Scorcher

by John Lutz

  “Your mother?”

  “Years ago Uncle Emmett tried to rape her. Didn’t anyone tell you about that?”

  “No,” Carver said. “Not the sort of dirty linen a family’s likely to air out.” He understood now the depth of Adam’s hatred for his brother. And Emmett’s intense jealousy of Adam.

  “Uncle Emmett said it was all a big mistake, that my mom and dad misunderstood what had happened and he was the one who was wronged. I believed him. Up till now.”

  Carver thought about a younger Emmett. And a younger Elana. What must she have been before age and illness had worn her down? The wife that was her possessive husband’s treasure.

  “Why did my father hire you, Mr. Carver?”

  “To find you before the police did. To protect you from harm.”

  “That’s not easy to believe.”

  “Doesn’t make it less true. Where’s Nadine?”

  “Where I left her, I guess. Where I sneaked away from her with Dewitt’s car in Fort Lauderdale. Hated to trick her like that, but I needed a car. I thought I should drive here and talk to Uncle Emmett about this. I was surprised to see your car parked down the block. I turned off my headlights and stopped across the street, and got a glimpse of you sneaking up the driveway. But what’s Nadine’s car doing parked out front?”

  “Joel Dewitt drove it here. He went inside the house about twenty minutes ago—carrying a scuba diver’s air tank.”

  Paul was quick, all right. He put out a palm and leaned hard against the garage, as if he needed support to stand. Carver thought he saw the old garage sway. He waited while Paul assembled all the available pieces and got most of the picture. Insects droned nearby and racketed in the field beyond the back fence. Something tiny and brittle that flew very fast bounced off Carver’s forehead and buzzed angrily into the night.

  When Paul pushed away from the rotted wood and stood up straight, he said, “Why, Mr. Carver?” He didn’t mean, why was Dewitt here with the scuba tank? Why was the old Lincoln hidden in the garage? He meant, why was Dewitt involved in this at all?

  “I’m not sure. Emmett or Dewitt can tell us that.”

  Paul’s jaw was thrust forward. He looked as fierce as Nadine in the final set of a tennis match, and at the same time he resembled Emmett and Adam in a way that was uncanny. Reaction had set in. The Kave blood was up. “Damn it, Mr. Carver, let’s go ask!”

  He dug in a heel and took a long stride toward the driveway.

  Carver hooked his arm with the crook of the cane and dragged him back. “Think it out first,” he said. “Do this my way, Paul.”

  “They tried to make me out a murderer!” Paul sputtered, knocking the cane away with such force that Carver almost lost his grip on it. The kid was powerful. He’d become strong the way Carver had—all that swimming in choppy water.

  “They killed my son,” Carver reminded him.

  That calmed Paul somewhat. He squared his shoulders and let out a long breath, managed to unclench his teeth. “Yeah, I know they did. Your way, then, Mr. Carver. Time for the cops, I guess.”

  Carver knew it was, but he said, “Not just yet.”

  Paul looked closely at him and understood. A balance had shifted and their roles had changed. They both sensed it; they’d spent so much time trying to think each other’s thoughts that a subtle telepathy had developed. It was Paul now who must be the moderating influence. And Paul knew it.

  “I think I oughta call the law, Mr. Carver.”

  “Sure,” Carver said. “You can drive to a phone and do that while I keep watch on things here.” A breeze whispered through the yard, molding his sweat-soaked shirt to his back. Unexpectedly cool, but for only a moment. Then the heat enfolded him again like an unwelcome lover with its suffocating embrace.

  Paul squinted at him. “You’re not going into the house, are you?”

  Carver asked himself the same question and wasn’t sure of the answer. But he said, “No, Paul, I’ll just make sure Dewitt and Emmett don’t leave.”

  Paul didn’t know whether to believe him, but had little choice. Carver watched him wrestle with the idea of driving away to find a phone. A car passed on Jupiter Avenue, making a swishing sound as its headlights ghosted through the night. A lonely sound.

  “You’re supposed to be the head case here,” Carver reminded him with a tight smile, “not me.”

  “So I’ve been reading and hearing on the news.”

