The Deadlier Sex Read online

  “Mind if I just throw this shirt in that trash basket?”

  “What in the hell happened to you!”

  “I won second prize in a shark fight. What about the shirt?”

  “The trash basket, yeah. Son of a bitch. . . .”

  I took the mirror and held it in front of me. Same blond hair—a little shaggier than I like it. Same heavy jaw that seemed too weighty as a kid and cursed me with an occasional slight stutter. Same blue-gray eyes, same undistinguished ears, same two front upper teeth slightly chipped and never fixed, same glassy scar on the right cheek—a present from a guy with a knife who later became a friend. A dead friend. Everything the same, sun-lined from long days on the sea. Everything unchanged except for the nose. The young fisherman’s elbow had chiseled a hump midway up it that would have done credit to an Apache. And it had been pushed a little to the right. The knife scar gave it symmetry.

  “I guess it’s not too bad, huh?”

  “Shit, are you kidding? That’s the most unbelievable scar I’ve ever seen.”

  I lifted her chin up with my finger. “My nose, woman. You’re the doctor, remember?”

  So she went back to work with gauze and tape, trying her best to pull my face straight again. And while she worked, she talked. She had gone to see her Zen instructor immediately after getting back to the island, and was now even more convinced that what had happened aboard the Blind Luck made absolutely no difference. I was impressed with her resolve. And happy for her, too. But I am afflicted with one of the common devils: suspicion. Face value isn’t good enough. If a genie materialized from a bottle, I’d blow my first two wishes getting background information. So I found myself using the confidence of this new girl to pry out data. Great guy, Dusky MacMorgan. I come across an island full of women content to live—and perhaps love—without men, and I immediately make them prime suspects in the destruction of four drugrunner boats. And what the hell do I care about drugrunners? In my three assignments from Stormin’ Norman Fizer, I had gone through a couple of dozen of them with the same regard a machete has for a hothouse tomato. Had I met the actual terrorists at a CIA dinner party—if they have such things—I probably would have congratulated them. So why the concern? For me, it was a rhetorical question. I know why: I’m fascinated by question marks; I’m driven to solve great unsolvables. That’s why I’ve never allowed myself to work a crossword or jigsaw puzzle. I know that if I finished just one, I’d be hooked for the rest of my life. And short of cards, I can’t think of more useless wastes of time.

  “This Mahogany Key really is something, Barbara. I’ll tell you, I’m nothing but impressed.”

  “Isn’t it great!” She smiled as if I had complimented her on her beauty. “And that Saxan—she’s just the finest person alive, I think.”

  “I’ve only known her a couple of hours, but I see what you mean. Beautiful women aren’t supposed to be smart—that’s the old stereotype, isn’t it?”

  “Right!” She shook her head while she ripped off more surgical tape. “The things that woman has done. She’s a pretty famous botanist, but I bet you didn’t know that. Had some kind of Yukon plant that she discovered named after her. You know, like in Latin or something. And then she was a top cover girl for a couple of years—I’m sure you saw her. You know, she was on the cover of every magazine there is. Then she was a college professor, and then she got interested in the feminist movement, and joined up with SELF. And she’s only in her early thirties!”

  “Amazing,” I said, honestly impressed. “Barbara, maybe I shouldn’t ask, but I’ve wondered. She really is beautiful, like you say, but . . .”

  “Her eyes,” she said quickly. “That’s what you’re wondering about, right? I wondered, too. I mean, you have to look hard to notice they’re off center. And I guess it actually helped her career as a cover girl. They said it made her look exotic or something. But you still have to wonder why someone with her background didn’t have them fixed.”

  “So why didn’t she?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Saxan’s a wonderful person—but she’s real private in her own way. Like with the plants: you can be talking to her, and all of a sudden she’ll see some plant and, wham, she’s in her own little world. She’s never talked to me about her eyes. And we’re . . . pretty close. I figure if she doesn’t want to talk about it, it’s her business.” She leaned over me, breasts warm against my forearm, tongue clenched between her teeth, concentrating. “Hold still now, I’m almost finished.”

  “So Saxan is pretty much responsible for the whole complex here, huh?”

