by Rob Swigart
She breathed rapidly for a time, convulsively. Chazz held her tighter. He pulled the blanket around her, held her.
Gradually, she calmed and went on. “I know who he is. He talked, while he was…” She couldn’t finish. “He killed her.”
“Who?” Cobb asked.
“He killed his mother. He talked. He was a child, singing a song, like a nursery rhyme. Talking, babbling. She must have done something to him, but his French was too fast, I couldn’t follow. He hated her. He thought I was her when he was on me. I told him he was small… inadequate. My French isn’t that good, but it was enough. He went wild, talking about his mother. I tried to humiliate him.” The words began to tumble out of her. “I thought he wouldn’t be able to do it, then. But he could; he was crazy, strangling me, babbling, leaning over me. Afterward he started making the powder, glaring at me. Then the others came and he started yelling about the cone.”
Cobb looked at Chazz. Finally, the biologist looked up at him. “Cone snail,” he said. “Must be his little improvement. The venom of the cone snail. It’s Guillaume, of course, Jacqueline Guillaume, the famous radical mistress of the famous.”
Cobb agreed. “She had an affair with Queneau, among others. She must have done something awful to her son to make him what he is. And now he’s gone to look for a cone snail, to finish the powder?”
Patria nodded. “You’re looking for an old Chevy, brown, very rusty, dirty inside. No dash, wires hanging out. He had it stashed somewhere, I don’t know. He knocked me out; I woke up in the car. He got me here, carried me in, ripped my clothes…”
Again she started shaking. This time the shaking did not stop.
Cobb opened the door. “Sammy!”
They left Sergeant Handel and the two patrolmen at the house with the old woman’s body. “Be ready,” Cobb said. “They could come back. A patrol unit is on the way. You’ll have a radio. We’ll call.”
Sammy drove expertly. On the way, Patria talked brokenly, almost incoherently. She was still in shock. She was trying to tell them who the Phoenix was.
In a little less than a half hour they delivered Patria to the emergency room at the hospital. Kimiko was already there, called from police headquarters. Two patrol units were watching the house in the woods. Scott Handel was on his way in.
They ran back out to the Bronco. As they climbed in Cobb asked, “Cone snail?”
“A very powerful venom,” Chazz answered, buckling his seat belt. “A snail just a few inches long can kill a man. There’s only one place to get one easily on this island.”
“As I thought,” Cobb Takamura said. “Sammy.”
The big Hawaiian nodded. He was already turning south. “Douglass Research Center.”
The moon was disappearing behind thick clouds, imparting only a faint luminescence to the sky. Rain was intermittent.
Handel and two men met them on the highway by the road down to the DRC.
“There are three of them,” Cobb said. “Well-trained and well-armed.”
“They know a form of kick-fighting,” Chazz added. “Watch their feet. They have machine pistols and knives. Phoenix knows the layout— he’s been there before. He met the Richards woman on the tour.”
“An old Chevy wouldn’t make very good time on the dirt roads— so they have maybe a twenty-minute head start,” Cobb concluded. “Include time to break into the buildings, they’ll most likely just be getting inside now.”
Security was minimal. An electronic gate stopped vehicular traffic, but anyone walking in would have no trouble reaching the building. They could have left the Chevy anywhere.
Getting inside the exhibit hall would be difficult but not impossible for professionals. The security systems would only slow them down.
They found forced entry in the south side exhibition hall: a small access window to the basement utility area. The alarm system had been neatly rerouted.
Phoenix was inside. No, not Phoenix. Now he had a real name, an identity.
“We could trip the alarm,” Handel suggested. “Wait for them to come out.”
“Risky. Someone might get away. I’d rather take them inside. We might as well use the same entry.” If Sergeant Handel was shocked at his boss’s suggestion, he gave no sign.
Sammy Akeakamai shrugged and thumped his ample belly. Takamura grinned. “Kikui Nut, it’s true you and Chazz will never fit through this window.”
