Hot

by John Lutz

  As soon as he dropped his scuffed leather suitcase on the floor, he went to the living room window and switched on the air conditioner, set its thermostat on Coldest and its fan speed on High. Then he turned on the box fan sitting on the floor and aimed it so it blew a stream of the cool air into the kitchen.

  “How’d it go in Miami?” Beth asked around a bite of sandwich.

  Carver didn’t answer. Instead he limped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face and wrists. When he went into the kitchen, it was still too hot in there. Florida could be a beast.

  “See Henry Tiller?” Beth asked. She was wearing a black T-shirt with a blue marlin on the chest, Levi’s faded almost white, no shoes. Her brown leather sandals were lying on the floor near the chair. Her body glistened with sweat but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Saw him,” Carver said. He got a can of Bud from the refrigerator and popped the tab. “He didn’t see me, though.” He took a long swig of beer and explained to Beth what had happened to Henry.

  Beth finished her sandwich and licked her fingers. She said, “He doesn’t come outa that coma, we’re talking murder.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Serious shit,” Beth said. Now she finished her beer, leaving only a sudsy residue in the bottom of the tall, tapered glass she’d rummaged from Henry’s cabinet. “You gonna ask the girl spy if she saw anything interesting last night over at the Rainer place?”

  “I’m asking.”

  “Answer’s no. There was movement over there about three o’clock, but even with the night binoculars I couldn’t tell what was happening. So today I drove around to a couple of points on shore I noticed from the surveillance spot. An area around the research center or aquarium or whatever it is provides a clear view of the Rainer dock. So does a short section of coast you can’t see from this side with the boat docked where it is, down Shoreline where it turns before leading toward the major metropolis of Fishback. Nothing can go on in Rainer’s backyard that can’t be seen from those two parts of the island, so he’s got no choice but to move by night if he suspects he’s being watched. A wiry Latin guy was there with Rainer, Hector Villanova, I s’pose. And there was a tall blond woman, probably the missus, Lilly. What with the darkness and all the foliage and such, there was no way to know what all the bustling around on the dock was. I’m sure of one thing, though: that guy Davy wasn’t around last night.”

  Carver told her he knew that, then told her how he knew. She seemed unimpressed by Davy’s theatrics with the sharpened cargo hook, but then she wasn’t the one who’d felt its point and almost became shish kebab.

  She gnawed her lower lip for a few seconds and looked thoughtful. “If they’re trying that hard to scare you off the case, leaving no doubt that’s exactly what they’re doing and practically admitting they’ve got plenty to hide, you must be probing a mighty sensitive nerve.”

  “Henry must have probed the same nerve.”

  Beth toyed with her empty glass, rotating it on the table, running a long, lean finger down the tapered curve of its damp side. “You gonna?”

  “Gonna what?”

  “Do what Davy said, give this up and head back north?”

  He smiled. “That what you plan on doing?”

  She smiled back. “While it’s still light out, I can drive you over and show you the view of the Rainer estate from farther down the shore.”

  Carver said he thought that was a good idea. She buckled on her sandals and stood up, then placed the empty glass in the sink and hook-shot her beer can into the wastebasket. She didn’t look as if she belonged in a kitchen.

  He took his beer with him, letting her drive the LeBaron. The top was down and the sea breeze was just beginning to cool as it roiled around the car’s exposed interior, pressing on the back of Carver’s neck and flipping his shirt collar. If there was any doubt he’d returned to Key Montaigne, this ride in Beth’s open convertible would confirm his presence, and word would certainly get back to Walter Rainer. That was okay with Carver. He thought about Davy in Miami, felt himself getting mad, then very mad, and took a sip of beer.

  Beth was looking over at him, grinning, a woman who’d been in hell and had the determination and character to escape the ruins of her dreams and delusions. After a certain point—the point she’d passed—that was impossible for most people, but not for her. She was something rare, all right. And still grinning. He wondered if she could read his mind.

  Probably.

