Black Widow (5 page)

“Oh . . . yeah. The concept just came to me, man. The vision flowed into my consciousness the way things used to before I lost my cosmic rhythm. So maybe I’m getting my chops back. Or it could’ve been a lucky guess. Hey — Saint Arc isn’t far from Venezuela. South America is your old stomping grounds. You have lots of special contacts. Why not have one of your spook pals check out the island, see if I’m right?”

I said, “I’m not sure if my special contacts talk to me anymore,” referring to my recent change of employers.

Tomlinson considered that for a few seconds. “Ironic, huh? Your contacts in the jungle dried up at the same time my contacts in the cosmos took a powder. I can tell you exactly when it happened, too.”

I shrugged.
Tell me
.

“It was when, after all those years of dealing with guilt —
wham —
we were both set free. Pardoned. You know what I’m talking about.”

I nodded. Yes, I knew.

“But it’s not like I thought it would be. Free to live like so-called average citizens? Safe little nine-to-five lives? That’s a statistical trap, man, not freedom. Let me remind you that the average American citizen has one testicle, one breast, a three-inch clitoris, and watches football every fourteen days. I wasn’t born to be average . . .”

Tomlinson stopped and looked at the radio, then changed subjects. “That’s her.
Listen
.”

A woman’s voice was calling, “Hello? Are you there? I’m trying to contact the man . . .” But then her voice faded.

He made a face, frustrated. “Damn, she keeps switching channels, so I get nothing but skip or bleed, then she’s gone before I can catch her.”

He pressed the transmit button. “This is base station Sanibel Biological Supply. I read you. Say again, please.”

After a few seconds, he hailed her once more. I realized he was staring, interested in my reaction, as he said into the microphone, “I’m attempting recontact with the vessel that reported sharks attacking the beach. I say again: The vessel reporting sharks attacking the beach, are you standing by, channel sixty-eight?”

I echoed, “Sharks attacking the beach?”

His expression replied:
See? I told you.Weird
.

TOMLINSON WEARS baseball uniforms almost as often as he wears sarongs, but he’d actually played a game earlier, I realized. His pin-striped pants were stained orange from sliding, one thigh a strawberry blotch of blood. As we waited for the woman to respond, he mouthed the words,
I pitched today
.

I was interested. “You win?”

He shook his head.
No fucking defense
.

I smiled. “It should be on tombstones. Every pitcher’s epitaph.” Aloud, he shot back, “Not just pitchers, man. Position players, too. It’s the universal condition.”

I shrugged, looking at his leg. “Steal a base?”

He tried to make me lip-read, but I didn’t understand.

“Something bit me.”

"What?”

He squinted at the radio, getting impatient. Why didn’t the woman respond? He tried hailing her again, then waited through a long silence before answering my question. “About four nights ago, I got bit by something. An insect, maybe.”

“Are you sure . . . ?” There was too much blood for an insect bite.

“Maybe. I didn’t feel it at first. Then it started to burn . . . then yesterday morning,
wow
. My nervous system fired up. I felt like I had my lips on a moonshine still when lightning zapped it.”

“An insect did that?”

“No . . . it doesn’t compute. So maybe it was a snake. Or a vampire bat . . . something that injects high octane. I was in the lab when it happened, so who knows with all the far-out creepy crawlers you’ve been dealing with lately.”

“It couldn’t have been four nights ago. Shay was here. A Sunday.”

“Then it was Monday . . . no, Tuesday, the night before you left for Saint Arc.”

Zero time perception. Yes, the man was stoned.

I said, “That was night before last, not four days ago.”

“
Exactly
. You had a date with the lady biologist, so I stopped by the lab to use the computer. I got nailed in here or on the porch. The hammock, possibly, where I paused to smoke a joint. I wish to hell I knew what bit me. I’ve felt like a million bucks ever since.”

“You liked it?”

“
Incredible
. Like a pint of carburetor cleaner got pumped through my cerebral cortex. Now all my neuroreceptors feel real sparkly.”

I was eyeing one of the new tanks, a low-turbulence Kreisel aquarium. It contained miniature jellyfish shipped to me in polyp stage from Australia.
Carukia
. The sea jellies were lucent parachutes, quarter-sized, with four retractable tentacles armed with a neurotoxin more potent than cobra venom. The stingers injected minuscule amounts, but could still be deadly.

