Spark (23 page)

The Ford skidded to a halt broadside on the highway.

Carver put it in reverse, backed onto the shoulder, and watched the motor home disappearing in the distance. He cranked down the window, breathed in fresh air. The truck had stopped several hundred yards down the road and was on the shoulder. The driver, a husky man in a sleeveless black shirt, jeans, and boots, was jogging toward Carver, his beefy arms pumping as if he were punching a steadily backpedaling opponent.

Carver sat with his head bowed, both hands locked on the steering wheel, as the driver approached.

“What the fuck was that all about?” the man asked disbelievingly.

“Guy tried to force me off the road,” Carver said. His voice was firm and controlled. Okay. Didn’t sound like him, though.

“Sure as shit looked that way. You okay, buddy?”

Carver released his grip on the steering wheel, flexing his fingers to work the soreness from them. “All right far as I know. Safety belt kept me from bouncing around.” He hit the seat-belt buckle release and leaned over, retrieving his cane from the floor. Then he climbed out of the car and stood unsteadily with his arm resting on the hot metal roof. He blinked and looked at the truck driver. The man was about forty, with thinning red hair and a seamed, sunburned face. There was a Confederate flag tattooed on his right forearm. “You catch a look at the motor home’s license plate?” Carver asked.

“You serious? What I was tryin’ to do was keep everybody alive.”

Carver raised his cane in a kind of salute. “You did a helluva job.”

“You’re the one did the fancy drivin’,” the trucker said. “You pull off that stunt-driver shit on purpose, or’d it just look that way?”

Carver said, “I don’t know, myself. Little of both, I guess.” He drew a long deep breath, something he keenly appreciated.

“Now you mention it,” the driver said, “I don’t think that motor home had a license plate. I can see it clear in my memory, you know?”

“I know,” Carver said.

“Crazy fucker drivin’ it mighta stole it, you think?”

“Probably.” But Carver doubted it. The normally slow Winnebago had been specially modified for speed.

“Fucker drivin’ like that, he musta been drunk.”

“Very possible,” Carver said.

The driver fished in a shirt pocket and came up with a restaurant receipt and a stubby yellow pencil. He jotted something on the receipt. “You talk to the law, your insurance company”—he pointed to the long scrapes on the Ford’s right side— “and you call me if you need a witness. That asshole in the Winny’s gonna kill somebody if he keeps up them games.”

Carver thanked him, glanced at the receipt, and saw that the man had written “Tom Shannon” above a scrawled phone number.

“That thing still driveable?” Shannon asked, motioning toward the Ford.

Carver said he thought so. He climbed in and started the engine.

Tom Shannon grinned. “That a rental?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

“Bet they put you in some kinda pool. Tell you, though, they don’t make a lotta cars would of taken that kinda damage and still run.”

“Not even the Japanese,” Carver said.

The driver stopped smiling. “ ’Specially not the Japanese.”

Carver decided not to argue.

He thanked Shannon again, then drove him down the road to where he’d left the truck with its big diesel engine still breathing black wisps of exhaust into the hot blue Florida sky.

After watching the truck disappear in the baking, shimmering distance, he waited until a string of cars came along traveling in the direction of Solartown. A white Plymouth, probably a rental. An old station wagon loaded with suitcases and kids. A green four-wheel-drive vehicle plastered with religious bumper stickers.

When the minicaravan had swished past, he jockeyed the Ford in a U-turn and fell in behind it. Speeded up and joined it.

He did fifty-five the rest of the way, drawing some comfort from the bumper stickers, flinching each time he passed a motor home traveling in the opposite direction.

W
HEN
C
ARVER ENTERED HIS
room at the Warm Sands, the phone was ringing. Each jangle was an explosion in the quiet, cool dimness.

He quickly closed the door and limped across the room, then lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed as he lifted the receiver with his free hand.

Desoto.

“More good news?” Carver asked, keeping it light to assure himself the ground wasn’t going to fall out from under him. He tried to convince himself this phone call couldn’t be about Beth. He was being an alarmist about Beth. And there had been nothing in Desoto’s voice to suggest tragedy.

“Information for you,” Desoto said, “about the floater in Fort Lauderdale, the big man in bib overalls.”

