SUMMER of FEAR

by T. Jefferson Parker

In front of me, through dim light, something moved. A light went on. The Midnight Eye loomed not ten feet from me, bearded, bewigged, wrapped in a rotting green blanket, pointing a small automatic with a large silencer directly at the bags still clutched to my gut.

  "Hi, Russ."

  My first reflex was to look up the stairway, past Dee's body, to the bedroom where I had last seen my wife alive. The bags dropped to the floor. I leaned in the direction of the stairs, then held myself.

  "She's s-s-sleeping," said the Eye. "I looked in on her. Don't worry. Sh-sh-sh. Now, step toward me slowly, with your hands away from your body."

  I did so. I stopped to look upstairs again, to perhaps see a shadow cast by her breathing body, perhaps hear some tiny sound that would indicate life. The rage that rang from my stomach, up my backbone, and into my ears nearly deafened me. My breath was short.

  "Yes, like that," he said. "Here... sit at your table."

  I saw that my typewriter and a fresh stack of paper had been placed on the dining room table. I walked toward it, still straining, even through the dreadful ringing in my ears, for some sound from the bedroom above. "Sit."

  "I need to see Izzy," I said.

  "I told you, she's sound asleep. Deeply asleep."

  "May I see for myself?"

  "You may not, you shit-sucking liar! You cheat. You coward. You sit!"

  I pulled back the heavy dining room chair and sat before the typewriter.

  "I took the seven o'clock out this morning."

  "How did you make that last call register in Brooklyn?'

  "I have call forwarding in my little cage in Brooklyn. Your CNI intercept tells you that the call originated there. Actually, made it from your study and routed it through New York."

  "Clever."

  "All of these gadgets and tricks are in the public realm now. It's part of the peace dividend. Most people don't knowthat. Most people are idiots. All I used was some very basic electronic know-how. Of course, two years at the central phone office in Laguna didn't hurt me."

  As I sat there, I got my first truly good look at the Midnight Eye. He was as tall as we suspected—six three perhaps—and heavily, though softly, built. Even from this distance, it was easy to see that the beard and disheveled red-brown hair were false. But aside from his size and the piecemeal manner of his disguise, little about the man himself commanded the kind of dread we had all felt looking at the things he had done. His eyes were very dark brown. They had a brightness to them, a luminosity that was intensified by the ceiling lamp. They were slow eye deliberate and calm. His skin was pale, and I noted that his fingers, wrapped around the handle of the gun, were plum; with longish nails. His legs were heavy and large, and his feet quite big, which gave him a bottom-heavy, weighted appearance. Magnifying this effect was his slight pigeon-toed stance. A flicker of anger charged his eyes when mine met them again.

  "It's not polite to stare."

  From what I could judge from Mary Ing's earlier picture I was now looking at a disguised version of William Fredrick Ing. Rather, reverse-disguised, to mimic an earlier manifestation of himself. What did he really look like now, beneath the fake hair and beard? Wald and I had been right—the Midnight Eye had been impersonating an "other" all along, playing a part in his own ritual. As we had suspected, Ing had been able to work, move about in public, and continue his murderous nights because in real life, he looked little like the beast he could become. Now I knew why he had been so nonchalant about our presenting his picture to the public, precisely because it was an image that no one would recognize. Except, of course, his own mother.

  "You have one m-m-more article to write," he said. "I'll tell you what to say. Put in the paper."

  I scrolled in a sheet and threw back the carriage return. Again I trained my ears for some sound of life in the room above. Nothing. Not so much as a rustle of sheets, a breath.

  "Now," he said. "The first two sentences should read, The 'Midnight Eye' is not William Ing, as earlier stories have c-c-claimed. I met him personally just last night and he assured me of this."

  I typed the sentences.

  "Do you like the lead?" he asked.

  "I'd change it a little."

  "How?"

  "I think I'd say... William Fredrick Ing, the notorious Midnight Eye, visited me last night in my home. First, he killed my wife's nurse, then my wife, and by the time you read this, he will have killed me, too."

