Flame (12 page)

“That progress is being made. Bomb pieces are being analyzed, backgrounds are being checked, witnesses are being questioned. You know the routine—public servants in high gear.”

Carver knew the routine, all right. The more public optimism and suits and ties and reassuring grins, the more uniforms speaking as if they were dictating a report, the less was actually happening in the background behind the bureaucratic front. And nobody was better at diddling the news media than McGregor. “The lab learned anything about the explosion?”

“There were a few charred pieces of what looked like an electronic detonator. The explosive itself might have been a plastique. Kinda stuff terrorists use.” McGregor suddenly sat up straighter. The scent of his unbathed body crossed the table. “Hey, you don’t think we’re into political shit here, do you?” As if he’d just now considered the possibility.

“I’m not sure,” Carver said. “See if you can get me some information on the charming trio of Ogden, Courtney, and Butcher. Maybe that’ll tell us something. Wesley was—is—from a wealthy Southern family that was active in politics. And he did some fund-raising for local candidates.”

“That ain’t nothing,” McGregor said. “It’s a part of life for most anybody that successful. Every big fish has gotta keep the bigger sharks happy. Probably’s got no connection at all with what’s going on.”

Carver said, “You never know.”

“You’re the one seems never to know, asshole. You go traipsing off to Atlanta, and all that happens is you come back and throw shit into the game.”

“Didn’t traipse, took a plane. And if the picture’s no clearer, maybe that’s because it’s bigger than a pea-brain like you had it figured for from the beginning.”

McGregor shrugged. “Guy walks into your office, walks out, gets blown up. I wanna find out why. Specifically, want you to find out. Should be simple for a hotshot private investigator even if he is a gimp. Got your own office and telephone now. You’re supposed to be a pro. I mean, I seen your ad in the newspaper business personals, right under ‘Spicy lingerie to perk up your partner.’ ”

“Should be simple for a police lieutenant, too. But it isn’t. Sometimes one door only leads to another, and you gotta keep opening them. Problem with you is, they keep leading to places only tend to get you more frustrated.”

McGregor stood up and put on his mean expression. Must have taken very little effort. “You just see you get me
un
frustrated, you know what’s good for you. You’ll be limping around selling pencils instead of living here with your real-estate cunt and playing Sam Spade.”

Carver gripped his cane and actually raised it a few inches, preparing to lash out at McGregor. To smash that lascivious, gap-toothed grin down his throat. He took a deep breath instead, lowering the cane. His knuckles were white against the dark walnut.

McGregor knew he’d rattled Carver and was grinning wider, playing his tongue around the space between his front teeth. He said, “I’m going now, fuckface. You keep in touch.”

Carver said, “Works both ways. You gonna do what I asked? Get with Atlanta law and find out about those three names?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Carver smiled. There was a reason he’d asked McGregor and not Desoto to check with Atlanta. He said, “Be careful one of those sharks you talked about doesn’t develop a taste for rotten cop.”

McGregor spat on the brick, then ground the wad of phlegm into a flat wet spot with the toe of his huge wing-tip shoe. “Tryin’ to spook me, jerk-off?”

“ ’Course not. We both know you’ll always be more ambitious than scared. Sharks don’t much care what their supper’s thinking, though.”

McGregor stretched his long body, swaying from side to side as if trying to separate his ribs. He spat again, then turned and walked away. He was smiling but not fooling even himself. Like Carver, he was swimming in unfamiliar water that was proving dangerous.

Carver sat for a while, staring at the ocean and sipping his Budweiser. There was a big ship way out on the horizon, so far away it didn’t appear to be moving. A couple of pelicans fished in the distance, skimming the waves.

Behind him, Edwina said, “Good, he’s gone.” She’d been waiting in the house for McGregor to leave. She pulled back the metal chair opposite Carver’s and sat down. “That man makes my skin creep six different directions at once.”

“You oughta tell him that,” Carver said. “Believe me, he’s not sensitive enough to be insulted.”

Edwina smiled. Behind her the sea rolled blue-green and deep toward the shore. A sudden stiff breeze lifted the collar of her silky white blouse and the point of a lapel touched her cheek lightly, as if caressing it. The few clouds in the sky had disappeared. Nature seemed to approve of her having taken McGregor’s place on the veranda. Carver agreed with nature.

