Burn (28 page)

As he was standing at the commode relieving himself, he heard the phone trill again. It stopped after two rings. Beth must not have been sleeping as deeply as he’d thought.

By the time he’d returned to the bedroom, she was sitting cross-legged on his side of the bed with the reading lamp on, holding the receiver to her ear with a hunched shoulder while she wrote with a pencil on the back of a magazine she’d managed to find.

She said “Owe you” into the phone, then smiled and hung up.

She stared at the magazine in her lap for a few seconds, as if double checking her information, then looked up at Carver. “Marla and Portia Zahn,” she said.

“What?”

“That was Jeff Mehling on the phone. He’s been at his computer almost all day and worked his way back to Marla’s and Portia’s birth records. They were born within a year of each other in Winter Haven, Florida. Same mother and father. Jeff said the Zahns’ car was struck broadside by a tractor-trailer when the girls were eighteen months and seven months old. They were the only survivors. Since they had no other family, they became wards of the state and were put up for adoption.”

Then it was true.

Carver shifted weight over his cane and limped to the bed, but he didn’t sit or lie down.

“Sisters,” he said. “Jesus!”

He remembered again the alcohol level in Brant’s blood after the accident that killed Portia. Marla, for that or for whatever reason, might blame Brant for her sister’s death.

Brant was probably unaware that Portia had a sister. Maybe Portia had been unaware of Marla’s existence. Adoption agencies invariably made the effort to begin their charges’ lives anew, especially if they were infants, to sever the past from them the way the umbilical cord had been cut to detach them completely from life in the womb. Like a second birth. It might be a necessary policy, but it could later cause pain and problems.

Carver turned and moved to where his pants were folded over a chair.

“Where are you going?” Beth asked when she saw he intended getting dressed.

He sat down on the bed and quickly worked his legs into his pants, got them all the way on, then zipped them and fastened his belt. It was more of a struggle to get his socks on, but he was used to that, too.   

“Fred?” Beth said.

He slipped his feet into black leather moccasins. “I’m going to see if Marla’s returned home. If she has, I plan to confront her with the evidence that she’s Portia Brant’s sister, blames Joel Brant for the accident that killed Portia, and is setting him up for a vengeance killing.”

He knew she was watching as he worked his muscular upper body into a black T-shirt, then used his fingers to smooth back the thick hair above his ears.

He went to the bed and picked up the Colt from beside the clock radio on the table. Oiled metal clucked and clacked smoothly as he jacked a round into the chamber. Then he showed Beth where the safety was located and how it worked. He knew she was familiar with firearms, but he wasn’t sure she knew about this one. “I’m leaving this with you in case Achilles Jones happens to show up.”

“I know how to use it,” she said.

He almost told her not to hesitate if she had time to shoot, then he realized there was no need. She wouldn’t hesitate, and her aim would be steady.

At least, the aim of the former, nonpregnant Beth would have been steady.

“What makes you think Marla might be home?” she asked.

“If what I suspect is true, she only pretended to leave town because that’s what a terrified woman would do. She actually wants Joel Brant to find her. On her terms and home turf.”

He made sure he had his wallet and keys, then he got a firm handhold on his cane and headed for the door.

Behind him Beth said, “None of it’s going to be that simple, Fred.”

He didn’t look back. “Why not?”

“Because it never is. You know that.”

He did know it, but not the way she did. His heart had never learned.

The night was warm and the stars were bright and seemed to float low and huge, like the diffuse globs of yellow that were stars in a Van Gogh painting. There was very little breeze now.

Finally, theory suited probability. As he gunned the Olds’s engine to follow its headlight beams to Jacaranda Lane, he thought Beth might be wrong.

Sometimes, when you pulled the right lever or pushed the right button, it was precisely that simple.

Sometimes.

C
ARVER PARKED HALF
a block away from Marla Cloy’s house on Jacaranda. If she was home, he didn’t want to chance her seeing him drive up. She might decide to leave by the back door.

