by John Lutz
Carver was familiar with the bound-wrist method of knife fighting to the death. It made Roman gladiators seem like pansies.
“Raffy enjoyed it, they say. And was very skilled. After slitting the husband’s throat he castrated him and stuffed what was cut off into his mouth. That’s the supreme insult in Raffy’s world.”
“Hard to insult somebody who’s dead,” Carver observed.
Desoto stared hard at Carver. “You hear what I said, amigo? Please don’t take it light. This Raffy, he enjoyed all of what I described. I heard he gets a hard-on when he fights.” Desoto touched his beer stein but didn’t lift it. He sat back. “Thing is, I regret getting you into this, my friend. It’s time we give it to the Del Moray police, eh?”
“There’s nothing to give them,” Carver said. “The word of an old man that he saw somebody in a car he thinks had that license-plate number, talking to the head nurse at Sunhaven. No crime there. And remember, Amos’s family’s about an inch away from having him declared legally insane so he’ll be committed. Some potential witness.”
Desoto sat silently for a moment and considered what Carver had said. He didn’t seem impressed. “The fight you had, Carver. If you can call it a fight. The assailant you described fits Raffy Ortiz. Got to be him. This is more than I wanted from you. Let’s give it to McGregor, let him deal with Raffy.” Desoto smiled. “It could be interesting: J. R. Ewing versus Godzilla.”
“Not yet,” Carver said. “You hired me, so I’ll do it my way.”
“ Your way? Don’t hand me that Frank Sinatra shit.”
“Lyrics are Old Blue Eyes’s, sentiment’s mine.”
“He won’t bleed, you will.”
“I’ll try to approach this so it doesn’t work out that way.”
“I can fire you, amigo.”
“Someone who hasn’t paid somebody can’t fire them,” Carver said. “Though I admit it’s a fine legal point.”
A tragic expression slid into Desoto’s liquid brown eyes. He knew Carver. “So that’s where we are. You can’t turn loose of this one, can you?”
“Won’t turn loose.”
“Same thing. You don’t know the difference; that’s your problem.”
“I’m in it till it’s settled,” Carver said.
Desoto sighed.
“That’s how it is,” Carver said. He spoke calmly but there was no compromise in his voice.
“Then I’ll give you more information about the people you’re dealing with at Sunhaven,” Desoto said. “I checked further on Birdie Reeves. She’s a fifteen-year-old runaway from Indianapolis. Playing big girl, driving around Florida without a license. Real name’s Beatrice Reeves.”
And her landlady knows about it, Carver thought. That explained the suspicious, protective attitude when he’d gone to her apartment building. And someone in administration at Sunhaven might know Birdie’s true age and her past.
“We could turn her in and see she’s sent back,” Desoto said, “but she fled a hellhole. Mother beat her since she was an infant, and her father was a sicko who found her impossible to resist when she got to be eleven. The court sent her to a foster home two years ago and she was molested there. She ran. Who could blame her?”
“She seems to be doing okay here,” Carver said. “Got a job, her own apartment. Not much, but something. Best thing to do is leave the kid alone, let her pretend she’s grown up. She really will be soon enough.”
“My recommendation also,” Desoto said. “Though not officially. We never talked about this, okay?”
“Talked about what?” Carver asked.
Desoto stood up and tossed two folded bills, a ten and a five, on the table. “Beer’s on me.”
“I’m grateful.”
“I’m grateful, too,” Desoto said sincerely. “Also fearful.” He smoothed nonexistent wrinkles in his coat and pants. “I’m glad you decided not to order anything to eat. I’d have felt like I was dining with someone during their last meal.”
“I’ll report to you again soon,” Carver said, “if for no other reason than to get my confidence restored.”
Desoto flashed a smile that was very white in the dim restaurant and clapped Carver on the back. “My way of saying be careful, amigo. Please don’t underestimate Raffy Ortiz. This is a guy can make your childhood nightmares seem pleasant.”
