Absolute Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Else he was smoke again... gone.

  TWENTY-ONE

  May your own blood rise against you... and may the hearthstones of hell be your best bed forever.

  — FROM A TRADITIONAL WEXFORD CURSE

  WITH nowhere else to go, Giles found himself at Cafe Avanti, ringing the doorbell belonging to his two benefactors who lived overhead. At four in the morning, Giles had arrived carrying two spines in his blue easel bag slung over his shoulder, the bones rattling against one another, sometimes noticeably. He'd been wandering the streets of Chicago since his escape from the cemetery. He'd located the old homestead where his demonic father had lived once, but it was occupied, turned into a loft-styled duplex. Warm lights, pleasant to view from the street, trees all about. No one would ever guess that a serial killer had once lived there. Then he saw the unmarked FBI car cruising near. Jessica, no doubt, had sent some of her legions to keep an eye on Matisak's old place, just in case he should show up, and he had. The M.E. was sharp. He'd ducked into shadow, made his way off through alleyways and was gone.

  Now Conchita Raold came to the upstairs window and called down, asking, “Is that you, Murphy? Who the fuck's ringing my bell? Is it you, Murph? You Fuck! We're through! So over! Get it?”

  Giles backed away from the cafe doorway to stare up at the woman in the window. “It's me, Giles! I need a place to stay. I was thrown out of my apartment. Too much noise making my sculptures! I... I have to get some rest, and I have to see my sculptures.”

  “We have the big-big opening tonight! You'll need to be alert to talk to visitors to the exhibit! Help me sell more coffee. You can't be hungover or nothing. It is tonight, isn't it? We agreed to the showing, tonight!”

  “All right... OK, but I have to add something.” He held up the easel bag.

  She could faintly hear the rattle of bones. “What is it?” she asked.

  “More bones. The showing needs more bones.”

  “All right. I'll come down and open up for you.”

  Giles felt a great wave of relief come over him. It was a place where he was welcomed in, a place where he could hide, a place where they didn't turn him away, a place where they knew his name and it didn't frighten them.

  It reminded him of the story he had read about how his father had killed two Cherokee Indian people, a man and his wife, living on a farm on a desolate section of a reservation in Oklahoma. How Matisak had been welcomed, fed, given a place to sleep the night, only to turn on the old couple like a viper, taking their lives for their blood, and for a long moment, he hesitated now at the door, fearful of something similar happening here, that he would wind up killing these people who had so fallen in love with his sculptures. At least Conchita had; Murphy reserved judgment, remaining aloof, cool. Giles didn't want what had happened with Lucinda to happen here. He hadn't wanted to harm Lucinda, either, but she'd really given him no choice.

  Why had she been so wakeful that night? Why had she been such a snoop? Why did she have to pry and pry until he could no longer have her walk freely out his door?

  Conchita stood in the doorway in her untied robe, inviting him in, telling him in no uncertain terms that she was alone and she could use a man.

  “Where's Murphy, your husband?” he asked.

  “We had another big fight. Whole thing... the marriage, the cafe, all of it's shot to hell. We really aren't what you'd call compatible. It just took us six years to find that out. Conchita's out of the box, Giles, out of the box.”

  He thought of his box at the reference.

  She continued nonstop, “And for the first time in a long time I can breathe.”

  “You two seemed so... so...”

  “Together?”

  “Like really in love, yeah.”

  “Front we put on for all our friends and the clientele, you know? You know how it is. In private we make war like fucking Indians on a tear! Damn that Murphy!” She laughed. “Only man who can make me see red. Didja know we both have some Native American in us?”

  “No, I didn't know that.”

  “That big black Murphy's a mutt. He's got some Blackfoot and Crow. Me, I'm Eastern—a touch of Pottawatomie—Blackhawk's people—-aside from Mexican! And proud of it. You ever... ahhh... you know, make it with a Native American-Mex mix before, baby?”

  “Ahhh... no, can't say as I have.”

  She grabbed hold of Giles by his shirt and hauled him through the door. “Then you ain't really lived yet, white boy. Come with me.” She led him up to her bed, saying, “I liked you the moment I saw you.”

  “My mother told me I had a little Cherokee in me... on my father's side. Told me how he got the blood and everything.”

  “Cool... you'll have to tell me all about it sometime. But for now, I need your mouth on me, not flapping anywhere else. Come on!”

  Giles saw not a single television in the place, and he asked about it.

  “Fuck I want with that white man's opiate, sweetheart? Don't read his papers, don't listen to his bullshit radio, not even Rush Limp-baugh.”

  She pushed him onto the bed, stripping him. Giles, fatigued, only marginally awake, laid back and enjoyed it, falling into a deep slumber even as he came in her.

  GILES Gahran had vanished. It seemed he had again disappeared off the face of the earth. Jessica and Sharpe had been to see Petersaul to tell her that Darwin was safe, that Warden Gwingault had acted on the evidence twenty minutes before the scheduled execution, ten minutes before he got the call from Governor Hughes, who apparently had thought that he'd make FBI Agent Reynolds sweat out the end as if he would surely die. From what Darwin told Jessica, a major rift had resulted between Gwingault and Hughes, and the entire state was in an uproar and many residents wanted to see Darwin hung or drawn and quartered, or at least thrown into a cactus bed for his part in the hoax.

