Black Widow

by Randy Wayne White

  I looped my arm around her waist, then slid my hand up her ribs and rested it on her neck. The gun wasn’t in her pockets; wasn’t in a shoulder holster. I asked, “Are you telling me the truth about the gun?” Though I knew the answer.

  Shay sighed—a mewing sound of nostalgia or amusement—a sound like that. “It was a little Blackhawk .22. Daddy gave it to me when I was ten. I learned to shoot, Doc. I learned to pull the trigger. That’s a phrase Dexter used. It meant someone it came naturally to.”

  I said, “Almost sounds like you miss the man.”

  Shay thought that was funny. Said, “Hah!” and scratched at something on her arm. “I’ll despise him forever. But Daddy knew guns—that’s all I’m saying. Which is why it got so he distrusted me as much as I disliked him.”

  I shook my head, confused. What?

  “I told you I ran away from home?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That was a lie. I didn’t run away. Daddy made me leave. I may be the only person who ever scared Dexter Money. He was afraid I was gonna kill him, so one of us had to go.”

  The girl looked up at me. “I was out here thinking about it. How would I feel if I’d really shot him—Ritchie. Would I have a guilty conscience? Or break down crying, or go screaming and yelling to Beryl, begging her to help me cover up what I’d done?”

  I said, “What did you decide?”

  Shay’s eyes brightened for an instant, a feral reaction to starlight. “I decided I wouldn’t do any of those things. If I killed trash like Ritchie, I guess I’d feel . . . indifferent. Does that sound cold-blooded, Doc?”

  I cupped the back of Shay’s neck and pulled her close, so my lips were next to her ear. I said, “That asshole, Ritchie, stole my watch, Shanay. My old Rolex. Now . . . where’s his body?”

  Back at the beach house, I found my belt near the pool, and the little Colt .380, one round fired, the brass casing on the deck. I’d known it was no fireworks.

  No blood trail. No Clovis. Beryl had missed. Or was it Senegal?

  “Pulling the trigger isn’t the same as pulling the trigger,” Shay told me, huddled close for warmth, as we boated toward the lights of Saint Lucia.

  She was cold and I was freezing. The wind had cut like a knife as Shay had stood guard on the beach, while I put Ritchie in the cave.

  EPILOGUE

  ON A SILVER, squall-blustery morning, July 24th, I rode my bike to the Sanibel Post Office on Tarpon Bay Road, and found a familiar postal key in my box that opened a larger box, from which I extracted one bulky manila envelope. I also found one reinforced box, carefully wrapped, very thin—made for sending valuable papers or photographs.

  The envelope was from Sir James Montbard, Bluestone, Saint Lucia. It would contain articles and proofs and copies of maps related to the man’s theory of Relentless Human Motion. Sir James wanted me to join him on an expedition to the mangrove jungles of Central America’s Caribbean Coast. “There are Olmec ruins there unknown to outsiders—protected for centuries by native Miskito Indians,” he had told me. “The few real Miskito, the traditional ones, are damn suspicious of interlopers. It would be useful to have you along—an extra hand, you might say.”

  The Englishman had laughed when he said that.

  “The final proof we’re looking for may well be there, somewhere among the vines and mosquitoes. It’s not a trip for the faint of heart. You’ve had some experience in that part of the world, haven’t you, old boy?”

  “I’ve been there a few times, Hooker,” I’d told him, amused that his Relentless Motion theory was now “ours.”

  Montbard said he’d finance the trip with his cut of the money I’d taken from Isabelle Toussaint’s safe.

  The second package was from General Forensics Laboratories, White Plains, New York. Using infrared luminescence and digital enhancement imaging, experts there had reconstructed portions of the letter from the late Merlin Starkey, the letter that might reveal the name of my parents’ murderer.

  The box would also contain General Forensics’s bill. Expensive. That was okay. I could afford it.

  I put box and envelope in my backpack, and pedaled the easy half a mile back to my lab. Squall cells were dispersing, I noted, skies turning from silver to Gulf Stream blue.

  It was going to be a hot one.

  LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Tomlinson and I exited our local rum bar into rain-forest heat and, on the three-mile bike ride to the marina, he decided it was so wonderfully, humidly, oppressively hot, that residents of Sanibel Island, and neighboring islands, would be eager to participate in our annual Summer Christmas Snowflake Fiesta.

  I responded, “What do you mean, annual? We’ve never hosted a Christmas fiesta before. We’ve never celebrated Christmas in summer before. How do you come up with this stuff?” The man had been drinking.

  Tomlinson watched a trio of adolescent raccoons ramble hunch-backed across the bike path, before he said, “Just because we’ve never done something, doesn’t mean it hasn’t already happened. Think about it. The timing’s perfect. You weren’t listening to Big Dan and Greg, and Marty at the bar? This is National Single Working Women’s Week.”

  Yes, I’d listened, and I’d made the mistake of doubting. The guys summoned Mark, who produced a laptop computer. He went to the Internet and proved that National Single Working Women’s Week does exist. More than a hundred female members had booked rooms at the nearby Island Inn.

  Tomlinson blinked his eyes for a moment, smiling. “I’m picturing a dozen bored and overheated single working women, from states with lots of vowels, wearing nothing but Santa hats on Coach Mike’s Sea Ray—”

  I said, “Here we go.”

  “—and a big Christmas tree, with stars and shells and angel hair. And presents. Lots of presents. We suddenly have a surplus of cold, hard cash, man—”

  I interrupted. “What do you mean, ‘we’? I don’t remember opening a joint bank account.” Why were people using royal pronouns to include me in things lately?

  Tomlinson said, “I was the one who signed for the package when the embassy courier knocked on the door. Brought it inside the lab; put it in a nice safe place while you were out disposing of all those weird creepy crawlers. Poison shrimp—gad!—although I do kinda miss the high-voltage jellyfish.”

  I said, “For that, you’re entitled to half ?”

  “No. I’m not greedy. Just a cut. I could’ve run, you know. Or jumped over the railing and swam for it—almost did when I saw the Fed was wearing a badge. But I stood my ground, man. It gives me a communal interest. Why is it you capitalists can’t understand the whole beautiful concept of sharing wealth?” He gave it several deadpan beats before laughing, letting me know he was doing his flaky, harmless hippie bit.

  The hippie disappeared, and I listened to the real Tomlinson say, "I’m thinking of Javier Castillo’s wife, Anita, and the two girls. Since Javier was killed, I hear they’re struggling like hell to get by.”

  Javier had been one of the area’s top fishing guides, and a trusted friend. A good cause.

  “There are a couple of other families around—mullet fishermen; some of the illegals on Pine Island—who could use a boost. So yeah, throw a summer Christmas party. Why not? We all kick in cash, and maybe have a lottery drawing. That way, when Javier’s wife draws the winning ticket, it won’t feel like charity.”

  I said, “Let me guess. You’ll use your paranormal powers to make sure she wins.”

  “I probably could,” he said seriously, scratching at his thigh. “My mojo is back, big-time. No, what I’m saying is, we rig the whole deal. Fast Eddie’s an expert. Getting him involved might give him a boost, too—an emotional boost, I mean.”

  The last few days, Eddie DeAntoni had been moping around the marina, despondent. Two nights before, very late, I’d strolled the docks and actually found the tough guy weeping, dimples and all. He’d had a couple of passionate evenings with Beryl Woodward, but now things weren’t going well. She didn’t return his calls. Beryl
would make a date, but not show up.

  “She’s killing me,” he’d moaned, then was understandably confused when I assured him that that was one of the few things Beryl would not do.

  I said to Tomlinson, “Christmas in July. Why not? You’re sure Eddie knows how to rig it?”

  Tomlinson said, “Are you kidding? How do you think he won that lottery in Jersey?”

  IT WAS TRUE I now had a bundle of unreported, untaxed cash on my hands. Slightly less than a quarter million, after I’d split the take with Sir James and Norma, and sent an anonymous money order to Corey’s family.

  The Midnight Star, I kept for myself. Expenses.

  Because U.S. Customs is suspicious of citizens carrying large sums, I’d had Eddie drop me on the nearby island of Grenada before he and the girls returned to Fort Lauderdale in his leased, jet-fast TBM-850 airplane.