He left the restaurant hurriedly, looking straight ahead, back and neck rigid, like a kid who’d just as soon not glance at shadows. Handsome in his tailored suit. Dashing as a movie star.
The glum waitress coasted in, scooped up the bills from the table, and asked Carver if he wanted anything else. He told her no. She seemed glad as she set off toward another table.
He sat quietly and finished his beer. He couldn’t specifically recall any of his childhood nightmares, but he knew he’d had them. Was sure he had. He was no exception. They were part of his experience, vague and undefined and still with him. Submerged in a dark tidepool of his mind.
And closer to the surface than they’d been in years.
12
Carver had barely crossed the city line into Del Moray when a siren gave an abbreviated yowl behind the Olds, like a yodeler who’d suddenly had a hand clamped over his mouth. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw the whirling red and blue roof-bar lights of a patrol car flashing feebly in the sunlight. Immediately his gaze flicked to the speedometer. He was driving a few miles per hour below the limit. While he was in Orlando, he’d gone to an auto salvage yard where he often got used parts for the Olds and had his cracked windshield replaced in almost a matter of minutes. Hadn’t violated any traffic laws, he was sure. Not in the ten seconds he’d been in Del Moray before the patrol car had slid in behind him.
He slowed the Olds, let it roll onto the road’s sloping shoulder, and coasted to a stop. Gravel crunched beneath the tires and pinged off the insides of the fenders until the big car ceased motion.
Carver watched in the side mirror as the patrol car’s door opened and a tan uniform climbed out and swaggered toward him, arms swinging wide to clear the nightstick, cuffs, and holstered gun bobbing on his hips. As he got nearer, Carver heard gravel scrunching beneath his soles with each measured step. The inexorable stride of the law.
“You Fred Carver?”
The voice startled Carver. It came from right over his shoulder. The cop had been much closer than he’d appeared in the mirror; mirrors did that, distorted distance.
Carver acknowledged who he was and waited for the uniform to ask for his driver’s license.
Instead, the dry, official voice said, “Lieutenant McGregor wants to talk with you.”
Was that what this was about?
“He knows my address,” Carver said. “My phone number, too.”
“All I know,” the uniform said, “is my job’s to see you come to headquarters and be interviewed. Immediately.”
“What’s with McGregor? He doing this to demonstrate his authority?”
The cop’s beefy, perspiring face almost broke into a smile. They were getting to know McGregor in the Del Moray department. Getting to fear him, too. “He’s got the authority to demonstrate, Mr. Carver,” the uniform said. “So do I, you want to make things difficult. No sense creating a problem, though. Will you follow my car, sir?”
“All right,” Carver said. Why fight this? He’d see McGregor and get it over with as soon as possible. “I’ll be in your mirror, officer.”
Now the ruddy-faced cop did smile. It was an almost apologetic flickering in the blue eyes and at the corners of the mouth. He didn’t like this. He had more important things to do than errand-boy bullshit for the higher-ups and he was relieved Carver was cooperating. McGregor must have suggested there might be an argument; take the hard-ass line with that rebel Carver, if you have to. No need. Carver had kept it as cool as possible in ninety-degree heat.
The uniform said, “Thanks, Mr. Carver.”
Carver started the Olds engine and waited until the patrol car had pul
led out onto the road and moved in front of him.
Though he knew where police headquarters was, he kept the Olds’s long hood aimed at the cruiser’s back bumper all the way. Make the uniform feel useful.
Del Moray police headquarters occupied a converted brick house with tall white colonial pillars supporting a miniature porch roof. The roof wouldn’t be of much use in providing shade or shelter from rain. The booking area was in what had been the living room. A curved stairway led to offices and holdover cells upstairs. Lockers, the squad room, and briefing and interrogation rooms were in the basement. There were more offices beyond the booking desk, small ones, made by partitioning the area that had been the dining room, kitchen, and a downstairs bedroom. Despite the presence of uniformed police, the institutional green paint on the walls, and the crackling background chatter of a dispatcher, to Carver the place still felt more like someone’s home than a police station. Beaver Cleaver might burst in to get his bat and glove any minute.
