Randy White - Black Widow

“Ford, you’re talking rubbish. I’m perfectly capable of going with you. I’m a right-handed shooter-”

“That’s why I’m asking you to stay here. Look after Norma. It’s about time someone took care of her.” When I opened the door, the dome light came on, and the woman caught my eyes, looking from me to Montbard, whose head was now in her lap. For the first time, he looked his seventy-some years. His face was as white and fragile as rice paper. On the floor was a pile of towels soaked black with blood.

I handed Norma the VHF. “If you roll down the window, maybe you can raise someone. We need a helicopter. Don’t worry about the price.” I pulled the SIG Sauer and ran toward the house.

There was a white car in the drive. A midsize Volvo, which made me think of Beryl. An expensive rental car in this part of the world. Or the sort of vehicle a street guy with an ego would drive.

I touched the hood. Cool.

The beach house was lit up, windows bright, upstairs and down. The patio at the rear of the house shimmered with an aqueous, swimming-pool glow. There was music-Bob Marley, again-pounding through the palm canopy, stirring leaves like a sea breeze. It muted the percussion of waves on the beach, and the last distant crackle of Sir James’s fireworks diversion.

Crouched low, I jogged across an expanse of sand to the hedge. The hedge shielded the pool at eye level, but didn’t interfere with the view from the camera blind above the house. I turned and looked. No lights up there in the rain-forest darkness, no sign of movement. Wolfie had produced his last film.

I moved along the hedge, gun pointed at the ground, index finger resting parallel to the trigger guard. On the back wall of the house, I could see shadows. Shadows of people standing near the pool. Because pool lights reflected upward, their shadows were huge. At least one woman. At least one man.

I stopped and tried to decipher a garbled exchange-the man saying something… the woman answering, but the music disassembled their voices and left me listening to the wind.

I walked faster, then heard another exchange. This time I recognized the woman’s voice. “… if it’s me you want, get that damn knife away from her neck. Stop it!”

Beryl’s voice.

I ran. Sprinted toward the walkway where the hedge ended, and peeked around the corner, seeing the lime blue water of the pool… seeing Senegal Firth sitting in a chair next to the bar… seeing Clovis, his back to me, standing, holding a knife to the side of Senegal’s neck as the woman sat very straight, weeping.

Beryl faced them-stood with the wooden stiffness of an actress frozen by stage fright, arms at her sides. She wore pleated white beach pants and sandals. Nothing else. In a pile at her feet were a bra, a blouse, and a turquoise scarf. Her tanned skin was darkened by the paleness of her breasts.

I pointed the pistol at Clovis’s head, stepped toward the pool.. . then stepped back. The knife-he would use the knife when he saw me. He would use it to cut Senegal, or he would use Senegal as a shield to escape.

I glanced over my shoulder, wondering where Shay was, where Ritchie was, as I heard Clovis say, “Darlin’, what don’t you understand about this game? It’s strip poker, but without cards.” There was a nauseating slickness to his laughter. “I win every hand. .. or I cut this old woman’s face a little. Which would be too bad, because-” Clovis got a handful of Senegal’s hair. “-she ain’t too bad-looking.”

He yanked the English woman’s head back, and Beryl yelled, “Leave her alone!”

Clovis grinned. Used the knife like a conductor’s baton: tap-tap-tap. Beryl took a big breath. She began unbuttoning her pants.

“That’s better, darlin’. You make me happy when you cooperate.”

I knelt, put left elbow on knee to steady my hands, and let the man’s head blur behind the precise notch-and-blade of my gun sights. I needed an opening, a few feet of separation.

Clovis put his lips close to Senegal’s ear as he released her hair. “What’s gone wrong with your pretty friend? First night we met, this girl, Beryl, she was eager to cooperate. Oh man, she was so eager! She ripped her clothes off. Hell, she ’bout ripped my clothes off, too. Couldn’t wait to get her rich-girl hands on my sweet bamboo!”

He looked at Beryl. “You don’t remember how sweet it was? How you moaned, first time I gave you what I got? Never felt nothin’ like it, that’s what you said. Ain’t that true, pretty darlin’?”

The way he emphasized the word “true,” I knew he expected Beryl’s signature reply. Hard to imagine the Ice Queen beauty with this Peter Lorre weasel. But there it was.

He said it again. “True?” When she didn’t answer, his tone turned nasty. “But now, instead of bein’ happy to see us local boys, treating me and Ritchie right, the bitch pulls out a silly little popgun. Like she don’t appreciate what I give to her. Bitch-” He pointed the knife at Beryl. “-you try to trick me, you’re gonna end up turning tricks for me.”

For the first time, I noticed the little Colt. 380 on the deck near Clovis’s feet. The gun I’d loaned Senegal.

I looked over my shoulder again, seeing palm trees, seeing pumpkin-sized coconuts on sand, seeing a watery darkness in the distance, but no Ritchie.

I used the SIG’s decocking lever, then hustled to the nearest palm, picked out a coconut, and put it under my arm like a football before jogging to the opposite side of the patio. The hedge was thicker there, but I found an opening and peeked through.

Clovis was facing me now. He’d grabbed Senegal’s hair again, but his eyes were locked on Beryl as she stepped out of her pants, showing long, tanned legs and a golden pubic shadow beneath white panties.

The man grinned his Peter Lorre grin. “That’s nice, darlin’. I think I’m gonna have me some of that. Why don’t you relax, have some fun with your bamboo man? Or maybe you’re the type likes to be forced.”

He stepped away from Senegal. I let him take another step before I lobbed the coconut toward the far end of the pool. Lobbed it like a hand grenade. It was big, oil laden, and sounded like a bowling ball when it hit the water.

Clovis whirled, then crouched. He looked at the pistol lying on the deck, probably thinking he might need it, as I crashed through the hedge and tackled him chest-high. I got a brief look at his eyes-brown, dazed, like protuberant marbles-as we tumbled into the water.

I kept my arms locked around the man as I took him under, pinning his arms to his sides. Maybe he’d held on to the knife, maybe he’d dropped it. It didn’t matter.

I exhaled a slow stream of bubbles as we sank to the bottom-couldn’t have been more than five feet deep. Kept my hands locked as Clovis struggled… waited as his efforts became panicked

… waited, eyes open, watching the oversized bubbles of the man’s ascending scream.

I stayed on the bottom and waited, feeling his chest heave as he inhaled water, then heave again as reflexes demanded oxygen. Gave it another five seconds before I pushed Clovis to the surface… then shoved him away when he began to vomit, unconscious now.

It was one of those kidney-shaped, decorator pools. I got a hand under his chin, walked him to the steps, then pulled him onto the deck. “Where’s Shay?”

Beryl was the first to recover from the shock. “Shay… she left with Ritchie. Ritchie took her to the beach. She pretended she wanted sex, so he wouldn’t force her. They left us with this… animal. I couldn’t help her because of him.”

Beryl had her hands over her breasts, but it was an indifferent modesty. Her denim-blue eyes glazed as she focused on Clovis. I watched Beryl lower her hands. I saw her hands become fists as she started toward the man. He was lying belly-down in his own mess, still alive. I was on one knee, using my belt to bind his arms behind him.