Sweat was trickling down Carver’s ribs and the inside of his right arm. “I’ll go on up to their unit now,” he said, “if it’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” the guard said, stepping completely off the walk and onto the thick grass to let the cripple pass. “Hope there’s no kinda trouble for Beth Ghostly, though.”
“I hope so, too,” Carver said, meaning it. He limped through glaring sunlight toward the pale, far building.
Ghostly hadn’t supplied him with a key, but that was okay. Cheap apartment locks gave easily to Carver’s honed Visa card. Only dead-bolt locks frustrated him, but most of the time they were mounted on interior doors separately, above the main knob and lock.
Carver had the door unlocked in less than a minute. He shoved it open and noticed immediately that the air was stale and motionless. Warm, too. The thermostat had been set to Off or turned up.
He planted the tip of his cane and moved inside, then stood braced on the cane in the condo’s spacious living room and glanced around.
The place was wall-to-wall glitz, but expensive glitz. Ghostly must do better than all right selling medical supplies. The carpet was lavender, the ceiling-to-floor drapes cream-colored with bright flecks that matched the carpet. The wallpaper was fuzzy, white cardboardlike stuff shot through with silver that appeared to be real metal.
The furniture was made up of leather and glass and sharp angles of stainless steel. A long, low sofa dominated the room, white leather with gleaming steel arms, crowded with a scattering of lavender throw pillows. In front of it was a steel-framed coffee table with a glass top and glassed-in sides. The glass-enclosed cubicle contained an ornate and colorful arrangement of plastic flowers and fake butterflies. The wide window’s drapes were open, admitting brilliant sunlight that made the wallpaper glitter. There were several chrome-framed oil paintings on the wall. One of them was of a bullfighter victoriously holding high the slain bull’s severed ears while an array of flowers and hats rained down on him from an admiring crowd. The bullfighter was wearing a crooked grin and looked a bit like Bob Ghostly.
Carver limped across the living room to a hall that led toward what he presumed was the bedroom, noticing there was a thin, almost imperceptible layer of dust over everything, which robbed it of truly eye-aching luster. He glanced in the bathroom and saw a maroon hot tub for two, a washbasin shaped like a flower, gold plumbing. The wallpaper in there was fuzzy, too. It had a fleur-de-lis design. Hey, French!
No wallpaper in the bedroom, but it was painted a pale rose and all the furniture was white. The bed was round with a white spread and resembled a huge mushroom that had sprung up from the carpet. Carver went to it and rested a palm on it. The wide expanse of spread undulated; a water bed. He glanced up and saw himself. A mirrored ceiling. Sure.
His cane left quarter-size depressions in the thick rose carpet as he limped toward the mirrored closet doors. He shoved the nearer door open on its rollers and saw men’s suits and sport coats. A lot of them, and of good quality. The closet was set up with those white wire shelves and drawers for maximum use of space. One shelf contained half a dozen pairs of men’s shoes, all of them black except for a pair of gray Etonic joggers with thick white soles.
Carver slid the door closed smoothly on its growling rollers, then opened the other door.
Beth’s side of the closet. Dresses, silky blouses, a pair of designer jeans on a slacks hanger. High-heeled shoes on the shelf that corresponded to her husband’s shoe shelf. Size seven and a half. Expensive brands.
Carver limped to the dresser and carefully searched through its drawers. Silk lingerie, folded slacks, one drawer containing nothing but panty hose. Bras in a middle drawer; Carver couldn’t help but notice they were size 36-D. In the top drawer was a white leather jewelry box full of what looked like genuine stuff that had to be worth a small fortune. Maybe a large fortune. Folded next to the padded box was a cheap white T-shirt with one of those yellow smiley faces on it. There was a gory bullet hole in Smiley’s forehead, from which ran a trickle of blood. Carver was glad he’d found the T-shirt; it somehow humanized Beth Ghostly. Everything else in the apartment seemed to belong to a Saks mannequin who used the place to store goodies between jobs posing in show windows.
The atmosphere in the bedroom was so stifling that Carver considered finding the thermostat and setting it so the air conditioner came on. Then he decided he wasn’t going to be here much longer. He limped back toward the living room, making not a sound on the deep carpet.
He was standing in the living room and taking a last look around when he happened to glance out the window. It looked out over the parking lot. On the curved sidewalk, near where Carver had talked with the security guard, a black woman was standing and talking with a woman in a red bathing suit. From up here the palm fronds partially blocked his view and he couldn’t tell what either woman looked like; he remembered Ghostly saying there were other black residents in Beau Capri now.
Carver moved back from the window and was about to leave the condo when he decided he might as well use the bathroom. It seemed a shame to let all that gold plumbing sit idle.
He’d just finished relieving himself, and was about to flush the toilet, when he heard a noise from the living room. Not loud, but it sounded like the door closing.
He zipped his fly and backed away from the commode.
Moving close to the door, he found an angle of vision that allowed him to see about half of the living room. The garish glass coffee table. Part of the low white sofa with its lineup of throw pillows.
He caught a flicker of shadow and pressed his body back just in time not to be seen by the woman who hurried down the hall to the bedroom, leaving in her wake a strong perfume scent that smelled like roses. She hadn’t glanced in the bathroom, and Carver had caught only a glimpse of her. He didn’t think she was Beth Ghostly. She had on a dark skirt and a blue sleeveless blouse. He thought she was probably the black woman he’d seen standing and talking on the sidewalk below the window.
As he was considering sneaking out while she was occupied in the bedroom, the smooth scraping noises of drawers opening and closing came to him. Something about the sounds suggested a certain familiarity; there was a hurried sureness about them that implied the woman was in her own bedroom. Maybe this was Elizabeth Ghostly. Photographs could deceive.
He decided to confront the woman, whoever she was, but not quite yet. He eased out into the hall, catching a glimpse of her. She had her back to him, leaning over the bed and stuffing clothes into a suitcase. Dark arms, lean waist and flared hips. Carver limped into the living room and stood against the wall by the door, partially concealed by a curio cabinet cluttered with Hummel figurines and crystal birds. A glass owl stared knowingly at him as he waited for the woman to emerge from the bedroom.
Almost five minutes had crawled past on Carver’s Seiko watch when she trudged out carrying two matching red suitcases that were obviously heavy. The scent of roses came with her. She was tall, maybe five-ten, thin-limbed but busty, and perspiring heavily from her efforts in the warm bedroom. She wasn’t Elizabeth Ghostly; her features were broader and her eyes smaller and more deeply set. She had on very red lipstick that looked wet.
She put the suitcases down, still not seeing Carver, and wiped the back of her hand across her glistening forehead. Said, “Holy Jesus!” apparently commenting to herself on the heat, and walked over to the window. A graceful walk, now that she wasn’t burdened by the suitcases. She glanced out the window in all directions, as if to make sure no one was out there waiting for her.
Then she turned around and saw Carver.
Shock hollowed her out; the vacuum caused an intake of breath that shrieked in the quiet room.