Bloodfire fc-5

by John Lutz

  The first thing she said was, “You’re no longer being followed, but Roberto still thinks you might accept his twenty-thousand-dollar offer. That you’ll find me and give me to him.”

  Carver touched the base of the moisture-beaded can to his thigh. Cold condensation worked through the material of his pants. “How do you know all that?”

  “I have a few friends in my husband’s organization. If I ask, they take a chance, tell me things I should know. They told me Roberto hired you under false colors. You accepted the job, then you backed off when you found out what was going on.” She took a sip of beer and placed the can on the rail. She’d removed the tinted glasses, and it looked for a moment as if her dark eyes were misting. “After Belinda got killed.”

  “If you know I know the story,” Carver said, “what do we have to talk about?”

  She removed the wide-brimmed hat now. Her hair, raven black and straightened, tumbled to her shoulders, changing her appearance entirely. Made her look like a rock singer, or a funky fashion model. Even the baggy gray dress couldn’t hide the lissome curves of her lean body. He’d heard Elizabeth was a beautiful woman. Heard right. She said, “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “About your pregnancy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And why you left your husband?”

  “Yeah again.”

  “I don’t care,” Carver said. “Domestic difficulties don’t interest me. They’re not my business. Point is, you want out, Gomez doesn’t want you out, and he’s a tough guy to leave.”

  “Oh, he’s not that hard to leave. Only thing is, you leave everything else when you leave Roberto. I mean, like life itself.”

  Carver gazed beyond the toe of his moccasin, at the ocean rolling in the sunlight. A pelican flapped past, dipped suddenly at a fish. Made a splash but came up empty and flapped on. “Here’s how it is,” Carver said. “I believe he’s trying to kill you, and I think you oughta go to the police. Trade what you know in exchange for their protection.”

  She shook her head, staring at him with those dark, dark eyes. “Can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Roberto’s into drugs in a big way.”

  “Not news to many.”

  “I’m into drugs too.”

  “I told you, work a deal. Get immunity. The law wants to put Roberto away, Elizabeth.”

  “Do me a favor and call me Beth. I don’t like formality.”

  “Okay, Beth.”

  “What you want me to call you?”

  “Carver’s fine.”

  “I don’t mean I’m into drugs that way, Carver, the way Roberto is.” She was staring fixedly at him, something in her eyes pleading for understanding. “Not as a dealer.”

  He tapped gently on the porch rail with his cane. Not making much noise. “You telling me you’re a user?”

  “That’s it. Couldn’t just say no, I’m afraid.”

  “Heavy user?”

  “The heaviest. And that’s no exaggeration.”

  Carver said, “What’s that change?”

  “Roberto doesn’t do drugs,” she said. “Nobody who works for him does. He figures that’s the only way to run his business. It’s a strict rule. Strict rule for me not to use any of the stuff, either.”

  “But you broke the rule.”

  “Been breaking it for the past two years. Did coke at first. Then heroin.”

  “Heroin, huh.” Almost disinterested. Then he said, “Oh, Jesus!”

  She had a way of knowing what he was thinking. “That’s right. Our baby-Roberto’s son-died from addiction complications immediately after birth. That’s why Roberto wants to kill me, even though he knows my own addiction’s such it’ll probably kill me within a year or so.”

  It was difficult for Carver to feel sympathy for her. A baby born with the raging blood of her habit, too frail to survive, where was there room for compassion for the mother? For an instant he knew how Gomez must feel. Why he needed vengeance. “How’s Roberto know you’re hooked that badly?”

  “The doctor told him. The one that delivered the baby. Roberto wanted as few people as possible to know I was pregnant. That’s why he put me in the condo in Orlando. He arranged for me to have the baby at a private clinic, run by a doctor he knows. The doctor told him what happened, and I found out Roberto was furious. The day after the birth, I got out of the clinic. I laid low at a friend’s place till I healed up enough to get on the run, and I been running ever since.” She swallowed, her Adam’s apple working in her lean brown throat. “Roberto wants his revenge. That’s the way he is. He wants me before Mr. Heroin can have me.”

