If fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, what is the beginning of fear? I have an answer, for myself at least. The beginning of fear is to understand that you are without power. It took me half a lifetime-40 years-to realize this. Oh, I can hear the protestant brayings of those who are "taking responsibility for their own lives," or "are God," but I'm not talking about the mundanities of happiness, success, self-fulfillment weight loss, life without alcohol, or who is okay and who is not. I'm talking about powerlessness in the face of death, in the face of life, in the face of madness, love, disease, desire, in the face of all things beautiful and terrible that govern our every moment whether we know it or not. And I am talking about the fear of truly realizing that your best may not be good enough, that may, in fact, be very little good at all. To understand this is to become fluent in the language of terror, to become intimate with the contours of the pit. It is the wisdom of the man before the firing squad. But fear-true fear-is not a reason for anyone to do something as simpleminded as to surrender. No. The acts of the powerless are among the lasting nobilities of the race. To advance with a stomach knotted in terror is more than courage. Fear is beauty.
All of which is to say that as I lay in bed on the Wednesday morning of July the seventh, bruised and still exhausted by the dismal events of the night before, I tried to separate my world into things over which I had no power and things over which I did. Against Martin Parish's bleak logic, I was temporarily helpless. There was no sense in divesting myself of Alice's body, when Parish had the tape. All an empty grave would prove is that I'd moved her! I had been crudely but effectively neutralized-exactly Parish's goal. Over the cancer cells that raged in Izzy's brain, I had no power. Over the actions of the Midnight Eye, I had perhaps even less. Dread began to work into me. But I knew that there were some things I could still accomplish. I could love Izzy, even if I couldn't save her. I could protect my daughter from the young woman's perils that had apparently befallen her. I could begin to outline my book about the Midnight Eye. I could shower, shave, eat.
"Coffee, Russell?"
Grace stood in the bedroom, a steaming cup in her hands. I had not heard her arrive, but that didn't surprise me: What little sleep I'd had had been the sleep of the dead.
"Russell, where's Isabella?"
I explained.
She set the cup on my nightstand and assayed me with her Monroe brown eyes. "I'm sorry I was gone," she said. "I could have helped."
"Where were you?"
"Does it really matter, Russ?"
"Yes, it does."
"Don't be silly. You look rather under the weather today.
A guy from the phone company installed something on the telephone pole about an hour ago. You slept right through it.
I groaned, sat up in bed, and hooked the coffee mug.
"Tell me if there's anything I can do for you," said my daughter.
"Thank you."
"Isabella didn't leave because of me, did she?"
"She likes you. I think she left because of me."
"Give yourself a little more credit than that," she said then turned and went back down the stairs.
I called Corrine. Izzy was sleeping after a fitful night-the heat, bad dreams, many trips to the bedside commode.
"Thank you for your words last night," said Corrine. "It important we not blame ourselves. I'm starting to understand what you've been going through this last year. She-we all owe you so much."
"Thank you. That's a difficult thing to believe."
"I hope you can use this time to enjoy yourself a little. Get some work done. Was yesterday relaxing for you?"
I thought back to Amber's astonishing reappearance, thought back to last night, to Martin's palpable lunacy and the body I had buried in a grave not a hundred yards from my own front door. "Very relaxing," I told Corrine.
"I'm glad to hear that, Izzy should be awake in another hour."
"I'll be there."
"God bless you, Russell Monroe."
"I would like that."
My Journal piece on the Citizens' Task Force got front page play and a large color photograph of Dan Winters and Erik Wald. The lead article focused on the Midnight Eye, a horrifying photograph of whom-culled by Documents from the home video-took up three columns above the fold. You could see his dark bearded face in the shadow of the stolen car, determine his girth from the size of the arm dangling from the window, sense his self-contained and predatory nature. Carla Dance had not changed a word of my article, though she did run an inset on Russell Monroe, the Task Force volunteer who was writing this special series for the Journal. I sensed Dan Winters's hand in this bit of minor manipulation-I had never told him I'd join his Force-and in the word series, which gave me a very specific idea of what my Journal employment was to entail. I had to smile at Erik's expression in the photo-so grim, so alert, so… indispensable. God only knew how many phone lines were ringing at the Sheriff's Department, particularly on the desk of Erik Wald and the CTF. We had a hit on our hands; I could feel it.
