Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,42

long as the spine remains in the flesh, the venom continues to flow. Among Mayan ruins in Guatemala, I’d seen stone carvings of stingray barbs protruding from the hearts and necks of tormented priests and contorting victims. Damn right, I was being careful!

Sissified—if someone was watching, that’s how they might have described my careful use of feet and hands. I didn’t care. Soon the family of six had disbanded, each stingray flying its separate way, all singular links in an ancient chain, indifferent to everything but survival.

Then I headed upstairs to clean up before returning calls and tending to lab specimens. Later, I would decide on dinner.

—

MY HOUSE IS ACTUALLY two small houses on a platform, both perched above the water on stilts. It’s an old place built to store ice and fish in the days before refrigeration, so it has an outdoor shower fed by a cistern that collects rain from the roof. I was just finishing beneath the shower, the bottle of cold beer finally open, when my phone beeped again.

Hannah Smith.

So I wrapped a towel around my waist and answered, “I owe you dinner. Name the place, and I’ll explain why the dog wasn’t here.”

Southern women who are natural contraltos have an edge when their tone turns icy. “Why, bless your little heart,” I heard in reply. “Aren’t you the sweetest man ever? No wonder you’re so popular with the ladies.”

I cleared my throat and said, “Uhhh . . . did I do something wrong?”

“Not the first little thing. I’m just calling to make sure that bad memory of yours didn’t put you on a plane to Alaska. Or wandered off in some supermarket and locked yourself in a freezer. A man gets a certain age and—well, I don’t much care for the term feebleminded. And senile is such an ugly word—”

I interrupted, “I would have called and saved you the trip, but I didn’t know the dog was gone. It has nothing to do with my memory—”

“Well, the important thing is, you’re okay,” Hannah breezed along. “At a certain point, a middle-aged man, he starts doing things that are sorta clumsy. Like walking into walls or, you know, that cause him to look just plain dumb and thoughtless. A Christian girl has a duty to check on a person like that or I wouldn’t’ve risked interrupting your nap.”

“Hannah,” I said, “you’ve made your point. Only thing missing now is the part where you tell me what you’re talking about.”

The woman’s tone returned to normal, but more business-like than friendly. “So I finish up my six-hour charter. I drop my clients at Boca Grande, then run like crazy ’cross the backcountry to tend to your dog, just like I promised. And what do I find?”

My brain had raced ahead in search of a scenario that could cause upset, which is why, just in time, the image of Cressa Arturo surprising Hannah popped into my mind. Two women meet unexpectedly in a small house. My house.

“I can explain that,” I said.

“There’s no need, Marion. We’re friends. It’s okay.” Hannah’s sudden sincerity only caused me to feel worse when she added, “We’re fishing pals and swim buddies. I understand that. What I don’t understand is why a woman I’ve never met—a girlfriend you’ve never even mentioned—would talk that way right to my face.”

I dreaded the answer but had to ask, “What did she say?”

“I don’t use rude language as a habit. You know that.”

“We’re both adults,” I replied. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“It’s not the sort of thing I’d repeat. What kind of parents would name a girl Crescent, anyway? Flower children, is that what you used to call them? Probably where she learned it was okay to use raw talk.”

I said, “Hannah?”

“Okay! ‘Doc only picks workout partners he wouldn’t screw.’ That’s what the woman said! But didn’t say ‘screw,’ if that’s plain enough. So it made sense to her—after looking me over—that you partnered up with a woman not nearly as pretty as her. Is it true you talked that way about me?”

“No,” I replied. “Not to her, not to anyone.”

To mask the hurt, the woman added, “My lord, as if I’d even think about hopping into bed with a man who dates married women! Just because she’s rich and owns a beach house? It’s not my place to judge, but there’s some who consider stealing another man’s wife to be shabby behavior.”

Hannah’s gambit of using pride as a mask was even more upsetting. I was thinking, Tomlinson