The Deadlier Sex Read online

  “Damn,” she said, wiping her face wearily.

  “Brandy will do that to you. By the way, I don’t even know your name.”

  “Hmm?” She coughed weakly. “What’s in a name?”

  “Convenience, for one thing,” I answered. “I want to know who to offer the aspirins to tomorrow morning.”

  Hers was a weak, sardonic smile. “Shit, why wait? My head’s pounding already. Some wild night, huh? And my name’s Barbara.”

  “Barbie for short.”

  “No.”

  There was some bitterness in the way she said it. “So it’s Barbara.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know why men always want to shorten a woman’s name into something cute and easy. Maybe it’s because that’s the way they want women to be.”

  “We’re all bastards,” I said. She didn’t miss the sarcasm. And neither did Westy. Playing the mediator, he jumped in.

  “Except for meself an’ this scarred-up brute,” he said hastily.

  She studied us both for a second, appraising, ready to jump back into her shell again. The weak grin told me she had decided otherwise. “I guess you two guys have been pretty nice to me. And I appreciate it. I really do. Hey, Irish—how about those aspirins, huh?”

  O’Davis nodded regally, like an English butler. “Immediately, Barbara. An’ me friends call me Westy.”

  “That’s why I call him O’Davis,” I added.

  She chuckled. “You two are funny—for older guys. Always grousing at each other like you’re enemies or somethin’. But you’re really good friends. Like Bob Hope and that other old guy—I think he died recently—in those old Road pictures. I used to watch their movies on TV. Used to really make me laugh.”

  Her green eyes were glassy for a moment, childlike, far, far away. Westy brought aspirins and water, bringing her out of it. I watched her drink down the water, milk-white throat veined with blue, face still pale. She sniffed and handed back the glass.

  “God,” she said. “What a night.”

  “Things can get wild in the Ten Thousand Islands,” I said. “A lot of wilderness and not much law. I’m kind of wondering what brings you down here.”

  A natural wariness seemed to overtake her momentarily. But then she relaxed. She said, “It’s no big deal, really. I had some problems back home. Detroit. I grew up there right on the outskirts of the Motor City. Suburbanville, I’ll tell you. You ever been to Detroit?”

  I shook my head. “It’s never been one of my driving desires.”

  “I’ve been there, lass,” O’Davis said. “No offense, Barbara, me dear, but Detroit sorta looks like the devil decided to go into the automobile business.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “The place really stank. Smog, slush, and drugs. One hell of a good place for high school kids to get bored and do crazy things. The crazy thing I did was marry my high school sweetheart. He was a two-hundred-pound All State fullback with the brain of a grade school kid. Everybody had spoiled him: his parents, his coaches, and his teachers. He expected the same thing from me. And I went along with it for a few years. I supported him and put myself through nursing school all at the same time. I smiled when he came home all beered up from drinking with his ex-teammates, and I helped him into bed after he’d gotten his jollies slappin’ me around awhile. I used to think that was a wife’s job—putting up with her husband’s guff. God knows, my mother went through it long enough.”

  She sniffed, took another sip of water, and I noticed that her hands were shaking.

  “So the divorce was inevitable,” I finished.

  There was a bitter look on her face, and her green eyes narrowed.

  “You’re damn right it was, buster. One night he punched me a little too hard. Broke a couple of my ribs and punctured a lung. I spent the next few weeks in a hospital. Luckily, there’s a group up there that specializes in rehabilitating battered wives. The group is called SELF—Self-Education and Liberation for Feminists—and talking to those women was worth the beating I took. It changed my life. They helped me realize that I had nothing to feel guilty about—that it was my pea-brained husband who had the problems. They helped me understand that I was a person, not just some punchboard put on this earth for some man’s amusement.” She sighed. “I just wish to hell I had run into SELF a couple of years earlier.”

  “And that brings us back to why you’re here on the west coast of Florida in the Ten Thousand Islands.”