I called surveillance tech John Carfax at County, and he confirmed that he'd installed the intercept device. It was a Positive Control Systems DNR (dial number recorder) that had CNI (call number identification) capacity built in. He told me he could get a trace number in thirty seconds. Under specific orders from Winters, he was to share his information with me.
I called my agent, Nell. I told her I had an inside track on the scariest, weirdest, most haunting serial killer to hit California in years and that I needed money to write the book.
"We won't get a lot," she said. "You haven't made the list since Journey."
"I don't expect a million dollars," I said. "As much up front as you can arrange. I need it."
"I’ll try."
"This will make Helter Skelter and Fatal Vision look like Hardy Boys stuff."
She was quiet for a moment, then sighed. "How come it seems like everybody in California is either writing a mystery or going on a killing spree?"
"Each has his own special gift," I offered.
"I'll try, Russ. That's all I can do."
With this bit of encouragement came the bravery to call my bank and check the balances of my three accounts-something I had not been able to do for nearly six months. They went down to a grand total of eight thousand dollars, about two months' worth. I had been subconsciously preparing myself to sell Izzy's car, my truck (rarely used), and liquidate our retirement money, which, after taxes and penalties, would have give us another year of living. There remained the specter of selling our home in the current bad market. Not to mention the eighty grand I owed the Medical Center.
I began to wonder how I could write anything close to the whole truth, with Martin's tape, with Alice Fultz buried within throwing distance of my typewriter, with my guilty fixation on Amber Mae so central to the story. No, I told myself. You will write the story of the Midnight Eye. The rest will stay consigned to the dark annals of your secret life. Maybe you can put it in a novel someday.
I asked Grace to come with me to see Izzy, but she declined.
"I'm not afraid to be alone up here," she said. "I don’t think those men have any idea where I've gone. In fact, this is the only place I feel safe alone."
"I understand," I said. Besides, there was something I wanted to do in my car, and it wasn't something that I necessarily wanted my daughter to hear.
On my way to Joe and Corrine's, I listened to the tape that had come from Martin's box of "evidence." The voice of the Eye droned on, and I could still make little of it. I began to meditate on just how this tape had come into being and found its way into Amber's stereo. Was it faked? Dubbed from others? An original that Parish had failed to file as evidence in the case of the Midnight Eye? I finally tired of his slurred nonsense, removed the tape, and put it in my pocket. Surely, I thought, there's a safer place to keep this than in my car.
Isabella was sitting up in bed, propped up on pillows, her tape deck and a bag of cassettes resting on her lap, when I came in. From beneath her baseball cap extended the head-phones, a little black cushion over each ear. She heard me come in, opened her eyes, and gave me a smile of such warmth and happiness that all I wanted to do was lie down beside her, take her in my arms, and tell her I loved her. I did that. She returned my hug as best she could-from her waist up-then pulled off her headset and put her cap back on.
"You look so bad," she said without a stutter. I must have looked at her strangely. "I mean," she said, "you… look… so… good. These days, everything c-c-comes out mix-mixed up. You look so bad, Russell. You h-h-have on my favorite red sidewalk."
She fingered my red windbreaker and smiled again. "Did you have a good day without me?"
"Well…" I said, but I wasn't sure how to finish. I could feel a pit opening inside me, a dark yawning thing into which two little dolls that looked like Isabella and Russ Monroe were falling, arms and legs spread, twisting slowly down into a cartoon abyss.
"Oh, baby, don't look at m-m-me like that," she said. "I know I'm not m-m-making any sense."