  Carver looked out at the hazy horizon. She had to be in the last and worst stages of her habit to have killed her child. She was being optimistic in saying she had a year or two at most to live. A heroin addict in her league could measure the future in months. He said, “Does it really matter much which way you go, or how soon?”

  She looked hard at him, and it seemed for a moment as if she might break down and sob. “Get yourself in my position, you hard-ass bastard. Find out how it feels. See how much you love life.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But I’ll ask you what I asked Roberto the day he showed up here to hire me. Why me?”

  “Because you got the courage to turn down Roberto. You refused to help him murder me, even for twenty thousand. Know what that means?” She was quietly sobbing now. Her body was quaking inside the baggy gray dress. The body he’d assumed was lean and sensuous was a doper’s wracked, thin frame, shaking itself in despair.

  “Means I got humongous balls?”

  “Damn you!” She turned away, toward the sea, so he couldn’t see her crying.

  He sat sipping beer, not liking himself. Telling himself he didn’t feel compassion for her, this woman who’d chosen a fast life and then killed her child with her weakness. Carver couldn’t help it; weakness had always repelled him. In himself, especially, but too often in others who’d had some choice in the matter. What was free will about, if not that?

  She turned around to face him again, composed now. “Everybody’s got some kinda weakness,” she said. She was a goddam psychic.

  He said, “I wouldn’t argue it.”

  She stood up straight. She was probably about five-ten. “You gonna help me, Carver?”

  He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t do bodyguard work.”

  Her demeanor changed. She moved closer to where he sat. Gazed down at him as if she pitied him.

  Then she nodded. He wasn’t worth speaking to. She’d made her appeal and failed, and that was that.

  She walked from the porch toward her car, not glancing back at him, her head held high. There was something unmistakably defiant in her long, loose-jointed stride. Even haughty. He’d doomed her and she was saying piss on him, she didn’t need him after all in order to die the way she wanted.

  He liked that about her, that spit-in-the-eye quality. Liked it a lot. But he didn’t try to stop her as she drove away.

  12

  When Carver drove to his office and turned off of Magellan, he saw a black Lincoln stretch limousine in his usual parking slot near Golden World Insurance. It had darkly tinted windows and several different kinds of little antennae sticking up from its trunk. An occupant could coast along unseen and listen in on broadcasts from Mars.

  He parked next to the Lincoln and took care not to bump its gleaming and reflective side as he opened the Olds’s heavy, rusty door.

  As he raised himself up out of the car, he heard a steady, ticking whisper and realized the limo’s motor was idling. Heat was rolling out from beneath it. The rear window on Carver’s side glided down and Gomez smiled out at him.

  “C’mon into my office and talk this time,” Gomez said. “Cooler than yours.”

  Carver hesitated, then figured what the hell. He limped around the smoothly idling Lincoln and opened the passenger-side rear door. Leaned down and looked inside before getting in.

  The
car was equipped with a well-stocked miniature bar and a color TV that was soundlessly playing a soap opera. On the other side of a glass partition sat the driver, facing straight ahead. His shoulders were slightly stooped. His thinning black hair was parted and combed sharply to the side, and tufts of gray hair sprouted from his long ears. Had to be Hirsh. He was the only occupant of the car other than Gomez and glitz.

  Gomez said, “You’re letting the cool air out, Carver.”

  Carver used his cane for balance and slid in to sit next to Gomez on soft leather upholstery. He pulled the foot-thick door shut and was in another world of coolness and quiet. There was no sound inside the spacious limo other than the gentle whir of an air conditioner blower, no engine vibration.

  Gomez scooted around so he was half-facing Carver across the wide seat. He fixed his black button eyes on Carver and worked his out-of-sync eyebrows as if to let Carver know he was amused. “So, you been thinking about my offer?”

  “Nothing to think about,” Carver said. “I already refused it.”

  Gomez surprised him. “Okay. I wouldn’t wanna force somebody to work for me if he didn’t wanna give it his fucking all, you know?”

