by John Lutz
With a sudden foreboding he limped to the dresser and yanked the top drawer open all the way. Rooted through its contents.
The Colt .38 automatic was gone from beneath his socks.
Carver closed his eyes and pictured Dr. Pauly holding the gun leveled at him waist-high. An automatic. In the darkness he hadn’t recognized it, but it must have been the Colt. One automatic handgun looked much like another. Dr. Pauly had been in the cottage and taken the gun from the drawer before Carver arrived. Not surprising. His life had been in danger, and it figured that a private investigator would keep weapons in the house. His search had paid off.
The doctor wasn’t to be trusted, but he had given sound advice. If Raffy was hyped on drugs and on a homicidal rampage, he’d be just the person to avoid.
Carver tried to remember where he’d last put his flashlight. Wished he were more of a place-for-everything kind of guy. The air conditioner had overloaded the cottage’s wiring last month, and he’d used the flashlight to locate the blown fuse and screw in a replacement. He thought it was in the cabinet beneath the sink.
He wielded the umbrella with vigor and purpose and hobbled toward the kitchen area. He’d use the flashlight to try to find the coil wire Dr. Pauly had hurled into the darkness. Then he could get the Olds started and drive to safety.
His first stop would be Sanderson’s Drugstore on Ocean Drive, where he remembered the rack of aluminum and wooden canes and crutches between the prescription counter and the display of condoms and Ace bandages. He needed mobility more than he cared to admit.
He sat on the floor and used both hands to pull everything out of the cabinet under the sink. Bug spray, dishwashing detergent, spot remover, scrub brush, steel-wool pads.
Everything but a flashlight.
The phone rang. Made Carver drop the spray can of glass cleaner he was holding. The yellow plastic lid popped off, bounced, and wobbled back into the cabinet.
Dragging the unopened umbrella behind him, he crawled to the phone and pulled it down on the floor. Held it in his lap and lifted the receiver. Gave a cautious hello.
A faint voice said, “He’s on his way, Carver.”
Carver’s heart danced against his ribs. “Who’s on his way? Who is this?”
“It’s Dr. Pauly. Raffy’s on his way to your place. Right now. He thought he killed me . . . maybe he did. I had to warn you. God, the blood! It’ll take him about ten minutes to get there. Understand? Ten minutes!”
“Where are you?” Carver asked levelly.
“It’s not like somebody else’s blood,” Dr. Pauly said weakly. Almost a horrified moan. “Not at all. My own blood. So much of it! It won’t stop. No matter what. Won’t . . .”
“Where are you?”
“Ten minutes. Ticking away. Save yourself!”
“Listen! Dr. Pauly!”
There was a clatter, then a steady buzzing.
The connection was broken.
Carver sat on the floor gripping the droning phone in both hands and staring down at it, as if it held the fascination toys hold for infants.
Ten minutes!
He knew it would take the police at least fifteen minutes to reach the isolated cottage. And he hadn’t called them yet!
He dialed 911.
“I’m a private detective,” he told the operator. “I’ve just been told someone’s on his way to my home to try to kill me.” He gave the emergency operator his name and address, even directions to the cottage.
“You say you’re a detective?”
“Yes!”
“With what department?”
“Private! I’m a licensed private investigator!”
“Will you give me your full name and your phone number, sir?” She didn’t seem excited. Other people’s desperation was routine. Death threats were all in a night’s work.
“He’ll be here in ten minutes!” Carver said.
“I need your name and phone number, sir. Then I’ll call you back and get more information concerning the emergency. It won’t take long.”
Christ! She thought this might be a hoax. Didn’t she know what it was to be terrified?
Ten minutes! And he was bogged down in bureaucracy land! Fear stuck like a jagged lump of metal in his throat—he could taste it.
Carver pressed down the cradle button and punched out the number of the sheriff’s office.
Better luck there. He told a switchboard operator what the problem was and she assured him a car was on the way.
