Extreme Instinct

TWO

Feydor Dorphmann had kept the woman sedated enough so that she was no trouble. She tossed and blubbered and talked to herself, but this did not bother him, so long as she did not scream.

Still, Feydor was upset. Things were not going as well as planned, nothing as neat and tidy as imagination.

"Might've expected as much," he muttered to himself. Why had Dr. Coran delayed her flight to Vegas? Was she coming at all, or had she postponed altogether? He replayed the events of the day in his head, wondering what he might tell an angry Satan when next they met.

The newspaper account of the day before had told him where Satan's target would be, at the Flamingo Hilton. Satan told him how to position himself. What to do, precisely what tools and instruments he required, each step of the way, each step to take, every detail, down to making a list, and precisely how to make contact with Dr. Jessica Coran. It had been Satan who'd revealed to Feydor whom he must destroy, and that in the destroying, he must kill six of lesser importance to get to the seventh most important of Satan's chosen.

Feydor, of course, like many Americans, knew of Dr. Coran. He'd read widely the accounts in newspapers across the country of her battles with such notorious serial killers as Mad Matthew Matisak and that freak on a boat in Florida they'd called the Night Crawler. He knew of how she'd dispatched a ruthless killer in Hawaii and another in New Orleans. Who didn't know the name of Dr. Jessica Coran, the FBI's most valued forensic detective? It just never in a million years would have occurred to him that one day he would be directed by the potentate of Hades to pursue and destroy this woman.

Feydor also knew that men whom society termed ''monsters" were in fact extensions of Satan on earth, that Jessica Coran prided herself on hunting down and destroying such monsters, and that now he himself was the next such extension, but that he was being given a special opportunity, unlike all those who came before him, to free himself of Satan's terrible grip, the inviolable hold over his mind and body.

"If I cooperate," he said again and again in a mantra to himself, ''if I cooperate with Lucifer, then later… later, after Satan satisfies himself over Coran, then Feydor Dorphmann-after all these years of being afflicted by Satan- can go back to being an ordinary man to lead an ordinary, healthy life and find redemption in Christ and the church."

It made sense. It made perfectly sound sense.

The young woman tied to the bed squirmed on hearing the mad rantings of her abductor. He saw her discomfort and shook his head wildly, trying to explain, saying, "It's true. It's the deal we struck… the deal I struck with the Evil One."

He could hardly afford the hotel room, but the girl was different. Her purse was stuffed full with hundred-dollar bills and credit cards. She had already covered the cost of the Hilton. Oddly, however, according to papers she had folded and pushed into her purse, she had registered under an assumed name, or at least one that read differently from her credit card. While her credit card name was Chris Lorentian, she was traveling under an alias, Chris Dunlap, a fact that caused some mild curiosity in him but not so much as to dissuade his actions. And with previous arrangements made at the hotel using the name Chris Dunlap, he'd had no problem getting the room card key.

After tying the woman's hands and feet, he'd gone down to the desk to be seen and recognized, although the makeup and wig he wore would keep the game interesting. He told the desk clerk that Chris Dunlap was his wife, and that she was already at the slot machines, unable to control her gambling fever, so he needed a second key. The desk clerk, seeing that he already had one card key to 1713, didn't question him but simply handed over a second key. He had smiled and laughed with the cute little clerk behind the counter over the fact his wife had discovered that she had gambling fever. Meanwhile, Feydor gave the clerk ample time to eyeball his rash, a bad one having cropped up on his neck and chest.

"She also likes her sex rough and tumble," he said with a boyish grin, a proud little shrug of the shoulders.

The clerk remarked on how interesting that all was, when in fact she felt nothing but revulsion. The clerk stared at his hair and remarked, "It's the brightest red I've ever seen except maybe for the actor David Caruso."

She was lying. She didn't like his hair any more than she liked his rash or his crude comments, but that was okay. She would remember him, and he wanted her to remember the "fireman" and his red hair and his red rash, because he wanted to be noticed.

He meant to sprinkle seeds of bait for Coran to come to him, just as he'd read about in her famous case involving Mad Matthew Matisak in his failed quest to kill her. Satan had a real liking for this Dr. Coran.

The red rash was real, but Feydor's true hair color was actually a mahogany brown.

"I'll call a bellhop for your bags, then, sir," the desk clerk had said.

