Carver glimpsed another, unexpected side to the powerful and fierce-looking Jefferson; he could be, when he chose, a charming and persuasive man.
“What I know,” Carver said, “is that Bert Renway came into my office and hired me to find out why he was hired by you to impersonate Frank Wesley. I took the job, Renway left the office, and got blown up in his-Wesley’s-car before he had a chance to drive away. Only it turns out the autopsy report says the body was Wesley’s. I expect you two had something to do with that.”
Jefferson said, “Everything to do with it.” Palma looked cool, but beads of sweat were tracking down Jefferson’s broad dark face. The sun was getting to him today, making him suffer. But he made no move to take off his suitcoat or even loosen the knot on his tie. Man wouldn’t make concessions even to God.
Carver was slightly outside the shadow cast by the tilted umbrella. His bald head was feeling the heat. The sun was no friend of the hairless. He said, “Let’s go inside and talk.”
Jefferson grinned. Palma made a languid, waving motion with his hand, as if he couldn’t care less where they sat and made conversation.
Carver could feel the two men watching him as he limped ahead of them to the house.
In the living room, Palma sat on the sofa, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. Jefferson remained standing, as did Carver. The sound of the surf was barely audible.
Jefferson mopped perspiration from his face with a wadded white handkerchief, looking for a moment like Louis Armstrong without a trumpet. He said, “Thanks for inviting us in. Nice and cool here.” He stuffed the handkerchief back into a pocket and nodded toward Carver’s cane. “You oughta sit down, take weight off that bad leg.”
Carver said, “I’m fine standing.”
“How’d you hurt the leg?” The good twin asking.
“Guy with a gun hurt it for me.”
Jefferson stared at him, then shrugged almost imperceptibly, as if deciding not to pursue that line of conversation. He glanced instead at Palma.
Palma said, “We’d like to know what you were doing in Atlanta, Carver. Why you paid a visit to Wesley Slaughter and Rendering. Why you went to Frank Wesley’s memorial service.”
“And I’d like to know why you’re asking.”
Jefferson blew out a long breath and shook his head, the picture of exasperation. “It’d sure help if you’d stop being a smartass, Carver. You know how it works. We’re government agents; we ask, you goddamned well better answer, or you’ll wish you had.” Bad twin again.
“I don’t recall breaking any federal laws in Atlanta,” Carver said.
Palma smiled almost sadly. “But you never know, the law being so complicated.”
Jefferson slipped just his fingertips into the rear pockets of his suitpants, the coat folded back and bunched between his wrists. His powerful thigh muscles worked beneath the thin material as he paced a few steps away, then turned and came back.
Now that he’d turned around, he was a different man altogether. Like an impressionist who’d slipped into a new identity. The irritation on his face had been replaced by a peaceful, almost blank expression. Guy was changeable as a chameleon. Now he was oddly amiable. He said, “We know something about you, Carver. Know you’re not some fool. We’re DEA, so you must have figured out by now we’re investigating a narcotics-related crime.”
“I got that one pretty early,” Carver said.
“There’s this group of Southern businessmen,” Jefferson said. “Some twenty-five years ago they formed an organization headquartered in Atlanta.”
“The Southern Christian Businessmen’s League?”
Jefferson pursed his lips and nodded. “That’s the one. After 1973 it ceased to exist-at least publicly. But its core group of very wealthy Southerners remained banded together secretly for mutual profit. For a while it was good old white-collar crime on a high level. Stock manipulation, phantom collateral, political graft. Last year or so, though, they’ve moved to where the big money is. They’re smuggling narcotics into this country. It’s shipped or flown to Mexico, then brought by boat into Florida. A lot of it-we aren’t sure how much-is then transported in various ways to Wesley Slaughter and Rendering. Shipments of animal products from Wesley to certain distributors are as much drugs as pork. Usually the stuff is hidden inside meat products-sausages, pork bellies, what have you.”
Carver asked the obvious. “You know all this, why don’t you stop them?”
“We were in the process of doing that,” Palma said, “when you came along and fucked up the works.”
Carver shifted his weight. Moved the cane and used the toe of his right shoe to scruff out the indentation made by its hard rubber tip in the soft carpet. Nothing Jefferson had said surprised him much, yet there was something about it that didn’t rest level.
He said, “I didn’t come along and do anything. You recall, it was Bert Renway who came along and hired me to find out what was going on. I was sitting there doing nothing when he was blown up outside my office after he paid me to do my job. Which is why I’m doing my job now. Where were you sitting when he was killed? What were you doing?”
For the first time, Palma looked uncomfortable on the sofa. He uncrossed his legs. Crossed them the other way. Adjusted a thin black sock that had slipped down on his ankle. He said, “Your client dies, doesn’t that sorta release you from obligation?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Come on, Carver,” Jefferson said. “You must have a better reason than that to be making our lives difficult.”
Carver considered telling them about McGregor. Serve the conniving bastard right to have the federals on his ass. But that one cut both ways, so he kept silent.
Jefferson said, “Carver?”
“How come you hired Bert Renway to impersonate Wesley?” Carver asked.
“You got this all backward,” Palma said. “We ask, you answer.”
Carver said, “Maybe if I talk to the right people, they’ll ask. Then you’ll have to answer.”
“Threats are something we get a lot of,” Palma said.
Carver placed both hands on the crook of his cane, leaned forward. “Some of them must be more than just threats.”
Jefferson said, “Let’s cool down here.” He moved closer to Carver. Locked gazes with him. There was now something deep and dangerous in Jefferson’s dark eyes. Something as implacable and relentless as time itself. Carver had seen that kind of look before but couldn’t remember where. “About a month ago,” Jefferson said, “Frank Wesley arrived at the condo in Fort Lauderdale. After a few days, he left on a boat that took him to Mexico. From there he was flown to Bogota, Colombia. We had him watched in Bogota, and we hired Renway to take his place in the condo while he was gone. Hired him because he was about Wesley’s age and fit Wesley’s general description amazingly well. Had him wear Wesley’s clothes, drive Wesley’s car. Then we kept him under surveillance to see who’d contact him.”
“Used him as bait,” Carver said in disgust.
Palma said, “We don’t see it like that.”
“Call it what you will,” Jefferson said. “We’re not dealing with Sunday-school teachers, and sometimes we have to use unconventional methods. The Justice Department understands that and gives us leeway.”
“Christ! That much leeway? Methods that unconventional?”
“Sometimes. We’re sorry about Bert Renway. You can believe that or not.”
“So Wesley realized you were on to him, and he decided to stay dead after Renway was killed and mistakenly identified as him. You faked the Miami autopsy report to keep the deception alive.”
“That’s about it.”
“But why do you want Wesley to stay dead?”
“We have our reasons.”
“Such as not wanting anyone to find out you hired Renway?”
“That’s only part of it.”
“But Wesley has to realize somebody must have put Renway up to impersonating him. Somebody must know he isn’t really dead.”