Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

Laughter now wafted across the bay and into Warren’s mind, making him look toward the wharves, the harbor lights closer now, reflecting wild colors off the mirroring water of Naples, warming the darkness like some ancient campfire, and him just outside the light, beyond the human pall. These impressions and thoughts reached Warren’s mind now, making him blink and return to the present moment. He had almost overshot the wharf where he wished to ease the Tau Cross into a slip owned by a restaurant, one that went unpatrolled by Coast Guard or city dock inspectors. He worried little about someone with a clipboard asking for his port of origin, his background or the call numbers of the boat. It was one of the little things he loved about America, her many freedoms so taken for granted by people here. Besides, the boat had multiple papers made out on her, and he changed both her numbers and her names routinely to throw such agencies as the Florida Marine Patrol off his wake.

As his boat neared, he heard more clearly the tinkle of glass and the sound of women’s voices amid the clatter and chatter of this place. How cunning they were, the female of the species, always hiding their satanic nature in garlands of sweet words, toothy smiles and lilting laughter. Few people knew just how much pure evil resided in their so-called purity and virtues. Women were snakes to be beheaded, so far as he and Tauto believed.

There was little he detested more than false piety and false purity in women; these two qualities reminded him more of Mother than anything else, and it was with an eye to these qualities in a woman, along with their physical appearance-which must suit Mother’s-that he went hunting. Mother would wish to inhabit the vilest creature, the one with the most makeup and guile, the lewdest of them all, but she must also be beautiful, with trailing, auburn hair like Mother’s own had always been.

He moved the Tau Cross in closer, closer, inching it forward. The lights from the wharf reflected wildly, haunt- ingly off his masts and rigging, showing off the luxurious teakwood molding all round his ship. How could he help but attract Mother’s new body? His constant, perhaps obsessive polishing of the boat’s wood would pay off here.

He had given fair warning by way of the newspaper, and if they hadn’t seen fit to print it, then by Eradinus, that wasn’t his deceit or his problem. He had warned that he was coming, and so he washed his hands of guilt in the coming and in the actions he contemplated on behalf of Tauto. Anyone accepting his invitation tonight could only have deceit for a heart, and that was precisely what he was looking for.

No one here had seen him or his ship before. This was, as the Americans were fond of saying, “virgin turf.” He’d have to be careful, but given the level of intelligence of those in pursuit of him, he decided that he hadn’t that much to fear.

Another reason Tauto had chosen the Naples area was because here Warren could and had indeed located Gordon Buckner, the most knowledgeable of men regarding trophy fish taxidermy. Warren had ingratiated himself with Buckner by telling him of his apprenticeship with Works of Art Taxidermy in Key West. Buckner respected the work that went on at Works of Art and had in fact founded it along with the current owner, the man who’d trained Warren before he’d caught him stealing supplies. But Buckner didn’t know about that.

Warren had asked Buckner about doing a number on a game fish so that the internal organs might stay intact.

Buckner had looked him over queerly and said, “It can’t be done without embalming the entire fish the way you would a… a corpse.” When Buckner wanted to know why Warren wanted to do such a thing, he quickly told the old man that it was to be a gag gift for a friend.

“ I get it,” Buckner had dubiously said. “When the guy goes to mount the thing, it’d be heavier’n hell, and it would begin to stink.” Buckner had laughed at the notion and wondered aloud why he hadn’t ever thought of it himself, and had then slapped Warren on the back and repeated, “I get it. You wanna present a pal with the thing and then gut and scale it, with a chain saw maybe?” Buckner’s laugh had become raucous by then, his laughter filling the trophy- making warehouse he oversaw in Naples.

Now Warren knew he must embalm the entire body in the manner of the mortician, as he’d done with his last victim, but that he’d have to use chemicals beyond what the normal wake called for, to make the effect last not weeks or even months but years. He had been diligently studying the matter and had come to the conclusion that the most successfully preserved bodies had come about as a result of men who were obsessed with women, usually their wives; when the wife died, the husband would preserve her in the manner of mummies. This involved chemicals of a highly potent variety, but it would mean that the corpse’s internal organs, along with the shell, could remain indefinitely, or at least until Mother was reincarnated.

He began by gathering up the chemicals he would need. Ordinary formaldehyde would not be enough. He already had an IV drip, which he’d used on his last victim. What he hadn’t used was the new formula. Now all he needed was someone like Mother to try it on. The Sanibel girl might have to do if he could not find someone more suitable, someone with a lot more fight in her…

So now Warren and the Tau Cross cruised the Naples area shoreline for nightspots suitable for and frequented by such tramps as his mother might appreciate. Gulls called out; the sunset sent up a shower of colors that ran the gamut from yellow-gold to bloodred; smatterings of lavender coated the underbelly of scattered clouds over the Gulf. Naples looked like an inviting community. The welcoming committee was a gaggle of pelicans soaring straight over the boat in a half-V formation. He’d cleaned himself up, making himself presentable, and was sporting a beard now, giving him a more dashing and distinguished appearance, he believed. He was hoping his prey would be in abundance here when he killed the engine completely and steered the now-floating Tau Cross tightly and neatly below the lights of a place called Bay- front Charlie’s. The Cross fit snugly into a wide slip on the end, begging him to take it. Warren was just in time for happy hour, the two-for-one drink deal ending at sunset at Bayfront Charlie’s. There was much to be grateful for; America had been good to Warren.

Jessica had been to Key Largo once before, during a vacation. She’d flown into Miami with friends and they’d driven to Key Largo, where they’d dived the famous John Penneykamp underwater preserve and coral reef park. They’d taken two dives the first day, one beyond the barrier reef in rough, wild waters which were dangerous even for seasoned divers. She believed the sea captain who guzzled beer from the moment they boarded to the moment they returned to shore was not only a derelict but was derelict in his duties and responsibilities to the divers, most of whom had become too ill to dive in the waters beyond the barrier reef and did not enjoy themselves in the slightest. Jessica had ushered her party into the wild waters before seasickness could reach out and grab hold of her, and once in the water, everyone felt a hundred percent better, but diving was treacherous, the current a good thirty-plus miles an hour as seaweed and even sea life caught up in it went racing by Jessica’s mask, and the coral reefs were a hundred feet down.

Returning to the boat had been an exercise in frustration. It was near impossible to get back aboard, the boat’s ladder shifting like a wild schoolyard swing. Each diver had to time his jump onto the ladder exactly right, and most were thrown clear of it repeatedly before they could get a foothold, especially with their ungainly flippers in the way. The first mate stood at the back of the boat, coaxing the divers back on, doling out advice and warning them to keep their fins on lest they drop them and lose them for good. Meanwhile, the two-ton, bare-chested captain was on his ass at the bow, drinking more suds.