"No, no, you are," I said. "And I'm flattered that you like my red sidewalk."
She smiled again. Isabella's smile is everything good in this world. "You… are making f-f-fun of me."
"I know."
"I'll some e-e-even day get with you."
"You can't catch me."
"Not y-y-yet. After my o-o-operation, I'll catch you easy."
"After the operation, I better look out?"
"Gonna make you sucker, pay!"
"Typical hot-blooded Latina," I said. "Always thinking of revenge."
"I g-g-got my revenge when you mangled me."
"I did not mangle you. I married you."
"E-e-exactly."
I held her for a while, until she broke away and fixed her smile on me again. It was the same coy, near-guilty smile she always got before asking what she asked next.
"Guess what?"
"You're hungry," I said.
"W-w-would you see what breakfast is for?"
I climbed off the bed and went into the kitchen. Joe was sitting at the table in front of a fan, drinking iced tea. Corrine stood at the stove. I had the feeling that the silence between them had been going on a while. It had legs. I reported to Isabel! that huevos rancheros was on the menu. She smiled and nodded.
Back in the kitchen, I understood the reason for the silence: Not only Isabella's speech but her moods were becoming strangely askew. I followed Conine's stare out the window to the sky. A jet left a vapor trail high in the blue and I could see the twinkling wedge of silver out ahead of it. It seemed like a symbol for how high and perilous a life can be, but mostly was just a jet in the sky. Far out to the west, a dark blanket of clouds eased toward us, unfolding over the horizon like a shroud for morning.
"Dr. Nesson says tomorrow," Corrine said, turning to face me. "They'll operate at six in the morning. It will take six hour: He doesn't want us to wait. He's worried, and so am I."
I thought it odd that Izzy hadn't mentioned it, and Corrine anticipated this thought.
"She can't keep anything straight," she said. "She forgot her own name earlier this morning."
I joined their silence. Images of the night before, of Alice's frozen arms embracing my chilled neck, mingled in my mind with those of my wife, not thirty feet away now. I would have loved a Bloody Mary.
"Russell," said Joe. "When Izzy was young, Corrine dropped her on her head. The doctors said she was fine. Do you think that maybe-"
"No," I snapped. "That's ridiculous."
I tried to tell Joe and Corrine that it wasn't their fault, that the tumor had simply happened. But I could almost see my words running off of them, I could feel them shouldering not only all the blame there was, but all the blame they could imagine. I recognized what they were doing because I had done it myself-for months-just after Isabella was diagnosed. We believe, in our helplessness, that the amount of blame we can carry somehow lightens the burden of the one we love. It is a heavy load to bear, but it is nothing compared to what the victims themselves are asked to carry.
Nothing is quite so terrible about cancer as the way its sufferers are encouraged to believe that they have caused their disease. Legions of pop thinkers, from psychologists to MDs (few of whom have had cancer, I might add), have adopted the stance that there is something deficient in the psyche of the ill, something that has allowed them to "create" their cancer. And as Isabella-and thousands like her-embarked on her battle for life, she read these books, listened to these lectures, watched these videos (all expensive, all packaged with advertisements for more product) promising her that, just as she had created her own disease, so she could also create her own cure. She meditated. She ate a macrobiotic diet. She imaged little cells eating up her tumor. She exercised. She was acupunctured, acupressured, energy-channeled; she had her medians unblocked, her colon flushed with enemas, her stomach filled with chlorella, ginseng, miso, royal jelly, astragalus, echinacea, amino acids, two-phase enzyme supplements, interaction supplements, vitamins in megadose, minerals by the ton-in short, enough fringe treatment and fraudulent "medicine" to render her, at one point, little more than a feverish, diarrheic mess who couldn't even stand the smell of her own body. As instructed she told herself she was beautiful. When nothing worked, she did everything all over again. But still the cancer grew. And she knew by then whose fault that was: hers, of course, hers alone; it was a simple outgrowth of her imperfect mind. She had created it. She had encouraged it. She deserved it. She wanted it.
