by John Lutz
Carver stood up and, with the aid of his cane, climbed out of the carpeted conversation pit. A clear path to the door now.
He said, “I notice your husband’s quite a bit older than you. It’s nice to see a May-December marriage that’s working.”
“I’m more like July, Mr. Carver.”
She strode ahead of him on those long, fine legs and opened the door. The room temperature rose a few degrees immediately with the influx of outside air. Heat inundating like water.
Carver said, “I came here on the off-chance you’d help me clear away whatever misconceptions there are about Sunhaven. Instead you’ve only added to my suspicions.”
“I think you carry your suspicions with you like building blocks, and place one atop the other whenever you want, no matter what you see or hear.”
No common ground here, Carver decided, and pushed past the perfumed, feminine warmth of Dr. Macklin and out into the diffused evening light so coveted by her husband.
“Please leave Sunhaven alone, Mr. Carver,” she said behind him. It was a plea for mercy, and it was a warning.
“I can’t,” he told her, and limped to his car through the soft sunlight that made everything seem unreal.
Or at Sunhaven, maybe it was unreal.
Instead of driving out of the parking lot, he circled around to the main building, parked, and went inside.
The lobby was deserted except for an old woman in a robe who was shuffling toward him on her way to a door at the far end of the building.
When she noticed Carver’s cane, she flashed him a sunken smile of kinship and for a moment raised her own cane. It had a rubber tip and made no sound, but her leather-soled slippers scuffed loudly on the smooth floor.
“Here for supper?” she asked. “Chicken casserole.”
“Another evening, thanks,” Carver said.
So it was dinnertime at Sunhaven. He remembered Desoto describing the dining room as a mess hall.
“Got no bones in it,” the woman assured him.
“Sorry, I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself,” the old woman said. She sounded somewhat insulted, as if he’d turned down an invitation for a meal she’d prepared. She shuffled back up to speed and moved away from him.
A white-uniformed attendant charged into the lobby and asked if he could help Carver. He was a tall, slender man with black wavy hair and the kind of pencil-thin mustache Errol Flynn used to wear. Deeply etched lines from the corners of his lips to the wings of his nose gave his age away. He was closing fast on the half-century mark.
Carver hadn’t seen the man before and wasn’t afraid of being recognized, so he asked if Birdie Reeves was around. The attendant told him Birdie had finished her day and left Sunhaven a little after five o’clock. Carver thanked him and went back outside to his car, aware the attendant was watching him.
He hoped no one else was watching.
When he got back to his cottage, he phoned Birdie at home.
She didn’t seem pleased to hear from him.
“I need a favor,” he told her.
“Well, if I can do it, Mr. Carver.” But not if it sounds too difficult.
“I need copies of the files of residents who died at Sunhaven during the past year.”
After a long pause she said, “I dunno about that.” She sounded somehow unnatural. Distraught. Her voice dragging.
“It’s very important. Will you get them for me?”
“It makes me scared, that kinda sneaking around.”
“ Can you do it? I mean, do you have access to the files?”
“No.”
“Birdie?”
“What you’re asking would be awful hard to do.”
“But possible?”
“Well, barely so.”
“Think about it, Birdie. If you can get file copies, mail them to me. Or phone me if you’d rather, and I’ll meet you somewhere or drive over to your apartment to get them.”
He made sure she had a pencil, then gave her his address slowly while she wrote it down. He hoped she was writing as he dictated. It would be hard to blame her if she wasn’t paying attention to him and was reading one of her supermarket tabloids while he talked.
The truth was he felt a little guilty. He was using Birdie, imposing his will on her to get what he wanted, as had other men in her life. She had no real choice but to try to get the files. Not if she didn’t want to run the risk of being sent back to Indiana. Ends justifying means, Carver told himself, but he wasn’t so sure. Maybe ends and means were one and the same.
“I’ll do my darndest,” Birdie assured him, still sounding frightened. She hung up, leaving him feeling low enough to crawl under the phone.