Chazz nodded. “We’ll go to the front. One of you can meet us. The foyer is a long way from the Bounty of Nature exhibit, and I’d be willing to bet they’re planning to get out through the delivery entrance, so we’d be safest going in that way. Unfortunately, I don’t have a key.”
“Officer Wallace will meet you. Scott and I will check the exhibit halls.” Takamura slipped one leg through the open window.
“Okay.” Chazz agreed. “There’s a maintenance stair in front. You can slip upstairs there without being seen. You come out behind the gift shop just inside the entrance. The front door alarm turns off under the counter.”
“Five minutes.” Cobb slipped inside. Handel and the two patrolmen followed.
Chazz and Sammy waited in the cover of a huge splash of lantana near the front door. The moon was completely covered; it was dark except for the bright security lights on the parking area beyond the next building and the smaller utility lights over the entry.
They could hear distant surf and, somewhere closer, running water. The only other sound was the small metallic clicking as Sammy checked his revolver. The .38 looked tiny in his enormous hands. The front door opened and Wallace stuck his head out. Chazz and Sammy dashed across the exposed entry and slipped inside. Chazz paused only long enough to reset the alarms.
The DRC marine research wing was an eerie place at night. The sounds of pumps and air bubbling through water came from every direction. Chazz paused at the first tank at the end of a short hallway long enough to see that Plato was comfortable in his temporary home. The octopus was moving slowly, extending and contracting his tentacles in its never-ending quest for food.
The creature mirrored the tattoo that writhed around the forearm of the man in the hospital, itself a copy of the one Hobart/Phénix displayed. Chazz liked the one in the tank a lot better.
The large central room contained an enormous tank. Only a few dim lights revealed four sharks circling endlessly. They were not large, nor were they pretty.
To either side, the tanks were interrupted by arches leading on the right to a black-light exhibit and on the left smaller exotic tropical fish, crustaceans, bivalves, a chambered nautilus. The back of the building held the Bounty of Nature display, with its complex ecology of toxic and medicinal plants and animals, a long exhibit of a coral reef, including the blowfish.
Except for the pumps, the silence was absolute: no voices, no traffic, no footsteps. Chazz and Sammy slipped between exhibits, moving from cover to cover, watching for shadows, for movement. Wallace, who was behind them, thought he heard something in the left-hand room and slipped away to investigate. The other two men did not notice.
Chazz and Sammy cautiously circled the ceiling-high shark tank and saw no one. Chazz gestured, and they went through the arch to the right. In the darkness of the tanks, luminous creatures drifted or swam, lit only by ultraviolet bulbs.
The aisles were interrupted by large sculptural exhibits showing the inner structures of some of the creatures in the tanks. During public hours, they were lit from above, casting dramatic shadows. Now, though, they were indefinite shapes looming in their way.
The crash, when it came, was far away, behind them on the other side of the sharks. A shout, then a series of thuds, more shouts. Sammy turned. Chazz touched his arm and gestured ahead. They moved through the arch into the long rectangular back room lined with tanks. They could hear water dripping, and then felt it underfoot. The cone snail tanks had been cut neatly, a large circle removed. The water still spilled through the hole. A few bewildered blennies darted back and forth i
n the few inches of remaining water.
The hall was empty.
Sounds of a struggle came through the arch at the far end. They ran, dodging large exhibits of the Bounty of Nature: sponges, corals, sea squirts and mussels, sea hares and puffer fish.
A scream, protracted and harsh, was abruptly cut off; a figure fell through the archway at the far end of the room. Chazz paused only long enough to recognize Patrolman Wallace. His throat was crushed, his head at an angle.
Chazz dropped into zanshin without thinking, extending his senses. Close. He could feel them close, the other side of the wall.
There were too many places to hide. The light was indefinite, imparting vague shadows to anything that moved.
Takamura and Handel would have made their way up from the storage and delivery area downstairs. They were either in the exhibit halls or the research offices along the south side of the building. They would have heard the scream.