But then, something began to change.
Slowly, Isabella-always willing to blame herself first, so many of us are-started getting mad. It started with a near silence that lasted for days. She eased off the potions, pills, and supplements. She ate something besides tofu and fake cheese made from soybeans. She stopped watching tapes of doctors exhorting her to imagine her tumor, change her defective character, take responsibility for creating her illness. She brooded; she wept; she screamed.
One evening, she said to me, "You know something Russ? It's arrogance. Pure arrogance."
"What is?"
"The idea I did this to myself. I did not do this to myself. I was happy. My mother loved me. My father did not abuse me. No one did. I was a happy kid. I tried to be good. I smoked some cigarettes when I was fourteen, but that was all. I drank some. I smoked a joint when I was sixteen, but when I heard a tape of how I played piano stoned, I never tried it again. When I was twenty-three, I married the man I loved. I got up one morning, had a seizure, found out there was something growing in my brain. It was cancer. And I'll tell you something-I hate it. I even hate the word cancer, the way it hisses off our tongues, so eager to be said. I didn't create it, no matter what these… these… these bliss ninnies try to make me believe. They're selling snake oil in a New Age wrapper, that's all. They're in the cancer business, the phony-hope trade. I'll take the rap for almost anything-I'm a Mexican and a Catholic, right? But I refuse to take the blame anymore for this. I'm going to win; I'm going to beat this thing. Damn those people, those… parasites. Russ, what is it with this country? We think we control the whole world and everything on it-and beyond that, the moon, all the way from the heavens down to the metastatic level of the cells in our bodies. Where did we ever get so arrogant to believe that? Did it do any good? What did it get us but a place stripped of the people and animals who used to live here, a sky full of satellites and floating junk, a nation full of people who believe they can cure cancer by eating right? How can we be so arrogant to believe that cancer is our own fault? I want to live, Russ. I'm going to beat this thing. But I'm not going to accept responsibility for what's happened. I feel invaded. I feel cheated. I love you and I love life, but I hate what's happened to me. I'm going to fight with the tools I've got-love and hate. That's what I've got for weapons. You know what cancer is? Cancer is little cells growing where they shouldn't. Nobody knows why they start or how to stop them, but nobody can cure a cold, either. Cancer is not a symptom. Cancer is not a metaphor. It is not a theme. Mailer said that cancer is the growth of madness denied. Mailer is full of shit. The only thing cancer is for sure is bad luck. It's a vicious little bastard and I want it out of me. This is not a journey into myself to discover my secret desire to die."
And when Isabella said those words to me, I felt my own burden of blame begin to lift, because I had started to wonder, If a person can promote cancer in himself, why not in someone else? Was it my fault? I know a man-sixty years old-who has lost three wives to cancer. He believes himself to be carcinogenic, and if one does the arithmetic, he is. He stopped dating ten years ago, convinced that his love leads only to death. He golfs. He drinks. He lives alone. He has eight dogs.
I heard Izzy's words coming back to me as I watch Corrine preside with guilty intensity over the stove. I kissed her on the head and said, "It's plain old bad luck. It happened to her so it didn't have to happen to Joe, or you, or me."
She looked at me, then nodded slowly. Joe heaved himself up from the table to answer the phone. I looked out the window again to the clear, hot morning and wondered how of this would end.
"For you," said Joe, handing me the cordless. "Erik Wald.”
"Famous enough yet, Erik?"
"Sh-sh-sh-sh. Hello, Russ. I told a white lie."
I said nothing but walked outside to the porch and closed the front door behind me. The sunlight stunned me, but not much as the fact that the Midnight Eye had traced me so easily to the home of Isabella's parents.
"What do you want?"