There was an Amoco service station across the street that kept the patrol cars running. On the left of headquarters, a parking lot and then the intersection. On the right was a grassy, vacant lot, and then a row of houses similar to headquarters, only these were real houses, where families lived.
The uniform who’d summoned Carver had gone on about his business, and it was a short, young, blond policewoman who ushered Carver into McGregor’s office. She was overweight but well proportioned and walked lightly, on the balls of her feet and with her toes pointed out, like a dancer. Very official in her tan uniform and beige-tinted nylons. Carver noticed she didn’t carry a side arm.
“Thanks, Myra,” McGregor said from behind his desk. “That’s all for now, babe.” Myra looked slightly ill and withdrew without speaking.
McGregor said, “Small-town bitch thinks she’s Cagney or Lacey and wants to be out on the street her first year on the force. I’m keeping her here till she gets more experience. Let her type reports, do filing. Office stuff. Best thing for her at this point.”
“For her own good,” Carver said, leaning on his cane.
“Mine, too. ’Cause I’d rather look at her ass all day than at some spread-hipped copper who’s spent half his life squatting in a cruiser. See you got a new walnut cane, Carver. Siddown, why don’t you, before you break that one, too.”
The office was tiny, not what McGregor had gotten used to as a captain in Fort Lauderdale. It was painted light green, like the rest of headquarters, and had brown linoleum and a gray steel desk. The linoleum was supposed to look like hardwood floor but didn’t. There was a copy machine and file cabinets along one wall. A plain oak chair off to the side of the desk. The single window was dirty and afforded a view of the parking lot. There was wire mesh over the glass, in case a prisoner or Myra tried to escape. Headquarters had central air conditioning, but it was warm in the office and smelled like McGregor’s cheap lemon-scent cologne.
Carver lowered himself into the oak chair, extended his stiff leg out in front of him, and rested his cane against his thigh lightly, holding it so it wouldn’t slide to the floor.
“Got a phone call about you,” McGregor said, making a tent with his long-fingered hands, pressing the fingertips together hard enough so they whitened. Carver wondered if McGregor could palm a basketball. If he’d been a star in high school, getting cheerleaders drunk and taking advantage of them.
He was running with the ball now. Carver waited for him to continue.
“Call came from, of all places, a retirement home. Nurse in charge out there was wondering about you.”
“Complaining about me?”
“Oh, not complaining,” McGregor said. “Wondering, is all. Said you been hanging around the past few days, talking to some of the old fuckers out there. Thought you might be some kinda con man. Maybe working the pigeon drop on the old marks. Hey, I explained to her you were an operative of the law. She said she wouldn’t
trust a private detective to give her change for a dollar. Know what? Neither would I.”
“You must have had a bad experience,” Carver said.
McGregor crossed his long arms and sat back. Worked at looking thoughtful. “Now, why would a guy like you be floating around a retirement home? Maybe developed a yen for older women. Maybe wanna pick up some pointers on hobbling around with a cane. I dunno. Gee, I just flat dunno. Maybe you’d be so kind as to tell me.”
“I’d be so kind. It’s simple. I know one of the residents and went to visit him.”
“No,” McGregor said, “that ain’t it. I checked. You don’t really know anybody out there. I did learn a few things, though. Old fella that died there last week was related to our mutual friend Alfonso Desoto. Uncle or some damned thing. That have anything to do with your uncommon interest in the place?”
“No,” Carver lied. He knew he’d eventually have to tell McGregor he was working for Desoto, but this wasn’t the time.
“Keep in mind you’re licensed to do your sleazy kind of work. That license can be revoked.”
“I’m within the rules,” Carver said. “No crime I know about’s been committed. No evidence is being withheld.”
McGregor began rocking back and forth gently in his chair. “You say so, I believe you. Not because you’re a Boy Scout but because you’re just smart enough to know I’m not bluffing, so you won’t step over the line.”
