by John Lutz
“To you, but maybe not to the DEA or Coast Guard. Rainer wouldn’t have to explain where he left the crates or why. You’re the only one saw them being loaded.”
Carver sipped his bitter coffee. “Well, there’s some satisfaction in making Rainer jettison valuable cargo, and maybe having to chance going out later and trying to retrieve it.”
“That what you’re looking for in this, Fred? Satisfaction?”
“Of one kind or another,” Carver said.
“I figured,” Beth said. “I sure as hell knew it wasn’t money.” She sank her even white teeth into her buttered toast.
Carver shoved his smiley mug away and stood up. He limped to the phone and called Desoto.
He was playing on the edge again.
And liking it.
27
THE MISS BEHAVIN’ didn’t return that night, but just before midnight the next night it slipped like a dark illusion along the coast and docked at the foot of the Rainer estate. Hector had been expecting it. Through the night glasses, Carver watched as he fastened lines and stood waiting as Walter Rainer made his way up on deck. With his good arm Hector helped Rainer across the short gangplank and onto land. Rainer remained supported by Hector for a few minutes while he became accustomed to being motionless. They waited for Davy, who shut down the boat’s systems and then hopped nimbly onto the dock.
Rainer and the two men stood for about five minutes talking, then, with Rainer leading the way, they walked from sight in the direction of the house. The Miss Behavin’ lay dark at her moorings.
Carver decided nothing more was likely to happen within his view that night, so he left the blind and returned to the cottage. It was a pleasure to get away from the flitting, biting insects that seemed to find him irresistible despite the bug repellent he’d sprayed on himself before taking up position among the branches. Florida insects were survivors; maybe in a few short days they had become immune to and then learned to love the stuff, become insect drug addicts.
After a quick shower to wash the camphor scent of the repellent from his skin, he went to bed and fell asleep listening to Beth’s deep and even breathing.
At eight the next morning he was drawn from sleep by gunfire. He contorted his arm to grip the headboard so he could sit up in bed, coming all the way awake.
No, not gunfire, only a knocking, on the door.
Beth, also awake, raised her head and looked sloe-eyed and sleepily over at him. “Gonna get that, Fred?”
Carver figured it was a rhetorical question, since her head dropped back onto her pillow and her eyes closed.
Without answering her, he found his cane and struggled out of bed and into his pants, limped shirtless and barefoot to the front door. Through the small window of the door, the shape of a man banging on the porch screen door was visible. Carver thumped across the porch, and the man stood with his hands at his sides, waiting while the door was unlatched and opened. Still without moving, he said, “Fred Carver?”
Carver admitted he was, then stepped outside and stood barefoot in the sun’s warmth. The breeze off the sea was still cool and felt good on his perspiring chest.
“I’m agent Rodney Martinson, with the Drug Enforcement Administration.” He flashed ID and extended his free hand, squinting at Carver with something like a smile.
Carver shook hands, thinking he might as well invite Martinson into the shade. “Wanna come up on the porch?”
“Pleasant enough out here, if it’s okay with you,” Martinson said. He was a medium-height, paunchy man with thinning hair in a short military cut, in his thirties, unremarkable except for a turned-up nose and a pencil-thin dark mustache that belonged on a prewar movie villain. He was wearing a standard gray suit and plain-toed black shoes, as if he’d just been released from an institution. A bureaucrat turned crime fighter. Carver had met him over and over.
He told Martinson sure, outside was fine, and leaned on his cane and waited. He knew why Martinson was here and wondered what he was going to say. Behind Martinson gulls were circling something out at sea, though Carver couldn’t make out the object of their attention. Their shrill, demanding cries reached him faintly on the breeze.
“The Coast Guard intercepted the Miss Behavin’ twenty miles off the coast last night,” Martinson said. “Its crew cooperated fully and a thorough search was conducted.” Martinson shrugged and shook his head. “No drugs were found. No kind of contraband. The boat was completely legal.”
Carver stared out at the circling gulls, the morning sun sparking silver off the sea. “Did the crew have a chance to jettison anything when they knew the Coast Guard was closing in for a possible search?”