  “Well, more than she’d probably let on. I guess the newest big backer, though, is some older woman who lives up the coast a ways. On Sanibel? Yeah, Sanibel. I’ve met her. She was here about a week ago. She’s one of those women who wears great big floppy hats and wigs and fights for causes. Her name’s Abhner—yeah, that’s it. In the last year, she’s become pretty much a recluse or something. Sun’s ruined her skin, so she can’t go out. So Saxan runs the place.”

  I had been trying to think of a way to get one last bit of information out of her, and decided there was really no completely tactful way. So I did the best I could.

  “Barbara, you really have been nice to us. You and Saxan especially. Wes and I are going to be vacationing in the area for another week or so, and I was just wondering . . . if you have the time, maybe you and Saxan would like to be our guests aboard some evening for dinner? I don’t have much in the way of good wine, but the fighting deck is fine for dancing, and we could guarantee fresh fish.”

  It was like I had injected her with a sudden case of the jitters. She dropped the tape she was holding, and banged her head on the table when she stooped to get it. It told me all I wanted to know. And the disappointment I felt was genuine. It seemed like such a terrible, terrible waste.

  “If Saxan’s engaged with a guy or something—or you are—I’d certainly understand.”

  “Oh no, nothing like that. It’s . . . well, thanks for the invitation. But we don’t get off the island much. You know, too busy.” She tried to make a joke of it. “Remember, we came down here to get away from men.”

  I tried to ignore the uncertainty in her bright-green eyes.

  “And you and the other women actually don’t miss us?”

  She patched one more chunk of tape across my nose, stepped back, and admired her handiwork. “All done,” she said.

  I chuckled, still making a joke of it. “You didn’t answer my question, Barbara—you don’t miss us men?”

  She let her breath out slowly, then smiled. “Sometimes,” she said. “Yeah, sometimes I do.”

  It was one of those grotesque chunks of bad theater I imagine they’ve redirected a thousand times in the porno flicks. Not that I’m a connoisseur of skin films. I’m not. They fill me with a sense of the pathetic. They make me feel like some unsuspecting vagrant watching amoebas writhing beneath a microscope.

  But mostly they just bore me.

  But this was not theater.

  After my nose had been bandaged, Saxan made it a special point to invite us to stay for dinner. I was surprised. But pleased. She seemed to feel as if she owed us something; something that went beyond a dinner. I didn’t know what.

  But there was something about Saxan Benton that fascinated me. Maybe it was because she was quite possibly a lesbian. If so, it was a weird fascination.

  Anyway, I agreed to stay—on one condition: that they let Westy and me provide enough fish for at least a chowder.

  “Wonderful,” she had said, that same delicate look of uncertainty in her blue, blue eyes. “It’s funny, but with all this water around, we still can’t seem to catch many fish.”

  “Maybe you need some lessons?”

  She grinned at that. “Maybe. We’ll talk about it at dinner.”

  So Westy and I went back to the Sniper, went over our gear, tied some new leaders so they would be ready when we wanted, then fired up the little Whaler.
>
  Coming in, I had noticed that the southern end of Mahogany Key was shoaled with a long chunk of oyster bar that jutted off into the channel, then curved around along the other side of the island.

  It looked like ideal snook country. The snook is one of Florida’s top game fish. It has a long anvilshaped jaw that sweeps back into a projectile body, complete with a black lateral racing stripe. It’s a wonderful fighter, and even better in the kitchen.

  So we decided that it was snook we were after. And, if that didn’t pan out, we’d head outside to the grassy flats off Panther Key and fish for seatrout. They would be good enough for a chowder.

  I jumped the little skiff onto the plane, cutting across the shoal waters at the shoulders of the twisting channel.

  “I figure we can anchor above the bar, past that point, then wade down on the inside of the bar if nothing happens.”

  “An’ why not jest wade the bar, Yank? Not that I mind gettin’ me feet wet.”

  “Kills the oysters. Too much wading can ruin a bar. Does that seem silly?”

  “Not atall, not atall. I say, kill what needs killin’, and protect them that doesn’t.”

