Primal Scream (13 page)

Female of the Species

Preparing for his flight north tomorrow morning, Zinc Chandler was packing his bag in the master bedroom of the house he shared with Alexis Hunt, a gingerbread two-story one street from the beach on Kitsilano Point, when Alex's voice behind him said, "A penny for your thoughts?"

His back to her, he answered, "I'm thinking of a discussion I had with Kathy Spann. Is the female of our species deadlier than the male?"

He turned to find Alex Hunt leaning naked against the doorframe, inner hand behind her head piling Bardot-blond hair up in a sexy mess, outer hand crooked to her hip as she pouted provocatively at him and replied, "You bet."

"God," he muttered.

"God won't help you, Zinc. He helps those who help themselves, and since we don't know how long you'll be up north at Totem Lake, I'm helping myself to you."

She crossed to him and with both hands ripped his shirt open to the navel.

"Do you know what a shirt costs?"

"I'll buy you a new one. I'm in the equivalent of a bodice-ripping mood."

"God's a He?" Zinc said, quivering as roving hands tweaked his nipples.

"He, She, I'm agnostic, so it doesn't matter. But if there's a God, I may burn in hell for what I'm going to do to you."

Pushing him back on the bed, she came at him like the lioness in the story he'd told Spann, licking his lips and going for his throat and tearing his clothes from his body, until he was as naked and as randy as she. Then Alex straddled him with a lustful growl and impaled herself. Thrust for thrust and bite for bite, their coupling was as feral as the warden's life-and-death tussle with the lioness. Both cried out as they came.

In the throes of orgasm, Zinc Chandler thanked his lucky stars for Alex Hunt. They had paired on Deadman's Island during the Ripper case, where they and Katt had somehow survived Agatha Christie's
And Then There Were None
gone horribly awry. After Zinc was stabbed in the back in the Whalers' Washing House and thought to be dead, Alex had nursed him back to life at her home on Cannon Beach. Alex Hunt: American, almost thirty, with eyes the color of tropical lagoons, a fine-boned nose just the right length, and a narrow chin around a most kissable mouth. Alex Hunt: ballerina of a woman in how she moved, artist of a woman in how she dressed, devil of a woman in how she made love. It used to be when Zinc made love he moaned, "I love this." But making love with Alex Hunt, the words that came to him were "I love you."

Panting, they lay on the bed.

"Did Kathy Spann say we females are deadlier than you males?" Alex asked, reviving the subject under discussion before she had so rudely interrupted Zinc. She ran a fingernail down his chest from hickeys sucked on his neck to his post-tumescent groin.

"Yes, because you're naturally superior to us. She said 'female intuition' is cross-brain tapping. Because men have subjugated women since sex began, you evolved further to counter our brute strength. You outthink us, so you're deadlier."

"Statistics prove men are more violent. Testosterone poisons you. But if we're talking
cunning
, that's a different matter."

"You agree with Kathy?"

"To a point. Cunning women subdivide into Amazons and Puppet Masters. Amazons like Kathy Spann and Gill Macbeth storm historical male bastions to better you at your own game. Not only must they do the job to ascend the ladder, but the standard by which they're tested is higher because the judging is biased. Female cunning is how they win."

"Are women who think they outthink us not sexist in attitude?"

"Uh-uh," said Alex. "Only men can be sexist. Look it up."

"Who says? Feminists and third-stage running dogs? Only men can be sexist sounds sexist to me."

Alex closed her teasing hand around his cock. Soon post-tumescence was obsolete.

"Feminism's a euphemism for sexism, Zinc. Our goal isn't equality. It's control. We aim to suppress, not neutralize, sexism in you, and that means women must call the shots. A lot of ground's been conquered since
The Female Eunuch
. Democracy is majority rule, and we outnumber you. It's only a matter of time till Amazons take control."

With her other hand Alex cupped his balls.

"I'm in bed with an Amazon who's out to castrate me?"

Alex chuckled deep in her throat. "I'm no Amazon. I'm a writer, Zinc. Putting words on paper has always been women's work."

Hunt was writing a true-crime series called
Trapdoor Spiders
. She had published
House of Horrors: The Case of H. H. Holmes
and
Deadman's Island: The Case of Skull & Crossbones
. She was at work on
Pandora's Box: The Case of Evil Eye.

"The deadlier females are Puppet Masters. 'Behind every successful man there's a good woman.' 'We know who wears the pants in that relationship.' Men may have repressed us since prehistory began, but strong women have always found ways to pull your strings. Feminism benefits those who don't have what it takes to control men in a 'woman-as-nigger' world. But there are Puppet Masters up to the task."