“Coast Guard says no, but they do admit they can’t be positive about that.”
“Why not? Don’t they have sonar, all that kinda crap?”
“Yeah, but it’s an uncertain world. Hard to be positive about anything.”
Maybe Martinson wasn’t the typical DEA agent at that. “Were there any large wooden crates on board?” Carver asked.
Martinson’s mustache twitched, giving him a wry, man-of-the-world expression. “Crates? No. There was no cargo of any kind. Walter Rainer said the boat had docked at Jurello, a little Mexican coastal town. Said he’d gone there to look over property he might buy. He had a hundred thousand cash in a briefcase. His story is that he speculates in Mexican real estate, usually raw land, buying low by making spot cash offers to desperate owners, then holding the property awhile and reselling at a profit.”
Carver was still looking out to sea. “That’s bullshit,” he said.
“But not bullshit we can disprove,” Martinson pointed out. “And it might even be true.”
“He’d have to deal through a Mexican real estate agent,” Carver said. “The Mexicans are restrictive about Americans doing that kind of business in their country.”
“He gave us a name of a real estate broker in Jurello,” Martinson said. “We’re checking on it.”
“If he gave you a name, it’ll check out. It’s a prearranged cover story.”
“Or it’s simply true.”
“I don’t buy it. If you talked to Walter Rainer, you wouldn’t buy it, either.”
“I’m planning on talking to him,” Martinson said.
“Because he’s rich and his feathers are ruffled?”
“That’ll be how it seems to him, but I want to get an impression of the man, of the setup.”
“Setup’s what it is,” Carver said in disgust.
Martinson frowned at him impatiently. Carver was being difficult. There had been no drugs on board the Miss Behavin’. He’d proved out wrong and it didn’t set well with him, and now he was being a pain in the ass. “Look, Mr. Carver, you steered us on to this guy, we stirred up the Coast Guard, got the search conducted, came up empty, and you don’t like it. I don’t blame you, but the fact is that Rainer might be just another eccentric millionaire enjoying himself any way he pleases and it has nothing to do with drug running. You’d be surprised what some people not in the drug trade are doing.”
“No,” Carver said, “I wouldn’t.”
Martinson sighed. “Well, I came by to tell you the results of last night’s party. Now I’m suggesting something—not instructing you, just suggesting. It’d be best if you quit dogging this Rainer character and making trouble for him. He’s got clout and money up the ass, and he can make big trouble back. You keep prodding his hive and you’re going to get stung.”
Carver felt himself getting angry. Not good so early in the morning; it could set a bad tone for the entire day. He stabbed at the ground with his cane as if jabbing something to death. “I was afraid of this.”
“And it’s happened,” Martinson said. “Empty is empty, Mr. Carver. Legal is legal.”
“A hundred thousand in a briefcase. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?”
“Yeah. And odd is odd. And still legal. You better let this one rest, or you might wind up on the nasty end of a court decision.”
“Suppose you search Rainer’s house,” Carver said.
Martinson gave him an exasperated little smile, working his mustache again. “That’s not exactly letting it rest, Mr. Carver. We’ve no solid grounds to obtain a warrant. And frankly, no good reason to think we might find anything incriminating. The boat was clean, the house’ll be just as clean.”
Carver thought Martinson was probably right. “I figure Rainer was transporting drugs in wooden crates,” he said, “and he jettisoned them at sea when he knew the boat might be searched.”
Martinson made a slight motion with his entire body, as if to say sure, that was possible. “So if that’s true you have the satisfaction of having cost Rainer a lot of money.”
Satisfaction again. “No, I suspect there are location transmitters and flotation devices built into the crates and waiting to be triggered, so Rainer can return when its safe and pick the cargo back up at sea.”
“That kind of thing’s been done,” Martinson admitted, “but to tell you the truth, it doesn’t seem likely in this case. I mean there was no sign of drugs ever being on that boat. Coast Guard says there’s usually something, even if the boat’s legal at the time of the search. It’s hard to eliminate all traces of that kind of cargo.”
