Private Eyes

His mouth opened, and he jammed his hand down on the button.

Machine screams. A higher frequency than before…

His voice above the whine- shouting but barely audible: “Fifteen seconds.”

I threw myself at him. He backed away, kicking and punching, throwing the black remote at me and hitting me in the nose. Fingers white on the gray module. The stench of burning flesh and hair clogged the room.

I tore at his hands, hit him in the belly, and he gasped and doubled. But his grip was like steel.

I had to break his wrist before he let go.

I put the remote in my pocket, kept my eye on him. He was stretched out on the floor, holding his wrist, crying.

The women didn’t stop jerking for a long, long time.

I unplugged the machines, ripped off the electrical cords, and used them to bind his arms and legs. When I was certain he was immobilized, I went to the women.

36

I locked Gabney in the barn, took Gina and Ursula into the house, put blankets over them, got Ursula to drink some apple juice that I found in the refrigerator. Organic. Like everything in the well-stocked fridge. Survival books on a kitchen shelf. Rifle and shotgun in a rack over the table. Swiss Army knife, case full of hypodermic needles and drug spansules. The professor had been preparing for the long haul.

I phoned 911, then put in an emergency call to Susan LaFamiglia. She got over the horror remarkably fast, turned efficient, took down crucial details, and told me she’d handle the rest.

It took half an hour for the paramedics to arrive, accompanied by four cars of Santa Barbara County sheriffs from the Solvang substation. During the wait I found Gabney’s records- no great feat of detection. He’d left half a dozen notebooks on the dining room table. A couple of pages were all I could bear to read.

I spent the next couple of hours talking to grim-faced people in uniforms. Susan LaFamiglia arrived with a young man wearing an olive-green Hugo Boss suit and retro tie, had a few words with the cops, and got me out of there. Mr. Fashion turned out to be one of her associates- I never learned his name. He drove the Seville back to L.A. and Susan took me home in her Jaguar. She didn’t ask me any questions and I fell asleep, happy to be a passenger.

I missed my ten o’clock appointment the next morning with Melissa- but not for lack of trying. I was up at six, watching baby koi the size of threadworms wiggle their way around the pond. By nine-thirty I was at Sussex Knoll. The gates were open, but no one answered the door.

I spotted one of the Hernandez sons who was thi

I believed him but tried the door again anyway.

As I drove away he gave me a sad look- or maybe it was pity, for my lack of trust.

I’d just nosed out onto the street when I saw the brown Chevy approaching from the south. Traveling so slowly it seemed to be standing still. I backed up and waited, and when it pulled up in the driveway, I was ready, at the driver’s window, greeting a frightened-looking Bethel Drucker.

“Sorry,” she said, and put the car into reverse.

“No,” I said. “Please. No one’s here but I’d like to talk to you.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Don’t know,” she said. She had on a plain brown dress, costume jewelry, very little makeup. Her figure refused to be suppressed. I took no pleasure in looking at it. It would be a while before looking would be fun again. “I really don’t know,” she repeated. Her hand remained on the gearshift lever.

“You came to pay your respects,” I said. “That’s very kind of you.”

She looked at me as if I’d spoken in tongues. I walked around the front of the car and got in beside her.

She started to protest, then, with an ease that bespoke a lifetime of acquiescence, her features assumed a resigned look.

“What?” she said.

“Do you know what happened?”

Nod. “Noel told me.”

“Where is Noel?”

“Drove up there this morning. To be with them.”

The unspoken words: as usual.

I said, “He’s a great kid- you’ve done a wonderful job.”

Her face quavered. “He’s so damn smart, sometimes I think he’s not mine. Lucky for me, I remember the pain- pushing him out. You wouldn’t think to look at him but he was a big one. Nine pounds. Twenty-three inches. They told me he was go

“Is he going to Harvard?”

“He doesn’t tell me everything he’s go

“The Tankard?”

“Only place I’ve got for the time being.”

“Is Don pla

Shrug. “He doesn’t tell me his plans either. I just wa

“Okay,” I said. “Can I just ask you one thing- something personal?”

Her eyes filled.

“Just a question, Bethel.”

“Sure- what’s the difference, anyway? Talking, dancing, posing for pictures- everyone gets what they want from me.”

“Didn’t know you were a model,” I lied.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Ha! Sure, I was this big famous fashion model. With these.” Ru

“Did Joel take those pictures?”

Pause. Her hands were small and white around the steering wheel. A cheap cameo ring encircled the ring finger.

“Him. Others. What of it? I was in lots of pictures. I was a picture star. Even when I was pregnant and out to here- some people are sick that way, like to see pregnant women.”

“Something for everyone,” I said.

She turned sharply but her tone was resigned. “You’re mocking me.”

“No,” I said wearily. “No, I’m not.”

She studied me, touched her bosom again.

“You saw me,” she said. “Driving off yesterday. And now you want to know why.”

I began to talk, but she cut me off with a shake of her hand. “Maybe to you it’s dumb, getting upset over someone like him- that’s the way I felt about it, too. Real dumb. But I’m used to that. Being dumb. So what’s the difference, anyway? Maybe to you it was real real dumb- retarded- because you think he was pure trash- No, wait a second. Let me finish. He was pure shit, no kindness in him. Everything made him mad and crazy- he had to have his way all the time. Some of it was prob’ly the dope. He shot way too much speed. But some of it was just the way he was made. Mean. So I understand your thinking I’m dumb. But he gave me something and no one ever gave me nothing- not at that point of my life, anyway. Since then, Don came through, and I’d cry for him if something happened to him- a hell of a lot more than I cried for… the other one. But at that point in my life, the other one was the first one who gave me anything. Even if he didn’t mean to. Even if he did it because he couldn’t have what he really wanted, and he took it out on me. That didn’t matter- you understand? It turned out good anyway- you just said so yourself. Only damn good thing in my life. So yeah, I cried a little for him. Found myself a nice little spot and had a big boohoo. Then I remembered what pure trash he was and I stopped crying. And now you don’t see me crying no more. That answer your question?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t judging you, Bethel. I don’t think your being upset was wrong.”