Kiss

by John Lutz

  McGregor took a long pull of beer. Some of it spilled sideways out of the can and dribbled down his chin onto his shirt. “Naw. Difference is I do see it and you don’t.” He grinned again and stretched out his long, workable legs and crossed them at the ankles, wriggling both feet, as if rubbing it in that he could walk and Carver needed the cane. Actually stared hard at the cane leaning on the cushion beside Carver; still grinning, trying to get to Carver. No mistaking what he was thinking. Doing. Some guy.

  He said, “Tell me again about this morning, Carver. Lay it all out for me. And yesterday, too. Sure. What the fuck, why not yesterday?”

  It was three-thirty before Carver finally got out of there and drove toward the coast highway and then north.

  When he opened the door of his cottage the phone was ringing.

  32

  AMOS BURREL’S VOICE ON the phone sounded faint but vibrant with frustration. “He snatched her right away from here, Carver! Drove right up and dragged her into his car and screeched to hell and gone outta here with her! Damn!”

  Something inside Carver grew cold and sank. “Slow down and tell me the who and what of it, Amos.”

  “Nurse Rule’d have a cow if she knew I phoned you,” Amos said. “But there comes a time for a man not to give a shit—I believe that, Carver.”

  “And maybe you’re right, Amos. What happened?” Carver wanted to get the story out of the old man before he was discovered on the phone at Sunhaven and the conversation was terminated.

  “I seen it only five minutes ago. That Latin thug in the white Cadillac; he’s the one talked to Nurse Rule that night. He drove up and parked right near the front entrance. Little later I seen him walk back out with Birdie at his side. At first I thought the poor little thing was going with him willingly, though that sure didn’t strike me as right. Then I seen that as they got closer to the car she started trying to hang back, dragging her feet. He had her tight by the elbow then. When he had the car door open she tried to jerk away but he laughed and wouldn’t let her. Laughed, goddamn him! Having himself a good time!” Amos began to cluck his tongue; Carver could imagine him shaking his head.

  “Go on, Amos. Then what?”

  “She tried to kick him but he shoved her into the car on the driver’s side, then across the front seat while he climbed in himself. I think she tried to open the door on the other side and jump out, but it looked like he slapped her one and yanked her over close to him while he started the car. Slapped her hard! Then he gunned the motor and sped outta the lot. Nurse Rule, along with one of the attendants, came running out after him, but all they did was stand and watch him drive away with Birdie. Useless as tits on a boar hog. Jesus, Carver, it ain’t right, what happened. You shoulda seen it!”

  Carver stared out the window at the vast blue plain of the ocean and the gulls circling above it, wings flashing white in the sun. “Anybody out there call the police?”

  “I guess so, but hell, I dunno! I ain’t the only one seen what went on. What they’re mostly doing here’s running around trying to convince people nothing outta the ordinary happened. Like they think they can smooth things over and nobody’ll get upset and their heart give out. But I tell you, Carver, it won’t take them long to see that won’t wash. Birdie didn’t leave here of her own free will, and I don’t give a hot damn who says otherwise.”

  The old guy had his fighting blood up, all right. Carver was glad to hear the spirit back in the cracking voice. “I’ll call the police, Amos. You did the right thing, but you better get back to your room. Keep a low profile, you understand?”

  “I don’t feel like keeping no low profile. Feel like grabbing that Cuban punk by the throat and giving him a shake. Teach him some civility. Goddamn, that’s what I’d do if he was here now!”

  Carver said, “Don’t grab anybody’s throat, Amos. Go on back to your room. Okay?”

  “I’ll do that knowing you’re calling the police,” Amos said reluctantly. “And that’s the only way I will.”

  Carver understood why he didn’t want to return to his room and a nonactive role. Big things were happening and he wanted to be part of them. Fuel that fed life.

  “I can’t call the police while I’m talking to you, Amos. Now, don’t start anything else out there; wait for the law.”

  Amos slammed the phone down. Hurt Carver’s ear.

  Carver depressed the cradle button, then called McGregor at Del Moray police headquarters.

  There was a lot of hissing and crackling on the switchboard, and then half a minute of the Muzak version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” before the phone rang in McGregor’s office.

