Fear itself

5

Like his sister, Simon Childs was almost always ravenous. Unlike Missy, however, Simon had his looks to consider. And he liked to maintain that hungry edge: satiety led to boredom; boredom led to the blind rat.

Sometimes he overdid it, though-his lean belly was rumbling by the time he reached Monterey. With nearly an hour to kill before nightfall, he decided to treat himself to a crab feast on Fisherman’s Wharf. Window table at Domenico’s, otters, seals, and sea lions providing the entertainment, dramatic lighting courtesy of the setting sun.

It didn’t come cheap-fortunately money had never been a consideration for the heir to the Childs Electronics fortune, especially after his trust fund kicked in at age twenty-one, leaving him enough money to smoke, snort, pop, tweak, and inject himself half to death in a vain attempt to stave off the blind rat.

But again, Simon was lucky: unlike most addicts, he figured out it wasn’t working before it killed him. And luckier still, he had something that did work-the fear game. He still enjoyed weed, whites, and wine, as well as the occasional milder psychedelics such as MDA or Ecstasy, and a rainbow array of downers and sleeping pills that were as necessary to him as oxygen, but for the most part, fear was Simon’s drug of choice. Other people’s fear, that is-he liked to think of himself as fearless.

Simon lingered over coffee and dessert until the last of the color was gone from the sky. He tipped his waiter well, but not lavishly enough to make himself memorable, and stopped into the Wharf’s General Store on his way back to the car to buy a cute little sea otter for Missy’s stuffie collection.

Then it was time to get to work. Simon drove south to Carmel and parked the Mercedes downtown, where it would be less conspicuous, leaving himself a ten or fifteen minute walk uphill to Dorie’s house, where he and Missy had stayed when they came down for a visit in late June. The three of them had explored the Aquarium in Monterey, driven down the coast to Big Sur, and on their last day, toured the lighthouse in Pacific Grove, where the docent had given Missy the honor of striking the big bell with a wooden mallet-seventh heaven for the old girl. She had earned it, though: the trip was her reward for having been left alone with her attendant for a week while Simon was in Chicago.

All the excitement and exertion, however, had nearly proved fatal to Missy. No more road trips, her doctors had ordered when she was released from the cardiac unit at Alta Bates. Only by putting her on a regimen of quiet and diet, they said, could Simon count on another year or so of his sister’s company. And as always, they assured him that a heart transplant was out of the question-Down syndromers her age weren’t even on the protocol.

Four months later, it still made Simon furious to think that a donor heart would go into the garbage before they’d put it into Missy’s chest. But this was no time for anger, he reminded himself as the roof motor whined and the top of the Mercedes closed out the stars. With forced calm he hung the temporary handicapped placard (obtained after Missy’s heart attack) from the mirror post so he wouldn’t get any tickets that might be used as evidence against him, then locked up the car and set off at an unhurried pace through the quaint streets of Carmel-by-the-Sea; just another tourist, dressed in black, with a shopping bag over his arm.

As he strolled, Simon went over the layout of Dorie’s house in his mind. Two bedrooms upstairs. Living room, first floor front; kitchen back left, studio back right. Look for the lighted room-the frugal Ms. Bell never left a bulb burning in an empty one. Easiest access would be through the studio door on the right side of the house-he’d noticed the broken lock on his previous visit.

Almost there. One more steep uphill block. Simon pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head as he turned the corner. Second house in. Casual glance to the right as he strolled by. Housefront dark, curtains drawn in the living room, blinds drawn in the front bedroom, her bedroom.

He cut across the lawn, sauntered around the side of the house as if he belonged there. The kitchen lights were on; Simon raised himself up on his tiptoes and peered over the high windowsill. Dorie was there, all right, but she wasn’t alone. Big bald guy in a brown beret and baby blue Pebble Beach sweatshirt sitting across the kitchen table from her-if the man had chosen that moment to look up, their eyes would have met.

Simon ducked back down, squatting behind the ceanothus bush below the kitchen window. His heart was racing, and his stomach felt the way it had back in his high-risk, rock-climbing, Harley-riding, skydiving days, when he’d sought out physical danger as an antidote to the blind rat and learned that the effects of adrenaline, like those of drugs, were only temporary; the rat inevitably returned, ten times hungrier than before.

If he’d had a gun, of course, he could have solved the problem with two shots and been back in Berkeley by midnight, but he’d thrown away his short-barreled.38 in horror six weeks earlier after coming within a whisker of using it to end a particularly virulent siege by the rat. Only the knowledge that Missy still needed him had kept him from putting a bullet through his brain; it wasn’t until he found himself kneeling by her bedside as she slept, trying to work up the courage to kill her first, that he’d come to his senses.

So: no gun. He’d have to wait the bald guy out, hope he left soon. If so, the game was on. If not-and it was entirely possible that Dorie was sleeping with the guy, she’d all but thrown herself at Simon back in June-Simon would have to wait until they were asleep, then bash and run, which was not his style at all.

But then again, being on the wrong end of a lethal injection wasn’t exactly his style either.