Black Widow

by Randy Wayne White

Wolfie the dog lover. I said, “You’d better hope so.” I knelt and used the switchblade to cut his hands free, then touched the point of the knife to the hollow spot under his ear. “Get over that fence.”

  "What?”

  “You heard me. Move.”

  “Why you doin’ this to me? Motherfucker, we never even met!”

  I wanted him to know. “A couple weeks ago, you filmed four girls, then blackmailed them. They’re friends of mine. One of them’s dead because of what you did.”

  I kept the knife to his neck as he got to his feet. He said, “Because of some damn women? That’s why you’re doing this?”

  “Four girls from Florida. I met you at the bank.”

  “Man . . . I remember you. Those girls, too! But here’s what you gotta understand: They come to this island asking for somethin’, and the boys just gave ’em what they asked for. And you blame me? All this over some damn split-tails? You’re shitting me, man!”

  You’re shitting me. Tomlinson had said almost the same thing the night hammerheads charged us. I would’ve rather dealt with sharks than the dogs. But Wolfie chose the dogs—once I convinced him I would use the knife.

  From the way he calmed the animals as he climbed to the top of the fence, cooing and calling their names, I thought I’d made a mistake. But then Wolfie made a mistake—he turned his back as he climbed down.

  Packs don’t have friends.

  That’s what I was thinking as I ran toward the monastery, sickened by the sounds.

  31

  WHEN I OPENED THE DOOR to my room, a woman’s voice startled me, saying, “Leave the lights off.”

  I knew who it was.

  “I need a safe place. Is it okay?”

  I said, “Sure,” even though I wasn’t sure.

  She yawned. It sounded more like a groan. “Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.”

  I pulled the door closed, eager to be inside, then waited while the woman’s shape acquired definition as my eyes adjusted. She was in bed, under the covers. The sound of ocean waves still rumbled from the speakers, but not as loud now. I emptied my pockets on the table, then felt around until I found a towel. Used it to wipe my hands, my face, but what I needed was a shower. I stood at the foot of the bed, and my hand found her ankle.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, just tired,” I heard her sniff. “Were you outside smoking a cigar? I can smell it.”

  I said, “No. I was . . . out wrestling with some old demons. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “You shouldn’t be outside. They say it’s safe inside the fence, but you didn’t hear those dogs? Ten minutes ago, I never heard anything like it. Like the whole pack was fighting over a bone. I was worried that you—”

  “It wasn’t me.” I saw her hand reaching for the reading lamp on the nightstand. “No, leave the light off. I can see fine now.”

  “Light’s okay if the door’s closed—I already used the shower. I’m thirsty. I’ve been thirsty all night.”

  “Give me a couple of minutes.” I didn’t need a mirror to know I was a mess. I wanted to stuff my clothes into a bag and throw them in the garbage.

  There was a carafe of iced tea on the nightstand. I filled two glasses, but she said she didn’t want the herbal stuff, it would make her sleepier.

  “That’s exactly what I need.” I took a sip. It tasted of mint, anise, and sandalwood. I emptied the glass on my way to the bathroom. I exchanged the glass for a bottle of water, then hit the bathroom light. Took one look at myself, and turned the light off fast.

  As I returned to the room, the woman said, “You found another bottle of water? Thanks.”

  I’d gotten it for myself, but handed her the bottle, asking, “The French guy, how bad did he hurt you?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Fabron and I got better acquainted today.”

  “Fabron, he’s a pig. Worse than a pig.”

  Returning to the bathroom, I was thinking, If pigs had wings ... but didn’t say it because I’d have to explain. Later, though, maybe I would. It might put a smile on Norma’s pretty face.

  WHEN I’D FINISHED SHOWERING, I left the bathroom light on. It added pale angles and shadows to the room. I came out drying myself, a towel around my waist.

  “What happened? Do you mind talking about it?”

  Norma said, “It wasn’t Fabron so much. It was that witch, the White Lady. She’s a hundred times worse than the others.”

  She blinked when I switched on the reading lamp. She was sitting up, bottle of water in hand, the bedsheet tucked primly around her neck. In the afternoon, she’d looked like a thirty-year-old in training for the Olympics. Now, though, she was gaunt. Her eyes were dark, oversized, like kids in Ethiopia.

