T. Parker - Summer Of Fear

Later, my legs still shaking and a storm of disgust brewing my heart, I walked into my house, to be greeted by Grace. She was wearing a kitchen apron belonging to Isabella, a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.

"Gad, Russell, your face is gray," she said.

I don't think I answered her. I poured a large whiskey over ice, took it into my den, and shut the door. I stared out the window. I fanned through the mail Grace had left stack on the desk: the usual assortment of bills and junk fliers-and rather serious-looking envelope from case manager Tina Sharp. I filed it, unopened, with the unpaid medical bills. It was half an hour before I could lay eyes on another human being again. I felt as if my soul had been dragged through a sewer. Final I went back out.

Standing there with her legs exposed beneath the apron and a wooden spoon in her hand, she looked like either advertisement for the spoon or an intro for some men's mag "sex in the kitchen" spread. Images of Elsie Stein flickered in my mind as I looked at my daughter, subliminal postcards from hell.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Some people and animals died."

"Is that why all the helicopters are out there?"

"Yes."

"It must have been horrible."

"It was truly horrible, girl."

I poured another large whiskey over ice and shut the door to my study behind me.

My father called to say that Amber had left without his permission. She claimed to have urgent private business. She was calm and apparently unafraid to be out alone.

"I'm sorry, Russ. I was on the pot when she drove off."

"It's okay for now. There's nothing you can do."

"I hear something wrong in your voice," he said.

"The Eye hit here in the canyon."

"People you know?"

"Kind of."

"Do you need me there?"

"Wait for Amber. Later, Dad."

I wrote the Ing piece first, based on Mary's partial identification of the picture and full conviction that the voice on the conference speaker was that of her son, William Fredrick.

My article on the latest killing spree by the Midnight Eye was finished an hour later. It simply projected out of me like vomit, and I felt the same sense of spent foulness that a good retching would have left. I faxed both pieces off to Carla Dance and Karen Schultz, then made another drink and sat out on the deck. The two Sheriff's Department choppers and one borrowed from the Newport Beach PD roared through the sky above, their blades popping dully against the canyon sides. Two network news birds hovered low, getting establishing shots for the seven o'clock segments. I talked briefly with Carla, who was checking facts-how many dogs, exactly, were hanging on the fence; did Ing graduate from high school in 1972 or 1973; was "Tiger' cat or a dog? She told me the crime-scene report was the best she'd ever read and speculated that there might be an award in it for me. The ice in my whiskey had melted and I felt sick.

Grace joined me in the shade of the deck, a shade that still registered 102 degrees on the thermometer nailed to the side of the house. The choppers persevered overhead. Grace looked lovely and composed; I sensed in her a desire to ameliorate the apparent darkness of my mood. She noted that the ice in my glass was gone and took it into the house for more. Grace did not speak as I explained to her what had happen on Red Tail Lane. I cannot remember what I said. My gorge rose as I finished the outline, and my mouth went dry and my face got cold. Through the open screen doors, I could hear the television newspeople slurring out the latest on the Midnight Eye's deeds in Laguna Beach.

I closed my eyes, saw the sun burning orange again my eyelids, concentrated on the slow, even pounding of my heart. "Grace, you ever wish something big, like God, would pick you up by the heels with a pair of tongs and just like dip you into something wet, and when you came out, you'd clean and fresh again?"

"Oh, yes. I've pictured it as something like mercury, something silver and smooth that goes into your body, then drains out through the pores, and all the ugliness goes out with it."

"Yeah."

Eyes still closed and my head resting against the rough redwood of the house, I found Grace's hand with mine and squeezed it gently. Contrary to the early morning of July 5, when I had last taken her stiff and reluctant hand, now she remained gentle and confident within my own and I sensed no notion on her part to withdraw from me. Her hand seemed, at that moment, the single most valuable thing in my world. Then I felt it grow tense.

"Don't take that away," I said.

It relaxed slightly and remained firmly within my own.

"Grace, I like the sound of your voice. Tell me a pleasant story, one with meadows or lakes or something, tell me something happy that happened to you."

"Well… okay, Russell, but I don't know any happy stories."

"You must know one."

"But I don't."

"Then make one up."

"I can't."

The sun continued its hot touch upon my eyelids and the sounds of the canyon traffic diminished, no doubt a result of the roadblock set up by Winters in meager hope of intercepting the Midnight Eye, or perhaps a witness. The whiskey surged around in my blood, unable either to fuel me or soothe me. I thought of Isabella and her surgery the next morning. I thought of life without her. There seemed to be nothing on earth to look forward to.

"Then tell me about you and your mother," I said. "It doesn't have to be happy, just true."

Grace sighed and her hand tensed. I squeezed it harder.

"What do you want to know, Russ?"

"I don't understand why you're so afraid of her."

"There are lots of things you don't understand."

"Tell me why. Tell me something. Let me hear your voice."

"Well… Russell, you must know that Amber is a profoundly selfish person. She is also extremely insecure and self-doubting. With every year I became older and more mature, she became more competitive. It was a revelation to me, at the age of thirteen, that my own mother was jealous of me."

Her hand grew stiffer, but I made no move to let it go

"Jealous?" I was imagining horrible things now from the Pampered Pet Palace, and it seemed that Grace's voice was the only antidote. "I wish you'd explain that."

"For example, Amber and I gained the attentions of very handsome young sommelier in a Paris restaurant one fall. He was thrilled to have our table-you could sense his desire just in the way he worked a cork from a bottle. It was also clear that he was interested in me. Amber, of course, in all her fake Continental sophistication, invited him-Florent-to a party her suite on a Friday night. Florent and I had a wonderful talk out on the balcony while the other guests were inside. He told me he was more affected by my beauty than he'd ever been by a woman before. I told him I understood and would accept his call the next evening. Don't I sound like Amber now-'would accept his call'? It was all so… obvious, so predictable. The next morning, I got from Amber a one-way ticket back to Orange County, via Los Angeles, and was met at the airport by Martin. The phrase that still sticks in my mind was, 'Never, ever try to come between me and one of my men again. I have not raise you to be a whore.' Amber said it from the back of the limo as I climbed out at De Gaulle. I'll never forget the… aggression in her eyes."

I heard the choppers thumping overhead.

"One might argue that Amber saw in you a thirteen-yea old girl getting in way over her head."

Grace's hand tightened with an unexpected strength.

"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."