  Twenty yards from the point of the bar where the green water funneled off toward deeper water, I shut the Whaler down and drifted until we were close enough to anchor. The Irishman was casting a big, rattling artificial lure, popping it slowly across the surface through the eddy water. We’d had luck on jigs earlier, so I bounced a small yellow bucktail over the bottom along the edge of the bar. I had on a new Quick reel loaded with three hundred yards of twelve-pound-test Stren line, and three feet of forty-pound-test mono leader. The books tell you to use wire leader for snook because their gill plates are like razors. And they’re right—you won’t lose nearly as many fish with wire leader. But you also won’t get nearly as many strikes.

  Westy came up hard on the first fish: it hit with a whoofing explosion right by the boat, made a sizzling run for the mangroves, then did a tail-walking jump and threw the lure.

  “Mush-a-mush!”

  “Such language!”

  “Did ye see the size o’ that bloody monster! Musta been a thirty-pounder!”

  “Fish usually look smaller at a distance, O’Davis—those are some eyes you have.”

  “Well, at least twenty pounds then!” he said indignantly.

  “Fifteen pounds is generous—but it was still a big fish. Try setting the hook next time.”

  He sniffed and fumed and braised me with malevolent glares, then started casting again.

  We took two good snook in the next twenty minutes, then stepped out of the Whaler and waded down on the inside of the bar when ladyfish came in and chased us off the point. A ladyfish puts up a fine fight on light tackle, but when it gets to the point where you can’t cast without hooking one, it’s time to move. Besides, they ruin themselves on treble hooks and I hate to see them die without reason.

  So we slogged our way down the bar, casting out into deeper water. We moved as quietly as we could, saying nothing so as not to spook the fish.

  We saw the women when we came around the point: two of the long-legged ones who had worn the enforcer squad helmets earlier. They were lying on a blanket beneath an amber gumbo-limbo tree. They were naked and intertwined in a passionate tangle of arms and legs and breasts and buttocks. The smaller of them had long blond hair; the other, close-cropped brown hair.

  It was an awkward moment, to say the least. There we stood, up to our thighs in muck and water, while behind us the two women writhed in love-agony. O’Davis gave me a sidelong glance and a “What should we do now?” shrug. I motioned toward the bar. Oysters or not, we were taking the easiest way back. The Irishman actually tiptoed: a ludicrous sight with a spinning rod in his left hand and a twelve-pound snook in his right.

  We got back into the skiff, said nothing, then powered on back to Sniper. It was nearing dusk. The sun threw a bronze glare across the Gulf horizon, turning the mangrove line of Hog Key and White Horse Key into a thin black hedgerow. A dozen white ibis flew in low formation toward their roosts, passing over with an arid whoosh. On Mahogany Key, the frame buildings caught the last of the sunlight, glowing white and singular among the rush of shadows. I noticed that the big pontoon boat that had been docked ahead of Sniper was gone.

  “Do ye want a beer, lad?”

  “You have to ask?”

  The big Irishman lumbered across the deck and came back with a brace of Tuborgs. He sat in the port fighting chair beside me, and we both swiveled back and forth pulling at the beer, feet braced on the transom.

  “Some island, huh?”

  “Aye. I feel like a cat that’s jest watched two birds fight to the death. Sorta cheated, ya know.”

  “You can’t condemn them.”

  “I mean, it’s nice ta see that someone’s coverin’ all the sexual options, Yank—but sech beautiful women! Nary enough of them to go around as it is.”

  “Only if you’re a glutton.”

  “Oh, I am, I am. And I’m beginnin’ to think this is a strange place fer the likes o’ us ta be after all.”

  “Maybe stranger than you think, Westy.”

  He eyed me for a moment, then gulped the last of his beer. “Now, ya wouldn’t be meanin’ that fine figure of a woman Saxan Benton, would ye?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe Barbara, too. Maybe all of them. Hell, I don’t know. Normally, I’d just write it off as their own private affair, and leave and forget it. But that business about the drugrunners keeps nagging at me—hey, get another beer for me too, okay?”