“On the way” might not be good enough. Carver thought about the fire station on the coast highway. He knew the fire department could reach the cottage in about fifteen minutes, maybe in slightly less time if the highway wasn’t congested. It could take them longer if there was traffic.
He called in and reported that the cottage was on fire.
Then he sat sweating and staring at the phone, wondering how to defend himself against Raffy Ortiz. If he simply tried to crawl into the night and hide, Raffy would easily track him, perhaps with a flashlight, and kill him. If he called someone near enough to arrive before Raffy, he might only be providing Raffy with another victim. Besides, this was a comparatively desolate area of the coast, and there might not be anyone near enough to beat Raffy to the cottage. An enraged tiger on drugs, Dr. Pauly had said. Dr. Pauly, who was himself probably dead or dying because of Raffy.
Carver glanced around the cottage from his seated position on the floor. A different, lower perspective that lent a disturbing strangeness to familiar surroundings.
He stood up slowly and carefully with the umbrella and lurched into the kitchen.
From the clutter in the sink drawer he lifted a carving knife, then he hurried to the front door. Cicadas were trilling and the moon’s reflection lay like a sad smile on the sea. He used the knife to cut the wire mesh from the screen door, running its blade at an angle along the wooden edges of the frame.
Half a minute later he switched off the light and hobbled outside.
36
THE WHITE CADILLAC ARRIVED with a roar and a haze of dust and exhaust that drifted across the low moon like an ominous cloud.
Carver watched through the cottage window as Raffy climbed out of the car, stretched his back and thick arms as if he’d been cramped too long, and grinned as his gaze fixed on the open front door. He was wearing shorts, his sleeveless black T-shirt, and white or gray jogging shoes without socks. Might have been a beachcomber looking for shells instead of a killer searching for victims.
The Caddie’s engine was idling. Raffy reached in and switched it off, then slammed the car door. The sound was an explosion in the quiet night. Carver wished again he had the handgun Dr. Pauly had taken. Though the gun hadn’t helped the doctor fend off Raffy. Maybe Raffy was invulnerable to bullets. Three nuts.
He yelled, “Carver, old buddy! Yeah, I know you’re in there! Had a talk with Dr. Pauly about you just a little while ago. Time to have some of my kinda fun with you, fucking gimp!” He started toward the cottage, a moving myth of destruction that left in its wake very real death. Behind him the black ocean rolled like a dark mystery.
Using the umbrella for support, Carver limped out the back door into the hot velvet night. He left the door hanging open.
“Carver!” Raffy was inside the cottage now. “Hey, Carver! Gonna hide from me, you think? Won’t do you no good, compadre.”
Carver could hear him moving around, slamming furniture against the walls, working up to where he wanted to be: higher than high and faster than the speed of reason. The sea pounded on the beach and the cicadas screamed. A towering palm tree silhouetted against the dim sky shook its fronds briskly in the breeze, like a giant, long-haired creature trying to clear its mind. Carver pushed his fear aside and held it there; he knew he had to control his own mind if he wanted to live.
And with an intensity that surprised him, he did want to live, wanted to go on and on being the crippled but breathing and feeling Carver. Right now, life seemed the sweetest
condition of all.
“Hey, Carver? Where you go to, asshole?” Raffy’s voice was louder, irritated. He wanted to get on with the game.
Carver dragged himself over the hard ground, beyond the mound of earth and the grave that had been dug for him. A crawling insect tickled over his bare arm. Gnats flitted around his nose and eyes. He stopped and lay curled on his side, staring into the darkness of nightmares.
Raffy stepped out the back door. He expanded his chest and hitched up his shorts. Swiveled his head on the muscular column of his neck.
Saw Carver and smiled.
“Ah, there you are, fuckface. Hey, you look scared. Well, you got a right. I been looking forward to this, you know?” He slashed at the air with the edge of his hand, leaped high and did a few spinning, lightning karate kicks. Giggled like a schoolgirl out of control. “Chop a gimp like you in half, I wanted to. But I won’t do that. Not for a while, anyway.”
