by John Lutz
“One shot. No casing. Sounds like a professional.”
“Yeah. No doubt used a scope. There’s a mark on the roof tiles where he probably rested the barrel for support. Wanted the rifle steady because he knew he’d probably only have one shot.”
Carver said, “Learn anything else about the dead woman?”
“Several things. Among them, she was the sister of the woman who lives there.”
Carver folded both hands on the crook of his cane and leaned forward in his chair. “Jackson was Elizabeth Ghostly’s maiden name?”
“Elizabeth Gomez’s,” Desoto said.
Carver said, “Explain.”
“There is no Elizabeth Ghostly. No Robert Ghostly, either. But there’s a Roberto Gomez, and he fits your client’s description. This Roberto Gomez, amigo, he gave you a line of shit. But you’re not the first. I been talking with the Miami Police; Gomez is a drug kingpin in southern Florida. Has connections in South America and deals any kinda stuff he can wholesale. Got houses and apartments all over the place. Only one the Miami police or DEA say they didn’t know about was the condo here in Orlando, where he had his wife Elizabeth stashed the past eight months.”
“Because she was pregnant,” Carver said, “and he wanted her out of any danger because of his business.”
“You’re speculating.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And you accuse me of being a romantic.”
“You are. And maybe Gomez is, too.”
“Most likely. His wife’s pregnancy’s another thing the authorities in south Florida didn’t know about Gomez.”
“Tell me some of what they do know.”
“He’s second-generation American, of Cuban descent. His father was a burglar in New York, shot to death by police nine years ago. Gomez got into narcotics trafficking up east. Arrested three times for dealing, convicted once. Did four years at Attica. Earned a reputation as a bad-ass up there. Tough con who ran his cellblock.”
It was difficult for Carver to reconcile this description with the ordinary, cocky little man who’d passed himself off as a medical supply salesman. Medical supplies, all right. He’d flirted with the truth when he said he sold heroin. “Any warrants out for Gomez?” Carver asked.
Desoto shook his head no. “He’s gotten clever since he’s moved south. Miami Narcotics and the Drug Enforcement Administration keep a watch on him, though, waiting for him to screw up. They know he’s one of Florida’s major dealers, but they need more than they got if they wanna prove it in court. He’s also one ruthless cookie, amigo. He’s got a longtime lieutenant name of Hirsh does the mean work. Gomez enjoys watching, they tell me. But he’s still capable of most anything himself. He doesn’t do drugs and he doesn’t allow any of his employees to use the stuff. Last year, in the Keys, he found out one of his men was carrying a habit. Gomez cut off the guy’s fingertips with a machete and towed him behind the boat. Got a charge outa what happened when sharks were attracted by the blood.”
“No proof, though?” Carver asked.
Desoto smiled faintly. “Not unless you can get sharks to testify. DEA knows who else was on the boat, but nobody’s talking.”
Carver couldn’t blame them. Seeing sharks make a meal of one of your co-workers would stick in the mind and prompt loyalty to the employer.
“So what we have,” Desoto said, “is Gomez wanders up to you on the beach, pretends to be someone else, and hires you to find his wife.”
“His real wife,” Carver said.
“So far, anyway. But he neglects to tell you she’s pregnant.”
“She might have already had the baby,” Carver pointed out.
“True. Nobody knows how pregnant she is—or was. Anyway, you go to the address Gomez gives you—where he actually did spend time with his wife and where she’s been more or less living much of the past year—and the wife’s sister walks in and gets shot by a sniper.” Desoto leaned back into the breeze from the window unit. His wavy dark hair didn’t budge in the flow of air. “Amigo, tell me what it all means.”
Carver had been sitting there wondering exactly that. He said, “Well, I don’t think I was used to set up Gomez’s sister-in-law. It doesn’t connect. She must have arrived at the apartment unexpectedly.”
“Uh-huh. But why, do you figure?”
“To get some clothes and personal items for her sister, who’s in hiding.”
