The Primal Connection

by Alexander Dregon

  Instead, he heard himself say, “Just give her a catnap. This won’t take too long.” Strangely enough, Terry could feel the newest Chrliti smile, while at the same time, he felt Charlie groan.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the shadow of Willis Tower in Chicago, at roughly the same time, two co-workers, a man and a woman, walked bleary eyed toward the Blue Line. It had been a long day. There had been several meetings that had been canceled and restarted several times, thanks to glitches in the system and a storm somewhere. By the time they had received the final figures, there were several line items that had to be re-evaluated for feasibility. A real pain in the ass considering that their sister company was in Japan, making everything doubly slow.

  Both of them had been integral in the final disposition of the matter and expected serious bonuses for their work but that would be later. For the moment, both of them were looking forward to a fast ride home and late dinners.

  As they walked along, the man noticed a cab sitting at the side of the street. He noticed it mainly because it was parked illegally and still running. The funny thing was that the lights were on and he could see the driver and the passenger inside. As they came abreast of it, he noted that there was something on the side of it.

  While the woman was oblivious, concentrating instead on the warm bath she knew she had waiting, the man though found himself drawn to the cab for some reason. He had heard there were some incidents involving cabs, but he had heard no details about it afterward. He was curious though thanks to what he had heard and now there was this cab in front of him looking strange. It took him just a second to see why.

  The engine was idling and the car was still in gear. He could tell that by the way the car was still trying to climb up onto the curb. A slight nudge on the accelerator and it would have been into the front of the building next to it. Instead, it sat there as though it was parked badly. Had they not come down the street, given the hour, it was possible no one would have noticed it until morning.

  Only that didn’t make sense either. He could see the men inside. Why didn’t they just back up and head off? The thought occurred that perhaps they both needed help. One had been taking the other in, say to the hospital, and the passenger had lost consciousness, while the driver could have had a heart attack or something. He moved closer to see if any of that was the case and if there was anything he could do to help.

  “What are you doing, Frank?”

  The woman, Cindy Moore, had called out as he sidled up to the car.

  “Just taking a little look. Something doesn’t look right here. You got your phone handy?”

  The woman was not happy. “Yeah?”

  “Be ready to call nine-one-one if something goes wrong.”

  “Wrong like what? What are you talking about? You need to let somebody handle this shit that gets paid for it! It’s not our business! Frank? Frank!”

  Suddenly, Frank Jones spun away from the car, the brief case in his hand flying off to skitter into the building farther down. His hand had flown to his mouth, but now, it held his tie to his chest as the pizza he had eaten earlier rushed back up his throat to leap out onto the street, almost as if it too wanted no part of what lay inside the cab.

  Seeing this, the woman forgot about dialing and ran to help her co-worker. They had never really been friends, but they had ridden the same train every day almost since they had started working at Degas and Associates in the last wave of hiring. They were some of the few that actually knew more than the most superficial facts about any of their co-workers.

  Seeing his distress, she ran to his side. Years ago, she had been a nurse’s aide. Now, that training came to his aid as she pushed his head down to help him keep oxygen in his brain as well as give his lunch a more direct escape route.

  “What is it? What is it?” she shouted, guiding him away from the car he was gesturing wildly at by way of reply. Turning, she brought the picture into focus and realized the horror of what she was seeing.

  In the car, two men took up the entire front seat. Between the two of them, she guessed they were about six hundred pounds at least. The passenger was the closer of the two, a beefy black man with dreadlocks and a beard, matted with blood. In the streetlight, it seemed to twinkle as the light bounced off the myriad angles formed in the quickly coagulating gore. His jugular had been slashed lengthwise for about three inches and left open to the air, allowing blood to gush out until there had been no more pumping action from the now almost-dry and barren heart. His t-shirt was soaked with the result. From the sheer amount alone, it was easy to see he was dead.

  The driver had caused the problem for Frank. Taller than his passenger, his head was thrown back over the headrest as far as it could go. Farther even since there was a gash across his smooth-shaven throat that went deep enough in to see the blank spot that marked his esophagus. A blade, so sharp there were no tears in the skin, had severed both carotid arteries, just a smooth cut that later examination would reveal to be almost surgical in its precision.

  Even that wasn’t the worst part. The man’s face had been butchered, slashed in crisscross patterns that formed crosses all over his face. Looking with the eyes of a nurse, the woman saw that the facial incisions were almost free of blood, just tissue ripped open with the same surgical precision and sharp blade.

  That was as far as she got before she emptied her stomach as well.

  Less than twenty minutes later, after a frantic phone call to the police, a squad car pulled up, along with a subdued and strangely inconspicuous ambulance. As the scene was cleared with a quiet and eerie efficiency, Frank and Cindy were ushered off to quiet meetings with representatives of the mayor. After lengthy discussions involving threats, promises and more threats, both agreed to keep mum on the situation until such time as they received an okay from the mayor’s office.

