Flame (21 page)

In Hillsboro Beach, just north of Fort Lauderdale, the long car slowed and then turned off the narrow highway into a driveway locked by tall chain-link gates. The foliage beyond the gates was so thick it was impossible to see where the driveway led. The property on this stretch of coast was among the most expensive in Florida, and privacy was part of what the owners had bought.

Carver passed the driveway and parked on the other side of the road. Adjusted the Ford’s outside mirror and watched in it as the limo’s driver got out and walked stiffly toward the gates. The driver leaned forward and said something into what must have been an intercom, then returned to the limo.

Within a few seconds the gates swung open automatically. The limo oozed through them and they shut smoothly behind it. Carver twisted in the seat and watched the limo’s red taillights flicker and disappear in the night.

Great. All this way just to get locked out. Some slick detective.

You’re doing okay, he reassured himself. Doing okay. Nothing’s been easy since the divorce, then the shooting. Why should this be?
Self-pity, huh?

Carver reached under the Ford’s front seat and found the Colt automatic. He pulled it out and tucked it in his belt beneath his shirt.

Knowing what he had to do, he was afraid. But he climbed out of the Ford and crossed to the other side of the road, feeling like the chicken in the joke. Limped toward the tall gates.

He was ten feet away when a dark shape exploded out of the night and hit the gates so hard they rattled against their hinges. Carver leaped back and almost dropped his cane.

The Doberman pinscher barking and snarling at him on the other side of the gates was the largest he’d ever seen. It was immediately joined by three more Dobes almost as big. Fierce and yearning eyes, glittering white fangs. Made Carver feel like a nugget of Alpo.

Afraid the din would soon alert someone at the other end of the long driveway, he backed away and hobbled quickly into the shadows of some palm trees.

As he made his way down the road, keeping to darkness, the noise of the dogs subsided. Only one dog continued barking. Steadily, insistently, as if trying to relay information. Finally a man’s voice shouted something and the dog was quiet.

Carver slumped behind the Ford’s steering wheel, catching his breath and wondering what to do next. Obviously the security behind the gates was more than he could cope with; his presence would be detected within minutes after he set foot on the property. And within minutes after that, the dogs would be at his throat or a security guard would be holding a gun on him. Carver thought a security guard might look good at that point, considering the size and temperament of the Dobermans.

After about ten minutes, he drove the Ford another few hundred feet up the road and parked it in the shadows. Slid the gun back beneath the seat. Got out and again crossed the highway. This time he limped along until he found a driveway that was blocked only by a chain.

He made his way around the chain and started up the driveway, which was bordered by some sort of tall shrubbery with dark and aromatic flowers. Tried to place the scent. Lilacs? Like the perfume of someone he’d once known.

When he saw the lights of a huge house in front of him, he veered off the driveway and cut through trees and more dense shrubbery. This shrubbery bore no blossoms, but it had sharp thorns that scratched his bare arms and occasionally came dangerously close to an eye.

Past the house, the ground fell away and the rhythmic sighing of the surf, until now only part of the background noise, became louder. Carver stumbled several times when his cane sank too far into the sandy earth as he forged through tall sea grass toward the beach.

On his right he saw some wooden steps leading down to the beach, illuminated by dim lights recessed in a thick railing. He was tempted to use the steps, but he opted instead for the cover of darkness. There was only a tilted sliver of moon, and he was sure he could make it down the sandy slope to the smooth beach without being seen.

He sat down and scooted on his rear end down the steep slope, digging in the cane now and then, using it as a brake. The technique worked well, and he reached the level sand and the ghostly rushing surf in good shape. Not counting bruised buttocks.

Quickly he stripped to his jockey shorts. Glanced around to get his bearings, then limped toward the water. Speared his cane into the sand and then tied his shirt to its crook like a flag. Felt for a moment like an explorer staking a claim.

He sat down in the soaked, firm sand, just beyond where he’d planted the cane, and waited for a large enough breaker to roar in. Wished one would hurry. He didn’t want to be seen sitting here in his underwear on some rich bastard’s private property. Aside from everything else, it would be damned embarrassing. Probably only designer-label trunks were worn on this beach.

