Jonathan Nasaw - Fear itself

“No, not feels, fears -what he’s afraid of…

“Okay, just Google him to start with. If I need you to hack the FBI site, I’ll let you-

“That’s your problem, Strummy old boy. My problem is, he killed my sister, and-

“Of course that’s not what they’re saying. Trust me on this, though-Missy’s dead and Pender’s to blame,” asserted Simon, with utter conviction. He then went on to embellish what he knew in his heart to be the righteous truth, in order to sound more convincing: Pender had tricked Missy into letting him into the house without a warrant, then attacked Simon; Missy tried to stop him, and there was a scuffle; Simon was forced to flee, but Missy had been alive when he left the house; the struggle with Pender had probably overtaxed her poor heart. By the time Simon had finished, the details of the embellishment had been imbued with the authority of his emotional investment: for a sociopath, there was no other truth.

“So how long and how much?” he concluded.

“No, I’ll call you. And don’t even think about-

“I know you wouldn’t. But a man in my position can’t be too-

“Okay, I’ll call you later.”

As he replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned back to Nelson, Simon felt more like himself again. Except for the unaccustomed pangs of grief, of course, but it didn’t take Simon long to discover that grief, unlike guilt or self-doubt or boredom, was bearable, even welcome. It sharpened the senses and focused the mind.

And suddenly Simon realized why he’d been drawn here, of all places, in his time of grief.

“Nelson?” he called.

Nelson stuck his head out of the bathroom. “Yes, Simon?”

“I think it’s time for a game.”

They had no business driving, no business operating any heavy machinery, according to the caution labels on their respective pain medications, but neither of them felt right suggesting a motel.

Instead they drank bad road coffee and harmonized on oldies to keep themselves awake-Pender sang a high, sweet tenor and Dorie a ballsy alto-and took turns behind the wheel of the rented Toyota, with Dorie manipulating the automatic gearshift for the one-armed Pender.

Dorie drove the last leg of the two-and-a-half-hour journey. Rounding the Seaside curve on Highway 1 and seeing the twinkling lights of the peninsula circling the great black sweep of Monterey Bay put a coming-home lump in her throat. Pender’s, too, though he’d only been here twice before. Of course, the buzz from the two Vicodins he’d taken before they left might have had something to do with that.

They continued on past Monterey, Pacific Grove, and Pebble Beach; Dorie took the Ocean Avenue exit into Carmel, then a right on San Carlos and a quick left on Fifth; she pulled over into the first available parking space. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told Pender; “there’s something I have to do.”

Dorie was halfway up the block before the big man managed to extricate himself from the little car; Pender caught up to her in front of a women’s clothing store. “What-”

Dorie put a finger to her lips, then pointed to the mannequin in the shop window. It was dressed in a black-and-white-checked hooded robe; a simple black mask covered its eyes.

“Oh,” said Pender, moving back a step.

She stood there for a few minutes, staring at the mask in the window, still as the mannequin save for the gentle rise and fall of her chest; when she turned away, there were tears in her eyes.

“You okay?” Pender asked.

“I think so,” replied Dorie. “It’s just gonna take some getting used to, you know?”

“I can imagine,” said Pender, crooking his good elbow. Dorie slipped her hand through it, and they walked back to the car arm in arm.

Mary Cassatt was parked in Dorie’s driveway when they pulled up to the house. Half a dozen parking citations were stuck under the windshield wiper, along with a note from Wynn Mackey telling Dorie not to worry about them.

“Nice kid,” said Pender.

“Yeah, he turned out pretty good,” Dorie allowed grudgingly. “He was a handful when he was little, though-you never saw such a brat. Last kid in the world you’d figure would have grown up to be a cop. When he was eight, the little bastard rolled a lit firecracker under the bathroom door while I was on the throne.”

“When I was eight, I dropped a cherry bomb down my parents’ chimney,” Pender offered. “Damn near set the house on fire.”

“You were a brat, too?”

“And dumb. I wanted to see it go off, so I stuck my head over the edge of the chimney to watch. Blew off both eyebrows-I spent the worst two weeks of my life with my eyes all bandaged up, waiting to find out whether I’d get my sight back. I’ll tell you, it was the worst fear I’ve ever known.”

The front door was locked, with yellow crime-scene tape across the doorway. Pender followed Dorie around the side of the house. They entered through the studio-the door had been closed and sealed with crisscrossed yellow tape, but the lock still didn’t function. Inside, the doorknobs and windowsills still bore traces of the gray carbon dust used to lift latent fingerprints; Dorie winced when she flipped the wall switch in the kitchen and saw the dried vomit on the parquet floor.

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, dropping to her knees. “Now I’ll have to strip all the…all the…Oh, hell.” To her surprise, Dorie found herself weeping uncontrollably, big old honking, snot-snorkling, gut-wrenching sobs.

Pender knelt beside her and began patting her back awkwardly. “It’s okay, it’s only a little stain,” he told her, though they both knew that it wasn’t the parquet she was crying about. “It’ll come right out.”

“You think?” she asked, between hiccups as he helped her to her feet.

“Sure,” said Pender confidently. He was no expert on house-cleaning, as Linda Abruzzi would soon discover, but as hard a drinker as he was, he did know a thing or two about vomit stains.

Seven words were all it took. Seven words to dispel any illusions Nelson might have had about how easy it would be to surrender, to play Simon Says until it was time for Simon to go. Seven words to prove to him that they’d all lied-his parents, his shrinks, his support groups-when they’d assured him that his fears were phantoms and his phobias the products of disordered emotions, not a malevolent universe.

Seven words: I think it’s time for a game.

“Game? What kind of game?”

Simon, rummaging through his getaway satchel, ignored the question. “C’mon, it’ll be like old times.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Nelson.

Simon looked up sharply. “Why, Nellie, was that a joke? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Nelson tried another tack. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very…These medications I’m taking…I’m afraid they’re not exactly conducive to…you know….” His voice trailed off miserably.

“Not a problem,” Simon reassured him. “The game’s evolved way beyond that-it’s not about sex anymore.”

Nelson didn’t like the sound of that at all-if the game wasn’t about sex, what was it about? — but he’d as soon have sawed off one of his own fingers with a rusty nail file as ask for clarification. “I really don’t think my psychiatrist would-”

“Nellie?”

“Yes?”

“Hush now.”

Nelson hushed.

The game began in the dark for Nelson, blindfolded with one of his own bandannas and locked in his walk-in bedroom closet with his hands tied behind his back. The irony of the situation did not escape him: Nelson had installed external locks on every closet door in the house to allay his own childhood fear of closets as potential hiding places for bogeymen and burglars.