Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

“ I… I could give you some,” she said, unable to know where she found the words or the nerve.

“ You'll never know how happy you've made me to hear that.”

“ I mean… you could get blood from me when… whenever you needed, so-so”-she forced herself to control the fear-induced stuttering-”y-you wouldn't have to go on killing-”

“ You'd do that for me?”

“ For Teach, yes. I know you're ill, and you need help. I know you've got a disease.”

“ I know that you know. You know all about me.”

“ So we know all about each other. So where can I find you?”

“ No… no. I'll have to give this some thought.”

He hadn't expected her to react this way when he had planned the call. She could tell this from the inflection in his voice.

“ Don't hang”-he was gone-“up!”

She stood in the darkened office, fear gripping her on all sides. How did he get through to her? She felt defiled just having spoken with the perverted killer, as if he had touched her in some secret place.

Her hands were trembling; every nerve in her body felt as if touched by a hot wire, but she fought to remain in control. She drew on her training as an FBI agent. She had to contact someone about the phone call. It was too much to keep to herself, for any reason.

She rang for the operator, shouting her need.' 'The call to me just now. I need a tracer on that to determine the source. Can you do that?”

“ Yes, but it will take some time.”

“ Do it. It's very important, very.”

“ I'll get on it. We've got the new system that-”

“ Just do it, please.”

“ Yes, Dr. Coran.”

She was still trembling, feeling as if she needed a stiff drink, wishing that Otto was here with her now, someone she could throw herself at; she wanted to cry and to kick all at once. The very thing she hated most in this world had just spoken to her in what his bloody mind must constitute as intimacy. She wanted to snatch her. 38 from its holster and hold onto it for dear life, stretch it before her like a deadly shield of protection to ward off the evil.

People working in nearby offices were suddenly taking on evil dimensions, satanic form; everyone around her was suspect. Had the call come from within the building? Now the building itself had become a kind of evil working against her.

“ Got to get hold of myself,” she quietly said, trying desperately to calm her frayed nerves. It was one thing to hunt down a killer, but quite another when deadly, dangerous prey turned on you and stared you in the face. A police dispatcher called in telling her that the call was traced to a phone booth on the corner of Irving Park and Kedzie.

She next dialed long-distance for Otto, believing him most certainly back at HQ by now. She could not get him, and his fool secretary argued with her that he was still in Chicago. She became frustrated and asked to be routed to the lab in an attempt to reach J.T. But Robertson answered only to tell her that J.T. was gone for the evening.

“ Anything I can do for you?” he asked.

“ Yeah, as a matter of fact, there is.” She proposed that he get on a plane as quickly as possible and get to Chicago. She wanted him to confirm what she had found in the Lowenthal death, giving him just enough to whet his appetite. Robertson assured her that he was on his way, and he equally assured her that Otto Boutine, so far as he knew, had not returned to Quantico.

She hung up, feeling frustrated. She dialed for the Chicago offices of the FBI, asking for Brewer, only to leam that he was unavailable, something about investigating a case. One of Brewer's men got on with her, and she briefly recounted the conversation she had had with the killer, but this man, like everyone else in the Chicago law enforcement community, had long ago decided that the killer was dead.

“ Oh, you'll get hundreds of crank-heads calling, Dr. Coran, even a year from now-”

“ Just tell Brewer that this guy knew too much!”

She slammed down the phone in anger, taking it out on the agent.

Going from the floor and through the near empty building, she felt self-conscious, and she felt like a target, and she recalled how the sadistic bastard that had killed Candy Copeland had gone about his cruel work; she recalled it in its every vivid detail.

“ He's still out here somewhere,” she said to the bustling city night outside the Chicago Crime Lab where she hailed a cab. She had her gun with her, and for this she was grateful. She felt for it while in the cab, reassuring as it was to the touch, even in its ankle holster below her wide-legged, billowy slacks.

In a moment, she realized that the taxi driver was staring in his rearview at her and asking, “You okay, miss?”

“ Lincolnshire Inn, please,” she replied coldly.

“ Oh, great,” he replied, snapping on the meter. Now she was a good fare, and he no longer worried about her state of mind.

God, why hadn't Otto stayed with her??

It was 9 P.M. when the phone woke Jessica Coran from a less than sound sleep. She at first only half heard the voice at the other end of the line, thinking it was a wrong number.

“ I–I-I know you'll want ta talk to-to me,” a whiny, nasally stutterer was saying. She started to protest but was stopped by his next words.

I haf in-for-ma-tion about the vam-pire kill-kill-er.”

“ Who is this?”

“ My name. I'm not givin' my-my name; but I–I-I think I know who-who he is.”

The voice was calm save for the stutter.

“ How did you get my number?”

“ I've read about these ter-ter-terrible kill-killings. I've seen you in the papers, and-and to-night I got your number by-by lying. I told a lie, and they gave me this num-umberrr.”

“ Who gave you this number?”

“ The girl with the police did it-it for me.”

She inwardly cringed, believing her number was given out to a wacko who had been following the case in the papers. The man sounded like a retarded person.

“ The girl at the police department? Which department?”

“ Does-doesn't matter,” he said impatiently.

She sat up in bed, trying to clear her mind and her eyes all at once. “What… what kind of lie did you tell to get my number?” she insisted. “That I'm your father…”

She immediately resented the bastard.

“… that, that your mother's ill, dying! and that I had to get in touch with you.” There was a solidness, a timbre to the voice that kept it from being completely babyish-sounding.

“ Why me? Why bring your story to me, when you've got the entire Chicago Police Department to tell it to?” Her voice was openly caustic now.

“ Po-Po-Police Department? I have! I have tried them. No one will le-listen, 'cause they think I–I-I'm-well, stupid or some-all be-because I use-use-use-did-did d-d-drugs, and-and I was in the hos-”

“ I see.”

“ No, you don't see. I see. No one but me. He lives next door. I see him comin' in with the-these things. Packin' this, this red stuff 'way in his how-how-house, you know? and he tells me once… once he tells me his dear old mother put up some-some tomatoes for him, and once he told me that it was jus' to-to-tomato juice, and once it was ke-ke-ketchup, but-but it's all the same. It's blood.”

“ Who is this other man? What is his name?”

There was a long pause at the other end, until finally, the man said, “My neighbor.”

“ German?”

“ Kinda German, yeah. How'd you know?”

“ Short, stocky man? Dark hair?” She was describing Kaseem's man.

“ Yeah-yeah-yeah, that's him, but how-how-how did you know?”

Ignoring this, she asked, “Where are you located?”

“ My house?”