“You haven’t done the research, Beryl. I have.”
“Research? My God-you really are just a biologist, aren’t you? The rumors about you being a dangerous character-a drug smuggler, a government agent, whatever-what a laugh. Shay was feeding us a bunch of bullshit. How could I… how could anyone’ve believed that a guy who looks like a science teacher is dangerous?”
“I never asked anyone to believe anything.”
“Really? I’m not so sure. Your secret trips, the mysterious men who come to the lab-did you invent those stories? Or did Shay? She’s good at making up stories, I know.”
I had just checked my watch but now, instead of replying, I looked at it again. 12:18 a.m. Once again, I’d missed the radio appointment with Sir James. Outside, thunder rumbled through the forest canopy. There was a whistle of gusting wind. I listened until I’d confirmed it was the sound of a squall approaching, not the distant howling of dogs.
I said, “We can talk about your best friend, Shay, another time. Let’s concentrate on you. You can’t spend another night here. It’s too dangerous. I know a man who owns an estate on Saint Lucia. You can stay there until you catch a flight out.”
Beryl groaned-Here we go again. “I am not leaving this island. If I go anywhere, it’ll be to the beach house where we were filmed.”
“What are you talking about? It’s a rental. You can’t just show up.”
“You’re so full of wisdom, Doc. You’re also full of something else. I called and gave the realtor a credit card Sunday after I found out about Corey. I rented the place through Saturday. I’ll bet anything those jerks are still hanging out at the resort, like the night they showed up. They’re stalkers. I know the type. Pretty girls all alone, they can’t resist. It’s what they do.”
I said, “Pretty girls?”
“Shay’s as mad as I am. I told you the wedding was postponed for three weeks. The Italian guy from the marina, Eddie, may fly her down to join me.”
“Eddie?”
“You’re the one who told me he’s a pilot.”
“First you said the wedding was postponed for two weeks. Now you say three weeks. Which is it?”
“I told you three weeks. Your hearing must be going, too.”
I was sure she’d said two weeks, but there was no point in arguing. I asked, “What will the pretty girls do if the men who assaulted you show up?”
“That’s something I’ve had a lot of time to think about,” Beryl replied in an aloof, impatient way that was becoming familiar. “Make them pay for what they’ve done-isn’t that justice? We’ll deal with them. Don’t worry.”
Eerie, the way she said that. Like it was something she’d been thinking about for years.
The sound track I’d heard in the spa was now being piped into Beryl’s room. The lulling percussion of ocean waves… the faint yip and moan of seabirds in the background.
Somewhere, someone had hit a switch. I wondered if there were speakers in all the rooms. Speakers can also be microphones.
I waited in the closet while Beryl peeked outside to see if anyone was watching, then she moved around the room and blew out all but one candle. Her white nightgown became translucent when she picked up the candle. As she walked toward me, I wanted to look away but couldn’t.
“Hey… are you okay? Why don’t you answer me?” Beryl stood at the closet entrance, whispering, holding the candle at breast level, a glass of something in her other hand.
I said, “What…? Sorry… my mind was on something else.”
“I was talking about the white noise from those speakers. I asked if they played it in the spa when you went through that purification business. Beach sounds, crashing waves. Same thing last night, all night long. It was irritating at first… but then it got so I liked it. I went to sleep, finally, but I had weird dreams.” She sipped from the glass. “Want some? Herbal tea.”
“No. How were they weird?”
“The dreams? Don’t ask. It’s personal. I’ll just say they were.. . unusual.”
I said, “Oh,” with no idea what she meant. At least she was less combative. I looked at the smoke alarm wired next to the ceiling fan. “I’ve got to go.”
She put the glass on a table and touched her fingers to my chest. “Doc?”
“Beryl?”
“I shouldn’t have been so hard on you. I’ve been furious for the last three days, and I was venting. Sorry. I don’t really believe you invented stories. And I don’t think you’re a coward. It’s just that. .. well, I think maybe I expected too much from you.”
“Not unusual. I do it all the time-to myself.”
