Fear itself: a novel

by Jonathan Lewis Nasaw

  Summer, 1959. A new family is going to be moving in next door, Grandfather Childs announces at the dinner table. “The boy looks to be about your age, Simp.” That’s short for Simple, which in turn is short for Simple Simon. “Maybe you can make friends with him—although I doubt it.”

  That’s a sore point for the ten-year-old Simon—he doesn’t make friends easily. But a few weeks later, when the moving van pulls up next door, Ganny bakes a welcome-to-the-neighborhood cake, and Simon is deputized to deliver it. Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter remind Simon of Ozzie and Harriet. They call Nelson down; turns out he’s a year younger than Simon. In eighth grade, when Simon reads Great Expectations, the description of the pale young gentleman will resonate for him—in his mind’s eye he will picture Nelson Carpenter, his nervous mannerisms; his indoor complexion, so doughy white it looked as though if you poked him with your finger, it would leave an impression; his red-rimmed eyes; and his longish straw-colored hair.

  Mrs. C., a hovering, overprotective mother, cuts them each a thick slice of Ganny’s cake, unpacks the kitchen stools, the milk glasses, and the chocolate crazy straws, then flutters away reluctantly to supervise the movers. When they’re done eating, Simon announces that they’re going to go play at his house now, then hops off the stool and starts for the back door. He doesn’t turn to see if Nelson is following him—somehow he just knows it.

  He takes Nelson to meet Ganny and Missy; luckily for the skittish younger boy, Grandfather Childs is at the office. And the pale young gentleman definitely passes the Missy test: he doesn’t make fun of her or—it’s a big word, but Simon knows what it means—patronize her. In fact, Nelson and Missy get along almost too well; Simon takes Nelson up to his room so he can have his new friend all to himself.

  “Wanna see Skinny?” Simon asks.

  “Who’s Skinny?”

  “My pet.”

  “Is it a dog or a cat? I’m kind of scared of dogs and cats.”

  “Nope.”

  “Bird?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fish?”

  “BZZZZ.” Simon sounds the imaginary game-show buzzer. “You’re outta guesses.” He hauls Skinny’s cage out from under the bed.

  “A snake!” Nelson mouths the words.

  “Yup. Genuine striped mamba, most poisonous snake in the whole world. One bite and your dick falls off and you die.”

  Skinny is a common garter, of course—Simon’s venomous snake days are still in the future—but Nelson obviously doesn’t know that. He goes stiff and still, only he’s kind of quivering too, like Daffy Duck at the North Pole, like if you whacked him he’d break into a million tiny pieces. Simon feels himself getting a stiffy. He unzips his khaki shorts and works it through the fly of his whities until it’s poking out.

  “Kiss it,” he tells Nelson. “Just once. If you kiss it, I won’t let him get you.”

  “You promise?” asks little Nelson, still frozen, still quivering.

  “Trust me,” little Simon replies.

  Three hours after taking the Halwane, Simon awoke feeling as refreshed as if he’d enjoyed a full night’s sleep and sporting a wake-up erection. Haven’t had one like this in years, he thought, admiring his uncharacteristic arousal in the bedroom mirror. Good stuff, that Halwane—have to save a few for the getaway bag.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the Halwane that was responsible for the erection. Maybe it was thinking about Nelson before he went to sleep. Have to look old Nellie up again, one of these days. Last time Simon had checked, he still lived in Concord, in the house he’d bought after his parents died. And the statute of limitations had probably already run out on the whole Grandfather Childs thing—manslaughter, at worst—which meant the delicate balance, the two-way blackmail that had kept them apart all these years, no longer applied.

  Or maybe it wasn’t Nelson or the Halwane—maybe it was the prospect of the morning’s game that had Simon so excited. In which case, he had been right to save the best for last, he told himself. Or at least for later—with the blind rat lurking about, Simon knew there could never really be a last.

  4

  Headache. The kind of headache with roots so deep you feel it in your gut. And sore all over, like after a car wreck. Like that time she wrecked Daddy’s car.

