Tropical Heat

by John Lutz

“You told me you didn’t know where Cahill had gone when he left Sun South.”

  “After you told me Willis might be alive, I found out. Through the real-estate commission. Sam kept up his Florida broker’s license and is selling backwater property in and around a little town called Solarville, on the edge of the Everglades. At least he was a week ago. If he’s moved on, you should be able to locate him.”

  “Do you think Willis Davis might be in the same area?”

  “I doubt it. Davis is too smart to stay in Florida. But Cahill might know where he is.”

  “He might,” Carver agreed. He felt a subtle heightening of his senses, a racing of his blood. A cop’s hunch, a hunter’s instinct, the sort of thing a department-bound policeman often had to ignore, but that a private cop couldn’t. Carver wanted badly to find Sam Cahill.

  Franks somehow gauged Carver’s piqued interest, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if in relief. “Then we have a deal, Mr. Carver.” He switched the dead cigar to his left hand and held out his right. The acrid scent of tobacco rose with the hand. Along with the perfumed scent of the flowers, it got to Carver’s stomach, made him a little nauseated.

  Carver pumped Franks’s hand a few times, sensing that the handshake was as binding as a written contract. But also knowing that Franks’s money would be in his possession first, for him to deduct his percentage before turning it over to Franks. Cynical Carver again, jaded by his job. He found himself wondering if Franks’s signature was on that crucifixion oath.

  Carver didn’t feel quite right about this new aspect of the case, and he wasn’t sure why. He’d have to be a fool, or someone who couldn’t figure percentages, to turn down Franks’s offer. As Desoto often pointed out, Carver hardly had the financial means to discriminately choose his clients and remain in the private-investigation business. This was an occupation, not a series of causes. And Desoto was right about Carver not knowing any other line of work. Not wanting any other. But Carver, even as a cop, had relied too much on hunches, on the subtle stirrings at the back of his mind. And there was a silent and persistent something back there now that kept telling him he was getting deeper into where he didn’t belong, and he might have no way to climb back out.

  He realized he had lived with that feeling since he’d met Edwina.

  As he followed Franks back up the zigzagging flights of concrete steps to Sun South’s main grounds, he resolved not to be so unceasingly suspicious. It was unrealistic. Unhealthy.

  Half a mile out to sea, the man on the canvas-shaded flying bridge lowered his binoculars and shouted an order in Spanish. A shirtless man on the deck reeled in the trolling lines, and the boat turned away from the beach.

  It chugged and pitched into the waves, then gained speed and headed south along the coastline.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE YELLOW RIBBONS tied to the air-conditioner in Desoto’s office in Orlando police headquarters were strained horizontal in the cold air rushing from the vent, fluttering madly, as if they longed to escape and soar from the room. The office was hot despite the tireless effort of the window unit, but Desoto, as usual, appeared cool. He flashed his white grin at Carver and motioned elegantly with an arm toward the chair before the metal desk. He had his radio on as usual, too, tuned to a Spanish-speaking station that played mariachi music. The volume was just loud enough to be irritating. Before Carver could request it, Desoto reached back and switched off the radio.

  “You’re here to tell me you found Willis Davis,” he said to Carver.

  Carver sat down and shook his head.

  “You’re going to marry Edwina Talbot?”

  “I’m here to report a crime,” Carver said. “It’s my obligation to let the police know when I’ve learned that a crime has been committed.”

  “Ah,” Desoto said, still grinning, “we are official today, eh?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Carver told him.

  Desoto straightened his tie, adjusted his cuffs, as if he thought Edwina might walk into the office next. If Willis Davis was still missing, and Carver didn’t want to bed the wench, she was fair game. Or maybe Carver had Desoto wrong.

  Nope. He had him right.

  “If you’re not interested in the lonely Edwina, amigo, send her in my direction.”

  “She came in your direction of her own accord,” Carver said. “You deflected her to me.”