He replaced the receiver and sat there in the quiet, darkening cottage. It was as if he could see through the wall to the open grave only twenty feet from him. His grave. His own personal eternal resting place. He noticed the broken pieces of his cane propped now in the corner where he’d set them after McGregor returned them to him at Edwina’s. Carver didn’t want Edwina to see them and had tossed them into the Olds. Driven here with them. The ends were sharp and would poke holes in a plastic trash bag; he’d put them out next week when the bulk refuse pickup was scheduled. The cane had been snapped in half simply by the force of abruptly checked momentum. Carver could imagine the strength and ability that must take. His own upper body was unusually powerful, but he possessed only a fraction of Raffy Ortiz’s conditioning and quickness.
He stared at the broken pieces of cane until the cottage was almost completely dark. Then he picked up the phone again and pecked out Desoto’s number. To get an address on Raffy Ortiz.
Carver wasn’t superstitious or easily influenced by the power of suggestion. He also wasn’t out of time. The grave on the other side of the wall wasn’t yet occupied.
26
In the morning Carver drove down the heat-shimmering highway into Del Moray. On his left, the ocean rolled blue-green and too sluggish for whitecaps, as if it felt the burden of the heat and was lulled to lethargy. Gulls circled lazily above the waves, and in the gray haze of the horizon white sails seemed to hang by invisible threads attached to their points, like triangular pieces of a mobile. The fish-rot smell of the sea clung like a fog to the shore.
He went by Edwina’s house, but she wasn’t home. In the bedroom, he removed his old Colt. 38 automatic from where it was taped behind the top dresser drawer. He didn’t like carrying a gun, and he’d decided to leave the Colt here rather than go through the aggravation of dealing with airport security on his trip to New Orleans. A gun wouldn’t have been much use to him there anyway. He tucked the Colt into his waistband beneath his shirt. From Edwina’s, he drove to police headquarters.
McGregor was in his shoebox-sized office, seated behind his desk with a disgruntled look, tugging heavily at his long face. He might have been very tired. Ever the genial host, he glanced up and said, “I ain’t got time for you today.” Carver went in anyway and sat down in the chair by the desk. He began tapping his cane gently on the floor, as if in time with silent music. Or with the varying hum of the air conditioner fighting the good fight against the heat. “You ain’t got ears?” McGregor said.
“Got ears. Got questions, too.”
“Too bad. Chief’s been on my ass, Carver.”
“I’m sure you don’t deserve it.”
“You got that right. I’ll take care of the little bastard when the time comes.”
Carver knew McGregor well enough to feel sorry for the chief, who probably thought he was dealing with something human.
McGregor gnawed at his right index fingernail, detached part of it, and began working it between his eyeteeth. He liked to chew on minute objects. A nervous habit, Carver supposed.
McGregor stopped clicking his teeth and said, “Well, state your business so you can get the fuck outta here.”
“I want to know if anything happened concerning Edwina while I was gone.”
“A
lotta gasoline and shoe leather was used, is all. Your lady gets around. I was hoping I’d be able to tell you she’s seeing somebody else, but no such luck. What she does is shows property, works on real-estate deals. Some go-getter. Made herself well-off and she might even make herself goddamn rich. I can understand what a guy like you sees in her. I was you, I’d grab two handfuls of that and never let go.”
“Raffy Ortiz was in New Orleans,” Carver said.
McGregor spat out the sliver of fingernail and leaned back to his chair. “Was he now?”
“He came to my hotel room. We had a chat.”
“Bet you did.”
“He might be even more screwed up in the head than you are.”
“Oh, doubtless he is. What’d he have to say?”
“Told me to drop the Sunhaven case. But I don’t think he really believes I will.”
“I don’t think he wants you to,” McGregor said. “I know how shitheads like him see shitheads like you. He’s taking his time, is all, getting his kicks playing with you before he decides to do whatever it is he’s leading up to. Foreplay, you might call it. To say Raffy Ortiz is a sadist is to say flies like sugar.”