  “Right,” she aid. “Hey, Irish—I mean, Westy. Any chance of getting a small glass of milk?”

  She sat up and rubbed her stomach gently, sore, probably, from the brandy-induced illness. When Westy handed her the glass, she drank it down in one go. The milk left a thin curve of mustache on her upper lip, and it made her look very young and vulnerable.

  “Where was I? Oh, yeah—SELF is a federally funded program, and they sponsor these Awareness Retreats all around the country. Living in Detroit, I’ve always been kinda fascinated with the idea of living by the sea. Sounds weird, I guess, but I’ve just always wanted to do it. So, a few years ago, SELF was allowed to take over an old research station down here on a little island called Mahogany Key. You heard of it?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe. A long time ago, didn’t they do research on the tarpon spawn up there? I’ve never seen the place—just heard about it.”

  “It was something like that; some kinda fish research. But SELF took it over, like I said. It’s part of the National Park, I guess. So, like at the rest of the Awareness Retreats, SELF sponsors real interesting classes on all sorts of stuff. Marine biology and birds and stuff like that. Real interesting. We stay right there on the island, have seminars, exercise classes, learn to meditate. I’ll tell you, it’s been just great.”

  “So how did you happen to get mixed up with the drugrunners on the boat that went down?”

  She looked at me sharply. “I was just getting to that, okay?”

  “Sorry, Barbara. Didn’t mean to rush you. It’s just that I’m interested, that’s all. If you don’t feel up to talking anymore, that’s fine.”

  She gave me a weak smile. “Guess I’m a little touchy, huh? They’re trying to teach me how to relate to men again, but that’s been the hardest part for me. It’s like every man I see, it’s that creep of a husband of mine I see instead.”

  “Easy ta understand, lass. There are some real bastards around—male and female alike. But if ye don’t want ta talk about it . . .”

  “No,” she said quickly, “I do. I need to get it out of me. Okay—SELF has this self-awareness project where you learn basic survival; you know, how to live off the land—stuff like that. It’s a twoweek course. And at the end of the two weeks, they take you out and drop you off on an island alone. It’s called ‘solo.’ It’s supposed to help your self-confidence. Well, I was on my solo out there on White Horse Key, when this big boat came up—called the Blind Luck, filled with all these greasy, ratty-looking guys. One of the rules of the SELF solo is that you’re not supposed to talk to anybody. They say you can learn a hell of a lot in perfect silence. So these guys started getting real nasty when I refused to talk to them. So they just kidnapped me—simple as that. They forced me to get into their skiff with them and ride back to the . . . the . . .”

  I could see her struggling to fight back the tears.

  “We can guess the rest, Barbara.”

  She wiped her hand roughly across her face. “That’s right. And you’ll guess exactly right. Those bastards. But . . .” She hesitated, thinking, a look of fresh awareness in her eyes. “But I guess it doesn’t matter, huh?”

  She wasn’t making much sense now, and when I started to say something she cut me off.

  “It’s like what they were teaching us back on the island—no outside influence has any . . . what did they call it? Yeah—no outside influence has any effect on your life unless you let it. That’s right. Unless you react to it!” She looked supremely comforted by her own words. She sat there peaked, tired—but suddenl
y serene. And I had to admit that what she said made sense.

  O’Davis patted her shoulder gently. “Yer right, child. Yer absolutely right.”

  She sniffed and looked up at him. Her eyes were teary, but there was a slight smile on her face. “To hell with them, then! To hell with what happened. They may have had me physically, but it doesn’t make a goddamn bit of difference, does it? It doesn’t make any difference because they didn’t have me. I was never really involved at all! They might just as well have had a picture of me, huh?”

  She looked at us quickly for a confirmation; eyes bright, believing, but wanting us to agree, too. It was pretty touching. I didn’t even know this girl. But she was reaching across to us for help.

  “You’re damn right it doesn’t make any difference,” I said, grinning.

