Catherine stepped out into the cockpit dressed in a brown bikini. She had a pair of razor-sharp Freddie Krueger’s slipped over her hands and also one of those damn cat masks over her head—a Harlequin Romance gone evil. I sat still, lifeless, trying not to react to this nightmarish, teetering on comical, caricature creeping toward me. I hadn’t drunk any of the coffee because, well, for one, I was gun shy about anything brewed in one of my coffee pots, and two, I knew there was a good chance I had been slipped a lethal mickey. With my eyes partially open, I made it seem as though I was in a state of paralysis, mimicking the effects of the tainted coffee. Here kitty...
A blanket was spread out next to me, concealing a spring-loaded weapon with a sharp dart, one I had pulled from a locker moments earlier. She came closer, keeping the blades in front of her. She stepped between me and the helm. She pulled back the throttle and turned off the engine. Her warm, tender legs—legs stained at the knees with a tinge of green—pressed against me, straddling my lap as she leaned in close. Despite being a tad turned on by a bikini-clad woman in a somewhat kinky position, my attention remained on both the mask and the task before me. She began trailing a scratch along my cheek with one of those damn claws, delicately, tauntingly. Words muffled through the mask, “I know you can see and hear me, Jack. The drug only paralyzes the muscles, but your mind is intact, and I know you can comprehend my words. You should have known that our purpose couldn’t be changed or go away so easily. What has to be done will be done.”
After hearing enough of this psycho bullshit to last me a lifetime, and even though it was tempting to allow Catherine to exhume more of her demons, I figured it was best to finally make a move. I grasped her arms tightly. Seemingly surprised by my awakening from a potion that had never failed before, she peered down at my clenched arms, hands, and determined face. “It’s over, Catherine,” I said. “You don’t have to do this.” I clutched her arms tighter.
“It’s not over!” she shot out. “It’ll never be over!” She broke from my hold and began the swift downward motion of her arms. But before the claws made contact against me, I straight armed her, pushing over the helm and across the cockpit until she landed hard against the cabin.
I reached for the rumpled blanket, tossed it aside, then retrieved the loaded spear gun. I wanted her to lie there, to not stand and make another attack—I wanted her to say no to the voices in her head. But instead she stood, poised with that hideous mask aimed my way, preparing to lunge again with those claws.
“You don’t have to do this anymore, Catherine. I told you the killing’s going to stop, and it’s going to start now. It’s over—”
“It’ll never be over, Jack!”
I placed the spear gun carefully on the seat next to the gunwale and said, “Look—you see? I put the gun down...we can talk this out.” I could tell she was unsure how to execute another attack.
“It’s over, Catherine—please—”
“It’ll never be over, Jack!” She lifted a nearby bundle of rope from the deck and slung the rope toward me. I deflected the lash with my arm, but in doing so the bulk-heavy object landed on top of the nearby spear gun, jarring the trigger and launching the spear through the air until it found her bare, tender abdomen. She wrenched the clawed gloves along the spear, and then dropped to the deck.
“No!” I cried out. I rushed over to her, knelt, then peeled the mask from her head. What I saw were terrified eyes—eyes that were brown and not blue—solemn and fervent, eyes. That unmistakable dark, raven hair that had been tucked up inside the mask lay soft and long, strewn now on the deck in a tangled mess. Her body...damn it, her body, her height, weight, skin tone, and even the cadence of her voice through the mask were exact replicas of Catherine. She tried to speak, but only gurgling, sickening sounds erupted from her. I cradled her head and tried to steady the torrent of convulsions that throbbed through her body.
“Angela...why?” I cried, pleading with God and mercy to keep her alive. “No, no...”
Her mouth was filled with a frothy mix of air and blood. The spear had pierced her lung and unless the wound was closed soon, it wasn’t long before she would begin suffocating on her own blood. I felt the area of her torso where the spear had penetrated, then reached inside a nearby locker for a towel. I compressed the towel against the wound, trying to halt the bleeding, but then realized how the barbed spear had latched itself inside the flesh and lung, all but guaranteeing a lethal outcome.
“Jack...” she cried, “help me...” More blood sputtered from her mouth, suffocating her. As if trying to free herself from the spear, she began to heave, shaking violently. Her eyes locked on me; her hands, encased inside those goddamn gloves, shook and rattled against the deck.
“Angela! No...God—Angela? No!”
She coughed, gagging on your own blood, spitting, gurgling cries of panic shuttered from her mouth; she then drew in her last breath… Her body went limp. I felt for a heartbeat, for any pulse of breath, nothing. The blood had ceased its throbbing exit from the body; her eyes were now frozen in a dead stare.
Catherine stood in the doorway of the cabin, holding her hand over a nasty gash on the side of her head. Blood streamed from her ear. I cradled Angela in my arms, analyzing her lifeless face. I swiped blood from her chin and neck, trying, as if it mattered, to clean her appearance.