“Your threats don’t mean shit to me,” Carver said. “Reason I stay legal is a yard beyond your grasp: professional ethics. You probably hear rumors of them from time to time.”
McGregor laughed, opening his mouth wide to reveal his gapped teeth. His breath was so sour it cut through the sweetened lemon scent of the cologne and nauseated Carver. “We both know there’s no such thing as ethics, asshole. Only people who can claim them are the ones ain’t been tempted strong enough to give in.”
Carver said nothing, thinking McGregor might be right. It was a depressing prospect.
McGregor ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek, distorting his features. He concentrated on trying to suck something out from beneath his molars for a while, then apparently succeeded and said, “You know Hitler had only one nut? Monorchids, they call people like that.”
“Didn’t know,” Carver said.
“Caused a lot of trouble for a guy with one nut, hey?”
“History time?” Carver asked. “Or biology class?”
“Freshman law enforcement. Pay attention. Raphael Ortiz has got three nuts.”
McGregor looked so serious Carver had to try not to smile.
“They examined him when he did a short stretch in Raiford Prison. Three nuts. No kidding. Three-count ’em.”
“You count ’em.”
“Know what that means?”
“Special underwear, I guess. For whoever this Ortiz guy might be.”
“By the by, I checked the license-plate number a witness to that fight on Ashland gave us. Tussle that took place near where you accidentally drove over your cane. White Caddie, belongs to Ortiz. Then there was a rumor of a shooting in the west end of town. Fella did the banging sped away in a big white car. You say you don’t know Ortiz?”
“Heard of him,” Carver admitted.
“I’m not surprised. Most every cop in Florida has.”
“Supposed to be a tough guy, isn’t he?”
“Goes way beyond tough,” McGregor said solemnly. “If he’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. He’s a scary guy. Three nuts. He ain’t like you and me.”
“Nice of you to warn me,” Carver said. “But now that you have, I think I’ll leave.” He set the rubber tip of his cane on the linoleum and raised himself to a standing position. He was looking down at McGregor now. McGregor didn’t like that. He stood up and looked down from his six-and-a-half-foot height at Carver.
“Didn’t have you brought in so I could warn you,” he said. “I don’t much give a shit what happens to you, Carver. Thing is, I’m curious. You’re snooping around a nursing home, and
Raffy Ortiz is snooping around you. Only ones not doing any snooping are the police. That don’t seem right.”
“Now you’re snooping. The world’s been set straight.”
“I’m putting you on notice, Carver. Don’t forget I’m interested in this matter. You find out something the police oughta know, better see I hear about it. I mean ten seconds after you find out.” He grinned, for a moment inserting the pink tip of his tongue in the gap between his front teeth. Made him look devilish and somehow obscene. “ ’Course, you won’t be able to do that if Raffy Ortiz has ground you up and fried you for breakfast.”
He sat down and lifted a file folder from his desk, as if he’d abruptly dismissed Carver from his mind and was moving on to important matters. Busy man with an important job. “Nice talking to you,” he said, opening the folder and burying his nose in it. “Now, get the fuck out.”
“Always a pleasure,” Carver said, and limped toward the door. He knew McGregor wasn’t concentrating on the folder’s contents. Might as well have been Shakespeare.
Outside in the relentless sun, he made his way toward where the Olds was parked and thought about his conversation with McGregor. If Sunhaven had brought Carver to the law’s attention to discourage him from investigating, someone out there must feel he was on track. And feel that whatever was being covered up was serious enough even to risk using the police as a temporary ally. They might also be trying to spike Carver’s guns before he turned over any evidence to the law. Portray him as a nosy nuisance bound to try causing a fuss sooner or later. Not to be taken seriously. That way the denial of any accusations would seem more plausible. No one knew Desoto had hired him. Here he was, working for nobody, a character hanging around and stirring up the old folks. Drawing wrong conclusions and planting dangerous ideas in age-eroded, suspicious minds.
But McGregor knew better, and it worried him.