  “Get to a phone, Paul. It’ll be all right.”

  “Okay. Sure.” Still dubious.

  Carver nodded toward the street, a signal to move, and they started down the driveway.

  When they’d almost reached the rear corner of the house, a light came on in a basement window, spilling faint light outside.

  In silent agreement, Carver and Paul both crept to the window and peered in through its dirty glass.

  It was a half-basement of the type developers once sold as tornado shelters. During the hurricane season, tornadoes often ripped through central Florida, amazing in their unpredictability and destruction. The walls were thick poured concrete, stained by cloudlike patterns of dampness.

  Dewitt and Emmett were standing near an ancient wooden workbench with a bare light bulb dangling on a cord above it. A cylindrical tank, and a tangle of hoses and gauges, rested on the workbench. Emmett had the scuba tank valve unscrewed and was fitting a brass hose connection to it. The hose led to what looked like an ordinary cleaning-fluid can. Beside the bench were a number of glass jugs and square, gallon-size cans bearing chemical symbols and naphtha-based household-solvent labels.

  Carver realized Dewitt and Emmett were charging the scuba tank with propellant and homemade napalm to commit another murder. To burn someone the way they’d killed his son.

  He thought about the searing pain that must seem to last forever, and then the endlessness of death. He felt the pain!

  Comprehension, and a rage he never dreamed would be so overwhelming, wrested control of him. It was as if something silently exploded within him, wiping out reason. Obliterating almost everything except his desire to strike back at the people who’d scorched the flesh he’d created. Images of death and horror tumbled through his mind. But even through his consuming emotion he was recalling the layout of the house, acting the good cop, the one Desoto and McGregor had described.

  Beside him, Paul felt the heat of his building fury. Carver pulled the automatic from his belt, aware of the front sight snagging for a moment on the leather. Paul’s hand was on his shoulder, clutching desperately. The boy was afraid now, like any twenty-year-old staring at the front end of violence and death, unable to comprehend something terrible and imminent that had taken on its own will and couldn’t be stopped. “Mr. Carver, for God’s sake, don’t—”

  Carver shoved Paul away so violently that the boy stumbled back and went sprawling into the hedge on the other side of the driveway. He saw Paul struggle to get up, catch the look Carver gave him, then settle back down on his elbows. Paul’s dark eyes were huge pools of helpless resignation and horror.

  Too much noise might have been made already; Carver turned and limped fast toward the rickety back porch.

  When his cane thumped on the porch boards he gave up any thought of silence and opted for suddenness and surprise. He used the crook of the cane to smash in a back-door window, reached through and yanked a bolt lock free, then flung the door open and charged through the kitchen toward the basement stairs.

  He knew Emmett and Dewitt would hear his cane clattering on the linoleum above them and be ready.

  He didn’t care.

  Chapter 34

  THE DOOR TO THE basement stairs was hanging open. Carver hurled himself through it and half fell down the steep wooden steps. His knuckles hit the banister and his cane bounced and racketed down the stairs ahead of him.

  Dewitt had a revolver and was firing at him, blue eyes not startled but wide and cold and calm; for some reason Carver couldn’t hear the shots. Then something s
napped past the side of his head. He saw the banister miraculously splinter beside him. His own arm and hand, holding the Colt automatic, were extended, acting of their own volition. He was returning fire, feeling the solid kick of the gun and watching his arm jerk upward and settle back with each squeeze of the trigger.

  Something exploded behind Carver’s right ear. He thought he’d been shot, but he fell to the side and saw a grim-faced McGregor crouched on the steps above him, gun drawn and blasting away at Emmett and Dewitt—McGregor, who must have been keeping tabs on Carver personally in the absence of Gibbons. Like the goddamned O.K. Corral, Carver thought inanely. He glimpsed more dark, tumultuous figures behind McGregor. On the stairs. Above them, in the kitchen outside the basement door. Everything seemed to be moving unnaturally fast but with vivid clarity. Someone was screaming; a man’s voice. Not in pain, but to fill the lungs and heart with something other than fear.

