The Web by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online Page B

to
know them.”
    “Mine wasn’t that big, maybe an inch long. I think it
was from Italy.”
    “Probably an Italian wolf spider.
Lycosa tarentula.
Here’s something for
you,
Alex: the bite of the Italian
wolf was once thought to cause madness—weeping and stumbling
and dancing. That’s how the tarantella dance got its name.
Nonsense, of course. The little thing’s harmless.”
    “Wish you could have been there to convince my mother,”
said Robin. “She flushed it.”
    Moreland winced. “If you’d like to see another
one, I can oblige.”
    “Sure,” she said. “If it’s okay with you, Alex.”
    I stared at her. Back home she called upon me to swat
mosquitoes and flies.
    “Love to see it,” I said. Mr. Macho.
    “I’m afraid you’d best leave
him
outside, though,”
said Moreland, looking at Spike. “Dogs are still basically wolves,
and wolves are predators with all the hormonal secretions
that entails. Little scurrying things may set off an
aggressive response in him. I don’t want to upset him. Or
them.”
    “Humans are predators, too,” I said.
    “Most definitely,” said Moreland. “But we seem to be
naturally afraid of them, and they can deal with that.”
       
    We tied Spike to a tree, gave him a cheese-flavored dog
cracker, and told him we’d be back soon.
    Moreland took us to the hangarlike building. The
entrance was a gray metal door.
    “The Japanese officers’ bath house,” he said, releasing
a key lock. “They had herbal mudpits here, wet and dry
steam, fresh and saltwater pools. The saltwater was
brought up from the beach in trucks.”
    He flipped a switch and light flooded a windowless room.
White tile on all surfaces. Empty. Another gray door,
closed. No lock.
    “Careful, now,” he said. “I have to keep the light dim.
There are thirteen steps down.”
    Opening the second door, he flicked one of a series of
toggles and a weak, pale blue haze stuttered to life.
    “Thirteen steps,” he reiterated, and he counted out loud
as we followed him down a stone flight, grasping cold metal
handrails.
    The interior was much cooler than the main house. At
the bottom was a sunken area, maybe sixty feet long. Concrete
walls and floors. The floors were marked by several
rectangles. Seams, where concrete had been poured to fill
the baths.
    Narrow windows so high they nearly touched the ceiling
let in feeble dots of moonlight. Translucent wire glass.
The blue light came from a few fluorescent bulbs mounted
vertically on the walls. As my eyes got accustomed to the
dimness, I made out another flight of stairs at the far end.
A raised work space: desk and chair, storage cabinets, lab
tables.
    A wide aisle spined through the center of the sunken
area. Metal ribs on both sides: ten rows of steel tables
bolted to the concrete.
    The tables housed dozens of ten-gallon aquariums covered
by wire mesh lids. Some tanks were completely dark. Others
glowed pink, gray, lavender, more blue.
    Random spurts of sound from within: flutterings and
scratchings, sudden stabs, the
ping
of something hard against
glass.
    The panic of attempted escape.
    A strange mixture of smells filled my nose. Decayed
vegetation, excreta, peat moss. Wet grain, boiled meat.
Then something sweet—fruit on the verge of rot.
    Robin’s hand in mine was as cold as the handrails.
    “Welcome,” said Moreland, “to my little zoo.”

Chapter
    7
    He led us past the first two rows and stopped at the
third. “Some sort of classification system would have been
clever, but I know where everyone is and I’m the one who feeds
them.”
    Turning left, he stopped at a dark tank. Inside was a
floor of mulch and leaves, above it a tangle of bare
branches. Nothing else that I could see.
    He pulled something out of his pocket and held it between his
fingers. A pellet, not unlike Spike’s kibble.
    The wire lid was clamped; he loosened it and pushed,
exposing a corner. Inserting two fingers, he dangled the
pellet.
    At first, nothing happened. Then,