I lifted my head, locking my sight on the scabbed-over abrasions on Catherine’s knees. I looked down and saw that Angela too had abrasions on her knees, surrounded by faint, green stains. Confusion, grief, rage rushed inside me, screaming at this goddamn, wicked game. I should have noticed! But how could I? like Catherine, Angela had worn stockings yesterday.
Catherine stepped out of the cabin. She said, “I did tell you. John, that I slipped and fell on your neighbors dock, and that’s how my knees were tinted green, did I not?”
I didn’t answer.
“You know that I would never lie to you.” She sat, then winced from the blow to her head. I placed Angela on the deck and went to Catherine. I massaged her head, feeling the swelling lump, the busted skin that was bleeding. She said, “She must have followed you to the house and then stowed away while we were preparing for our journey. She clubbed me with a nightstick you keep aboard.” Catherine grimaced again from the injury to her head.
I moved warily to the stern of the yacht, trying to separate, to understand, this menagerie.
Catherine looked down at Angela’s corpse, studying it as if it were a finished piece of art rather than a dead friend. She stooped down and pulled the clawed-gloves from the dead hands and began examining them. She clutched her head again; her face wrenched from the pain. Blood from her head wound had stained her blonde hair, appearing like a red ribbon. She slipped one of the gloves onto her hand and moved her fingers, watching the razor-sharp appendages flex.
A wave of exhaustion rolled through me; I wanted to pass out and dream away the last few moments but then realized that it would continue to be nothing more than what it was, a nightmare. “Those claws didn’t fit Angela very well, did they, Cat?” My words were slow and heavy, flippant and baiting.
“They did, in fact. She executed her tasks rather well.”
“You, fucking bitch.”
“It appears that I’m the devil again, doesn’t it?”
“Why her?”
“It was her turn. That’s all. We always took turns.”
I saw in Catherine’s eyes, face, and body no emotion, no laboring breath, only the calm, cold expression of a killer.
“You had my things in Emily’s trunk stored in your yacht the whole time, didn’t you?” she asked.
“You know damn well I did.”
“Angela must have found them and decided to kill you. But before that she simply wanted to escape with you until she realized whom you were escaping with. Strange how she loved you, but hated who you were even more. I suppose she and I shared an affinity in that regard.”
I opened a hatch to a locker and retri
eved a large sheet of canvas. I moved cagily inside both the cockpit and Catherine’s spell. My mind was sure of only one thing.
“You thought perhaps I’d find my things,” Catherine said. Her eyes followed me along the deck. “In fact, you hid them conspicuously, no doubt. When you pulled the mask from Angela’s face, I saw how horribly surprised you were, as if mortified that it was her and not me. You were testing me, to see if I really came here to kill you.”
I lifted the sheet of canvas and snapped it open, leaving a gray plume of dust floating in the air.
“You obviously thought it was me beneath the mask and you even thought that I had drugged your coffee. But in truth, love, it was nothing more than a God-awful brew, quite similar to how you prepare it.”
I continued my silence. The only thing that mattered was those damn claws on her hand. I skulked along the deck to the bow and stood, giving the impression that I was scanning the horizon. But it was a preparation, a lifeline tied to a bow cleats that Desmond had left for me that I needed to see. They were supplies containing a small inflatable life raft, a hand-sized scuba cylinder and regulator, a blow horn, flare gun, and first aid kit. They should all be there.
Sure enough, the white nylon bag hung discreetly like a long, bulky tendril to the port bow. Satisfied, bewildered, and somewhat ready, I plodded along the deck to the stern to another storage locker where I kept an extra anchor, a sufficient weight to sink and hold a dead body on the ocean floor. Inside the locker was a six-inch diver’s knife that Desmond also stashed for me, and next to the knife sat an interesting ornament, a snub nose .38-caliber handgun. A subtle sigh mixed with laughter whispered from my mouth. There wasn’t a man alive who understood the art of a woman, insane or otherwise, better than Desi.
I lifted the pistol, keeping it hidden inside the locker. I turned the drum; it was fully loaded. I tucked it inside the front of my pants, concealing it under my shirt. I retrieved the knife and slipped it into the cargo pocket of my dungarees. I pulled out the anchor line, checking, feeling, contemplating, both its integrity and mine.
“That scratch across your face proves that you thought it was me,” Catherine said, raising her voice from across the cockpit. “I came close to killing you, and you didn’t know what to do, so you hesitated.”
I could almost hear the wheels turning inside the mind of killer who wanted to rationalize this turning point. But I knew she couldn’t; I knew I couldn’t. I continued my delicate catwalk inside the cockpit.
She said, “Had I come out of the cabin toting a nice pastry as promised and dressed in what I’m wearing, you would’ve had no reason to use that spear gun, and we’d be cleanly on our way to Mexico. But things have changed now.” Catherine stood. The clawed gloves hung on her hands like medieval weapons.