  "No. Don't get ahead of things. You have some of it right, and some of it wrong. You don't have to worry about Isabella. Sh-sh-sh. And I have only one name—the Midnight Eye. Ing is a person who used to be and is no more. You must remain accurate as a reporter, right?"

  "That's right."

  "Next sentence: He is a tall and powerful man, who commands respect even with a glance of his dark eyes."

  I typed it. "He's a tall and powerful man," I said, "who was picked on when he was a kid and didn't have any friend He didn't have much of a family life, either. Very early, he began a secret life of his own."

  "No! If you write one word of that, I'll kill you and finish it myself. I can t-t-type!" He extended the gun toward me, dark barrel a condensed version of the black eternity into which he would certainly blow me.

  "I'm just saying it," I said. "I didn't write it. I'm saying you were a kid who got torn up by his own dogs on the Fourth July. You walked in on your parents and got slapped for your concern. You were a miserable kid. You weren't always the Midnight Eye. Why not include that?"

  "Because it isn't relevant."

  "Can you explain?"

  "The Midnight Eye was born. He did not develop. He was. chosen. Your next paragraph goes like this: According to the Eye himself, he has had murderous impulses for almost all life. He began by killing animals. As a young man, he saw the rape of the county by foreigners, people who came to Orange County only to make money. The Midnight Eye then realized his calling."

  I typed out the graph and waited, staring into his dark bright eyes.

  He continued. "And as the Midnight Eye's body grew lean and strong, his urges became tied to a greater good."

  "The good of killing people not like him?"

  "The good of killing the parasites and leeches. The good of clean sand and skies. Of earth in balance, and all people their places."

  "I'd change that."

  "How?"

  "I'd say, He looked for God and when he didn't find him, he began to think he was God himself."

  "Not true. I am merely a servant. Write that! The Midnight Eye claims he is only a servant."

  "Of what?"

  "Of... history. Of progress toward the future. Of... redreaming our way out of what has gone wrong here."

  I wrote this down.

  Ing stood for a long moment, apparently lost for words.

  "Can I see your face?" I asked.

  "Gaze."

  "The one under all the stage stuff."

  "You see my face as it is meant to be seen."

  "You're going to kill me, right?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Then let me see your face. Let me see the Midnight Eye that no one else can see. Give me this... exclusive."

  Ing seemed to ponder this. He looked at me, then at his gun, then back to me. "When I saw your wife upstairs, I realized she would suffer more if I left her alive. How could you marry a filthy Mexican?"

  "I loved her. I still do."

  "You would compromise your sperm with her egg?"

  "That won't happen for us."

  "Good. Good for the place we call home. Now... next sentences: The Eye told me that the county must be cleansed, and cleansed thoroughly. After a brief sabbatical on the East Coast, the Eye returned here yesterday to continue his work. If possible, the Eye is just as impressive in person as he is through his generous and self-effacing acts."

  Generous and self-effacing acts, I thought, like the Fernandez couple. Like the Ellisons and Wynns and Steins. Like a the animals. Like Dee, and probably Izzy, and—sh
ortly—myself.

  Something then dawned on me. "You hate couples, don’t you? Married people."

  "I loathe you."

  "Why?"

  "The dependence, the way you cling to one another, the way you are... exclusive and out only for material gain."

  "You detest our happiness. Is it because you've never had it? Are you jealous?"

  "Man was meant to be alone. Marriage is a necessary aberration for continuing the race. Priests are celibate for good reason."

  "You ever had a woman?"

  Ing's gaze hardened and I could see his hand stiffen the gun. "Next," he said. "The Eye says that any and all minorities are welcome to leave the county, but this must be done soon. No one offering a home for sale will be harmed; no packing to leave will be stopped. All who stay will live in fear of violent death."

  I wrote out the paragraph. The terrible ringing in my ears still had not abated. I was having trouble getting my fingertips to the keys of the typewriter.