Finally there was an express-train roar. A looming dark shape rising monstrously from the sea. The oncoming swell curled in on itself in the faint moonlight and broke into boiling whitecaps as it neared the shore. Crashed onto the beach and spread. Surrounded Carver, first with grasping fingers of white foam, then with cold water. Worked beneath him and gave him buoyancy. Lifted him gently and made it possible for him to do an awkward backward scoot seaward until the wave’s receding force got well under him and carried him out into deeper water with its powerful backwash.

He pushed against the water with both cupped hands as he struggled out farther into the ocean, feeling shifting sand and sharp pebbles beneath his bare feet. Drawing a deep breath, he ducked under another incoming wave, smaller than the one that had carried him out. Let the ponderous force of it break over him, then came back up and continued pushing himself away from shore until the bottom fell away and he was floating free. And even through his fear and hyper-alertness, he experienced the elation of having complete control of his body again. In deep water, he was as physically competent as any man and much stronger than most.

He swam out several hundred feet, beyond the breakers, then treaded water and looked back at the beach. He could see the faintly illuminated flight of steps. Farther up the rise, a vast house with several lighted windows. Down the beach a slight distance was a dock, and a large cabin cruiser bobbed at it in rhythm with the waves.

Carver stroked north parallel to the shore, toward the guarded property where the black limo and its passenger had disappeared. The dark water was cool and felt good. He moved through it as if he’d been born in it; since the leg injury and the countless therapeutic swims, it had become his element.

As he swam in his smooth Australian crawl, he watched the beach. The elegant estates and docked pleasure boats. At one house a party was in progress. Music drifted out over the water like signals from another world. There were bright lights. Carver could make out people dancing in a pavilion. He remembered the Latin music in Desoto’s office. He hadn’t danced in years, and now he wouldn’t again. He kept stroking.

When he saw the wire fence extending into the sea, he was sure he’d reached his destination. Something would have to keep the dogs from roaming the beach and bringing back pieces of sunbathers.

He floated on his back for a while until his breathing evened out, rising and falling, gazing up at the crescent of moon. Then he swam to a point between the sections of wire fence and surveyed the area.

What looked like barbed wire curled along the top of the fence. The beach was flat and empty. Beyond it was an impressive house, only one story but with low wings that stretched on opposite sides of a larger main structure. Most of the windows were illuminated.

Carver stroked in closer. Palm fronds shook themselves in the warm breeze, sometimes waving between him and a lighted window and giving the impression that someone was moving around inside the house. There was a narrow pier built out from the beach. A large pleasure craft was docked there. Its graceful hull had to be fifty feet long. Light glowed behind three portholes and, faintly, higher up on the bridge.

Carver swam closer to the boat and could make out a name lettered near its bow:
Bold Entrepreneur.
That figured, on a boat that had to cost at least half a million.

As he stroked in nearer to the beach, he caught sight of a racing dark figure on the sand. Another trailing it. Like swift animated shadow. The dogs. Romping and kicking up sand. Damned things were even on the alert for someone coming in from the sea. One of them barked twice, but Carver was sure it wasn’t because of him. Too playful. And he was still several hundred feet from the beach.

He swam farther out, then angled in so the graceful shape of the boat was between him and the direction the dogs had taken.

Breaststroking easily and almost silently, he moved up very close to the boat. Could have touched its hull. He was sure someone was on board, and he was hoping he’d hear something useful. But the only sound other than the sea lapping at the hull was music wafting out through one of the open portholes. Bach maybe? Beethoven? Elton John? Carver might not know the difference.

He swam alongside the hull until he could gaze around the stern at the house. The boat rose and fell gently, shoved a wave at him and he tasted saltwater. He breathed in instinctively, gagged and almost coughed. He had to be careful; if he choked, someone on board might hear him.

The house and grounds were quiet. Now and then Carver glimpsed one of the dogs trotting through its rounds. Once he thought he saw someone in uniform, probably a security guard, swagger along the beach wearing a nightstick and holstered gun like a cop.