It was a dangerous association to investigate, but I had to ask.

“When you were alone in the lab, did you follow safety procedures? Never lean over the tanks without safety glasses . . . or reach into the water without rubber gloves—”

“Have you confused me with Wally Cleaver? Of course I didn’t follow the rules. But even drunk, on acid, I know better than to stick my ass into an aquarium full of fucking jellyfish. How stupid do you think I—”

There was the clack of a mic key, then a woman’s voice came from the radio. Tomlinson turned up the volume.

“Hey, it’s her again!”

“SOMEONE HEARS ME? Thank God! We have a rental boat, and I’m not sure how to work the radio. Is this the channel people talk on?”

Tomlinson grunted, frustrated again. The woman didn’t release the microphone key when she was done transmitting. It was pointless to respond until she did. We could hear a child shouting in the background, then we heard a scream, then more clicking.

I asked, “Where are they?”

“I don’t know. I got her first transmission as you came up the steps. She said something about sharks. It
sounded
like she said sharks were attacking the beach. But that can’t be right. She’s not faking — she’s scared. It’s tarpon season. The oceangoing meat-eaters have come shallow to feed. I’m afraid some midnight swimmer got whacked.”

Walking toward the phone, I said, “I’ll call the Coast Guard just in case,” as Tomlinson tried again. “Sanibel Bio to the rental boat on channel sixty-eight. Listen to me! Press the button to talk.
Release
the button to listen. Tell me your name and location. Over.”

The woman was already transmitting before he finished. “. . . I’ll say it a third time! My name’s Lynn. My daughters and I are camped on an island. We’re on North Captiva, about a mile from the southern point. It’s really dark because there’s no moon, but we have flashlights. We’re seeing what we think are sharks. Did you hear that?
Sharks
. Big sharks swimming with the waves right up on the beach. It’s like they’re trying to get to our tents. Everyone I talk to thinks I’m joking but damn it,
I am not joking
! Sometimes the sharks make it halfway. Then the water pulls them back. But they keep trying. It’s like on TV when sharks chase seals. We’re afraid to go near our tent!”

I told Tomlinson, “Those are
not
sharks.”

He nodded as he lifted the mic. “I copy, Lynn. I’m here. Stay with me. I’ve got a question. How big are they? How big are the fish you think are sharks? Over.”

“Big. Three or four times bigger than the porpoises we saw at Sea World. That’s what I’m telling you! They’re great white sharks, we think. Just like on TV. But they’re black . . .”

In the background, a girl shrieked as the woman added, “My God, now
two
of them are out of the water! They’re almost on the beach by our tents, slapping their tails.
Why
are they doing this?”

I finished dialing the phone as Tomlinson tried to calm the woman. “You’re not in danger. Trust me on this, Lynn. Listen to what I’m about to tell you . . .”

Then I couldn’t hear him because I was moving fast out the door, across the breezeway, talking on the phone as I stuffed medical supplies and towels into a backpack. I called the Coast Guard. Next, I called Pete Hull, of Mote Marine Lab near Sarasota. Called him at home because it was the fastest way to get in touch with a leading cetacean expert, his wife, Kim.

When I was packed, Tomlinson was waiting for me on the dock next to my flats skiff — an open boat designed for running fast and dry in shallow water. He, too, had assembled supplies.

“Beer?” he asked, offering me a bottle. He had a cooler aboard, a backpack, and a couple of shovels.

“Not now — when we’re under way. Do you believe her story?”

He nodded, already drinking my beer. “She’s consistent. They’re bigger than dolphins. They’re black, not gray. Lynn counted more than a dozen with her flashlight while I talked her through it.”

I said, “They’re whales, not sharks.” I was picturing pilot whales or false killers, sleek as dolphins, the size of my boat, with teeth. Rare.

He was nodding, distressed. “Yep. They’re killing themselves. Two are already ashore. The others are trying to follow — a mass stranding just getting started.”

He was referring to a little-understood behavior, sometimes associated with disease, or underwater noise pollution. Whales ground themselves and die together, sometimes in pairs, sometimes by the hundreds.

“Doc? Strandings are a chain reaction — whales react to distress calls from an injured whale. That’s the theory.”

I said, “That’s one theory.” I was idling away from the dock, more interested in navigation than conversation. Wind was gusting out of the stars on this black night. Visibility was poor.