  Ing was behind me. I could see his reflection in the mirrored wall. He was reading, from a distance, over my shoulder. As he leaned forward, I could see the club hanging over his shoulder, exactly where Chet Singer had predicted it would be. The Eye had not cleaned it. It was clotted with hair and blood, a patina of gore now dried and blackened by time. The combined smells of the club and the Midnight Eye were almost overpowering.

  "Next, Russell. The Eye stated he had to kill me because I had been dishonest with him. The Eye values honesty above all other traits in human beings. I had been led to believe that the Eye was William Ing, which he is clearly not. But because of that untruth, I must go the way of the others, whose cleansing makes the air of this place clearer and cleaner with each passing day."

  I wrote nothing. "Are you going to sign this?" I asked.

  "My signature will be left all over this house."

  In fact, I thought, it mattered not at all. But I was grasping for time, and for some idea—no matter how desperate—of how to keep him from shooting me in the back.

  "A signature would help... dramatize it," I said.

  "In your blood?"

  "Very good," I said. "And I think you should say something about what people can do to save themselves."

  "They can go away."

  "Can your offer a time? A kind of grace period while they make arrangements to leave?"

  I could see the Eye pondering this. His reflection was clear. He lifted the gun hand to rub the side of his face and came a step closer to my chair.

  "Offer them one month," I continued.

  "No! Too long!"

  "Two weeks?"

  "Shut up! Shut up while I th-th-think."

  Into the silence that surrounded Ing's thought came a shrill mechanical screech from upstairs, followed by the groan of a motor. The lift!

  I watched Ing look up, startled. And in that moment, I used all of the strength I could summon to lock my hands on the typewriter, pivot, and hurl the heavy machine into the chest of the Midnight Eye. Then I was on him. My forward charge caught him low and I drove him clear across the kitchen, slamming him ferociously against the refrigerator. I heard his gun thud against the hardwood floor. I found his throat with my hands, but as I had feared—and as I had experienced as a deputy on the beat—the strength of the furious and insane can be prodigious. His hands closed over mine and pulled them from his throat in one grunting motion that left me spread-armed and looking helplessly into Ing's wide dark eyes. It can only have been luck that allowed me to act first. I brought my knee up hard and felt it penetrate the softness of his groin. He screamed and went momentarily limp as I pulled free one arm and landed a chopping right-hand blow that struck him exactly where I had hoped—on his temple. He shuddered and I felt his body sag. I threw a wide left hook, harnessing all of my momentum from the first blow and aiming for his jaw. What happened next seemed to take place in one second at the most: I saw his right hand reach up and intercept my fist in midair. His body hardens with a fresh fury and his left arm clamped around my neck and drew me—like a combine gathering a shaft of wheat—snugly against his stinking body. I pushed off from the floor with throttled groan and ran us both back against the table, into which we crashed, rolled, and landed on the carpet—both of Ing powerful arms now locked around my neck and my breathing all but choked off. With my fingers, I found his hair, which yanked—only to feel the wig slide off in my hands! Then I found his eyes and dug my thumbs in with what diminishing energy I could find. I could hear his labored piglike breathing just abovemy head, and I could hear, too, the groaning descent of Isabella wheelchair lift as it landed in its platform on the floor. My thumbs sank in! Ing bellowed with pain, and in the instant he reflexive reached for his face, I broke free of his clench, brought both my hands from his eyes to his throat, and tightened my fingers as if over the last tree branch between me and the abyss.