He climbed out of the Olds and made his way along the uneven sidewalk, feeling the slant of its cracked and jagged planes of concrete through his cane. The air was thick and still. There weren’t enough street lights on Jacaranda, and only a few of the houses showed light at their windows. People here went to bed early. Cicadas screamed and ratcheted in the dark yards behind the houses and in the shadowed palm fronds above Carver, but that was the only sound.

As he neared Marla’s house, he noticed that the sidewalk and street were brighter there. And there was a strange orange cast to the light. He glanced up to see if it was coming from an overhead street lamp, but he saw only stars and a silhouetted palm tree.

Then he noticed that the orange glow was flickering.

Almost simultaneously, he realized something else. The cicadas had stopped their relentless mating scream and the night was quiet.

A slight sound or movement made him turn around just in time to see the massive, shadowed form of Achilles Jones emerge from the darkness of the bushes between two houses.

Carver stopped and stood still, gripping his cane tighter just below its crook, wishing he hadn’t left the Colt with Beth.

Beth, who’d known it wouldn’t be simple.

Jones said nothing as he advanced. He was limping badly, and when he got within ten feet of Carver the faint light shone on a white gauze bandage that covered one eye. There was a long gash across his forehead. Another was visible on his bare stomach where his wool-lined leather vest was ripped away to hang like a flap of skin. He looked like hell. He was hell.

He said nothing, only growled, as he launched himself at Carver.

Carver stuck the cane out like a spear then pulled it back, causing the giant to hesitate, allowing Carver to barely avoid the swipe of his huge arm. Injuries had slowed the big man, taken the edge off the smooth flow of his great strength, but he was still a dangerous force, like a grizzly bear on an off day.

Carver jabbed again, quickly, and felt the cane make contact with Jones’s face. He pushed off Jones, reeled, and almost fell, but regained his balance. Jones stumbled on his bad leg and banged into the side of a parked car, leaving a shallow dent in its door and sinking to the ground. Carver thought inanely that Jones was death on vehicles.

Jones reached up with a plate-sized hand and grabbed a door handle to pull himself up. Before he could get completely to his feet, Carver moved toward him, jabbing at his face again with the cane, yanking it back just in time to avoid Jones’s frantic attempts to grab it. The best Jones seemed able to do was brush the cane as if by accident. Carver realized that with one eye bandaged Jones had no depth perception. If he could spike the other eye, he’d blind the giant completely and have a chance to survive. He doubled his efforts, zeroing in on the unbandaged eye.

Jones realized what Carver was doing. He roared like a tortured beast in his frustration as he tried to protect his eye and figure out where the cane was so he could snatch it away from Carver. The cane’s tip missed the good eye but bounced off the bridge of Jones’s nose and struck the bandaged eye. Jones yelled in pain and instinctively raised his arms to shield his face. Carver whipped the cane hard across Jones’s legs, hoping he’d hit the injured one, and Jones slid back down to a sitting position from where he’d been leaning with his back against the parked car.

Carver was breathing hard now, feeling the strain in his arms and good leg. Maintaining his balance after each strike with the cane took tremendous effort, and he was sweating heavily and tiring. He had to back up a step and try to catch his breath and regain a firm grip on the hard walnut cane.

Jones grinned, seeing that Carver was almost spent. He rolled to the side and gained his feet, listing to the left and teetering for a moment. Then, still with his eerie, vacuous grin, he lurched toward the exhausted and vulnerable Carver, risking a chance injury to the good eye, his arms spread wide so Carver couldn’t avoid their terrible reach.

But Carver didn’t jab at the eye. He faked with the cane as if to strike at the legs again, and Jones dropped his arms for a second. That was when Carver raised the level of the cane and lashed it sideways with all his might as if it were a baseball bat, knowing it was his last chance.

He felt the shock of the blow connecting and heard the cartilage-cracking sound of Jones’s larynx being crushed.

Jones gave a ghastly, choking gurgle and stood very still except for both his huge hands fluttering with a weird delicacy at his throat, as if feeling for something that wasn’t there. The slowly comprehending expression on his face said he knew he’d been badly hurt. Maybe he sensed already that it had been a death blow, the way fatally injured animals somehow knew.