"No, not necessary," he said, putting up a hand to her, and with the other hand he displayed his only bag, a briefcase, Samsonite with large clasps on either side. "Wife's bags are still in the car, and I can pick them up later," he had quickly added.

The clerk again smiled, but she seemed a bit perplexed with him by this point.

Later, he'd gone out to the car in the lot, hustled the girl named Lorentian, alias Dunlap, from the trunk of her car, and ushered her through a back entryway he'd located. Anyone seeing them might think her drunk but otherwise okay. The drug had kept her still and silent, and the oven-like conditions in the trunk had done the rest, wilting her and her hair. She had perspired so badly in the trunk that she now smelled like a pig.

Satan had said to him, "How she smells matters little, not where she's going." Then the thunderous roar of his insane laughter filled Feydor's brain like an inky black splotch.

After securing her to the bed, Feydor had returned for her baggage. In the backseat of the car he had rifled through her carry-on and found a bus ticket made out to Chris Dunlap. Nothing else of consequence or use was found in the carry-on, so he decided to leave it and simply hold on to the big suitcase. There might be some other treasures in these he could use later.

Satan had called Feydor to the desert, away from home in San Francisco, called him here to Vegas and had told him to wait here until he should be called on to do the Devil's bidding. Satan told him that eventually he would end the game at the Devil's Well, that he would see both Feydor and Dr. Jessica Coran at the Devil's Well, but that he must be patient to get to this place, which Feydor had seen once as a child. And so he had waited with intermittent visits from Satan's army of familiars, ranging in age and form and ability to deliver pain, all coming just to tell him to wait longer.

It had been nearly three months now, living out of Dumpsters, panhandling for coffee and bread until finally the time had come. He knew it a few days before when he'd picked up the Vegas paper that carried the story of the gathering of the Forensic Science Association of America and the Medical Examiners Association meeting at the Flamingo Hilton. It carried only a line or two about Dr. Jessica Coran, singling her out due to her reputation earned through a series of daring FBI cases she had cracked. He, of course, remembered her from previous newspapers, TV interviews, and nationwide manhunts, and this sudden revelation filled his brain to overflowing. The image of her on the spoiled page he'd held up that day was enough! It clearly told Feydor who it was that Satan had left him sitting around here and starving here and waiting here for.

Only after having stripped Chris where she lay on the bed, hands and feet tied, her eyes fixed and dilated, a gag in her mouth, her clothes stuffed in around her there on the bed, his privates aroused, did he telephone down to the front desk and politely ask after Jessica Coran.

"I'm calling about a colleague, a Dr. Jessica Coran. Has she checked in yet?"

"One moment, sir, and I'll see if I can verify that for you.."

Even the brief wait was damnably long after so long a delay getting this close to a closure for Feydor, and the Lorentian woman was moaning like a drugged Siamese cat now, a bit loudly. Someone walking by might hear her. He checked the gag, tugged on her bindings at hands and feet, to be prudent. He'd tied her with a cheap belt and tie he'd brought for the purpose. He wore surgical gloves, not wishing to leave any prints.

"Sorry, sir…" muttered the clerk into the phone. "I'm afraid that Dr. Coran has not yet arrived, but our records show that she has made reservations and is expected."

"Expected when?"

"We can't precisely say, sir, but her room has been guaranteed for late arrival."

A glance at the clock radio on the bedside table told Feydor it was nearing six thirty-five. Again, the woman on the bed painfully, mournfully moaned, her legs kicking out as if a bad dream were chasing her.

The clerk, hearing the moan, asked, "Is everything else all right, sir?"

"Yes, yes… thank you," he told the clerk and hung up.

He removed the handkerchief gag from the woman's mouth to allow her to breathe easily. The gag no doubt had his prints on it from earlier touching, but this mattered not. The fire would obliterate any hint of it.

He had earlier laid open the Samsonite bag he'd carried to the room, and he began preparations, laying out all the tools he'd brought in his case. Lifting a Polaroid Instamatic camera, he took a before shot and mumbled, "The right tool for the right job."

The sight through the camera lens gave him a slight rise in the heat of his body, the red returning, a volcanic, liquid fire below the epidermis. His penis hardened but little, semen stirring slightly, sluggishly with his blood, but that part must await the burning flesh as promised by Satan, his reward.

It was a feeling he had not had in many, many years, not since childhood. He knew now that the Antichrist had likely spawned him, fed a fiery liquid mush to him as a child, coddled and nurtured him. That it had been Satan in his head all those times he'd burned things both inanimate and animate. A bit of fear along with anticipation and remorse rose in him along with his sexual organ.

