Extreme Instinct jc-6

by Robert W. Walker

  "Where is the bus now? What lodge or hotel is it at?"

  "Salt Lake Hilton, downtown Salt Lake City, sir."

  "Thank you, God, thank you."

  "Sir, our safety record to date has been-"

  "Yes, yes, sterling, I'm sure. Thanks." J. T. finally hung up on a call that had netted them useful information. He felt elated and grabbed the receiver back up to call Jessica, when he realized he had no way of reaching her. She'd managed to do exactly as she'd promised not to do: She was in the snake pit with this guy. She'd promised to contact J. T. here at the Ruby Inn, but so far she hadn't, and it was nearing dusk.

  He turned to Bishop, who'd been on another line close to him, but found Warren had disappeared. He went in search of Bishop to find him conferring in a shadowed vestibule between the hotel and the laundry room with Dr. Karl Repasi. J. T. at first assumed that Bishop was getting Repasi's take on the Eloise Whitaker murder when suddenly he saw Bishop erupt in passion, shoving Repasi so hard the other man's weight sent him through the laundry room door, where he toppled to the floor and stayed there while Bishop pointed a daggarlike, accusatory finger and swore at Repasi some unintelligible words.

  J. T. was pleased to see someone literally take Repasi to the cleaners. "All right!" J. T. said with a wide grin, feeling it served Repasi right.

  Not wanting Bishop to think him a snoop, J. T. stepped back from sight and waited to catch Bishop on his return to the manager's office. When Bishop did so, there was a slight pinkish-redness about his cheeks, giving his Bill Clinton look-alike features an even more Clinton-like look, but the square-shouldered Bishop remained otherwise unruffled. J. T. brought a smile to Bishop's face when he quickly unloaded his good news, saying, "Warren, I've got the whereabouts of the impostor Chris Dunlap."

  Bishop's eyes widened like those of a predator. "Let me see that." He grabbed J. T.'s notes from his hand and stared hard at the data. "I'm on the chopper to Salt Lake."

  "I'm with you," J. T. replied.

  "No, you've got to man a phone here and find out where Jessica is. Tell her to meet us at the Hilton, should she get in touch."

  J. T. frowned and complained of being left back.

  "She'll need to hear this from you," Bishop said, his large index finger on the notepad J. T. had been using.

  The frown remained on J. T.'s face as he watched Bishop disappear for the waiting helicopter where Bishop got on the radio, calling out the cavalry, J. T. assumed. In a moment, Bishop was lifting off into the sun-dappled sky and blood-red-and-orange rock formations of Bryce Canyon, the helicopter speeding toward Salt Lake.

  Checking with the various bus companies all this time had been annoying and frustrating, but having to sit here while Bishop raced off to become Jessica's hero was equally repulsive.

  FIFTEEN

  Whomever is abandoned by hope, has also been abandoned by fear; this is the meaning of the word "desperate."

  — Arthur Schopenhauer

  Jessica had taken a room at the Little America Hotel and Towers at 500 South Main, in the heart of the hotel district in Salt Lake City. Little America, she was told, was one of the places on the tourist visit list, and many a bus tour stopped here. Maybe she'd get lucky, she hoped. The city's oldest landmark hotels populated this area as well, and all of the touring buses coming into the city found their way to the hotel district.

  Once settled into her room, Jessica made calls to local authorities and the FBI to alert them to the fact she was chasing a fugitive serial murderer on a kill spree, whom she believed to be in the area. The reaction from local authorities and the FBI was instantaneous. Undercover operatives were set up in all the major hotels, and police were placed on alert to back up the government men. This took time, but once this network had been established, Jessica got on the phone in search of J. T. and Warren Bishop. Unable to locate them immediately, she took the opportunity to contact Eriq Santiva, to bring him up to date on the case.

  After she enumerated all developments and lamented the lack of progress until now, she assured Eriq that they were closer to a resolution than ever before, explaining that J. T. was researching the bus lines. "And as soon as we have the bus line he's using, we'll know where the Phantom is staying tonight," she assured Santiva. "Then we move in on the bastard."

