SUMMER of FEAR (43 page)

"I took the seven o'clock out this
morning."

"How did you make that last call register in Brooklyn?'

"I have call forwarding in my little cage in Brooklyn. Your CNI
intercept tells you that the call originated there. Actually, made it from your
study and routed it through New York."

"Clever."

"All of these gadgets and tricks are in the public realm now. It's
part of the peace dividend. Most people don't know
that. Most people
are idiots. All I used was some very basic electronic know-how. Of course, two
years at the central phone office in Laguna didn't hurt me."

As I sat there, I got my first truly good look at the Midnight Eye. He
was as tall as we suspected—six three perhaps—and heavily, though softly,
built. Even from this distance, it was easy to see that the beard and
disheveled red-brown hair were false. But aside from his size and the piecemeal
manner of his disguise, little about the man himself commanded the kind of
dread we had all felt looking at the things he had done. His eyes were very
dark brown. They had a brightness to them, a luminosity that was intensified by
the ceiling lamp. They were slow eye deliberate and calm. His skin was pale,
and I noted that his fingers, wrapped around the handle of the gun, were plum;
with longish nails. His legs were heavy and large, and his feet quite big,
which gave him a bottom-heavy, weighted appearance. Magnifying this effect was
his slight pigeon-toed stance. A flicker of anger charged his eyes when mine
met them again.

"It's not polite to stare."

From what I could judge from Mary Ing's earlier picture I was now
looking at a disguised version of William Fredrick Ing. Rather,
reverse-disguised, to mimic an earlier manifestation of himself. What did he
really look like now, beneath the fake hair and beard? Wald and I had been
right—the Midnight Eye had been impersonating an "other" all along,
playing a part in his own ritual. As we had suspected, Ing had been able to
work, move about in public, and continue his murderous nights because in real
life, he looked little like the beast he could become. Now I knew why he had
been so nonchalant about our presenting his picture to the public, precisely
because it was an image that no one would recognize. Except, of course, his own
mother.

"You have one m-m-more article to write," he said. "I'll
tell you what to say. Put in the paper."

I scrolled in a sheet and threw back the carriage return. Again I
trained my ears for some sound of life in the room above. Nothing. Not so much
as a rustle of sheets, a breath.

"Now," he said. "The first two sentences should read, The
'Midnight Eye' is not William Ing, as earlier stories have c-c-claimed. I met
him personally just last night and he assured me of this."

I typed the sentences.

"Do you like the lead?" he asked.

"I'd change it a little."

"How?"

"I think I'd
say...
William Fredrick Ing, the notorious Midnight Eye, visited me last night in my
home. First, he killed my wife's nurse, then my wife, and by the time you read
this, he will have killed me, too."

"No. Don't get ahead of things. You have some of it right, and some
of it wrong. You don't have to worry about Isabella.
Sh-sh-sh.
And I
have only one name—the Midnight Eye. Ing is a person who used to be and is no
more. You must remain accurate as a reporter, right?"

"That's right."

"Next sentence: He is a tall and powerful man, who commands respect
even with a glance of his dark eyes."

I typed it. "He's a tall and powerful man," I said, "who
was picked on when he was a kid and didn't have any friend He didn't have much
of a family life, either. Very early, he began a secret life of his own."

"No! If you write one word of that, I'll kill you and finish it
myself. I can t-t-type!" He extended the gun toward me, dark barrel a
condensed version of the black eternity into which he would certainly blow me.

"I'm just saying it," I said. "I didn't write it. I'm
saying you were a kid who got torn up by his own dogs on the Fourth July. You
walked in on your parents and got slapped for your concern. You were a
miserable kid. You weren't always the Midnight Eye. Why not include that?"

"Because it isn't relevant."

"Can you explain?"

"The Midnight Eye
was
born. He did not develop. He
was.
chosen.
Your next paragraph goes like this: According to the Eye himself, he has had
murderous impulses for almost all life. He began by killing animals. As a young
man, he saw the rape of the county by foreigners, people who came to Orange
County only to make money. The Midnight Eye then realized his calling."

