Flame

by John Lutz

“Why doesn’t Ray tell the law this?”

  “That was all worked out beforehand. He got what looked like a legal defense, only it wasn’t really. He struck a deal with the court. Went through what the press called a ‘minitrial’ where a prima facie case involving only a few witnesses was heard. That meant a plea of guilty could be accepted unless contradictory evidence was presented. Ray’s guilty plea was accepted, and a life sentence was recommended. The so-called jury then confirmed the sentence and that was that. If Ray’d pleaded innocent, he coulda been found guilty and executed, which was what he was tryin’ to avoid. He bought the deal with his silence. Knew he didn’t have much choice, considerin’ the people he was involved with. The law doesn’t weigh evenly on everybody, Carver. And it’s not inflexible; it’s like putty. And things can happen to a man in prison. Ray talks, even now, he knows he dies.”

  Carver was quiet for a while. Then he said, “Every political assassination, there’s always a conspiracy theory.”

  “But this time it’s true. How else you gonna explain where a small-time redneck like Ray got all the money he needed to go globe-hoppin’ after the assassination?”

  Carver couldn’t explain and didn’t try. It was something he and a lot of other people had wondered about before. There was an ocean of speculation about the Kennedy assassinations, both of which could have been, and probably were, planned and accomplished by lone assailants. But the King assassination, which was almost certainly the result of a conspiracy, had prompted less indignation and theorizing. Carver wondered if the reasons for such neglect were racial. Didn’t like to think so but suspected they were. “But the rifle . . .”

  “After King was shot,” Jefferson said, “Ray fled from the scene, tossed a package loaded with clues onto the pavement, got in his car, and sped away. There was a Remington Gamemaster pump-action .30-06 rifle in the package.”

  “But not the rifle in the duffel bag.”

  “Right. That rifle I confiscated for myself from a certain wealthy businessman’s personal collection. Left him a duplicate so he’d never know. The thing is, the court never established that Ray’s rifle was the gun that shot King.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Look it up.”

  “What about ballistics tests?”

  “None were made. County medical examiner, guy named Francisco, testified the bullet was too misshapen to match with a particular gun. There was a slight nick on the bathroom windowsill of Ray’s rooming house that was said to match machine markings on the rifle barrel, supposedly from when it kicked where Ray had rested it on the sill to steady his aim. That’s the only evidence that Ray’s gun killed King.”

  “Flimsy evidence.”

  “Not evidence at all in most courts, but enough in this case. Makes you wonder, don’t it?”

  Carver wondered, all right. But some things he finally understood. The fire that raged in Jefferson after the deaths of King and his father—deaths inextricably linked in his mind—had never died completely and was about to burst into fierce flame.

  “It’ll be poetic justice, is that it?” Carver said. “You know, but you can’t prove, who killed King, and you’re gonna kill the assassin with the same rifle he used to murder King. That the way you got it mapped out?”

  Jefferson said, “You could call it poetic justice. I don’t call it nothin’ but revenge.” Ghetto echoes again. “I’m not kiddin’ myself, Carver. Justice is why I should do it, but only half the reason I’m gonna. Once I found out about how King was really murdered, I haven’t thought about much else. Obsessed, I guess you’d call me. I don’t fuckin’ care, though. I’m gonna goddamn do this.” His voice cracked. “I need this.”

  Carver started to take a sip of coffee. Saw that his hand was trembling and lowered the cup back to its saucer. It made a delicate clink.

  He said, “You know the name of the man who pulled the trigger.”

  “That’s right,” Jefferson said. “I’ve known it for a while.”

  “Maybe you oughta tell me.”

  Jefferson breathed out hard, as if he’d been holding his breath for a long time. “Sure. Can’t do no harm now. Walter Ogden shot King. That’s why he’s still with Wesley Slaughter and Rendering, turning a top salary with perks. Earned himself a privileged position for life, did Walter. But his life’s about over.”

  “But not just Walter Ogden’s life.”

  “Right again, Carver. He was only the finger on the trigger. I never thought I’d have an opportunity like this. It’s their greed gonna take ’em down. They killed Martin Luther King for ideological and economic reasons. Years later they saw even more money in the illicit drug trade and got into that. Couldn’t stay out. That’s why the core organization still exists. Why they’ll all be together on that boat. Talkin’ money, just like in the sixties. Only difference is, the money’s bigger.”

