Bloodfire (12 page)

When it was completely dark outside, he left the cabin and drove to the drugstore the old man had told him about. It was a new brick building as spacious as an airplane hangar, with wide aisles and low counters stacked with merchandise. There were T-shirts, luggage, books and magazines, hardware, auto accessories, groceries, housewares, electronics. In one corner there were even drugs, some over-the-counter medicines and a prescription window. Carver bought a detailed Fort Lauderdale street map, then drove into town.

Even in the dark, it didn’t take him long to find Wayfare Lane. It was in the west end of the city, a narrow street that wound beneath ragged palm trees and an occasional sprawling sugar oak.

Number 242 was a flat-roofed clapboard house set back on a small lot and surrounded by shrubbery. It was painted a pale color Carver couldn’t identify by night, and had dark shutters and trim. Light edged out around closed drapes in a front window, where one of the shutters was twisted and dangled like a vestige of a prehistoric wing. The shrubs on the north side of the house were bathed in a faint yellow glow from a side window.

Carver eased his foot off the brake and let the Olds rumble slowly down the street until it had reached a point where he was half a block away but was able to see the lighted side window at an angle. He positioned the car just so, then killed the engine and got his 10x50 Nikon binoculars out of the glove compartment. Slumped low in the seat so he’d be almost invisible in the dark, he focused the binoculars on the window.

There was a bookcase that contained a few books and a lot of stereo equipment and record albums. With the powerful binoculars, he could almost make out the names of some of the albums. A dial on the stereo system was glowing; there would be music in the house. The back of what looked like a brown chair was visible. Also a table with an orange lamp on it. Carver figured he was looking at about a third of the living room.

A shadow passed over the wall, and a slender, red-haired woman came into view. She stood before the stereo for a moment and adjusted something, maybe changed stations, then moved back out of sight. He got the eerie impression she existed only when he saw her in the window, like a character in a play.

With the infinite patience of his trade, Carver stayed where he was for over an hour. He caught a few more glimpses of the redhead. She was wearing a green robe with wide three-quarter-length sleeves, several gold bracelets on her left wrist. Her hair was pulled back and up and lay in a swirl on the crown of her head. She had a pale complexion that made her dark eyes and lipsticked mouth vivid, and despite being too thin, she was attractive.

She didn’t come into view very often, but her shadow was active on the wall. She seemed to sit down for short periods of time in the chair whose back was visible to Carver, then she’d rise and her shadow would flicker across the room.

He pressed the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus as she came into sight again. She stood with her hands on her hips, then her body jerked and she looked toward the front of the house. Someone must be at the door. She moved off in that direction.

When he lowered the binoculars for a moment, he saw the man on the front porch. He drew the dark form into focus just as the door opened. The redhead—Melanie Beame, Carver assumed—stood framed in light that spilled outside to illuminate a short, stocky black man wearing a gray suit. Melanie moved back and he entered the house. The front door closed.

Carver aimed the binoculars again at the side window and saw nothing. Not even moving shadows.

Lowering the binoculars, he studied the layout of the neighboring houses and yards. There was a spot where he might conceal himself in some shrubbery in the yard next to Melanie’s and have a more comprehensive view into the living room. It would be risky, but he didn’t see that he had much choice.

He climbed out of the Olds. Had to stand for a minute and stretch his cramped back muscles before closing the car door quietly and limping away.

A few porch lights were glowing, but no one was on the dark street. He was sure he wasn’t seen as he made his way over the neighbor’s sparse lawn to the dense mass of shrubbery.

There were fragrant blossoms on the bushes, but no thorns. He settled down among the branches and brushed away an insect that skittered across his bare arm, almost dropping the binoculars, catching them by the strap. In the distance a dog was barking frantically, but Carver was sure it had nothing to do with him. The sweet scent of the blossoms tickled his nose, and for a moment he had to resist the urge to sneeze.

He glanced around at the darkness, then raised the binoculars to his eyes and focused on Melanie Beame’s living room. He didn’t like this kind of thing; it made him feel like a voyeur. He wouldn’t want to try explaining his actions if someone saw him and called the police to report a peeping Tom.