"I liked the articles. This Citizens' Task Force is an absolutely terrifying posse. I'm so afraid I can hardly show my face. Speaking of faces, that was quite a picture on the front page. I consider it a little unlucky to have driven by at that moment. I wondered if those neighbors had captured my image."
Something tried to dawn on me at that moment, but was in no position to ponder it, trying my best to remember each word, as we talked. I tried to file it
"Everyone in the county knows who to look for."
"Sh-sh-sh-sh… I told you I was terrified. Has Wald completed his profile?"
"No.".
"Because he's so busy becoming legendary."
"It's amazing what you pigs will do for a little ink," I said.
"Why no mention of our conversation? You didn't say anything about my racial cleansing. About the racial facial I'm giving our county."
"One thing at a time."
"You're making the mistake of thinking you have all the time in the world. Maybe I'll make my dramatic statement sooner. Or, there's another possibility…"
"What."
"I've made it already. Sh-sh-sh-sh."
I checked my watch. It was 9:36 a.m.
"Did Winters install the tracer on your home phone?"
"We decided against it. We'd rather talk to you."
"Oh, what a convincing, solid, just… believable lie. I admire you, Russell."
"Believe what you want. The line's clear."
"I know this one is."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want you to tell the county about my racial cleansing, you turd-sucking faggot. I've already told you that. What are you, even stupider than I thought? Do you think I call you for my own entertainment? Don't fuck with me, Monroe!"
"Nobody wants to fuck with you. We want to give you what you want."
"I c-c-can hear Erik Wald's flimsy academic thought process behind you. Did Winters order him to coach you? Is it really you and Wald I'm dealing with?"
"Yes."
"Good. I assumed as much. The idea is to give me enough rope to hang myself. I'll bet that exact cliche was used by the nigger Winters. Now listen, Russell, I expect the following quote to be in your next piece. R-r-ready? 'The goal of the Midnight Eye is to inform all racial minorities that they are no longer welcome in the county.' Shall I repeat that?"
"I've just written it down."
"Read it back."
I did.
"Sh-sh-sh-sh. I feel better. Relieved. Overall, I'm in go spirits today. In fact, I gave some thought to your question about the death of the model-Amber Mae? It's obvious that someone inside the department made a sophomoric attempt to blame that murder on me. Correct?"
"I believe so."
"Do you know who?"
"No," I lied. The idea of using the Eye to help me escape the clutches of Martin Parish seemed ludicrous, but then again, I didn't have many allies. Could the Eye realize something I had not?
"Have you defined the people who knew about my first two statements-the greaser and nigger couples?"
"I think so."
"Well, Russell… enumerate."
"Winters, Parish, Singer, Yee, Karen Schultz. Parish's that’s three or four people. Maybe the forensic crew put them together-that's half a dozen more. Wald suspected early, but was out of the official loop-I talked to him about it." "Um-hm."
I listened for background noise but heard none. I turn and looked through the front window to where Joe and Corrine both stared back at me, their faces mute and curious.
"And you, Russell? In or out of the loop?"
"Out."
"They were awfully slow to admit what was going on, weren't they?"
"Yes."
"That's one of the reasons I chose to talk to you, you know. Cops are so… bureaucratic, so… sluggish. Tell me, do any of the people you mentioned have a history with this Amber?"
"Parish and Wald."
"And, of course, you."
"Yes."
"Explain to me any monetary considerations. Her estate, to be specific."
I told the Eye of the basic dispensations of Amber Mae's fortunes, should an untimely death befall her. He listened without interrupting.
"Forget Winters, Singer, and Schultz for obvious reasons," he said finally. "Dismiss Wald, too. He's an academic, a dilettante, a coward. The Captain of Detectives, Martin Parish, would be a very interesting possibility. Sh-sh-sh-sh. It's so much fun to be a cop!"
"Maybe you should join the Task Force."
"Get a little cap and shirt! What self-aggrandizing silliness for Winters. Exactly what I'd expect from a nigger-always style over substance."
