Fear itself

Lhermitte’s Sign
1

When she found herself feeling kind of punk at breakfast on Wednesday morning, Linda decided to blame it on the Betaseron. Flu-like symptoms were not an uncommon side effect. And if it was more than a Betaseron reaction, if her T-cells had decided to go off on another myelin-munching spree, there wasn’t much she could do about it anyway. In the multiple sclerosis sweepstakes, Linda Abruzzi had drawn the booby prize. Unlike relapsing-remitting MS, in which the effects of each episode are only temporary, or secondary progressive MS, in which the symptoms are permanent, but which typically doesn’t develop until a good fifteen years after the onset of the relapsing-remitting course, in the primary-progressive course of the disease, with which she had been diagnosed, the effects of each attack are permanent from the get-go.

Linda’s first episode, nearly six months earlier, had been presaged by a weird, electric tingling in her lower extremities, followed by near-paralytic weakness in her calves and ankles. Still, she knew she was one of the lucky ones. Thanks to an early diagnosis by her doctor in San Antonio, she had been put on a course of Betaseron almost immediately, and to date had suffered no subsequent attacks. Her vision was good, her mind and memory sharp as ever, her pain was bearable, her fatigue generally surmountable, and now that she had her cane to lean on, she was getting around like shit on a wheel-no sense giving in to the bastard now.

Unless-What if-

She tried to stop her mind from finishing the thought, but it was already formed: What if she had an attack while she was driving? Or in the office, or at lunch? Wouldn’t it be better to stay home, make sure of what she was dealing with, rather than risk-

Then it struck her: this was what classic agoraphobia was like, this was what her poor phobics (and she thought of them as hers now, a week and a half into the investigation) went through every day of their lives. It wasn’t going out to the market or the mall or the office that they feared, it was having an anxiety attack while they were out there. Isn’t it better to stay home than risk public humiliation?

The answer, of course, was no. You said no-fuck no, if you were from Linda’s neighborhood-and you dragged yourself out into the arena. Because if you said yes, if you gave in to the fear, there would be no going back. The excuse, the cop-out, would be there again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after the day after tomorrow.

Something else they used to say in Linda’s old neighborhood: I shoulda stood in bed. At first, it seemed as if she might as well have, for all the progress being made in the Childs manhunt. Save for one lonely red pin in San Francisco, representing Zap Strum’s apartment, the map on the wall was still embarrassingly blank-no valid Childs sightings to date, though a highway patrolman near Flagstaff had chased and braced a gray-haired attorney driving a silver Mercedes convertible with California plates, who had in turn threatened to hit the state of Arizona with a lawsuit so punishing that its unborn children would die broke.

But a few minutes after ten, Pender called from the coast. “You’re up early,” she told him.

“Your FBI never sleeps, kiddo. I was down in Big Sur yesterday-Dorie and I stopped in to see her old friend Dr. Luka.”

“That’d be the Dr. Luka you promised you weren’t going to try to interview yourself.”

“No interview-just an informal chat.” He gave her the gist of it.

“So where does that leave us?” she asked, when he had finished.

“With a first name and an approximate address for the year1963. How would you go about nailing that down a little more concretely?”

Swell, a pop quiz. “I guess I’d have somebody check the property records. City of Berkeley or Alameda County.”

“That’ll give you the owner’s name. Nelson was a kid.”

“Call me a dreamer, Ed, but I’m guessing he’ll have the same last name as his parents.”

“Good point. But if you do run into trouble-”

“I’m not a total rookie, Chief. In the words of one of my favorite T-shirts, ‘quit yanking my ears,’ I know what I’m doing.”

Pender laughed.

“Call me on my cell when you’ve got it-I’m going back to bed.”

“I thought my FBI never sleeps.”

“Who said anything about sleeping?”