by Diane Duane
* * *
WITHOUT looking away, Fischer beckoned over his shoulder. One of his men, a slighter version of himself, materialized at his elbow. “Get Dugan and Geraldo. Tell them to get a boat and keep an eye on him. I want to make sure that what went wrong last time doesn’t happen again.”
“Who’s on the remote?”
“You take it.”
“You want us to do anything while he’s—out?”
Fischer considered, then shook his head. “No. He’s been a little visible this week already. Let things quiet down. Then next week, if he’s still here—” he smiled slightly “—we’ll knock off one of the convenience stores in Ochopee. Go on.”
The man went, and Fischer leaned there on his tree, pulled out a cigarette, tapped it against the trunk, then put it in his face and lit up, waiting for the roar.
SIX
THE next afternoon, Peter returned to Miami from Boca Raton, where he had spent the evening with MJ, and spent a long time reassuring her about what he had been up to. Or trying to, anyway; where Venom came in, she was difficult to reassure.
“I don’t really like the idea of you and Venom even being in the same state,” she had said as they prepared for bed.
“If I find him,” Peter said as he got in beside her, “he won’t be in the same state for long. I intend to pound him flat and dump him on the police and get him out of my way. I’ve got other things to think about just now.”
MJ laughed, even though it had an uneasy sound. “Nice trick if you can do it,” she said. “It’s just… You know me. I worry.”
“You do. And usually over nothing.”
“Not over nothing,” MJ said. “Venom is a legitimate problem.”
“I guess so. But tell me how the shoot is going,” Peter said.
MJ laughed at him. “Don’t be changing the subject or anything. Tiger.” Her smile went wry. “But I have to admit, this isn’t going the way I’d hoped. The director… He’s not exactly psychotic, but I’m going to be very glad when this job is over.”
Oh dear, Peter thought. That bad.
“He really just doesn’t know what to do. I think that’s part of the problem. He seems to have a lot of trouble making up his mind. The minute he hears any suggestion from somebody else, he takes it. Even if his first idea was better. It’s making a complete shambles of the shoot.”
“Well,” Peter said, “stick it out as best you can. But if you really can’t work with this guy, you should leave.”
“No,” MJ said. “I went out to bring home this bacon, I went out for it on purpose, and I’m not coming back without the whole pig.”
“You have the soul of a poet,” Peter said.
“I’m modest, too. And gorgeous.”
“Gorgeous I could have told you about. But you should try to keep from killing the director.”
“Someone else may beat me to it. He’s got more than one way to drive everybody crazy.”
“More annoying than chronic indecision?”
“Uh-huh. He’s a health nut.” Peter looked at her, confused. “Look, Tiger, I don’t mind people eating healthy. I mean, it’s smart. And smoking is obviously a protracted act of suicide. But this guy—you can’t so much as put a hamburger in your face without him screaming about saturated fat! You can’t eat anything much more complex than whole brown rice without incurring a lecture.”
“Sounds like a bore,” Peter said. He knew that MJ had something of a taste for junk food on shoots. It was hardly her fault, either. Sometimes there wasn’t much of anything else to eat, especially if the shoots had a poor caterer, and he knew how fond she was of the occasional burger.
She chuckled at him. “At one point this morning, I had this image of calling Venom—”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, if I knew his phone number. I wanted to say—” and she made a “phone” with pinky and thumb “—‘Forget about my husband. Do you want some nice health food? No artificial additives, no preservatives. No brains.’”
“Oh, MJ, really! This is not a nice thing to wish on a fellow human being!”
“I have my doubts about the human part,” MJ muttered. “But I just keep telling myself, ‘The money’s good. Stick with it.’ But it’s not easy. Maurice is so—I don’t know—unpredictable. The sudden changes of mind and tack and God knows what else are getting on my nerves—and everybody else’s.”
Peter thought for a moment. “It wouldn’t—” He stopped, then said, “He’s not on anything, is he?”
MJ laughed hollowly. “Not likely. The boy doesn’t even like aspirin. He saw one of the models using an inhaler this morning, and climbed all over her frame for putting unhealthy artificial substances into her body. Never mind that they were substances her doctor had prescribed—she’s asthmatic, and the air quality wasn’t great up there today. I thought he was going to carry on for about an hour. Also—” She shook her head. “Odd, but I get a feeling he doesn’t want to go shoot up by Kennedy, particularly.”
Peter looked at her oddly. “Why?”
“He said something about the Shuttle making him nervous. You told me, didn’t you, that there was something atomic going up on it?”
“It seems so. NASA’s denying it, but they’re protesting a bit too much.”
“Well, he was complaining about that to Rhoda, that’s the AD, this morning. If he thinks antihistamines are unnatural substances, you can imagine what he thinks about nuclear fission. To hear Maurice talk about it, you’d think all of Kennedy was one big bomb about to go off.”
Peter wondered about that for a moment—then put the thought aside. Just my own paranoia, he thought. Lots of people are worried about any kind of nuclear at all.
“Well. You don’t really want Venom to come and eat Maurice, do you?” Peter said.