  So we sat there in the last of a fine June day and talked about it. O’Davis had his suspicions, too. Fact: four drug boats had been destroyed in less than a year. Fact: all of them had gone down off the Ten Thousand Islands. Probability: someone local, someone with a good cover, was involved.

  “But why would these women do sech a thing, Yank?”

  “Damned if I know. Maybe they’re in the drug business themselves and don’t like competition. Maybe they just don’t like drugrunners. Or maybe they just don’t like men. Or maybe they have absolutely nothing at all to do with it.”

  There was a wry expression on the Irishman’s face. “Keep in mind that at least one of us is a classic figure of manhood—an’ yer rather masculine-lookin’ yerself, MacMorgan. Discountin’ the napkin taped ta yer ugly nose, o’ course.”

  “Of course.”

  “An’ if it’s true they’ve got a passionate hatred fer men, we might be in serious danger, eh?”

  “May not live through the night.”

  The Irishman sniffed, wiped his face with one big red paw. He still held the wry smile. “I kin see that ye want to abandon our holiday to pursue this matter. Do ya have any immediate plans, me American friend? Or is dyin’ in yer sleep good enough for ye?”

  “I thought we might visit my hermit friend on Dismal Key tomorrow. He keeps a pretty close eye on what goes on around these islands. And maybe we’ll head up toward Sanibel Island.”

  “Another little vacation?”

  “Yeah—that, and the woman who backs this organization supposedly lives up there. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to poke around a little. Maybe even call a friend or two up in Washington.”

  The enforcer-squad girls, done with their business, walked the water’s edge, past the docks, and up the Indian mound toward the big house where Saxan Benton kept her office. They wore short shorts and halter tops, hips wagging away from us. They were holding hands.

  “I’m beginning ta feel a little bit like Ulysses, brother MacMorgan.”

  “I know what you mean: women on the cliffs calling us poor mariners to our destruction. You know, they’re dangerous, but they’re so pretty it doesn’t matter.”

  The Irishman watched the two women disappear into the clapboard house, a wistful expression on his face. “Lovely they are,” he agreed. “Homeric.”

  9

  Dinner at the Mahogany Key Center of SELF was not what I had thought
it would be.

  I expected a communal dining hall with loud laughter and the clatter of plates.

  Instead, the women cooked in their cabin and ate alone or with friends.

  As Saxan Benton explained, “We’re together all day anyway. So why eat together? Besides, we really don’t have the facilities to cook for a hundred and twenty-five women. And the last thing someone wants to do when she comes here is kitchen duty for someone else.”

  So Westy and I ate with Saxan in her room. Just the three of us. Nice and cozy. While Saxan and I sat over drinks on the porch of her little cabin, the Irishman broiled one of the snook on a tiny gas stove. He was a volunteer. A happy volunteer. He likes to cook almost as much as he likes to sing—and that’s saying something. And besides, there had been an unspoken understanding that I had taken a special interest in her.

  So he cooked. And we talked.

  It was a nice little cabin: one bedroom, a stone fireplace for blustery nights, ceiling fans, hanging plants, watercolor seascapes, and a wall of books beside a window that looked out across the island. I looked at some of the books, then gave up. All complex biology and botany, containing words I could barely pronounce—let alone understand.

  “You write any of these?”

  She stood by the doorway, a frosted glass lipped with a green sliver of lime in her hand. She wore navy-blue cotton slacks, a soft gray blouse and sandals. Her hair was piled in soft folds atop her head. She looked feminine—yet businesslike. Beautiful—yet unapproachable. The way she moved, the way she held her head, the way she looked at you all added to the paradox. She was the loveliest of enigmas. And maybe that’s why I felt that adolescent ache deep in my abdomen when I was near her. She would give a little of herself with a touch, a laugh, or a smile, only to jerk it away and close the doors behind. It wasn’t indifference. And it wasn’t teasing. There was an essence of confidence about her, but it was cored with vulnerability.

  Whatever it was, I was infatuated with it.

  And her.

  “You asked if I wrote any of those.” She gave a little deprecating laugh. “I wish I had. The only thing I’ve ever had published was my master’s thesis. And it was hardly a best seller.”