Carver breathed easier.

“Lauderdale law’s done some digging,” Desoto continued. “There was no identification on the body, but the F.B.I, had the guy’s prints on file and a criminal history. His name was Otto Fingerhut, and he did time in Georgia for aggravated assault and rape. Also did a stretch in Raiford for maiming a man in a tavern brawl.”

“Same time in Raiford as when Adam Beed was there?”

“No, he was released six months before Beed was admitted. But he and Roger Karl could have met in prison. Karl did a brief stretch in Raiford for burglary. His and Fingerhut’s sentences overlapped.”

“Any address on Fingerhut?” Carver asked, wondering if he’d lived in Fort Lauderdale.

Desoto laughed softly. “Pinning down an address wasn’t easy,
amigo.
Fingerhut’s was a license plate number. He lived in a motor home.”

The breeze from the air-conditioning was cold on Carver’s back. “A Winnebago?”

“How’d you know?”

He told Desoto about the Winnebago almost running the rental Ford off the highway.

“Beed must have been behind the wheel,” Desoto said. “Could be the Winnebago’s where Fingerhut was killed, then he was driven to be dumped in the canal.”

“That’s how I see it,” Carver said. “But why would Beed hold on to the motor home?”

“He might not be thinking too clearly these days,” Desoto said. “His prints were on the empty whiskey bottle found near Fingerhut’s body.”

“So Metzger got an Adam Beed connection on his own. That puts even more pressure on you to tell him what you know.”

“Two days means two days,” Desoto said. He talked as if it were a two-dollar bet on a Dolphins game, instead of a ruined career and reputation.

“What if I told Metzger the facts?”

“It wouldn’t mean the same, coming from you,
amigo.
You’ve got no choice in this.”

“Neither of us does, then. It all comes down to bottles.”

“Full of whiskey or ground up for hamburger additive,” Desoto said. He didn’t know about Luridus-X, and Carver saw no reason to tell him. Why burden him with more knowledge he should pass on to Metzger but wouldn’t?

Carver thought about Adam Beed drinking heavily and what booze could do to reason. He’d never been an alcoholic—he was fairly sure—but he’d had his romance with the bottle, not long after his former wife Laura had left him and he’d been injured and pensioned out of the Orlando Police Department. “You think Beed’s on a bender?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Desoto said. “But I think you’ve put him under strain, and cracks are appearing. He might be Superman but he’s also an addict. Alcohol’s working whatever dark magic it does on him. He’s losing control.”

“Maybe he’s back on hard drugs.”

“If he is, it’s nothing that’s mellowing him out. Alcohol’s what he’s used to these days, and it’s all a beauty like him needs, which is why he’s leaving a trail of empty bottles. The ones he forgets to grind up and feed someone, anyway. That makes him all the more deadly,
amigo.
You truly understand?”

“That was made fairly obvious to me out on the highway.” Carver was under strain himself; he wasn’t boozing, but the pressure was apparent in his voice, like tremors before a major quake.

“Okay, don’t get testy. You get a read on the motor home’s license number?”

“No plate,” Carver said.

“No surprise there.” Desoto clucked his tongue softly, probably in time to music seeping from his Sony. He often did that when he was thinking. “I’ll relay what happened, get the state police on the lookout for the Winnebago. Meanwhile, don’t forget to lock your door, hey?”

The same advice he’d given Hattie Evans, Carver thought. Everybody was worried about Adam Beed. He was a whiskey-fueled nuclear missile with a faulty guidance system.

Carver assured Desoto he was playing it safe, then hung up.

He wasn’t surprised by Otto Fingerhut’s background. Small-brained, smalltime thug linked with Roger Karl. Drunk or sober, a pro like Adam Beed would never have hired him. And to Beed, murdering Fingerhut was probably not much different from killing Karl’s dog: the casual elimination of an inconvenience.

For the next few hours Carver lay quietly on the bed, gazing at the ceiling and going over the facts of the case in his mind. He chose not to commit them to paper; he’d found that by doing so he lost a certain fluidity of thought. Usually this kind of thing required going outside the lines or off the game board, a different perspective that revealed what had happened in a different light and scale. He didn’t want to block any avenues.

