And so, the grand and vast plan must go forward now of its own volition.. ..
Yet Feydor, on some primal level he did not himself understand, felt a need to rekindle memories of his last three kills, one of which neither Jessica Coran, nor any of the other authorities, had as yet discovered.
His limbs felt strong and powerful for the first time in his life. Propped up now on one elbow, Feydor examined himself and the Polaroid photographs, one after the other. He'd earlier scattered what he called his “most memorable moments” about the bed, peeled his clothes off, and lay down nude beside the still memories. And from across the room he could see himself reflected in the mirror.
The others on the national parks tour bus with him had all been taken on a side tour, bused out to a copper mine somewhere nearby. In the relative peace here at the hotel, he found silence and solace, and he could here give full vent to his sexual excitement over the memories he had collected.
He clutched one of the photos and brought it to his chest, rubbing it into his nipples and down to his flat stomach. Each photo was taken at the moment the crackling fire opened up the bodies like melons.
God would forgive him his small and petty pleasures; Satan had directed him, and God had allowed it all. He was, after all, only human....
So he would continue to indulge and enjoy himself now as he had then, on seeing them die amid licking, stroking flames. He hadn't known it would be so potent a sexual high that he achieved when the flames' tongues licked a victim's fat away. It recalled his excitement as a child when he had burned small things and rubbed their ashes against his body. It recalled a certain moment in the dim past when he'd killed that little girl, had watched her being swallowed up in the jaws of a searing fire, in the very mouth of Satan.
He had forgotten the thrill of it all, had denied his true nature. Now he knew that in order to feel—to feel anything—for him, there was no other way. At least not until his pact with the Devil was a fait accompli.
He stared into the next photo he grabbed up, imaginatively climbing into it to become the burning victim, his body catching the wavelike fire. The photos helped him to return to the moment and excite himself anew.
He brought the picture down to his crotch, rubbed it along his inner thigh with the other one in his other hand pressed against his penis. Semen stained the photos with his release, and seeing it come forth, he saw, felt, heard, smelled, and tasted it as an epiphany of memory, and a monumental memory came like a horseman from his unconscious mind.
He had once seen with his amazed little boy's eyes the evidence of Satan's own semen where it bubbled up from Hell, had seen it and had wanted to leap into it, but he had forced the event into a corner of the deepest cave within him. And so it felt natural, this sexual explosion he felt with each burning body. It was as natural as nature itself, he believed. And so it was natural for Satan to have selected him for the work at hand.
Feydor groaned at the overwhelming sexual release he now felt, and he rolled over onto the other photos, his brain replaying the actual events in his mind so vividly that he was once again there in the room with the flaming corpse, first this one and then that and then the other, again and again, over and over, hearing the tormented cries, which only further excited his genitals.
Still, Dr. Stuart Wetherbine had somehow managed to keep a foothold somewhere in the back of Feydor's brain, and he now loudly condemned Feydor's puerile connection with Satan's semen, with fire and flaming corpses. Wetherbine's was the one small voice remaining in his brain that told Feydor he was simply rationalizing away his conduct, but a larger part of his brain said otherwise, a larger part brought to the argument the actual fact that he—Feydor Dorphmann—had, of all the billions on the planet, been selected, that he had been contacted by demonic powers due to his twisted birth needs, perhaps due to his DNA, his genetic makeup.
He'd spent years in self-analysis and had created a complete picture of his own needs, but for years after coming to the conclusion that only through burning himself with matches, cigarettes, and candles could he ever achieve any sexual satisfaction, only then could he control the urges. And he had successfully done so for most of his adult life, putting away “childish” things. However, the dike broke when Satan came into the picture, telling him to open himself up to Satan, to answer his own birth needs, to accept the seed placed in him at birth.
And so he had, and so others must bum so that he might rejoice. “Rejoice, ye sinners!” he said and laughed. “Rejoice, and behold the righteousness of evil.”
Sated for the moment, he rolled over on his back, Polaroids sticking with semen to his body. He now stared up at the ceiling when Satan whispered anew in his ear, asking, “Who's next? Number four is waiting. “
Feydor contemplated number four. He didn't think of them as kills, as people being burned alive; he thought of them as gifts given over to him by Satan. Satan arranged for the firewood, Feydor the fire. And God... God allowed it all. God allowed Satan—and Feydor by extension—his way.