Ah! He forgot his uneasiness as Melanie and the black man came into clear view. There was a blanket-draped crib in the room, and Melanie leaned over it and lifted out a baby that looked like Adam Gomez, but Carver couldn’t be sure. Infants tended to look alike to him, miniature old men with fat cheeks. This one had to be Adam, though. The black guy stood by Melanie and stared at the baby, then grinned and moved away.

Melanie put the baby back down. She fiddled around with it, then straightened up and stood for a moment staring down into the crib. The black guy came up behind her and gripped her waist with both hands, as if he might be trying to make his fingertips meet. She turned around, smiling, and he kissed her on the lips. It was a long kiss. Then Melanie and the black guy clung to each other for a while, until he pulled away, said something, and walked out of sight. She yanked the sash of her robe tight and went to the chair Carver could see all of now, plopped down in it, and began reading a glossy magazine. Looked like a
Cosmopolitan.

After about ten minutes her head jerked around and she laid the magazine, still open, on the table with the lamp. Carver knew what was going on; there was somebody else at the front door. He couldn’t see the porch from here, so he stayed focused on the window.

This time it was Beth Gomez, wearing the same khaki pants and white blouse she’d had on when she’d talked to Carver. She said something to Melanie, then walked directly to the crib and gazed down at Adam. She bent low and looked as if she kissed him. Then she stood up straight and tucked in her blouse in back, causing her heavy breasts to strain against the material of the blouse. Carver could see now that Melanie was much shorter than Beth, probably no more than five feet tall, as the two women stood and talked.

They both turned around, away from him; the black guy must have come back into the living room, but Carver couldn’t see him. Melanie walked out of sight. Beth sat down in the chair near the crib and crossed her legs. She picked up the magazine, then put it down almost immediately, as if it bored her. She sat there and stared at Adam.

Carver watched her until she got up and left the room. Lights winked on behind lowered shades in the rear of the house.

He let the binoculars dangle from their leather strap around his neck, grabbed his cane with both hands, and levered himself to a standing position. Listening to his own rapid breathing, he glanced around and then limped back to the Olds.

He sat for a while behind the steering wheel, listening to the screams of a thousand crickets and not moving, itching from the bushes and feeling a rivulet of perspiration trickle down the side of his neck.

So somebody else, the black guy, knew about Beth and Adam staying with Melanie. Beth hadn’t told Carver everything. But she’d been truthful about the rest of it, he figured. She’d really taken courses at the university. And she’d taken a chance by giving him Melanie Beame’s phone number.

He started the Olds, turned it around in a driveway, and returned to the Pelican Motel.

After draping a towel over the air conditioner’s vents to stifle the flow of cold air into the chilled room, he slept nude beneath a single sheet.

Early the next morning, he lowered the Olds’s canvas top and drove fast beneath a swollen gray sky to Orlando.

D
ESOTO WAS DRESSED
in white today except for a pale blue tie: tropical white suit, white-on-white shirt. He sat relaxed behind his desk and smiled with very white teeth.

Carver limped over to the chair near the desk and sat down. Desoto swiveled in his chair and turned down the volume of his Sony; a forlorn Reuben Blades song continued its soft and syncopated Latin beat. The office was cool and smelled pungently like an office, as if somebody had just sharpened a dozen pencils and left the shavings lying about.

Carver crossed his good leg over his bad and said, “The Roberto Gomez thing’s getting complicated.”

Desoto arched his dark eyebrows, still smiling like a Hollywood Golden Era matinee idol. “How so,
amigo
?”

“The wife wants me to protect her from him.”

“No complication there,” Desoto said. “Don’t do it.”

“That’s what I told her the first time she asked. Roberto thinks their baby died just after childbirth because the wife was carrying a secret heroin addiction. That’s why he’s got his troops out searching for her. Why one of them pumped a bullet into her sister, thinking she was Beth.”

“Beth, huh?”

“Elizabeth Gomez.”

“So what’s the problem? She’s hooked that hard on horse, she’ll be dead soon enough. Why doesn’t he just forget her and let her waste away on her own?”

“He’d rather waste her himself. He’s that type.”