  I turned him over and squeezed harder, trying to bring my inferior weight to bear. But just as the air rushed into my lungs and fresh blood surged into my head, I saw Ing's hand extend and close over the gun. I yelled and called upon my last reserve of muscle to choke the life out of him before that gun could be turned at me. It was not enough. His hand closed over the grip and his finger slipped inside the trigger guard. At that instant, when I would have to release his neck in order to defend myself against the gun, I saw in the far-right side of my vision a figure standing over us. Suddenly, Isabella's quad cane smashed down over the gun, pinning wrist and weapon against the carpet. I could look up at her for only an instant, but I will never forget what I saw there: Isabella in her blue pajamas, her turbaned head and swollen face, her weakened legs unsteady as she did her best to balance her weight over the handle of that thin cane, concentrating with all her considerable might upon the task of remaining upright. She swayed like a cottonwood in a high wind. But, charged by her courage, I drew a new strength and applied myself to nothing at all on earth except wringing the life out of the monster in my hands. I glared into his fierce eyes and bellowed myself, a roar that echoed through the room around us and seemed to settle in William Fredrick Ing's very eyes, which bulged, quivered, then focused on me a look of penetrating hatred that froze in place as I roared again, felt the bones in his throat popping beneath my fingers, and began slamming his lifeless head against the floor, again and again and again. Izzy's cane stood fast! When, breathless and emptied of all power, I rose upon my knees and released the throat, I looked up at Isabella, still wholly focused on maintaining balance on her damaged legs. Her eyes were closed and her gauze-wrapped head lifted as if to heaven. She swayed, righted herself, then swayed again. She began to fall. I caught her, still on my knees, and managed to settle her descending head into my left arm and guide her down gently to the floor. With my other hand, I took Ing's gun and planted the barrel of it against his head, should there be any life at all left in him. And with that gun in my right hand, extended, and Isabella's frail head crooked into the elbow of my left arm, I lay there, crucified to the carpet and unable to do anything but listen to the gasping of my own lungs and to the deeper, slower workings of Isabella's.

  Slowly, our breathing became one rhythm. The ceiling lights shone down upon us. Sweat burned my eyes. I tumed and looked at my wife. The wheelchair stood behind her, locked in place. Isabella's eyes were open now and she blinked slowly I could see the quick pulse of cotton where her heart was beat ing. Her legs trembled from their effort.

  "Is it over?" she whispered.

  "It's over. It's over. It's over."

  Martin Parish was the first to arrive. I welcomed him wordlessly, pointed to the body of Dee lying on the stairway, then led him into the living room, where Isabella sat again in her wheelchair and the Midnight Eye lay sprawled between kitchen and dining room.

  "Hello, Isabella," he said softly.

  "Hi, Marty."

  "You okay?"

  "I think I am."

  Martin stood for a long moment over the body of the Eye. I stood beside Iz
zy. As I watched, Martin pulled off the false beard and set it down beside the Eye's head. What was revealed to us was quietly shocking: a rather plain but still handsome face marred by the scars of long ago; a straight, intelligent nose; high forehead giving way to thinning brown hair that now stood up in errant wisps, a pair of deep-set, very dark eyes, still open, that seemed more than anything else to be reflective of pain.

  Martin shook his head and looked at us.

  I stood above Isabella, my hands upon her still-trembling shoulders, and stared down at the lifeless man now occupying my kitchen floor.

  Martin walked toward us and pointed at the couch. "Mind?"

  "Go ahead," I said.

  He sat heavily. "Eleven human lives. And his own miserable excuse for one."

  "A cancer," said Isabella.

  "We cured it a little late," said Martin.

  "B-b-better than never," said Izzy.

  After a long silence, through which the whine of distant sirens intensified, Martin cleared his throat and looked at me. "Grace cracked about an hour after you left. She and Wald did Alice and the cover-up—the whole show. We don't have to talk about this now if you don't want."

  Isabella gasped quietly.

  "Who actually did it?"

  "Wald did the clubbing. They were going to get rich and married. She planted the body here, on Wald's instructions. Covered it with the trash bags, so it wouldn't stain her car. According to Grace, the club went off the end of the Aliso Pier, so we'll get our scuba team out at daylight."

  "That's good."

  "Dan's thinking about firing me for my hillside antics that night. It'll depend on any complaint you might or might not bring. I'm not going to ask any favors at all, but you should know, Russ, I was really convinced you'd done it. All I knew for sure was that I hadn't." I could think of not one appropriate thing to say. "Wald trailed some things past me a couple of times, he continued. "Bits of information, questions about your finances, about your past relationship with Amber. I thought I was making some solid conclusions. If I'd been smarter, I’d have smelled him, not you." "Well, I believed it was you. We all got taken pretty good.” Martin looked down at Ing again.