  I’m sorry. Daddy, I’m so sorry.

  And Daddy says, As long as you’re safe, sweetheart—that’s all that matters.

  But the Chrysler—it’s totaled.

  That’s why we have insurance, sweetheart. You rest now.

  Okay, Daddy.

  A few minutes—or a few seconds, or a few hours—later, Dorie opened her eyes to blackness, true, impenetrable blackness. As a painter, she knew what a rare thing that was. You didn’t often find it in nature, not aboveground, anyway.

  The mattress smelled of bleach. She sat up slowly, taking inventory. Headache, cotton mouth. Bruised and battered. Cold. No clothes, where are my—

  Two masks appeared. They weren’t there, and then, impossibly, they were. Tragedy and comedy, a frown and a grin, glowing in midair, surrounded by darkness. Dorie moaned and covered her eyes, which would not close of their own accord, then counted to ten and spread her fingers apart, peeked through the cracks into the darkness, and saw only the darkness. No grin, no frown—had they even been there in the first place?

  Dorie drew her knees up and crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself for warmth. Got to figure this out. Last thing—what’s the last thing you remember? Musical clothes. Upstairs trying on clothes. Blue shirt—my blue denim. But why? Going out? No, somebody coming over. Who? Her memory inched forward. Doorbell rings. Big bald guy on the doorstep. Brown beret, easy grin, Pebble Beach sweatshirt, tragic plaid pants. And his name, his name is, his name is Pender, and he’s here because he’s here because he’s here because…

  Then she had it, all of it. Carl, Kim, Mara, Wayne. A psychopath who preys on phobics, feeds on fear. Carl, Kim, Mara, Wayne, and now me. She moaned again and hugged herself tighter, tried to tell herself that this wasn’t happening, that it couldn’t be happening, because things like this just didn’t happen. Dreams happened, though—wake up, you big turkey. You know how to wake up—you just open your…

  But her eyes were open. And people weren’t cold like this in dreams, all goose bumps and puckered nipples, and they weren’t sore, and they didn’t have pounding headaches. There was terror in dreams, but no pain—that’s what made them bearable. That and the fact that you could wake up from them.

  Still cushioned by a lingering sense of disbelief, Dorie was trying to remember what had come next, after Pender, when she heard a click somewhere off in the darkness, and the masks appeared again, comedy and tragedy, white with a violet tinge, six or seven feet off the ground. Then another click, and an instant later they were gone. Black light, Dorie thought: he’s doing it with black light and Day-Glo. And instead of terror, she felt a surge of anger. He feeds off fear, does he? Well, fuck him, let him starve.

  It didn’t take Simon long to figure out that the click of the wall switch controlling the black light was giving him away. Clad head to toe in black, silk socks to lightweight balaclava, like a stagehand in a Noh play, he’d been taking it slow, determined to avoid making the same mistakes he’d made with Wayne. Instead, of course, he found himself making all new mistakes. He’d used the black light setup only once before, for a sixty-three-year-old ailurophobe named Constance, and that had been nearly ten years ago; the basement had been crawling with cats (most of which had been dipped into a solution of fluorescent dye a few hours earlier and were still spitting mad), and Constance had been screaming bloody murder the whole time.

  Dorie, though—Dorie hadn’t made a sound. Which didn’t make her initial reaction any less electrifying. Her sense of shock and horror was almost palpable; it touched someplace deep inside Simon, someplace deep and holy. He’d felt it in his mind, his bones, his bowels, his heart, and most of all he’d felt it in that mystery kundalini spot somewhere between t
he base of his cock and the base of his spine. The sensation was so intense, so exquisite, that it was almost painful, like being in love.

  But the second time he’d clicked the black light on and off, her head had jerked to the right, following the sound of the wall switch. He was startled for a moment—she seemed to be staring right at him, her eyes glowing a pale, panther green in the infrared light of the night-vision goggles. He flipped up the eyepiece just to be sure—nope, black as pitch. She couldn’t see him, but she had definitely sensed his presence.