After having been caught and punished many times, young Feydor had simply stopped burning things when he became older. The consequences were too great, the suffering at the hand of his earthly father too much. He'd become interested in psychology and psychiatry largely to understand himself. In college and graduate school, he'd excelled and had come out a practicing psychiatrist, believing he now could control the fire that raged within. He'd practiced medicine for only three years when the voices inside him began. It was the voices of the phantoms behind the irises of his eyes. Next came the years of hospitalization and treatments, all amounting to nothing. No one could help him. Not even Wetherbine.

No one until now…

Satan would be angry with him if Coran was a no-show.

He tried to shake off the fear that Satan would punish him, but a sense of dread overwhelmed as he pictured the spread of the red rash to all parts of his body and brain.

It wouldn't matter to Satan that it wasn't his fault that Coran hadn't arrived. Wouldn't matter if she canceled and was a no-show. The punishment would be the same. It didn't matter that it wasn't his fault.

He busied himself with the materials he'd brought for the occasion. Wasting no more time, he dug around for the screwdriver, located it, and laid it on the dresser alongside the pint-sized can of petroleum he'd brought, and beside this, the small canister of butane with its praying mantis-like wand. The torch would set off the fire instantly and quickly, and it would be over, and Feydor would once again feel some relief from his demons, and he'd be a step closer on the journey, saving his soul from the everlasting tortures already assaulting him.

As for the girl… he truly didn't want to think about the girl, but Satan had selected her, not him; and he had said she was a traitor, and so punishment must be meted out. And if not her, it would be Feydor branded as a traitor and someone would come after him with petrol and butane and a plan that would return him to the Devil's Well…

The hotel was jam-packed with not only forensics experts but also two other conventions going on simultaneously. The hallways were littered with men in hats and name tags. On the elevator going up, Jessica gave a thought to the Forensic Science Association of America, the FSAA. She'd been a member for nearly twenty years and had never actively participated as a board member, nor did she wish to now. She wondered how people as busy as she could possibly find the time to be treasurer or secretary or to steer such a cumbersome organization down a direct path to such a thing as a successful convention. She believed there was no more cursed a thing on earth than the possibility that someone would ask her to direct a committee of forensic people to organize such an extravaganza. Obviously, now, she had gotten what she deserved. Some committee of her peers had decided that Vegas, of all places, would make for a great place to hold their annual convention. Like complaining over an election when she hadn't voted, she had no right; she had gotten precisely what she and the other hands-off members deserved, because she had not gotten involved.

But now that she was here, she would make the best of it, she scolded herself.

When she settled into her room atop the Flamingo Hilton, Jessica did as always when entering a hotel room. She immediately turned on the air-conditioning unit, flooding the place with as much cool air as possible, and she tore back the drapes over the window to take in the full view of the city from atop the skyscraper. She felt as if she were a mile above the city, overlooking the busy, frenetic world that money and gambling had built, this modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.

The entire city paid homage to P. T. Barnum's famous line "There's a sucker born every minute." Watching the comings and goings of the air traffic, Jessica said aloud to the now winking lights of the city, ''And the airline industry would add, 'a sucker flown in every minute…' "

Barnum would be on his knees at this altar, his eyes welling with tears, his wildest schemes eclipsed by this town. It was a city where Mafia gambling was not only tolerated but also how the city got its payroll. It gave her pause, recalling poor little Grand Cayman and its graft problems, so inconsequential to this.

Vegas was gambling's greatest temple, the world's largest roulette wheel, and perhaps that was its greatest appeal-the fact that it imitated life as most people felt it, knew it, believed it to be: a boundlessly huge, universal gamble.

The gamble might one day pay off; in the meantime, you kept coming back to drink of it, always hoping that one day your "luck" would change before life simply crushed you. The gamble might be fun in and of itself, but no one was getting out of the game alive. Consequently, the more dangerous, the higher the stakes, the more the payoff in feeling for those otherwise dead nerve endings; the higher the stakes, the deeper the fall, the pain, the suffering when you lost your gamble with relationships, with life.

Cars, trucks, moving vans, trains on tracks-industry was moving far below her now where she stood, all those working machines and people twenty stories below her. She wondered how many, at the end of the day, blew their hard-earned cash at the massive casino downstairs, which filled a football-field-sized lobby with wildly flashing Christmas tree colored lights, slots, and gambling tables.

