by John Lutz
Carver remembered Willa Krull telling him she was trying to talk Marla into buying a gun. “Defend yourself how?”
“Any way I can.”
“Do you own a gun?”
“Does Joel Brant?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
“Neither did I.”
Carver made his way to the door, walking slower than he had to with the cane. She walked ahead of him and held the door open.
Heat moved in as he moved out. Marla didn’t flinch or move her body an inch as he edged past her onto the porch.
He turned to face her. “Believe it or not, I agree with you about how women are at a disadvantage in something like this,” he said. “I’m only trying to get a sense of what’s really going on.”
“Thanks for you sympathy.” She said it with a faint curl of her upper lip. “I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure you won’t be expressing it at my funeral.”
He looked directly into her deep blue eyes and found nothing he could read. She stared back at him with no sign of discomfort, only calm determination. He didn’t hear the door close behind him until he was almost to the street.
When he’d started the engine and switched on the air conditioner, he sat for a while in the car before driving away. It was unsettling to him that he felt himself drawn to Marla Cloy even though she was no less a dilemma and a danger than when he’d rung her doorbell.
And something else was unsettling. He had the feeling that despite her brittle and wary talk, she might be attracted to him.
Of course, he could be dead wrong about that. He’d been wrong that way before. Male ego, Marla would probably say.
Beth would probably say the same.
He drove.
17
After leaving Marla, Carver drove to Brant’s address, which turned out to be in Warwick Village, a luxury condominium complex on the east side of town, not on the ocean but with an ocean view if you were on a high floor.
Half a dozen identical white brick buildings made up Warwick Village. They had powder blue shutters and decorative blackiron balconies. A network of pale concrete sidewalks connected the buildings, all emanating from a fancy white gazebo as if it were the hub of a wheel. Flowers were planted around the gazebo, and it had a rooster weather vane on its roof. The rooster’s head was tossed back and its beak was spread wide as if it were crowing. Someone had painted an oblong eye on it that looked like the eye of a human.
On a cedar board near the gazebo was a directory of Warwick Village, under a sheet of Plexiglas to protect it from the weather. There was also a small sign directing prospective buyers to Red Feather Realty, the agency that apparently handled all Warwick Village listings.
A man wearing plaid slacks, a white shirt, and a white cap emerged from one of the buildings, walking a short-legged, grayish dog of indeterminate breed. The dog was in a bigger hurry than the man and kept the leash tight while all four legs churned on the grass just off the sidewalk. It was sniffing around, searching almost in a panic for the precise spot to relieve itself, the way dogs did when they’d been indoors too long and had finally found hope for relief.
Carver made his way casually over to the gazebo so the dog walker couldn’t avoid passing him.
It was easy enough to act interested in the place and strike up a conversation with the man, who told him that the condo was five years old and had been built by Brant Development. He didn’t know Brant personally, but he knew which of the white brick buildings he lived in, and that Brant was on the condominium board. “That means a lot,” the man said, “that the condo builder thinks enough of the place to live in one of the units.” The little dog wasn’t interested in any of this. It was yanking around on its leash, acting desperate and staring intently at Carver’s cane. Carver thought it was time to end the conversation.
He drove to Red Feather Realty, whose main office was in a small strip shopping center not unlike the one where Carver’s office was located, and pretended to be a prospective buyer of a Warwick Village condo.
The agent handling Warwick Village, a middle-aged and ferocious woman named Hilda who wore an obvious wig, said she knew Joel Brant and used the fact that the builder himself lived in one of the units as a selling point. “Very important,” she said. Apparently she’d talked to the man with the desperate little dog. Brant had moved in nearly six months ago, after his wife died in an auto accident, Hilda said. He was a nice man.
Could be, Carver thought.
Hilda loaded him up with glossy and colorful brochures about Warwick Village and gave him her card, took his. She reminded him that membership in the Warwick Village Racquet Club was built into the monthly maintenance fee, then asked Carver when he wanted to tour the display units.
He wasn’t positive he was ready to move, he admitted, but he assured her that if that was his decision, Warwick Village would be the first place he’d look.
Out in the heat, he made sure no one was looking out the window of the realty company, then dropped the sales brochures into a curbside trash receptacle. He got in the Olds, feeling the heat pulsing down on the top of his head through the canvas top, and started the engine. He switched on the air conditioner before maneuvering around the black minivan parked in front of him and pulling out into the stream of traffic.
In his office, Carver called Brant’s cellular phone and reached the developer at Brant Estates. They were pouring concrete for a side street and foundation slabs today, Brant told him, so he’d be at the site for a while. Carver told him about his conversation with Marla.
“Did she strike you as crazy?” Brant asked.
“No. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Have the newspapers or any of the local publications ever done a piece on Brant Development? Or on any of your projects?”
Brant thought for a moment while Carver listened to a loud grinding sound in the background, probably a cement mixer gearing up to pour.
“Other than paid advertising, there’ve been a few articles in the paper. Once a feature on a beachside condo development.”
“Warwick Village?”