She played her thumb back and forth across the tip of his cock. Zinc swallowed hard as he quoted Kipling's
verboten
poem:

"And She knows, because She warns him, and Her

    instincts never fail,

That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than

    the Male."

"Brit told me the Mad Dog's getting married," Alex said.

"You're joking. He's the most committed bachelor I know. If the Mad Dog tumbles, what hope is there for me?"

"The Mad Dog's a Neanderthal feminists fear, yet subjugated hooker Brit has him eating out of her palm. She suggested I try this—"

"Jeeesus!" gasped Zinc.

"—on poor unsuspecting you. Brit knows all about the strings that make men jump, strings Puppet Masters have pulled since Adam fell to Eve, like the string I'm using to pull you along. . . .

"Sssssex," she hissed.

And came for him again.

Tip of the Iceberg

Nick Craven had never wanted Gill Macbeth as much as he wanted her now that she was slipping away like an iceberg out to sea.

After the pizza powwow in DeClercq's office, he'd spent this evening with Rusty Lewis in ViCLAS Section gathering up the investigation files on Bron Wren which had led to dangerous sexual offender proceedings against the pedophile twenty-five years ago. North Vancouver Detachment's files were at Headquarters because Wren's recent release from prison had motivated entering him in the ViCLAS database in case he re-offended. It was late by the time Nick lugged copies of the files to his sleet-covered car, slipping and sliding across the lot like a novice on skates.

He knew he should drive home to sleep in his North Vancouver apartment.

He knew if he drove to Gill's West Vancouver house, she might break his heart.

But his was the hope of forlorn lovers everywhere, that the object of his unrequited affection had come to her senses and, as he knocked on the door, would fling it wide with tears in her eyes to embrace him there and then, blubbering what a fool she was to forget how much she loved him.

Nick recalled the hot tub leading to hotter times in Gill's bed.

Love, lust, and yearning seethed in him.

It had to be something in the stars or alignment of the moon that made the men of Special X so satyric of late.

Nick felt if he didn't make love with Gill tonight, he'd go crazy.

So fool that he was, he braved mixed rain, sleet, and snow to slither through Stanley Park and fishtail up and over the hump of Lions Gate Bridge, before Lady Luck took pity on him and offered a West Van sanding truck to follow up Sentinel Hill, where he turned left across the pyramid on Gill's street. Abandoning his car at the curb, he trudged on up the sleeted slope to the iceberg's tip.

Lady Luck forsook him as he rang the bell.

The Gill who answered the door had no tears in her eyes; nor did she embrace him and blubber how foolish she was to forget how much she loved him. Instead, just out of a bath and hair wet and tangled, she clasped her bathrobe by the throat to hide her breasts, frowned at him, sighed, and greeted him: "No."

Nick felt like a fool.

"I was passing . . ." he said, and felt like more of a fool.

"Careful, Gill," Gabby warned from the aviary. "He wants into your pants."

There was a time when Gill would have said, "No need to worry, Gabs. I'm not wearing any," winking at Nick in sexual conspiracy, but tonight she said nothing erotic in answer to the bird, for all flirting had ceased from her side.

"Tell me what's going on, Gill. Then I'll go home to bed. Until it's out in the open, I'll walk the floor at night."

She stood aside to let him in, and closed the door on winter. The chill remained within the hallway of her home.

"Stranger on the farm," Gabby cried out like Paul Revere as they entered the living room.

Nick itched to plug that bird with slugs, but knew this wasn't the moment.

"Drink?" Gill asked.

"No, I'll take it straight. I saw how you looked at DeClercq during the meeting. Does that mean what I suspect?"

"What's that, Nick?"

"You want him over me."

Gill shook her head sadly as she poured a scotch. Tilting up her chin to down a dram, she held the bathrobe so it didn't gape. There was a time when she would have orchestrated surreptitious peeks to drive him wild, but those halcyon days when the lady was a tramp for him were gone.

"What makes you think I want Robert over you? I'm an independent woman, Nick, with an inquisitive brain. I don't need a man to complete me, support me, or tie me down. Didn't I make that clear to you that first night in the tub?"

"You've changed, Gill. Since we lost the baby when the ship sank. You blame me because of who planted the bomb."

"
You
changed the rules for us, not me, Nick. I was perfectly happy fucking with you all night, until
you
decided you wanted to possess me exclusively for yourself."

"I'm in love with you, Gill."

"I didn't ask for love. Falling in lust was enough for me."