  “Makes sense. Hundred and ten percent and all that.”

  “Right. So what I came to tell you is we’re doing a one-eighty-degree turn here, my man. What I’m saying is stay as clear of me and mine as you can get. I don’t wanna see or hear of you again. Our business is finished, like you want it to be.”

  Carver wondered if Gomez had somehow learned about Beth talking to him. It didn’t seem possible. Couldn’t have anything to do with why Gomez was here.

  Unless Beth had been followed from the cottage and killed, and now Gomez was warning Carver not to tell the law about her visit or the subject of their conversation.

  Carver’s mouth was dry. He said, “Why the change of direction?”

  Gomez grinned. Oh, those eyebrows. “It ain’t for you to worry about.”

  “Maybe you already found your missing wife.”

  “Maybe. Who knows.”

  Carver couldn’t let it lie. He had to probe. He had no compassion for Beth Gomez, but he didn’t like the idea of this dope-rich Napoleon dropping by now and then to control his life. Too much money and power. Too much arrogance. He said, “I know about what happened to your son.”

  Gomez’s face darkened and a tremor shook his body beneath his expensive gray suit. In that instant Carver knew Beth’s fears were justified. Gomez wanted her, all right. Probably hadn’t found her yet, but wanted her. “How’d you find out about my son?” he asked in a tight voice.

  Carver said, “I’m a detective, like my card says.”

  “Ain’t you, though. Well, my man, I guess you know then why I want the cunt back.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Gomez smiled all over except for the deathlike button eyes beneath the comic brows. “I bet you can’t.” He leaned back into the encompassing tufted upholstery. The movement stirred the air and the scent of his after-shave filled the back of the limo. “Listen, I save this girl from the fucking sewer. Treat her like a goddam queen. Even used to call her Queen Elizabeth, can you believe it? She turns up pregnant ’cause she forgets to take a pill, but I’m a nice guy about it. I don’t push her into an abortion. So she stays knocked up. I don’t care, if she wants it so bad. Even get used to the idea. Could be a son, another me, you know? So I get real fond of the fatherhood role I see coming at me. I make sure she gets the best of medical attention.” He abruptly slapped the seat, startling Carver. The noise reached the front of the car, and Hirsh’s head snapped around. Hirsh saw everything was okay. Glanced at Carver through the glass as if he were viewing sea life in an aquarium, then turned back to gaze out over the steering wheel at Golden World Insurance.

  Gomez said, “All I do for the bitch, and what do I find out? She’s been dipping into the stock. Got herself a habit. She’s a fucking heroin user, already halfway to hell. You know the average life of somebody’s been on that stuff super-heavy, Carver?”

  “Couple of years?”

  “At best. I mean, I sell it, so I oughta know. But I tell you, I never suspected. She’s built real lean anyway, so there wasn’t any weight loss to tip me off. And she’s smart. Took mail-order college courses, all that shit. Probably what fucked her up. But she knew how to trick me into thinking she was clean; I give her that. Fooled me until the doctor came and told me about how her addiction killed my baby son. How the heroin in the mother’s blood found its way into the womb and the baby’s own blood. I didn’t know the news’d hit me so hard, not till I heard it.” He was trembling, either from pity or rage. “A tiny body like that, Carver, it can’t handle that shit. That’s what the doctor told me. He didn’t say it in those words, but any way you say it, my son died less than an hour after he was born.”

  “What’d Beth say when you saw her?”

  “I never did see her after I heard. When I got to the medical clinic, she was smart enough to have cleared the hell out. I been looking for her ever since, and I’ll fucking keep looking.”

  Carver didn’t doubt it.

  Gomez was sitting stiffly, powerful jaw muscles flexing like living beings beneath his skin as he clenched his teeth. A vein in his neck was throbbing, a blue hammer pounding out time.

  “If her habit’s gonna kill her soon enough anyway,” Carver said, “why should you bother looking for her?”

  Gomez gave a kind of snorting laugh, as if Carver’s question was so stupid it didn’t warrant an answer.

