Fear itself

3

On Wednesday morning, Simon Childs attempted to soften the blow by taking his sister to the Denny’s in Emeryville for a breakfast that would have felled a lumberjack, before breaking the news that he had to go away again for a little while.

“How long?” she asked, as morosely as she could with a mouth full of hash browns.

Simon leaned across the table and wiped the corner of her mouth-she hated for him to do that in public, but was too depressed to protest. “It’s just for a day or two-tops. And here’s the good news: I talked to Ganny Wilson this morning-if you want, you can stay with her until I get back.”

Missy brightened. “Peachy keen. I love Ganny.”

“And Ganny loves you, too. But she’s pretty old, you know.” At least eighty by now. “You’re gonna have to be good, not give her any trouble.”

“No mischief,” Missy promised solemnly. But inside, she was giggling. Ganny Wilson didn’t care about mischief, only matches.

“Just so long as you don’t burn the house down, Princess,” she used to say. “Everything else, Ganny can fix.”

Two hours later, after helping Missy pack her pink valise and dropping her-and Tweety-off at Ganny Wilson’s little cottage in the West Berkeley flats, Simon had to upwardly revise his estimate of their former housekeeper’s age: the doddering old black woman looked to be closer to ninety.

It was worrisome, no denying that-sometimes Missy could be a handful, even for a caretaker in her prime-but as the Mercedes rolled across the Bay Bridge, top down, radio blasting Vivaldi’s ubiquitous Four Seasons from all eight speakers, Simon reminded himself that Dorie hadn’t left him much choice. He had to get to her before she talked to the FBI-or to anybody else, for that matter.

At the thought of Dorie, Simon’s pulse quickened again for the first time since Wayne Summers’s death. Ever since their first meeting at the convention, he had been so looking forward to playing the fear game with her-saving the best for last, so to speak. Would it be better, he wondered, to buy several masks at one store, or one mask at several stores? And if so, where?

He was still mulling that one over when the classical station cut to a commercial. Simon pushed the seek button, heard Tab Hunter crooning about young love, first love on the oldies station, and quickly punched seek again. He didn’t want to hear anybody romanticizing about young love, because his first affair, with Nervous Nellie Carpenter, had resulted in the worst beating of his life.

On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for his involvement with Nellie, Simon might never have discovered his life’s path, his obsession, the only sure cure for the blind rat, and, except for Missy, his only reason for living, so perhaps old Tab wasn’t so far off after all.