“You got no business here,” the black one said to Carver. He didn’t holster his gun, held it as if it were locked onto Carver with radar.
“Then I suppose I better leave,” Carver said tentatively. Damned if he’d say please.
Somehow without moving the gun, the black man shrugged. How’d he do that? “Ain’t nothing to keep you here, Carver. Nothing to make you come back. Wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say.”
“We got us an understanding?”
“I’d say that, too.”
“Go back to following wayward spouses, that kinda thing,” the Latino said. “Live longer, man. Maybe even get prosperous, you peek through the right keyhole.”
“Don’t trip and fall on your way out,” the black one said. Carver turned, limped to the door, and opened it. Trying not to hurry. Salvage a shred of dignity.
The tenseness left his back muscles only after he was in the hall and had closed the door behind him. Out on the sidewalk, he found himself hurrying to where the Olds was parked. Worked up a sweat.
He drove back to the Carib Terrace and locked his door. Wedged a chair under the knob. Made sure the sliding glass door to the patio and beach was locked.
Then he got undressed and went to bed, and was vaguely surprised to feel himself relax.
He knew if the two men in Wesley’s condo had wanted him dead, he’d already be dead. They gave the impression they were experienced. Experts at their work. The fact that he was still alive meant they wouldn’t come around to see him again unless they thought he hadn’t been scared off the case.
Repeating that comforting thought like a mantra, he fell asleep.
In the morning he showered and dressed, then checked out of the motel.
He had a breakfast of waffles, bacon, and freshly squeezed orange juice at a coffee shop on Ocean Boulevard.
It was quiet in the coffee shop, and narrow-slatted blinds were angled to deflect the brilliant morning sun. Carver took his time eating. The food tasted terrific, maybe because he was so glad he was still alive to enjoy it.
When he was finished, he ordered a second cup of coffee and unfolded the Fort Lauderdale newspaper he’d bought at the vending machine outside. Accidentally laid it in some spilled syrup and moved it aside.
A follow-up story on the Del Moray car bombing was at the bottom of page three. That was because there wasn’t much in the way of new information.
Only that the victim had been positively identified from dental records as Frank Wesley.
Chapter 9
Though it was only one in the afternoon, it seemed like dusk in Carver’s office. The broken window had been boarded up and would be replaced tomorrow. Apparently there was a rash of broken windows in Del Moray, according to the management company that leased Carver’s office. So for the time being he had to make do with a sheet of rough plywood lettered BILL’S BOARD-UP instead of glass. It made the office gloomy and claustrophobic.
Even more claustrophobic when the towering, lanky form of McGregor strolled in. The glow of the desk lamp was projected at an upward angle on his long face and made him look even more grotesque than in natural light. A sort of stretched-out Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera. His cheap brown suitcoat was flapping open, his red tie was loosely knotted, and there were dark perspiration stains around his unbuttoned collar. He didn’t look happy.
He said, “Jesus H. Christ, it’s hot in here.”
“Just seems that way,” Carver said. “Because of the window being boarded up.”
“The way your landlord jumped to fix the place, you must really have some clout.”
“I paid the rent,” Carver said. “That oughta be clout enough to have a window.”
“That’s just how jerk-offs like you think.” McGregor puckered his lips as if he might spit. But he didn’t. Surprising. “Ninety-fuckin’-five degrees outside and I figured if I had to talk to an asshole like you it’d at least be cool in your office; instead you give me this.” He waved a long, encompassing arm; looked as if he might touch the opposite wall. “Damned wreck of a sweatbox.”
“Humble but home,” Carver said, kind of enjoying McGregor’s discomfort.
“Would be home to a shrimp-brain like you.” McGregor stood with his fists on his hips in front of Carver’s desk. Glanced left and right and said, “Least you picked up around the place. Or do you have maid service?”
“Janitor service,” Carver said, “but I did my own neatening up this time.”
“Ain’t you exactly the type?” McGregor peeled off his suitcoat, revealing his shoulder-holstered Police Special, and dark crescents of perspiration on his shirt below his armpits. No deodorant was a match for him. The movement of air he stirred up brought the unwashed scent of him to Carver. Carver’s stomach lurched and the faint ringing in his ears began again. “Let’s get to why I came here,” McGregor hissed through the space between his front teeth. “You said on the phone you had something to tell me. So get fuckin’ talking. And you better explain to me how it is the autopsy report says the guy got blown up in the Caddie actually was Frank Wesley and not Bert Renway, like you said. Play goddamn games with me, shithead, you’re gonna lose hard.”
Carver felt a rush of disgust, not just directed at McGregor, but also at himself for being involved with the unethical police lieutenant. Carver had taken police work seriously, and, maybe naively, had seen it as a service to a beleaguered society. McGregor took only McGregor seriously and saw his job as a service only to himself, at any cost to anyone else. Justice was something to be avoided; she was blindfolded and might trample anyone.
Swiveling in his desk chair, Carver switched on the plastic electric fan on the nearby file cabinet. It gave a low hum and rattle and began to oscillate. The fan was a cheap one without a place to oil the motor. He wondered how long it would last.
McGregor flashed his gap-toothed smile. “Whazza matter, fuckface? I thought you said it was cool enough in this shoebox you call an office.”
Carver said, “It is. But this puts me upwind of you.”
Not at all insulted, McGregor widened his smile. Got his tongue into the act by thrusting it to peek between his front teeth like a curious pink viper. “You saying I forgot my Right Guard?”
“You smell as corrupt as you are,” Carver told him.
Unfazed, McGregor said, “Corrupt, huh? Maybe your price ain’t been offered yet. So what? Everybody’s corrupt, dumbshit. Even preachers’ll tell you that. How they make their living. Original fuckin’ sin and all.” He crossed his long arms. “You and me are part of the same ooze, Carver. Difference is, you pretend otherwise. If you want your delusions, okay. Just don’t bore me with ’em. Hypocritical fuckers like you make me wanna puke all over myself.”
“Who’d notice?”
McGregor loomed closer and sat on the edge of the desk, still with his arms crossed. Something about his posture reminded Carver of a perched and waiting vulture. The rancid stench of the man was almost overwhelming. He said, “Sooner we get to the point, sooner I’ll be outa your office. Unless you’d rather keep trying to convince yourself you’re somehow better’n me.”
McGregor was right about getting the conversation over as quickly as possible, Carver thought. He tried not to think about what else McGregor had said, afraid he might be right about that, too.
Carver told him what had happened in Fort Lauderdale at Frank Wesley’s condo. Gave him a description of the two men with guns who’d been waiting in the dark when the door opened.
When he was finished, McGregor bowed his head. Rubbed his long chin with his thumb and said, “You mean you got no idea who those two guys were?”
“The Latin one might be Ralph Palmer, the man who hired Bert Renway. Why don’t you check out the name, see if there’s a sheet on him?”