  “No time to talk,” McGregor said, as soon as he learned it was Carver. “Squeal just came in about an abduction at Sun-haven. Your little twist Birdie. Sounds like Raffy Ortiz took her.”

  “Who called?”

  “Sergeant said it was Nurse Nora Rule. He checked the call for authenticity before he had a unit dispatched.”

  “You going to Sunhaven now?”

  “Not actually. Instead I’m wasting my time talking to the jerkoff mighta caused all this.”

  Carver said, “I’ll see you there,” and hung up.

  There were four Del Moray squad cars parked at haphazard angles near Sunhaven’s main entrance. Red and blue roof-bar lights still rotated and flashed on two of them, but weren’t making much of a showing in the bright early evening sun. A door was hanging open on one of the cars, and a radio was squawking loudly and intermittently. Just outside Sunhaven’s tinted-glass entrance, a uniform stood slouched with his arms crossed, talking to a bespectacled blond man in a brown suit. Another uniform stood with his foot propped on the front bumper of the nearest patrol car. His head was bowed, as if he were thinking deeply. Or maybe the heat had gotten to him.

  When he heard Carver approaching he looked up. His face was flushed and shiny with perspiration, but his marksman-blue eyes were calm and alert. He said, “Yes, sir?” in a neutral tone that meant who the hell are you and what are you doing here.

  The plainclothesman in the brown suit heard the uniform and swiveled his head to stare blankly. He was a small man with a narrow, wise face. Studious-looking. The kind of guy who years ago had learned devious ways of dealing with the class bully. “You Fred Carver?”

  Carver said he was.

  “Lieutenant said a bald guy with a cane’d be out here,” brown suit said. He smiled, shifting position slightly. The round lenses of his glasses blazed as twin reflected suns. “Said he’d be a little younger than the others. Go on in.”

  Carver didn’t return the smile as he limped inside.

  The bright lobby had been cleared of residents. The checkerboard on the table across from the desk held half a dozen checkers, including three red kings. A game had been interrupted. Black was probably glad. In a far corner was a line of chrome-spoked wheelchairs, collapsed in on themselves and stacked neatly against one another. They looked too frail to support the burden of years and human experience.

  McGregor stood leaning with one giant palm flat on the reception desk. His dark suitcoat was unbuttoned and draped from his shoulders awkwardly. The butt of his Police Special peeked from its shoulder holster, only partly concealed by his lapel. Part of a crescent of underarm perspiration stain on his white shirt was visible, too.

  Nurse Rule stood next to him with her feet planted wide and her fists on her hips. Dr. Macklin, wearing a tailored beige blazer and skirt, was cupping her elbows in her palms and rocking back and forth slightly on her high heels, as if she were cold. Maybe she was, in the spacious, air-conditioned lobby. Behind the curved desk, the attendant with the pencil-thin mustache was manning the phones. The two women looked concerned, angry, and somewhat dazed, as if events had caught up with them and then run over them. McGregor had on his cop face and appeared remotely interested and in calm and complete control. Carver knew better.

  When he saw Carver, McGregor said something to Dr. Macklin and walked away from her and Nu
rse Rule, so he could talk privately to Carver. Nurse Rule stared at Carver, then looked away as if she’d glimpsed something uniquely repulsive.

  “Looka what you stirred up,” McGregor said.

  Carver said, “It was here before I touched it with a spoon. I didn’t create it.”

  McGregor surprised him. “Guess you didn’t.”

  “Get the story?” Carver asked.

  “Sure. Simple enough. Raffy parked out front, came in and talked to Birdie Reeves for a few minutes, then they left together. Looked like she was going willingly with him, but when they got near the car she put up a struggle. Before anybody could do anything about it, he shoved her in the car and drove away. It wasn’t neat, but it was quick. Sometimes that’s better.”

  “Any doubt it was Ortiz?”

  “Naw, none at all. He’s been out here before and some of the people know his face. And he was driving his hotshot white Caddie.”

  “Why would he nab Birdie at all? And why would he take her in plain view of the staff and some of the residents?”