  She got up, found the tuning switch on the radio, and dialed in the all-night rock station in Naples. The jock was playing something slow and syrupy with a lot of sax and guitar licks. The lead singer was doing a low wail that was supposed to pass for lyrics. She stood facing the radio for a while, absorbing the music, caught up in the silence of her own thoughts. And then her hips began to sway gently, feet moving in the slow flow of the music. The cabin light caught the short blond hair, highlighting it and turning it to spun glass. Shadows on her face made cheeks and nose finer, more angular, better-defined in relation to the full mouth. Her eyes were half closed and her head swayed, as she moved her buttocks in perfect time beneath the cutoff shorts. The Irishman and I exchanged looks. To any male animal she would be an enticing package of female pulchritude—femininely sinewy yet soft. But like some of those lithe bikini-clad girls you see on any Florida beach, all youth and preoccupied aloofness, this one too just filled you with vague stirrings and vaguer regrets. We both sighed at the same time, then smiled at the ridiculous thoughts we were both entertaining.

  O’Davis got up and retrieved beer from the refrigerator and handed me mine.

  “Gettin’ a bit late for old-timers like you an’ me, eh, brother MacMorgan?” he said, just softly enough for the girl not to hear.

  “Get me my cane and I’ll hobble in to bed—after another Tuborg, that is.”

  The girl danced on in her own little world, back to us, unself-conscious yet withdrawn. When I got up to get our final beer, she stopped suddenly and looked at us both.

  “You two can drop me off on the island tomorrow, right?”

  I nodded. “Mahogany Key? Sure. We’re heading in to Dismal Key, and it’s not far from there.”

  She looked troubled for a moment. “You know, like I said—it’s all women. I’m not sure if they’ll let men . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” I interrupted. “We’ll just drop you off and leave. No problem.”

  I crossed in front of her, and she took my arm, looking up into my eyes. “Hey, no offense, you know. You two guys have been pretty damn nice to me. Saved my life maybe. I feel like I owe you something.”

  I could have taken the remark in a dozen different ways. But I chose not to. I just wanted to get this beautiful creature off Sniper and get back to our vacation. Aside from the primal stirrings, I have no real interest in hustling pretty little strangers into the sack. And I sure as hell didn’t want to spend much time on an island full of raving feminists.

  I winked at her, trying to make it a brotherly wink. “Just remember what you said a while ago—about outside influences.”

  She nodded and grinned. Standing beside me she seemed very small but no longer vulnerable. “I will,” she said. “Adversity, depression—all that bad stuff. It’s just like a phone ringing. You can choose to answer it and suffer. Or you can choose not to answer and just forget it. And I’m goddamn well going to forget it. . . .”

  6

  Westy and I watched the sun-oiled women on the beach as we approached. Mahogany Key was iridescent in the morning light, and the women lay on blankets in the sand, lovely and aloof as young lions. I could smell the heat of cactus and mangroves as we neared, and then the fruity odor of suntan lotion.

  “The dock’s around on the other side.”

  It was the girl, Barbara. She seemed to have recovered fully from her drinking bout of the night before. She came climbing up the ladder to Sniper’s flybridge, her blond hair neatly combed and parted in the middle. She wore the same cutoff shorts, but had changed into one of my T-shirts. She had tied the excess material into a knot above her belly button. She was braless and filled out the T-shirt better than I would have expected.

  “Feeling better?”

  She nodded curtly, a new formality about her. “Guess I drank too much, huh? I feel pretty damn silly.” She had a nervous mannerism, playing with her fingernails.

  “Sometimes drinking’s good medicine. And Barbara, you weren’t silly last night. Not at all. And it wouldn’t have mattered if you had been. I make it a practice to be silly every now and again myself.”

  “Oh. Hmm.” She looked up at me and smiled. “Thanks.”

  O’Davis looked up, noticing her, and grinned and waved. She waved back.

  “You guys are a funny pair, you know.”

  “Funny weird? Or funny funny?”

