by John Lutz
“You’re shittin’ me,” Carver said. “Al’s Lounge, Mom’s Diner, Cal’s Used Cars—there’s never an Al, Mom, or Cal.”
“Well, there’s a Melba. Want water or ice in this?”
“Straight-up’s fine.” Jerry set the pebbled glass on the bar in front of Carver on a round cork coaster with “Melba’s Place” lettered on it in black. Carver took a sip and put the glass back down carefully on the coaster, centering it as if that were important. He said, “Hard to believe there’s actually a Melba owns Melba’s Place. Usually it’s a big syndicate or something, and if there was a Melba she’s been dead for ten years or she’s retired someplace down in Florida.”
The bartender chuckled. “It’s that way a lot, but not here. I’d show you our Melba only she ain’t in. Her father died and the funeral was just this morning.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Kinda thing always is, but she and the old man weren’t that close.”
“She own the place herself, or she got partners?”
“Got a husband’s what she’s got.” Jerry said it as if he didn’t like Jack Lipp. “He’s the actual owner, only it was Melba’s money got ’em in here.”
“Rent must be high, right in the Quarter.”
“Eat you up alive. Come winter, though, the place might be bigger. Hear talk of taking over the bookstore next door, knocking out that wall. Make the place twice as big.”
“Make the rent twice as much, too, wouldn’t it?”
The bartender shrugged. “Sometimes it costs money to make money. The main thing is to turn this joint from a hole-in-the-wall into a place where tourists’ll come and listen to live music. That’s what they want here in the Quarter. Hell, they can play tapes at home, that’s what they feel like hearing. Drink at home, too, for that matter.”
“You got a point,” Carver said, and took another sip of scotch. It tasted good; he must have needed a drink and not known it.
B. B. King wrapped up his number. Winton Marsalis took over.
Another customer came in and sat at the opposite end of the bar. He had on a tropical-print shirt and broad red suspenders and needed a shave. The numbed look on his face suggested that life had been kicking him around.
Jerry wiped his hands on a towel tucked in his belt, though his hands were perfectly dry. As if he’d seen too many reruns of old Jackie Gleason shows where Gleason does his friendly-bartender routine. He wandered down to take the new guy’s order. Number 22 got up and left.
Carver downed the rest of his scotch in one gulp, felt it sear the back of his throat and warm his stomach, and swiveled down off his stool. He caught the bartender looking at him in the back-bar mirror and lifted a hand in a parting wave. Jerry widened his jaunty grin and turned away to talk to the customer in the wild shirt and suspenders.
When Carver stepped outside, he didn’t see Melba Lipp staring at him from behind the window of the pastry shop across the street. She stopped there often to pick up cream beignets and coffee before going into Melba’s Place. Her figure was one thing she didn’t have to worry about, and she’d long indulged an incurable sweet tooth.
Her mouth hung open and her eyes bulged with surprise. She’d recognized Carver almost instantly, as soon as she’d seen the cane and stiff leg. No doubt who he was. The cruel-looking guy who’d been talking with Wanda Pichet last night at the mortuary.
The evening was cooling off. Carver stopped in a restaurant with tables outside on the sidewalk and ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke.
When he was finished eating he sat and watched the Quarter residents and tourists wandering by. It was easy to tell who was who. When that got stale, he paid his check and enjoyed the walk back to the Belle Grande.
There was a new man behind the desk, young and sharp-looking. He had on a neat blue suit and wore a gold watch that looked like an imitation Rolex, a big maybe-diamond tie tack. He’d splashed on just the right amount of cologne, which gave off a crisp spearmint scent. Women who liked money and chewing gum would find him irresistible.
Carver gave his room number and asked if there were any messages, and the sharp young guy checked the boxes and said no, there was nothing for him. He hoped Carver was enjoying his stay at the hotel, he said, as if they were in the lobby of the Royal Orleans.
Carver coaxed a newspaper from the battered vending machine and went upstairs to read it while he waited for Desoto to call.
He stretched out on the bed and had barely opened the paper when he dozed off. The booze and dinner, and then the walk back to the hotel, had made him feel doped and drowsy.
The room was dark when he abruptly woke up.
What the hell? Something was wrong. His arms were stretched over his head and he couldn’t move his hands. Worse than that, he was having a terrible time breathing.