I typed out the graph and waited, staring into his dark bright eyes.

He continued. "And as the Midnight Eye's body grew lean and strong,
his urges became tied to a greater good."

"The good of killing people not like him?"

"The good of killing the parasites and leeches. The good of clean
sand and skies. Of earth in balance, and all people their places."

"I'd change that."

"How?"

"I'd say, He looked for God and when he didn't find him, he began
to think he was God himself."

"Not true. I am merely a servant. Write that! The Midnight Eye
claims he is only a servant."

"Of what?"

"Of...
history. Of progress toward the future.
Of...
redreaming our way out of what has gone wrong here."

I wrote this down.

Ing stood for a long moment, apparently lost for
words.

"Can I see your face?" I asked.

"Gaze."

"The one under all the stage stuff."

"You see my face as it is meant to be
seen."

"You're going to kill me, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then let me see your face. Let me see the Midnight Eye that no one
else can see. Give me
this...
exclusive."

Ing seemed to ponder this. He looked at me, then at his gun, then back
to me. "When I saw your wife upstairs, I realized she would suffer more if
I left her alive. How could you marry a filthy Mexican?"

"I loved her. I still do."

"You would compromise your sperm with her
egg?"

"That won't happen for us."

"Good. Good for the place we call home.
Now...
next sentences: The Eye told me that the county must be
cleansed, and cleansed thoroughly. After a brief sabbatical on the East Coast,
the Eye returned here yesterday to continue his work. If possible, the Eye is
just as impressive in person as he is through his generous and self-effacing
acts."

Generous and self-effacing acts, I thought, like the
Fernandez couple. Like the Ellisons and Wynns and Steins. Like a the animals.
Like Dee, and probably Izzy, and—shortly—myself.

Something then dawned on me. "You hate couples, don’t you? Married
people."

"I loathe you."

"Why?"

"The dependence, the way you cling to one another, the way you
are...
exclusive and out only for material
gain."

"You detest our happiness. Is it because you've never had it? Are
you jealous?"

"Man was meant to be alone. Marriage is a necessary aberration for
continuing the race. Priests are celibate for good reason."

"You ever had a woman?"

Ing's gaze hardened and I could see his hand stiffen the gun.
"Next," he said. "The Eye says that any and all minorities are
welcome to leave the county, but this must be done soon. No one offering a home
for sale will be harmed; no packing to leave will be stopped. All who stay will
live in fear of violent death."

I wrote out the paragraph. The terrible ringing in my ears still had not
abated. I was having trouble getting my fingertips to the keys of the
typewriter.

Ing was behind me. I could see his reflection in the mirrored wall. He
was reading, from a distance, over my shoulder. As he leaned forward, I could
see the club hanging over his shoulder, exactly where Chet Singer had predicted
it would be. The Eye had not cleaned it. It was clotted with hair and blood, a
patina of gore now dried and blackened by time. The combined smells of the club
and the Midnight Eye were almost overpowering.

"Next,
Russell. The Eye stated he had to kill me because I had been dishonest with
him. The Eye values honesty above all other traits in human beings. I had been
led to believe that the Eye was William Ing, which he is clearly not. But
because of that untruth, I must go the way of the others, whose cleansing makes
the air of this place clearer and cleaner with each passing day."

I wrote nothing. "Are you going to sign
this?" I asked.

"My signature will be left all over this
house."

In fact, I thought, it mattered not at all. But I was grasping for time,
and for some idea—no matter how desperate—of how to keep him from shooting me
in the back.

"A signature would
help...
dramatize it," I said.

"In your blood?"

"Very good," I said. "And I think you should say something
about what people can do to save themselves."

"They can go away."

"Can your offer a time? A kind of grace period while they make arrangements
to leave?"

I could see the Eye pondering this. His reflection was clear. He lifted
the gun hand to rub the side of his face and came a step closer to my chair.

"Offer them one month," I continued.

"No! Too long!"

"Two weeks?"

"Shut up! Shut up while I th-th-think."

Into the silence that surrounded Ing's thought came a shrill mechanical
screech from upstairs, followed by the groan of a motor. The lift!