  “Well, I’m sure he thought he could make it look like she was leaving with him of her own accord. For a while it did look that way, story I get. Probably scared the living shit outta her and it took her a while to realize what was really happening. As to why he wanted her, maybe he figured she was on to whatever’s going down here at Sunhaven and she posed some kinda danger to him. Or maybe he just wanted her in case he might need a hostage for a bargaining chip. Could have been an impulsive thing, for that matter. The guy thinks that way, especially these days.”

  Carver’s stomach tightened as he thought about Birdie rifling the files for the information he’d asked her to get for him. Possibly she’d been seen. Ortiz might have been told. Possibly Carver had caused her abduction. And whatever else would happen to her. Was happening to her now. Possibly. Oh, Christ!

  “Way I see it,” McGregor was saying, “Pauly and Ortiz are on the run, and they wanna clean up whatever mess they might leave behind.”

  “They got a bigger mess now, though,” Carver said, “since Raffy was seen dragging Birdie away from here by force.”

  McGregor shrugged and held the pose. It made him look like a gaunt blond vulture. “Not necessarily. They go underground. Maybe head for another country. Raffy changes his name, hacks fucking sugarcane for a while in Brazil or someplace. Dr. Pauly treats lepers in some godforsaken jungle. Makes atonement and all that. Feels good about himself. Albert Schweitzer bullshit, hey? Who the hell knows? One thing they ain’t gotta worry about is somebody here in Del Moray, Florida, U.S. of A., able to pin anything on them.”

  “Other than kidnapping.”

  “Hah! I tell you, Carver, the staff here, meaning one attendant and that butch-looking nurse, only saw Raffy walk out with Birdie, holding her arm like a perfect gentleman. Witnesses saw her struggle getting into the car are about four hundred years old, you add up their ages. Raffy and Pauly stay clear of here for about a year or so, anybody can do them any damage in court’ll be looking on from some other world. Even if some witnesses are still among the living, who’s gonna believe a couple of old feebs that drool when they make an identification?”

  Carver said, “I hope I see you in about twenty-five years and remind you you said that.”

  “You’re not the type to live that long,” McGregor said.

  “I’ll outlive you.”

  “Asshole! You’ll outlive me like a rabbit’ll outlive a fox.”

  McGregor might be right, Carver thought. “At least you’ve got enough evidence to come down on what’s happening at Sunhaven.”

  McGregor’s blond eyebrows crawled high on his forehead. “Oh? And what evidence is that?”

  “There’s a link between Raffy and Kearny Williams’s daughter, Melba, and her husband, Jack Lipp. The Lipps have got a business that’s in trouble—they need money. That means motive. Raffy and Dr. Pauly are choosing convenient times for Sunhaven residents’ deaths so the survivors will benefit. Raffy handles the business end and Pauly fakes the death certificate. No doubt they both get a cut of whatever their clients inherit.”

  “No doubt, huh? If you was a judge, would you issue warrants and exhumation orders on what you just said?”

  “Damned right I would!”

  “Shows why you ain’t a judge. This is the day and age a defendant’s gotta be standing there with the victim’s blood on him, if you’re thinking conviction. Evidence needs to be so strong some pansy-ass judge won’t let a killer walk or let him spend a little time behind the walls where he can learn new techniques and come out a state-of-the-art criminal. We need more than we got, Carver. I know it. You know it. Come on back outta dreamland.”

  Carver knew it. He was back. “I’d like to talk to one of the residents here.”

  “A witness?”

  “Maybe.” Carver wasn’t going to tell McGregor about Amos Burrel’s phone call. It was McGregor himself who’d told Carver about Birdie’s abduction, before Carver had had a chance to tell him.

  “Nope. Sorry, the ones seen the perpetrator leave here with the victim are still making their statements.”

  McGregor didn’t seem sorry. But he had the badge and the rank and knew how to use them. Felt like using them this evening.

  Carver traced circles on the floor with the tip of his cane, sensed it was time to go. “Let me know soon as you hear anything on this,” he said.

  McGregor shot his nasty grin. “Oh, you betcha. You make sure your Radio Shack police scanner’s tuned and I’ll see you’re posted right up to the minute. Won’t make a move without you.”