“That would explain the radio contact. If we can save the sick whale, we might save the others.”

“You lost me.”

“I should’ve understood right away. Lynn and her daughters are from Canada. She doesn’t know anything about the sea, but she has a radio. Get it? That’s why the whales came to her. They used Lynn to contact me. It’s classic third-party transferal communication.”

“You’re telling me the whales knew you’d be in the lab, monitoring channel sixty-eight . . . ?”

“You’re being too linear. Universal Mind is connective. Whales are tuned in, man. They sense kindred beings who can help. If you embrace the destination, Universal Mind provides the pathway. I won’t be the only healer they contact — watch. Other enlightened souls will arrive.”

Over the years, I’ve heard so many ridiculous claims about the psychic and intellectual powers of dolphins and the family
Cetacea
that my response has been pared to a single word. I use a flat monotone to discourage discussion.

“Interesting,” I said.

“Isn’t it?” Tomlinson was scratching at the bite on his thigh, excited. “Maybe I am getting the old mojo back.”

I attempted diplomacy. “I was never convinced you lost it. But don’t expect too much, okay?”

I added the warning because whale strandings seldom have happy endings.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20TH

I throttled onto plane, bow fixed on an elevated darkness that marked the entrance of Dinkin’s Bay. We angled into the channel, skirting oyster bars and pilings as I picked up markers to open water.

It was 1 a.m. Looking at my watch reminded me of all the work I had to do before tomorrow’s meeting . . . so I made a personal decision to stop checking my damn watch and concentrate on driving the boat.

Houses on the point were dark — all but the cottage owned by my cousin, Ransom, next to Ralph Woodring’s old Cracker house. Dock lights were on. I could see Ralph and Ransom moving on a flat vacancy of shadow that I knew was a loading platform.

Ralph owns the Bait Box on Periwinkle. The two had been in his trawl boat, netting shrimp.

Like it was no big deal, Tomlinson said, “Did Ransom tell you she’s flying to Seattle with me on Sunday? I’m doing a Zen retreat for the Starbucks people, plus America’s got a gig there. I play tambourine when they do ‘A Horse with No Name.’ It could be a new start for us, Ransom and me—”

I cut him off, saying, “I don’t want to hear about it,” then slowed as we neared Ralph’s dock, so I could yell out our destination. Ransom hollered a response, but I waved her off, saying I’d make contact later by radio.

Tomlinson said, “Your cousin could do a lot worse than me.”

I said, “Agreed. But you’re not going to put me in the middle again.”

As we pulled away, I glanced over my shoulder. In the mangrove distance, the marina was a cluster of lights. To the east, the yellow windows of my lab were a solitary constellation, set apart by distance and a darkened space.

I turned toward the cut through the western shoal. It’s a propeller track no wider than a ditch. I lowered the bow, and allowed bottom pressure to funnel us into the trough, engine kicking a rooster tail until we were in deeper water. Tomlinson gripped the rail in silence.

Boats communicate efficiency through the hull. I experimented with trim until I felt the illusion that speed and buoyancy increased in the same silken instant. But the wind was northeast and a heavy chop slammed us. My skiff is among the smoothest and driest ever built — a twenty-one-foot Maverick. Even so, the bay was miserable.

I had to raise my voice to be heard. “I’m heading for the gulf. It’s a couple of miles extra, but calmer.”

Tomlinson replied, “Rough water’s trouble — beer gets foamy, and I could chip a tooth. But is it
faster
? Getting to those whales is all I care about.”

I said, “Then hold on,” and turned so we were running with the wind.

Ahead was the bridge Shay and I had crossed an hour earlier. It was a strange juxtaposition. In a car, even while discussing blackmail, the world seemed safer for the linkage of asphalt. Not in a boat. Beneath the bridge, in darkness, even as cars passed overhead, stars illustrated the emptiness of space. The safe world ended on the horizon where navigation markers blinked.

When we rounded Lighthouse Point, I found calm water outside the shoal, and asked Tomlinson to break out the MUMs night-vision system because it was so damn dark. It is not a gadget found in boating catalogs. The monocular is fourth-generation technology, a present to me from military pals who specialized in coming ashore quietly after long night swims. It is waterproof to sixty feet, and worn on a headband like a surgical optic. Slip it on, hit the switch, and the blackest night becomes high noon as if seen through a Heineken bottle. A starless sky turns fiery with meteors and stars.