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Davy retreated. Streaming blood was making a grotesque mask of his face. His glance shot to where the cargo hook had slid beneath the display tray.
Carver smiled and motioned with the cane for him to attack again. Silently mouthed the word “Please,” urging him to come forward.
But Davy moved fast in the opposite direction, going for the steel hook.
Before he could reach it, Carver was down and struggling for the Colt. His hand was about to close on the gun before Davy could grasp the hook, so Davy reversed direction and scrambled up the steel stairs. He knew when the war was over. In a flurry of noise and desperate energy, he burst through the door and was gone before Carver could raise the Colt above shoulder level and fire.
Carver planted the cane and hauled himself to his feet, holding the gun aimed at Rainer, listening to his own rasping fight for air. His labored breathing was making the gun barrel waver.
Unruffled and unmoving, Rainer said, “You use that cane very well as a weapon. Interesting to watch, but indecisive.”
“Decisive enough so you and I are driving into Fishback to see Chief Wicke.”
“No, no,” Rainer corrected, wagging a ringed finger with impatient amusement. “Didn’t I mention I was a man who took precautions, Mr. Carver? Allow me to set you straight on a few facts, the first of which is that as soon as Dr. Sam committed suicide—and it was suicide, brought about by middle-class remorse and self-hatred—I ordered destroyed every scintilla of evidence that the child-smuggling operation ever existed. Dr. Sam indeed had the kind of sickness that compelled him to sexually abuse young boys, but Millicent was certainly enough of an accomplice that she’ll decide to remain silent when I convince her of the consequences of a loose tongue. Especially if we speak with Davy present.” He stood taller, turning slightly as if aiming his jutting stomach at Carver like the prow of a proud vessel. “You see, I’m not merely a part of the smuggling operation, I’m in charge of it, so I have enough control to protect myself. And naturally I’ve exercised that control. There’s no way for you to advance any legal proof of what you know. No way at all.” The fleshy pads of his cheeks bulged in a smile. His eyes glittered. “In short, Mr. Carver, a closure has been reached, but not of the sort you envisioned. What transpired here tonight simply doesn’t matter.”
Rainer’s words made a horrifying kind of sense. And probably all too soon, in another place, in another manner, he’d be back in his profitable and terrible business.
Willing himself not to tremble with the rage building in him, Carver said, “Don’t you ever feel the same self-loathing that made Dr. Sam hang himself?” He knew even as he spoke that his was a futile hope. The evil wouldn’t corrupt and destroy itself. Real evil seldom did that, and Rainer was the bulky embodiment of genuine evil.
“Ah, Mr. Carver, you should try to move beyond your simplistic and inhibiting delusions of right and wrong. You need to learn what Dr. Sam came to know and couldn’t live with because he was weak. The world’s like the ocean he studied, an arena of prey and predator in endless succession. A food chain without moral meaning. Sappy sentimentalism aside, the abducted children are merely prey, nothing more. They simply fell prey to a larger predator. Despite the naive moral interpretation you put on it, actually nothing could be more natural and correct.”
As Carver listened to Rainer he was watching the huge torpedo shape of the shark gliding in circles behind the fat man, its image wavering and shrinking with distance, then growing into sharp and ominous focus.
“You’re burdened with morality and an absurd code of honor,” Rainer said confidently, “so you’re not going to shoot me. You’re not a predator. Not the sort who can slay a defenseless man in cold blood, anyway. And nothing criminal can be proved, so face the fact that the game’s over. Henry Tiller lost when Davy ran him down. Now you’ve lost. But you get to live, lucky you.” He folded his pudgy hands in front of him. “And that, Mr. Carver, is simply that.”
Still staring at the shark, Carver was backing awkwardly up the stairs. He knew Rainer was right. About too much, but not about everything. He said, “Have you noticed, Rainer, that this room’s smaller than the shark tank?”
Rainer appeared puzzled. He glanced around the square concrete room and shrugged. “So it is.”
“About the size of a swimming pool. You swim as well as your wife, Rainer?”
Rainer cocked his head to the side, pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. The thought was forming.
Carver said, “Time for you to be introduced to a larger predator.”
That was when Rainer fully grasped it. Carver saw it on his face as he reached the steel landing and opened the door. Set the tip of his cane and emptied the Colt into the thick glass wall of the shark tank, spreading the pattern of bullets from floor to ceiling. He glimpsed Rainer’s mouth gaping soundlessly as the wide expanse of glass behind him went milky and bulged. Carver hurled himself out of the room, slamming and locking the door.
