Fear Collector

CHAPTER 33

Palmer Morton was good looking in the way that men with money can afford to be. He wore the best clothes-clothing that he purchased on trips to New York because he insisted that Seattle or, even more so, Tacoma, had no sartorial finesse. He didn’t admit to it, but he dyed his hair-or rather had a stylist come to his house and do it. No Grecian Formula for his locks. Palmer was a small man, but like actor Tom Cruise, he carried himself in such a way that most people didn’t realize that he was under five-foot-eight. Lifts in his custom Italian shoes didn’t hurt the perception, either.

Yet right then as he stood in his son’s room overstuffed with the accoutrements of a father with a guilty conscience-a plasma screen that nearly covered one wall, and a computer workstation that would have made computer geeks Apple-green with envy.

“You little shit,” Palmer said, jabbing his fingers into Alex’s shoulder as the teenager sat up on his bed.

“Hey! That hurts!” Alex yelped.

“You ungrateful little shit. You made Calla cry!”

Alex shot his dad a lightning-fast cold look-so fast that he hoped his dad hadn’t seen it. “That’s what you’re mad at? You made Mom cry when she caught you screwing Calla at the beach house.”

Palmer jabbed at his son again, but Alex pulled back in time. This brought an even darker red hue to the older man’s face. His eyes were now bulging and the veins on his neck pulsed in time with his anger in a staccato fashion.

“Alex, that’s done,” he said, seething. “You mention that one more time and you’re going to go to a state school. Don’t ever make Calla cry again. Don’t ever threaten her again. Got that?”

Alex got up and not so skillfully hid a package of cigarettes from his father’s prying eyes. “Can we forget about her?” he asked, looking up. “I’m in trouble, Dad.”

Palmer shed his jacket. He was hot and angry. He knew he’d already blown up, but there was always the threat of an aftershock of anger.

“You are always in trouble,” Palmer said. “You seem to make a sport of trying to find ways to piss me off and make me wish I pushed harder for an abortion when I had the chance.”

Alex had heard that particularly hurtful regret before. His father claimed that his mother tricked him into marriage by getting pregnant. His dad had never wanted him.

“The cops came today,” he said, refusing to look into his father’s eyes.

As Alex predicted, Palmer exploded again. “Jesus! What did you do? Shoplift at Frye’s again? What an idiot!”

Alex pulled back and let his eyes look into his father’s only for a half-second. “No. No. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

Doesn’t he know the difference between shoplifting and real trouble?

“Good, because the next time you do I’m not going to bail you out by paying off the manager. He’s using me like a damn ATM. So what is it now?”

“The cops came today about Emma. She’s missing.”

“Is that the chick you were doing?” Palmer asked, a smirk now spreading over his face.

Alex glared at his father. “I didn’t do her, and yes, it was the girl I really liked.”

Palmer shook his head in utter disgust. “Liked? God! You’re nineteen, grow a pair and use ’em. Use ’em a lot. Forget liking any girl. There’s time for that later.”

Alex hated his father so much just then. More than he ever did. He knew that his dad had no real attachments to anyone. Not even Calla. Certainly not to him. Alex knew that there were things about him that were genetically linked to his father-his eyes, his build. Thankfully not his height. By his sixteenth birthday, Alex had been a good five inches taller than his dad-an achievement that made Palmer Morton bitter. As Alex watched his father, he often worried that his near sociopathic personality had transferred to him. His dad was an ass. He probably had some of that in him, too. When he’d told a friend about what he thought, she’d told him that he “absolutely” wasn’t like his dad at all.

“The fact that you recognize what kind of person he is and that you don’t want to be like him is proof enough that you’re not headed down that path.”

It was Emma Rose who had said those words. And when she had, he’d fallen for her. Hard. It was as if for the first time ever he’d found someone who wanted to believe that he had some good inside him. He wasn’t just the rich kid with the blowhard dad. He wasn’t a petty thief who shoplifted iPods and other stuff he didn’t need.

Palmer pressed on with the quasi interrogation of his son. “Why did the police come to talk to you about her?”

“She’s missing. I told you that.”

“Look, I can’t remember every detail of your social life, as puny as it is. But why did they come to you about Emma?”

“You know, because we went out a few times. That’s all. They were just looking for information.”

“What’s the big deal then?” Palmer asked.

Alex searched for the right words. Some things his dad could never understand. “I don’t know.”

Palmer unbuttoned his shirt collar. His anger still percolated, but it had subsided a little. “Alex, I can’t fix this if I don’t know what kind of problem we’re facing here.”

“Dad, I’m not sure. We had a big fight. Emma actually dumped me. I said some stuff about wanting to get her back. I didn’t want her to break up with me. Now, you know, she’s gone and it looks like, well, bad. Real bad.”

Palmer sighed. “What a pussy you are. Jesus! I never thought I’d have a dickless wonder for a son. But I’ll fix it. I always do.”