Something Fishy (10 page)

Anton crushed the paper, threw it to the floor, and stamped on it.

Eatery. His restaurant called an eatery.

He shuddered. That wasn't the worst of it.

The other eatery was Fiona's Fudge Palace.

His eyes blazed and narrowed.

I could kill her.

Chapter Twelve

Viola strode across the cape, her tiny stick figure full of purpose as she headed for Newton's house. She'd seen it immediately when she woke up from her nap and gazed out the window at the shore, all blonde sand, bright umbrellas, and people looking unsightly in their brightly coloured bathing suits. She'd looked to the right of her at the large sea rock – a piece of the cape broken off and leading its solitary existence a few yards out from the shore. She'd gazed to the left, over the cape and straight at the wind turbine. She'd gone from musing to fury in an instant. Her anger had propelled her down the stairs, out of the house, and across the cape. She marched in rhythm to the blades.

Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp.

Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp. Thwack!

A bloody seagull came straight at her, a feathered home run. The bird smacked her on the head. She yanked it off, and, dead gull in hand, marched with even more resolve toward Newton Fanshaw's door. With her free hand she knocked sharply.

He eased the door open a crack. She shoved the gull through it, right at his face. He let it drop to the floor, and there it lay, marking the boundary between them.

“Do you know what you're doing?” She thrust an arm and an accusing finger at the wind turbine. “That is a killing machine. That machine could kill hundreds of birds on this small stretch of shore alone.”

Newton had hardly been listening. He'd been mesmerized by the number of wrinkles set firmly in her face and the dozens of small fissures that made weblike patterns all over it.

“Hundreds.” He was referring to the wrinkles, not the soon-to-be dead birds.

“Yes, hundreds.” As she said it, her wrinkles changed shape.

“Gulls. Argentinian swallows. Herons. Plovers. They will all be victims of that…that…monster.” Finding the word, her mouth set in satisfaction.

“You, Sir, are a murderer.”

Newton straightened up to his full height. It gave him an inch on her.

“I, Madam, am a scientist.”

“And these birds are dying in the name of science?”

“A small sacrifice to make for the betterment of mankind.”

“You are not making the sacrifice. These helpless creatures are.”

Both looked down at the gull. It was a large, ungainly creature.

“I would appreciate it, Madam, if you would remove yourself – and that – from my doorstep.”

She picked up the bleeding bird. It was still warm and she thought she could feel a heartbeat. She hugged it to her.

“You, Sir, have not heard the last of this.”

“Oh, yes, I rather think I have.” His eyes pierced into hers. “Oh, yes,” he repeated, “I think I have.” He spoke without thinking about what he meant. He didn't really mean anything by it. It seemed the thing to say – out of a movie script, not real life.

She spun around and strode away, head down, refusing to look at or acknowledge the turbine. She didn't see Fiona come out of her trailer, fresh white apron like a tent on her body.

Smack.

Viola rammed right into her, and ricocheted backwards, head tingling unpleasantly from the encounter with Fiona's solid flesh.

Viola looked at Fiona as if she were to blame.

“Get out of my way, you tub of lard.” She shoved by and continued on, leaving Fiona with tears gushing down her cheeks. She was vulnerable to insult, neither her skin nor her soul thickened, in spite of what she'd put up with all her life.

Newton saw it happen, heard it, but made no move to console Fiona. He watched Viola return along the cape, his eyes pinned on her. With each step his eyes narrowed, so that by the time Viola reached Anton's, Newton's eyes were almost shut tight. There was something about the woman he didn't like. Something that went beyond her attitude and accusations. She was cold. Cold-blooded, he thought, like the birds she championed. He began to shiver, though the day was calm and warm. He couldn't stop.

He went inside and sat at the desk at the back of the dome. From the bottom drawer, he pulled out a plain brown paper envelope, and, from it, he slid a stack of what appeared to be black-and-white photographs.

He leafed through them, until he found his favourite – the thumb-sucking one. A soft smile spread across his face. He stroked the photo. He looked for another. A moan escaped his lips, but, for the first time, the images did not comfort him. He remained cold on the inside, ice water flowing though his veins.