She laid a light hand on my arm and patted me the way people do when they are trying to comfort themselves. “You’re an intelligent guy, I should respect that. If you think it’s not safe, I’ll leave. But first, I’ll arrange a meeting, and ask Isabelle a few questions. I won’t mention we know each other. Maybe start out like I’m asking for advice. ‘My girlfriends and I did something foolish, do you have any influence with the local police?’ Like that. If she gets tricky, if she lies to me, I’ll know.”
“Don’t do that. Please.”
“How else are we going to find out?”
“I told you: I’m convinced. I don’t need to find out.” There was something about the familiar way she said Isabelle that set off an internal alarm, so I asked, “Did you get my e-mail? I sent one to Shay, too.”
Beryl shook her head. “Something important?”
“Maybe. Shay’s fiance told me his family had been doing business in the Caribbean for years. He mentioned a marina and resort on Saint Lucia. In the e-mail, I asked if his family had any other holdings in the area.”
“I can answer that-yes, they do. Sort of. The reason I know is because my father’s involved. You know what he does-buys hotels in trouble, and we turn them into high-end spas. He just locked up a deal on Saint Vincent. Michael’s mother and some of his aunts are investors.”
I said, “Does Shay know that?”
“There’s no reason why she should. I’m not even sure Michael knows. Have you ever met his mother, Ida? Ida doesn’t share information, she collects it like ammunition. She’ll be the mother-in-law from hell.”
“Any chance that Isabelle Toussaint is an investor, too?”
“I doubt that. My father may have consulted her as a sort of courtesy thing. He’s a thorough man, and it’s a tight little industry. How do you think I got into the Orchid without a reservation?”
I was thinking, incredible. Unlike Tomlinson, I believe in coincidence. Life is a series of random intersections that conform to a statistical pattern, so coincidence is inevitable. But when multiple coincidences create their own pattern, I become wary.
“When Shay was researching places to rent, who told her about the beach house?”
“I thought she found it on the Internet. But I guess-” Beryl put a hand to her mouth and yawned. “-I guess it’s possible she asked around for advice. Maybe my father, I don’t know. She didn’t ask me, because it was a surprise.”
I was looking over the woman’s shoulder. On the far wall, near the meditation corner, was a familiar painting. A child’s crib. White, like the painting I’d seen in Toussaint’s chateau. Strange.
Beryl yawned again, dozy enough to smile, and said, “You enjoy this, don’t you?” sounding more like the woman who’d stood in my lab, wearing a towel. “Helping friends, I mean-Shay told me that about you. Putting together all the little pieces when someone’s life gets broken. True?”
I said, “Sometimes. I don’t like clutter.”
“I’m the same way, you know. Chaos, I can’t stand it. Life should be balanced. Fair… but lots of times it’s not. So I can relate. .. sort of. You’re like some Boy Scout who goes around neatening up a world that’s way too messy. That’s how we’re different. I’m not nearly as respectable as I pretend to be.”
Beryl had said something similar in the hospital parking lot, then again when she sp
oke of her abduction. This time, though, her tone was affectionate and dreamy… like the steady flood and thunder of waves from unseen speakers, the volume turned louder now.
The woman moved a step closer, her face and auburn hair golden above the candle, like an old photo. “I can prove it to you, if you want. Do you really have to leave?”
I cupped the flame with my hand, looking up at her as I answered. “Yes. But it’s not because I took some kid’s oath. If you go to that beach house alone, Beryl, don’t expect a Boy Scout to save the pretty girl this time. It might not happen.”
“Are you being mean because I criticized Shay?”
“No. I’m being honest. I want you out of here in the morning. The first helicopter leaves at nine. If the helicopter’s full, take the ferry. Okay?”
I blew out the candle and left.
29
As I exited Beryl’s room, I heard a latch open a few doors down, and I ducked into the shadows of an arched recess in the cloister wall-a space created for religious artifacts, not men my size. I tried to flatten myself as the door opened and an equally large man stepped out. Because of LEDs on the balustrades, there was enough light for me to recognize Fabron.