  Such deals were not binding on the Chrliti that occupied Frank Jones, however, who, for all intent and purposes, was champing at the bit to tell any of his people what he could about it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Traci was lying naked on the bed in the motel, dozing peacefully. Thanks to the strain her body had been put through with Charlie’s manipulations that had worked and Mir’s that had not, plus the long-awaited orgasm she had had, she had been ripe for a quick nap. It had taken Mir just the barest hint of a suggestion before she was apologizing for being so sleepy, and Terry had told her to get some rest. Although he had added not to expect too much.

  She slept with a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth that made Terry want to ask her occupant what she was dreaming about but decided against it. He might ask later, but for now, there were matters that were more important.

  Sitting in the chair across the room, Terry decided to test the limits of this new development.

  “Mir, can you hear me?”

  Silence. No, that wasn’t right. There was a hum of some sort, but it wasn’t like anything that he had experienced before. It wasn’t a tingle like when Charlie wanted his attention. This was more like a persistent throbbing that was unintelligible by itself but signified something he didn’t quite understand.

  He moved closer to the bed. It was a gamble, in any case, because as Mir had said, they were in new territory here. There was no guarantee that even with this new connection they had that they would be able to talk to each other while Traci slept.

  So, to speed things along, he went to the other extreme. He simply slid into the bed and curled up behind Traci, with as much contact as he could with her body. It worked. At once, he could hear a sound in his mind that not only confirmed that he was in contact with Mir but what the humming he had heard was.

  Charlie and this Mir were talking, for lack of a better word, in what Terry guessed was their own language. Although judging from the tone, it was more like an argument. But then, what the hell did he know?

  Although he found it interesting to hear their language, now was not the time. So… “Uh, guys? You wanna g
et back to the matter at hand? Guys?” Nothing. This called for drastic measures. So Terry took a deep breath and gave a wolf whistle that caused Traci to stir slightly in her sleep. The result was both instant and dramatic.

  Both voices stopped at once, joining in what could only be described as a mental grimace. And an audible, to Terry at least, groan.

  “Arrgh, that sound!” Mir shrieked in the chambers of Terry’s mind. “Does he do this often?” He had switched to English quickly.

  Charlie let the moment pass before he answered. “Only when he wants to really annoy me!”

  “I would guess it works.” Mir moaned tiredly.

  Terry listened to the pair without comment as he let the effects of his siren imitation fade. Then, he quipped, “My head, my rules! And rule one is I get top billing!”

  Charlie was unimpressed, but he knew what Terry was getting at. It had been his fault. He just got so caught up in the conversation with Mir, he had ignored Terry when he was trying to make contact. And Mir didn’t know the etiquette the two of them used. He quickly began to fill Terry in on the things he had learned.

  “Well, just so you know, we were not just, like your sergeant used to be so fond of saying, bullshitting each other viciously. Mir and I were going through the events that led Traci here, trying to correlate them with the things Smyth told you about the situation in Chicago. There seems to be several overlapping points here.”

  Terry was interested now. Keenly. “Such as?”

  Mir took up the conversation. He wanted to make up for any slight he had inadvertently given to Terry, so he plowed in with a vengeance.

  “For one thing, before Traci left, there had been three murders of cab drivers. Neither of the first two had been given any special consideration by the police. Both had involved two of the less…savory characters that plied the trade, and given that both were also rumored to have friends in the local drug trade, the police, as well as most of the other drivers, surmised that their relationships had soured and their deaths were the result.”

  Terry mulled over what he was hearing. It fell in line with what he had come to expect from local law enforcement. It wasn’t a case of not caring but resources. There was only so much to go around, and if a case bore all the signs of being brought on by the victim, especially if the victim was a low life, the investigation was more or less for show only. It was sad but the way of the world.

  Mir continued. “The thing that drove her out of the city was the death of Peter, Pop, Martin. Martin was one of the older drivers, trying to supplement his retirement income he said. Most, though, thought he was just an old man who was alone and forgotten by whatever family he had. He was famous for working extra hours just to be on location when one of his favorites was going to need his services. Usually at a greatly reduced fare or in some cases for free.”

  “Traci had been adopted to that list almost immediately when they met,” Charlie chimed in, apparently not wanting to be left out. “She had been working on Chicago’s south end for a few months when she met him.”

  Mir jumped in again there, defending her like an errant lover. “She had lost her husband and her job. Her family had always been against the marriage, and once he was gone, she refused to go back to them and listen to the I told you so chorus. So, she turned to this to survive and to punish herself. She still has skills, training and her own abilities, but the anonymity of this work appeals to her. She could find better, but she believes this is her due.”

  Terry felt for her. She was fragile, beautiful and sexy as all hell. Her choice of employment sucked, but Terry realized with a start that it was trivial to him. He was glad he had met her for more reasons than just her appetite for sex. She had suddenly become far more than just the latest conquest. For a moment, he wondered if Charlie or Mir had a hand in it. Then, he decided that if either of them did, he didn’t want to know.

