cup Colt .45, I consider my
finest sidearm. It was gone.

After a moment's surprise, I realized why, and smile myself.

I packed the
Smith instead, a .357 with a four-inch barrel, which I fitted into a regulation
shoulder holster. It was heavy, bulky, and obvious, but I didn't care. Then I
slipped a speed loader into the pocket of my coat and the videotape I'd taken
from Wald's bedroom in the other. Armed with a gun and a snippet of the truth,
I turned on the porch lights, locked the door behind me, and got into my car.

At nine o'clock,
I picked up Amber at a posh hotel on the Laguna coast. She was wearing a white
cotton dress, with a wide red belt and red pumps. She looked like the
sacrificial lamb that we intended her to play. In the lobby, she took my arm
and we proceeded across the marble floor like lovers going out for a night on
the town. All eyes followed us—or rather, Amber—and even under so strained a
circumstance, I could feel emanating from her the enjoyment, the sense of
entitlement, that she derived from the position she had earned at center stage.

"You look nice," I said, content with
understatement.

"You look like a tired writer with a gun under
his coat."

"Some things don't change."

"I have to tell you, Russ, I am afraid of
this."

"You should be."

"I am furious at Erik."

"Hide it for a while. There will be a time for
that."

We arrived at Amber's at 9:30, after parking well away from the house.

Wald came exactly at ten, as planned. He had dressed for the occasion in
a baggy cream-colored linen suit. The coat was perfect for concealing a gun,
which, if I was correct in my surmise, would be my own .45, pilfered by Grace
earlier in the day and delivered to Wald forthwith. He shook my hand and kissed
Amber on both cheeks.

"I feel good," he said. "Charged to the max by the
adrenaline of law enforcement. I love this kind of stuff. Out of the lecture
hall and into real life."

"Do you think he's convinced?" asked Amber, never better at
playing a role.

"I'm almost sure of it."

"And if he's not?"

"Then, my dearest, most beautiful Amber Mae, we try again." He
smiled at her, in his boyish blue eyes the same shine of desire and conspiracy
that I had seen him level at my daughter that very morning. He had known them
both! I could hardly contain my desire to beat his face to meat with my fists.

"I think we should set up in Amber's bedroom," I said quietly.
"That's where Marty will expect to find you."

"I'm guessing he'll come around midnight," said Erik
"He'll figure she'll be asleep by then, like Alice was. Make his whole op
a lot easier."

"Erik," I said, smiling at him,
"that's good thinking."

We climbed the stairs. In Amber's room, we made ourselves comfortable for
the wait. I dimmed the lights. Amber reclined on the bed with a book. Erik
claimed a divan to the side of one window and I sat in a rather punishing chair
on the other side. I made a show of checking the angle, of assuring myself that
an alert Martin Parish would not be able to see me through the glass.

Erik nodded approvingly. "Well," he said, "we've got
least an hour to kill. Shall we talk about our feelings, share personal
experiences, come to terms with inner conflicts?"

Amber said nothing.

"Maybe you should start, Erik. Tell us, for
instance, what you were doing here in Amber's bedroom on July the third and
fourth."

He chuckled, but his eyes moved from me to Amber and
back again in a reflexive action he could not control. "Let's see,
I was...
getting ready to strip down and
have a wank like Marty used to. Yes, that's it. Dream of Amber and shake hands
with the unemployed."

I laughed quietly. "When, exactly, did your glasses lose that screw
because it was stripped? Before wank or after? My guess is after."

"You've lost me already, Russ. Although you genuine law-enforcement
types often do."

"On your cleanup detail the next night, a bad screw worked loose
from your glasses. That left one to hold the temple on, but barely. You didn't
know it was gone until this morning, when you put them on in your study. There
were other things on your mind. I found it right here on this carpet on the
Fourth of July. This afternoon I went back to your place after the meeting.
And guess what? It fits perfectly."

Erik smiled a little uneasily. "Lots of screws fit lots of things,
Russ. Maybe you should have tried a pair of Martin's glasses."

"He's got twenty/fifteen vision. And you only wear your glasses
when the
world won't see you,
or you think it shouldn't. It didn't on the
Fourth. Because you were painting over these walls, trying to cover up the
spray-paint you'd used twenty-four hours earlier."

Erik glanced casually across at Amber, then turned back to me. "I
get the distinct feeling you two are having a laugh on Professor Wald."

"I haven't really laughed in almost two years,
Erik."

"Then maybe you could be a mensch and tell me what the hell you're
talking about."

I removed the videotape
from one pocket and held it out. Wald's face turned blank, and even in the
diminished light I could see the color fade from it. I brought out the .357 and
set the butt of it on the arm of my chair, positioning the barrel in line with
Wald's heart.

Amber gasped.

Wald looked quickly to her, then back. For a moment his entire body
seemed spring-loaded, poised to explode. The he leaned back more comfortably
into the cushions of the diva and crossed his legs. He managed a smile.
"Fire away, Russ

"Not yet," I said. "I'd like you to hold very still while
Amber comes up behind you and takes the pistol from the holster under your
coat." At this point, I lifted my magnum and married sights to the center
of Erik Wald's chest. "If you touch her, blow your heart out. And I'd like
to make a small predicts right now that the sidearm she'll take away from you,
Wald, will be my own Gold Cup forty-five. Let's run the experiment now just to
see."

His face, partially in shadow, took on the appearance pale marble. A
layer of sweat had come to his skin and the dim light turned it to an
otherworldly shine. Even in his posture repose, I clearly sensed that Wald's
entire being was capable any second of quick and decisive motion.

Amber approached behind him.

"Spread your arms," I said.

Wald did.

Amber's hand glided beneath the left lapel of the linen coat and
reappeared with the bright shape of my stainless automatic positioned between
her long and perfect fingers, did not move. Amber retreated to the bed, dropped
the gun on the cover, then stood looking at me.

"Shall we watch the preamble to your polar-bear
tape?”
I asked.

"Sure," said Wald.

"You bastard,
Erik,"
Amber hissed. "I
wish Russell could shoot you right now. You're not good enough for a prison.

"I'm not going to any prison. You can be sure of
that."

"Naw, Erik couldn't cut it in stir," I said. "Why don't
you tell us how you and Grace planned to kill Amber but killed her sister
instead? How you planted her body in my freezer and played Martin into it? How
you started screwing Grace when she was just a girl, and scared her enough to
believe her own mother was having her tortured? When you've explained all that,
we'll just break up the party here and go our separate ways. You'll be back in
time to watch all the home movies you want. See, Wald, you were right about one
thing—I'm not willing to take down my daughter just to get to you."

Something of Wald's coiled energy seemed to relax just a little.
"Damn," he said, finally. "And here I thought you'd want to know
something closer to the truth, such as how I managed to save Grace's butt from
Parish for this long. Yours, too, buddy Russ."

I set the gun on the armchair and folded my hands in my lap. "Okay.
That's what I want to know."

"Then I'm happy to tell you, though it breaks my promise to Grace.
She dreaded the thought
of...
falling
in your eyes, Russ. I knew Grace was scared enough to make an attempt on Amber.
I'd seen those scars on her feet. I'd seen everything she'd gone through with
loving mom here. She left my house late on the third, half drunk, with a
thirty-two. I followed her. What I found was one dead woman in Amber's room,
right here, and Grace standing there puking on herself. I took her to my place.
Parish did it, absolutely. He wanted to frame the Eye, but when he realized
he'd gotten Alice instead of Amber, it made more sense to come back and
sanitize the scene and hope no one would have anything to report. If someone
did, they'd report to
him,
anyway."