  “I’ll call you from time to time,” Carver said.

  As he limped out he noticed Nurse Rule and Dr. Macklin standing near each other and talking in low tones. They moved apart and stood silently when they saw McGregor walking back toward them, like a couple of conspiring schoolgirls.

  Carver needed to talk to somebody about all this himself. So he could unburden his heart of some of the guilt he felt for placing Birdie in danger and making her a maniac’s hostage. So he could get a perspective from someone who wasn’t a twisted cop or a Sunhaven resident or a murder suspect.

  Edwina fell into none of those categories.

  He stopped the Olds at a phone booth on the coast highway and called her at Quill Realty. Reminded her of last night and asked her if she wanted to meet him again for dinner.

  She did. She was as easy for him as he was for her.

  33

  THEY SAT AT A TABLE in The Happy Lobster a circular restaurant on the edge of the sea. They were next to the vast curved window that looked out on the Atlantic, dawdling over drinks before dinner and watching night creep in. The purple line of the horizon became indistinct and then disappeared. The sea became as black as the sky, and only whitecaps were visible, dancing like playful spirits on the water. Then they also disappeared, until a high wind swept the clouds from in front of a gold sliver of moon. Darkness, shimmers of white, distant low stars like a galaxy that had fallen. Some of the stars were very slowly moving. Ships’ lights, far out at sea.

  “Endless dark,” Carver said, and sipped his scotch. It had too much bite.

  Edwina said, “Don’t be so exuberant. It takes my breath away.”

  Still gazing over his drink, out at the black ocean, Carver told her everything about his day. About how a murderous sadist had dragged a fifteen-year-old runaway into his car and driven off with her. Because of foolish and melodramatic cloak-and-dagger work that Carver had virtually forced the child to do. He gave Edwina the details, the eyewitness accounts. See how cheerful that’d make her.

  She said, “You’re feeling sorry for yourself. I find that disgusting in a man.”

  Carver was irritated. “What I feel,” he said, “is guilt.”

  “Think there’s a difference?”

  He thought it over and said, “Not much, I guess.”

  Edwina stirred her martini with the olive impaled on a little plastic red swo
rd, holding the sword’s handle deftly between thumb and forefinger. “Well, you screwed up. You can sit there and loathe yourself, but that won’t work you back in time so you can make things right. Besides, you don’t know if your having Birdie go through the Sunhaven files has anything to do with why this Ortiz monster abducted her.”

  “Don’t I? If I were a gambling man . . .”

  “But you are,” Edwina said. She stopped stirring. “Not with money, maybe, but you are.” She was smiling at him. Popped the olive into her mouth and slowly withdrew the tiny red sword from between her pressed lips. Seductive, all right; apparently she approved of his gambling. “There are all kinds of currency. You’ll keep gambling with whatever’s being used and you’ll figure things to their logical conclusion. And you’ll find out that people do things for their own reasons and you’re not to blame for the human condition.”

  “And what is that condition?”

  “Totally fucked up.”

  “You wouldn’t like it if I said who you sounded like.”

  “Okay, not totally. Nothing’s totally. There’s you and me. I mean, together.”

  She had a point. Seemed to right now, anyway.

  He watched the flashing red and white lights of a high-flying aircraft, heading north. Out of Miami? Winging to Washington or New York? Carrying passengers and legitimate cargo? Or narcotics? He knew drug shipments were flown out of Mexico and even South America to points along the coast. Sometimes the planes landed at private airfields. Other times they dropped their cargoes in the sea with flotation devices, so the drugs could be picked up by small, fast boats and ferried to shore.

  The waiter came with the food. Edwina had ordered crab legs. Carver had the stuffed flounder and asparagus. She asked for wine. He was drinking beer. The spiced scent of the seafood heightened his appetite and prodded him at least partly out of his gloom. Food, sleep, sex, shelter—maybe simple gratification was all there really was to life. Maybe McGregor was right.

  After dinner they had ice cream and coffee. Carver was still thinking about Birdie Reeves, and halfway through dessert he realized something wasn’t right.