  Mir, however, wasn’t finished.

  “Pop had spent many an hour trying to convince her to move on, but her resistance was almost obsessive. More than once, they had argued themselves silent, yet they always remained friends. Perhaps even more than friends. Traci had once tried to seduce him, but he refused, saying he didn’t want her to think that was why he was trying so hard to help her. She, of course, took this as another example of her worthlessness. Pop had made it his personal mission to dissuade her from her choice right up until the day he was killed.”

  Terry interrupted him there. It was important to get the facts, and given his passion for Traci, Mir seemed to be concentrating on how it was affecting her. While Terry found himself concerned about that as well, it had to take second place to the murder victims. Even so, Terry knew there was a part of him that wanted to know more about this woman and how to reach her. He wanted to think it was just his normal do-gooder mentality. The kind he had learned from the comic-book heroes he had spent his childhood with. Values of steel and ice forged in a lonely child’s mind that took the place of a mother and father that had little time for the pleasantries of life or for him.

  He didn’t mind really. It was probably that immersion in comics that had given him the means to deal with Charlie and all the news he brought. Without it, he might have gone stark-raving mad when he first learned about the Chrliti.

  Now though, he was faced with another factor. Traci. She was in trouble. She was gorgeous. And she was, like him, occupied. He wondered what that meant. But he suddenly decided it didn’t matter. Not to him anyway.

  “Mir, tell me this. How was this guy killed? What makes you so sure it was the same guy that killed the first two and the ones since?”

  For a second, Terry felt coldness emanate from Mir. A terrifying wave of hatred pushed its way through the connection he shared with Charlie and him. It took Terry by surprise by its intensity.

  After a second, it seemed to fade as Mir pulled himself back from whatever abyss he kept that amount of emotion in.

  “Pop Martin had been busy that day with work and a few of his favorites. And as usual, he was into his eleventh hour on duty. They found him in his cab with his throat cut nearly completely through. He was still sitting behind the wheel in the parking lot of his favorite little diner. The car was still running. He didn’t even look like he struggled. It looked as if he had simply sat there and let whomever it was simply cut him and then sat there quietly and bled to death. When she found out about it, she cried for three days all but constantly. She even called her mother, who demanded she return home at once. I tried to use what influence I had to get her to go, but she refused. With what I know of her mother, it was probably best. If she had, it would have been an admission that she wasn’t mature enough to deal with life and she’d have never gotten away again.”

  Again, Terry could sense the level of protectiveness that Mir radiated when it came to the woman. It struck him that it was quite possible that he was, for lack of a better term, in love with her. Assuming that was possible for the Chrliti.

  “Was there anything that connected the murders?”

  Mir seemed to swell with a bit of pride there. “Not publicly. The autopsy reports were sanitized to the point of the ridiculous. However, one of the lab assistants was an occupied and informed as many of us as he could that there was a connection. But unlike Tanoak, we have no direct way to contact any human to share the information with them.”

  Terry nodded, realizing the advantage that he and Charlie could enjoy. And with Mir’s help, it could be an even greater benefit. At least it could if Mir was around. For a minute, he toyed with the idea of asking Traci to come with him, but then, he remembered the look that had passed over her face when he had had even brought up the subject of Chicago. Clearly, she was not ready to return to the Windy City just yet.

  Mir was continuing.

  “The reports said all three men had traces of what was listed as unidentified chemical compounds. It was a lie even then. The truth was they were all saturated with a curare compound. It was only found on one body, but t
he problem was it was mixed with an alkaloid that broke it down to a form that resembled a chemical mush that didn’t really register as anything. The same compound was found on each of the bodies. Each of the other ones, the final slush compound was there, but on Pop, there was a pocket in his jacket that had got a splash of the alkaloid itself. It seemed to be thrown on after the fact to disguise the original chemical. Finding that allowed a comparison to be made between the two, and as such, the curare was found. But that piece of news never made it to the reports.”

  Now, Terry perked up. “You mean they withheld it or that it was withheld from them by the coroner?”

  Now, Terry could sense Mir’s bewilderment. “I have no idea. None of our people have occupied any of the inner circle in the mayor’s office or in any of the government proper. The only one of my people close to the center of power in this instance was the lab assistant. He learned what he did almost by accident. Whatever is going on, they want to be sure that it stays in house.”

  “So, it was like that, eh?” To Terry, it meant he was sure to get little help from the local government. They were too busy covering their asses. They, of course, could be trying to keep the public out of the loop. And that could make his job that much harder.

  Like it wasn’t hard enough. Despite his hatred of the FBI, he had to admire their support system. Although, admire was, perhaps, the wrong word. It was more like envied it. Out here, he was on his own except for Charlie. And as far as physical help, well…

  Mir was still talking through the connection with Charlie. And the tone of it told Terry this was definitely the worst of it.