  "Take all precautions, Jess. He sees you, he'll likely do anything to kill you. Wear a vest, hang back. Let the others do their work."

  "I'll be happy to do just that."

  Santiva replied, "Here, we've taken everything you've given us and put it into the hands of every medical expert and academician in the country who might have a clue, Jess."

  "We've got a bit more of the puzzle pieces since the last time J. T. forwarded information, Eriq."

  "Want to share?"

  She thought again of the killer's messages, and how they'd looked on paper, and she remembered J. T.'s having added that #5 would be #5. She thought it a peculiar numeric anomaly for the numbers to crisscross in such a fashion. She pictured the list in her mind, trying again to make some sense of it.

  "Well?" asked Santiva, becoming impatient.

  "Take this down," she said, and fed the list to him, jotting it down again for herself on the hotel's stationery. It read:

  #1 is #9-Traitors

  #2 is #8-Malicious Frauds

  #3 is #7-Violents

  #4 is #6-Heretics

  #5 is #5-?

  "Someone out there's got to know where this guy's coming from-or going to with all this," she finished.

  ''You think?'' Eriq replied.

  "He said something about, I don't know, Satan's pit, dragging himself up from the pit and dragging me down into it. Something about the Devil's well. I'm paraphrasing. I wasn't exactly in any mood to memorize his every line when he surprised me the other night with Eloise Whitaker's fire assassination."

  "I can't imagine what you must be feeling about now, Jess. I'm coming out there to be with you. You need me there."

  "No, no, Eriq. Bishop's close at hand, and I've got help here on all sides from our guys in Salt Lake. They're a little stiff, Mormons as well as FBI men, but they'll do."

  "If you're sure, Jess."

  "Anything on the handwriting, the prints, anything?"

  "He's wearing a pair of cheap sneakers with a Sonics logo on them."

  "Sonics logo on the bottom of the heel? Hair burned off the back of his hands and forearms. Thanks."

  "At the toe-big toe, actually. You get those shoes, we've got positive ID on that print taken at Page."

  "Anything else? What about the two aliases he's used, Charon and Nessus?"

  "Sorry, but a check of VICAP files and several other listings brought up zip on the computers. Whoever he is, he's never been apprehended before as a violent offender."

  "He's too methodical to not be a recidivist, Eriq," she complained. "He's killed with fire before Chris Lorentian. I just know it. I know it in my bones."

  "If he has, he may've gone straight into the asylum, bypassing criminal conviction, in which case we have nothing on him. We're running the prints through state and local institutions for the insane now, but so far-"

  "Nothing." Her exasperation trailed her breath. If the killer had never gone through the court system and been convicted as criminally insane, then he would not be in a facility for the criminally insane, either state or federal. "Call me when you have something."

  "Will do. Are you sure you have plenty of backup there?" he asked.

  "Salt Lake FBI branch has me on their radar. They're looking out for me; been good to me," she lied, not wishing to tell him that she had informed Salt Lake of the situation but that she had not bodily joined forces with them, preferring to remain an independent part of the coming equation. So far as Salt Lake was concerned, the fugitive was theirs if they could surround him and tie the noose.

  Jessica feared nightfall, which was fast approaching. She feared he would strike again, close by, and she didn't know how to stop this shadow monster.
She feared she'd be the first to know when he struck, that he would somehow know where to phone it in, like a cat with a prize to offer her, another dead body, #5 is #5.

  She began to strip away her clothes, stepping into the bathroom, turning on the shower, and getting under its soothing spray. While relaxing, she thought of James Parry and a paradise thousands of miles off. After showering, she returned to the phone and dialed Jim's home. It would be midafternoon in Hawaii, and Jim might not be at home, but she needed to hear his voice, needed reassuring, needed to know that he still loved her.

  "Jessica? It's you. I've been worried about you; haven't been able to get in touch. You're on a manhunt. I talked to Bishop in Vegas. He gave me a number to reach you, but you'd already left."

  "Jim, I just called so you wouldn't worry, but it's nice to know you do."

  "I've missed you terribly."