Again he told himself, speaking to the room and to Satan, “I have done your bidding in good faith. I have accomplished far more than I ever realized possible in so short a time and in good fashion; I am fully one third of the way to your goal of nine victims.”
“It's... not... enough,” Satan disagreed, his voice spilling over with threat.
It's never fucking enough with you, Feydor thought but said, “Each victim has been sacrificed to you, each has become a prize for you, my demon god, and soon you will have your final prize: Jessica Coran. What more can I do? It can't be rushed.”
We're traveling by bus, for God's sake, Feydor recklessly thought. ' 7 heard that,'' Satan replied with a hint of mirth, leaving Feydor to wonder if he had heard all of his recent thoughts.
“Buses are slow. The killing will take time.”
“Don't question providence.
“I wouldn't think of it.” Satan liked calling his wisdom and his kingdom providence so as to mock God.
'' You already have questioned my wisdom.''
And Feydor had. His demon director had chosen an unusual mode of transportation, and it was on Chris Lorentian's ticket. The demon god, quite taken with serendipitous fate, had said, “What better way than this to lure Coran across state lines and the country, away from the safety of large cities and toward the gateway into Hell itself?”
“Where is this place?” he'd asked.
“You have stood at this destination before, and you once almost succumbed to the alluring beauty of a death in the place where you are now leading Coran in pursuit of you.
Feydor vaguely recalled Satan's semen, a bubbling white mud pissing upward from out of the earth in some place he'd been as a child, some sort of tar pit of superheated, bubbling mud spurting up from the ground. This strange place must be one of the many destinations on the national parks tour. Feydor grabbed for the itinerary given him on the bus the day he and Satan had together left Vegas. He scanned each destination until his eyes fell on Yellowstone National Park. He had been there once, years and years before, a lifetime before, as a child. He'd stood before the steaming geysers, hundreds of them it seemed, with their steam and sulfur clouds creating huge, ghostly veils, like the astral wanderings of the dead, over the land. He'd become mesmerized, paralyzed even by the sight of the cauldrons of boiling, superheated water belching up from the center of the earth. He'd seen the bubbling, scalding mud pots that created lavalike sculptures. He had taken steps toward the 280-degree water, preparing to leap into Satan's saucepan when his father had suddenly grabbed him and pulled him away, scolding him and saving him from the scalding waters while loudly detesting his stupidity and idiotic expression.
A day later, while again in the park where death met life, he'd found a substitute for him self, and he had watched while his victim, the one he'd pushed into the scalding water of a geyser, literally boiled to death. It had been exquisite to watch, but he
'd put the image from his mind now for years. Guilt and remorse had been so constant afterward that he finally erased all memory of the moment until now. Little wonder Satan had found him again.
“I promise you your freedom from me and all the demons that have ever controlled you in this life, if you comply now with my wishes,” Satan sharply again reminded Feydor.
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. Silendy, 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, quizzi cal, 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.”
“My God, why didn't anyone contact me?”
“The killer's call came only today and couldn't be traced. He didn't stay on the line long enough. They tried to get word to you, but you and I haven't exactly been standing still.” So you've been holding out on me,” she repeated. “Why?”
He shrugged. “After seeing you, I thought you could use a break, so I kept silent until now.”
“So, what's the bad news?”
“Grand Canyon, one of the lodges we likely flew over this morning. A place called the El Tovar Hotel, Yavapai East, right on the rim of the canyon. A place called Grand Canyon Village.”
“What's been done there?”
“I'm afraid the body's already been removed, and—”
“Damn it. Damn it to hell.”
“Nobody's fault, Jess. They, the locals, believed it an accidental fire, or a possible suicide. Clean-up of the room was begun. Evidence lost, but if you'd like to see it, we can double back. We have it secured now. A little late, but—”
“Jesus Christ, they've disturbed everything....”
“—better late than never.”
“How damned stupid are these backwoods people?” she exploded, her last nerve frayed, causing people at other tables to stare. “Who the hell's responsible for—”
“No one there knew, Jess. How could they?”
“He called it in, though? The killer?”
“That's my information, yes. But there was a delay. He only telephoned it in today.”
“Today?”
“Right, he did, early this morning, about the time we arrived at the autopsy for Martin, around eight forty-five, nine, in there. That's what they're saying.”
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