  On the curve of Shoreline Road she’d described, it was possible to pull to the side and park on the gravel shoulder. She aimed the car’s sloping white hood toward the sea, sliding the shift lever into Park and letting the engine idle almost silently. A gull swooped low to examine them, then screeched in apparent anger and glided back toward the sea. They sat there in the breeze, looking along the stretch of shore to where it angled in the sun and provided a distant but comprehensive view of the ocean side of the Rainer estate. The white hull of the docked Miss Behavin’ looked smaller from here.

  “Some regular binoculars in the glove compartment,” Beth said.

  Carver got them out, a compact pair of 10X50 Bausch & Lombs with rubber eyepieces. He fit the binoculars to his eyes, trained them through the windshield, and brought the Rainer estate into focus.

  The house was a massive layer cake of white clapboard and stucco with a red roof. Beside it the rectangular swimming pool glittered silver as tinfoil in the angled sunlight. For a second Carver thought he saw a blond woman in a swimming suit strolling from the pool into the house, but he couldn’t be sure from this distance even with the binoculars. There were palm trees and flowering tropical shrubs of every size on the ground sloping up from the dock. What appeared to be a stone path led through the foliage, from the house to where the boat was moored. The doors were raised on an attached four-car garage. Carver could see the trunk of what looked like a big gray Lincoln. A blue minivan was parked facing out of the deep shade of the garage.

  He felt Beth’s fingers on his shoulder. “To your right,” she whispered, as if they might be overheard.

  Carver ranged that way with the binoculars and saw Davy’s black van creeping like a distant dark beetle along the tree-lined driveway. It disappeared beyond the house for a while, then emerged on the side nearest Carver and stopped in front of the garage. After a brisk but smooth maneuver, it backed into the shadows of the garage. So dark was the garage’s interior that Carver couldn’t see anything going on inside it. A minute or so passed, then all four overhead doors slowly descended simultaneously. They were painted the same wedding-cake white as the house and had no windows.

  “Think we oughta set up an observation point someplace over here?” Beth asked, sounding like a military strategist.

  Now that the car was sitting still, the sun felt hot on Carver’s bald pate and the back of his neck. He lowered the binoculars and shook his head no. “Better to stay where you were last night.” The hunter’s blind he’d constructed by bending branches and fronds and tying them together with twine ensured that no one would see Beth or him even in daylight unless they were only a few feet away. “The view’s not as clear there, but we’re closer.”

  He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. Near the side of the house he saw a brief glimmer of light, like the setting sun glancing off a lens. Were Carver and Beth themselves being observed?

  “Ready to go back?” Beth asked.

  He said he was and slid the binoculars back into the glove compartment.

  When they drove up to the cottage it was dusk. Carver saw Effie’s rusty Schwinn bike leaning against the porch.

  “What’s the deal?” Beth asked, spotting the bike.

  “Effie’s,” he told her.

  Beth looked sideways at him and pursed her lips.

  “She’s a fourteen-year-old kid who comes in a couple times a week and cleans for Henry Tiller. Lives down Shoreline and pedals back and forth on her bicycle.”

  Beth parked the LeBa
ron and got out. As Carver set the tip of his cane and straightened up from the car, the porch’s screen door opened and Effie stepped out. She jumped down the three wooden steps to the ground, letting the door slam and reverberate behind her.

  “Mr. Carver!” she said, sounding relieved. “I saw your car and figured you was home, but when I went inside and called, you didn’t answer. I was afraid maybe something’d happened to you.”

  “Like what?” Carver asked.

  “Well, like what happened to Mr. Tiller.” She was wearing black shorts and a tan knit pullover shirt with a collar. Her oversized jogging shoes made her skinny legs look as if they belonged on a newborn colt. When Carver didn’t answer right away, she stared curiously at Beth, who smiled at her.

  “This is Beth Jackson,” Carver said simply. “She’s staying with me.”

  Effie’s green eyes widened, then she put on a blase expression and said, “Okay,” as if Carver had sought her approval. “She gonna clean, too?”