Something—somebody—as heavy as a building was sitting on his chest.
23
THE DARK, BULKY SHAPE looming over Carver reached out a thick arm to the bedside lamp and switched it on. Yellow light flooded the room.
Raffy Ortiz smiled down at Carver. The lamp was reflected as tiny oblong slashes of brilliance in his narrowed eyes, lending him the look of a feral cat about to relish a kill.
Raffy was straddling his chest. Must have slipped the lock on the door, or forced it without Carver hearing. Carver writhed desperately, twisted his neck, and saw that the tie he’d draped over the chair had been knotted around his wrists to bind them to the old iron headboard. He tested all his strength against the knots. The silk tie drew tighter around his wrists, cutting off circulation in his hands. Panic welled cold and black in his bowels. He wriggled his fingers and could barely feel them.
Raffy said, “No use you struggling, compadre.” Still grinning, he used his thumb and middle finger and nimbly flicked the tip of Carver’s nose. Hard. It stung, causing Carver to toss his head from side to side in a futile attempt to protect himself. He threw back his good leg and tried to hook it around Raffy’s neck. He couldn’t quite make it. Raffy expertly flicked the tip of his nose again. Damn, that hurt!
“I told you,” Raffy said in his Cuban accent, “you gotta stop talking to people down in Florida. You didn’t hear me, I guess, huh?” Flick! went the finger. Tears spilled from Carver’s eyes.
“Bastard!” Carver spat. But even through his rage he felt a chilling fear. He was completely helpless. And Raffy was enjoying this; he was in control of where it was going. In total control.
Flick! “I dunno, Carver, maybe if your other leg was broke in eight or ten places that’d slow you down. Have to do your asking around over the phone, wouldn’t you, asshole?”
The idea of both legs ruined, of complete immobility, made Carver frantic with fear. He strained against his bonds and thrashed futilely with his good leg, his breath hissing and his body heaving. Raffy whooped and waved an arm, as if he were riding a rodeo bronco. This was sport to him.
When Carver finally lay quiet again, Raffy chuckled. It was a high, nasty sound, like something brittle breaking. His eyes got dreamy. Flick! More tears. Warm. Tickling Carver’s neck as they tracked down to the sweat-soaked pillow.
Slowly Raffy dismounted Carver’s chest. Carver sucked in a rasping breath of air and tried to blink the tears from his eyes. It helped, but his vision was blurred.
Raffy said, “Somebody tells you something, fucker, you oughta listen or you might be making a major mistake. You agree?”
Carver lay silently with his chest working like a bellows. God, it was good to be able to breathe! The warm air was like sweet liquid.
Raffy chuckled again. He reached beneath Carver’s shirt and pinched his right nipple and then twisted it brutally, Carver’s body writhed in pain. “Hear me ask if you agree?”
“I heard,” Carver groaned through his agony and anger. And he felt something else: humiliation. He knew he shouldn’t feel that, but he did.
“You’re just like a bitch, Carver. Do what you’re fucking told.” Raffy walked over to
the old easy chair, whirled neatly in the air, and kicked a hole in the backrest. Chair didn’t stand a chance. White upholstery batting bulged from the rip. Raffy had on a sleeveless black T-shirt and painted-tight Levi’s. The Levi’s didn’t seem to restrict his range of motion. He swaggered over to the floor lamp near the window and chopped it in half with the callused edge of his right hand, grunting in an explosion of air as he struck. The upper half of the lamp dropped to the floor, dangling from the lower, the two pieces held together only by insulated wiring. “Hey, I could do that to your good leg, Carver. Snap that fucker easy as shit, you know?” He slashed the air with his hand. “Eee-yow! Nothing to me.”
He moved lithely toward the foot of the bed, incredibly graceful for such a wide and muscular man. He was getting high on domination now, the dreamy grin fixed firmly to go with an unblinking hardness in his gleaming dark eyes. Like a kid engrossed in pulling the legs off an insect. “What you’d do then, Carver, is sit in a wheelchair or drag yourself around like a fucking snail. Wouldn’t be no problem to me or anybody else.” He leaped like an oversized ballet dancer to the bathroom door. The wall jutted out there; he side-shuffled gracefully and with another primal, explosive grunt slammed his fist into it. His hammerlike hand, chalked white with plaster dust, emerged inside the bathroom. He laughed and wriggled his fingers. “Punched right through the goddamn wall, compadre! Know anybody else can do that? You’re a strong fucker—bet you can’t do it, huh? Well, maybe that ain’t a fair thing to say. ’Cause maybe you won’t get the chance.”