I struggled to keep my eyes away from Angela’s dead corpse, but I couldn’t. I cringed and said, “I killed Angela.”
“No, Jack, you killed me, not Angela.”
We looked at each other for a moment until I turned and laid the canvas down and spread it out. I rolled the corpse onto it. Using a stowed bucket, I retrieved seawater and rinsed the blood-soaked deck through the scuppers. I broke the shaft of the spear into two pieces so that I could remove it from the torso. Because the lung was punctured, the bronchial airways would be deflated, helping to keep her body below the surface—to keep her buried. I softly shuttered the eyelids closed.
Careful with each twist of rope, I wrapped the body tightly inside the thick canvas. I then cinched the feet, hips, torso, and head, not to desecrate even more her body. I considered my state of affairs—I was guilty of second-degree murder, again.
I lifted the corpse and held it for a long, brief moment, this brilliant, misguided young woman who rebelled against the tyranny of greed and envy. She didn’t live long enough to find out that none of it could ever be changed.
I dropped the body overboard, then the anchor. The roll of canvas floated momentarily, morbidly, like a mummified body, until the anchor sunk, pulling my Angel below. The dead stillness of the open sea, the fluorescing brilliance of the clouded sky oddly calmed my mind, my heart. Catherine’s shadowy figure stood at the other side of the cockpit. “You had no choice, John, but to put her out to sea. We wouldn’t dare bring her to shore, now would we?”
I kept my eyes on the water, peering at the surface, envisioning her body descending the depth...hundreds of fathoms to the bottom. “It’s over, Catherine.” A chill crept along my spine, nearly seizing me.
The spear gun lay within an easy reach with another spear nearby. Scenarios rushed through my mind—those razor-sharp claws flailing through the air—ripping flesh from my bones. The claws were formidable, yet only as effective as the strength and speed of the attacker. But I knew she was good with those damn things, and as long as I kept a good distance between us, I wouldn’t have to worry. But for how long? Hell—we’re aboard a closed-quartered 42’ boat in the middle of the ocean.
I began to calculate more precisely just how quickly my nefarious shipmate would be able to pounce across the deck. I double checked the .38 packed next to my boys.
The sound of something plunged into the sea. I cocked my head enough to see that Catherine had shed the claws from her hand and tossed it along with the other one overboard. A truce? The gloves floated briefly and then sank. I inhaled a deep breath, savoring the cool, sea air—a moment of reprieve?
But just when I began to believe in our bon voyage part deux, the tick and clamor of a lightweight apparatus impelled me to turn an about face. She now had possession of the other spear gun, fully loaded with a spear cocked inside the barrel, aimed at me.
I pulled out the snub nose and trained the short barrel on her. A distance of about fifteen feet was stretched between us.
"It appears we’re in a standoff, Jack."
"What else is new?"
"But what choice do we now have, love? And look, the projectile isn’t tethered to the gun. We’ll have to do this the sporting way—a game of Russian roulette?" She sounded almost remorseful, seeming, for the moment, human. But there was that itch of hers... Vengeance est mei.
My thoughts began on bad dreams and haunting whiffs of peppery-sweet perfume, then Angela...her life cut short because of a sociopath with whom I was madly in love with. And then that survival kit attached to my yacht, and also the two radio transmitters—my game of chess.
I had to ask, "Was this all about Michelle Brigham, Catherine?"
"Of course, love. Michelle’s death was a terrible accident; we both know that, but a crime, nonetheless, that deserves reprisal. But I did bloody hell fall in love with you, John." She laughed delicately, giving me that look, that same look that had made my heart stop numerous times before, except now my captured heart was flailing toward an abyss. She went on, "Today, however, it does appear you’ve missed your target." We both sharpened our aim.
I made a rapid assessment about a wager that did and didn’t come true, and also at how effective this close-range pistol would be versus a flying spear across a drifting, rolling boat. What was it that Ivy had told me? "I wouldn’t trust those dames no farther than a long shot from a short barrel?" I mean, I did want to tell her how I laid the spear gun in the cockpit, demonstrating no harm, the coiled rope sailing through the air—impact—and then impalement into an unintended target. But she wouldn’t believe me. And besides, I knew damn well why I was out here.
Catherine tossed what looked like a coin into the air. The heavy object made contact with the deck, bouncing a few somersaults until it landed flat—a gold sovereign—old and antiquated, a symbol of childhood horrors, resting bright and shiny, heads up, facing both of us.
"One of us forgot to call it," I said.
"And it does appear we’ve reached our point of entropy."
"We don’t have to do this, Catherine."
"Oh, but we do, love…oh, bloody, fucking hell, we really do."
THE END
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Chris D. Dodson, The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd
The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd Page 33