Jessica turned from the window, inspected the place where she intended living for two nights. She'd best unpack, hang out her things, especially what she intended to wear tonight, and ready herself for a shower. As she did so, she found her thoughts returning to life's ever-changing game of chance.

In her line of work, gambling often meant taunting death itself, and while she had been lucky on many occasions, Jessica believed in luck only insofar as she could control it, make it work for her, create it by action and deed. In her worldview, there was no such thing as some entity called Luck sitting out there like a Rumpelstiltskin to be tapped into, or to fall in debt to. Chance, coincidence, the roll of the dice all occurred independent of personality and action, just as one molecule chanced into another. But when a person put faith and self-reliance and confidence on the line to assert herself, she became lucky-lucky even to be around.

It wasn't luck that befell any hapless one. This regardless of the housewife who steps into a 7-Eleven, purchases a ticket, and wins the lottery. There was no luck involved, only random chance. Jessica believed luck to be a conscious lifestyle, a choice.

She finished her unpacking and checked the time: six-forty. Still a good hour remaining before the registration and reception downstairs. She returned to the window and stared out beyond the Strip to the gorgeous, fire-red mountains in the distance.

On the plane and on their way in from the airport, she and J. T. had seen how the city sprawled and crept like an octopus from this central crown, how an entire world of schools, hospitals, malls, neighborhoods, housing developments, and suburban areas now filtering into neighboring valleys and snuggling amid the outlying mountain ranges had grown up around Bugsy Segal's Flamingo Club. Here, as in any city in the United States, there were buildings given over to governmental affairs and offices, politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and "normal" people leading "straight" lives but whose jobs, while on the surface independent of both the casino trade and the tourism industry, were inextricably entwined with these trades. For underlying every brick of public improvement, every referendum, every move made, if you were a Vegas homeowner, franchise owner, doughnut salesman, or car mechanic, gambling was not only in your face, it also represented the elixir-as important as water-that kept this town alive amid a desert. Gambling purchased and brought in more electrical power and water than any city in the United States, and here, in the midst of one of the driest deserts on earth, every man, woman, and child had more water to waste on their lawns, cars, and themselves than any other place on the planet-all due to the mighty dollar and the thing that brought it here, greed and a healthy dislike for laws that attempted to legislate against human nature and addiction.

Jessica's mind's eye took in the cityscape, the shapes and the florid lights, and it said to her, "This is a city created on the premise that if you are artful and a dodger, if you can play exquisitely well on the weaknesses of the human animal, then you can become rich beyond all reason, and if you can convince those you are fleecing that they are having a good time in the bargain, then all the better. It is a city where the hotelier puts you up for a price, allows you to gamble within his walls, to shovel over any funds you'd like for the privilege, feeds you at a price then and there, and finally offers you a grand Broadway-style musical or revue, again for a hefty sum, all under one roof. A thing of beauty for those in control, and the house never loses, for even when it might lose, like some pagan god, it wins on…"

In fact, there was nothing in Vegas that didn't carry a, price tag, but millions of Americans a year were convinced that anything in Vegas was worth its price, including the fun of losing.

Cabbies depended on the good graces of those whom they carted between gaming tables and big-ticket shows. And gambling table people depended equally on tips. No one working in Vegas at such jobs was making a killing; most were barely eking out a living, in fact. Neither showgirls nor hotel clerks, hairdressers nor prostitutes, were paid well. It was a right-to-work state-no unions; those who lived and worked in Vegas did so at the mercy of employers, and there was always someone waiting in the wings, anxious for your job.

Jessica kicked away her shoes. She continued to undress, trying to get the dust of this evolving city off of her, and trying to get its problems out of her head. But even as she tried, her concerns beat an anthem in her brain.

Beneath the surface of the blinding neon rivers over which she again looked, of light-fed mosaics and facades, she saw the poverty-stricken and the homeless out there, while inside this hotel everyone else fed the slots. This fantasy-world denial of so much misery even beneath the flood of light and golden crowns, silver columns, rainbow arches, pink pinnacles, and onyx pyramids simply bothered Jessica to no end.