  Maybe Gomez was right. When Carver’s son died, he’d felt the same way.

  Gomez’s chest heaved. A stillness came over his body. He was himself again, the emotionless, tough entrepreneur in the toughest of businesses. “You ain’t in, so you’re out, Carver. All the way out. That’s what I want you to understand. I don’t want you around complicating things. Because if I figure it’d be less complicated to see that you disappear in the swamp country, then you’ll be introduced to some alligators. We clear on that?”

  Carver said, “Alligators or crocodiles?”

  Gomez didn’t blink. “The hard-guy act’ll carry you only so far. Till you become food.” He rapped on the glass partition and Hirsh made a slight movement, reaching for something.

  There was a muted click from the door next to Carver. He hadn’t realized he was locked in.

  Gomez was staring straight ahead. He said, “Good luck, stranger.”

  Carver worked the door handle. Pushed open the vaultlike door and felt hot outside air close in on him. He said, “Wait here a minute, okay?” and didn’t move until Gomez had nodded.

  Then he limped into his office and over to the file cabinet. He unlocked the fireproof bottom drawer and got out the envelope containing the thousand dollars Gomez had given him as a retainer to find his wife.

  When he returned to stand by the back of the limo, Gomez lowered the power window. The soap-opera volume was up now on the TV; a woman said, “God, I love you, Damien. I’ll love you forever!” Carver had never known anyone named Damien. He handed Gomez the envelope, then watched him lift the flap and look inside. Money was obviously his intimate friend.

  Gomez frowned. He didn’t understand this and didn’t like it. “Why you giving this back?”

  Carver said, “I didn’t earn it.”

  “That don’t mean shit to me, Carver.”

  “Guess it wouldn’t.”

  Gomez stared at him with eyes that seemed to absorb rather than reflect light. He said, “Stay out of my life, you hear?”

  Carver said, “I’m glad to be out of it.”

  The tinted window slid back up and the limo backed out of its parking slot, made a sharp turn to the driveway, then accelerated smoothly out onto Magellan.

  Carver stood in the searing sun, watching the long black car until it disappeared, wondering himself why he’d returned the money.

  13

  The woman who suspected her husband and sister
of having an affair called again and apologized to Carver for not showing up for their appointment. She said she’d had second thoughts; she was afraid of what he might find out. He told her he understood, and that when she got straight in her mind what she wanted to do about the situation, he’d still be available to help her. He didn’t think she’d call back.

  Only a minute or so after he’d hung up, McGregor walked into the office. If everybody who hated McGregor formed a single-file line, it would be hard to walk around it. Del Moray police lieutenant McGregor was an infuriating man to be around; he saw humanity as rotting meat and himself as a happy maggot. It was difficult to deal with someone like him, who embraced, and even exulted in, being completely amoral. Sometimes his logic was impeccable.

  He was a coiled and lanky six and a half feet of bad taste and bad manners. He had on a cheap brown suit that hung from his bony shoulders as if from a bent hanger. His white shirt was wrinkled and stained. The narrow end of his kinked tie dangled below the wide. His huge brown wingtip shoes were scuffed. He loomed in an almost visible odorous cloud of the perfumey cheap cologne he favored over bathing. Grinning his gap-toothed smile, he shoved back the straight lock of his lank blond hair that always flopped over his forehead, stared at Carver with his intense, close-set pale blue eyes. He had a long, narrow face with a prognathous jaw, a ruby of dried blood on his chin where he’d cut himself shaving.

  Carver tried not to breathe the cologne-fouled air too deeply and said, “You given up knocking on doors?”

  McGregor kept smiling. He propped his giant’s hands on his hips. “I like to walk in unexpected on shitballs like you. Catch them off guard so I can see how the lower fifth lives.”

  “You got an upside-down view of the world,” Carver said.

  McGregor stuck the tip of his tongue, like a pink viper, through the wide gap between his yellowed front teeth, His grin became more of a leer as he said, “How’s you and your lady sackmate getting along these days?”