Fear itself

3

“Not bad for a one-armed old fat man,” declared an exultant, if exhausted, Pender, after a morning of extended lovemaking punctuated by endorphin-drenched naps.

“One-eyed,” Dorie murmured, equally satisfied, but less inclined to crow about it. She did think it was sort of sweet, how boyishly proud Pender was to have collaborated with her on that last, noisy multiple O.

“Hunh?”

“One-eyed old fat man-it’s a line from True Grit.”

Pender shuddered-small wonder he’d misremembered the quote: the thought of losing even one eye filled him with horror. Once that happened, he knew, you were only a sharpened pencil away from total blindness.

Linda called back while Dorie was in the shower. “Nelson Carpenter,” she announced.

Pender checked his watch. “Just a little over three hours-couldn’t have done better myself. I don’t suppose you also came up with a current address?”

“You know where Concord is?”

“Massachusetts.”

“Concord, California. North of San Francisco-Contra Costa County, I think. The subdivision’s named Rancho del Vista.”

“Just give me the street address; I’ll find it.”

Here we go again, thought Linda. “Ed, sooner or later, McDougal is gonna-”

“-be very, very proud of his little Liaison Support Unit. But I give you my word of honor, if Nervous Nellie has anything at all to tell us about Childs’s whereabouts, I will pass the information along to the appropriate authorities.”

Linda gave him the address, reminded him of his promise, and wished him luck; it wasn’t until another hour had passed that she realized their agreement could have been more precisely worded. She called him back and got his message box.

“Ed, this is Linda. Just to clarify: the term ‘appropriate authorities’ does not, repeat not, include yourself. Talk to you soon.”

“How far is Concord?” Pender called through the bathroom door, when Dorie had finished her shower.

“Two, three hours. Depends on the traffic and the time of day. You can pretty much bypass San Fran and Oakland entirely, if you swing around on six-eighty. Why?”

“That’s where Nervous Nellie lives.”

“All right! We should probably leave now, avoid both commutes.”

“Whoa. To paraphrase Tonto, what you mean ‘we,’ white woman?”

“What you mean, what I mean?” Dorie came out wrapped in a bath towel, winding a second towel around her wet hair. “You’re not leaving me alone here, buster.”

“Luka practically tore me a new one for bringing you along yesterday. Said I could be doing you untold psychological damage.”

“In the first place: you didn’t bring me, I brought you. In the second place: Luka is at least ninety, and rumor has it he takes LSD once a month. In the third place: the psychological damage has already been done-by Simon. I dream about him, I imagine him popping up every time I turn a corner, and if you’re not in the room with me, I can’t even bring myself to look at the window, in case his face pops up there. In the fourth place: you’re the one who keeps saying he’s probably within driving distance of Berkeley, and in case you’ve forgotten, this house, my home, which he’s already invaded once, is very much within driving distance. Is that enough places for you yet? ’Cause if it’s not, I can come up with a whole lot more.”

He raised both hands, palms out. “Okay, okay, I surrender.” But half an hour later he sneaked out of the house via the studio door while Dorie was on the phone with one of her girlfriends-better to ask forgiveness than permission was as effective a strategy with women as it was with the Bureau.

Some women, anyway: when Pender reached the driveway, he stuck his hand into his pants pocket for his keys and came up empty. He told himself they must have fallen out of his pocket when he took his pants off last night. As he tiptoed into the house and past the kitchen on his way up to the bedroom, though, Pender heard a familiar jingling sound and backed up to see Dorie seated at the kitchen table, telephone in one hand, his key ring dangling from the thumb and forefinger of the other.

“Be with you in a minute there, Lone Ranger,” she said, and jingled the keys merrily again.

Just as well, thought Pender-he’d forgotten that he couldn’t work the damn shift anyway.