He pulled his arm and hand back through the wall. Brushing white powder from himself and his clothes, he said, “Tied up like that, Carver, with your worthless leg, I could walk over there and pull your pants down and shove it to you. Stretch your bunghole nine directions. You’re lucky I ain’t that way. I mean, I might cut your dick off and shove it down your throat, but I ain’t a goddamn fag. You oughta be glad, you know? You glad?”
“Glad,” Carver said.
Raffy whooped again and suddenly leaped onto the bed, standing and straddling Carver. One of the bed slats gave and a corner of the mattress dropped. Didn’t bother Raffy with his feline balance.
He unzipped his Levi’s, held his penis with both hands, and urinated on Carver.
At first Carver couldn’t believe it.
This couldn’t be happening.
Then he did believe it and rage overcame reason. He yanked desperately at the knotted tie, roaring, kicking up at Raffy with his free leg. Raffy ignored his efforts. Carver felt warm urine spatter over his chest and neck, then his face. He spat and cursed. Gagged. The ammonia stench of the urine was sickening him. He was clenching his fists so tightly that feeling was returning to his numbed fingers.
Raffy grinned and said, “You can make noise if you want. Nobody hear you in this old hotel. If they did hear, they wouldn’t do nothing anyway.”
Carver knew he was right.
When Raffy’s bladder was emptied he casually zipped his pants back up and hopped down off the bed. Then he drew a switchblade knife from his pocket. The spring had been removed and the blade was balanced so it could be scissored out and locked into position with a quick wrist motion. Carver barely saw Raffy’s arm move as the long, gleaming blade leaped from its bone handle and snapped into place with a firm, metallic click. It was polished steel and finely honed, and it gave back the light from the lamp by the bed. Moving as if his muscular mass weighed about ten pounds, Raffy walked around to stand near Carver’s head.
“I oughta slice off a few of your fingers, you think? Or maybe the tip of your nose. Be really ugly then. Or how ’bout I cut the big tendons in your elbows so you flop around like a goddamn chicken? Now, that’s something to see, all right. Look like you’re trying to fucking fly. Or maybe you’d rather I cut off your dick, huh? Naw, don’t wanna do that. How ’bout we just pry out an eyeball?” He moved the glinting point of the blade slowly to within a thousandth of an inch of Carver’s right eye. “You got two eyes, you can spare one.”
Keeping his head perfectly still, Carver began to tremble. He could feel his body vibrating from the neck down. It was such a violent motion that the bedsprings whined.
Raffy gave his brittle chuckle again and slowly moved the knife away.
Then he stopped smiling and put on a serious expression. “Thing for you to know, Carver, is if I make up my mind you’re dead, then you’re dead. Oh, you might not stop breathing and lay down right away, but you’re dead all right. Understand that?”
“I get what you mean,” Carver told him. He couldn’t keep his body still. His hands were cold above the knotted tie.
“It’s good you understand.” Raffy leaned over and very deliberately used the edge of his free hand to chop at Carver’s elbows. He was an expert. On the first try each time, he struck what’s sometimes known as the crazy bone. Something like electrical shock jolted along both of Carver’s arms. He felt a painful kind of lameness in them as Raffy cut through the knots binding them and then straightened up.
Raffy deftly folded the knife and slipped it back in his pocket, pushing it all the way in with his thumb because the Levi’s were so tight.
Carver tried to roll away, off the other side of the bed, but his arms were useless. He kicked at the soggy mattress with his good leg but couldn’t even turn his body.
Raffy said, “Hey, you’re a real man. Didn’t even shit in your pants.”
Laughing, he swaggered from the room, closing the door behind him softly, with an odd gentleness.
Carver lay quietly in the stench of urine and fear. And with an anger so deep and volcanic it scared him. Right now he’d do anything destructive to Raffy Ortiz and love doing it.
He didn’t move for about ten minutes. Then he sat up, located his cane, and limped into the bathroom. He ignored the jagged hole at eye level in the wall.
He turned the shower on full blast, peeled off his wet clothes, and climbed in beneath the hot needles of water with a fresh bar of the Belle Grande’s bargain soap.