Maybe it was a cop, Carver thought. Bent cop, moonlighting with drug kingpins. This must be where the strategy confab of the SCBL drug smugglers was going to take place. The private plane, and then the limo, had delivered one of those attending. Did Jefferson know about this location? Was Courtney Romano able to contact him and tell him? Did
she
know?

Carver decided to swim back to where he’d entered the water. He’d crawl back on land, get dressed, and then drive to a phone so he could get in touch with Jefferson and let him know what was happening and where.

Careful again to keep the boat between him and the beach and house, he stroked seaward. Glancing back now and then to make sure there was no one on deck who might notice him.

When he was far enough out on the dark sea, he swam south, angling gradually toward shore. Passed the dancers again. Watched until he spotted the illuminated steps leading up to the lighted house.

He swam toward a point just north of the steps, and ten minutes later he hauled himself onto the beach less than a hundred feet from his cane. Quite the navigator.

After retrieving the cane, he limped to where he’d left his clothes. Brushed water out of his thick fringe of hair and quickly got dressed.

He found that scaling the slope back up to level ground was easier than going down. He could plant the cane like a mountain climber’s piton and use it to lever himself along. Still, by the time he’d gained the top his breathing was deep and ragged. The ocean swim had been less of a strain.

He made his way back to the road, then limped along its shoulder, sure that he wasn’t attracting undue attention. The sea breeze had almost dried his clothes and hair; what remained might have been perspiration.

He saw the dark shape of the Ford and hurried toward it.

As he settled in behind the steering wheel, he let out a loud sigh and smoothed back his damp fringe of hair again. Attack dogs, armed guards, fences with barbed wire. Like a luxury command post in a state of war. Hell of a thing to contend with. He was glad the night was over. That he was back in the cocoonlike safety of the car and could get away from here.

As he leaned forward to fit the key in the ignition, a motion in the rearview mirror caught his attention. He glanced at the mirror and his gaze froze on it. A pair of eyes was staring back at him.

Eyes he recognized.

Eyes that paralyzed him with surprise and fright.

Before he could move he felt a cold blade on the side of his neck. Vincent Butcher in the backseat, leaned close to him and smiled in an oddly amused and tender way. Carver could still see him in the mirror. Smelled his fetid breath. Their gazes were still locked. Horror became hypnotic.

Butcher said, “Where you been, sweetmeat, nosin’ around?”

Gravel crunched outside the car. Footsteps.

The passenger-side door opened and Walter Ogden slid in and sat down. He was dressed impeccably in a window-pane-checked gray suit with a blue handkerchief in the pocket. Handkerchief matched his tie. He smiled at Carver. “Well, you seem to have dropped from sight,” he said in an amiable tone, “Time you filled us in on where you been and why.”

Carver said, “You didn’t get my postcard?”

Butcher probed with the knife point. Might have drawn blood. “There’s your funny bone actin’ up again,” he said. “Cut it out, huh, Carver? Or maybe I will.”

Ogden, with less flair for melodrama, simply said, “Talk.”

Seemed to mean it.

C
ARVER MADE UP MOST
of it as he talked. And it was good. Afraid as he was, he had to admire his skill. Almost believed it himself. Verbal dexterity came easy when inspired by a knife at the throat.

All the while he talked he could smell Butcher’s sour breath. Feel the knife blade vibrate with his own heartbeat. Then he realized the blade was steady, it was his carotid artery that was pulsing against unyielding steel. Life against death.

“I laid low in Miami,” Carver said, not wanting them to know he was aware of the citrus farm and the deserted house with the landing field behind it. “Kept moving and staying at cheap motels. Knew you or the DEA or both’d be looking for me.”

“Why would a smart ol’ boy like you do such a thing?” Ogden asked. Didn’t quite believe Carver; sounded puzzled.

Carver shrugged. Felt the knife burn in and sat still again. “I was in a box. Right where you put me. Didn’t know what to do, so I decided to do nothing.”