“Hiding from?”
“I don’t know. Gomez?”
“Maybe from Gomez. But I don’t think so. And the unfortunate Belinda Jackson?”
“Shot by mistake,” Carver said. “Because the killer, firing from a distance, thought she was Elizabeth Gomez.”
“That’s how it coulda been, all right.” Desoto sat forward again. He placed his elbows on his desk and clasped his neat, tanned hands together. “What if somebody’s trying to kill Elizabeth Gomez, and hubby Roberto wants to find her so he can protect her, eh?”
“That the way you’re leaning?”
“For now, amigo.”
“She’s more likely running from Gomez, which is why he hired me to find her.”
“Except he stashed her out of harm’s way in the Orlando condo to begin with. My impression is he was trying to protect her and the baby they were expecting.”
“Then Gomez really thinks somebody snatched her—or them,” Carver said. “According to your hypothesis.”
“It falls that way,” Desoto said. “An abduction.”
Carver considered it. Didn’t like it. Didn’t say anything.
Desoto said, “By the bye, sooner or later a DEA agent name of Dan Strait will wanna talk to you. He’s naturally interested in anything concerning Gomez.”
“Reasonable.”
“Considering what happened, you probably won’t see Gomez again. But if you do, let me know. It’s not just the DEA that wants a word with him.”
“You see him as a suspect?”
“Oh, no. Even if he shot the woman, he’ll have an alibi a team of high-powered lawyers couldn’t budge in a year.”
“A careful man, huh?”
“Miami tells me he’s awful nifty as well as psychotic. DEA says the same thing. What drug money can do to people, it’s done to Gomez. Guy’s major-league dangerous, so you be careful yourself.”
“You know me.”
“Sure do, my friend. Once you get involved in something, you can’t let go. Give some dogs a rag to chew on, and when they get a tooth-hold they’ll tug at it till they drop. That’s the way you are.” He reached back and turned up the Sony’s volume. A tango was playing; very dramatic. “Anything you wanna add before you go into an interrogation room and make your official statement, amigo?”
Carver leaned forward over the cane and stood up. He said, “Belinda Jackson was a slender, well-built woman. Even through a telescopic sight and a window, there’s no way she’d look to be in the late stages of pregnancy.”
“I noticed that about her,” Desoto said.
“Figured you would,” Carver said, and went out.
Hoping he’d never see Roberto Gomez again, but knowing better.
Dogs and rags.
6
ON THE DRIVE BACK to Del Moray, Carver stopped at the Happy Lobster on A1A and had a leisurely supper of crab legs washed down with draft beer. It was cool and quiet in the restaurant, making it easier to think sanely. Faint noise was drifting from the bar. Men argued good-naturedly—about what he couldn’t tell, Someone coughed, a nasty cigarette hack. A woman laughed a rising, uncontrollable shriek of mirth. They were having a good time, all right.
Carver had followed the hostess farther into the restaurant, away from the noise. He sat in one of the booths by the wide, curved window and looked out at the darkening Atlantic. A couple of fishing boats were moving parallel to the shore, surrounded by gulls in the way fleas surround dogs. The clouds that had lain on the horizon that morning had been pushed in by the sea wind and turned the sky a low, leaden gray, but the
temperature was still up in the nineties. It was muggy as a sauna out there. Rain ready to happen.
Carver and Edwina had shared a lot of meals at the Happy Lobster, but he didn’t feel sentimental and he didn’t know why. She was due back from Atlanta tonight. She might even be back now. He could have driven all the way in to her place and possibly had supper with her.
Six months ago, maybe one month ago, that’s what he would have done. Shared with her what had happened with Roberto Gomez and his missing wife and dead sister-in-law. But Edwina had demanded the total commitment from him that he couldn’t give. Sensing he’d never surrender a private side of himself, she’d been pushing him away, gaining emotional distance and courage for a break they both knew was coming.
Unless Carver relented and gave her marriage and all it entailed.