  I sat on the bed, and took the glass of tea I’d poured for her. “You’re not all right. You need a doctor.”

  “No, really, I’m better. Mostly, I feel lucky to be alive. She had them tie me to a post. You believe someone would do something so crazy? No . . . first she made me strip, then they tied me to a post. Only it wasn’t just a post, it was a cross. That’s how I lost my clothes. I’ll need to borrow some of yours because I have to leave soon.”

  I leaned to look in her eyes. She didn’t appear to be in shock. I said, “You’re not going anywhere. But if you don’t want to talk about it—”

  “I don’t mind. I can see you’re tired, though.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  Polite houseguests are deferential. This was a polite woman. I had to reassure her again before she settled back and began to tell me what happened. It took her awhile because she was processing it all for the first time.

  “I heard rumors of her putting demons in people, doing her magic. Some things even worse. But my God almighty, I never imagined how crazy she really is. She made them tape my hands and my mouth. I felt like I was going to suffocate. You think something like that, having tape over your mouth, is no big deal, but man. Things go through your head. They could drown me, throw me off the cliff . . . bury me alive. That feeling of not being able to breathe . . .”

  I put my hand on her leg, noting the line of tape stickum on her neck. Hysteria wouldn’t have surprised me. Her composure did.

  “There was a fire. They built it so close to the cross, I thought she was going to burn me, the way Catholics burned people in old times. The White Lady was speaking Latin, all dressed in her robes, carrying a crucifix she said would purify my evil. Talking like I was the evil one, not her.”

  “You really do believe she’s the Maji Blanc,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “But you won’t say the name.”

  It was more like a nervous reflex, the way Norma shook her head. “No. The Widow is what I call her. In my own mind.”

  “You’re still a believer. After what she did?”

  “How can you not believe something you know is true? When the sun’s up, she’s just a mean rich woman. After dark, though, things change. You don’t live on this island, but I know. The Widow, she has power. Six people watched me roast by that damn fire. Stood around me in a circle, because that’s what they were told to do, and didn’t lift a finger. That’s how bad she scares folks—and I’d given some of them men massages.”

  I said, “Guests?”

  “Two of them, yeah. She has some strange ones that come here four, five times a year. Crazy, sick people—but rich. The kind who’d pay anything to watch what she did to me tonight. Like I told you, I’ve heard the rumors. But my God!”

  Always men guests, Norma told me. Toussaint tolerated women, but she liked men.

  “That’s why there’re cameras in all the rooms. The Widow picks her favorites, watching on a monitor, and they don’t even know they’re being watched. She gets sort of bouncy and excited when a new man gets off the helicopter. I’d bet she’s seen all of you there is to see. There’s a camera over there in that clock radio. There was a towel or something over it, but I
unplugged it, anyway.”

  I felt a creeping uneasiness, imagining Toussaint in her nun’s hood, smoking a cheroot, paintings of orchids everywhere, studying me as I stripped to take a shower.

  I said, “Fabron and Wolfie were there?”

  She nodded.

  “What about a couple of guys name Ritchie or Clovis?”

  “How do you know those two? They’re the ones tied me up.”

  "They hang out at a bar called the Green Turtle,” I said, as if that’s where I’d met them.

  “Um-huh, the Turtle Bar, along with all the other no-goods on this island. Those two, they’re gangsters. Only come up here when she needs something bad done. Fabron and Wolfie, they showed up late. That made the Widow mad because she’d already stuck the needle in my arm, and it caused her to drop the tube when she looked to see who was coming.”

  I said, “Tube?”

  “Same as the plastic IV tubes they use in hospitals. The Widow picked it up, me with that needle in my arm—didn’t even wipe the dirt off. Then the bitch drank my blood, like sucking it through a straw. The whole time, her eyes were watching me, wanting me to be afraid, like that was something she could feed on, too.”

  Norma gulped the last of her water, already looking around the room for a fresh bottle.

  I CHECKED NORMA’S EYES, tested the elasticity of her skin, scrubbed her arm, then coated the needle mark with disinfectant from my shaving kit.