  “Funny nice. A nice sort of strange, you know? Kind of odd for older guys to be roaming around on a boat like this. You seem like the type who ought to be planted behind a desk running a big company or something, and pinching the secretaries.”

  “Thanks a hell of a lot.”

  “I didn’t mean you are like that. But at your age . . .”

  I chuckled. “The only reason we seem so old is because you’re so young, Barbara. And I like roaming around in this boat. And so does O’Davis. We like it, so that’s what we do. Okay?”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.” She stuck out her hand. “Friends again?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  The winding channel filtered into an oval bay behind the island. A low bank of mangroves to the west protected it from the open Gulf. The girl stood beside me on the flybridge, watching me maneuver Sniper through the shoalwater. There was something I wanted to talk to her about, and I decided there wasn’t much time left.

  “So you’ve recovered, huh?”

  She sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I have. It all sort of seems like a bad dream, now. Like it happened to a stranger. In a way, I guess it did. No one can really hurt you unless you pay the price of bitterness. And those bastards aren’t worth it. Besides, I’ve got two more weeks on Mahogany Key. It’s plenty to look forward to.”

  “And after that?”

  She thought for a moment. “After that, maybe I’ll become an instructor for SELF. I’ve got my RN degree, and they always have openings for nurses.”

  “Sounds like a big organization.”

  “Not really. Small—but top-quality. It’s changed my life. And for the better. Women really do have a tough time of it, Dusky. Like that album cover a long time back called women the slaves of the world. Well, it is that way because we let it be that way. That’s what SELF teaches us. We have to start recognizing ourselves as valuable individuals, and if we do, the world will come around. Eventually.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said.

  “Does it really?”

  I smiled. “Even at my age.”

  She laughed. It was a deep, husky laugh and good to the ears. It was the first time I had heard her laugh without the edge of hysteria.

  “Look, Barbara, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you about.”

  She shuffled her feet, seemingly nervous. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah—and don’t look at me that way. It’s nothing too personal. It’s about that boat.”

  “The Blind Luck?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  She thought for a moment. “I don’t see how any good can come of it, but if you want. . . .” She shifted her weight, standing.

  “You were aboard for what? Two days?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I was hoping y
ou could tell me what the men aboard were like.” And then I added hastily, “Maybe you can throw a little light onto why someone would have blown up their vessel.”

  “Maybe it was just an accident.”

  I stared at her for a moment. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so.”

  She shook her head wearily. “Okay, okay. I guess I owe you at least that—but God knows why you’re interested. There were six or seven of them aboard. All pretty young. There was no real leader, I don’t think, because they argued and fought all the time. No order to their routines. They slept when they wanted, ate when they wanted, and they all seemed to be real heavy into drugs.”

  “You say that like you disapprove.”

  “Of drugs?” She snorted. “It’s because I do disapprove. I saw what they did to my older brother. And besides, it’s the one thing SELF really preaches against. Their philosophy is that a woman can’t stand on her own two feet if she uses a stimulant as a crutch. I’m not saying some of the women don’t occasionally share a joint, but the organization is against heavy use. And so am I. Like I said, I watched drugs destroy my brother. And it wasn’t a very pretty sight.”

  “You said they argued a lot. What about?”

  “Oh, stupid stuff. Like kids. You know that mentality: spoiled little brats in adult bodies. I pretty much gathered they’d been to South America and picked up a load, and that they were sick and tired of each other’s company.”

  “So why were they waiting around off White Horse Key?”

  She shook her head. “Waiting to meet somebody, I guess. I really don’t know. Maybe someone to help unload the stuff.” She stopped for a moment, thinking.

  “You look like something bothers you.”

  “Well, something strange did happen while I was aboard. Maybe it’s important, maybe it’s not. The second night, the night I finally jumped overboard, I heard what sounded like another boat come up. I was below, so I can’t really be sure. But I heard strange voices, and the boat kept jarring against something like we were tied up to another boat.”