I said nothing.
"Tell me, Russell, are there maybe, just maybe… intimations from some quarters that you are a suspect?"
"Yes."
"Promoted by, let me guess, Martin Parish?"
"Yes."
"Oh, this is getting rich. You might have a hard time of it, because Parish could write, direct, and produce a convincing case against you-practically out of thin air."
The Eye's words eerily recalled those of Parish, spoken not twelve hours previously, as he orchestrated the grim funeral of Alice Fultz.
"I've considered that."
"How's Isabella?"
"That's not your business."
"She is of… Mexican blood, isn't she?"
"If you touch her, I'll kill you. That is a promise."
"Testy, testy. Sh-sh-sh-sh. Look, Russell, get that statement into the paper tomorrow or I'll make your life so miserable you won't be able to stand it. Quote me, word for word. Run my picture again if you think it will do any good. Winters will get a call today at noon. That's two hours from now. You might want to be there for it."
The Eye hung up. I listened to the clean disconnection, the ensuing loaded silence.
I felt invaded here, in what I had assumed was the safe of Joe and Corrine's home. The Eye had tracked me there surely as if he'd been watching me from above. Was it luck, did he have a surer way to following my movements? A hot wash of sweat broke over me. I stepped back inside to the cool of the house.
I helped Isabella into her wheelchair.
"Y-y-you're quiet," she said.
"Thinking."
"That's a t-t-terrible voice."
"What voice, Izzy?"
"On the t-t-tape that fell your pocket out." I cursed myself for my carelessness. The last thing I wanted to add to the miseries in Isabella's mind were the words of the Midnight Eye.
"I'm so sorry, Izzy. I didn't want you to-"
"I think h-h-he's been to Laguna C-c-canyon. He's s-s- seen Our L-l-Iady of the Canyon."
I settled her into the chair.
"What?"
"He's seen her, Russ."
"How can you tell that? What do you think he said?"
She grinned at me a little slyly now. "M-m-maybe I'll make you wait t-t-till after dinner."
My head had begun to feel light and my heart was speeding up. "No, girl. Please… I need to know how you know that."
"Kay-o! He says right there on the t-t-tape that he's s-s- seen the bright cunt woman."
I remembered the nonsense phrase: "C-c-cun seed brat cun wormin…"
"Can see the bright cunt woman?"
"R-r-russell. It's obvious. It takes someone s-s-screwed up as me to underplay someone as screwed up as h-h-him. Understand him."
"He's been in the canyon," I said.
"You heard it first h-h-here. It's the Eye, isn't it?"
My mind was still reeling from Isabella's easy understanding of the Eye's speech.
"Yes, love. It's the Eye. And he's seen our Lady."
"You should put me in the c-c-case."
"You're hired, Lieutenant."
"Chief."
"Okay, Chief."
I had breakfast with my wife and in-laws. I don't think I'd ever been so thankful just to have them around. My hands were shaking.
"Are y-y-you coming back tonight?"
"Of course, love."
"G-g-good. I have a farmhouse to ask you."
Our gently blank looks all closed in on Isabella. She glanced at each of us in turn, then down at her plate. A tear rolled off her cheek and her shoulders shook.
"You know what I m-m-meanl"
"A favor," I said. "I know exactly what you mean."
A few minutes later, I asked Joe to walk me to my car. tried to explain to him, in the calmest way I could, that the Midnight Eye had just called his house. Joe nodded in his stoic fashion, always a man for whom no task of love can be too great.
"I'm the one he wants to talk to," I said. "I don't think he'll call here again. What I'm saying is, be very, very careful.
"I got two shotguns and two deer guns and two pistols.
"Keep them… available. Does Corrine know how to us them?"
"The pistols, okay."
"One of you stay up. Don't let everyone sleep at the same time."
"No. We been doing that for Izzy, anyway."
"You're a good man, Joe."
“She is my only girl.”