  The basement lights blinked out, but the firing continued. Glass shattered. Carver felt McGregor shove past him. He bumped the stairwell wall hard, feeling a shock tingle up from his elbow. The heavy report of a riot gun sounded from farther up the stairs. Pellets roared past startlingly close; Carver thought he felt one pluck at his sleeve, like someone trying to get his attention.

  “Jesus!” McGregor screamed. “Cut that out!”

  There was a whump! of flame at the far basement wall. Another burst—this time a large fireball. One of the bullets had sparked something flammable. The naphtha compound.

  In the eerie orange glow, Carver saw Emmett scampering toward a corner, on fire, slapping at his clothes, moving with the agility of a teen-ager. Even his hair was burning. What was happening couldn’t be real; special effects like in a movie, right? Had to be! Dewitt was crawling toward the stairs, shouting something Carver couldn’t understand. Real—it was real!

  Finally McGregor’s voice pierced the semidarkness and the acrid stench of smoke. “Out! Everybody fuckin’ out!”

  Carver let himself bounce down the stairs, beneath the lowering pall of dark smoke, and grabbed Dewitt’s arm. With his free hand he slammed a fist into Dewitt, who merely whined and coughed and went limp. No fight left. Nothing. There was a clamor of footfalls on the stairs. McGregor suddenly had Dewitt’s other arm. Without speaking, he and Carver dragged Dewitt toward the steps. The flames were crackling now and the smoke was soup thick. Emmett was no longer visible.

  Carver somehow found his cane in the flickering glare. He clutched Dewitt’s shirt in his right hand, and with his left he extended the cane and hooked it over the back edge of a wooden step and pulled while he propelled himself upward with his good leg. McGregor had a hand under Dewitt’s armpit and was working frantically to get out of the basement. Carver was remotely aware of sirens screaming outside, some of them deafening, some growling to silence nearby so that other shrill, singsong cries could cut through the night.

  He was ahead of Dewitt now, pulling desperately, ripping Dewitt’s shirt, tearing his own fingernails. McGregor was snarling up at him like a mindless rabid animal, pushing both Dewitt and Carver forward. Carver felt Dewitt’s body mash his good leg against a step, bruising bone just below the knee. Then the leg was free, digging for leverage. Right now the sharp pain was a reminder of life, a spur to action.

  The black smoke rolled thicker and started up the stairs behind them, as if suddenly it had taken on malevolence and purpose and sensed a dark victory.

  Then they were on the smooth, hard linoleum. Carver was surprised to find that the kitchen floor was warm.

  Legs and feet surrounded them. Scuffed shoes, shiny shoes. Someone grabbed Carver beneath the arms and lifted, shoved and bullied him toward the gaping back door. Carver resisted, though he didn’t understand why. There were multicolored lights outside, flashing, revolving, casting dancing, strangely hued shadows from another dimension, another life where nothing had depth or weight or solid meaning. But it was the real world out there—not here in the burning house.

  Carver sucked in smoke, retched and spat. The whole house must be blazing to create so much smoke. There was a thick, sweet stench in the haze that he recognized. Nausea almost doubled him over. He started to retch again, then controlled it and refused to breathe, holding what little air he’d retained in his straining lungs. He didn’t want to pull in any more smoke, any more of Uncle Emmett burning. His chest heaved and his heart smashed in on itself, slower but more powerfully with each beat. He absolutely refused to breathe; he was finished breathing, forever! A voice, far away, called, “Dad, Dad, Dad, Daddy, Daddy!” He was aware of his mouth involuntarily gaping wider and wider, like the house’s back door to the night outside. He heard a high, rasping shriek, a harsh intake of air—Carver fighting for oxygen and life.

  And suddenly he was in the clear night, slumped against the rough bark of a thick tree and breathing. Eating the air as if it were spun sugar at a carnival. Sweet, sweet breathing.

  Stronger now than he’d ever been, he shoved away from the tree.

  He was standing in a whirling, dizzying world that had gained substance and reality. Standing straight and tall again without his cane.

  No, he was falling . . .

  Oh God, how far?