I relaxed a little, tempted to step out and let him see me. I had my reasons.
I didn’t like Fabron. It wasn’t just because of his indifference at the cliff that morning. As I left Norma’s massage room, I’d found Fabron and another staffer waiting in the hall, eager to punish me with the Orchid’s sweat lodge rotation. For two hours, they’d ping-ponged me between a sauna, a steam bath, and a cold-water dip pool, berating me as I transitioned from oven to ice.
Fabron was dangerous, as Norma had said. He was also a sadist. He and his partner taunted me in the good-natured way sadists do, testing me with insults-my thick glasses, the scars, my farmer’s tan-trying their damnedest to get a reaction. It didn’t happen.
I rotated from sauna to ice pool, wearing a fixed smile as if enjoying myself, even though I was monitoring a growing fury. But maybe it was therapeutic after Norma’s massage. Imaginary or not, I felt like I was on ching chi overload. Thoughts of Beryl, Senegal.. . and Norma, too, all added to the fluttering abdominal tension and genitalic barometrics that define extreme male horniness. It was easier to deal with in the plunge pool where water was a scrotum-numbing fifty degrees.
I endured that circuit for two hours. For two hours I smiled, which only made Fabron madder. So he pushed harder, and the insults got nastier, but never once did he see me flinch. It wasn’t until another Novitiate banged on the door that I let Fabron see my distress.
“Does this mean we have to stop?” I asked, frowning for the first time. “Or did the real therapist finally show up?”
Fabron and I locked eyes. In those clarifying seconds the facade crumbled, all the bullshit pretense vanished.
I hoped that Fabron and I would have our day. So did he.
Now here he was.
Fabron was tucking in his shirt as he let the heavy door swing shut, and I heard him say, "Silly bitch.” The door didn’t close completely. He didn’t notice or didn’t care. Just kept walking, working at his shirt.
I relaxed, stepped into the light as he hurried toward the quadrangle, and I fought the temptation to whistle him back. But then another man appeared from my right, and I lunged for the shadows again as he called in a loud whisper, “Hey there, Fabron. Fabron. How you doing, man?”
It was another staffer. He followed Fabron a few steps… called his name again… then stopped in front of me, ten yards away. The man looked familiar-a mistake I’d made before. White shirt with logo, white pants, a large round man with an oversized round head, black hair slicked back, wearing sunglasses on this moonless night and smoking a cigarillo that smelled of maple syrup in the dense sea air.
Christ… I did recognize him. It was the bagman from the bank. The one who’d been in the camera blind shooting video, and owned the dog that almost nailed me above the beach cottage. Sir James had said his name was Deepak Wulfelund-the one they called Wolfie. He was older than Fabron and Ritchie and the others; the one who I suspected had more power. Which meant he was more closely linked with Isabelle Toussaint. So why was I surprised to see him?
Beryl was mad because the party boys weren’t at the monasterywhich made no sense because she’s not a woman easily forgotten. Now here was the fourth, and he was just as likely to recognize her. Wolfie was also the only man on the island who could ID me. The two of us had spent half an hour at the Bank of Aruba, sizing each other up, not bothering to disguise our mutual contempt.
It wasn’t a large place. Wolfie would spot me tomorrow or the next day, and tell Toussaint that I’d okayed Shay’s money transfer. She’d run me off the island. Or worse. Probably much worse. They might use the dogs, or the cliff… or both, as they had with Norma’s teenaged nephew.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Preemptive strike is the military term. But was it my best option? I had to think this one through. I was no longer authorized to take extreme action. I couldn’t go running to the nearest embassy if I got in trouble. There would be no choppers sent to extract me. What were prisons like in the Eastern Caribbean?
But then I thought of Corey’s family, and I thought of Corey: an attractive, Cuban-looking girl, warm-eyed, sweet, who could’ve been an actress if her life hadn’t intersected with predatory men. Her husband was one. Deepak Wulfelund was another.
Preemptive action was the right choice.