Chazz placed the ball of his left foot on the carpet before him and slowly shifted his weight. Beside him the aerator of a tank bubbled. Just the other side of the wall, someone was breathing. Chazz could feel the air, moving in, moving out. He felt Sammy Akeakamai behind him, controlling his own breath, the tiny .38 peeking out through his fist. He took another step.
He felt the attack coming. He did not lose his awareness this time. The man had stepped to the right, spun for a roundhouse kick. Chazz stepped inside, pivoted with it inside the archway to the side hall, picking up the momentum of the kick, guiding the leg without holding it. He gave some extra momentum, and the kicker flew into an aquarium at the back of the hall. The glass shuddered a moment from the impact, then cracked. A trickle of water leaked a moment, turned to a spray, a fountain, then the glass gave way, and a deluge dumped from the tank as the man rolled away to the side, out of the stream. He was on his feet again, turning to face Chazz. Water poured out onto the floor between them. A few fish leaped and gulped in the mess, then fell back twitching, their mouths opening and closing.
The man yelled and stepped forward, ready for another lightning kick, but as he spun he stepped on a fish and the kick went wild. Chazz did not move. The man was big and blond, and Chazz knew he was the one with the bad leg.
The soldier snarled and pulled his pistol from his belt. He raised it, and Sammy Akeakamai said quietly, “Drop the gun.”
The blond man pulled the trigger instead, sending a spray of bullets in an arc toward Sammy, shattering tanks along the wall. He ducked into another kick spin, and Sammy fired as he turned; the man’s leg gave out and he lurched sideways. Sammy’s bullet caught him high on the hip, spun him the other way. He fell heavily, and his blood pumped out and mingled with the aquarium water on the floor.
He had not dropped his gun, and now he screamed in rage and pain as he lifted it. Chazz stomped on his hand and picked up the gun. “Looks like that limp just got worse.”
“I was aiming for his leg,” Sammy said.
They left the blond man and moved side by side into the next room.
It was dark. Someone had turned off the aquarium lights. The sculptural shapes were dim outlines barely visible in the light from the shark tank.
The other two could be anywhere. Chazz knew the man with the scar was the only one with Phoenix now, but he was also the most dangerous. Chazz felt a twinge from his cracked rib and dismissed it. The spear point of his anger gleamed.
Chazz sensed a presence, melted back. “Cobb?” he hissed.
“Chazz,” the answer was whispered. “Over here.”
Chazz moved toward a sculpture of a whale. “Where are they?”
Cobb stood up in the darkness. “We came in through the offices above the window. Then that scream. Wallace?”
“Yes. Dead. One Bad Guy down. Sammy got him in the hip. He could bleed to death. That would be too bad.”
“Okay. The other two are in the building. Handel’s watching the service area.”
“They can’t get out the front without setting off the alarm. Lights, sirens, the whole whoop-whoop. But they got what they came for, so they’re probably on their way out by now.” Chazz led the way.
The sharks still circled in their tank, slowly, around and around.
There was a soft phht and glass shattered nearby, followed by pouring water: another aquarium broken. Chazz crept toward the sound, looked out.
Plato rode a torrent through the front of his tank. The small octopus thrashed its tentacles, landed in a soggy heap on the carpet and convulsed feebly.
“Bastard,” Chazz said. He bent low and raced toward the octopus, scooping it up in his hand. The tentacles twined around his arm.
He spun on one foot and sprinted back to the narrow hall along the wall of aquariums, looking for the one he wanted, when someone loomed toward him like a stain of darkness from behind an exhibit of pelagic birds.
Chazz flowed with the attack, a slash from a knife, stepping first back, then inside the reversed slash. He was hampered by the octopus on his arm, but once inside the attack he swiveled around behind his attacker, knowing who it was, knowing it was the man with the scar, knowing he was an expert with the knife. He said nothing and moved silently. The man slashed again, not sure where Chazz was. When he realized Chazz was behind him, he tried to pivot, then stepped back into Chazz and stomped down hard on his foot.
