Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

“ So, where's home, James Parry?” she asked as they bullied their way through the thickening afternoon soup of traffic in downtown Honolulu.

“ Grew up in West Bend, Indiana. Most of the family's still there, 'cept for my brothers and a sister. All of us wanted bigger 'n' better and far away. West Bend was great as kids, but as we got older, it turned into the pits.”

“ It would appear you won.”

“ Won?” He was puzzled.

“ You don't get much farther away than this.”

“ Actually, I've got a brother who lives in Auckland, New Zealand, and my sister's in Tokyo!”

She laughed. “Wrong again.”

“ Hey, look, I'm sorry if we've made you feel as if you're, well, on trial here. We just… we don't have anywhere to turn. We're used to dealing with white-collar crime, street crime, rape, even murder, but this… this is different… something bizarre about this whole thing, something… I don't know… can't finger it…”

“ Something ritualistic, maybe?”

He stared across at her. “Funny you should use that term.”

“ Why's that?”

“ Just that it occurred to me and Tony on separate occasions. I think there's a connection between the victims, something ritualistic, patternistic.”

“ Sounds like you two've given up a few nights' sleep over it. When do I meet Tony?”

“ Tomorrow, and damned straight we've lost sleep.” He fell silent for a time before opening up again. “I figure it this way. Seven disappearances last year over a three-month period. Here it is July again, the trades are peaking, and two already missing, two that we know of… and I expect there'll be five more before season's end.”

“ That what you mean by ritualistic? A killing season, you figure?”

“ Like he's gone and bought his license, yeah.”

“ I've heard of slave rings operating out of this part of the world. You sure these girls just didn't fall prey to various methods of shanghaiing? With no bodies turning up, it's got to be a possibility.”

“ We've scoured the wharves. Shaken out spiders 'n' lizards 'n' rats, sure, but it doesn't play that way, Doctor.”

They arrived at the beautiful Rainbow Tower in the Hilton Hawaii Village in Waikiki, and Parry drove into the winding circle drive, dropping her at the door. “Listen,” he said, his voice taking on a near-conspiratorial tone, which was both curious and pushy at once, “if you need an escort, someone to have dinner with… well, give me a call at either of these numbers.” He handed her his card and sped off.

Her eyes took in the heady, exciting capital city of Hawaii, the seemingly unreal mountain faces carpeted with lush, dense green, reminding her of a visit to Ireland only on the sunniest of days there. Pivoting to her west, she could see the deep azure blue of the Pacific peeking from between the skyscrapers, and she felt the firm touch of the trade winds as they swept over her skin. The winds were so strong that she imagined it would be easy to lift her arms and fly off to wherever winds ran away to.

She felt an urge to rush out to the sand and surf of the beaches here, a desire to return to the sea from which Parry had plucked her, to run from the city, from Parry, from the FBI and her responsibilities here in Oahu. Why not, she desperately wondered. Hadn't her shrink told her that quitting the FBI was one option she could exercise? That such a change in her lifestyle might help quell her bouts with depression and fear?

But her father didn't raise a quitter, so instead she marched briskly into the hotel where she was immediately caught up amid the bustle of tourists both coming and going. She wasn't surprised when, asking for her key at the desk, she was informed of several messages from the mainland-from Quantico, Virginia.

Maybe later she'd get down to the pool, try out that new bathing suit she'd found in that little shop in Lahaina, Maui… maybe…

Somewhere in Honolulu the same night

He shuffles around his place where the furniture is ancient and large and heavy, the end tables made of old crates used to haul grocery items, crates he once thought to turn into rough-hewn works of art, except that the stain had gone too dark and he never could get the polish to take effectively. The lamps are likewise homemade, built of sturdy wood he's gotten for nothing, scrap parts at the mill. The old canvas-covered couch nestles between two enormous lamps carved with the faces of Hawaiian gods, lamps that seldom see use since he is adverse to the light. The floors are gummy with dirt and filth, blood and other seminal matter. He isn't much of a housekeeper and part of the stickiness and the stench is endemic now, ground into the floors, particularly one corner caked with blood.

He is antsy, angry with himself and with circumstances. For so long now he has gone undetected, his work known only to the dark lords of the islands. But now everyone in Honolulu is either reading of, or listening to, news reports on their TVs about his latest work, the killing of two local cops, both Hawaiian-as bad luck would have it. This means an uproar that isn't likely to soon die away. The only hope he has is that someone else might be arrested for the crimes. Local police are now hinting that arrests are forthcoming.

He enjoys learning about the politicizing of his crimes, the furor he has caused between the races. Still, not a word about the disappearance of his latest Kelia. He's read one or two items about the so-called Trade Winds Killer, a phantom stalker on the islands between April and August, but to date nothing has linked him to the crimes, and police have not recovered one shred of evidence to prove the murders have actually taken place. They can only point to “disappearances.” So long as they find no bodies, he reasons, they can never find nor prosecute him, even if they know! With the lack of physical evidence and eyewitnesses, nothing whatever to link him-or anyone, for that matter-with the deaths, a U.S. court of law would not dare touch such a case. God bless the Blow Hole and the U.S.A.

Policemen, a white guy and a Samoan, spoke to him once, for a statement, when they were canvassing the district for any possible witnesses to a killing he'd committed the year before, but they never returned.

They still don't know how he does it, or the kind of weapon he uses on his victims. He means not to make the mistakes of other killers. He means never to give his enemies the least satisfaction or opportunity or magic to hold over his head…

Have to get some sleep, he tells himself now. His dreams have been disturbed by roaring gods since his stupidity: drawing the attention of the two Hawaiian police in the first place, and then having to kill them. He dreams of landscapes littered with his own serated flesh and blood, of cavernous tunnels into which he's been cast, where demons of bizarre shape, size and lurid color give chase, trampling him and tearing parts of him away. These caverns are interconnected, the walls running with a yellow, stewy gruel, and the moment he escapes one, he finds himself trapped in another, sliding down a wall, unable to stop his spiraling progression downward toward yet a deeper prison, a filthy hole. Dante's Inferno or someplace only the Hawaiian gods knew of, Kehena?

Such troubled sleep will not help him on the job tomorrow, or when he goes cruising. He has a number of other sacrifices to make between now and when the trades decide to leave the islands. The winds could be capricious. They might leave at any time.

Maybe warm milk with a dollop of cocoa, tinged with a tad of vanilla extract, he thinks. He's read somewhere that sleep is helped along by some chemical in hot milk. Trypteeo-something.

He steps into his ramshackle kitchen in the dingy and cramped bungalow, its black memories and dark corners echoing in his consciousness. He snatches open the small icebox and pulls forth a quart of aging milk.