  Desoto nodded sadly. “My lament. I thought I was doing you a favor, but apparently it’s one you won’t accept.” He leaned forward in his desk chair; the breeze from the air-conditioner ruffled the black hair above his right ear ever so slightly. “What about this crime you’re here to report?”

  Carver told him about his conversation with Ernie Franks at Sun South, about Willis Davis and the missing hundred thousand dollars plus change.

  Desoto leaned far back in his chair and thought about it. “Interesting,” he said. “But the perpetrator is officially dead, and it seems that Mr. Franks has settled with all the victims, so there are no complainants. No charges have been brought. I see no justification for the police to pursue the matter.”

  Carver had been sure Desoto would come to that conclusion. There wasn’t much else he could do, except cause a lot of trouble that would produce little result. Desoto wouldn’t do that; he knew there was a kind of Newton’s third law to trouble, a direct and opposite reaction. It seemed that however much trouble you launched, at least that much came back at you.

  “So, you’ve discharged your professional duty of informing the police of a crime,” Desoto said. “Now what? Are you going to Solarville to locate this Sam Cahill?”

  “It’s the logical next step.”

  Desoto shifted position and deftly used his fingertips to smooth his hair where the breeze had mussed it. “I know a little about Solarville, Carver. It’s on the edge of the swamp. Narcotics-smuggling country.”

  “Isn’t it too far inland to receive drug shipments?” Carver asked.

  “Some shipments find their way through the Everglades by airboat. Others are dropped by plane and picked up by boat. Some of the stuff is actually grown in the swamp, harvested, and cut right there in town for sale for street use. Solarville is one of those places that mostly look the other way when it comes to drug activity because it provides a lot of the town’s income, supports some of the leading families.”

  “What about the local law?” Carver asked.

  “It’s better than you’d think. As honest as possible, in a town like that, but at the same time practical. If you understand my meaning.”

  Carver understood. The law in Solarville was doing the best it could while avoiding political quicksand. It was that way everywhere, but in some places more than others. “What kinds of drugs pass through there?”

  “All kinds. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin. The people there would sell ground-up alligator tails if they could get away with it.”

  “It’s illegal to poach alligators,” Carver said.

  “Ah, that would be the attraction.” Desoto chewed for a moment on the inside of his cheek. “What does the delectable Miss Talbot think of the fact that her Willis is a thief? And of you switching the emphasis of your investigation to Solarville and Franks’s money?”

  “She doesn’t know yet. And the emphasis remains the same—Willis Davis. Cahill might lead me to him.”

  Desoto shot his handsome grin at Carver again, below dark eyes that calculated. He knew Carver. “There’s something else,” he said.

  “Yes,” Carver admitted.

  “I’m listening, amigo. Your friendly police ear.”

  “Here’s how I see it. Willis connected with Edwina Talbot so he could use her to get the job at Sun South. And he worked it into a sweet scam, one that could still be running. Franks found out about the operation only because someone from the bank handling the phony account contacted him. The reason was that Willis had virtually closed the account. If he hadn’t, nothing would have come to light. He could still be at Sun South pulling
in big money.”

  “Then why isn’t he?” Desoto asked.

  “He had enough money.”

  “People like Willis Davis never have enough money.”

  “Exactly. So why would he walk away from getting richer?”

  “That’s my question,” Desoto said.

  “It’s possible he wanted to move on and use what he had to make even more money. It could be that Willis was conning clients at Sun South for seed money for an even bigger kill. He needed a certain amount to swing a deal, and once he reached the magic number he was ready to step up to bigger things.”

  “A drug buy,” Desoto said thoughtfully. “Yes, once he had enough to make the buy, he could cut the stuff and make a great deal more money than at Sun South. A hundred thousand on the front end of a drug operation can easily turn into half a million dollars. What you suggest is possible.”

  “Cahill was fired from Sun South for supplying some of the other employees with coke,” Carver said. “He’s no stranger to the drug scene, at least on a lower level. It’s possible that he’s Willis’s liaison man or partner. Which would explain why Cahill headed for Solarville when he left Sun South.”