But it wasn’t there. Chazz had moved a fraction to his left. He lifted his arm and pressed the octopus into the man’s face.
The man recoiled, and Chazz blended with the recoil, stepping out of the way and slamming the base of his palm up into the raised chin.
There was a sharp crack and the soldier was down. He did not move again.
Chazz flowed on. He reached the tank he was looking for, knocked out the protective panel above it with his elbow, reached over the edge and eased the octopus into the water.
He held it there for what seemed a long time, waiting for the creature to let go. Gradually, the tentacles eased their convulsive grip on his hand and arm. Finally, the animal drifted away.
Chazz waited. He moved his hand to the side of the tank and slowly slid it down the glass. A soft sound came from the rear arch, the sound of a foot stepping on wet carpet. The sound stopped. The Phoenix had corrected his mistake.
It was too late. Chazz found what he was looking for. He worked his fingers carefully, prying underneath, dislodging sand and gravel and round lumps of coral. A shape distorted the clean vertical line of the arch, barely visible against the faint glow from the tanks in the Bounty of Nature Hall. The distortion disappeared. Phoenix was in the room.
Chazz waited. Phoenix knew where he was. Slowly, he lifted his hand, keeping it underwater near the surface.
The man was almost to him. He stopped, sensing Chazz. “You’re there,” he said softly. It was not a question.
He spoke quietly, his words interrupted from time to time by humming, scraps of his song. “Et Ie bec, oui, oui, oui,” he sang. “I got your wife, didn’t I? I took her. Doesn’t that make you mad? You should be mad. I was going to change her, make her my creature, the way I did the others. Now I will have to disappear.”
“No disappearing this time,” Chazz said, as quietly as the other man. Could Takamura and the others hear?
“Don’t be stupid. I am the Phoenix. I die, and I rise again.”
“No, Guillaume. We know who you are now.”
There was silence then. Chazz waited. Then he heard the singing, a soft crooning undertone. “I killed her, you know. I watched her die. Oh, it was wonderful.” His English began to deteriorate. “Before me, you know. She saw. She knew who I was, her son, come to avenge. Bitch, she died looking in my eyes. She can never say I am not good enough again. I laughed at her. I made the pain very great. All in good cause, yes? Destroy Ocean Mother, destroy mother too, yes.”
He stopped. When he spoke again he was beside Chazz. “You are here. Yes. Your bitch wife too, she said things about me. I didn’t like that. And you, and that Nip co
p, all going to die. I have the cone here, you know what it can do. This is a giant cone, my friend. You are the little fish. The heart stops, breathing stops. You are dead before you hit the floor, yes. Et Ie bec, sous le robinet, drinking, she always singed that song at me, my lovely mother, so loved by the world, always the politicians, the journalists talking her, she is a star, you will die my friend.”
“The snail is dying in the air, Guillaume. It’s harmless.”
“Then I will kill you with my hands.”
“Stop,” Cobb Takamura called loudly from the entry to the shark exhibit as he flicked on a powerful flashlight. He was holding his automatic steadily in the beam, pinning Guillaume and Chazz in its circle of light.
Guillaume blinked. Then he dropped the snail and turned, pulling Chazz in front of him.
Chazz let the waiting point of his rage fly. He moved, and his hand came out of the water holding something black and shining and quivering with six-inch spines: a sea urchin. He laid his other hand on the back of the man’s neck as he continued the sweep, and the spines flew point first into the face and eyes of the Phoenix, whose real name was François Guillaume.
Who screamed until long after someone turned on all the lights.
He was still screaming when they took him away.
TWENTY-NINE
PLATO
“I’m leaving,” Patria said.
The two women sat opposite one another in the tea garden. This early, sunlight did not fall into the small pocket of carefully shaped plants. Orli slept in the stroller beside the table.
Kimiko looked at her friend with calm eyes and said nothing.
“I’m going back to Berkeley.” She looked into the roughly shaped cup in her hands at the green tea leaves in the bottom.