“That’s more or less how Desoto reads it.”
“Hey, I ain’t surprised. Desoto’s a bright guy. How he got mixed up with a downhill roller like you is beyond me.”
“What shouldn’t be beyond you is that something more than watered-down Geritol is happening at Sunhaven. Otherwise Raffy Ortiz wouldn’t be commuting between here and New Orleans around the time of Kearny Williams’s death and funeral.”
“His second trip might have been just to see why you went there.”
Carver had to admit that was possible. But in the room at the Belle Grande, Raffy didn’t ask him what he was doing in New Orleans. Which suggested he already knew. He’d been watching Carver.
“Was Raffy doped up when he talked to you in New Orleans?” McGregor asked.
“I’d say so, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“I hear he’s on drugs more and more these days. And he’s losing control and falling toward bottoming out. Guy like that can be especially dangerous. As if he ain’t dangerous enough already.”
“If the law knows that much about him, why can’t he be nailed for possession?”
“That’d be kinda like nailing a great white shark for swimming in the wrong end of the pool. The guy’s not your ordinary dopehead. He’s got some heavy-duty connections, people who turn white and shit in their pants if he looks hard at them. Believe me, Raffy Ortiz wouldn’t take some short fall for carrying a little coke. He’d bounce right back onto the street meaner than ever.”
“That his drug of choice? Cocaine?”
“I couldn’t guess. Right now, I’d say you’re his drug of choice, what’s giving him his ongoing high. Sorta the way a cat gets a rush outta toying with a mouse.”
“You know him so well,” Carver said in disgust, “but you can’t get it through your dense bureaucratic head he’s into something out at Sunhaven.”
“Don’t get your blood boiling,” McGregor said. “Happens I agree with you. That’s why I lowered myself to entering into a kind of agreement with you. That’s why I got one of my men trailing around after Edwina Talbot like she was a bitch in heat and he was a hound with a hard-on.” He rested both huge palms flat on his desk, as if he were getting ready to compress the poor piece of furniture against the floor. “Edwina’s still breathing and bouncing around unbruised, Carver. That was my end of the deal. Now, what’ve you learned about Sunhaven?”
“What I’ve been trying to get across to you. I’m surer than ever something’s wrong when residents are dying out there. I talked to Dr. Macklin yesterday.”
“I talked to her, too. While you were in New Orleans. Used the subject of you as an excuse. She doesn’t like you coming around. Says everything’s hunky-dory at Sunhaven and you oughta go back to peeking through motel keyholes.”
“She said that? About motel keyholes?”
“Not exactly,” McGregor admitted, raising a pale eyebrow. “I’m paraphrasing. But the intent was there.”
“She used the same attitude on me. You meet her husband?”
“Nope, I saw her when she was alone in her office. Great legs for a doctor, hey?”
“Know anything about Brian Macklin?”
“The hubby?”
“Yeah. He’s a painter.”
“Oh? Houses or sunsets?”
“Sunsets. He’s supposed to be good. Actually sold some canvases. He’s getting ready to have a one-man show in Miami.” Miami again, Carver thought. But he didn’t mention to McGregor the frequency of the city’s name popping up. It could merely be coincidence. Miami was the large cosmopolitan area where somebody like Brian Macklin might be most likely to have his work shown.
“I’ll see what I can find out about hubby Brian,” McGregor said. “Guy must be crazy, out painting pictures instead of running up the miles on that wife of his. Being a doctor, I bet she knows some moves. Meantime, you better do what you can to stay away from Raffy Ortiz.”
Carver knew McGregor wasn’t expressing concern for him. He didn’t want Carver’s corpse to turn up somewhere and prompt a lot of questions he might have to lie about or play dumb on. Danger either way.
“I’ll try to avoid him,” Carver said. “But if I do see him, I’ll mention you know what I know.”
He was a little surprised, and unsettled, when McGregor looked genuinely frightened.