“Yeah, he would be. But I tell you,
amigo,
I don’t feel sorry for her, only for the dead kid. Lie down with dogs, rise up with fleas. She got down with rats that carry death, but it was the kid that paid the price. Now let
her
pay. Sorta justice the police don’t necessarily get involved in, but justice nonetheless.”

“The kid didn’t die. I’ve seen him.”

Desoto leaned forward and rested an elbow on his desk, cupping his chin in his hand. “What you trying to tell me, eh?”

“Beth Gomez lied to Roberto and used drug money to bribe her doctor to back her up.”

“Why’d she do that?”

“She wants out of the drug life, for her baby and for herself. She thought Roberto’d think the baby was dead, and that she’d be dead soon enough, so he wouldn’t look for either of them. She didn’t realize how much he’d want revenge. Now she figures if she can manage to stay out of his way for a year or so, he’ll cool off and stop searching. He’ll think she’s probably dead or worse off than dead.”

“Won’t she be?”

“No. She’s not on heroin; he only thinks she is. She’s got no kinda drug habit.”

Desoto sat back and considered. He took his chin out of his hand. “Hey, she’s gotta be shitting you,
amigo
.”

“Why?”

“If she isn’t hooked on drugs, she’s addicted to the money that flows from them, and that’s almost as powerful an addiction. It’s in the blood just as surely. It’s a lust that can’t be denied. This woman was the whore of the scum of south Florida, my friend; do yourself a favor and see her as she is. Don’t trust her.”

Carver said, “She’s not what you’d expect.”

Desoto stared at him, as if comprehending something that was beyond Carver. “Christ!”

“I’m thinking mainly of the kid,” Carver said.

“Gomez won’t hurt the kid.”

“Only raise him as a son.”

“True,
amigo
, there is that.”

“There’s also McGregor. He read about my involvement with Gomez and he wants the lion’s share of the action. Has plans to run for mayor of Del Moray.”

Desoto said, “
Sacro Dios
! He’ll be the head of the rotting fish.”

Carver said, “He told me to keep him tuned in, or he’ll make life hard for me.”

“He can do that,” Desoto said.

“I know. Strait came to see me, too. He wants me to share all my secrets with the DEA.”

“Strait might be a pain in the ass, but he’s not like McGregor.”

Is anyone?

“Maybe Roberto Gomez, only not so devious.”

“McGregor wouldn’t mind the comparison. He thinks being a cop’s the flip side of being a crook.”

“Sometimes that’s the truth. He’s proof of it.” Desoto tilted back his head and seemed to be listening to the music. Voices were raised outside the office; a couple of detectives in an argument about a stakeout. “You came to me for advice,” Desoto said. “I gave it to you. Let the drug woman and her child run the risks she’s created.”

“That what you’d do?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll do as you please, regardless of what I’d do.”

Someone yelled for the arguing detectives to shut up, and they did. There was no noise from outside now except the relentless, ratchety whine of a dot-matrix printer. Song of the Orient.

Carver said, “I wanted you to know what’s happening.”

“So I might cover your ass if at all possible, eh?”

“Yes. And I’d like you not to mention the child’s alive. Give him a chance.”

“And the woman?”

“Give her a chance, too.”

“I’ll say nothing unless I have to. But the Belinda Jackson homicide investigation’s still in progress, you know.”

“You’ll never be able to hang it on Gomez.”

“Not yet, no,” Desoto admitted. “But you’re right, the child deserves a chance in the world.”

“We all deserve that,” Carver said. “Gives us the opportunity to fuck up on our own.”

“Which is what you’re doing if you cross people like Gomez and his friend Hirsh. They’re the worst of the bad. A sadist, and one beyond sadism who’d cut on you as dispassionately as if you were filet mignon.”

Carver uncrossed his legs and stood up with difficulty; his good leg had fallen asleep. He leaned propped on his cane. “I was sure you’d agree with me on the kid.”

“I don’t agree on the woman,” Desoto said. “The high-rolling life she’s led, the millions in drug money, it’s like an unquenchable fire in the blood, even if she’s not addicted to heroin. She’d have to be unusual indeed in order to change.”