Why had that woman had such an effect on him? He was unable to enjoy this simple pleasure. Harmless, he thought, but it was a twisted indulgence that had prevented him from growing up and becoming a man.

Meanwhile, Fiona was still standing outside her trailer. She, too, had watched Viola stalk across the cape. Her tears had dried. Her hands were balled up into fists; the usually sunny smile had left her lips. Instead, her mouth was set in grim determination. Her eyes were full of hate.

The last insult, she was thinking. The last insult.

She was right.

The Japanese chef didn't appear to speak a word of English. Anton was surprised since he needed the language in his country and profession.

But he was pretending. It had served him on a few occasions – to supplement his pay with harmless blackmail from things he overheard. He didn't do it for money, but to ensure he'd get another job. A couple of times Anton thought he saw clear understanding in the man's eyes and gestures. Well, all he had to do was get the pufferfish poison out correctly, and Anton didn't care what language he spoke.

Fiona was talking enough for the two of them, babbling in her delight to be working on this important dinner, seemingly cured of the wound Viola had inflicted. She didn't even notice that the chef wasn't listening to her at all.

“I'll use this plate here…now, which knife? Oh, yes, this one will do perfectly.” She chattered away, the stream of words flowing from her mouth, describing every action she was taking.

The chef had slapped the blowfish on tempered glass and was humming as he took the knife to it, carefully, precisely.

Looking at the fish, Fiona was disappointed.

“I thought they were supposed to be all puffed up, like a balloon.”

“That's how they fend off danger in the water,” Anton explained. “They take in water and blow themselves up, to look bigger, scarier.”

Was that how she looked to people? Fiona wondered. Big and scary? The chef began to cut out the liver, then the ovaries, and finally the intestine. He did it with such speed that Anton doubted his accuracy.

“Leave some in there.”

The chef looked at Anton and nodded. So he did understand English.

“Leave some what?” Fiona rinsed out a bowl, set it down, and came over.

“Some of the poison.”

“You're giving your guests poison?”

“A smidge.” Anton poised his thumb and forefinger close together and caught the chef's eye. He nodded and mimicked Anton's gesture and waved the knife at the fish.

“People get high from eating it. Just a trace. That's why I have him here. He's trained for three years to be able to do this. His graduation was to prepare and then eat the fish himself.” Anton smiled. “The degree is a matter of life or death.” It seemed to amuse him. Fiona was horrified.

“What do you mean by high? Antsy, like with cocaine? Mellow as marijuana?”

“More numb, tingly.”

“That doesn't sound very pleasant.”

“It's not. But it's what they want.”

“They want to die…eating?” Fiona sometimes thought that's how she'd like to go, but only as a matter of timing, not poison.

“They want to dine with death. Not die.”

“And if they get too much poison?”

“Then they do die. A horrible, painful death.”

“Instant?”

“No, that wouldn't be horrible or painful. It's gradual. First, the extremities – the lips, the fingers, and the bowels paralyze. The diaphragm, the respiratory system break down, and all while the person is conscious.” Anton had the description down pat – he would be regaling the diners with it before they ate.

“Is there an antidote?”

The chef and Anton both shook their heads.

“The toxin spreads through the body – last to the brain, so the person is like a zombie, trapped inside a body that can't move, until finally the poison attacks the brain.”

“Bon appetit,” said Fiona.

Anton smirked. “Indeed.”

Viola slipped out of Anton's an hour before mealtime. She scurried across the cape, weapon in hand. She'd found it behind Jared MacPherson's cookhouse, during a cigarette-smoking walk on the shore prior to dinner.

While she puffed smoke into the ocean breeze, her eyes had been fixed on the turbine high above her on the cape. It was fueling Newton's batteries and her determination to do something about it.

She needed a weapon. What? Where would she find something? She spied Jared's cookhouse and circled it, rummaging in piles of fishing rope and broken buoys until she found what she wanted. She grabbed it, eyes gleaming, and dragged herself along the sand as fast as she could manage, puffing up Wild Rose Lane and across the cape to the turbine, looking ridiculous with a long fishing hook in one hand, and her purse held in the other. She couldn't be parted from her cigarettes.

