Black Widow (42 page)

“She’s killing me,” he’d moaned, then was understandably confused when I assured him that that was one of the few things Beryl would not do.

I said to Tomlinson, “Christmas in July. Why not? You’re sure Eddie knows how to rig it?”

Tomlinson said, “Are you kidding? How do you think he won that lottery in Jersey?”

IT WAS TRUE I now had a bundle of unreported, untaxed cash on my hands. Slightly less than a quarter million, after I’d split the take with Sir James and Norma, and sent an anonymous money order to Corey’s family.

The Midnight Star, I kept for myself. Expenses.

Because U.S. Customs is suspicious of citizens carrying large sums, I’d had Eddie drop me on the nearby island of Grenada before he and the girls returned to Fort Lauderdale in his leased, jet-fast TBM-850 airplane.

I spent six days on Grenada making phone calls to old contacts and making new friends at the U.S. embassy. Turned out I had some old friends on the island, too. Grenada had changed a lot since the invasion.

My old friends proved helpful. So did my old boss, Hal Harrington — once I applied the right kind of pressure. I was now in possession of a video that compromised a powerful member of the U.S. Senate. But I’m not an extortionist. I didn’t use the video; didn’t mention it — although I did contact the senator who, understandably, was suspicious despite glowing character references from my old friends. The senator and I began a careful dialogue that gradually became genial, and was now friendly.

For Hal Harrington, though, a call from Sir James Montbard was pressure enough.

“Do you know who
he is
?” Harrington — a man not easily impressed — had asked.

I’d told him, “No, but I’m starting to figure it out.”

Because I already had everything arranged at the embassy, and it was Saturday, I had returned to Saint Lucia for the weekend. Had dinner at Bluestone with Sir James, Senegal, and Norma, too. Sir James was out of the hospital after a successful surgery, and as upbeat as ever — despite a loss that would be debilitating to most men.

“A hook!” he’d called out when I arrived. “They’re going to fit me with a bloody hook. Isn’t it perfect! Until then, they’ve given me this temporary thing.” He’d waved the stainless steel prosthetic strapped to his left arm.

He was more enthusiastic about Norma. She’d stayed by his bed during the worst of it, tending to his every need. She’d given him incredible daily massages, he said.

“I think she’s marvelous. I’ve offered the woman a full-time billet. Top pay, full benefits.” After a wry look, he’d added, “But Norma says she’s come into a tidy sum of money. I don’t know if I should compliment your generosity, or curse you.”

I didn’t tell him the woman had accepted only a small percentage of what I’d tried to give. She would take only an amount equal to six months’ salary — it wasn’t much — and enough for a family crypt so her dead son and estranged husband could finally be reunited. She wanted the crypt to be large enough for a third. Her time would come.

I also didn’t tell him what Norma had told me — that she was falling in love with the man, pirate’s hook and all.

“Hooker has more ching chi toxins than a twenty-year-old sailor,” she’d laughed, but wasn’t joking. I could see her amber, liquid eyes now, and her smile — teeth whiter because of her dark skin. The prettiest widow I’d ever met.

Norma had chosen a seventy-year-old legend over me. It was okay. My ego was intact.

At the Bluestone dinner, Sir James told me the artifacts he’d taken from the monastery had turned out to be a disappointment. Sort of. They were pieces of the stone artifact his grandfather had stolen decades before.

“He was just a lad at the time,” Montbard told me, showing me his grandfather’s journal as we sat in the library, near the stone with the strange glyphs. “Someone came along, surprised him, and he dropped the thing.” He’d gestured at the artifact with his temporary hook. “The Mayan glyph is unmistakable. But it’s only been in the last two years that I’ve had time to break the other cipher — my real job always kept me hopping.”

He’d taken out a sketch pad as we stood over the artifact, and showed me tracings of the glyphs. They were similar to sketches I’d made in my notebook.

I was skeptical when he added, “I think we’re looking at ancient Masonic code — but not as ancient as I’d hoped. See what you think.”

He flipped the page, saying, “Here’s the key to the code.”

There were two tic-tac-toe grids. Each square contained a letter:
A-B-C
on the top level of the first grid,
D-E-F
on the next level. Letters followed that progression. In the second grid, there were dots beneath each of the nine letters.