“Hard but not impossible.”
“True, like going to Mars.”
“Rainer’s smart, and he’s got the wherewithal to have the boat gone over after every trip, just in case something like last night happens. He doesn’t wanna invite suspicion.”
“He hasn’t,” Martinson said firmly. “Except for your suspicion, which, as I understand it, is secondhand by way of a late retired cop.”
“Secondhand but good as new.”
“You’re stubborn, Mr. Carver.”
“I keep hearing that.”
Martinson studied him, sweating now in his gray suit. The sun was suddenly getting very hot, promising a temperature like Hell’s today. “Tell you what,” Martinson said, moving back a step, obviously trying to get the conversation over so he could get out of the heat, “I’ll keep an open mind. You stumble on something more solid, you let me know.”
“And you’ll what?”
He handed Carver a card and smiled. “Act on it, of course.” He nodded, still smiling, and turned and walked toward a gray Dodge sedan parked in the wavering shade of a palm cluster, his gray suitcoat unbuttoned and flapping like wings in a gust of wind off the ocean.
Martinson didn’t look at Carver as he started the car and drove away slowly, as if he didn’t want the tires to crunch too loudly in the driveway. He probably knew Beth was sleeping inside the cottage. Probably knew a lot more than he was saying. Carver hated government types.
He stood with both hands on the crook of his cane, not moving until he heard the car accelerate on Shoreline, heading in the direction of Fishback. The futile search of the Miss Behavin’ hadn’t helped matters. He decided that now he’d have to come up with incontrovertible proof before Rodney Martinson would act, maybe photographs of Walter Rainer powdering himself with cocaine. He glanced again out to sea, where the gulls had been soaring, but now there was only empty blue sky, then he went back .into the cottage.
Beth was up, in the kitchen making coffee.
“You hear any of that?” Carver asked.
“Yeah, all of it. I was standing on the porch eavesdropping.” She poured water into the coffee brewer and stood staring at it as it began to trickle dark and transformed into the bulbous glass pot. “So where do you think this leaves us?” she asked, still not looking at Carver, hypnotized by the coffee.
“More or less where we were before I called Desoto,” Carver said.
“Not quite.”
“Meaning?”
She turned away from the brewer to look directly at him. The coffee was heating up, making the kitchen smell good, but Carver had no appetite this morning. She said, “Meaning people like Rainer, once they got you on the run even a little bit, they go on the offensive and they do it right now. You think they were ruthless dealing with poor Henry Tiller, just you watch them kick into high gear. I understand their kind; I was married to one and knew dozens of others, and I know what millions of dollars of drug money can do to people, how they think it puts them beyond the law, how it burns in the blood and rots and warps them. They got the killer instinct, Fred. Not like it’s talked about in sports, I mean the real killer instinct.”
Carver stood trying to plumb the depths of his thoughts, pushing down through shadows and ugliness and dead faces and dead emotions. Down through the past. Did he have the killer instinct?
“You gotta be much more careful now, Fred. You understand?”
There was a current of fear, of pleading, in her voice that surprised him. He knew that not much scared her.
They both heard the soft creaking sound at the same time and turned toward it.
Someone on the porch.
28
CARVER STAYED WELL to the side of the door and peered out through its tiny window. He caught a glimpse of red hair, a green barrette shaped like a leaping dolphin.
Effie.
He opened the door and she grinned at him. Beyond her, through the screen, he could see her bike leaning against a tree in the shade. Its handlebar basket was stuffed with cleaning equipment. Effie was cradling a spray can of Lemon Pledge and a rag in her right hand. “Thought it was past time I came over and cleaned,” she explained.
Carver shifted his weight over his cane and moved aside to let her in. She was wearing a green T-shirt, black shorts, her big jogging shoes without socks. Her long, coltish legs were marked with mosquito bites.
“Hi, Miss Jackson.” Beth had wandered in from the kitchen.
“Told you to call me Beth.”