  "Me, too…"

  "Tell me exactly what's going on there, every detail," he asked. "I'm given to understand that this bastard you're after has threatened you over the phone?''

  "It's a bit more complicated than threats," she replied before launching into a detail-by-detail update on what had occurred since that first night in Las Vegas.

  Parry, stunned at the revelations and fearful for Jessica, remained silent for a long pause after she finished speaking. "Jessica, if I know my literature, that numbering of one through nine, and the words 'heretics' 'frauds,' 'traitors'-it all sounds a bit familiar, like the nine rungs of Hell in The Divine Comedy."

  "The Divine Comedy. Are you sure?"

  "That's what it recalls to mind, yes."

  "Of course, The Divine Comedy, Dante's Inferno," she replied. "I haven't thought of that place since… since I was a junior in high school, where I had to read it for Mr. Blevins's World Literature class. Jim, you're a genius. I knew there was a reason I was supposed to call you!"

  "Very flattering."

  "The subconcious always knows best. I called because I wanted to hear your voice, to tell you I miss you, to tell you I love you, Jim, but somehow my inner self knew that you could also help out on this horrid case."

  "That's more like it. Great to know I'm needed. Still, you knew I was a lit major in college, and ancient literature was my field before I got into law enforcement, or had you forgot?"

  "Obviously not," she lied. "You're brilliant as well as handsome."

  "Not quite brilliant. I recently read a recap of the reasons why Dante was considered so important in man's perception of Hades, good and evil, all that in a chapter of a book called the History of Hell, so it's been on my mind. So, naturally, when you told me about what kind of nutcase you're dealing with… well, it was hardly brilliance on my part."

  "So, why're you reading about Hades?"

  "Believe it or not, it's required reading in my course on comparative religion and the literature of evil along with People of the Lie."

  "You're taking a course?"

  "Helps pass time. I miss you. God, I do."

  "Don't beg! I miss you, too."

  "And I'm worried about you. More so now than before. Please be careful there, darling."

  "I'm all right. I knew this guy was killing in the name of the king of Hell, Satan, but it's all right now… now we know his game. Dante's Inferno, of course. He'd called himself at one time Charon, Nessus at another…"

  "Yes, the boatman who takes Dante across the River Styx to the Land of the Dead, and Nessus takes them across the river of boiling blood, guarded by the Centaurs. In fact, Nessus is one of the Centaurs."

  She recalled having said to J. T. that the killer likely thought he'd be rewarded by his demons by becoming a godlike creature himself, perhaps sprouting a pair of devilish wings. She said to Jim, "Centaur, huh? This kook thinks he's a goddamned Centaur?"

  "Why're you, of all people, sounding so surprised?" he asked, following with a light laugh.

  "It's been a long time since I've read Dante. So this guy thinks he's a Centaur now, half man, half bull?"

  "No, half man, half horse. Minotaur is the bull man."

  "Got it."

  "Read Inferno again. It could give you some insights into this creep."

  "Exactly. At least now I will know something about what he's talking about. He's anxious for me to learn."

  "What's that?"

  "I think in all this madness, he's trying to… instruct me."

  ''So you have a monster for a teacher? Sounds like par for your course, Jess. You can beat this creep-bastard. You and I both know it."

  "Thanks for the pep talk and the information. Before now, I had no point of reference when he'd make references to Hellsmouth, call himself different names."

  "Don't be so hard on yourself. The guy freaked you out. Who wouldn't be?"

  "Yes, Charon was the name of the guide who pointed the way for Dante and Virgil in their mythical tour of Hades," she thoughtfully replied. "Maybe we can use it against him."

  "Don't take any unnecessary chances, Jess. Promise me."

  She paused before saying, "Not to worry. I've got Bishop and the Salt Lake City field agents behind me. I'm surrounded by big, muscular types."

  "And that's supposed to ease my mind?" His laughter washed over her.

  She loved to hear him laugh, and she imagined his warm, lovely smile, and she thought of how much they had laughed together in Greece and Rome. She took a moment to tell him how much their trip had meant to her before saying, "Good-bye, James, and thanks for the help."