  Pity, thought Simon. Still, we had ourselves a moment there, didn’t we, babe? Pure, intense, virginal fear—fleeting as it may be, there’s nothing to match it. But like virginity itself, when it’s gone, it’s gone.

  Still, it might be possible to at least reclaim the element of surprise. Keeping the goggles trained on Dorie, sitting now with her knees drawn up and pressed together and her arms crossed over her breasts (modesty, thought Simon: how touching; how irrelevant), he flipped the wall switch on. She quivered, closed her eyes, ducked her head. He tiptoed across the room, silent on stockinged feet, knelt down (slowly, carefully, wary of the capricious creaking and popping to which his fifty-something joints were liable), and quietly unplugged the extension cord. Now all he had to do was wait for Dorie to raise her head, then plug the cord back in. No more clicks, no more warning.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Up came her chin, up, up, up. Slowly she turned her head to the right, where she’d heard the click of the wall switch, then slowly, deliberately, she turned her head back until she was staring straight ahead, with those panther eyes wide, unblinking—it was almost as if she were daring him to try it again.

  You got it, babe, thought Simon, slipping the plug noiselessly into the socket. The masks glowed to life, but he kept the goggles fixed on Dorie. Her entire body shuddered; her eyes rolled back in her head until only the whites were showing, eerily green, blank as marbles in the night-vision glow.

  Simon stifled a groan, crept closer, closer, until he was close enough to smell her fear. She was squatting now, rocking on her heels, modesty abandoned. He wanted to throw his arms around her, hug her, strike her, suckle at her breast, bite her breast, own her fear. He wanted everything and at the same time he wanted nothing—nothing but this moment, frozen in time….

  Now that she’d had a little more time to think, Dorie had changed her mind. Pender had said it was the fear he was after. If it’s fear he wants, she’d reasoned, then fear he gets. Don’t starve him, feed him; give him a little incentive to keep you alive, anyway. And sooner or later he’s bound to slip up. Then he’ll find out what a big, strong woman can—

  Sooner: it was to be sooner. The masks appeared; she let the terror wash over her, let her eyes roll back in her head, fought the syncope by squatting, rocking on her heels, clenching and unclenching her fists. She sensed him drawing closer—he was a whisper of breath, a rustle of cloth in the silence, a warm, humansize hole in the blackness. A fragment of lyric started going through her mind: Closer. Come a little bit closer. Let me whisper—

  Now: she sprang forward, flailing with both fists, swinging, missing, swinging again and again, striking something soft, then something hard and metallic. Her fingers closed around a…a camera…? he was wearing a camera on his—

  No, goggles. Night vision. Of course. She yanked them off, swung them where his head had been. He ducked under the blow, came at her low, drove his head into her belly, knocking her backward. She drew her legs up, tried to kick him away, but he was too close, she didn’t have the leverage. She swung at him again; he grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the mattress.

  Now he was on top of her, lying on her, his body pressed against her and his face only inches from hers. She sensed him lowering his head; she knew that he meant to kiss her. She willed herself to go limp, waited until she could feel his breath warm and coppery against her face, then brought her head up and forward with all the strength she could muster.

  5

  “He must have been a tiny little guy,” commented Pender. He and Sid were standing before the altar of the Mission San Carlos Borroméo del Rio Carmelo, better known as the Carmel Mission, looking down at the sarcophagus of Father Junípero Serra, which was barely five feet long.

  “And yet this simple, humble monk, this ‘tiny little guy,’ as you so eloquently phrased it, was responsible for the genocide of tens of thousands of California Indians.”

  A family of tourists had entered the cool stone chapel and were gathering around the sarcophagus; Pender decided to egg Sid on. “Now, now, Sidney. Surely that’s a tad harsh.”

  “One of the greatest mass murderers in the history of the Catholic Church,” said Sid. “Which is no mean company to keep. And now they’re talking about beatifying the evil little dwarf. I’m sorry, it just pisses me off.”

