Randy White - Black Widow

Fabron was a curious man. He’d find out where I was-soon, I hoped. I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to clinging to roots several hundred feet above the sea. The rope would hold, but I wasn’t sure about the tree. Loose stones and earth had showered down when I lowered myself to the ledge. Felt as if the roots were breaking free-a sickening sensation.

I’d looked down only once. The phosphorescent cresting of waves below resembled the lights of a village seen from a jetliner. If the tree busted free, I would go with it.

“Are you tired of your game? Why don’t you answer?” Fabron was closing in, and he no longer sounded rattled. Didn’t he believe that a one-eyed creature, the La’Ja’bless, roamed the night?

No… he didn’t believe, because then he said, “You think you’re invisible? You’re only invisible to yourself. Maybe you should clean your ugly fucking glasses!” He was standing directly over me now.

I had my left hand on what I hoped was a solid root, my right hand on the rope where it was knotted to the tree. I waited… waited even though he was close enough… waited several slow seconds, expecting him to poke his head over the roots to peer down.

He didn’t. In the silence of whistling wind, the distant percussion of waves below, I became aware of an incongruous sound.. . a faint but rhythmic sawing noise…

Shit.

Fabron had discovered the rope and was cutting it with the switchblade.

In one motion, I vaulted up onto the rock rim using the rope and roots for leverage. Got my upper body onto solid ground, while my legs dangled… and there was Fabron on his knees, sawing frantically, his left side to the tree, the flashlight nearby. He turned when he heard me and swung the knife, trying to pin my hand to the tree. When I yanked my hand away, he lunged and tried to stab me again… then grinned as I began to slide back over the edge.

Because there was nothing else to grab, I grabbed Fabron’s long hair- he wouldn’t risk stabbing himself in the head. I yanked and kept yanking until he dropped the knife to pry my left hand free. When he did, I caught his wrist with my right hand, and augered my thumb between tendon and ulnar nerve until my fingers were anchored.

Fabron began sliding with me over the cliff’s edge.

The man swore… then screamed, as my weight pulled him downward. He scratched and pounded at my fist, trying to free himself. But we continued to slide. For an instant, we were face-to-face-me looking up, Fabron looking down. He had the wild black eyes of an animal unaccustomed to darkness.

“Let go-you’re insane. You’re hurting me!”

I said, “Like you hurt the English woman?” I had threaded my left arm through a space where a huge root was anchored to rock, but my right hand was still locked on his wrist. I continued pulling him downward.

“What did that bitch tell you? She asked for it. She’s lying!”

I said, “No. You asked for it. And you’re dying.”

I released the wrist, got a handful of his hair, and gave a final yank. The man shrieked as he tumbled over me. But instead of tumbling clear, he got an arm around my neck, and we both fell… fell until the rope jolted taut, humming with the strain of our combined weight.

The impact bounced us away from the cliff, over the water… back to the rocks… over the water… then back again… amid a shower of stones and the machine-gun crackle of breaking tree roots. Each time a root ripped free, there was another jolting descent of a few inches as the tree began to fall in slow motion.

Fabron had managed to keep his right arm locked around my neck, but he was slipping. As he slipped, he screamed, “Loop the rope around me. For God’s sake, loop the rope around my waist!”

Then, he went silent. He felt my fingers on his right wrist, prying, squeezing, levering. His chest spasmed. He was crying, I realized, as he moaned, “Don’t… I’m begging you. We’re both going to die!”

I told him, “Don’t we all?” and popped his hand free.

He fell, and I watched… watched as he shrank into a funneling darkness despite his clawing attempts to fly. The last desperate words of grown men, good and bad, are often a child’s cry.

“Mamaaaaaaaan.”

Fabron’s scream lingered, then faded into vacuous silence that was dizzying.

I looked away, then at the tree above. Roots were holding now. No more firecracker popping… just the open-sea sound of wind… and somewhere, the muted howling of a dog.

HAND OVER HAND, I climbed the rope and pulled myself over the rim. I staggered farther from the ledge than necessary to be safe, then rested on one knee while my head throbbed and my pounding heart began to slow. After a minute or so, I walked to where Fabron had dumped Norma’s body.

The carpet was there, but it had been rolled out flat. Norma was gone.

What the hell…?

Had Fabron dumped her off the cliff without me noticing?

No, impossible.

Or maybe Wolfie had come along and…

No, Wolfie would’ve cut the rope to get rid of me before bothering with a dead woman.

I’d hidden my radio and flashlight in a crevice near the tree. With the flashlight, I returned to the carpet. I found traces of blood, and a balled-up wad of duct tape. Several yards away, I found another wad of tape.

I smiled. Norma was alive. Hurt… maybe badly hurt, but still strong enough to free herself and get away.

I called her name, but not loud. I walked toward a wall of trees where chain-link fence bordered the monastery grounds. Found another strip of tape, and called, “Norma? Norma,” in a hoarse whisper.

She was gone.

I returned to the Lookout and gathered Fabron’s flashlight, his knife, and searched for anything else he might have left behind. As I searched, I imagined the woman out there, hurt, bleeding. Where would an employee of the Orchid go if the boss lady wanted her dead?

Home, probably. Staff housing was down the mountain, not far from the road. Norma had told me her place was set off by itself. But that would mean climbing the fence. What about the dogs?

Maybe there was someone inside the compound Norma could trust. Could be that she was safe, already being taken care of by a friend. I hoped so. I occasionally meet a person I dislike initially, but end up liking intuitively. She was one of those.

A dog howled… then another. It came from the elevated darkness beyond the fence. Not far.

Out of habit, I patted the back of my pants even though I knew I’d left my gun with Senegal. I had the radio, though. Maybe Montbard was still in the area… even somewhere on the mountain-no telling with him.

I put the radio to my lips… then stopped and sniffed the heavy air. I pointed my nose at the stars and sniffed again, testing until I identified a familiar odor: cigar smoke. A combination of maple syrup and tobacco-a cigarillo.

Wolfie.

I crouched, pocketed the radio, flicked open Fabron’s switchblade, then looked for an ambush spot. The rope again? No… no way in hell was I going back to that cliff. My muscles were twitching-part nerves, part exhaustion. Wolfie wasn’t an athlete, didn’t have the look of a brawler, but I was running low on fuel. I had to come up with something better. My eyes came to rest on the carpet. Wolfie would expect to find a body there. I gave it some thought-decided he would find a body.

I gathered the discarded duct tape and jammed a ball of it in my pocket-the stuff was still usable-then laid on the carpet. Instead of rolling myself into the center, I pulled a flap of it over me.

A few minutes later, I felt a small glycogen charge as Wolfie came tromping into the clearing. Hunters get the same feeling when they hear the snap of a twig telling them the quarry is approaching. He was swearing and complaining about lazy French playboys, pissed off at Fabron for not dumping Norma’s body, his Caribbean accent so thick he was tough to understand. Then I waited through several seconds of silence before he said, “Dumb bitch!” and I pictured him looking at the carpet, thinking he’d have to carry Norma’s corpse the final few yards. Lazy.