And it was to no end that she worried about such matters. Nothing short of a new species of Homo erectus would ever change people, and any attempt to legislate smoking, drinking, or gambling or drugs-what people loved-was doomed to failure, even in the face of facts such as those telling people about the connection between heart disease and cigarettes, about black lung, or that more than half of all vehicular fatalities came about by drugs or drinking and driving. Gambling, even if it was with their children's lives at stake, in one form or another, existed in every state, in every household, in every life. People gambled with the rent money in D.C., with their brains on drugs in Chicago, with the last vestige of clothing on their backs in Seattle.

The U.S. government couldn't do a damn thing about such people, and had in fact sanctioned preying on the weak, the deluded, and the poor with its own brand of gambling. State governments had long since bought into lotteries to raise revenues, doing exactly what Bugsy Segal and every gangster since him had done, preying on weakness. What man or government could stand in the way of progress? And who or what could stem the tide of human ignorance, with its underlying cousin, avarice, and sister, poverty, and brother, powerlessness?

Like pornography, it all fell under that umbrella catch-phrase that Jessica saw as a ridiculous oxymoron, adult entertainment. Yet here was an entire, brazen city dependent on all of this. If it existed anywhere else in the world, Americans would scream out for an air strike against the immorality of it all. But here it was king, and it was proud; the most famous monument to gambling, greed, and so-called adult entertainment ever known to man, sprawled across the desert landscape like some giant Babylonian whore.

Maybe she was getting too moralistic in her old age, she gibed herself. Maybe J. T. was right; maybe she should lighten up, if only she could.

It still seemed an odd place for a scientific gathering of the minds, with or without her moralizing. Certainly it was the last place on earth she would have placed a convention of her peers, but the Forensic Science Association of America wasn't always gifted with precognition or simple foresight, and like any cross section of America, it was not without its share of gamblers, drinkers, druggies, and womanizers.

She now located and unlocked the dry bar and sampled a wee bottle of wine, which she sipped from a plastic cup. She then returned to the window again, standing there in her bra, her alone time fleeting. She again located her best evening gown, which she intended to wear tonight at the reception, and upset with the fold lines still clinging to it, she took it into the bathroom and hung it on the door. A hot shower would do both her and the dress some good, she reasoned. Half undressed for her shower, she was startled by her ringing telephone.

Jim, she wondered, hoped, her heart leaping.

Who else knows I'm here? she silently asked on the second ring, making her way toward the phone. Or was it J. T. already calling her to go downstairs? She'd asked for a little time, some privacy. On the third ring, she lifted the receiver.

"Yes?"

"Is… is'sis Doc-tor… Doctor Jess-i-ca Cccor-Coran?"

"Yes, it is. Can I help you?" She didn't know the strident, panting female voice on the other end. The caller sounded tearful, as if she must choke out every word.

"Doctor… I… I'm suppose' to tell you… tell you.." The woman sounded as if she were on something, every word labored.

"Yes?" Damn it, girl, Jessica thought, spit it out.

"… my name."

"Please do." Was she dealing with a child?

"It's… it's… C–Chris…"

"Chris? Chris who?" She didn't know anyone by the name.

Gasping as if unable to breathe, whimpering as if hurt, the girl's voice replied, "Lor-en-tian."

"I'm sorry, but I-"

"Gotta help me… Stinks like hell…"

"I don't know you or anyone named Lor… Loren-tian?" It sounded like a stage name. "Are you hurt? In some sort of trouble? Are you trying to reach your parents?' ' Jessica wondered how this Chris person had gotten her name and number, what the stranger wanted, even as she wondered at the girl's age, if she were a runaway. But why had she dialed Jessica? She'd asked for Jessica by name, and now Jessica grew impatient at the silence on the other end, unhappy that she was getting no answers to her questions.

"He's taken my clothes off… going to… to kill me."

"Who, Chris? Give me a name. Who're you talking-"

"Tied me… to the bed…"

"Where are you? Tell me where!"

"Doused gasoline all over me… go… go… going to burn me!"

Suddenly there was no more.

''Hello, hello?'' Jessica asked.

But she got no answer. All that Jessica heard now on the other end was a garbled, keening sound, the noise of a wholly frightened animal. Then came a scream, which was immediately followed by a sudden violent whoosh of what sounded like forced air, a soft explosion, intermingled with a strangled cry of excruciating pain; then followed the crackling roar of what sounded like a raging fire. The fiery sound was mixed with female screams, and simultaneously a cackling laugh, deep and throaty, seemingly male.

"What the hell's going on there?" she shouted into the receiver.

And the line went dead. The dial tone like a death knell.