As he limped away he heard the thunder of crashing glass. Water roaring into the tiny room. The thumping and flailing of the startled and ravenous shark.
Possibly a scream.
39
IT WAS RAINER’S WIDOW, Lilly, the FBI finally persuaded to talk by allowing her to swim to immunity. She thought it wise to cut a deal with the law before Millicent Bing had the chance.
Arrest warrants were issued for Davy and Hector. Davy was shot to death during a car chase in Nevada the next month. Hector disappeared, probably into Mexico. Mexican authorities were cooperating with the FBI to clean up that end of the abduction operation, while in the United States arrests were made in cities along the eastern seaboard and throughout the Midwest. The Evermans were captured without resistance early one morning in a motel outside Tampa.
Chief Wicke had decided Walter Rainer’s death was as much an accident as Henry Tiller’s. He felt guilty for turning a deaf ear to Henry and a blind eye to what had been happening in his jurisdiction. Silently he’d dropped the spent bullets from Carver’s gun into Carver’s hand, eliminating the evidence that the glass wall had shattered as the result of gunfire, or that Carver had been responsible. The only court appearance required of Carver would be as a witness in the prosecution of the ring members. A repentant Millicent Bing, who’d surrendered to authorities in Ohio and also been promised immunity, would be an even more damaging witness than Rainer’s widow.
Two days after Rainer’s death at the research center, Norman Tiller, Henry’s cousin from Milwaukee, showed up at the cottage and said he was in a legal hassle with the state of Florida over his inheritance, and his attorney had advised him to move into Henry’s cottage. Carver and Beth introduced him to Effie and left for Del Moray. Effie’s father needed a part shipped in before he could repair Beth’s car so it would run dependably, so she left the LeBaron at Norton’s Gas ’n’ Go. She paid a transport service to drive it north when it was repaired, and traveled in the Olds with Carver.
On the sun-drenched highway just north of Miami, he slowed the car after passing a teenage girl hitchhiking on the gravel shoulder. Beth laid a hand over his on the steering wheel, then shrugged and removed it. Carver stopped the Olds, put it in Reverse and backed toward the girl. She snatched up a faded blue duffel bag and ran toward him, glad she had a ride.
Up close she looked even younger, no more than fifteen. Blond, pretty despite a fresh scar beneath her left eye. She was wearing dirty jeans and a T-shirt with virginia is for lovers lettered faintly across the chest.
“Hey, thanks,” she said, as she ambled the final few feet to Carver’s side of the Olds, her charity-case Reeboks crunching on the gravel.
“How far you going?” he asked.
“Don’t really matter how far or where.”
“How about back to Virginia?”
She studied his face, and her expression changed to one of fear and wariness. She’d been awhile on her own.
“Climb in,” Carver said. “I’ll drive you to a bus stati
on, stake you to your fare home. It’s a promise.”
She was slowly backpedaling now. She hooked a middle finger at Carver and yelled, “Fuck you!” Wheeled and began jogging away, her shadow stark in the brilliant afternoon sun.
“Hey!” Carver yelled after her, thinking of his own daughter in St. Louis. St. Louis was no safer than Florida. “Get back here, please!”
Beth said, “Forget it, Fred. Maybe home’s not so good for her, either.”
The girl glanced back and made another obscene gesture, switching her hips deliberately as she stopped running and walked away fast.
“Jesus!” Carver said.
“It’s luck she’ll need,” Beth told him. “It’ll all be in her luck.”
“Luck hell! Why can’t she be made to see it’s dangerous being fifteen and thumbing your way through life with strangers? Why can’t she be made to understand so she’ll go someplace safe even if it’s not back home?”
“She doesn’t wanna understand.”
“Why not?”
Beth smiled and shook her head. “People don’t know why they do anything, Fred, or why things turn out the way they do. Kids, adults, none of us. We think we know, but we don’t. You shoulda learned that by now.”
The sun was giving him a headache. “I don’t like to think the world’s that way.”
“Nobody does. That’s why it works the way I said.”
He watched the girl’s slim form disappear around the corner of a bridge abutment. Caught a brief glimpse of her cutting across a grassy field toward a cloverleaf. He felt helpless. Furious.
He slammed the Olds into Drive and pulled back onto the highway, spinning the tires until burning rubber screamed his rage. Drove too fast and didn’t look back.
He almost made it. Ten miles outside Del Moray a state patrol car pulled him over and he was a given a lecture and a speeding ticket.
He thought, Just my luck.
A Biography of John Lutz
John Lutz is one of the foremost voices in contemporary hard-boiled fiction.