  Darwin had been released pending any charges. It seemed no one knew exactly what the charges would be or how many would be leveled.

  Jessica gave Darwin the number where he could talk to his brother, still in hiding.

  “Then I'm on my way to Chicago. I want in on the kill.”

  Harry Laughlin showed up at Petersaul's bedside as well. She had lost a lot of blood, and while weak and doped up, doctors had been able to repair the damage Gahran's scalpel had done her. It would take a long recuperation and some skin grafts, and even now she could not lie on her back, but they must all be thankful she was alive and in one piece.

  “Get this bastard for Cates and for all his victims, Jessica,” Petersaul said, her voice quivering with pain, despite the drugs.

  Laughlin took Jessica and Sharpe aside and said, “I've got bad news.”

  “Now what?”

  “Orders from Quantico passed along from D.C., you and Sharpe are off this case, ordered off. I'm to see to it you two get on a plane for HQ. Seems they're taking a dim view of the fun you had with Oregon Governor Hughes... that stunt you pulled, and the fact you are holding Towne in an undisclosed location believed to be somewhere along the O'Hare Airport hotel strip.”

  “You don't think we'd have him anywhere within a thousand miles of Chicago, do you, Harry?”

  “Don't play me for one of them. I applaud what you people did, but you did break the law, regardless.”

  “To save an innocent man from certain execution!” countered Sharpe.

  “I'm on your side, just not officially. You don't need to drag any more asses down with you. Now, you gotta turn Towne over to me, and you two have to be standing before Eriq Santiva and his boss, Hemmings, and maybe even Fischer this afternoon. Santiva said, 'No ifs, ands, or buts.' I guess you've been cornered.”

  “We'll have to make arrangements to get Towne here to turn him over to your custody.”

  “After all,” continued Laughlin, “he's got to be returned to Oregon.”

  “Sure... I expected as much,” she said.

  “Meantime, there's been some buzz on the street about our guy. People have his face now in their homes, o
n the tube and on the front pages of the papers. He was spotted early this morning on Southport in the Lakeview and Wrigleyville area at the same time.”

  “So reliable.”

  “More than one source. One a newspaper delivery kid, another a shopkeeper, bakery guy just opening up. They each reported a man looking like Gahran with an oversized, stuffed blue bag slung over his shoulder.”

  “That's good. Give us the location. Hell, run us there.”

  “But you're off the case.”

  “Not until we get on the plane.”

  “Guy at the Greyhound terminal also spotted someone fitting our yearbook photo from the Tribune s page one. Again a guy with an oversized blue bag using a locker there last night, stowed the blue bag there and picked it up early this A.M.”

  “Traveling light,” commented Sharpe.

  “But where are his sculptures? The crates?” she asked.

  Sharpe began musing aloud. “Maybe in storage or... If... just suppose Wellingham had gotten him a gig here? Introduced him to someone in Chicago for a showing? That would explain where all his stuff might be.”

  “If he's rented space, he'd have stowed the blue bag somewhere other than the bus station,” Jessica said.

  “I can tell you none of the major galleries would touch his stuff if it's anything like Orion's,” Laughlin assured them.

  “But a medium-sized gallery, a small one... and there are countless other venues where art or so-called art is displayed.”

  “No way to cover them all,” said Laughlin. “Certainly not before you guys have to board that plane.”

  “We can start with all the papers, including the neighborhood papers, especially those covering Wrigleyville and this Lakeview area you mentioned.”

  “That'd be one way. If his stuff has been advertised or given a freebie mention in a 'Who's Who' or 'What's Happening' column.”

  “Even so... he'd never be so foolish as to stick around for a showing of his art, would he?” asked Petersaul from her stomach at the bed, having overheard everything. “I still have twenty/twenty vision and my ears ain't bad, either,” she joked.

  They returned to Petersaul and included her in the remainder of the discussion. Laughlin said, “This guy hasn't exactly kept a low profile. Hell, he's at damn Navy Pier tossing Matisak memorabilia off the Ferris wheel. Made one hell of a big show. Yeah, he's just wacko enough—”

  “Or arrogant enough—” interjected Sharpe.

  “—to stick around to see how his showing goes. He has to know it will be his first and last.”

  “I'll make a deal with you, Harry,” said Jessica. “Towne for all the help you can put on the street for this dragnet.”

  “You gotta turn Towne over regardless. You've got no bargaining chips, but be assured, I'll put every available man on the hunt, and we'll enlist every agent and detective in the city on it. We canvass the near North Side neighborhoods for any sign, any flyer, any word of mouth at the coffee shops about this guy's debut Chicago showing.”

  “If it's not advertised in any of the papers,” muttered Petersaul wincing in pain, “then whoever's got Gahran s stuff to show, the stuff that Lucinda Wellingham supposedly threatened Orion with, Harry? It's going to be a small, small gallery with no ad budget.”

  “Hang in, Pete,” Jessica said to her as they left to continue the search for Gahran.

  “What else am I going to do?”