There was one other thing in that purse. A book with a fawn-coloured kid-leather cover, aged by time. It, too, was a weapon. She marched right up to the dome, laid the book down on the stoop, and then turned her attention to the turbine.

She was set to do battle and slay the giant. The long hook was a gaff, used to land big fish.

Whoosh, thwarp. Whoosh, thwarp. Whoosh, thwarp.

Well, she thought, she was about to land the big one.

She took a swing at the tower, and smacked it with unusual force, considering her size and age. It clanged and reverberated back on her, sending unpleasant vibrations into her hands and up her arms.

That did not deter her. She swung again, a wider arc this time, bringing it down with sufficient force to make a dent. She smiled, encouraged, and bashed at the tower again, like a twenty-first-century female Don Quixote tilting at a windmill.

Newton did not see it in a romantic light. He saw a crazy woman attacking his creation. He emerged from the dome, and a motion light came on, though it was only dusk. She darted a look in his direction. Newton was outlined in the light, an aura radiating around his head, dancing with the flickering light and shadow cast by the spinning blades of the turbine. He charged forward, his foot kicking the fawn-coloured book. He didn't notice it in his fury.

She took another swipe at the tower. The loose skin where her triceps should have been jiggled. He grabbed her hands before she could strike again, prying the hook from her. They battled over it, but he weakened, and she raised the gaff high above his head and brought it down. He jumped back, but the gaff ripped down the front of his shirt, popping the buttons and laying a long shallow wound down his torso.

She flung the gaff to the ground, heedless of what he might do with it, but Newton was a mild man, easily subdued, and he watched, unmoving as she picked up a rock and flung it at the turbine. On impact, the rock shattered into many pieces, sandstone dusting the air.

It was a ridiculous sight, this fragile old lady slinging sandstone rocks at the windmill.

She picked up another stone. Flung it. A futile attempt by one tiny woman to bring the towering monster down.

She felt dizzy. She took a few clumsy steps backward.

Newton, his shirt flapping in the breeze, caught her just as she was about to fall. He wondered why he had. Instinct.

She pulled herself away from him. Grabbed the gaff.

“Newton Fanshaw. That's you?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. You'll be hearing from my lawyer.”

Newton would be hearing from Viola's lawyer. Not in the way she'd planned,but she would have the last laugh.

Newton found the book on his way back to the dome. He made the mistake of reading it. He squinted at the tiny lettering, pecking through it, skipping a number of pages, picking up his speed and anxiety. When he got to the end, he slammed it shut. He began to shake again, tears washing his face.

Newton didn't know what he was going to do. He was still shivering – shaking – and that woman had already been gone for half an hour. He shouldn't let himself be so affected by attacks like that, but it seemed he couldn't help it. A brisk walk on the capes might help. He hadn't been able to put the book down, leave it behind. It was gripped tightly in his hand, as if it had been welded there.

Gus watched him propel along the horizon – the best sighting of him she'd had since he'd come here, a skeletal man crossing the landscape in a hurry. Was it anything to do with the woman who'd crossed before, over to his house?

They'd both gone by Fiona's Fudge Palace. The two of them like sticks. They could have used some fudge to fatten up.

Some of Fiona. That's what Newton had decided he needed. He wanted to fold into her flesh to stop this shaking. He knew she was working in Anton's kitchen that evening. Everyone knew. Fiona was so proud of being at the centre of the most exciting event in the village.

In case somebody hadn't heard, she'd tacked a sign on the trailer door.
Clos'ed tonight. S'ous' chef at Anton's's' Paradis'e.

Newton knew the menu by heart – she had told him again and again in her stream-of-consciousness babbling that sometimes made him want to wring her neck. Everyone in the village knew what the special guests would be eating tonight, because it had been in the newspapers. It had created a sensation all over the island, with some calling on their Members of the Legislative Assembly to call a halt to it. The phrase every mother has said at least once in her life, “Someone's going to get hurt,” echoed down the coast from East Point to North Cape.