  “You can nail them for dealing drugs,” Carver said. “Isn’t that enough?”

  Jefferson shook his head sadly. “Not nearly.”

  Carver said, “What is enough? What’s minimum? Taking Ogden’s life?”

  “Maybe it woulda been, but not now. You know, I’m kinda disappointed in you. From what I found out about you, what people said, I thought you’d understand this.”

  Carver hesitated, staring down at the table, “Yeah, I do understand.” God help me, I do.

  Jefferson smiled. If cats smiled at mice, they’d look like that. “There’s a bomb on board that boat. Got a timer set to blow it at ten o’clock tonight, when, accordin’ to Courtney, the Bold Entrepreneur will be well out to sea.”

  “How’d you get the explosives on board?”

  “Courtney. Only she don’t know it.”

  It took Carver a few seconds to realize the import of Jefferson’s words. The extent of his madness. “Jesus! You’re gonna let her die along with the others?”

  Jefferson’s eyes became dark pools of pain. “What’s my choice? How’m I gonna get her off that boat without tipping the others?”

  Carver looked out at the Bold Entrepreneur swaying in its berth. “I don’t know.”

  “I lived for this, Carver! And the opportunity’ll never come around again. You realize that?”

  “Sure. But you said you and Courtney—”

  “Dammit, what has to be will be!” Jefferson cut in. “I’m gonna make it be! Me! And it’s important. You know that.”

  “Man with a mission. Like your father.”

  “Not quite like him. This mission’s gonna be carried out. I swore that to myself a long time ago.”

  And something ugly and ominous stirred in a corner of Carver’s mind. A cold dread took root in his stomach. “How come you’re spilling this to me?”

  “You found out about the rifle.”

  “Something more,” Carver said. “I know it.”

  “Well, I guess I want you to know it. Owe it to you that you know. You’re the one slipped the leash and made them mad. Made them wanna tighten the screws on you. You shoulda figured out how they might do it. Your goddamn fault.”

  No, no! Carver gripped his cane. Started to get up.

  Jefferson reached across the table before he could attain balance and, slowly but firmly, eased him back down into his chair. The waitress and the old guy eating oysters stared for a moment, then turned away.

  His throat dry, his heart slamming in his chest, Carver looked out the window again at the Bold Entrepreneur bobbing in the sunlight, wavering reflections from the water dancing over her white hull.

  “That’s how it is, I’m afraid,” Jefferson said. “They got Edwina Talbot on board.”

  Chapter 34

  JEFFERSON WATCHED CARVER ACROSS the table. Said softly, “Try any heroics and I’ll put you in custody. You can bet I damn well mean it.”

  Carver stared back at him. And into the pure energy of an obsession that rationalized any sacrifice in exchange for justice on a cosmic scale. What was the life of a woman he hardly knew when it stood in
the way of balancing the scales for the killers of Martin Luther King and, surely if indirectly, Jefferson’s father? What was Edwina’s life to Jefferson if he was willing to let the woman he himself loved die? If he was willing to use Courtney Romano as an unknowing instrument of death?

  With effort, Carver composed himself. This wasn’t the time to let Jefferson see the fear and desperation seething in him. He breathed in the bitter rising steam of a fresh cup of coffee and said, “There’s no sign of her on board.”

  “No sign of anyone on board,” Jefferson said.

  Carver realized that was true, as it had been earlier when he’d planted the tiny transmitter on the Bold Entrepreneur’s hull. Ghost ship.

  “Your friend Van Meter gave her to them,” Jefferson said. “Called his man off the bodyguard job when we paid him to cooperate. Sold you out.”

  Carver didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t disbelieve. Women and money, they cause us to do things we wouldn’t ordinarily. Even Van Meter? Carver remembered the sexpot secretary Marge. The way the middle-aged receptionist at Van Meter’s office had rolled her eyes at the sound of Marge’s voice. Why not Van Meter?

