"I hear something wrong in your voice," he said.
"The Eye hit here in the canyon."
"People you know?"
"Kind of."
"Do you need me there?"
"Wait for Amber. Later, Dad."
I wrote the Ing piece first, based on Mary's partial identification of the picture and full conviction that the voice on the conference speaker was that of her son, William Fredrick.
My article on the latest killing spree by the Midnight Eye was finished an hour later. It simply projected out of me like vomit, and I felt the same sense of spent foulness that a good retching would have left. I faxed both pieces off to Carla Dance and Karen Schultz, then made another drink and sat out on the deck. The two Sheriff's Department choppers and one borrowed from the Newport Beach PD roared through the sky above, their blades popping dully against the canyon sides. Two network news birds hovered low, getting establishing shots for the seven o'clock segments. I talked briefly with Carla, who was checking facts-how many dogs, exactly, were hanging on the fence; did Ing graduate from high school in 1972 or 1973; was "Tiger' cat or a dog? She told me the crime-scene report was the best she'd ever read and speculated that there might be an award in it for me. The ice in my whiskey had melted and I felt sick.
Grace joined me in the shade of the deck, a shade that still registered 102 degrees on the thermometer nailed to the side of the house. The choppers persevered overhead. Grace looked lovely and composed; I sensed in her a desire to ameliorate the apparent darkness of my mood. She noted that the ice in my glass was gone and took it into the house for more. Grace did not speak as I explained to her what had happen on Red Tail Lane. I cannot remember what I said. My gorge rose as I finished the outline, and my mouth went dry and my face got cold. Through the open screen doors, I could hear the television newspeople slurring out the latest on the Midnight Eye's deeds in Laguna Beach.
I closed my eyes, saw the sun burning orange again my eyelids, concentrated on the slow, even pounding of my heart. "Grace, you ever wish something big, like God, would pick you up by the heels with a pair of tongs and just like dip you into something wet, and when you came out, you'd clean and fresh again?"
"Oh, yes. I've pictured it as something like mercury, something silver and smooth that goes into your body, then drains out through the pores, and all the ugliness goes out with it."
"Yeah."
Eyes still closed and my head resting against the rough redwood of the house, I found Grace's hand with mine and squeezed it gently. Contrary to the early morning of July 5, when I had last taken her stiff and reluctant hand, now she remained gentle and confident within my own and I sensed no notion on her part to withdraw from me. Her hand seemed, at that moment, the single most valuable thing in my world. Then I felt it grow tense.
"Don't take that away," I said.
It relaxed slightly and remained firmly within my own.
"Grace, I like the sound of your voice. Tell me a pleasant story, one with meadows or lakes or something, tell me something happy that happened to you."
"Well… okay, Russell, but I don't know any happy stories."
"You must know one."
"But I don't."
"Then make one up."
"I can't."
The sun continued its hot touch upon my eyelids and the sounds of the canyon traffic diminished, no doubt a result of the roadblock set up by Winters in meager hope of intercepting the Midnight Eye, or perhaps a witness. The whiskey surged around in my blood, unable either to fuel me or soothe me. I thought of Isabella and her surgery the next morning. I thought of life without her. There seemed to be nothing on earth to look forward to.
"Then tell me about you and your mother," I said. "It doesn't have to be happy, just true."
Grace sighed and her hand tensed. I squeezed it harder.
"What do you want to know, Russ?"
"I don't understand why you're so afraid of her."
"There are lots of things you don't understand."
"Tell me why. Tell me something. Let me hear your voice."
"Well… Russell, you must know that Amber is a profoundly selfish person. She is also extremely insecure and self-doubting. With every year I became older and more mature, she became more competitive. It was a revelation to me, at the age of thirteen, that my own mother was jealous of me."
Her hand grew stiffer, but I made no move to let it go
"Jealous?" I was imagining horrible things now from the Pampered Pet Palace, and it seemed that Grace's voice was the only antidote. "I wish you'd explain that."
"For example, Amber and I gained the attentions of very handsome young sommelier in a Paris restaurant one fall. He was thrilled to have our table-you could sense his desire just in the way he worked a cork from a bottle. It was also clear that he was interested in me. Amber, of course, in all her fake Continental sophistication, invited him-Florent-to a party her suite on a Friday night. Florent and I had a wonderful talk out on the balcony while the other guests were inside. He told me he was more affected by my beauty than he'd ever been by a woman before. I told him I understood and would accept his call the next evening. Don't I sound like Amber now-'would accept his call'? It was all so… obvious, so predictable. The next morning, I got from Amber a one-way ticket back to Orange County, via Los Angeles, and was met at the airport by Martin. The phrase that still sticks in my mind was, 'Never, ever try to come between me and one of my men again. I have not raise you to be a whore.' Amber said it from the back of the limo as I climbed out at De Gaulle. I'll never forget the… aggression in her eyes."
I heard the choppers thumping overhead.
"One might argue that Amber saw in you a thirteen-yea old girl getting in way over her head."
Grace's hand tightened with an unexpected strength.
"The first key to understanding other people, Russ, is to remember that they don't think like you do. If you aren't ready to respect my answer, you shouldn't have asked the question."
"I stand corrected. Please go on."
"She basically just dumped me on the plane, Russ. Without a word of explanation beyond the clucking about her men. That's an example, a typical event. There was a coldness about how she moved me around her world like a piece of jewelry. I tried just to understand her. I forgave Amber a lot-I rationalized her behavior, figuring that was just the way she was. I'm not an unforgiving person, Russ. But by the time I was taken on a… desert sight-seeing tour by the fat man and his crew-cut friend, I was finally broken. I was terrified. I felt… hated."
"I'm not tracking."
Grace studied me silently for a long while. I could tell by the shadow the hair of her turned head made across my sun-struck face.
"Well, Russell, the desert tour was quite simple. Fat man and crew cut-they called themselves Sam and Gary-met me as I was getting into my car one evening to leave work. Gary had a gun-a Glock Nineteen, I believe. This was about eight weeks ago. They stuffed me into the front seat of a red Bronco and squeezed me in between them. A bloodhound was on the backseat, huge and slobbering. Name of Tex. Funny. The ride down was two hours of silence and BO from Sam. No gropes or suggestive talk, so I was half-wondering if they might not rape me. We went out by Joshua Tree, off on a dirt road, into the desert. They brought me out, rather gently I remember, then knocked me on the ground and burned the bottoms of my feet with cigarettes. Gary allowed me to chew on his shoe, to quiet me. They didn't say anything. Well, they said one thing, which was the whole purpose of the exercise. Gary said, and I quote, 'Show some respect, or you're out of the money.' Amber's been threatening to write me out of the trusts. I'm supposed to get a really big piece of it when I turn twenty-one. She's holding the money over me like some kind of glue, like she can put us back together with it. The truth of it is, I don't want the money I can work. I have some savings. It's just like that stupid netsuke she believes I stole from her. She makes up something, then reacts to her own illusion. She scares me to death. Which exactly what she wants."