Randy White - Black Widow

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 spoke 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.

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?”