  Beth said, “Too?”

  Carver laughed. “You still got a job, Effie. Beth’s my assistant as well as my significant other, but detergent is no friend of hers.”

  “I don’t deny it,” Beth said.

  “Hey, neat!” Effie was grinning at Beth. It was a grin meant for orthodontic braces, though her teeth were straight. She might outgrow it by the time she was thirty. “This mean you’re a detective, too?”

  “Sort of,” Beth said, “whenever Carver bothers to deputize me.”

  Effie looked puzzled, not quite sure if she was being put on. “I thought I’d ride my bike here and see if you heard anything about Mr. Tiller,” she said.

  Carver told her about Henry’s brain injury and coma. For an uncomfortable moment he thought she might dissolve into sobs. Beth moved close to her and rested a hand on her skinny shoulder.

  “But he’s maybe gonna be okay?” Effie said.

  “The doctors think he might be,” Carver told her. “Right now they don’t know too much about what’s actually wrong with him. They’re gonna do some more tests.”

  “You find out anything about what he thought might be going on here?” she asked.

  “Not much. But I’m sure something is going on, Effie, so I think you better be careful about who you talk to and what you say.”

  “I promised Mr. Tiller I’d be quiet about this,” she said, “and I will.”

  Beth backed away and looked down at her. “You seem the sort who keeps promises,” she said.

  “You ever been a model?” Effie asked her.

  Beth chuckled. “No, not me. Not even a model citizen.” She looked at Carver. “I like this girl, Fred.”

  “Another reason I came here tonight,” Effie said, gaining confidence, “is to offer to help you find out what’s going on with Walter Rainer and those creeps he’s got working for him. I mean, nobody pays any attention to a kid with a bike. I can hang around in Fishback, watch and listen and report to you.”

  “Yeah, your mom and dad would love that.”

  “My dad’s at the station all day. My mom . . .” She stared hard at the ground and made a face by scrunching up her lips. “My mom stays around the house. She drinks some.”

  Carver and Beth glanced at each other.

  Carver said, “Effie, I appreciate the offer, but this might be plenty serious, and I can’t take the responsibility of putting you in any kinda danger. You come here and clean on your regular days, and I’ll tell you anything you wanna know about Mr. Tiller, but that’s about as involved as I can let you get.”

  “But living here on Key Montaigne, I know I can help!”

  “Damnit no, Effie! I mean it.”

  “But—”

  Beth raised a long forefinger to her lips and shook her head. “Best listen to him, honey. He gets in these uncompromising moods.”

  Effie nodded. Gulped. She looked as if she wanted to speak but didn’t trust her voice. Jesus! What was the big deal here? Uncompromising mood? Like Charles Manson? Carver felt as if he’d just shot her dog.

  She spun away angrily and stalked to her bike. Threw a freckled leg over it without looking at him.

  “Why don’t you hang around awhile?” Carver asked. “Have a soda?” He shifted his weight awkwardly over his cane and didn’t know what else to say to her.

  She shook her head violently, still facing away from him. Her red hair bounced and what appeared to be a bobby pin flew out, catching sunlight.

  “Listen, Effie—”

  But she didn’t listen. Instead she gripped the handlebars as if trying to throttle necks of geese, stood high on the pedals and rode away fast.

  Beth watched the dust behind the bike settle in the dying light and said, “Don’t worry, she’ll forgive you by tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t know what else to tell her,” Carver said, still feeling small enough to get lost in one of his shoes. He wondered if he’d have similar conversations with his own daughter, Ann, who was only eight now and lived with his former wife, Laura, in St. Louis. Probably not; it was Laura who’d have to deal with a teenage Ann on a daily basis. Carver wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  “Nothing else you coulda told her,” Beth said. “You did right, Fred.”

  “Then why’s it feel so wrong?”

  “C’mon into the cabin or cottage or whatever the fuck it is, and I’ll change that.”

  And she did.