“No,” MJ said, though she sounded somewhat halfhearted. “No, I can put up with him for a little while longer.”
“All right,” Peter said. “Enough about him. What about us?”
“Yes,” MJ said, and smiled slowly at him.
* * *
PETER woke up early the next morning, not entirely because he wanted to. His body still felt dog-tired, but the back of his brain was worried enough to wake him up with its own musings after only about six hours of sleep.
He lay staring at the ceiling for a few moments with a feeling of dislocation. It took a few seconds to remember where he was, why he was there, and what he had been doing.
He would have to get back to Miami. Vreni might need him today. He rolled over, saw that MJ was still sound asleep. This was unusual—usually as soon as he woke up, she did too, unless she was completely worn out.
He looked at her for a moment. There were shadows under her eyes. She looked as tired as he felt. She really hates this work, and that wears her out. I wish she didn’t have to do it.
Peter dragged himself out of bed, showered, then switched the television on softly as he passed. The weather report was blathering about a continued spell of calm weather. That was good enough news for him. Once he had done whatever work Vreni required of him, the good weather would make his continued search for Curt a little easier.
The question, of course, was where to look? That had been niggling at him since before he went to sleep. He was pretty sure that the Lizard would not turn up again too close to where he had been a couple of nights ago. There was still too much police attention there. Judging by the news briefs, the area was apparently being searched again this morning. But if not there, where?
His dreams had been troubled by the recurring thought of the bank statements. He was sure they held the key. His first run at them hadn’t been too conclusive. Curt seemed more than anything else to hit the machines down in Ochopee, but he could hardly just go and lie in wait near a bank machine.
Once Vreni had made her police connection, Peter was tempted to share a little of his information with her to see if the police could get more details on Curt’s access to the machines. Mos
t of the First Florida Bank’s cash machines were now fitted with cameras, and he was hoping that somewhere within the range of the camera’s lens they might be able to turn up a recurring car license plate, or maybe an actual warm body who was accompanying Curt to the machine.
Because Peter couldn’t get rid of the idea that Curt Connors was, once again, being used. That strange description of Mrs. Bridger’s, of him stopping and starting, kept coming back. Like someone was using him, or as if someone was attempting to control him in some strange way. It was all a mystery, but Peter hoped to get to the bottom of it.
When he was scrubbed, and shaved, and generally feeling much better, he sat down on the bed and shook MJ gently. “Honey? MJ?”
“Nnnngh,” she said, opened her eyes and looked at him blearily. “What time is it?”
“About eight. Sweetie, I have to get back down to Miami.”
“Okay, Tiger,” she said, and reached up for a hug.
After a few seconds, Peter said, “Now, about this phone.”
“Yes, dear,” she said, in the voice that said she knew a lecture was coming, and that the amount of attention she would pay to it was negotiable.
“I think it would be smarter if when I’m wearing my other hat, so to speak, I shut the phone off. So if you don’t get an answer sometimes, don’t be surprised. Tonight in particular. I’m going out looking again.”
“Okay,” MJ said, though she stuck her lower lip out and pouted slightly, for effect. “But as soon as you’re out of costume again, you call me. Understand?”
“I will. You can leave messages on the mobile system, anyway, even if I’ve got the phone shut off. I’ll turn it on and pick them up when I can. But I don’t want the thing going off in the middle of a swamp again.”
“All right, all right.” She blinked. “Eight o’clock, huh? I’d better get up and start putting myself together.”
She got out of bed and stretched. “Oh, my back!”
“Is the bed too firm?”
“Not this bed,” she said, “and firmer than you think. I spent the better part of yesterday tastefully draped over a large scenic rock. If Maurice asks me to do that again. I’m going to tell him to take his rock and—”
“MJ!”
“Yes,” she said, “I know.” She went to Peter and hugged him again.
He kissed her hard. “You’re going up to Cocoa today?”
“That’s right. I’ll call you and let you know about the changes in plans,” she said with a grim smile, “because I know there’ll be some.”
An hour and a half later, Peter was back in the hotel room in Miami. Vreni, when he got there, was already gone, and had left him a message saying she wouldn’t be back until late. Still chasing her police connections, I wonder? Peter thought. She seems awfully hung up on that.
But he was pleased enough to have the spare time. Peter sat down at the table with the map he had picked up, and with the list of bank statements. He located Ochopee and Sunniland and several other branches of First Florida where Curt had stopped. All the bank branches sat in towns that were, in essence, along two sides of a triangle. The third side was empty of banks, empty even of towns—it ran through the heart of the Everglades.
He looked at that third side. Martha is probably right, he thought. There are more usages of these two machines than any others. Curt must be closest to them, and doesn’t see any point in trying to go out of his way.
Peter was sure now that Curt wasn’t staying in a town, but had found some quiet hideaway. He couldn’t prove the hunch conclusively, but short of going to every tiny town in this area and asking questions, he had to let the assumption stand.
Peter gazed thoughtfully at the third side of the triangle and picked a spot about halfway along it. Whoever was working with the Lizard—if indeed there was someone at all—seemed to be keeping him fairly active. Normally, if the Lizard had a choice, he preferred to hide during his transformations, rather than be seen by people. But this time he was being seen, all right.
