Fear itself: a novel (42 page)

Impossible, though, to capture all that in a plein air, then paint in any of the detail—the footbridge, the miniature waterfall tumbling down the flume, the split-rail wooden fences, never mind the joggers and dog walkers on the towpath—before the light faded entirely.

Still, wouldn’t it be something to try! If the weather held, she could set up her easel in the same spot a few days in a row, paint in one section at a—

“Well? Did I lie?” Pender caught up with Dorie as she mentally began cutting the scene into horizontal sections—the landscape defined its own verticality.

“It’s beautiful, Pen. I can’t wait to paint it. Or try, anyway. Where’s the nearest art supply store?”

“We’ll have to consult the yellow pages on that, scout,” said Pender as they started back up the path to the house. “The last time I bought any art supplies, they came in a Crayola box with a built-in sharpener.”

“I loved that built-in sharpener,” said Dorie.

“Me too.”

When they reached the house, Pender nodded toward the porch. “Let’s go in that way—I want you to see the panorama.”

“Technically, a panorama is an unbroken view or a series of pictures representing a continuous scene,” Dorie explained as she trudged up the steps after him.

Pender stopped on the landing and turned back to her as if he had something important to say. Actually, he was just winded from the climb. “Did anybody ever tell you you were extremely argumentative?”

“Yes. I always took it as a compliment.”

The view from the porch was spectacular, Dorie had to admit. It occurred to her, as Pender unlocked the sliding glass door, that she could paint from up here in the morning, then go down to the canal in the afternoon. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it, she thought, following Pender into the house. God, I love my work.

Simon was ready. He’d been ready for hours, fussing around the house, watching TV, smoking a joint out on the porch, refining the game. At the last minute, he changed his mind about taking a chair down to the cellar beforehand. He was halfway down the stairs with it when it dawned on him that if Pender did enter the house through the porch door, he was as likely to head for the kitchen as the bedroom—best to leave everything as is.

Simon did an about-face on the steps. He was still in the kitchen when he heard a car coming down the drive. He raced into the living room, peeked out through the drawn blinds, saw the cab pulling up behind the Geo. He saw Pender climb out—nice hat, duude; wha’ happen, somebody break your arm? Then he saw a second figure climbing out.

Simon’s heart dropped—please let it be a cab-share—and when he recognized Dorie Bell, his jaw dropped as well. Last time he’d seen her, she was naked in the galvanized tub in the basement of 2500 and he was holding her head underwater. He knew she hadn’t drowned, but as the only participant ever to have survived the fear game, she had somehow slipped into another dimension of Simon’s consciousness, neither dead nor living; he wasn’t quite as surprised to see her as he would have been to see, say, Wayne Summers—but it was a near thing.

As the cabdriver dropped the suitcase by the front door and went back for the footlocker, Simon raced into Pender’s bedroom, thinking furiously. Dorie’s presence wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Snatch her first, put a gun to her head, he’d have himself a bargaining chip. Think Edward G. Robinson: Freeze, G-man, or I blow her brains out. Hero cop like Pender, he’ll freeze all right. He’ll do anything I tell him to do—she’s his sweetie pie now. Some hero: he saves ’em and screws ’em.

And as he closed the bedroom door behind him, breathing hard, as engaged and excited as a soldier going into combat, Simon realized that having a second shot at Dorie was the only thing that could possibly have improved what was already promising to be the ultimate fear game. Not just a triple-header, but a chance to erase his only loss. Because when he was finished with Dorie (and this time he would insist on having a piece of what Pender had been enjoying, if it took him all night to get it in), the final score in the fear game would be
Childs: 27, World: Zip
—and that was without counting Zap, any of the old folks, any of the cops, or what’shis-name, Gloria’s husband, the Chinese guy in the red bikini underwear.

Linda spat out her gag. Somehow she’d held on to the coral; she had it behind the neck again with her good right hand. She told herself not to panic—it hadn’t gotten her that badly. Small mouth, short fangs, Reilly had said—they have to chew their way in. And hadn’t Reilly also said the venom was only borderline lethal and that there was always a delayed reaction. Or had he said
often
rather than
always?
Or only
sometimes?
And how delayed—how much time did she have?

Related question: what was going on upstairs? Linda could hear Childs running from the kitchen to the living room, then into the bedroom wing. Was Pender home? She hadn’t heard his footsteps yet—and she would have, heavy as he was. Which meant it might be too late to save herself, but she could still save him.

How? Concentrate—never mind the pain. Use it to focus. You wait until you hear a door, a heavy tread. Then you scream,
“Pender, watch out! Pender, Childs is here!”
If you can hear him upstairs, he can hear you downstairs.

But what if Childs already has a gun on Pender? Then all you’ve done is blow your only advantage—surprise.

No, you have another advantage: he’s already told you he plans to blind Pender while you watch. So you know you have time; he’s not going to shoot Pender as soon as he comes in. You also know he has to come back down to the cellar eventually. Wouldn’t it be smarter to—

But by then the burning sensation had begun traveling up Linda’s arm: when it reached her elbow, she understood that waiting for Childs to come to her was no longer a viable strategy.