“No,” Brant said, “one farther down the coast.” More of the grinding sound of the mixer, an engine being revved up. “Were you at my condo looking for me?”
“Earlier,” Carver said. A half truth. “Do you remember the author of the piece on the other condo project?”
“No, but I think the byline on the feature article was a woman’s.”
“How long ago?”
“I’d say about four years. In the Gazette-Dispatch. I’ve got copies somewhere back at the office.”
“Could it have been written by Marla Cloy?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell, but I suppose it’s possible. I’ll look.”
“Let me know what you find,” Carver said.
He hung up, then lifted the receiver again. Ordinarily he would have called Beth. Instead, he punched out the number of Lloyd Van Meter in Miami.
Carver didn’t remember much about Laura’s pregnancies. Anyway, Laura wasn’t Beth. He wasn’t sure how much he should call on Beth to do. Not that she wouldn’t do it; she was tough and, as she’d said herself, in denial sometimes about her condition. But threats had been made. Or a double game was being played by Marla, which could be even more dangerous. He had to remember that with Beth he might be putting two lives in danger.
Van Meter, who was perhaps the most successful private investigator in Florida, had offices in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. His headquarters was in Miami, but he wasn’t there. His secretary told Carver she’d have Van Meter call him from his car phone.
Carver thanked her and replaced the receiver, wondering when he was going to have to buy a cellular phone so he could chat while he drove. He would have to become part of this fast-developing mobile technology or be run over by it. He didn’t want to become road kill on the information superhighway.
He did paperwork until Van Meter called him just before noon.
“Been a l
ong time,” Van Meter said. He must have had a terrific car phone; he sounded as if he were leaning over Carver’s right shoulder, Carver could picture the obese Van Meter with his flowing white beard, half reclined behind the steering wheel of his big Cadillac, his thick arm draped limp-wristed over the top of the wheel. He didn’t know quite how to dress Van Meter in his vision; Van Meter always surprised. He was a flagrant violator of every rule of style and color. He usually looked as if he’d gotten dressed in a kaleidoscope.
“I need some help here in Del Moray,” Carver said.
“That’s the only reason you ever call, because you need help. What kind of pickle are you in this time?”
“I need someone followed, and I can’t do it myself.”
“Why not?”
“I’m following somebody else.”
“What about Beth? She busy too?”
“She’s pr-Yeah, she’s busy, doing a piece for Burrow about the Everglades drying up.”
“Good for her. The wetlands are disappearing faster than Disney World is growing. And we need one more’n the other.”
“I didn’t know you were a conservationist.”
“I’m not. I like alligators.”
“As shoes, you mean. What about my request?”
“Well, I got a good man in Orlando can drive over and take up the task. You know Charley Spotto?”
Carver did. Spotto was a brash little man with a huge mustache, gimlet eyes, and the heart of a terrier. “Sure. He’ll do fine.”
From the corner of his eye Carver noticed a black minivan make a right turn into the parking lot.
“Give me the name and address of whoever you want watched,” Van Meter said. “Spotto will be on him like a second skin he doesn’t know he has.”
Carver gave him Brant’s name, then his home and office addresses, as well as a physical description.
“This guy dangerous?” Van Meter asked.
“I don’t know. That’s one thing I’m trying to find out.”
“Okay, Spotto should be there by late afternoon.”
“Usual rate for this, Lloyd?”
“Of course. I didn’t think you were asking for a favor. You’re too proud.”
Carver hung up, thinking that sometimes Van Meter sounded a lot like Beth.
He resumed trying to clear his desk of paperwork, then he suddenly realized he’d slapped lunch and was hungry. Quickly he placed everything in a semblance of order beneath a paperweight that had been a gift from his daughter, Ann. It was one of those glass globes with miniature buildings in it and imitation snowflakes that swirled around when it was shaken. Carver had moved it enough to cause flurries. He sat thinking about Ann in St. Louis, where some winters a lot of snow fell, and long, gray stretches of cold kept it from melting.
The snowfall in the globe held him hypnotized until it ended.
He was reaching for his cane to stand up and go out into the searing Florida heat when the door opened and the biggest man Carver had ever seen ducked his head to enter the office.
18
He was even taller than McGregor, and wide, without a hint of excess flesh anywhere. He wore filth-encrusted jeans and a dirty, wool-lined distressed leather vest without a shirt. At the end of each muscle-corded long arm was a huge hand with hairy-knuckled fingers like sausages. On his feet were immense white sneakers, loosely laced and with their tongues hanging out as if they were exhausted just from transporting him around all day. As he stepped farther into the office, Carver saw that he wasn’t wearing socks.
“Help you?” Carver asked.
The man laughed, almost a giggle. The shrill sound, so incongruous coming from such a mountain, made the flesh on the nape of Carver’s neck crawl.
Carver stood up, not quite leaning on his cane, keeping his weight balanced and his grip tight so he could lash out with force with the hard walnut if the man meant him harm.