Edwina said, “I can tell by your expression he cheered you up as usual.” A smile. “Time to share? Or are you going stoic on me?”

Carver told her about his conversation with McGregor.

When he was finished, she said, “You better tell all this to Desoto.”

Carver said, “Desoto’s a straight cop. In his position, there are things he can’t know without passing them on.”

“He wouldn’t pass them on if you asked him not to; he’s your friend first, a cop second.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“I am sure.”

“Well, because he’s my friend, I don’t wanna put him in that kind of dilemma.”

“He wouldn’t see it as a dilemma. Not Desoto.”

Carver wondered if any woman had ever thought ill of Desoto. Probably not. He looked out at the distant ship again; it still hadn’t moved. Maybe it was anchored there. The pelicans were gone.

“Think about it,” Edwina said.

“Sure,” Carver told her. “About that and a lotta other things.”

“What you need,” Edwina said, “is to forget everything for a while.” She grinned as lasciviously as McGregor, but on her it looked fine. “I don’t have to go back in to work today. Not a thing to do till I meet some clients tonight.”

He said nothing as she got up, walked around the table, and bent down so her head wouldn’t bump the umbrella. She kissed him on the mouth, letting it linger, using her tongue. She’d been drinking lemonade laced with gin; he could taste it.

Carver ran the backs of his knuckles lightly over her smooth cheek where the lapel had touched it. She was perspiring but cool to the touch. He felt himself responding to her. The buzzing in his ears was starting again, but it wasn’t loud or unpleasant. It occurred to him that he hadn’t heard it the past day or so except on the plane from Atlanta, and that might have been because of the change in air pressure.

Edwina kissed him gently on the forehead. Straightened up and moved away.

He said, “Me, I got no pressing business, either.”

She said, “Oh, yes you do.”

Later, in the cool and quiet bedroom she removed her mouth from him long enough to say, “I’m scared for you. Talk to Desoto. Please.”

Carver said, “Ummm. Sure.”

Promise them anything.

D
ESOTO LISTENED CAREFULLY
AS Carver talked. They were in Desoto’s office on Hughey in Orlando. The window air conditioner, which supplemented the central air on particularly warm days, was humming and gurgling away, fighting the good fight against the relentless heat. There were three yellow ribbons tied to its grill, standing straight out and fluttering in the cool breeze to show the filter was clean and the blower was working fine. Reassurance that you were comfortable while you sweated.

On the sill of the window next to the one with the air conditioner sat Desoto’s portable Sony radio. He’d turned the volume low enough so it could barely be heard above the noise of the air conditioner, and Latin music seeped from the speakers into the office. Music from
Evita
, Carver thought. Desoto seemed to like, even need, a Latin beat to help him through his days.

Patti LuPone was singing forlornly about Argentina when Carver finished talking and Desoto leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful. Desoto had on a white-on-white shirt with French cuffs and a wine-colored tie today. Razor-creased slacks that were beige but so pale they were almost white. A dark brown sport jacket was draped on a wood hanger that was looped over a fancy brass hook near the office door. A tough cop and a dandy, Carver thought, was an odd combination that often caused Desoto to be underestimated. But Carver had seen Desoto with his back to the wall and no longer sold him short.

Desoto said, “You underestimated me,
amigo
, by thinking you maybe shouldn’t have told me this. What you should do is listen more to Edwina. Should appreciate her more.”

“Dammit, I appreciate her,” Carver said. “I listen to her. That’s why I’m here.”

“She’s a rare woman.”

“She knows it and so do I. You don’t have to keep telling both of us.”

Desoto raised a dark eyebrow, looking like a matinee idol in a silent movie. The heroine had been rescued and now it was time to get down to business the censors demanded be conducted off camera. “Ah, you jealous?”

“No.”

“You see? You should be. If I had Edwina I’d be jealous of every man she smiled at.”

“Forget about Edwina. She advised me to come here and talk to you, put you on the pin. If you have to pass any of it along, I’ll understand.”

Desoto said, “Nothing you told me leaves this office.”

“Thanks,” Carver said, meaning it, hoping Desoto knew it.

“We’re friends first,” Desoto said, sounding like Edwina, “everything else second, eh?”

