Robert Walker - Extreme Instinct

But Dr. Wetherbine's image pushed its way into his brain, and he heard Wetherbine's complaint, also loud and clear: "Don't go there, Feydor. It's a trick, all a trick. Satan cannot be trusted. He never could be trusted. Listen to me, son!"

"Shut up!" cried Satan, his voice filling the motel room, making passersby start, turn, and stare at Feydor's door, but now Feydor came awake, silencing the voices in his head.

Feydor now fully and clearly recalled every detail of the dying little girl he'd killed when he was himself a child. He wanted now, more than ever, to go in search of number four, to push on to numbers five, six, seven, and eight, and to finally kill number nine. He wanted to end his horrid suffering to become like other human beings, to be human, and to be free to conduct his life as he saw fit, rather than as Satan or God or Wetherbine or any-fucking-anybody-or-anything-else-in-the-fucking-universe saw fit..

The Evil One, in a torrent of raging and unfeeling words, shouted down Feydor's concerns, his own dark concerns flooding over Feydor with his insistent scream: "SO WHERE'S NUMBER FOUR-FOUR-FOUR-FOUR COMING FROM FEYDOR?"

In the lounge at Wahweap Lodge, overlooking the green and cerulean blue waters of Lake Powell, boat lights winking up at them, J. T. bought himself and Jessica a round of drinks. Jessica's limit these days was one whiskey sour. She sipped slowly at it, stretching out her pleasure and relaxation, giving thought to Athens and the Parthenon, where she and James Parry had enjoyed the previous summer. In her head, she could hear the traditional Greek music and see the folk dancing at the taverna where she and James had dined one evening. They had taken day trips to Corinth and Mycenae, where they saw the Lion's Gate, the tombs of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

Later they'd traveled by boat to Crete, where they found King Minos's palace at Knossos and Heraklion, now a modern city but once the center of Minoan civilization, which at one time "ruled"-as youngsters of today put it-the cultural world. It had all been so wonderful, magical, and now she felt a million light-years away from the emotions she'd felt on that day. She questioned why she was here in Page, Arizona's Glen Canyon, chasing a madman. She questioned her own steps, the path that had separated her from Jim so many months before. She doubted that her life would ever be one of a settled nature, the hub of which would be home, family, children, husband, and wife. She doubted that she'd ever be truly happy, that happiness was a commodity meant for others, that this elusive thing called joy, graceful happiness, would always elude her grasp, due in great part to the decisions she'd made early in life, due to the forces that molded her, and due primarily to her decision to become a death investigator. Like her father before her, she had chosen a career that offered little opportunity for anything else, and the fact she was a woman only added to the dilemma. Her father's life and career were held together by invisible supports and unheralded glue in the person of Jessica's patient, caring mother, a woman who could wake him with lovemaking, create a breakfast, and have the dishes put away before he left the house for work. She would never have such support, not from Jim Parry… not from any man.

Jessica finished her drink on this somber thought. J. T. meanwhile kept one eye on a blond bartender and another on a notepad and pencil he fiddled with. He was still playing with the killer's words over and over, jotting them on the notepad he'd snatched from his coat pocket.

"What're you doing, J. T.?" she asked, curious about his doodling. ''You know an expert graphologist can tell a lot from your doodles." She sipped again at her drink.

"Look at this." His forehead scrunched in consternation, Thorpe displayed the two recovered messages from the killer thus far as they appeared one atop the other. They read:

#1 is #9-Traitors

#3 is #7-Violents

"It's still meaningless gibberish," Jessica complained, tossing her hair back. "God, it's been a long day. My back is killing-''

"Look closer, Jess."

She wanted to recall more of Greece, less of the present. "I'm really not in any mood for the killer's games, J. T. Truth be told, I'm no more in the mood for your puzzles at the moment, either."

"I tell you, the killer's trying to tell us something."

"Of that I have no doubt, but-"

"Don't you see? Suppose there are two numbers missing," he suggested.

"Two missing numbers?"

"If there's a message missing from this list, what would those numbers be?"

Jessica frowned, gave up on her memories of a faraway land, and stared again at the puzzle of words and numbers.

J. T. unnecessarily filled in the blanks, saying, ''The number two and the number eight, if we follow the syllogistic wisdom-logic, if you will-"

"Okay, so two and eight," she replied, shrugging. "It still doesn't help us in the least."

J. T. jotted down the missing numbers between the two lines left by the killer. Then he pushed the notepad back under her gaze, a smug look coming across his face, his eyes darting again to the cute waitress who paraded by. Finally he said, ' 'This makes the configuration of numbers all the more.. complete."

Jessica looked once more at J. T.'s notepad. Now it read:

#1 is #9-Traitors

#2 is #8-?

#3 is #7-Violents

"So, we're missing a word," she said.

"I know that, Jess." He frowned. "Still, I already took the liberty to add the line 'number two is number eight' in my message to the FBI's mailing list of academicians and mental institutions and professionals who might be helpful in deciphering the killer's peculiar code."

"Can't hurt," she assured him, taking another sip of her drink. Silently, Jessica turned the small list of words and numbers over in her head several times. "It's Greek to me," she finally said with a half smile he did not understand.

"It's not Greek to everyone. Somebody out there knows what this means."

"He may be elusive, he may enjoy playing cute, but he's misspelled 'violence,' " Jessica replied, not knowing what else she might say to J. T.'s combinations with the numbers and ambiguous, anomalous, paradoxical, quizzical, puzzling, enigmatic, obscure, problematic, and terse messages left them by the Phantom for the sole purpose of taunting them or her? She wondered if they were specific taunts to her alone. But suddenly, Jessica now realized what J. T. was attempting to convey to her, that Martin was not victim number two of the Phantom, but number three, and that somewhere victim number two awaited their discovery.

The thought had been suggested by McEvetty and Kaminsky, but she had paid little heed to the notion there might be a third victim, since there had been only two phone calls. Then again, she'd shunned her telephone since the calls had begun. She well might have missed his call surrounding the killing of another victim labeled "#2 is #8."

She'd have to call Bishop.

"He may've spelled it with the T at the end of violence to denote people," suggested J. T., breaking into her thoughts, repeating himself. ''You know, that people could be termed the violent ones, hence violents, that people in general are violent, hence violents, rather than violence."

"So he's creating new words? Sorry, but I'm in no mood for Scrabble or lexicography. What we really need to do is to follow up on the all-points bulletin for areas between here and Vegas on any suspicious fire-related deaths," she replied. "Especially anything smacking of our guy. A message on the mirror would be a clear indication that it's our guy."

"I already have, and I've already heard back."

"You're holding out on me? From whom have you heard? Where?"

"Bishop's people in Vegas. They got another call from the killer, Jess, there at the Vegas Hilton, your room."