I have to start somewhere, Peter thought. It’s a chance: there’s a lot of territory to cover there. Still… He chuckled to himself. A day out on the webs, working out these aches and pains, will do me good. And anyway, I don’t know what else to do.
* * *
A couple of hours later, Peter was in the Everglades, webslinging to his heart’s content—and looking. You could cover a lot of ground in this part of the world if you just kept moving fast and kept your eyes open. Once you got a sense of what fit in, he figured, you would quickly start seeing what didn’t.
And so he spent the best part of the day swinging around and trying to get the same feel for the ’Glades as he had for the city streets of New York. There were kinds of movement you soon came to know as normal and natural. Simple traffic patterns: the way pedestrians walked when they were untroubled, the way cars moved when the streets were clear of accidents or gridlocks, even the general sound of the place.
Here there were no pedestrians, but there was plenty of life. Peter quickly learned to recognize the different flight patterns of quite a few birds, the panicky movement of those flushed from cover by his approach, and the more leisurely evasions of others already in flight. He soon knew that a quick swirl of ripples in still water meant the same thing as a ponderous, low-slung shifting of the undergrowth, and kept well clear of the alligators both movements concealed. He even saw a couple of Florida panthers—the first was no more than a lithe, half-seen movement in the trees, but the next one was swimming. That surprised him a little, thinking the big cat had somehow fallen in or even been grabbed by a ’gator, until he saw the same thing again later in the day, and this time the panther seemed to be actively enjoying its dip.
He started near Ochopee, not too far from the Melendezes’ farm, worked swiftly northward until he got as far as the Everglades Parkway about ten miles east of Deep Lake, crossed it at a quiet moment—having had to wait a while for that—and made his way over into the other side of Big Cypress, toward Sunniland. After that he moved on until he hit what he estimated were the boundaries of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. There being no signs, he turned back and started working downward again a little farther east.
It was hot, and very sticky. The sun slid leisurely across the sky, and birds flapped heavily or hastily out of his path, occasionally squawking their disapproval at the intrusion. It was surprising, though, given the way this place teemed with life of all kinds, how very quiet it was.
And so it went for most of the day, as the sun dropped toward the western horizon and things finally began to cool a little. Spidey was glad enough of that. His uniform was definitely going to need a rinsing, and working in such humidity for long periods drained even his enhanced strength, as well as sweat. The sky was clearing now: earlier he had been forced to stop his swinging and head for some sort of cover, when the lowering heavens opened and the rain came pouring down in a near-solid wall of water, and lightning slashed out of the leaden sky to strike the water or, occasionally, a tree.
But the storm had passed quickly enough, and he went on again while the afternoon slipped into early evening and the sun was swallowed up by a great cloudbank to the west. Anywhere else, things would have gotten quieter with the approaching nightfall, but not here. The song of the frogs and the bugs began, peeping and shrilling and calling. The day shift of hunters and food-seekers in the animal world checked out, and the night shift took over: creatures that moved more quietly, less obviously. In the hour or two of lingering dusk before day gave way to darkness, Spidey began to get used to them, too.
He crossed the highway once again, swinging south toward the middle of the Everglades. I could get to like this, Spider-Man thought. No cars, no trucks—or at least, not all over the place, like New York. Just frogs and bugs.
He paused in the topmost branches of the cypress and looked around. It was too early for the moon, and there was only the faintest shimmer left of the sunset. A little south of him something big and
silent floated by. An owl, he thought. Hawks didn’t fly this late. He watched it go, perfect in its silence. Low-tech stealth technology, he thought, and grinned inside his mask.
From the south came a long, low roar, and with it a mild buzz of his spider-sense. The unseen grin vanished. Spidey stared into the gloom. He couldn’t see anything, but he heard the roar repeated, just once. He knew that roar; it was neither ’gator nor panther.
He started swinging as fast as he could in the direction of the roar for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Then he heard another roar, much closer, and made a course correction. At a guess the source was no more than half a mile away, and he poured on some speed. He was coming into an area of fewer cypresses—more open water, with islands both solid and semisolid floating in it like dumplings in soup.
Where I can’t swing, I can spring, Spidey thought, and went bouncing along, more excited now that the day’s frustrating search seemed to be paying off. Only a couple of hundred yards away from him, hidden by stands of reeds, he could hear thrashing, splashing—and not just one roar anymore, but two. The first was the sound he had been tracking, the second a deep, hissing grunt. Now what the…
He leapt from one island to another, burst through the screening reeds, and found himself face-to-face with an alligator-wrestling match. It was not precisely wrestling: one ’gator lay on a nearby reed island, upside down with its stubby, taloned legs waving impotently and its jaws snapping at the air. But only its front legs. There was no movement from its back legs or its tail, and Spidey suspected its back had been broken.
In the water, waist-deep, the Lizard was advancing slowly, snarling, toward a second shape that was circling him. This second ’gator was bigger than the first. Its snout, eyes, and ridged, scaly back were all visible above the surface like the hull of a submarine, but its tail was lost in the swirling froth of churned-up water.
