Fear itself

10

Not yet, thinks Simon, swimming up through the darkness toward consciousness. Not just yet. He’s been dreaming; Missy was there; he doesn’t want to lose her again quite so soon.

But it’s too late-he’s awake now, surrounded by blackness. For a moment his mind is a delicious blank-he can’t quite place himself in time or space. He might be anywhere, any age, a child in his own bed, awakening from an afternoon nap, or an eighteen-year-old nodded out in a crash pad in the Haight. Then he opens his eyes, turns his head, sees the glowing red numbers on the cheap clock radio next to the bed. Three A.M. Figures; he’d dropped the Halwane around midnight.

He sits up, fumbles for a light switch. The motel room materializes around him. Pastel walls, TV on the dresser, still life on the wall: this is where the blind rat lives, he thinks-in a generic, three-in-the-morning motel room outside Winnemucca, Nevada. At least it’s a smoking room, he tells himself, firing up the half-smoked joint he’s left in the ashtray against just such a contingency.

And as he waits for the weed to take effect, he finds himself wondering where Missy is spending the night. On a roll-out slab in a pitch-black drawer in the coroner’s basement, most likely. Don’t be afraid, he wants to tell her-you don’t ever have to be afraid again.

He spreads his map out on the bed and, using his thumb and forefinger as calipers, measures out how far he’s come on 80, then doubles that, pivoting the thumb and forefinger around twice to calculate how far he’s likely to get tomorrow. The second time, his forefinger lands on Ogallala, Nebraska. Two more digital pirouettes, and his forefinger is poised over La Farge, Wisconsin, where Pender’s sister lives.

Monday night, then: at his current pace, he can expect to reach La Farge sometime Monday night. Tomorrow he’ll make the initial overtures. If the real Arthur Bellcock hasn’t already been in touch with her, he’ll set up an interview-have to get a tape recorder on the way, or maybe just a notebook-arrive early, scope out the scene, look for signs of surveillance.

If the coast is clear, he shows up as Bellcock. If it’s not, he moves on to one of the other names on the-

No! If there are any signs of surveillance or even suspicion, it dawns on Simon, that would mean the whole Arthur Bellcock scenario is blown. Which would mean in turn that Pender knows he is being stalked-Simon would have lost the element of surprise.

So the question he has to ask himself at this point is, Is it worth it? Is finding out what Pender’s afraid of worth the risk of putting him on his guard?

Simon fires up the roach again, takes a serious hit, and waits for the answer to come to him.