Where he went was down the road to sleep.

It was getting dark when he woke up. He phoned Beth’s room and got no answer.

His stomach growled and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He stood up and adjusted his clothes, went into the bathroom and smoothed the hair above his ears, then limped down to the Seagrill and had a salad, tuna steak, and two draft beers before returning to his room.

After a while he called a doctor he knew in Orlando, a man with the unlikely name of Malarky, and asked him about the list of Mercury Laboratories drugs. He got the same answer Mark had given him at Philip’s Pharmacy. Luridus-X was the wild card. The doctor gave Carver the name of a medical lab that would do reasonably fast analysis, and suggested Carver use him as a reference.

Carver hoped he’d have the chance.

About ten o’clock there was a soft knock on the door.

He picked up the Colt and tucked it in his belt, safety off, then went to the door and asked who was there.

Beth called in that it was room service.

He opened the door and she strode in, wearing lightweight yellow slacks and a white sleeveless blouse, tall and carrying herself like royalty. Her air of nobility was more than height and posture; it was an attitude that seemed to be genetic. She might have been born in the slums of Chicago, but every gesture and glance suggested the lineage of queens.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, realizing immediately that he sounded like a disapproving father grilling a wayward teen. Hell with it; he couldn’t help it.

“Spent much of the day doing a follow-up interview with Brad Faravelli, then had dinner with a source.”

“Source of what?”

“You sound aggravated, and I notice you’re carrying a gun. Something wrong, lover?”

“I was worried about you, that’s all.”

She didn’t seem sympathetic. “I don’t like it when people worry about me.”

He’d known it, but the concern had crept in.

“You like people worrying over you, Fred?” She was pressing, grinning.

He walked to the desk and laid the gun on it, catching a whiff of her perfume. It was subtle yet forceful, as if derived from some sort of flower that choked off weeds.

“What’d you get out of the Faravelli interview?” he asked, all business. Still irritated, though.

“Reinforcement of my notion that he’s a straight arrow and the Solartown money flows in proper channels. Also, he’s more than a little interested in me.” She winked.

“Maybe he wants to sell you a house.”

“Bastard!” She laughed and tackled him, knocking him back on the bed. His cane caught on the edge of the mattress and fell to the floor. “He’s rumored to have a mistress, a real humdinger beauty-queen type. Anyway, I said he was interested in me, not vice versa. But speaking of vice . . .” She was lying full length on top of Carver, attempting to work a hand between their bodies to unzip his fly.

He pretended that he was trying to cast her away, heard the bedside table with the lamp and phone on it hit the floor as she thrashed around for leverage. Giggling, she eased to the center of the mattress and let him work his way on top of her.

“How long have you had this libido problem?” he asked. He kissed her on the lips. She kissed back hard, probing with her tongue, then pulled away. Not amused now. Her dark eyes were misty, serious, pulling him toward the center of the earth.

She said, “Whatever my problem is, it can be solved.”

He raised himself up on one elbow and unbuttoned her blouse, knowing from wrestling with her she wasn’t wearing a bra. He felt her hands working surely at the button to his fly. The zipper. He kissed her nipples, then her lips, and breath rushed from her and she helped him with the bottom buttons on her blouse, with his shirt, his briefs, undressing him and herself in a mad flurry of urgency. A button popped airborne and bounced off his bare back. The bedsprings squealed and the headboard crashed against the wall.

He said, “This hurricane season?”

She said, “It is for you.”

When he’d entered her and her long legs were wrapped around him, he said, “I wasn’t actually worried, but Christ, it’s good to see you!”

A
BRILLIANT SUNBEAM
lanced through the part in the drapes and lay in a gauzy strip of light across Carver’s eyes. He opened his right eye, closed it immediately, then groaned and rolled over in bed. He could feel the warm sunbeam like a weight on his bare shoulder and arm.

He’d gone to sleep within seconds after Beth had left his bed and returned to her room last night. She sometimes had that effect on him. He wondered if Brad Faravelli had earlier that day laid a foundation of arousal in her, then he mentally kicked himself for considering such a thing. He didn’t like to think of himself as a male chauvinist, but he knew that at times he must be, and he was working on the problem. Beth was helping him.