  “These people’ll stay below deck until the boat gets well out to sea,” Jefferson said. “They have an aversion to being seen and maybe photographed under these circumstances. Never know when a photo or a videotape might turn up in a courtroom. And they didn’t get to be who they are by taking unnecessary risks.”

  “They have to eat,” Carver said. He looked around at the supper crowd beginning to filter into Lobster Jack’s. Fifteen, twenty customers now. Several more waitresses in the frilly red-and-white-checked aprons were gliding about the place, taking orders, balancing round trays with food and drinks on them. “Suppose they send someone over here to bring back food to the boat?”

  “Ha! You don’t know these rich cocksuckers. There’s a gourmet cook on board, along with two crew members. All part of the crew of the Sea Charger, a larger yacht, owned by the SCBL once or twice removed. That boat’s used to make drug pickups at sea. Folks on board the Bold Entrepreneur are probably sipping champagne and nibbling caviar right now while we sit here working on this horse-piss coffee.”

  “Champagne and caviar. Courtney’s last meal.”

  Jefferson’s body stiffened and he leaned back in his chair. But his expression didn’t change. Something had been set in motion years ago for him, and its momentum was irreversible. Carver could understand that, which was why he feared it so much.

  The waitress came over and refilled their cups for the third time. Jefferson pulled a crumpled pack of Viceroys from his pocket. Glanced at Carver. “Mind?” I’m letting the woman you love be obliterated, but I wouldn’t want to offend you with tobacco smoke or risk giving you lung cancer in twenty years without your permission.

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “Only now and again.”

  “When you’re nervous?”

  Jefferson gave Carver a brief smile. Dragged a blue Zippo lighter from the same pocket the cigarettes had been in and lit a Viceroy. The lighter worked on the first try; Jefferson had everything under control.

  Or did he? The waitress hurried over and told him he was in the no-smoking section. Asked if he’d like a table where he could smoke. Jefferson told her no thanks. Said he was sorry, he hadn’t known. He snubbed out the cigarette on the heel of his shoe and dropped the butt into his pocket.

  Carver sat gazing out the window at the Bold Entrepreneur for the next hour or so, trying to imagine Edwina below deck. Just on the other side of that curve of pure white hull. What were they doing to her? She should be safe as long as they thought she could be used as leverage to control him. But how accurately could you figure somebody like Vincent Butcher? He was a sadist, a psychotic fascinated by sharp steel and what it could do to flesh. Maybe Wesley and Ogden couldn’t control him.

  At seven o’clock Farneaux still hadn’t arrived. The Bold Entrepreneur continued to rock and bob gently at her moorings. A gull touched down and perched for a moment on the boat’s navigational antenna, then flapped away into the graying sky, bucking the ocean breeze.

  Jefferson was drumming his fingertips heavily on the table. The dull, relentless thumping was getting on Carver’s nerves. He wondered what would happen if he simply stood up and limped toward the door. Would Jefferson shoot him in the back? Hardly.

  But Carver almost certainly would be taken into custody, as Jefferson had promised. Cuffed and led from the restaurant. The diners at Lobster Jack’s would get to see the apprehension of a notorious drug smuggler—at least Jefferson would flash his DEA credentials and tell them that. Or give them a similar story. Carver figured that was about how it would go. Gave up on the idea of simply trying to call Jefferson’s bluff and walk to freedom and whatever he thought he could do to help Edwina. Jefferson probably had never bluffed in his life.

  Carver drank yet another cup of coffee, loathing the bitter aftertaste of the stuff. But he knew he might need the caffeine to help keep him alert. For what, he wasn’t sure. Something, though. Something. He was sure of that.

  When the supper crowd had thinned, and the waitress had stopped giving Carver and Jefferson meaningful glances to let them know they were keeping the table occupied with only a potentially small tip, Carver said, “I gotta go to the bathroom. All that coffee.”

  Jefferson put down his cup and thought about that. Then he nodded. “I’ll go with you. Gotta take a leak myself.”

  “I thought you DEA guys didn’t have genitalia.”

  “I’ll pretend,” Jefferson said. “Get up and move, you wanna take a piss.” He stood up himself. Stretched. Shook his head no to the waitress when she raised her eyebrows inquiringly as to whether they were finally leaving and wanted the check. The waitress was visibly building up a dislike for Jefferson.