He wondered what McGregor would think if he knew Carver’s next stop was Raffy Ortiz’s condominium.
27
The white Cadillac was parked in a slot in the ground-level garage beneath the building. Painted in luminescent pink on the raw concrete wall behind it was “6-D,” apparently Raffy’s condo unit number.
The harsh glass-and-stone structure was called Executive Tower and was on the ocean side of Ponce de Leon Drive. It didn’t have a doorman but it featured a wide private beach. There were Keep Out and No Trespassing signs in every direction. Very exclusive. An expensive place to hang your hat and proud of it.
Carver limped to a low wooden fence and stood beneath a blue-and-yellow umbrella to look out at the stretch of sand, some colorful striped cabanas, and the surf reaching gentle white fingers up the beach. About a dozen people lounged on the beach, some on towels, some in chairs, a few sitting where the sand was damp and dark and letting the waves lick at their bare feet. There were no children; Carver supposed Executive Tower was one of those condo developments whose bylaws prohibited residents with young offspring. Kept the place neat and quiet for solid citizens like Raffy Ortiz.
Carver didn’t see Raffy’s formidable form among the bodies on the beach, and at the moment there was no one bobbing in the swells or swimming out beyond the surf.
Across the street from Executive Tower was a strip retail center that contained the usual assortment of beachside shops and tourist traps. At the end of the low, L-shaped building’s short leg was an ice cream parlor called Frosty Frieda’s. Carver crossed the street, went inside, and sat at a table by the window.
It was appropriately cool in Frosty Frieda’s. The tables were round and cutesy, with bentwood legs. A teenage waitress with chocolate stains down the blouse of her yellow uniform wandered over and introduced herself as if they were going out on a date.
Carver looked at the menu and ordered something called a Chunky Chill. It sounded as if it would take a long time to consume, and he could have a cup of coffee afterward and sit at the table and watch Executive Tower without arousing suspicion as other customers came and went.
The Chunky Chill turned out to be a concoction of frozen custard, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and peanuts. It was topped with a maraschino cherry. Carver didn’t like maraschino cherries; if cherries died and were embalmed, they would come out maraschino. He plucked the garish red glob from the whipped cream with his thumb and forefinger and deposited it in the ashtray. There it would
shrivel and stick like chewed gum and have to be chipped away by whoever cleaned the ashtrays. Teach Frieda to sell the nasty things here.
The rest of the Chunky Chill was delicious, and probably less than thirty thousand calories. He had to force himself to spoon it into his mouth slowly while he watched the Executive Tower garage exit.
He was on his second foam cup of coffee when Raffy’s white Caddie inched its nose out of the shadowed exit like a cautious shark, saw a break in the traffic, and glided out into a smooth left turn and drove away. Raffy was behind the steering wheel and alone in the car. His dark hair was pomaded and slicked back neatly, and he had on a cream-colored sport coat or suitcoat with a blue shirt open at the collar. He was also wearing a contented expression on his broad, tanned face, as if his life were free of worry. And maybe it was at that. Maybe he was the lion in the jungle, just as he thought.
Hoping Raffy wasn’t merely driving to the corner for a six-pack of beer, Carver paid for his coffee, left the iciness of Frosty Frieda’s for the oven outside, and crossed the street to Executive Tower.
He limped through a large, glitzy lobby and rode an elevator to the sixth floor. The hall carpeting was thick and spongy and caused his cane to sink deep and drag, so he had to walk more slowly than he wanted to the fancy white door marked “6-D” an inch below its round glass peephole.
He knocked three times, to be on the safe side in case Raffy had left a friend behind in the condo. When there was no answer he tried the brass doorknob and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. Carver had picked locks before, but it was a damned sight harder than it seemed in movies and detective novels, so he glanced around to make sure there was no one else in the hall and then rocked back on his cane and stiff leg and used his good leg to kick the door.
The lock held but the doorjamb gave, and without a great deal of noise. The door swung open. There was an ugly dark smudge from the sole of Carver’s moccasin on its white surface.