The effort of the swing had caused Carver to lose his balance and fall. He raised himself to his feet with the cane and waited for Jones to drop, seeing behind him the flickering orange glare from the flames consuming Marla Cloy’s house. He became aware of several people standing outside their houses, unmoving on porches and lawns. Sirens were screaming, drawing near. Flashing lights illuminated the end of the block, and a yellow Del Morray fire engine blasted its horn and roared around the corner.

At the sound of the sirens, then the blaring horn, Jones gazed incredulously at Carver with eyes like clouded glass. Instead of toppling like an ordinary man, the giant staggered into the street, trying to escape, his hands now clawing desperately at his ruined throat. He was a creature of raw will. He’d been dealt death, but life was a force in him.

With an undeniable admiration that he tried to ignore, Carver limped past him, toward Marla’s house. His injured ribs were aching again, as if he’d just been struck there.

Above the wail of sirens he heard tires screech and air brakes hiss, and without slowing down he glanced to the side and saw Jones raise his arms high and go down beneath the gleaming front bumper of a huge yellow vehicle lettered
4TH DIST. LADDER.
Voices shouted and there was a rush of activity behind Carver as he reached Marla’s front yard and hobbled toward the tiny porch with its dead potted plants.

Every window in the house was illuminated, making it look oddly like a child’s doll house lit by a single bulb. Flames were visible only on the driveway side. They licked at the overhang and roof shingles. One of the drooping canvas awnings was ablaze. Marla’s old Toyota was parked in the drive, glowing embers scattered over its roof and hood and twinkling like Christmas decorations.

Marla must be inside, maybe still alive. Carver tried the front door and found it unlocked. Its tarnished brass doorknob was warm, but not painful to touch. He opened the door and limped inside, crouching awkwardly so he could get beneath the swirling black smoke that pressed against the ceiling and halfway down the walls. He knew the thick layer of smoke was moving lower; he didn’t have much time. Heat grabbed at his right side with a pain like the brutal pinch of flesh. His bare right arm and the right side of his neck felt as if hot coals were being pressed to them. He saw flames glaring at him through the smoke.

Marla was easy enough to find.

So was Joel Brant.

They were lying side by side on the living room floor. Both looked dead, but Carver couldn’t be sure. Marla was on her back, and Brant was curled on his side as if napping, his head cradled in the crook of his arm.

Carver got down on his hands and his good knee, his stiff leg trailing behind him, and crawled over to Marla. When he was a few feet from her, he stopped. Her eyes were open and not seeing anything. Brant’s eyes were open, too. He seemed to be staring directly at Marla, but he wasn’t.

The black pall was swirling lower, and Carver’s breath rasped as he drew in smoke-tainted air that felt hot inside his chest. He could hear flames crackling, and the heat was searing. He reached out a hand to grab Brant’s wrist, imagining with some strange reflexive responsibility to a client that he might be able to drag the body outside and save it from the fire. But he saw the hair on his own forearm sizzle and blacken, and he withdrew his hand and began crawling toward the door.

Something rolled painfully between his left palm and the floor, almost causing him to fold over onto his side. Then he realized it was his cane. He jammed its tip against the floor and tried to stand and make better time, but the air was much hotter even a few feet above the floor, the smoke so dense he began gagging and coughing immediately and had to drop back down. Holding the cane out in front of him, he dragged himself on his elbows and good knee toward where he thought the door must be, knowing that if he lost direction in the smoke, he was dead.

The cane jerked around in his hand, and at first he thought someone was trying to snatch it away from him. Achilles Jones, somehow still alive! Like in one of those protracted Hollywood thriller endings when the villain is presumed dead but keeps getting back up.

Then a voice said, “Come on! This way, goddamnit!”

Carver laced his fingers and held tight to the crook of the cane with both hands as a powerful force drew him forward. Hands clutched his shirt, then his upper arms, and he let himself be dragged outside. One of his moccasins came off, then the other.

He rolled onto his back, staring up at the stars and trying to suck in the sweet nectar of clear night air. But he couldn’t seem to get any. He coughed three times, then he began to choke.

Something was placed over his mouth and nose. A figure in a yellow slicker was bending over him. “Easy now! Easy, bub! Breath in easy. ...”