There were also two large
X
s, with a letter in each of the eight open triangles. There were dots beneath letters in the second
X.

“Look at the glyphs. They’re actually shapes. Partial boxes. Now look at the grid. The first square is a two-sided box, open at the left and top. It represents
A. B
is a three-sided box, open at the top.
C
is a two-sided box, open at the right and at the top.

“It’s a simple substitution cipher,” he’d said. “It’s supposedly a Masonic secret, but you see it all the time these days in books and films. Each box, opened or closed, replaces the letter it contains. Understand?”

“I think I do.”

I took the sketch pad and matched the glyphs to the tic-tac-toe grids. The result was a series of meaningless letters.

“It makes no sense. Did I do it right?”

“Perfectly,” Montbard had replied, grinning. “But it’s also perfectly wrong. The actual Masonic key — the one used for many hundreds of years — really is
secret.
The popular books, the films, the cipher they use, is actually gibberish when properly translated.”

“You know this because you’re a Freemason?”

“No. I know because the actual cipher key is here—” He held up his grandfather’s journal. “It has been in the family forever, but it wasn’t obvious, even to me.

“You’d have to be a Mason to understand that we have codes that represent codes that replace other codes. I have no idea of the meaning of half the things we learn as Masons. The language is archaic. But I finally figured out this one.”

He’d flipped the page of the sketch pad. “I can’t show you all of it, old boy. I’m breaking a rule, showing you this. But see what happens when I turn this . . . add this . . . then join this?” He used a charcoal pencil to change the key, then he translated the glyphs.

" ’TUBAL,’ ” I said, “is that a word?”

“If you’re a Freemason, my boy, it has great meaning. That’s all I can say.”

Sir James then took portions of the broken fragment he’d found at the monastery. On it were three more glyphs. When he fitted the stones together, the five glyphs, using the new cipher key, now translated as: "MDCXV.”

“Another secret word?”

Sir James said, “No. Roman numerals. It’s a date: 1615.”

I smiled, impressed. “It’s a great find.”

“Yes,” he said, “but it’s also disappointing. The Mayan glyph, of course, was carved long before 1615. Frankly, I expected the new section to provide missing numerals — thirteen. As in 1315. Still . . . it’s suggestive. Even encouraging, in its way. I’m not done looking, Ford. By God, I’m not!

“One more surgery, a spot of rest, then I’m off to Central America. Descendants of the Knights Templar were here. What I’ve found proves it — to me, anyway. I’m convinced the warrior monks sailed here long before Columbus, their ships loaded with gold and jewels, and relics from the Holy Land. Their treasure’s out there, Ford. Somewhere in the jungle.”

The next day, back on Grenada, Monday, July 1st, I sent duplicate packages to the Eastern Caribbean tourist board, to the
Miami Herald
, and to the French DST, which is the equivalent of our FBI. The packages contained evidence I’d collected against Isabelle Toussaint. I included a letter that suggested blackmail was a boutique industry on Saint Arc, and possibly Jamaica, too. I used data assembled by Tomlinson.

Contacting the wife of a former French president was trickier than contacting my new senator friend. So I let Bernie Yager take care of it.

The same day, I delivered a box to the U.S. embassy in Grenada. It would be transported to the States via diplomatic pouch.

It would not be the first time stolen cash and gems had entered the U.S. in that fashion. But it was the first time Tomlinson ever opened the door to a Federal agent and didn’t expect to be arrested.

THURSDAY NIGHT while I was in the lab, gathering Corona bottles Tomlinson had emptied as we planned his Summer Christmas Fiesta, the phone rang. Surprise, surprise — Hal Harrington. He sounded perturbed, but also mystified when he mentioned the first initial of my new friend, the U.S. senator, then said, “This person thinks you’re an absolute saint. This person talked my ear off about you at a certain embassy last night. I’ve heard this person actually got a certain state agency to release you from your contract. Why, for God’s sake?”

Hal spoke of the senator in careful, neutral terms because the senator was a woman — an attractive woman, dark-haired and fit, judging from photos. One of the youngest ever elected to that most exclusive of clubs.

“I did the person in question a favor,” I told Harrington. “No strings attached. That’s the truth. And that’s all I can say. Hal — I may do you a favor, and come back to work. If you ask real nice.”

“You’re serious.”

“On my own terms, of course.”