And he knew he never would. His marriage to Laura had soured him on the institution. It was a reaction he couldn’t control; marriage was a setup for pain. Just looking at a flame could make you hurt again where you’d been burned.
He sipped his beer and gazed out at the ocean rolling in from a far part of the planet. He’d had enough of pain, seen enough of it and was undoubtedly going to see more. He wanted as little as possible of it to be his. Selfish? Maybe. Or maybe more like self-preservation. Edwina had felt the same way a few years ago, after her own disastrous marriage and rebound love affair. Since then she’d healed. Carver hadn’t. That simple.
He finished his third beer, paid his check, and limped out to the parking lot, where he stood and smoked a Swisher Sweet cigar. Cars carrying the supper crowd were pulling in from the highway and parking. He listened to gravel crunching beneath tires and shoes, and watched people, usually in pairs, stride into the restaurant.
Finally he flicked the glowing cigar butt out toward the ocean, watching it streak against the gray sky and fall just on the other side of the guardrail.
Then he got in the Olds and drove to Edwina’s house, where now he lived only part of the time.
Her Mercedes, which she’d left in a park-and-fly lot at the airport, was in the driveway nosed against the closed garage door. The palm fronds overhead, swaying in the breeze, sent faint shadows over the car’s roof and hood. Carver braked the Olds next to it and made plenty of noise slamming the door and dragging his cane so she’d know he was coming. As if he didn’t want to surprise her with a new lover, though he was sure there wasn’t one.
She’d been home awhile. She’d changed from her career-woman outfit into Levi’s and a sleeveless white blouse. Her thick auburn hair, worn often in a bun these days, fell to below her shoulders. Her gray eyes surveyed him with pinpoints of pain. She looked older, as if the gloom of the evening had seeped into her mind. The strain between them was showing on her.
Seated on the living room sofa with one of the lemonade-and-gin drinks she favored, she said, “I phoned your cottage and you weren’t there. Wondered where you were.”
He crossed the room halfway and leaned on his cane. “Had to drive into Orlando on business.”
She sipped at her spiked lemonade, then licked her lips sensuously. If he didn’t know better he might have guessed she was flirting. “I thought we might go out for supper. The stuff they served on the plane tasted like plastic and I only nibbled at it.”
“Wish I’d known,” Carver said. “I stopped and ate on the drive back.”
No change of expression. “Doesn’t matter. Plenty of frozen dinners out there.” She motioned with her head in the direction of the kitchen, more a direct stare and a ducking of her chin than a sideways tilt. It caused something to tighten around Carver’s heart. She was beautiful when she did that; it was a gesture exclusively hers.
He limped to the wing chair and sat down, stiff leg extended in front of him, cane resting against his thigh. The heel of his moccasin was digging into the carpet. “So how’d the real-estate conference go?”
She smiled. “The way they always do. Speeches, panels, luncheons, cocktail parties. General business shmoozing. Some misbehaving by those foolish enough to mix work and play.”
“Hear any more about the Hawaiian project?”
He shouldn’t have asked. Tension crept like a shadow onto her face, stiffening her cheeks. Her smooth, fighter’s jaw jutted farther out almost imperceptibly, but Carver noticed; he knew her moods, even if he didn’t understand her completely. She said, “They’re still going to build it, if that’s what you mean.”
“I guess that’s pretty much what I meant.”
She stood up too quickly, then paced in an irregular pattern over the blue carpet, holding her glass delicately as if it were brimming with liquid instead of half empty. “You know, Fred—”
“What?” He couldn’t help interrupting her, and loudly. Knowing as he did so that they were too damned combative tonight. War was in the air.
She must have sensed the same mood. She said, “Nothing. What’s the new case about?”
“Didn’t say I had a new case.”
“When I left for Atlanta, you didn’t have an old one.”
True enough. Give her a point.
“What is it,” she asked, “top secret, you don’t wanna talk about it?”