Effie’s grin got wider. “Beth, then.” She stopped and looked at Beth, wearing her robe and apparently nothing else, then at Carver, still shirtless and barefoot. “I come at a bad time?” She leered ludicrously, trying to look sophisticated and knowing.
“Not if you want some breakfast,” Beth said.
“Thanks, but I already ate.” Effie put the Pledge and rag on a table. “Be right back.” She hurled herself out of the room like a ten-year-old rushing to play, then returned in a few minutes with her arms laden with cleaning solvents, brushes, a squeegee, and a box of steel-wool pads. She dropped the squeegee, hurriedly stooped and picked it up, dropping a can of mildew remover that rolled when it hit the floor. “Damn!” she said, then looked embarrassed and carefully transferred items one by one to the table to surround the Lemon Pledge. She stared at Carver, did a little bounce in her joggers with the blue checkmarks on them. “I feel terrible about Mr. Tiller,” she said.
“We do, too,” Beth told her, before Carver could reply.
“I mean, like, I wanna go to his funeral or something. You know, show some respect for the dead.”
“He’s going to be buried up north,” Carver said. “Tomorrow morning. He’d understand why you can’t be there, Effie.”
She seemed close to tears. “He was my friend, really. Not just some old man I cleaned for.”
“I know. That’s how he saw it, too.” Carver thought he’d better change the subject, but Beth beat him to it.
“I’m gonna cook some eggs and bacon,” she said. “You sure you already ate?”
Effie tried another grin but didn’t succeed. Henry was still on her mind. Death and youth. Her young, mobile mouth twitched and turned down at the corners. “Yeah, I’m not hungry at all.” She sniffed, wiped her nose with a straight-up motion of her palm. “I’ll start in the bathroom, if I won’t, like, be in the way.”
“That’s fine,” Carver told her.
He started to return to the kitchen with Beth, when Effie stopped gathering her cleaning supplies from the table and said, “Mr. Carver, I don’t want you to think I went against your wishes or anything.”
He twisted his upper body over his cane and looked at her. “Why would I think that?�
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“I mean, I didn’t go asking for information, but a friend of mine, Bobby Curlin, works at a Texaco station on Highway One up on Marathon Key, and we was just talking, and when I mentioned that Davy gorilla, that was when Bobby said him and his van stopped for gas real frequent at the station. Davy always does a lotta driving north and south and that’s where he always gasses up his creepy black van. It’s a self-service station, and Bobby said whenever Davy finishes pumping gas he pulls the van way out and parks it at the edge of the lot before he comes into the station and pays. Anyway, you said I wasn’t to take any chances, but Bobby kinda volunteered to sneak over and try and peek in the van next time Davy gasses up and is inside at the register.”
Carver felt a twinge of horror. A teenage gas station attendant might get himself killed because of him. “Tell . . . Bobby, is it?”
She nodded.
“Tell Bobby not to sneak anywhere or peek anyplace,” he said.
“Well, I’m afraid he already did it.”
Oh, Christ! “No more,” he told Effie, too angrily. She winced, but her eyes stayed fixed on his face. “No more of that, please,” Carver said more gently. “I don’t want you or any of your friends hurt.” He thought of Davy and his sharpened steel cargo hook. His burden of sadism. “And believe me, Effie, it’s possible.”
“Bobby said he wasn’t afraid.”
“All the worse,” Carver told her. Teenagers! He’d never had much luck dealing with teenagers, and wondered again how it would be when his own daughter reached her teen years.
Effie was still looking at him, her young face serious beneath the freckles.
“Fred just doesn’t wanna be responsible for putting you in harm’s way, honey,” Beth said softly.
“He wasn’t.” Not looking away from Carver, Effie now had the same expression he’d seen on much older and more experienced women. Or maybe experience had nothing to do with it. “Ain’t you gonna ask me?” she said, faintly smiling, dangling bait. Sure, he hadn’t wanted her or any of her friends snooping around, but now that she’d acted, now that she knew something, where did he stand? Was he going to be such a hard-ass he wouldn’t ask for or use any of her information?