"You were having my baby."

"That doesn't equate with love. I wanted a child as a mother, not as a wife. And now my biological clock has stopped."

"You just wanted my body."

"Nicholas . . ." Gill scoffed.

"Don't call me Nicholas. Mom called me that when she thought I was a silly boy."

"Nicholas," Gill repeated. "Of all the lovers I've had, you're the best. If you were content to fuck me, you could fuck me forever. It's sweet that you read and listened to classics for me, but the attraction Robert holds is he delves into classics for himself. Life is a smorgasbord. Only those afraid to live limit themselves to beans on toast."

"You think I'm beans on toast?"

Gill exhaled. "I think it's unfair for you to try to smother me as a person after I was forthright with you from the start. If you're prepared to accept my rules, we'll work something out."

"Sorry, but I won't be any woman's stud."

A flash of anger lit Gill's eyes. "That's not the tune you've played in my bed. I'm not stupid, Nicholas. You came here hoping to fuck me tonight. Be honest with yourself."

"Good night, Gill. I'll see myself out."

"Lock the doors," Gabby cried as the front door slammed behind him.

Nick felt like a fucking fool standing there in the cold, for Gill was right, he had come by hoping to fuck her. In fact, he wanted to stomp back in and fuck her now, except his fucking wasn't fucking, it was making love, dammit.

If she didn't want to make love with him, he would not fuck her.

Fuck me
, he sighed.

And went home to walk a creaky hardwood floor over her.

West Vancouver and North Vancouver are the suburbs of this city which spread side by side up the slopes of the North Shore peaks across English Bay and Burrard Inlet from the downtown core. Dividing bay from inlet is the peninsula of Stanley Park, separated at its tip from the North Shore Mountains by the sea lane of First Narrows, which ebbs and flows under Lions Gate Bridge. From West Vancouver, Nick drove east to reach his home in North Vancouver, so go figure.

Perhaps when he charted these waters back in 1792, the compass on Captain Vancouver's ship, the Discovery, didn't work?

Whatever the reason and despite the weather, Nick made it home.

He parked the car on Lonsdale, once the skid road that slid logs down Grouse Mountain to the inlet below, but tonight a skid road that slid hapless cars, where he climbed out, burdened with files, in front of Paine Hardware. A sign in the window read HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES SOLD HERE, While the plank floor with sliding ladders and tiers of boxes selling individual nails and screws had resisted modern merchandising since 1906. The other shops on the block were retro, too: art and antique galleries, costume rentals, comics collectibles behind a poster for the ALL-NEW X-MEN on a door, and the Salvation Army thrift store. A two-story walk-up on the corner with an onion cupola flying the maple leaf housed two stores at street level. In the window of the shop with fishing tackle and outdoor wear was a T-shirt advising THE WAY TO A MAN'S HEART IS THROUGH HIS FLY. To Bean Or Not To Bean was the other store. A sign inside (outside during market hours) asked passersby is THAT THE QUESTION? while aromas of aged Sumatra and Arabian Mocha Java lured them in. Around the corner and off the side street was a back stairway that ascended to Nick's apartment.

Up he labored with the Bron Wren files.

It was dark and cold inside. He switched on lights and turned up the heat, then carried the files down the hall past the kitchen and bathroom to the studio lodged in the cupola. Driven by a banshee wind wailing around the dome, sleet mushed against the windows like rotten fruit hurled by a disgruntled mob. Unburdening himself of files, Nick circled the cupola to draw the drapes. The north windows gazed up Lonsdale to the Grouse Nest crowning the craggy peak. The west ones looked back at Gill's house on Sentinel Hill and across the Pacific to the Orient. The view south commanded Lower Lonsdale and the harbor beyond, across which city lights were snuffed as sleet froze to snow.

Flotsam and jetsam from the wreckage of Nick's life surrounded him. In the corner where the sofa pulled out to form his bed hung pictures that trumpeted Cravens in Red Serge. John Craven comforting Wolfe hi 1759 as the general lay dying on the Plains of Abraham, having just won Quebec from the French. William Craven beside the Iron Duke at Waterloo, after smashing Napoleon's army for good. Rex Craven defending the African outpost of Rorke's Drift in 1879, for which the queen had awarded him the Victoria Cross. Mountie Ted Craven in the "Wagon Wheel" formation of the Musical Ride; and Nick Craven, a few years back, saluting Queen Elizabeth in a color guard. A thin red line through history that had served to anchor him, until Zinc's return from Africa with what he gleaned from the mercenary on Crocodile Island had cut Nick adrift.