  Later they microwaved and ate two of the frozen macaroni-and-cheese dinners he’d picked up at the Food Emporium, then watched the national and local news on television. The world was in a hell of a shape, but Key Montaigne seemed to be faring okay.

  Except for whatever it was the fat and rich and influential Walter Rainer was doing that required somebody like Davy to run interference for him.

  Roberto Gomez’s widow was sitting up in bed reading Kafka when Carver left to take his position in the blind and watch the Rainer estate.

  Kafka! he thought, loving her a lot just then. Amazing! And in that instant he understood with striking clarity what it was a savvy old cop like Henry Tiller knew that escaped those younger and less seasoned. In this world, why should anyone on Key Montaigne be surprised at anything Walter Rainer or anyone else might be doing?

  Anything!

  18

  THE NIGHT VIEW ACROSS the water to the Rainer estate was obscured by a low haze along the shore. The infrared binoculars enabled Carver to see little other than the vague and surreal shapes of shrubbery or palm trees.

  He settled deeper into a sitting position, his stiff leg extended before him, his cane lying across his lap. Crickets screamed in the surrounding darkness, and he was sweating heavily. The temperature was sure to drop a few degrees now that the sun was down. He was all for that.

  But the night stayed warm, and Carver continued to perspire. He wished he’d brought something cold in the thermos bottle instead of coffee, though he needed the caffeine to stay alert. Otherwise he might fall into a pattern of drowsiness alternating with bouts of unease at the unidentifiable sounds around him. The secluded blind could be eerie.

  At a few minutes past three a wavering yellow beam on the Rainer grounds attracted his attention, a man walking with a flashlight.

  Carver put down his thermos cap full of black coffee and strained forward to peer through the fog. The ghostly flashlight beam moved down to the dock area, but he couldn’t make out the form behind it. The light disappeared for a while, then reappeared like a disembodied point of energy and moved back toward the house. Someone making the rounds, checking on the dock and boat; Rainer probably seldom slept easily, even with his minions on guard.

  Carver thought maybe he should have armed himself. He’d originally figured it would be better not to be carrying a gun if someone saw him and called the law. Hiding and spying on a neighbor was bad enough, even without firepower. However, it might be a good idea to see that Beth was armed during her shift on the stakeout. Things had changed with Henry’s coma and after the run-in
with Davy in Miami, gotten decidedly more dangerous. Better to have conflict with Chief Wicke than to leave Beth alone and unarmed in the dark to face Davy or Hector. She wouldn’t see it that way; she’d say she was as capable of handling trouble as he was, and if she needed to be armed, so did he. Possibly she was right.

  The coffee ran out around four o’clock, but Carver could still taste its bitterness along with the bologna sandwich he’d eaten a few hours before. Mosquitoes had discovered him and spread the word. He slapped at one that was enthusiastically sampling blood from his forearm and couldn’t be sure if he’d struck it or not. He wished he’d brought Beth’s insect repellent. Spray the bastards! Fog of death! He lowered the binoculars and dragged the back of his hand across his forehead. Definitely he’d been too long on surveillance.

  He found himself staring at the dark water and measuring the distance from where he was to the Rainer estate. For Carver, who’d become part fish during his therapeutic swims, the swim across the cove posed no challenge.

  Deciding that anything might be better than sitting here being devoured by night insects, he stripped down to only his pants and rolled the legs up tight just below his knees. Then he left the cover of the blind and used his cane to make his way down to the narrow rocky beach.

  It wasn’t easy to maneuver himself over the slippery sharp stones and into the water, but finally he managed and left his cane jutting from the sand so he could find it when he returned.

  The water was a cool comfort as he extended his powerful arms and struck out across the dark cove.

  By the time he reached the hull of the Miss Behavin’ he was breathing hard, but he knew he had plenty of stamina left to draw on. The boat seemed much larger up close, an oversized rich man’s oversized toy.

  Carver dragged himself onto land where the dock met the shore. He could see most of the house from where he lay; it was dark except for a dim glow in two of the upper windows. A breeze danced in from the sea, playing over his soaked pants.