First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in 1966, Lutz has written dozens of novels and over 250 short stories in the last four decades. His earliest success came with the Alo Nudger series, set in his hometown of St. Louis. A meek private detective, Nudger swills antacid instead of whiskey, and his greatest nemesis is his run-down Volkswagen. In his offices, permeated by the smell of the downstairs donut shop, he spends his time clipping coupons and studying baseball trivia. Though not a tough guy, he gets results. Lutz continued the series through eleven novels and over a dozen short stories, one of which—“Ride the Lightning”—won an Edgar Award for best story in 1986.
Lutz’s next big success also came in 1986, when he published Tropical Heat, the first Fred Carver mystery. The ensuing series took Lutz into darker territory, as he invented an Orlando cop forced to retire by a bullet that permanently disabled his left knee. Hobbled by injury and cynicism, he begins a career as a private detective, following low-lifes and beautiful women all over sunny, deadly Florida. In ten years Lutz wrote ten Carver novels, among them Scorcher (1987), Bloodfire (1991), and Lightning (1996), and as a whole they form a gut-wrenching depiction of the underbelly of the Sunshine State. Meanwhile, he also wrote Dancing with the Dead (1992), in which a serial killer targets ballroom dancers.
In 1992 his novel SWF Seeks Same was adapted for the screen as Single White Female, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. His novel The Ex was made into an HBO film for which Lutz co-wrote the screenplay. In 2001 his book The Night Caller inaugurated a new series of novels about ex-NYPD cops who hunt serial killers on the streets of New York City, and with Darker Than Night (2004) he introduced Frank Quinn, whose own series has yielded five books, the most recent being Mister X (2010).
Lutz is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and his many awards include Shamus Awards for Kiss and “Ride the Lightning,” and lifetime achievement awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Private Eye Writers of America. He lives in St. Louis.
A two-year old Lutz, photographed in 1941. The photograph was taken by Lutz’s father, Jack Lutz, who was a local photographer out of downtown St. Louis.
A young Lutz with his little brother, Jim, and sisters, Jacqui and Janie.
Lutz at ten years old, with his mother, Jane, grandmother, Kate, and brother, Jim. Lutz grew up in a sturdy brick city house that sat at an incline, halfway down a hill; according to Lutz, this made for optimal sledding during Missouri’s cold winters.
Lutz in his very first suit, purchased for his grade school graduation.
Lutz’s graduation photo from Southwest High School.
Lutz sitting on the front porch of the first house he and his wife, Barbara, ever owned. According to Lutz, the square footage rendered the house smaller than his last apartment; nevertheless it was an important milestone and tremendous relief—there was no one upstairs to abuse their stereos or bang on the floor (or to complain when they did the same).
On January 6, 1966, Lutz officially became a “professional writer” with his first story sale to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. After the publication of his first story, Lutz quickly became a regular contributor to the magazine. Lutz has said that he enjoys writing, “as much as when I began. It’s a process that lives and grows.”
Lutz in St. Louis with his daughter Wendy.
Lutz in his home office in the early eighties. When asked about his discipline and writing practice, Lutz has said that “being a writer is like being a cop; you’re always on, even off duty.” In the late sixties and early seventies, he published four books and many celebrated short stories.
Lutz in the mid-eighties, crafting the first twists and turns in the Fred Carver series. Lutz published a Fred Carver novel nearly every year from 1986 to 1996, steadily building a cult following for the series. In his younger days, he wrote all of his fiction on an IBM Selectric typewriter nestled next to his most prized possession: a 1904 roll top desk.
A photo of Lutz’s Edgar Award, won in 1986 for his short story “Ride the Lightning.” This year was also the publication of Tropical Heat, the first novel in the Fred Carver series.
Lutz with his wife, Barbara, at a family celebration in 1990.
A photo of Lutz’s Lifetime Achievement Award, received from the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) in 1995 for his inimitable stories and masterful contribution to the genre.
A photograph of Lutz celebrating his honorary degree with his wife, Barbara. In 2007, he was awarded a Doctor of Arts and Letters degree by the University of Missouri - St. Louis. In reflecting on the degree, Lutz said, in his characteristic wry humor, that it “establishes my bona fides as an absent-minded professor. It’s OK now to lose the car.”
Lutz enjoying a bright, warm day in Sarasota, Florida, where he and Barbara take respite from the cold, harsh winters of St. Louis.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1992 by John Lutz
cover design by Kris Tobiassen
978-1-4532-1894-5
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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sp; Table of Contents
Cover
Hot
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
A Biography of John Lutz
Copyright