Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

Parry needn't have pointed out the dazzling one-of-a-kind shops lining the way. Here shops known worldwide competed with local oddities. To her uninitiated eye, it seemed as though the people were mad; having come halfway around the globe, most of them were fixating on an activity they could do at their local malls in Upper Sandusky or Idaho, or Tokyo. People seemed both astonished and pleased to find familiar shop names alongside the unfamiliar, the gaudy neon alongside the tasteful designs that announced such places as Endangered Species, The Wyland Art Gallery, and exotic Korean, Japanese and Hawaiian restaurants; there was also Woolworth's, Burger King, Hilo Hattie's, ABC Liquor and Pharmacy, Thom McAn Shoes. There were three- tiered shopping malls in the International Market Place in the heart of Waikiki. It was all dizzying, exciting and a good deal disheartening, she thought. Maui, too, had high-rise hotels dotting its coasts, but there was nothing to compare to this for the atmosphere that only a major world city might provide.

“ You could spend a hefty fortune here before you got halfway down the block,” he said in her ear as they walked casually along the brightly illuminated street.

Her thoughtful “Hmmmm” was a purr. She'd drunk a bit more wine than she ought to have. “I can see that,” she managed. “But it's not what I came to Hawaii for.”

“ It's certainly an allure for a good many others, though, Doctor. Big bucks, big time… Honolulu attracts millions each season.”

She looked across at him as they continued to stroll along amid the bustle, adroitly maneuvering about the human quagmire they now found themselves in when they came to a standstill in front of a small grocery that specialized in Vietnamese goods. “Some unusual delicacies in there,” he assured her.

“ You were in Viet Nam? Acquired a taste for the food?”

“ Didn't everybody?”

“ What sort of a unit did you serve with?”

“ I was just your ordinary grunt.”

“ A grunt, and you came out alive. I'm impressed.”

They continued along the avenue, the gentle trades whooshing along the man-made valley of asphalt, concrete and steel all around them, the millions of windows winking down over their progress as a street vendor offered them paper leis so he could take their “honeymoon snapshot.”

Parry waved the vendor off and she shook her head a bit self-consciously, each of them laughing, both amused and a bit uncomfortable. She instantly recuperated, however, asking, “Must have a hell of a lot of pressure on to keep this city's reputation sparkling?”

“ FBI's supposed to be above all that kind of bullshit, but yes… your little understatement is quite correct. You're quite observant, Dr. Coran, but if you remember, I did promise no talk shop, remember?”

She ignored this. “Some of the young women disappeared from this very area, didn't they?”

“ Yes, but that's not why we're here.” He may's well have taken them in daylight as here. He'd be surrounded by people and the street's as lit up as Times Square on

New Year's.”

“ People haven't been known to disappear on Times Square at New Year's?” He laughed lightly and then breathed deeply, shaking his head, the carefully combed hair now tossed by the wind. “I promise not to talk shop for your benefit, to show you around town a little, and here you are talking about precisely-”

“ A shrink would call it obsessive-compulsive, a fixation I have on my work, a fatal flaw for any relationship.”

“ Well, I admit to symptoms myself. I don't mind telling you, from what I've seen so far, I think we're lucky to have you… compulsions and all. Nothing wrong with devotion to duty, all that…”

“ Jesus, you're not going to break out in a patriotic Lee Greenwood song, are you?” she said while thinking, What the hell does he know about my compulsions?

He laughed from the gut at her joke, singing, “God bless America and the U.S.A.” He drew stares and laughter. A seriousness crept into her voice. “You haven't any idea what I'm all about, Chief Parry.”

He smiled at her thinly veiled remark, their eyes momentarily meeting before he responded. “All cops are fanatical-if they're doing their jobs. Call it what you will.”

“ Most people are obsessive about something, or someone,” she countered. “Crazy is one of the key words in most country-western songs, isn't it?”

“ Everybody's crazy about something,” he agreed, “sure. For some it's a movie star's lips-”

“- or hips-”

“- comic books, baseball trading cards, stamps-”

She kept pace. “-trashy novels, green lawns-”

“- antiques, money, cars…”

With a salutation toward the crowd, she added, “Shopping.”

“ Exactly.”

“ We haven't even touched on porcelain junkies, sports nuts, dog enthusiasts, cat lovers, collectors of the weird and the arcane.”

He began a bantering laugh.

“ From book matches to little stone dolls with large reproductive organs,” she added with her own laugh. “And some people just can't get enough of fire. You like to play with fire, Mr. Parry?”

“ Sure, certain fire, who doesn't?”

“ Controlled fire, you mean. Well, perhaps you'd better be cautious, because even the most controlled fires tend to get out of hand in a wind like this.”

They continued onward until they stood outside an unusual shop that carried items from New Guinea, the walls and windows filled with headdresses and masks with stoney, bulging eyes, fanglike teeth and enormous ears. She stepped inside to browse the unique store, and he followed. There was something completely raw and uninhibited about the items on display for sale here, items that appeared better suited to a museum showing than a capitalistic enterprise. Spears and ancient tools adorned one wall, rustic artwork the other, and as they moved from one display to another, the eyes of the ancient, one-of-a-kind, handmade masks seemed to follow their steps. “An archaeologist would be right at home here,” she commented.

“ Another kind of fanaticism?” he asked. “The desire to stare into the past, to understand the dead?”

“ Not so different from what we M.E.'s do, only our dead are usually of a more recent vintage.”

“ So a good medicine man, or woman in your case, is still worth her weight in papayas, at least in these islands,” he said with a wide and infectious smile.

“ Have all the victims disappeared from this area?” she asked.

“ No, not all. Several have been abducted from our Chinatown area.”

“ Chinatown?”

“ One of our oldest districts where the oldest profession is still the oldest profession.”

“ I see. Were all the women prostitutes?”

“ You haven't had time to go over the files, I take it.”

She shook her head to indicate she hadn't.

He ushered her back out onto the street before saying, “Several were university students, possibly plying the trade to continue at the university, but others seem to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of last year's disappearances were working night-shift jobs, supposedly on their way home, when they vanished. “And all of them fall within a certain age range?”

“ Sixteen's the youngest and nineteen's the oldest.”

“ Pretty tight range.”

He agreed, adding, “He appears to like them with long, free-flowing black hair, and he obviously prefers island girls, never a haole-a white.”

He walked her back to her hotel lobby where a short, stocky man in a raucous, multicolored Hawaiian shirt, dashed up to Jim Parry, pulling him away, speaking in hushed and rapid fashion. The other man was dark-skinned, a heavy sweater. His hair had once been jet black, but now it was streaked and peppered with gray; tossed by the wind, it scuffled about his creased forehead and worried eyes. She heard Jim call him Tony. He'd brought some urgent message to Parry, who was doing his best to rid himself of the heavier fellow.