T. Parker - Summer Of Fear

"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.