He moved toward Carver with a slow swagger, clenching and unclenching his huge fists. “Got nothing to say, scared man? I seen ’em like you before, find out they got no guts and just wanna get it done with. Like a shit-spooked rabbit caught by a dog and dangling there in its jaws. Know it’s all over but the formalities, so they go limp. Natural thing to do, I guess. Well, it ain’t gonna be that easy. Gonna be fucking fun, man! Though you ain’t gonna think so.”
Carver lay still and watched him approach. Raffy was obviously taking his time, stretching this out for maximum enjoyment as he relished Carver’s terror. This was his amusement, the mainspring of his mind and the real reason he killed. The muscles in his face were taut and he seemed about to break out in his girlish giggle again. He wouldn’t have laughed like that in front of someone he planned on leaving alive.
“Gonna pull some meat from the bone,” Raffy crooned. “Gonna rip you where it hurts most, scared man. You know, we got all fucking night, you and me.”
Raising the knife so its blade caught the moonlight, Carver said, “I’ll see you get some sport out of it.”
Raffy did giggle. “Man, you so right about that.” His wide, white grin spread on his face and stuck there. “You gonna be surprised the tricks I can do with that knife. Nice of you to be holding it for me.” He wasn’t kidding; the knife represented little threat to him. But his dark eyes glimmered with the slightest caution and stayed trained on the blade. He couldn’t totally ignore it. He had to be ready to dodge in case Carver threw the knife. “Cut off some small parts of you, won’t even bleed much,” Raffy said, crooning again, getting himself deeper in the mood. “Cut off some of you and make you goddamn eat it. Learn to fucking like it. Keep wishing you were passed out, but you won’t be. Tell you, I learned some things from good old Dr. Pauly. Taught him some neat shit, too. Graduated the dumb bastard less than an hour ago. I mean, taught him his final fucking lesson. What I got planned for you—”
Raffy dropped from sight.
Made no sound.
Carver had been holding his breath. He exhaled now in a rasping whoosh of air. His hands were shaking.
He’d sharpened the pieces of his broken canes and embedded them pointed-side-up in the bottom of the grave. Then he’d laid the screen from the front door over the grave and hurriedly scattered loose earth lightly over it. A tiger pit. One that Carver had made sure was between him and Raffy.
High on drugs, concentrating on his prey and the knife, Raffy had forgotten what side of the mound of earth the grave was on and hadn’t noticed any irregularity on the ground’s surface. Hadn’t noticed until it was too late and he’d crashed through the screen onto the sharpened walnut spikes.
Carver had expected a howl of pain and rage. An animal cry of surprise.
Anything but silence.
He crawled toward the edge of the grave, then used the shovel protruding from the mound of dirt for support. He stood up.
He edged closer and peered down into the pit.
Raffy shrieked, startling Carver, freezing him just long enough for Raffy to clutch his ankle.
The knife dropped into the grave. Raffy was pulling Carver down into the dark hole with him. The smell of raw earth was like a whiff of death.
Carver remotely realized he was screaming along with Raffy. Without thinking, he raised the shovel. Lost his support and almost fell. Propped himself with his stiff leg. Slammed the shovel down on Raffy’s head. His arm. Again! Again!
Raffy maintained his crushing grip on Carver’s ankle and laughed wildly. “Bastardo! You gonna fucking pay!” He inched Carver nearer the grave.
Carver swiveled the shovel and with all his strength chopped the sharp edge of the blade down on Raffy’s wrist.
Raffy roared and released his grip.
Carver scooted backward, out of reach. Swallowed, and sucked in air deeply, in relief.
Raffy rose up from the black hole as if the devil were down there boosting him. He was free to the waist and using his powerful arms to hoist himself all the way out. He actually got a leg up, dug in a heel. Carver saw that a sharpened spike had penetrated his foot and was protruding from the top of his jogging shoe. Saw a glistening black trickle of blood on his side.
Then the soft earth gave way and Raffy grunted and slid back down. Into shadow. Out of sight.
Rose again, this time not quite as high.
Carver slammed the shovel down on his head. It glanced off and he almost dropped it.