I watched Ing look up, startled. And in that moment, I used all of the
strength I could summon to lock my hands on the typewriter, pivot, and hurl the
heavy machine into the chest of the Midnight Eye. Then I was on him. My forward
charge caught him low and I drove him clear across the kitchen, slamming him
ferociously against the refrigerator. I heard his gun thud against the hardwood
floor. I found his throat with my hands, but as I had feared—and as I had
experienced as a deputy on the beat—the strength of the furious and insane can
be prodigious. His hands closed over mine and pulled them from his throat in
one grunting motion that left me spread-armed and looking helplessly into Ing's
wide dark eyes. It can only have been luck that allowed me to act first. I
brought my knee up hard and felt it penetrate the softness of his groin. He
screamed and went momentarily limp as I pulled free one arm and landed a
chopping right-hand blow that struck him exactly where I had hoped—on
his temple. He shuddered and I felt his body sag. I threw a wide left hook,
harnessing all of my momentum from the first blow and aiming for his jaw. What
happened next seemed to take place in one second at the most: I saw his right
hand reach up and intercept my fist in midair. His body hardens with a fresh
fury and his left arm clamped around my neck and drew me—like a combine
gathering a shaft of wheat—snugly against his stinking body. I pushed off from
the floor with throttled groan and ran us both back against the table, into
which we crashed, rolled, and landed on the carpet—both of Ing powerful arms
now locked around my neck and my breathing all but choked off. With my fingers,
I found his hair, which yanked—only to feel the wig slide off in my hands! Then
I found his eyes and dug my thumbs in with what diminishing energy I could
find. I could hear his labored piglike breathing just above
my head,
and I could hear, too, the groaning descent of Isabella wheelchair lift as it
landed in its platform on the floor. My thumbs sank in! Ing bellowed with pain,
and in the instant he reflexive reached for his face, I broke free of his
clench, brought both my hands from his eyes to his throat, and tightened my
fingers as if over the last tree branch between me and the abyss.

I turned him over
and squeezed harder, trying to bring my inferior weight to bear. But just as the
air rushed into my lungs and fresh blood surged into my head, I saw Ing's hand
extend and close over the gun. I yelled and called upon my last reserve of
muscle to choke the life out of him before that gun could be turned at me. It
was not enough. His hand closed over the grip and his finger slipped inside the
trigger guard. At that instant, when I would have to release his neck in order
to defend myself against the gun, I saw in the far-right side of my vision a
figure standing over us. Suddenly, Isabella's quad cane smashed down over the
gun, pinning wrist and weapon against the carpet. I could look up at her for
only an instant, but I will never forget what I saw there: Isabella in her blue
pajamas, her turbaned head and swollen face, her weakened legs unsteady as she
did her best to balance her weight over the handle of that thin cane,
concentrating with all her considerable might upon the task of remaining
upright. She swayed like a cottonwood in a high wind. But, charged by her
courage, I drew a new strength and applied myself to nothing at all on earth
except wringing the life out of the monster in my hands. I glared into his
fierce eyes and bellowed myself, a roar that echoed through the room around us
and seemed to settle in William Fredrick Ing's very eyes, which bulged,
quivered, then focused on me a look of penetrating hatred that froze in place
as I roared again, felt the bones in his throat popping beneath my fingers, and
began slamming his lifeless head against the floor, again and again and again.
Izzy's cane stood fast! When, breathless and emptied of all power, I rose upon
my knees and released the throat, I looked up at Isabella, still wholly focused
on maintaining balance on her damaged legs. Her eyes were closed and her
gauze-wrapped head lifted as if to heaven. She swayed, righted herself, then
swayed again. She began to fall. I caught her, still on my knees, and managed
to settle her descending head into my left arm and guide her down gently to the
floor. With my other hand, I took Ing's gun and planted the barrel of it
against his head, should there be any life at all left in him. And with that
gun in my right hand, extended, and Isabella's frail head crooked into the
elbow of my left arm, I lay there, crucified to the carpet and unable to do
anything but listen to the gasping of my own lungs and to the deeper, slower
workings of Isabella's.