He wasn’t positive he was ready to move, he admitted, but he assured her that if that was his decision, Warwick Village would be the first place he’d look.
Out in the heat, he made sure no one was looking out the window of the realty company, then dropped the sales brochures into a curbside trash receptacle. He got in the Olds, feeling the heat pulsing down on the top of his head through the canvas top, and started the engine. He switched on the air conditioner before maneuvering around the black minivan parked in front of him and pulling out into the stream of traffic.
In his office, Carver called Brant’s cellular phone and reached the developer at Brant Estates. They were pouring concrete for a side street and foundation slabs today, Brant told him, so he’d be at the site for a while. Carver told him about his conversation with Marla.
“Did she strike you as crazy?” Brant asked.
“No. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Have the newspapers or any of the local publications ever done a piece on Brant Development? Or on any of your projects?”
Brant thought for a moment while Carver listened to a loud grinding sound in the background, probably a cement mixer gearing up to pour.
“Other than paid advertising, there’ve been a few articles in the paper. Once a feature on a beachside condo development.”
“Warwick Village?”
“No,” Brant said, “one farther down the coast.” More of the grinding sound of the mixer, an engine being revved up. “Were you at my condo looking for me?”
“Earlier,” Carver said. A half truth. “Do you remember the author of the piece on the other condo project?”
“No, but I think the byline on the feature article was a woman’s.”
“How long ago?”
“I’d say about four years. In the Gazette-Dispatch. I’ve got copies somewhere back at the office.”
“Could it have been written by Marla Cloy?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell, but I suppose it’s possible. I’ll look.”
“Let me know what you find,” Carver said.
He hung up, then lifted the receiver again. Ordinarily he would have called Beth. Instead, he punched out the number of Lloyd Van Meter in Miami.
Carver didn’t remember much about Laura’s pregnancies. Anyway, Laura wasn’t Beth. He wasn’t sure how much he should call on Beth to do. Not that she wouldn’t do it; she was tough and, as she’d said herself, in denial sometimes about her condition. But threats had been made. Or a double game was being played by Marla, which could be even more dangerous. He had to remember that with Beth he might be putting two lives in danger.
Van Meter, who was perhaps the most successful private investigator in Florida, had offices in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. His headquarters was in Miami, but he wasn’t there. His secretary told Carver she’d have Van Meter call him from his car phone.
Carver thanked her and replaced the receiver, wondering when he was going to have to buy a cellular phone so he could chat while he drove. He would have to become part of this fast-developing mobile technology or be run over by it. He didn’t want to become road kill on the information superhighway.
He did paperwork until Van Meter called him just before noon.
“Been a long time,” Van Meter said. He must have had a terrific car phone; he sounded as if he were leaning over Carver’s right shoulder, Carver could picture the obese Van Meter with his flowing white beard, half reclined behind the steering wheel of his big Cadillac, his thick arm draped limp-wristed over the top of the wheel. He didn’t know quite how to dress Van Meter in his vision; Van Meter always surprised. He was a flagrant violator of every rule of style and color. He usually looked as if he’d gotten dressed in a kaleidoscope.
“I need some help here in Del Moray,” Carver said.
“That’s the only reason you ever call, because you need help. What kind of pickle are you in this time?”
“I need someone followed, and I can’t do it myself.”
“Why not?”
“I’m following somebody else.”
“What about Beth? She busy too?”
“She’s pr-Yeah, she’s busy, doing a piece for Burrow about the Everglades drying up.”
“Good for her. The wetlands are disappearing faster than Disney World is growing. And we need one more’n the other.”
“I didn’t know you were a conservationist.”
“I’m not. I like alligators.”
“As shoes, you mean. What about my request?”
“Well, I got a good man in Orlando can drive over and take up the task. You know Charley Spotto?”
Carver did. Spotto was a brash little man with a huge mustache, gimlet eyes, and the heart of a terrier. “Sure. He’ll do fine.”
From the corner of his eye Carver noticed a black minivan make a right turn into the parking lot.
“Give me the name and address of whoever you want watched,” Van Meter said. “Spotto will be on him like a second skin he doesn’t know he has.”
Carver gave him Brant’s name, then his home and office addresses, as well as a physical description.
“This guy dangerous?” Van Meter asked.
“I don’t know. That’s one thing I’m trying to find out.”
“Okay, Spotto should be there by late afternoon.”
“Usual rate for this, Lloyd?”
“Of course. I didn’t think you were asking for a favor. You’re too proud.”
Carver hung up, thinking that sometimes Van Meter sounded a lot like Beth.
He resumed trying to clear his desk of paperwork, then he suddenly realized he’d slapped lunch and was hungry. Quickly he placed everything in a semblance of order beneath a paperweight that had been a gift from his daughter, Ann. It was one of those glass globes with miniature buildings in it and imitation snowflakes that swirled around when it was shaken. Carver had moved it enough to cause flurries. He sat thinking about Ann in St. Louis, where some winters a lot of snow fell, and long, gray stretches of cold kept it from melting.
The snowfall in the globe held him hypnotized until it ended.
He was reaching for his cane to stand up and go out into the searing Florida heat when the door opened and the biggest man Carver had ever seen ducked his head to enter the office.
18
He was even taller than McGregor, and wide, without a hint of excess flesh anywhere. He wore filth-encrusted jeans and a dirty, wool-lined distressed leather vest without a shirt. At the end of each muscle-corded long arm was a huge hand with hairy-knuckled fingers like sausages. On his feet were immense white sneakers, loosely laced and with their tongues hanging out as if they were exhausted just from transporting him around all day. As he stepped farther into the office, Carver saw that he wasn’t wearing socks.
“Help you?” Carver asked.
The man laughed, almost a giggle. The shrill sound, so incongruous coming from such a mountain, made the flesh on the nape of Carver’s neck crawl.
Carver stood up, not quite leaning on his cane, keeping his weight balanced and his grip tight so he could lash out with force with the hard walnut if the man meant him harm.
The man did mean him harm. His wide face, guileless as a child’s and marked with blackheads and a smudge of grease on the bridge of his nose, broke into what appeared to be a mindless smile. His eyes were so pale they could hardly be called blue or gray; they were almost one with the whites so that Carver couldn’t even be sure they were trained on him. He moved toward Carver with confidence and a surprising liquid grace. When he drew back a gigantic fist, Carver shifted his weight and swung the cane hard, using both hands.
The fist opened in a flash and caught the cane. It was snatched from Carver’s grip as if he’d been fishing and hooked a shark. The man snapped the cane in half and tossed it in a corner, then effortlessly kicked the desk aside so he’d have more room. Carver had been leaning with his thigh against the desk and would have fallen, only one of the giant hands grabbed the front of his shirt and supported him. He punched the man’s stomach, and pain lamed his right hand and wrist as he made contact with a large silver belt buckle.