SOS
, he thought.

The rock that set him floundering was his mother's death, a brutal bludgeoning at the hands of a psychotic revenant. On the sofa sat his teddy bear, sewed by his mom when he was born, and loved to rags by an insecure, fatherless boy. But for tufts the fur was gone from its threadbare head, while bits of strawlike stuffing stuck through holes not patched with yarn. Both glass eyes retained an intelligent stare, and minus a black strand or two a nose still tipped its snout, but under the baby blanket wrapped around its body and cinched beneath its chin, the bear had less substance than an anorexic chicken.

Battered and abandoned, the way Nick felt tonight, he
was
his teddy bear.

Elvis
, he thought.

The reef that threatened to sink him to the bottom of the sea was Gill Macbeth. There on the table beside the sofa was a photograph of them taken moments before they boarded the cruise ship for that fateful ball and prophetic sinking
. Damn,
thought Nick.
We were happy. What went wrong to turn my life into such a miserable mess . . . ?

Then he spotted the album.

Under the Wren files.

All those innocent faces.

Innocents lost.

Kids buggered, raped, and God knows what by Wren, so their fractured psyches would never be whole again, no matter how often the cracks were glued and the fault lines covered over.

He'd had a loving mother.

He was never abused.

And his childhood was idyllic in a way that would never be again.

When Nick was growing up in Port Coquitlam, twelve miles up the Fraser River Valley as the crow flies from here, his mom had let him loose each day to wander far and wide, loose to storm the Alamo that was Mary Hill, loose to wade the river marshes of Colony Farm, loose to do whatever boys did until hunger pulled them home. She didn't worry about mo-lesters and pedophiles, since those weren't words in her vocabulary, as boys had been free to be knights-errant like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn since the Dark Ages.

My, how times had changed.

The New Dark Ages.

Now every paper seemed full of news about orphan boys buggered by priests and girls raped by fathers. Of pedophiles in schools and Scouts and day cares and Big Brothers. Of sexual memories repressed from childhood thrown up years later. Of kids killing kids from child abuse when they couldn't wait until adulthood to spawn into serial killers.

The truth was, tunes hadn't changed.

Just the reporting.

For there had always been predators loose in the land, but back when you didn't talk of such things they didn't go on, back when Reverend Noel was a pillar of the church, and Bron Wren was that nice man down the street with candy for every kid, back when Nick's mom slept at night secure in ignorance of the fact her gallivanting son didn't lose a lock of hair to Wren's fetish album simply because he had yet to be snipped in the lottery of fate.

There had always been sex.

So there had always been perverts.

As Huxley put it:
The higher and more advanced the civilization, the more perverted the sex.

Every cop and criminal lawyer knew that only too well.

For what separates the "normal" man from Jack the Ripper is a question of degree.

We all want sex of some sort.

And get it as we can.

Suddenly Nick was ashamed of himself for all his "poor me." How was he poor compared to the damage done to these kids? If he was cut loose from his anchor, at least it had secured him in his formative years. If he had lost a loving mom, at least he'd had her love. If Gill didn't want him, he couldn't change that, but what was the quote his mom kept taped to the fridge:
Give me grace to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to distinguish one from the other
? The rumor was, Katherine Spann had been promoted to inspector, and that meant he might change his own rank from corporal to her vacated position of sergeant at Special X if he could solve the riddle of Wren's shrunken head.

So while the banshee wind howled and snow hushed the city, Nick poured himself the drink he had declined at Gill's and called for a loyal toast from the Members surrounding him.

Nick's mom had been a pack rat. A comber of garage sales. Whose house was cluttered with collections of golden-age dolls, cartoon watches, brass buttons, board games, puppets, etc. For her son she had amassed such memorabilia as Mickey Mouse, Garfield, Barbie, and Cabbage Patch dolls in Red Serge; and posters from cheesy Mountie movies like those Spann had pooh-poohed in the plane with Dodd: Edison's
Riders of the Plains
in 1910, a Mountie drinking in a brothel in
Tyrant Fear
, not a rare occurrence judging from diseases reported in early Force records, a dishonorably discharged Member running a gantlet of officers lashing him with Sam Brownes in
McKenna of the Mounted
, and Kirby Grant in full review order of dress paddling a canoe in
Yukon Manhunt
. When it came to myth and marketing, it was hard to tell if Mounties' faces turned redder than their scarlet tunics from embarrassment or anger. Thanks to Mom, every nook and cranny in Nick's studio was a miniature museum full of Mountie kitsch.