  Chapter 35

  THE TUGGING CARVER had felt at his sleeve turned out to be three pellets from a twelve-gauge riot gun fired by a Kissimmee police officer behind him on Emmett’s basement steps. The pellets had entered at an angle, two of them lodging just below the skin’s surface, the other penetrating about an inch. The two near the surface the doctor had removed. The other one he was going to leave in Carver in the hope that infection wouldn’t occur and the pellet would eventually work its way closer to the surface, where it could be removed easily and without complication. A nurse joked with Carver about his not being able to use a compass until the steel pellet was removed. Carver didn’t think magnet jokes were funny.

  After treatment at the hospital emergency room, he’d spent the night in Orlando in Desoto’s spare bedroom. He lay now in the harsh morning light, listening to the hum and hustle of traffic outside, grateful for the prognosis that his arm would soon return to its full range of strength and mobility. The idea of a second useless limb had frightened him badly, colored his dreams, and made him think about being at the mercy of small boys who delighted in slowly pulling the legs from insects.

  The syncopated beat of Latin music drifted into the room from another part of the condo unit. Desoto had left for work, Carver knew. Must have forgotten to turn off the radio. Or maybe he left the damned thing playing all the time. That would be like him.

  Carver lay quietly until the hypnotic beat threatened to lull him back to sleep. But it was ten o’clock, and he’d slept enough. Though he had no compelling reason to rise, he struggled up to sit on the edge of the mattress. A dull ache beat through his arm, in time with the music and his heart. It was a pain he’d endure rather than take the Percodan pills the doctor had prescribed. Carver preferred to be in slight pain, but awake and with his full mental facilities.

  The room he was in was small and square, with a modern dresser and a high-riser that made into a comfortable bed. The draperies had come with the unit and were a dull gold color and not thick enough to block much sun. An unframed Delacroix print hung on the wall by the bed, a curiously flat French street scene. Somewhere Desoto had picked up an appreciation of art.

  Carver found his cane, got up, and reached his pants where they were draped over the back of a chair. His wallet had dropped to the carpet behind the chair, and he used the cane to slide it over to where he could pick it up. He sat back down on the bed and struggled into the pants, then he stood up and limped from the room.

  The rest of the place reflected the familiar Desoto. The carpet and drapes in the living room were deep red, the furniture black vinyl, stainless steel, and laminated wood that was lacquered to a high gloss. It was expensive furniture. Desoto spent most of his salary on clothes and on his environment. A Fisher stereo s
ystem took up most of a long shelf along one wall. There was a tiny red light glowing on it, and a series of needles on illuminated dials were twitching and bobbing in time with the rhythm that throbbed from the two big speakers at the ends of the shelf. It made Carver wish he could still dance. He crossed the thick carpet to the stereo and punched plastic buttons until he found the right one. The red light winked out.

  The silence in the apartment seemed to pulsate after the tango music stopped, as if the beat had permeated the air and would die hard.

  Carver made his way to the bedroom door to make sure Desoto was gone. He glanced into the room. Red carpet and drapes in there, too. Another print, a large one of a fleshy nude woman reclining among some flowers. There were two gigantic speakers that were probably wired to the stereo in the living room. The dresser and headboard were black and highly lacquered like some of the living-room furniture, in a simple art deco style. There was a round water bed large enough for the moon to affect with tides. It had some kind of white fuzzy spread over it. Carver looked up and was a little surprised to see no mirror on the ceiling. The closet ran along an entire wall and was no doubt full of Desoto’s elegant suits and accessories. There were mirrors everywhere except above the bed.

  In a sort of awe, Carver turned away and went to the kitchen to put some coffee on to brew while he tried to take a shower and keep the dressing on his arm dry.

  When he’d located the coffee and got the electric percolator going, he returned to the living room and found that Desoto had come home.

  There he sat on his black and silver sofa, wearing a tailored cream-colored suit, pale blue shirt, and lavender tie with a gold clip. The condo was coolly air-conditioned, but Desoto looked as if he didn’t need it; he carried his cool with him.

  He said, “Thought you’d be awake, amigo, and you’d want to be filled in on some facts. Didn’t want you calling and aggravating me at headquarters, busy as I am and pesky as you are, so I came by here.”