“Think I ain’t gonna get outta here, asshole?” Raffy screamed.
Carver thought Raffy might be right; despite his wounds he might be able to crawl out of the grave. Whatever his disadvantage, he seemed capable of anything.
Raffy hoisted himself up again, and this time when Carver brought the shovel down he tried to grab it.
He deflected it from his head but slipped down again into the pit.
“Sport, all right,” he said, giggling. “You know I’m gonna have your ass, Carver!”
Carver began scooping dirt frantically into the grave, leaning on the shovel when he plunged its blade into the mound of earth, teetering in precarious balance as he flung each load into the hold. A regular, lurching rhythm.
“Hey, you motherfucker!” Raffy’s protest suggested Carver was doing something outside the rules. Unfair.
Carver kept shoveling.
Raffy began hurling dirt out of the grave by the handfuls, but it was a hopeless struggle. He didn’t have the shovel and he couldn’t keep up. More dirt was going in than was coming out.
Carver’s breath screeched in his throat and his chest heaved. He’d never worked so hard. Sweat dripped from him. His powerful upper body ached with each plunge and arc of the shovel. His forearms began to cramp. The dirt dropping into the grave sounded like hail falling.
Raffy was quiet now, only grunting now and then as he tried to throw out enough dirt to slow Carver’s progress, tried to churn his legs so he could stay on top of the loose earth Carver was shoveling in. But he was hurt too badly for that. Doing a clumsy kind of dance.
Maybe he thought Carver would fill in the grave until it was shallow enough for him to climb out. A desperate hope. The dirt was raining down around him too fast. And the harder he struggled the faster the flow of his blood and the weaker he became.
After a while the action of his legs ceased and they were buried up to the ankles, then the knees.
Carver shoveled faster.
Raffy saw he was losing the battle and snarled with frustration. Thrashed with immense effort and managed to fight his way higher. Carver admired the heart in the beast. He slammed the shovel down between the flailing arms, sickened by the vibration and melon-thump of it bouncing off Raffy’s skull, off human bone and flesh. Raffy made a feeble attempt to snatch the shovel handle, but Carver yanked it back out of reach and resumed scooping earth. Shoveling! Shoveling! A brutal exercise in survival that lent raw energy.
Raffy was buried up to the waist.
Then the armpits.
At last only his head and one shoulder and arm w
ere above the earth.
He waved the arm almost like a surrender flag, then dropped it. He was in agony and losing blood in the grave.
He wasn’t going to climb out.
“Shit!” he groaned. “Look what you done!”
Exhausted, Carver braced his good leg and leaned on the shovel. He gasped, “Where’s Birdie?”
Raffy stared at him with black, pain-glazed eyes and laughed.
“Birdie?” Carver said again.
Raffy spat at him.
Carver’s upper-body strength was probably as great as Raffy’s. He raised the shovel high and brought the honed blade down hard in a chopping motion on Raffy’s hand, leaning all his weight into it. He flinched at the chonk! as a finger was severed.
“Where’s Birdie?” he asked again, surprised by the calmness in his voice. The detached finger lay like a pale slug in the loose earth.
Raffy stared in shock at the bleeding stump on his hand. Didn’t answer. A trickle of blood writhed like a snake down his arm.
Crouched on his good knee where he’d dropped after his effort, almost in a sitting position, Carver drew back the shovel as if to bring it down on the back of Raffy’s neck.
And Raffy winced. Human at last.
He said, “She’s with a friend of mine. Melanie Star.”
“Address?” Carver said, not moving the shovel.
“Corner of Delta and Citrus. Old brick apartment building. Melanie’s on the first floor.”
Carver said, “You’re a dead man,” but he lowered the shovel.
“Whaddaya mean?”
“You’re headed for Raiford Prison or the electric chair,” Carver said. “If not the chair, I’ll kill you soon as you hit the street after you do your stretch of time. You either fry and die, come out and die, or you’re in for the rest of your years, and that’s a kinda death. It’s death whichever way. I won’t forget about you.”