  Carver limped toward the rest room at the back of the restaurant. He wasn’t surprised to see the facing doors labeled BUOYS and GULLS. He pushed open BUOYS and went inside. Jefferson was close behind him.

  The rest room was large and done in pale green tile. An exhaust fan was rattling up near the ceiling. It was cool in there and smelled like disinfectant. A guy in white slacks and a navy blue T-shirt turned away from one of the four white urinals, zipping his pants. Left without washing his hands. The chef maybe.

  Jefferson moved back while Carver stood at the end urinal and relieved himself, leaning against the wall with his palm, his cane hooked into his belt.

  When he was finished, he zipped his fly and limped over to the nearest washbasin. It had one of those faucets that turn off automatically so no one can leave the water running and flood the rest room. Carver rinsed his hands and stood drying them under a blower that sounded like a vacuum cleaner.

  Jefferson had stepped to the urinal and unzipped his pants. Carver waited until he heard urine splatter.

  He moved fast, gouged the tip of his cane into Jefferson’s back near the lower spine. Said, “I’ll blow your fuckin’ backbone in half you don’t get both hands flat against the wall, feet apart!”

  Jefferson started to turn his head. Carver slapped his palm against his ear. Jefferson placed both hands high on the tile wall, pressing hard with splayed fingers. Edged his feet back. Carver kicked at Jefferson’s shoes, forcing his feet farther apart. Reached around and drew Jefferson’s revolver from its spring-loaded holster. Stepped back.

  Jefferson had spotted his pants some, but he’d stopped pissing. He said, “Goddammit, the cane!”

  “Might have been a gun,” Carver said. “Thing is, you get used to a man with a cane so it seems like part of him. You forget it exists. Then, when something that feels like a gun barrel pokes you in the spine, it takes you a few seconds to remember the cane.”

  “Long enough for him to get a real gun,” Jefferson said. He pushed away from the wall and turned around slowly, almost lazily. He was smiling. “We both know you won’t use the gun, though, Carver, so it might as well have
the same firepower as your cane.”

  Carver said, “I’ll use it. For Edwina.”

  That stopped Jefferson. He looked as if he’d been about to step forward, but his body took on a tense stillness. Poised but unmoving. Maybe love, need, was something he understood. Maybe what he was doing to Courtney was costing him more than Carver had thought.

  Carver told him to move into the nearest toilet stall.

  Jefferson hesitated, but he obeyed. Did as Carver instructed and leaned with both hands against the wall over the commode. Carver reached beneath Jefferson’s coat and worked the set of handcuffs from their leather case near the small of his back. Then he made Jefferson sit down on the toilet seat. Forced his arms around behind him and hand-cuffed him to the plumbing. Jefferson might be able to jerk the pipe loose from its fitting and work the cuffs over it, but it would take him a while.

  When Carver had stepped back out of the stall, Jefferson said, “Now what? You call McGregor? Get the area crawling with local law? Get your lady friend shot or used as a hostage?”

  Carver was surprised. “You know about McGregor?”

  “We know everything,” Jefferson said, glaring up at him. Son of a bitch was serious. Government types!

  Carver kicked Jefferson’s ankles to the side and swung the stall’s metal door shut. Punched the button on the blow dryer again in case Jefferson decided to make some noise to attract attention. Limped out of the Buoys’ room.

  Smiled at the waitress. Stood in line at the cash register briefly, behind a customer who needed change for a hundred-dollar bill. Paid the check. Got out of the restaurant. All peachy. No problem. Apparently.

  “Now what?” Jefferson had asked. Well, that was something the DEA didn’t know.

  Couldn’t know.

  Because Carver wasn’t sure himself.

  Chapter 35

  THE FORD WAS STILL parked in the restaurant lot, but the gray Dodge was gone. Probably Ralph Palma was slouched in it somewhere watching the Bold Entrepreneur, forcing down a hamburger and coffee while the people on board the boat enjoyed their champagne and caviar. Jefferson had it figured out, all right, class-conscious bastard. No going back for him and he knew it. In love with his destiny and locked in a dark dance with death. Carver had heard that same music and knew its power to hypnotize.