I touched a hand to the back of my pants and repositioned the little Colt semiautomatic. I don’t like using guns. They’re loud. They’re impersonal. But I would let it play out, and do what I had to do.
I watched Fabron return, smiling and shaking his head. He banged Wolfie’s outstretched fist, the way ballplayers sometimes do, saying, “No luck with the ladies tonight? Me neither, man. I’ve been downed twice, and the bitch in that room slapped me. That’s enough.” For a moment, I thought Fabron was pointing at me, but he was pointing at the door only a few feet away. How could he not see me?
He didn’t.
Fabron said to Wolfie, “Probably a good thing to get some rest after last night, hey, man?” his accent more Caribbean than French now that he was alone with a friend. “These women, Wolfie, they’re wearin’ me out.”
They laughed, voices low.
Wolfie said, “Yeah, man, yeah. Wait ’til you been working for the Widow long as me. I’ve seen women-you want to talk stories? We get the Canadian ladies, the German ladies, the ones from hick towns back in the States. They get down here so cold, all they want is to get warm and show how hip they are. Hear what I’m sayin’? One day, you and me, we’ll get us a case of Piton and talk stories.”
Then Wolfie said, suddenly serious, “My man, we’ve got something important to take care of tonight. That’s why I been looking for you. We got another problem-sort of like last night, that kid. Only this time it’s a woman. And it’s someone we work with. That bother you?”
“Who we talking about?”
“Answer my question. Something like that bother you?”
“No. Nothing bothers me, man. First time for everything, eh? But if she looks okay, you know, got a decent body, we don’t want to just waste something like that. That’s why I’m asking-”
“Man, you do whatever you want with her. We discussing a woman who did something very stupid. Created a serious situation here, and the Widow, she found out. The Widow has her ways, you know. So she’s taking care of business… in the way the Maji Blanc takes care of business.”
Wolfie meant something by that, I could tell by Fabron’s sudden interest-a touch of awe in his voice, asking, “She’s taking care of the woman personally-right now? As we stand here?”
“She’ll probably get started in ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
A smile came into Wolfie’s voice. “You ain’t never witnessed the Maji Blanc with your own eyes, have you? You want to watch our Lady come out in he
r robes-she sortta floats. I’ve seen it-torches burning, big ol’ fire. And her skin is so white, man, it glows. Like a fucking movie, I’m telling you.”
Fabron chuckled, maybe sounding skeptical, which Wolfie didn’t like. “You don’t believe in the spirits, man? You witness the Maji Blanc just once, and you’ll be wearin’ beads and mixin’ turpentine with bluestone along with the rest of us. Dirk, he didn’t believe-he spoke a profanity toward the Widow, and you see where he is tonight? In hospital. A creature come out of the night, only one eye in his head. The La’Ja’bless, size of a fucking gorilla, and he crushed Dirk’s ribs. You’re hearing this from me, a man who was there. The spirit world’s real. Don’t you be laughing when discussing these matters.”
Fabron said, “Hey, I’m not laughing at that. I’m very respectful to what you’re saying. That’s why-do you think I could see it with my own eyes?”
Wolfie put a heavy hand on Fabron’s shoulder, turning him, and began walking-the wise elder taking charge. “In that case, why’nt we go to the Lookout first, and burn something special? You want a very mellow mood in your head before you see the Maji Blanc. If you still up for it then, I’ll ask the Widow can you see this special thing.”
I waited until the two men were halfway across the quadrangle before I stepped into the light. I’d give them a minute before following… but then I noticed the room number on the door that Fabron had left ajar. Room 7.
You silly bitch.
Senegal.
When I cracked the door, I heard Senegal yell, “Stay away! I’ll call the police, damn you. The British Consulate, too. Get out!” Something metallic banged the wall, and I realized she’d thrown a candle-holder.
I gave it a few seconds, knocked politely, then stuck my head in, whispering, “Senny? Senny, it’s me.” I hoped the familiar nickname would register before she threw something else.
It did.
“Doctor-”
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