Carver stood there for a long time, scrubbing himself over and over with the soap—his face, his chest, everywhere—until the bar had melted to a knife-edged sliver that slipped from his hand.
Then he twisted the cracked porcelain faucet handles to turn off the shower. Nude, clean, he returned to the room with the broken bed.
He slowly got dressed. The shower had helped, but emotion, rage, was returning to him full force. Every few minutes he literally shuddered with revulsion and fury.
When he was dressed, he sat in the chair Raffy had kicked, feeling the protruding wad of batting lumped between his shoulder blades.
The phone jangled.
He could easily reach it from where he sat, but he waited five rings before lifting the receiver and holding it to his ear.
He heard himself mumble a hoarse hello.
“Wake you up, amigo?” Desoto.
“No. I just had a talk with Raffy Ortiz. He’s sick. Even sicker than we thought. And more dangerous.”
Desoto said nothing. He must have heard something in Carver’s voice.
“Another very physical warning to stay away from the Sunhaven thing,” Carver said. “He could have killed me but it wasn’t on his agenda tonight.”
“What’d he do?”
“Never mind.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Not happy, but okay. No lasting injuries.”
“He’s toying with you.” Desoto sounded angry. Then a resigned sigh came over the phone. “That’s the way of him,” Desoto said. “He’s a sadistic bastard. Doesn’t kill anybody right out unless he has to. Gets his jollies watching people suffer deeply and die slow. Not a nice man, Raffy Ortiz.”
“Not one of my favorites.”
“What now, amigo?”
“Find that Indianapolis address?”
About ten seconds passed with only static and oceanlike whispers on the connection. Then Desoto said softly, “Maybe you should listen to
Ortiz.”
“I am listening to him. I’m on to something live or he wouldn’t be taking all this trouble with me.”
“It isn’t trouble to him, my friend, it’s his amusement.”
“He won’t know I’m in Indianapolis.”
“He found out you were in New Orleans.”
“That’s because he knew I might come here to dig into Kearny Williams’s death.”
Carver watched the shadows on the far wall while he waited for Desoto to say something. The intermittent sounds of traffic over on Canal drifted to him. Jesus, the room stank!
“You don’t have to do this, amigo.”
“Yeah, I do,” Carver told him.
“I figured you’d say that. You’re fucked up in such a way you can’t let it drop, eh? Not ‘won’t’—‘can’t.’ Seen it in you before. Tough guy. So fucked up. Still, I feel responsible for you this time.”
“That doesn’t change where we are now.”
“Thing I’m afraid of,” Desoto said, “isn’t where we are now. It’s where you might be going.”
But he told Carver Linda Redmond’s address in Indianapolis.
What friends were for.
24
LINDA REDMOND WAS in the phone directory, along with the address Desoto had given Carver. Carver phoned her from the Indianapolis airport. She was home. In a weary, cynical voice, she tried to brush him off, treated him like a siding salesman—until he mentioned Beatrice Reeves. Then she agreed to talk with him. He told her he didn’t have a lot of time, and she said there was none like the present.
Since Carver wasn’t going to be in town more than a few hours, instead of renting a car he took a cab to Linda Redmond’s address.
She lived in an old brick apartment building on Meridian, in a neighborhood that lay in hot and despairing limbo while it waited for demolition.
Carver limped into the graffiti-marked vestibule. There was a three-speed Schwinn bicycle leaning against the wall, near a bank of tarnished brass mailboxes beneath round black holes where doorbell buttons used to be. The bike’s front wheel had been removed and the frame was chained to a floor-to-ceiling steam pipe. A large padlock dangled from the chain, and the pipe had nicks and dents in it where the chain looped around it, as if the bike had been secured there countless times. The floor was littered with trash, some of which had probably been there so long it would take an archaeologist to fix the dates. In a far corner, near steep wooden steps, sat a rusty baby stroller with three wheels. Nobody figured to steal that. The vestibule smelled like humidity-dampened varnish and stale urine, and rage and nausea welled up in Carver for a moment as he flashed back to the Belle Grande and Raffy Ortiz. Then he whacked aside a crumpled McDonald’s bag with the tip of his cane, found Linda Redmond’s apartment number on the mailboxes, and began climbing the stairs.