Jessica stared at the receiver for a moment, wondering what in hell it had all been for, wondering if some of the raunchier forensics men in the ''club'' might not have gotten together to pull a prank call on her, thinking her an easy target, gullible. Oleander, Mac, any one of them could easily have gotten her number simply by checking with the desk. Some of those old whiskered grunts were not above it, scientific standing and professional bearing notwithstanding.

Hell, her mind raced, the lot of them were always anxious to break the tedium of their profession with anything that might relieve stress, anything that smacked of fun, and by far, the worst of the bunch was Karl Repasi, but he had his cronies, too, and he was quite the persuasive bastard, easily convincing younger colleagues into participating in such pranks.

He'd obviously gotten help from a woman, too. One of Jessica's own female colleagues, of whom there were a surprising number, or had he roped some poor room attendant or barmaid into his little hoax? Great sound effects, though, she concluded.

She'd find out soon enough, she reasoned, imagining their smirks when she entered the reception downstairs. For now, a quick shower was called for. Maybe the steam would clear her mind and relieve some of her pent-up hostilities, and it might help to uncrease the wrinkles in her gown.

But only now did she realize that she still clutched the receiver so tightly in her hand as to make her knuckles white. Gasping, she placed the receiver in its cradle.

She wondered if she'd be as angry with Las Vegas if Jim were here beside her.

Still, the call, the genuine nature of the horrid cries of the voice calling itself Chris… it all seemed so real and unrehearsed. Then again, if an actress had been hired, then why not? she told herself. But suppose it had been real? her mind nagged.

She dialed the desk operator, identified herself as an M.E. with the convention and as a guest of the house, giving her room number, 2017, and adding, "Did the phone call I just received-did it originate from outside or inside the hotel?"

"It was from a house phone, Dr. Coran."

She smiled. "Repasi," she muttered.

"Pardon?" asked the desk clerk.

"Never mind."

The clerk then interrupted her, saying, "I'm sorry, that call originated from another room, Dr. Coran."

"What room?"

''Seventeen thirteen, Dr. Coran. Below you. Would you like me to call them back?''

"Yes, please." She decided to cut short Repasi's little fun.

But the number continued to ring, unattended. An automatic tumbler clicked in and a too-pleasant, syrupy female voice asked, "If you would care to leave a message for the current occupant, please do so at the sound of the tone."

The tone came and she felt foolish. What sort of message should she leave? She wasn't even sure it was Karl Repasi. There were plenty of others who might have cooked up this little scenario. "This is Jessica Coran," she finally said, "and I just want you to know that your joke's as little as your penile extremities, gentlemen!"

The moment she hung up, she regretted stooping to their level, becoming the thing she hated. Still, it felt good to jab back, and she was, after all, only human.

What did they expect her response to be? To telephone the Las Vegas Police Department? There a desk sergeant would take her complaint, and one of the boys would contact the sergeant for a copy of the complaint, which would be read at one of the sessions to a screaming, howling bunch of sawbones. Jessica would bear the brunt of the joke, along with the FBI, and her description of the "crime" her ears had witnessed would be recounted. This followed by colleagues, wiping tears from their eyes, staggering to her table to thank her for all the laughs while politely, civilly enjoying their stress-reducing weekend.

They'd get the biggest laugh when Karl Repasi role-played the sergeant at the desk, saying, "Okay, so what do you want us to do about it?"

"Trace the call. Determine its origin. Something of that nature might be in order," another would respond, playing Jessica's part.

"We'll look into it, Dr. Coran. Enjoy your stay in Vegas.. Don't drop too much at the tables," Karl would finish with a flurry.

"Well, to hell with that," she told herself, pleased now that she had put the kibosh on the hoax. She now urgently sought out the refuge of a hot shower, anticipating the relaxing spray.

When she stepped from the shower not ten minutes later, she heard an assortment of noises outside her door and up and down the hallway. The circus was in town. It sounded like conventioneer central. One of the other conventions in conference here was a rowdy bunch of Michelin Tire Corporation reps from all over the country. Whoever these characters were rampaging about in the hallway, they sounded like they meant to get their party's worth.

Still, in the thick terry-cloth robe she'd bought while in Hawaii some years before, Jessica was startled when someone banged bearlike on her door, screaming something unintelligible from the other side. She wondered if it were Karl and his crew, disappointed at her earlier lack of response, but a look through the peephole revealed a stranger mouthing the words, "Fire! Fire in the building! Get out!"