“Unless fingernails start getting peeled back. Then sometimes it’s best not to know things.”

“Hmm . . . I’ll think about that next time I’m getting a manicure, but not now.” Desoto idly played with the gold ring on his left hand, rotating it back and forth on his finger as if about to try slipping it over the knuckle. Light streaming through the blinds reflected off the ring and danced wildly across the desk. “You say Wesley isn’t dead, I believe you.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t dead,” Carver pointed out, “I said he wasn’t the guy blown up outside my office.”

“Point taken. And Bert Renway hasn’t been seen since the bombing, according to McGregor. Also, you don’t think the Atlanta goons know about the Florida goons.”

“That’s my guess.”

“But you say maybe the girl knows. Courtney they called her?”

“Maybe Courtney. She’s the only one who showed any reaction stronger than surprise when they learned about the Fort Lauderdale conversation.”

“She strike you as Ogden or Butcher’s girlfriend?”

“No. But I might be wrong about that. I’m not sure why she was there, unless she’s in the same line of endeavor as Butcher. She came across as genuinely mean and tough, even through the melodrama they were putting on to scare me.”

“From what you say, this Butcher should have some kinda record even if the other two are clean.”

“If he doesn’t, they should pass a law to convict somebody for suspicion and general nastiness.”

“Those earlobes he showed you—think they were real?”

“Yeah,” Carver said, “and he had both of his still on his ears.”

Desoto stopped toying with his ring and abruptly folded his hands, as if he were a small boy in school told to stop fidgeting. “McGregor might tell you something about the three in Atlanta, but don’t count on him sharing all his information with you, I’m on better terms with the law in Atlanta and elsewhere; I can find out things people won’t tell him, figuring he’s not to be trusted. Anybody knows him five minutes, he’s an automatic loser in a popularity contest with a viper.”

Carver said, “If the autopsy report out of Miami is phony, something heavy’s happening.”

“And somebody isn’t playing by the rules, which is why I don’t mind stepping outside them. There aren’t that many people can swing their weight and get an autopsy report faked. What you’ve done,
amigo
, is you got me curious.”

“You think we might be into some kind of political mess?” Carver asked. “I mean, a car bombing using a plastique, that smacks of folks with turbans and dark beards, or maybe the Irish Republican Army.”

“Terrorists aren’t the only people who stash bombs in cars,” Desoto said. “Been a favorite mob method for decades. You ever watch that old TV series, ‘The Untouchables’?”

“Jesus!” Carver said. “This is real life.”

“Real death,” Desoto corrected. “Rest easy,
amigo.
What I’ll do is, I’ll put out feelers so thin nobody’ll notice them, but they’ll reach the right places. I’ll find out what the deal is. People owe me; I can collect. How police department politics work.”

“I don’t want to put you in a position where you’re crossing McGregor,” Carver said. “He bites.”

Desoto grinned. No doubt his predatory bedroom grin. Strong teeth stark white against his handsome tan features. “Don’t we all?”

C
ARVER HADN’T BROUGHT HIS
gun to the new office. After driving back to Del Moray from Orlando, the Olds’s top down and the hot wind crashing in his ears, he headed up the coast highway to Edwina’s house to arm himself. It was slightly cooler by the ocean; or maybe the endless rolling blue water and the gulls circling high against the vastness only made it seem cooler. Suffering in the tropics was subjective.

Edwina was out showing a beachfront condo she’d mentioned, in one of several newly constructed developments north of Del Moray. Carver wondered if Florida would soon reach the point where condos outnumbered people. Sometimes the condo market suggested that had already happened.

He parked the Olds alongside the garage and limped to the back door, hearing metal tick behind him as the car’s big engine cooled.

The house was locked and quiet. After letting himself in, he made his way through the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom. Even though cool air wafted from the vents near the ceiling, the window was slightly open and he could hear the repetitious breaking of the surf. Edwina liked to make love with the window open so she could lie motionless afterward and listen to the sea. Carver liked to listen with her.

He pulled the top drawer of the dresser all the way out and removed the Colt .38 automatic taped to the back of it. He thought about getting the leather shoulder holster from the back of the closet, but decided against it and untucked his shirt, then stuck the gun in his belt beneath it. The Colt lay heavy and ominous against his stomach.