F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

He glanced at Jack. If he was expecting to see shock or incredulity, he was disappointed. Jack had half expected something like this.

“And you laughed her off.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t you? It was ridiculous. Or so I thought then. But she wouldn’t quit. She kept calling me, at the office, at home, on my cell phone, going on about how Gateways South had encroached too near the ‘lagoon’—I still don’t know what lagoon she was talking about—and that the Everglades was angry and demanded sacrificial victims. Four a year. Ridiculous, right? But she kept after me, saying that I, as head of Gateways, must make the offering. By that she meant, choose the victim. All I had to do was point out a resident and the lagoon would do the rest. If I didn’t, the lagoon would choose one for me—from my own family.”

“And so you caved.”

“No. At least not yet. As soon as she threatened my family, I went to the police. Since I had only a voice on the phone, and couldn’t tell them what she looked like or where she lived, all they could do was keep an eye out for her and do regular patrols past my house.”

“And I take it that didn’t work.”

Weldon shook his head. “That same night, my son was bitten by a brown recluse spider and had to be rushed to the hospital—he was only three and almost lost his arm. And right there, in Kevin’s hospital room, the woman calls me on my cell phone and says this was just a warning. Had I changed my mind? I hung up but she called right back and asked me if my daughter was afraid of snakes. And if not, she should be.” Weldon rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve got to tell you, that spooked me. I don’t know how she knew about the spider bite, I don’t know how she got a brown recluse close enough to my son to bite him, but I was really spooked.”

Jack couldn’t blame him. He knew how he’d felt when Vicky had been threatened.

“Did you go back to the cops?”

“What for? I couldn’t tell them any more then than before. So I took matters into my own hands. I packed up my wife and both kids and sent them to stay with my in-laws in Woodstock, right outside Atlanta. I figured putting them hundreds of miles away in a different town, a different state, would keep them safe.” He shook his head. “The very first day there Laurie was bitten by a copperhead and almost died. After spending a week up north, waiting for Laurie to be released from the hospital, I finally returned home—alone, because I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing them back here until I’d dealt with this woman.”

“Obviously you didn’t succeed.”

“Not for lack of trying. When I got home I found this young woman with white hair waiting in my backyard. She was sitting with her back to me, holding her hands up to her face, and in an instant I knew who she was. I grabbed the revolver I keep in the top of our bedroom closet and went out to her. I was going to shoot her, so help me, I was, but as soon as I raised the pistol I was attacked by a swarm of bees and—”

“Killer bees?”

Weldon nodded. “Only they didn’t sting me enough to kill me. They concentrated on my face and my gun hand and didn’t let up until I’d dropped it. Then she turned and I saw her face for the first time. I was surprised that she was so young. From her white hair I’d assumed she’d be some old witch, but she was young and—”

“Not bad looking. I know.”

“You’ve met her then. How did you—?”

“Let’s stick to you. What did you do then?”

“What could I do? She told me I already had two strikes against me. I still remember her words: ‘Strike three and your wife is out.’ What else could I do? Tell me you would have done any different.”

“My approach to settling problems differs a bit from the average.”

“I don’t know how, but this woman somehow controls snakes, insects, birds, and who knows what else? Don’t you see the position I was in?”

Jack stared at Weldon. No question, the guy had been thrust into an appalling situation: Finger a relative stranger for death or lose a family member. A no-brainer, but also a no-win.

“I see that a man has to put his family before strangers, which is regrettably acceptable. But when one of those strangers is my father, we have a problem.” Jack jabbed the knife blade at Weldon’s face, stopping the point an inch from his nose. “We have even more of a problem when it becomes clear that you took an awful predicament and used it to turn a quick buck.”

“I did no such thing!”

Weldon cowered back, pressing himself against the door as the knife point touched the tip of his nose.

“Now’s not the time for lies, bozo.” Jack was doing his best to check his flaring rage. “I could go along with you doing what you had to if you’d picked out the sickest Gateways folks, the ones with the shortest life expectancy. But you didn’t do that. Instead you picked ones who were not only the healthiest, but were unattached, guaranteeing that their homes would go back on the market years, maybe even a decade or two before their natural time.”

“No!”

“Yes!” The word hissed through Jack’s teeth. “Yes, you son of a bitch! You fingered people whose deaths would turn you a profit! And one of them was my father!”

Weldon’s face crumpled. His eyes squeezed shut and he began to sob.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Three innocent people are dead and my father was put in a coma, and that’s all you can say?” He wanted to drop the knife and throttle him. “Get out!”

Weldon looked at him. “What?”

“Get out, you pathetic bastard. Out before I cut you.”

Weldon fumbled behind him for the latch. As the door swung open, Jack raised his right leg and kicked him. Hard.

“Out!”

Weldon fell out the door and landed on his back in the limestone powder and rubble. Without bothering to close the door, Jack threw the DeSoto into gear and hit the gas. He gunned the car into a tire-spinning turn, then raced back toward where Weldon was staggering to his feet. He let him scramble out of the way. Despite Jack’s dark urge to maim, maybe even kill the man, Weldon wasn’t worth the hassle.

He tore up the steep roadway out of the pit and onto the street. He knew Weldon wouldn’t be going to the police about this; he’d fear it would draw a loot of unwanted attention to the deaths at Gateways. Let him find his own way home.

As he passed the trailer park he pulled in. An impulse. He spotted Carl’s junker parked by a mildewed trailer. He got out and checked the door. Locked. He lifted the lid of a garbage can by the steps and found take out containers—KFC, Chinese, Domino’s. He pulled out his wallet as he scoped the area. No one about so he slipped the door latch with his MasterCard. Inside he closed the door behind him and looked around. He wasn’t sure why he was here. Just an urge to know a little more about Carl.

The air conditioner was off and the trailer smelled faintly of old food and sweat. The kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom lay to the left, the main room to the right. He noticed the disassembled remnants of Big Mouth Billy Bass, the singing fish, on the kitchen counter, neatly stored in a little box. Jack was struck by how clean the place was. Carl had said he loved his little trailer, and it showed.

In the main room sat a good-size TV. It looked like at least a twenty-seven-incher—pan-o-ramic, one might say. A battered Naugahyde recliner sat before it. The thick Direct TV program guide for September lay open on the seat, marked up with a yellow pen. Jack picked it up and saw that Carl had highlightedSurvivor ,Fear Factor ,Boot Camp ,Big Brother …secondhand living.

But that seemed good enough for Carl.

Jack shrugged. Whatever gets you through the night…