  “All so neat,” Desoto said. “Too neat, amigo. You know that.”

  Carver knew. Maybe it was all structured so logically because it was solely the product of his mind and not reality.

  “But if what you say is true,” Desoto said, “it follows that Willis Davis might be found around Sam Cahill and Solarville.”

  “And it follows that I should go there to look for him,” Carver said.

  “And for the money, amigo.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten.”

  “And Willis Davis—he never really loved Edwina Talbot?”

  “It looks that way,” Carver said.

  Desoto shook his head slowly. “The lady’s a treasure no one will claim.”

  “Maybe Willis looked at her as currency to be spent,” Carver said, “and he already used her to buy what he wanted.”

  “So it seems. I feel sorry for her, when you explain to her about her Willis.”

  “Don’t waste your sympathy, Desoto; she won’t believe it even after I go through the steps with her.”

  “Dedication,” Desoto said, with a hint of admiration. It was the quality he most valued in women; his ego demanded it.

  “Or blind stupidity.”

  “No, not stupidity. Not in that one.”

  “Do you get the feeling there’s a lot we don’t know about Edwina?” Carver asked.

  “Of course. It adds to her mystique.”

  “What if it’s the money she’s after, and not Willis? What if Willis ran out on her and she concocted this whole thing?”

  “No,” Desoto said, “if she was in on the scam with him, she would never have come to the police when he left her.”

  Carver agreed. And despite the uneasy feeling he had about Edwina, he didn’t think she was lying about Willis. Of course, there was no way to be sure. Of anything.

  Carver bore down on the cane and stood, feeling his perspiration-soaked shirt come unstuck from the chair. The cool breeze from the air-conditioner was steady on his face. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s a mistake to take her too lightly. It might be the biggest mistake Willis Davis ever made.”

  “If he’s still alive,” Desoto said, clinging to the official view, making his job and Carver’s easier. “If he wasn’t murdered or didn’t really commit suicide.”

  “Any personal opinions?” Carver asked.

  Desoto said, smiling, “On one hand it seems that he’s dead, on the other that he’s alive.”

  “I’m getting tired of both hands,” Carver said, and limped from the office. Police work and politics. Some bedfellows.

  As the door swung shut behind him, he heard mariachi music.

  A part of him hoped he was right about Edwina not believing him when he told her about Willis and the illegal Sun South money. Willis was gone; it was Carver who would have to witness her initial disbelief and hollow denial. Her desperate loyalty to a delusion. He found the thought of that surprisingly hard to bear.

  He didn’t want to hurt her.

  CHAPTER 10

  “THERE’S ANOTHER SIDE to all of this,” Edwina said. She took a quick sip of her whiskey sour, probably not tasting it.

  “You mean Willis’s side?” Carver asked.

  “Of course. Someone must have forged his signature on that withdrawal slip. I’m sure Willis didn’t steal that money.”

  They were sitting at a table in the bar of The Happy Lobster. Carver had suggested lunch, but Edwina declined. That was okay with Carver; like Edwina, he wasn’t hungry.

  “I’d be interested in hearing Willis’s side of what happened,” Carver said. “And so would Ernie Franks.”

  There was a piano at the other end of the lounge. A middle-aged blond woman sat down and started to play a slow, lilting melody that Carver had never heard. It was the sort of song that used to be played as the refrain in B-movie Casablanca imitations.

  He rested his fingertips on Edwina’s hand, finding her flesh startlingly cool. “You can’t go on believing after your reason to believe is gone,” he said. “It only makes it hard on you; it changes nothing.” He realized he sounded like Bogie talking to Ingrid Bergman.

  She finished her drink hastily and stood up. Moisture glittered in her eyes as she turned and walked toward the door. Carver noticed her shoulders quaking and knew she was leaving so he wouldn’t see her cry.

  He put down a ten-dollar bill to cover the drinks and tip and followed Edwina. The woman at the piano began to sing now, something about love smoothing all of life’s rough spots. There wasn’t much conviction in the lyrics or in her voice. Or maybe that was just Carver’s interpretation.