  "Good-bye, and be careful, Jess. I love you."

  "I love you, too, beyond your imagining."

  She hung up, dressed, and tried again to get J. T. back at Bryce Canyon but without luck. Still the phone lines were tied up and all she could get was a busy signal. She thought of getting an operator on the line and having her break into the line, but instead she decided to locate the nearest library. With the help of the doorman, she learned it was too late for the library, that it would be closed. "Salt Lake rolls up the sidewalks at dusk, pretty much, ma'am," he apologized for his city.

  "What about a bookstore?"

  "Oh, yeah, there's one a half block on the southeastern corner, thataway," he said, pointing. "They may be open."

  Jessica made the short walk and found the storefront shop window filled with books. Inside, she found a musty place filled with used books on wood and crate shelves. A huge orange cat lay asleep on the cash register. She finally found a dog-eared, paperback copy of Dante's Inferno. She paid two dollars and twenty-five cents for the copy and began revisiting Hades in the lobby of the hotel, and later in her room to be near the phone so she could keep trying to raise J. T., to let him know her whereabouts in the city.

  Jessica hadn't seen or thought of Dante's strange panorama of Hades since her school days, when it was required reading in her AP class. She read it anew with the fanatical killer in mind, imagining his imaginings now. Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, in its entirety, was enormous, but it had been his depiction of Hades that captured the imagination of generations since its publication in 1321, and apparently their killer had been no exception.

  Rivers of boiling blood, that was what the killer had turned his victims' bodies into. The Wood of Suicides, where the naked forms of men, women, and children dangled from thorny prongs of dead trees like so much litter and parchment; vile creatures such as the flying Geryon, Minotaurs, Centaurs guarding vestibules and black corridors, monsters at every turn, and those souls damned to living out putrid lives in the land of Dis or Satan, inside the body of the beast.

  She read on and recalled the Furies, Medusa, and the Harpies, all of whom peopled Satan's world, an enormous inverted, three-dimensional mountain created when Satan and all his followers fell to the earth. She skimmed, recalling far more than she now read. Some said the Grand Canyon was created by Satan's fall to Earth.

  Her eyes grew weary over the words, and for a time she felt alone with the mad Phantom, alone with the Devil. And she lay on the covered bed in her ro
om here at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, and here she nodded off with Dante's elaborate, allegorical window into Hell on her lap.

  It was six twenty-five now, a light pattering rain having begun at the windows when the nightmare result of her cramming metamorphosed into a garish dream that carried her along a spiraling red river of blood without any chance of refusing. It was a river filled with muck and putrid odors so horrid they could not be swallowed. She felt herself going down into the deepest recesses of the human psyche where the demons dwelled, although some of the shadows in the room with her seemed corporeal enough to shake her from slumber. In the dark underworld, she saw herself staring back at her.

  On waking, she shuddered, clawed her way to a sitting position on the made bed, and picked up the phone's receiver. She again dialed for J. T. at Ruby Inn in Bryce to inform him of the breakthrough, that the killer was working with the Dante mythos.

  This time she got through. Obviously John had gotten a room at the inn, for they patched her through to his room.

  "Jess, thank God, I've been worried sick about you," he almost shouted. "Where are you?"

  Jessica thought she heard a voice in the background. "Are you alone?"

  "Not entirely, no."

  "Well, good for you. The breakfast waitress?"

  "How'd you guess?"

  She told him her whereabouts and updated him on the search for the killer, and as J. T. calmed, she informed him of the Dante connection. "That's wonderful news," he told her, adding, "and I have some good news, too. We located the bus he's been traveling on all this time."

  She saw the noose tightening for Charon and Nessus. "Miraculous! How'd you do it?"

  ''Blood, sweat, tears, and a search under the registration of a Chris Dunlap. Bishop's idea."

  "Bishop's there with you-good. Now tell me what you've got."

  "No, Warren's probably in Salt Lake by now, Jess. You've got to get over to the Hilton. That's where Bishop will be, flushing this creep out. He's got his number now. He knows the tour number, the bus plate, and by now the creep's room number. It's just a matter of time now."