“Things are going pretty well, right now. Maybe we don’t need you.”

“Are we already negotiating, or are you being an ass?”

“We’re negotiating. Are you fit for duty?”

I brushed a hand over the back of my head. “Never better.”

We talked for another ten minutes. It sounded as if the man was my friend again. Then I told him I had to go — also true.

The visitor I was expecting was a woman. Ten-thirty sharp, drinks and a late dinner, she’d told me in a familiar businesslike voice. Then she had to go. Lots of work to do.

I wanted to be shaved and dressed before she arrived, so I was headed for the shower, towel knotted around my waist, when the open box on the dissecting table, return address
General Forensics, White Plains, NY
, caught my eye once again. I stopped, checked my Rolex — 10:10 p.m. — then reread the last few paragraphs of Merlin Starkey’s shaky hand.

... your daddy was a good man, Marion. A sight better man than your uncle Tucker Gatrell, although Tuck had a genius, which even I will admit.
If I wasn’t sure you already knew what it is I’m about to write, I’d warn you it might hurt. But I am sure. Your mother was a well-educated woman. She liked music and things, art and such, and she knew all the birds, which your daddy didn’t. People can get lonely inside their own heads. Maybe it’ll happen to you, one day. It happened to your mother.
She had an affair with a young museum professor, an expert on plants or maybe trees, who come down here from Chicago. The museum fella, he fell in love with your mother. Your mama didn’t fall in love with him. He was good-looking, I reckon, but he was a damn bad man. You know his name, Marion. No need for me to write it.
He disappeared seven months after the boat blew up and killed your parents. You couldn’t have been sixteen years old at the time. The museum man was out in the swamps, slogging around with his notebook, and he just disappeared. Murdered. I know, ’cause I investigated that murder, too.
I don’t know why you blamed that shit-heel uncle of yours. Maybe you wasn’t sure. Maybe something up in your head was blocking the truth. So that’s why I’m writing to tell you.
You got the right man, Marion. You did it real smart. I wish to hell I was still alive so you could tell me what you did with the professor man’s body....

The clanging of the bell on the deck below snatched my attention away — a good thing. This was the third time I’d read the letter, but the first time I’d felt an uncomfortable surge of emotion. I was ridiculously close to tears.

I went to the porch, holding the towel around my waist, thinking,
What the hell, this is the tropics
, and looked down into the smiling face of a good-looking woman dressed for business — dark skirt, white blouse, dark blazer.

“Welcome to Sanibel,” I called to her. “Ready to de-ice?”

The woman had a sense of humor, thank God. She laughed. “Looks like you already have, Dr. Ford. But the only ice I want is in a tall glass — I hope I’m not being presumptuous.”

I said, “Not at all. I’ve heard your voice so often on the phone, Senator, it’ll be nice to talk face-to-face.”

I called upon experts in various fields who kindly provided information used in writing this novel. I take full blame, in advance, for any misunderstandings that may have led to factual errors.

Thanks to Dr. John Miller for the ingenious idea of using shrimp as weapons of terror, and to Dr. Brian Lapointe for many years of advice related to marine biology and Marion Ford. Capt. Peter Hull and dolphin expert Kim Hull of Mote Marine once again provided valuable counsel.

For insights into massage, and the massage industry, I called upon several people, including old friends Nick Swartz, head athletic trainer, Kansas City Royals (and MLB American League All-Star selection); Dr. Brian Hummel, M.D., FACS; and Dr. Dan White, DC. Jean Baer, consultant to spas and resorts in Florida and the Bahamas, provided valuable information that was not available through conventional sources — but should be.

For information on Freemasonry, I called upon Col. Gerry Bass, Ralph Benko, and Matt Hall of Captiva, as well as Barry Thrasher at Tropical Lodge #56, Fort Myers, Florida, where, in 1985, I was raised as a Master Mason.

For general information on fishing, life, and interesting beverages, the following people were incredibly helpful: Mark Marinello, Marty Harrity, Greg Nelson, Dan Howes, Brian Cunningham, Kevin Boyce, Steve Carta, Stu Johnson, Scott Fizer, Gary Terwilliger, David Osier, Capt. Jeffrey Cardenas, Capt. Chico Fernandez, Capt. Flip Pallet, my uncle Phil Byers, my sister, Kay White, and Bill Spaceman Lee.