The man did mean him harm. His wide face, guileless as a child’s and marked with blackheads and a smudge of grease on the bridge of his nose, broke into what appeared to be a mindless smile. His eyes were so pale they could hardly be called blue or gray; they were almost one with the whites so that Carver couldn’t even be sure they were trained on him. He moved toward Carver with confidence and a surprising liquid grace. When he drew back a gigantic fist, Carver shifted his weight and swung the cane hard, using both hands.
The fist opened in a flash and caught the cane. It was snatched from Carver’s grip as if he’d been fishing and hooked a shark. The man snapped the cane in half and tossed it in a corner, then effortlessly kicked the desk aside so he’d have more room. Carver had been leaning with his thigh against the desk and would have fallen, only one of the giant hands grabbed the front of his shirt and supported him. He punched the man’s stomach, and pain lamed his right hand and wrist as he made contact with a large silver belt buckle.
He felt himself being dragged across the office, then he was slammed against a wall, lifted, and held there with his back pressed to the plaster and the mammoth fist still clenching his shirt front. He heard material rip and he eased down a bit inside the shirt, then he was held fast. He tried to knee the man in the groin with his good leg, but his knee made contact with a tree trunk of a thigh and bounced off.
That seemed to irritate the big man. With his free hand he began slapping the left side of Carver’s head, holding him in such a way that with each blow his head would bounce off the wall and into the next slap of the meaty palm. It was making a bam-pocka-bam-pocka-bam-pocka! sound, like a speed bag being rhythmically pummeled in a gym. Pain exploded in Carver’s head and he felt bile rise in his throat.
Then the dizzying pain and motion stopped abruptly and he felt himself slide down the wall until his feet were on the floor. The fist balled around his shirt still held him tight, and he was staring at the man’s hairy chest, smelling stale perspiration and maybe gasoline.
“Stop going around asking your questions,” the man said. It was a rumbling voice not at all like his high-pitched giggle.
To emphasize his demand, he shook Carver like a lifeless doll. Carver couldn’t summon the strength to resist the whiplike motion. His head began bouncing against the wall again, causing an increasing pain that made him nauseated.
“You understand my meaning?”
“Who are you?” Carver managed to gasp.
Bam-pocka-bam-pocka-bam! The room whirled and jerked crazily and Carver could barely see it through his tears as his head bounced between palm and wall again.
He was on the floor then, with no recollection of having fallen. His head pulsated with pain and his stomach heaved. There was a terrible stench that it took his addled brain a few seconds to recognize-feet! He saw one of the boat-size, odorous white sneakers draw back. It kicked him almost lazily yet with such force that he felt his breath shoot from his lungs.
“Stop going around asking questions,” the man growled again. “Do you get my meaning this time?”
“Got it,” Carver moaned. There was a hitch in his voice because he couldn’t catch his breath. He hoped he’d spoken clearly enough to be understood.
“Agreed?” the voice thundered above him.
“Agreed,” Carver confirmed.
Nausea overcame him and bile tasted like copper at the base of his tongue. He turned his head toward the wall, trying not to vomit.
“You bastards,” the giant said calmly, “you learn hard, but you learn.”
Carver was braced for another kick at any moment. Then he realized he could no longer smell the man’s huge feet.
He turned his head, craned his neck, and saw that he was alone in a room that was tilting and swaying. He let himself lie flat on his back, breathing more freely now, taking in oxygen and waiting for his stomach to settle and his head to stop aching. There was a stitch of pain in his right side where he’d been kicked, as if he’d run too far and become winded.
What appeared to be a small brown spider was on the ceiling, and he found
himself staring at it, mesmerized, trying to determine if it was actually moving or if its subtle change of position was only in his mind. Then he wondered if it was even a spider. The eyes could play tricks.
His stomach calmed down to a knot of pain and the nausea became steady but controllable. His head began to ache more.
He rolled over and started to crawl toward the closet, where a spare cane was hooked over the clothes rod, but every time he moved, dizzyness swept over him and he had to stop.
The phone had fallen to the floor with the rest of whatever was on the desk when the big man had shoved it aside to get at Carver. The receiver had miraculously stayed on the hook. Or maybe the giant had for some reason replaced it. Carver rolled onto his back, then his side, and could reach the phone.
He punched out the number of the cottage, getting it right on the third try. His arm and hand told him the receiver was pressed to his ear, but he couldn’t feel it as the phone on the other end of the connection rang, rang, rang.
Finally, Beth’s voice.
Carver managed to mumble something into the phone that even he couldn’t understand. He was alarmed to find he couldn’t recall what he’d attempted to say. A plea for help. He knew that. Jesus, his mind was mush and he couldn’t think!
He rolled onto his back again, still clinging to the receiver and hoping he wasn’t pulling the cord from the phone jack.
A spider, he decided with satisfaction, staring straight up at the small brown dot that undoubtedly had moved a few feet from where he’d noticed it on the ceiling earlier. The question of its authenticity was answered.
It was definitely a spider.
“Fred?”
He made an effort and dragged his mind down from the ceiling. “At the office,” he said.
“Fred!” Alarm in her voice now.
“C’mon in here. Need some help.”