  Norma appeared all right physically except for bruises on her wrists and a tape burn on her face. There were no symptoms of debilitating blood loss. But the psychological trauma had to be significant—she’d come this close to going over the cliff.

  I had told Beryl and Senegal to leave on the morning helicopter, but now decided it was too dangerous to wait. Time to call in a charter helicopter large enough to take us all off the mountain. I stepped outside and tried to raise Sir James on the VHF. Moved to different parts of the quadrangle to get better reception. No luck.

  As I locked the door and returned to Norma’s side, I felt an odd, dreamy dizziness as she spoke to me, saying, “It’s a sick feeling, watching that witch drink the life out of you. Her with her makeup like some child’s doll, and that white hood she wears. The way her eyes stared at me when she sucked the tube—enjoying how scared I was, and full of hate, like I was dirty. But she was the one with blood on her face. And breath so nasty, bugs could feed on it. I pretended to pass out. Maybe I really did for a few minutes.”

  Norma had already told me she’d hidden in the woods until the dogs started going crazy—“They sounded so close, I thought they’d broke through the fence where it cuts close to the Lookout. That’s happened before.”

  I knew the spot. I’d left Wolfie there.

  Now she was backtracking, filling in the blanks as I asked questions. I found I had to concentrate to follow along.

  “When I woke up, my mouth and hands were taped, and I was wrapped in some kind of heavy sheet. I heard voices—men’s voices. One sort of sounded like you. But when I got loose, there was no one around.” She leaned to look into my eyes. “Is that how you knew Fabron hurt me? Was it you I heard, Marion?”

  I found it oddly touching that she called me by my first name. I said, “No. You must have been . . .” I had to struggle to find the word. “. . . hallucinating.”

  “I don’t think I was dreaming it. I know Fabron. That man wouldn’t’ve just gone off and left me unless someone scared him away. Not with me naked, the two of us alone. After all the times I told him no? He would’ve taken his time and made me pay. He’s raped at least two guests since he’s been here, but no one did anything because he’s one of the Widow’s favorites.”

  The light from the reading lamp had become piercing. As I turned it toward the wall, I was struck by something subtle but significant: Norma had kept the sheet primly over her breasts while we’d been talking. Used one arm, then the other, to cover herself when using hand gestures. Her determined modesty was so . . . decent, so admirable and consistent, despite the trauma she was dealing with. I found myself wanting to reach out and stroke the woman’s hair. I did.

  Norma monitored her own eyes, as well as the eyes of others. A look from her meant something. She gave me a look now, saying, Marion? You’re acting sort of strange all of a sudden, but she let me continue stroking her hair. “Are you feeling okay?”

  I felt a slow, wide smile fill my face. “I’m fine. I mean it . . . I feel great. Really great, in fact. What I’d like to do right now is—” I stopped. What the hell was I saying?

  I didn’t feel great. It was impossible after the night I’d had. If I wanted to picture it, I could see Fabron shrinking into darkness. I could see Wolfie’s face go white as I lifted him over the fence, hearing the mastiffs charging through the forest toward us.

  I put my hand on the bed and stood. I didn’t feel dizzy now, just . . . strange. Happy, but also like I wanted to cry.

  Cry?

  I hadn’t cried since childhood. What was wrong with me? I sat and looked at the carafe of iced tea. I’d given the bottle of water to Norma. I’d drunk tea, nothing else. The explanation assembled itself slowly: The tea ... I feel this way because there’s something in the herbal tea.

  My glass was nearly empty. I held it up. “What’s in this stuff? I’m starting to feel drunk . . . only not really drunk, just high . . . and warm.”

  “It’s what the monks used to make, only weaker. The name’s Divinorium. They make it from those blue flowers you see all around, plus a special orchid. It’s the regular drink we serve in the spa all day. They brew it in the kitchen. It’s purifying herbs with a little honey.”

  I stood again, seeing halos over the lights while colors strobed behind my eyes. “It can’t be the same drink.”

  Norma took the glass, sniffed it, then tasted. She took another drink before she said, “You’re right. This is stronger. It’s good—” She drank again. “—but it’s been brewed a lot longer. Maybe something added, too. I wouldn’t drink any more if I were you.” She thought about it, then said, “I wonder why the maids put this in your room.”

