Fear itself

2

One thing about insomnia: it made getting up at four-thirty in the morning seem like the lesser of two evils.

Despite her threat, Dorie had let Pender sleep. She also let him drive-all she had to do was shift the lever into “R,” then into “D” once they were out of the driveway, and it was beddy-bye in the backseat for Dorie; he wouldn’t need her again until they turned the car in at the airport.

Pender didn’t miss the conversation. Instead of turning on the radio, Pender went over the Childs case in his mind as he drove. Still unaware of the events of the previous evening, he was trying to put himself in Childs’s place. Where does he go when he leaves Concord? A man with his money, wouldn’t Childs have bought himself a hideaway somewhere? Possibly in another country. Mexico was closest, of course. Canada, however, was more reluctant to extradite prisoners who faced the death penalty.

Then there was Costa Rica, favored by your wealthier fugitives; Brazil-or do we have an extradition treaty with them now? Damn, I used to know that.

So never mind where he’s going to go, concentrate on how he’s going to get there. One thing for sure-almost for sure-he didn’t drive that Volvo over either border. The airports and bus stations were already covered-how about on foot? Or…

He worked on the possibilities for most of the drive to the airport, and all he came up with after nearly two hours were a few long shots. Find out if Childs had paid any property taxes to foreign countries. See if he’d ever taken Missy out of this country-he might have a phony passport for himself, but would he have gotten one for her?

Once they’d dropped the car off, Pender turned his attention to Dorie. He understood enough about phobias by now to know that it was not flying per se that she feared, but the fear of flying. She was less afraid of a crash than she was that she’d lose control, have a panic attack, maybe pass out. So he didn’t bother reassuring her about the safety of air travel or reciting the statistics that said you were more likely to die in your car within ten miles of home than in an airplane accident.

Instead, as they took their seats on the shuttle van at the Enterprise lot, he leaned as close to her as the brim of his Panama would allow and whispered into her ear that if she wanted to have a panic attack, that would be fine with him. And if she wanted to pass out, that would also be fine with him: he’d stay close enough at all times to catch her before she hit the ground and broke her nose again, then sling her over his shoulder and carry her onto the plane one-handed, flashing his badge as necessary. Which of his zero remaining good hands he would use to flash the badge, he didn’t say.

He did tell her what wouldn’t be fine with him, though, as the van pulled up in front of the United section of the SFO terminal. Quitting wouldn’t be fine, giving in and giving up wouldn’t be fine. So she didn’t have to waste her psychic energy wondering whether to turn back, as that was no longer an option.

And no, the Pender treatment was not exactly in line with current psychiatric thinking. Desensitization was the modern style. First you talk it through; then you visualize; then you simulate; then one week you drive by the airport-but no closer-and the next week you walk through the terminal; and so on, until lo and behold, one year and Lord knows how many thousands of dollars in therapist fees later, maybe you’d be ready to fly.

But who was Pender to challenge the best minds of the psychiatric profession? Where did he get his degree? Why, at the University of Dorie, he would answer. He might not know dick about desensitization therapy, but he knew people, and he knew Dorie. She didn’t need coddling, she needed flooding, a dare, a challenge. Something to arouse that lion heart.

At seven in the morning, the lines at the counter were still short. They checked their baggage through-Dorie’s painting gear was in a footlocker and her clothes in a full-size suitcase that was never intended as a carry-on-and headed for the gate, with a detour to the same bar Pender and Sid had stopped at six days earlier. A Jim Beam on the rocks for Pender, a screwdriver for Dorie, on the theory that liquor was cheaper and quicker than Xanax, and didn’t give you the shits or diminish your orgasm.

Not that they were planning to join the Mile High Club-even if Dorie had been willing, there was no way to cram two people their size into an airplane lavatory.

The worst part, for Dorie, was sitting in the boarding lounge waiting for the flight to be called. It wasn’t Pender who got her through it, though-instead, it was a little boy, maybe four years old, wearing a devilish red-and-black Darth Maul mask, probably part of his costume for Halloween, and playing peekaboo over, under, and around the rows of molded plastic chairs.

The first time the devil’s face popped up, it gave her a start, no denying that. But a start was all it gave her-she yelped and clutched her hand to her chest, then laughed weakly, same as most adults would have.

As for the tot, it was probably the first time he’d actually managed to scare somebody; he circled around the row and came around again, and again, and again, and each time Dorie laughed a little harder, not at the boy, but at the absurdity of it all.

“You sure you don’t want me to tin the little bastard?” asked Pender as the kid came around for the fourth time.

“Are you kidding?” she replied. “The little bastard is a messenger from God.”

“From God, eh? And what’s the message?”

“The message is, Dorie Bell, you’ve wasted two-thirds of your life being afraid of being afraid. Why not unpucker, and enjoy the ride?”

“Now, there’s an advertising slogan for you,” said Pender. “United Airlines: Unpucker and Enjoy the Ride!”