  He kept Edwina in sight, but he stayed well behind her, stood at a distance in the sun-washed parking lot while she leaned with one hand on her car and composed herself. Her stunted shadow lay huddled at her feet.

  After a while he walked toward her, prepared to shout her name if she started to get into the car.

  She heard his soles crunching on the gravel, the gritty drag of his cane, and turned. No moisture in her eyes now; she had a grip on herself, but a tenuous one. For a moment her lower lip trembled, then she bit it and seemed to relax her body, muscle by muscle, standing with exaggerated looseness and watching him.

  He stopped a few feet in front of her, looking at her. The pain in her eyes stared back, then retreated to a far, dark place in her mind. Just then Carver hated all the Willis Davises of the world. Hated them hard and cursed the fact that there were so many of them. And so many of their victims.

  Carver and Edwina stood silently for almost a full minute. He felt perspiration trickle down his neck and realized he was uncomfortably warm. He could feel the heat from the parking-lot gravel radiate upward through his soles. Edwina wasn’t perspiring. She was cool-looking and pale. Her gray eyes were flat now, like shades drawn to conceal her thoughts.

  “When are you leaving for Solarville?” she asked.

  “This afternoon. It won’t take long to get there. Maybe not even an hour.”

  “It doesn’t take long to get anywhere in Florida,” she said. “You get on an interstate or a pay turnpike, drive for an hour or so, and you’re where you want to be. Or think you are.”

  “It’s better to face reality and learn to live with it than to run from the facts,” he said, still being cruel to be kind. He wondered if that had ever really worked.

  “That’s a predictable philosophy,” she said calmly. “Much less complicated than your lobster analogy, but bullshit nonetheless.”

  Carver had no answer for that. She might be right. He used his palm to wipe sweat from his face, dragging his hand painfully downward from forehead to chin. He checked his palm to see if his face was there.

  “I’ll join you in Solarville tomorrow,” Edwina said, which didn’t surprise Carver. “When we find Willis, we’ll
get to the truth about the money.” She smoothed the material of her gray tailored suit. “I have a business appointment today.”

  A business appointment. There it was. Carver saw into her then, saw the way the past few years must have been for her. She was using her work as a shield, probably had been since the end of the jinxed marriage Alice Hargrove had mentioned. It had been effective; Carver knew from experience how work could blunt the pain. Business, keeping ceaselessly busy, could fill the void, absorb the wild energy of volatile depression.

  “You shouldn’t go to Solarville,” Carver told Edwina. “That’s why you hired me, to sniff around and get my nose dirty.”

  “Phone me at home tonight,” she said. “Let me know where you’re staying and what you’ve learned. I’ll decide whether I’ll join you, when that will be.”

  Carver shrugged and nodded. Those were the rules. She was the boss, he was the bird dog. He could overlook her tough act. Everybody who was tough had an act, some better than others.

  When she turned to open her car door, he gripped her upper arm, then held it gently.

  She looked up at him. She began to cry again and tried to whirl her body away from him. He tightened his grip on her arm, pulled her to him. He would look at her tears, make her blend with reality. It was impossible to be a romantic in today’s world; didn’t she know that?

  For a moment she clung to him; he could feel the heat of her body, vibrating against him. He wanted to comfort her, reassure her. With lies, if necessary. Especially with lies. He raised a hand and caressed her hair where the sun touched it; he felt her grasping fingers feel their way down his back, nails sharp and urgent through his shirt.

  Then she pulled away, stood up straight, and briskly smoothed her suit again. Her business suit.

  Her gray eyes were cool. This hadn’t happened, they said. That woman hadn’t really been Edwina Talbot. Two strangers in another dimension had momentarily felt something that bore no relevance to here and now.

  He stepped back, silently agreeing with the eyes, which didn’t quite meet his. The hell with this. He was afraid. He didn’t want this any more than Edwina did. Too soon. Too soon after Laura. He remembered the legalese and pain.