  “It wasn’t here when I left. They don’t put it in all the rooms?”

  "Not as strong as that, they don’t. Just the little bit I had, I can already feel.”

  I said, “Wait here a second.”

  I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower to cover the noise, and made myself vomit. I thought it would help. It didn’t.

  "MARION? HOW LONG are you going to stay in there?”

  Norma’s voice. Startling. I’d lost track of time. I searched the walls, the ceiling to confirm. Yes, I was still in the bathroom.

  I’d made myself vomit again, ran cold water over my head. Now I was looking in the mirror, brushing my teeth. A stranger looked back . . . then blurred . . . then my own face appeared. My emotions oscillated in synch, sad . . . happy . . . sad . . . happy . . . introspective.

  I studied the scratches on my face: four plowed rows of missing skin. Fabron had taken part of me with him when he fell into the sea. The combination of flesh and death, the orderly geometrics of my wound, struck me as indefinably profound. Then Fabron came into my mind. His wild eyes, the way he’d screamed for his mother as he fell.

  I felt sad, thinking about his mother. I’d once had a mother. A father, too. Video of a boat exploding played in my mind as the name of my parents’ killer turned to ashes in my lab.

  What did it matter? Everyone died. We all left behind family to deal with the pain, to reassemble broken pieces. It was cruel. Abandonment. Maybe I would write a letter to Fabron’s mother and break the news her son wasn’t coming home. A mother deserved to know. An anonymous letter, couldn’t use my name . . . maybe invent a nice thing to say about her son because it would ease the mother’s pain . . .

  Say something nice?

  I took four deep breaths . . . held each for four seconds, released them slowly . . . and the fog cleared for a moment.

  Why wou
ld I write a letter that eulogized a rapist? Fabron was an asshole, a sadist, a menace. It’s the drug. Remorse is irrational.

  Irrational—the right word. Yes, the drug again . . . effects getting stronger.

  I forced myself to focus on what was rational. I was like a drunk climbing a ladder, giving elaborate attention to the rungs. Okay . . . why is an emotional reaction to Fabron’s death irrational? I managed to recall another maxim hammered out on a long-ago jungle night:

  Unless a man is in mortal danger, hitting a woman is contrary to evolutionarydesign.The man should be confined for the welfare of the species. A man who rapes a woman breaches the laws of natural selection. He should be euthanized to protect the integrity of the species.

  Laws of nature have no pity. Fabron got what he deserved. Same with Wolfie, the dog fancier.

  I clung to that rational thread. It was like walking a tightrope as my brain struggled to distance itself from the effects of the drug by recalling what I’d read about MDA. There were similarities.

  The drug doesn’t increase motor activity like most stimulants, it suppressesinhibitions ... causes feelings of affection even between strangers. Produces a warm glow that radiates into the penis or clitoris.

  I had all the symptoms—some getting stronger even as I reviewed them. The effects of the drug would pass, I told myself. All I had to do was wait it out.

  I leaned over the sink, washed my face, knotted a towel around my waist, then returned to the bed, and stood facing Norma as she said, “I have to go. Can I borrow a shirt and maybe those sandals? I have to be down the mountain before it gets light.”

  I said, “You’re staying here.”

  “I thought you’d tell me to go away. Now you don’t want me to leave. Funny thing is, I almost didn’t come. I knew the rooms you’d been assigned, but I thought the English woman was here, and you were over there. I finally figured it out.”

  I said, “Senegal Firth is an incredible woman,” and knew it was the drug talking. “You’re both incredible women. She’s got to meet you.”

  Norma said, “Uh-huh,” the way people do when talking to a drunk, and put her bottle of water on the nightstand. She looked up . . . let her eyes move from my face to my feet, then to my face again. “You’re all scratched to hell. Why don’t you tell me the truth? You scared Fabron off. I heard men swearing and fighting. I’m thinking it was you. You saved me. The only reason you’d lie is if—” She paused, her attention inward, putting it together. “—the only reason you’d lie is to protect me. Or protect yourself.”