  After the chapel, the Moorish bell tower. Pender took advantage of the elevation to call Dorie’s number; he tried it again as they strolled through the gardens behind the church. “I don’t understand it—she said she’d be home all day.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “Maybe her phone’s out of order.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe she took one look at you, decided to head for the hills.”

  “You’ve always been jealous of my success with the ladies,” said Pender.

  “Yeah, that and your wardrobe. Look, if you want to drive by her house, see if she’s okay, quit nudging and just say so.”

  “Good idea,” said Pender, as if he hadn’t been dropping hints to that effect since they’d left Pebble Beach an hour earlier.

  “Where’s Mary?” asked Pender, as they pulled into Dorie’s driveway, Sid behind the wheel of their rented car.

  “Who’s Mary?”

  “Mary Cassatt—Dorie’s car. Roadmaster wagon. Should be in the carport.”

  “Let’s review, shall we?” Sid shifted into park, but did not cut the engine. “Lady’s not answering her phone and her car’s not in the driveway. What does that tell us, pard?”

  But Pender had already unbuckled his seat belt. “Be right back.”

  “It tells us the lady is out,” Sid explained to the now empty passenger seat, as he switched off the ignition. “It tells us the lady is not at home.”

  Pender rang the bell, tried the front door, which was locked, then checked the windows for signs of forced entry as he walked around the side of the house. The back door was also locked. Okay, so maybe she flaked, he told himself. Or maybe it’s me, maybe I read too much into it when she said she’d be home all day.

  But as he continued past the studio (once a sleeping porch, now glassed in and shuttered) and around the far side of the house, where a narrow, musty-smelling cement walkway was hedged in by a high board fence overgrown with ivy, keeping his eyes trained on the ground for blood spatters, footprints, whatever, he almost walked smack into the studio door, which had swung open, blocking the walkway.

  Pender stuck his head through the doorway. Dim light, shutters closed, smell of paint, turpentine, linseed oil. “Dorie?”

  No answer. He entered the studio, glanced around. Everything looked about the same as it had last night, when she’d given him the grand tour. The canvases she had intended to gesso today were still stacked against her workbench, and her plein air gear—portable easel, folding stool, walking stick—was leaning against the wall, just inside the door.

  “Dorie?” he called again, mostly for form’s sake. He was pretty sure she wasn’t home—the house just felt empty—but he continued across the hall into the kitchen anyway, and as soon as he saw the puddle of dried vomit on the parquet floor, Pender understood, with a certainty inaccessible to anyone who hadn’t spent his entire adult life in law enforcement, that he had just half-assed his way into the middle of a crime scene.

  6

  The climate inside the DOJ-AOB was so oppressively perfect that toward the end of her second day closeted with the mountain of redacted transaction records, Li
nda Abruzzi would have killed for a little fresh air or sunlight—even a rainstorm—and was beginning to entertain Count of Monte Cristo fantasies. I could tap on the wall in Morse, she thought, make contact with some other poor office-bound wretch—maybe we could tunnel to freedom together.

  Around four o’clock, as she was washing her hands in the ladies’ room after using the facilities, Linda asked her reflection in the stainless steel mirror over the sink (for security reasons, there were no glass mirrors in the building) to remind her again why she was putting herself through this, when she could have been kicking back at her parents’ new house out on Long Island, being waited on hand and foot by her mother.

  But all she got out of the haggard brunette in the mirror, who appeared to be trying to disprove the second half of the old saw about how you couldn’t be too rich or too thin—alarmingly prominent Neapolitan nose and a chin you could have opened a beer bottle on—was a beats-the-crap-outta-me shrug.

  “Okay, back to work,” she ordered herself. “There’s only another hour left—then you can go home and feel sorry for yourself.”

  Forty-five minutes later, she felt like celebrating instead, having stumbled across a federal credit union account so bogus it was a wonder it hadn’t stunk up the whole office. Some GS-13, judging by the size of the paycheck automatically deposited into his or her account every month, had also made several large cash deposits spread out over a period of thirty months.