  The word on Milos was that he was working toward a recovery, but that he'd be away from his job for at least a month, perhaps more.

  Agent Cates and Liam Rielsen lay in the morgue in the basement, the body of each man eerily divested of their backbones.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Scream like the Devil's baby.

  — ANONYMOUS

  CPD and FBI agents fanned out all over Chicago's near

  North Side. Every art gallery and bar and coffeehouse that ever exhibited a stick of artwork, particularly those known for “outer limits” artwork, were paid a visit and even if they never heard of Giles Gahran or his artwork, they were questioned about anyone new in the neighborhood, any new buzz in the area about a hot new artist with whom Orion could not hold a candle.

  Nothing came of the initial canvass.

  Other operatives combed the newspapers, from the most prestigious to the smallest and avant-garde or the unusual like The Art of the Onion.

  Three o'clock came and went. Laughlin had chosen to ignore his orders, to claim he had seen them off at the airport and that had been the last he had seen of them, and that they had given him a false lead on the whereabouts of Towne.

  The list of coffeehouses, bars and meeting places in the enclaves and tightly knit neighborhoods in and around Wrigleyville, Lincoln Park, Lakeview and others was astounding. Jessica knew they would need a miracle to find this needle in the haystack, and even if they did, there was no guarantee that Giles Gahran would be foolish enough to expose himself again as he had at Navy Pier. That he would be foolish enough to show up at his own gallery showing.

  But then where was he?

  Every exit from the city had been closed off to him. Both airports. Trains at Union and Northwestern, the Greyhound and Metra stations. Everyone had his picture. Still, he could have hitchhiked out or rented a private vehicle, using a stolen card. There were simply too many highways leading out of this hub to throw up roadblocks and shut them all down. Besides, they'd acted too late for such action to be effective.

  “He's hiding here somewhere... someplace close,” Jessica said to Richard. They sat in a coffee shop called BeBo's having Irish coffees. Neither of them had had much sleep in the past twenty-four hours, and each struggled with fatigue.

  Time had grown late as the clock neared 6 P.M. “If he does have a showing, it could be tomorrow or the following day and not tonight at all,” suggested Richard.

  “True enough, and we're extremely late in not complying with HQ. In fact, they'll be sending U.S. marshals after us if we don't soon turn ourselves in.”

  “On the FBI's most-wanted list, heh?”

  “We are out of time, Richard.”

  “I know now why Darwin hasn't gotten here yet from Portland, Jess.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I did some discreet checking. The reason Oregon didn't hold Darwin on charges.”

  “Spit it out, Richard.”

  “The State Department is conducting the investigation into the matter, into the part we all played in it.”

  “That's why we've been ordered back to D.C.”

  “And apparently Darwin's flight on an Oregon field office jet was ordered directly to D.C.”

  “Explains why Santiva wants us in D.C.”

  “Towne's expecting Darwin to join us here.”

  “Yeah, he's going to be disappointed.”

  “Oregon really must have Towne back and soon. It's all a great embarrassment to them.”

  The couple smiled across at one another. Jessica said, “We pulled off the bait and switch of the decade, I think.”

  “I dare say so.”

  Jessica's phone rang and she opened the cover and answered. “Yes, right,” she began, “hello.” There only came an eerie silence. “Is anyone there?”

  “'Dr. Coran?”

  She recognized the chilling voice.

  “It's me again, Jessica.”

  He even sounds like Matisak now, she thought, now that I know the truth.

  “I'm sorry... who is it?” she stalled for time.

  “Your favorite prey. By now you and everyone else chasing me knows who I am.”

  “Giles? Gahran is it you?” She waved and pointed her finger at the phone to indicate to Richard that she had him on the line. Richard was already on his phone calling their carrier for a trace. A satellite trace was difficult and took time, but Jessica had anticipated this possibility, knowing he still had Agent Amanda Petersaul's cell phone. Jessica had alerted her carrier to the possibility, too, and they were on speed dial on Richard's companion pho
ne.

  “Where are you calling from, Giles?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know. And you may call me Mr. Matisak now, Giles Matisak. Really, it's a good righteous fit, my new skin. Shedding the old one has been liberating. Feels right in this skin. It suits me.”

  She took a stab at a hunch, picturing him atop of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel. She discussed it openly, asking him what he thought he was doing tossing out all those news clippings and serial killer playing cards, autopsy photos and police reports. “Liberating yourself from that damnable box and its contents? Why don't you go beyond the box, really liberate yourself, Giles?”

  “Too late for that. I am born in my father's image. I look like him, even think like him.”

  “No, Giles, it isn't you. It's only your mother's inculcations you're acting on, as you always have, and Giles, get this.”

  “What, Dr. J?”

  “We ran a DNA match and—”

  “I know, saved that poor Devil on death row. I heard on CNN. His life was courageously won.”

  “You don't understand. We ran a scan on Matisak's DNA and compared it to yours, and guess what, Giles?”

  “You're lying.”

  “What possible reason would I have to lie about such a thing, Giles?”

  “I don't know... going to have to figure that one. Pretty sneaky of you... to throw a curve like that at me. Likely your way to keep me on the line while your partner runs a trace.”