Fear itself

9

The kitchen-the whole mansion, for that matter-seemed empty and enormous without Missy around. In the past it had always been Simon who went off and Missy who stayed behind. He tried to tell himself he was enjoying having the place to himself, but he couldn’t help worrying about Missy. At least when he was away, he knew she was safe, in familiar surroundings, with an attendant she liked and he trusted.

With Dorie safely installed in the basement and the game on hold, however, there was really no reason not to bring Missy home. Simon called Ganny’s number from the kitchen-no answer. He finished his lunch, went upstairs, called again from the office adjoining the bedroom. Still no luck. Maybe they went out for IiiKee-ice cream.

Simon logged on to the computer, which was on a DSL hookup and was rarely, if ever, turned off. From force of habit he found himself browsing the PWSPD-sponsored phobia.com chat room. The new kid, Skairdykat, sounded awfully tempting. Simon immediately fired off an e-mail to Zap Strum, the far-from-reformed South of Market hacker-drug dealer who had designed and still administered the site, asking him to poke around behind the screen for Skairdy’s real-world name and address.

But as he logged off the computer and called Ganny’s number again-still no answer-it crossed Simon’s mind that he might already have gone to that well once too often. Dorie had been in touch with the FBI before Wayne’s disappearance, then again after his death. Now she was missing, too-that would make five PWSPD deaths in six months. Cops were dumb, but they weren’t that dumb.

And the more he thought about it, the more Simon appreciated the magnitude of the risks he’d been taking lately. He hadn’t pursued his dicey hobby for thirty years without a cross word from law enforcement by being this careless. Maybe he was starting to slip, he told himself-maybe the pressure of arranging a game every few months instead of once a year was starting to get to him. But the alternative was the rat-which was no alternative at all.

Simon sighed-the PWSPD Association was his masterwork, but there was no denying the fact that it had outlived its usefulness-and picked up the phone again.

Zap’s machine picked up after two rings: “Do the message thing,” it demanded curtly.

“It’s Simon. I know you’re screening. Pick up-it’s important.”

“Zup, dude?” An intermittent Ridgemont High surfer drawl was one of the MIT graduate’s more annoying affectations.

“Remember when we set up the PWSPD, you said you could make it disappear when the time came?”

“Yeah?”

“The time has come.”

“Web site, archives, bank records, the whole schmear?”

“Like they never existed. Can you do it?”

“Never ask the Zap-man if he can do something. Ask only how much and how long.”

“How much and how long?”

“The usual hourly, and as long as it takes. Shouldn’t be too hard-the Zap-man built it, the Zap-man can disappear it. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment. Just let me know when you’re done.”

“Log on in a couple hours, dude. If it ain’t there, I’m done.”

Though the Berkeley hills were a world away from the Berkeley flats, it was only a short drive from one to the other. After spending the next hour trying unsuccessfully to contact Ganny, and working himself up to the point where he was envisioning God knows what, blood on the walls and bodies hacked to pieces, Simon made the trip in five minutes. He parked the Mercedes on the street outside Ganny’s little cottage and set the antitheft, but left the top down-they’d only have slashed it, otherwise.

He rang the front doorbell-no answer. He tried the door-it wasn’t locked. Simon let himself in, saw Missy’s pink valise lying open on the fold-out sofa, its contents scattered across the unmade bed. It was like a waking nightmare-Simon found himself drawn almost against his will toward the bedroom, and the sound of buzzing flies.

What he found there-Ganny’s mummified-looking corpse lying on its side in the darkened room, with the covers pulled up to its neck as if someone had lovingly tucked it in-seemed even more nightmarish than the scenes of Helter Skelter Simon had been picturing on the ride over.

Numb as a sleepwalker, his mind filled with images of Missy lost or kidnapped, sick or injured, frightened and alone, Simon wandered distractedly into the kitchen, which looked like an explosion in a cocaine factory. There was white powder everywhere, and an empty packet of Hostess mini-doughnuts on the table.

That about tore it, that stupid cellophane doughnut wrapper. Simon sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs, buried his face in his hands, and let out a wrenching sob, the kind that comes from so deep inside you feel as if your guts are coming up with it. Just one sob-then he looked up, and through the open back door he saw Missy curled up over by the fence in the far corner of the backyard. Above her, gangly sunflowers hung their golden heads.