  I spent six days on Grenada making phone calls to old contacts and making new friends at the U.S. embassy. Turned out I had some old friends on the island, too. Grenada had changed a lot since the invasion.

  My old friends proved helpful. So did my old boss, Hal Harrington— once I applied the right kind of pressure. I was now in possession of a video that compromised a powerful member of the U.S. Senate. But I’m not an extortionist. I didn’t use the video; didn’t mention it—although I did contact the senator who, understandably, was suspicious despite glowing character references from my old friends. The senator and I began a careful dialogue that gradually became genial, and was now friendly.

  For Hal Harrington, though, a call from Sir James Montbard was pressure enough.

  “Do you know who he is?” Harrington—a man not easily impressed— had asked.

  I’d told him, “No, but I’m starting to figure it out.”

  Because I already had everything arranged at the embassy, and it was Saturday, I had returned to Saint Lucia for the weekend. Had dinner at Bluestone with Sir James, Senegal, and Norma, too. Sir James was out of the hospital after a successful surgery, and as upbeat as ever—despite a loss that would be debilitating to most men.

  “A hook!” he’d called out when I arrived. “They’re going to fit me with a bloody hook. Isn’t it perfect! Until then, they’ve given me this temporary thing.” He’d waved the stainless steel prosthetic strapped to his left arm.

  He was more enthusiastic about Norma. She’d stayed by his bed during the worst of it, tending to his every need. She’d given him incredible daily massages, he said.

  “I think she’s marvelous. I’ve offered the woman a full-time billet. Top pay, full benefits.” After a wry look, he’d added, “But Norma says she’s come into a tidy sum of money. I don’t know if I should compliment your generosity, or curse you.”

  I didn’t tell him the woman had accepted only a small percentage of what I’d tried to give. She would take only an amount equal to six months’ salary—it wasn’t much—and enough for a family crypt so her dead son and estranged husband could finally be reunited. She wanted the crypt to be large enough for a third. Her time would come.

  I also didn’t tell him what Norma had told me—that she was falling in love with the man, pirate’s hook and all.

  “Hooker has more ching chi toxins than a twenty-year-old sailor,” she’d laughed, but wasn’t joking. I could see her amber, liquid eyes now, and her smile—teeth whiter because of her dark skin. The prettiest widow I’d ever met.

  Norma had chosen a seventy-year-old legend over me. It was okay. My ego was intact.

  At the Bluestone dinner, Sir James told me the artifacts he’d taken from the monastery had turned out to be a disappointment. Sort of. They were pieces of the stone artifact his grandfather had stolen decades before.

  “He was just a lad at the time,” Montbard told me, showing me his grandfather’s journal as we sat in the library, near the stone with the strange glyphs. “Someone came along, surprised him, and he dropped the thing.” He’d gestured at the artifact with his temporary hook. “The Mayan glyph is unmistakable. But it’s only been in the last two years that I’ve had time to break the other cipher—my real job always kept me hopping.”

  He’d taken out a sketch pad as we stood over the artifact, and showed me tracings of the glyphs. They were similar to sketches I’d made in my notebook.

  I was skeptical when he added, “I think we’re looking at ancient Masonic code—but not as ancient as I’d hoped. See what you think.”

  He flipped the page, saying, “Here’s the key to the code.”

  There were two tic-tac-toe grids. Each square contained a letter: A-B-C on the top level of the first grid, D-E-F on the next level. Letters followed that progression. In the second grid, there were dots beneath each of the nine letters.

  There were also two large Xs, with a letter in each of the eight open triangles. There were dots beneath letters in the second X.

  “Look at the glyphs. They’re actually shapes. Partial boxes. Now look at the grid. The first square is a two-sided box, open at the left and top. It represents A. B is a three-sided box, open at the top. C is a two-sided box, open at the right and at the top.

  “It’s a simple substitution cipher,” he’d said. “It’s supposedly a Masonic secret, but you see it all the time these days in books and films. Each box, opened or closed, replaces the letter it contains. Understand?”