As Pender crossed the living room, heading for the vestibule—the bags were still out on the front doorstep—he saw the basket of mail on the table beside the answering machine. The letter on top caught his eye. Noble J. Heinz—Ida’s lawyer. The Judge, everybody in La Farge called him. An imposing, wintry man with arctic blue eyes and a mane of snowy hair. Always wore Clarence Darrow galluses and navy serge suits as dark as blue can be, and still be blue. But why would the Judge be writing him? He decided the baggage could wait.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

Pender glanced up from opening the envelope. It was good to see Dorie standing in his living room. She was looking mighty fine, too. Her cheeks were rosy from the nippy air, the discoloration around her eyes had faded to a faint yellowish green, and the blue eyes themselves were as bright as if she were high. Maybe she was, thought Pender—maybe landscapes were her drug of choice. “First door on the right or third door on the left.”

Inside Judge Heinz’s envelope was a second envelope, with Pender’s name written in Ida’s Palmer Method handwriting. He opened it with a sharp pang of dread and unfolded a sheet of her familiar lavender stationery, so thin it was almost transparent.

Pender was still trying to digest all that—in fact, he was still trying to digest the first sentence—when Dorie appeared in the doorway leading to the bedroom wing. “Pen?”

He looked up. The high color of a moment ago was gone, leached from her face. “Dorie, what—”

As Dorie shuffled reluctantly into the room, chin in the air, hands in the air, Pender saw first a pistol barrel against the back of her neck, then a hand yanking her tightly by the roots of her braid, then a bald Simon Childs behind her, turning her, angling her body toward Pender, to keep it between Pender and himself.

“You move, she dies,” said Childs.

Everybody dies, thought Pender, letting Ida’s letter slip from his fingers; the flimsy lavender sheet fluttered slowly to the floor.

Twelve steep wooden steps, each with a lip that overhung the step below. Wall and railing on the left, ascending; sheer drop to the cellar floor on the right. Holding the thrashing coral aloft in her right hand, Linda grabbed the railing with her damaged left hand and hauled herself to a standing position. The pain shooting up her arm was…excellent. First rate.

By raising her left knee, she managed to lift her floppy left foot high enough to clear the first tread. When the sole was planted firmly on the bottommost step she leaned forward, put her weight on it, and by straightening the left leg she managed to drag the trailing right foot up to the step, though not without banging her toes on the overhanging lip.

One down, eleven to go.

Simon was feeling pretty good about himself. Large and in charge. This was going to be the best game ever, he told himself. Early as it was, he was already feeling connected with Pender—merely by looking at him, Simon could tell he’d just learned about his sister’s death.

He knew better than to take the credit for it right away, however. Simon didn’t want to drive the hulking Pender into a rage—not until he had him secured, anyway. But first he needed to take care of the superfluous Miss Bell. Having her around was making him too self-conscious—it was like having a ghost at your elbow.

No good—it was no good, trying to climb the stairs standing. Linda’s left hand had lost most of its gripping strength, her fingers were too numb to feel the rail, and the pain traveling up her left arm made her pay dearly when she tried to raise the arm above her shoulder. Every time her hand slipped from the rail, she flailed the other hand to keep her balance, further inflaming the already infuriated coral.

She dropped to her knees on the third stair; three down, nine to go.

Childs marched the two of them back into the bedroom where he’d first surprised Dorie, ordered her onto the bed with her hands on either side of the centermost vertical rail of the brass headboard, then ordered Pender to cuff her wrists behind it.

Yes, thought Pender, trying to hide his eagerness. Perfect. His last girlfriend had been a DEA agent, somewhat unstable, like most DEA, and a hellcat in the sack. She liked to play mild bondage games, with herself as dominatrix—that’s what the cuffs were doing under the bed in the first place. Pender didn’t mind—at least that way she did all the work—but he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her. Which was why he had stashed a spare key under the mattress, at the head of the bed, where he could reach it even while cuffed to the headboard.

But how to let Dorie know, with Childs standing over them? Pender leaned across her body, fumbling one-handed with the cuffs. “Under the mattress,” he whispered. Probably not loud enough, but Childs was leaning closer; Pender could smell his own aftershave on the man. Sensing his chance, he whirled around, trying to club Childs with the elbow of his cast.

Childs jumped back; the blow missed. Dorie saw the barrel of the Colt come crashing down across the back of Pender’s neck. Pender’s hat went flying; he fell limply across her, knocking the wind out of her. With his weight across her chest, she couldn’t draw a breath. She started seeing stars; the white hat was a pinwheel, rolling on its brim across the floor. Then, as her consciousness began slipping away to a pinpoint of light, the crushing weight came off her; she sucked in a great gulping breath.

Pender lay on the floor, unmoving; Simon was stretched out across Dorie, clicking the handcuffs into place behind the rail. She tried to knee him. He avoided her easily, then knelt painfully across her thighs while he gagged her with one of Pender’s garish neckties.

This is the last time I’ll ever see him, thought Dorie, as Simon dragged Pender out of the bedroom by the ankles. By
him,
she meant Pender—she was pretty sure she’d be seeing Simon again.

To keep from toppling backward as she knee-walked up the stairs, Linda had to lean forward, bending at the waist (she hadn’t forgotten her old friend Lhermitte and his lightning bolt), and leaning awkwardly on her left elbow to keep from falling onto her face.

By the sixth step—
fuck this excellent pain, fuck this excellent, first-rate pain,
was her mantra—her knees were killing her, and both insteps were bruised from banging against the overhanging tread, but she could hear Childs and Pender talking in the kitchen. At least when she reached the top, it would be over, she told herself: she wouldn’t have to drag her sorry ass the rest of the way across the house.