“Nothing like that,” he said, straight-faced. Irritated. Maybe he was into something he shouldn’t talk about, even with her. It had happened before.
But always he’d talked with her anyway.
Not this time, though. “There’s not that much to it,” he said. “And it’s probably already over.”
She paced some more. Sipped some more. Though the house had been tightly sealed for days, the scent of the sea had permeated it. The air felt damp and dense enough to clutch by the handful. The thermostat clicked and the air conditioner hummed to life. “Staying here tonight?”
He said, “I don’t think so. If what I’m working on isn’t really over, it might not be a good idea for me to be around.”
She sort of sneered. “Always there’s fucking danger in your job. So melodramatic.” She was close to losing it. He didn’t want to do battle tonight.
“There are melodramatic actors out there who play for real with guns and matches.”
Her shoulders sagged. She wasn’t up to a fight, either. Not at the moment, anyway. Good. “Yeah, I guess there are. Real estate’s a saner business.”
“For saner people.”
“Or people crazy in a different way.” She finished her drink and began carrying the empty glass toward the kitchen. Such an elegant walk, even in jeans and sandals. He marveled at it. Is that why he was drawn to her? He was a cripple and she covered ground like a dancer?
“Wanna keep me company while I wolf down a microwaved dinner?” she asked.
He said, “Let’s drive someplace. I’ll keep you company while you eat real food.”
She let out a long breath, finally relaxing, even if not completely. She smiled and said, “Okay, that’s a much better idea.”
Truce.
Temporarily.
7
CARVER WOKE THE NEXT morning to the sounds of the sea, and of Edwina breathing beside him. It was like one sound. The sun had barely risen and the breeze pushing in through the open window was cool on his bare leg sticking out from beneath the thin white sheet. Edwina had worked her way completely out from beneath the sheet and was sprawled on her back with one arm slung loosely across her eyes, as if shielding them from the sun. The air conditioner hadn’t kicked in yet, and other than the rhythmic rush of ocean and breathing, the only noise in the room was the gentle ticking of the revolving ceiling fan.
Carver’s nose and left cheek were mashed into the pillow. He turned his head, which made his neck ache. Carefully, he rolled onto his side. He studied Edwina’s nude form touched by the morning light. Picked up the subtle stale scent of last night’s sex and felt something move deep in the core of him. She sighed and dropped her arms to her sides, didn’t wake up.
He thought about last night, after Edwina’s supper and several dr
inks at the restaurant bar. The rustle of perspiration-soaked sheets and warm flesh. Her moans. The headboard banging out its primal rhythm against the wall. They were still capable of lust, but he knew last night wasn’t any kind of resolution other than physical. They could continue to rut even as their hearts drifted further apart—if they so chose. And sooner or later neither of them would choose that kind of sex, the kind that meant nothing more than temporary satisfaction; the train to nowhere.
Carver stretched his arm and groped around on the carpet until he found his cane half under the bed. He used it to help him sit up on the edge of the mattress. The singing of the bedsprings didn’t affect Edwina. She was sleeping deeply.
He limped into the bathroom and started the shower, adjusting the taps until the water was lukewarm. After leaning his cane against the tile wall, he held on to the towel rack and stepped beneath the stinging needles of spray. Thinking how nice it would be if the water roaring through the pipes and washing so forcefully over his body could cleanse inside as well as out, dissolve the past and afford second chances.
By the time he’d toweled dry and limped nude back into the cool bedroom, Edwina was awake.
Still on her back, she’d pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness. There was nothing coy about it, he knew; she was simply cool in the morning breeze. She’d fluffed both pillows behind her head and was staring at Carver. Her dark hair was wildly tangled, making her look like a refined savage. Which she could be.
He awkwardly pulled on the Jockey shorts he’d gotten from his stash of clothes remaining at her house, switching hands to lean on his cane. Mr. Nimble.
Watching him through narrowed eyes, as if there were cigarette smoke bothering her, she said, “Leaving?”