  “I think I do.”

  I took the sketch pad and matched the glyphs to the tic-tac-toe grids. The result was a series of meaningless letters.

  “It makes no sense. Did I do it right?”

  “Perfectly,” Montbard had replied, grinning. “But it’s also perfectly wrong. The actual Masonic key—the one used for many hundreds of years—really is secret. The popular books, the films, the cipher they use, is actually gibberish when properly translated.”

  “You know this because you’re a Freemason?”

  “No. I know because the actual cipher key is here—” He held up his grandfather’s journal. “It has been in the family forever, but it wasn’t obvious, even to me.

  “You’d have to be a Mason to understand that we have codes that represent codes that replace other codes. I have no idea of the meaning of half the things we learn as Masons. The language is archaic. But I finally figured out this one.”

  He’d flipped the page of the sketch pad. “I can’t show you all of it, old boy. I’m breaking a rule, showing you this. But see what happens when I turn this . . . add this . . . then join this?” He used a charcoal pencil to change the key, then he translated the glyphs.

  " ’TUBAL,’ ” I said, “is that a word?”

  “If you’re a Freemason, my boy, it has great meaning. That’s all I can say.”

  Sir James then took portions of the broken fragment he’d found at the monastery. On it were three more glyphs. When he fitted the stones together, the five glyphs, using the new cipher key, now translated as: "MDCXV.”

  “Another secret word?”

  Sir James said, “No. Roman numerals. It’s a date: 1615.”

  I smiled, impressed. “It’s a great find.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but it’s also disappointing. The Mayan glyph, of course, was carved long before 1615. Frankly, I expected the new section to provide missing numerals—thirteen. As in 1315. Still . . . it’s suggestive. Even encouraging, in its way. I’m not done looking, Ford. By God, I’m not!

  “One more surgery, a spot of rest, then I’m off to Central America. Descendants of the Knights Templar were here. What I’ve found proves it—to me, anyway. I’m convinced the warrior monks sailed here long before Columbus, their ships loaded with gold and jewels, and relics from the Holy Land. Their treasure’s out there, Ford. Somewhere in the jungle.”

  The next day, back on Grenada, Monday, July 1st, I sent duplicate packages to the Eastern Caribbean tourist board, to the Miami Herald, and to the French DST, which is the equivalent of our FBI. The packages contained evidence I’d collected against Isabelle Toussaint. I included a letter tha
t suggested blackmail was a boutique industry on Saint Arc, and possibly Jamaica, too. I used data assembled by Tomlinson.

  Contacting the wife of a former French president was trickier than contacting my new senator friend. So I let Bernie Yager take care of it.

  The same day, I delivered a box to the U.S. embassy in Grenada. It would be transported to the States via diplomatic pouch.

  It would not be the first time stolen cash and gems had entered the U.S. in that fashion. But it was the first time Tomlinson ever opened the door to a Federal agent and didn’t expect to be arrested.

  THURSDAY NIGHT while I was in the lab, gathering Corona bottles Tomlinson had emptied as we planned his Summer Christmas Fiesta, the phone rang. Surprise, surprise—Hal Harrington. He sounded perturbed, but also mystified when he mentioned the first initial of my new friend, the U.S. senator, then said, “This person thinks you’re an absolute saint. This person talked my ear off about you at a certain embassy last night. I’ve heard this person actually got a certain state agency to release you from your contract. Why, for God’s sake?”

  Hal spoke of the senator in careful, neutral terms because the senator was a woman—an attractive woman, dark-haired and fit, judging from photos. One of the youngest ever elected to that most exclusive of clubs.

  “I did the person in question a favor,” I told Harrington. “No strings attached. That’s the truth. And that’s all I can say. Hal—I may do you a favor, and come back to work. If you ask real nice.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “On my own terms, of course.”

  “Things are going pretty well, right now. Maybe we don’t need you.”

  “Are we already negotiating, or are you being an ass?”

  “We’re negotiating. Are you fit for duty?”

  I brushed a hand over the back of my head. “Never better.”

  We talked for another ten minutes. It sounded as if the man was my friend again. Then I told him I had to go—also true.