He glanced up through the branches and caught a glimpse of the plane. It was climbing steeply, heading north.
After a few minutes the drone of its engine faded and died. Carver was alone in the heat and silence.
He straightened up and limped toward the house.
The closer he got, the more it struck him that there was an air of desolation about the clapboard structure. Paint was faded and peeling. A section of gutter over the porch sagged wearily. Up close, the front-porch screen appeared even rustier and there were gaping holes in it.
Moving quietly, he made his way to the shade side of the house and peered in through a dusty window.
Nothing.
Not even furniture visible through the dimness. Carver limped around to the front of the house, up the slanted wooden steps, and through the screen door onto the porch. The porch floor wood was rotted. A dusky palmetto bug at least an inch long crawled sluggishly into a shadowy gap near the front wall. At first Carver thought the door to the cabin was open, then he saw that there was no door. It was leaning against the opposite wall and draped with cobwebs. He went inside, his cane making hollow thumps on the plank floor. Wiped his forehead. Stood in muted light and stifling heat and listened to the steady drone of flies. What was drawing them were several crumpled white McDonald’s bags in a corner. An open foam container that held traces of a hamburger. Lettuce, something gooey-maybe cheese. A few curved strands of onion stuck to the Styrofoam. There were footprints in the dust on the floor. Two sets of men’s. One of a woman’s high heels. Against a wall was an old oak table, a couple of wooden chairs. A chair lay on its side like something dead near the table. Sunlight lanced through a hole in the roof and spread a bright puddle of light near the upended chair. Dust motes swam where the sun penetrated.
Obviously the cabin itself was unimportant, and the citrus trees primarily cover for a landing site.
As he limped back outside into brighter air and lesser heat, Carver asked himself what he’d expected to find. Bales of marijuana? Kilos of cocaine? The Southern Christian Businessmen’s League would run a narcotics operation that was too efficient and sophisticated to play so loosely with its product.
He used his tongue to work grit from his teeth and then spat. Moved down the narrow, dusty road toward the highway. Limping in the same tire track he’d used to guide him to the parked Lincoln and the desolate house.
Laboring with his cane, he remembered the hulking, primal form of Butcher loping effortlessly through the haze, and he shivered in the heat.
Chapter 23
Carver drove toward Orlando, stopping once at a roadside restaurant to wash the dust from his throat with iced tea and eat a club sandwich for lunch. The restaurant was called Citrus Charlie’s and featured orange juice drinks with every meal, some of them innovative. Fancied itself a family establishment, according to scrawled lettering on the orange-colored menu. Below “Desserts,” right under “Orange Dip Delite,” was written “Jesus Saves,” as if He were a regular customer and always ordered the special.
There were orange THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING signs all over the place, so after eating, Carver paid his check and limped outside. Glared up at the orange sun, and then stood in the shade of the souvenir shop built onto the side of the rough-cedar building and smoked a Swisher Sweet cigar. Watched the traffic on the highway. Lots of campers and motor homes out today. Northerners dumb enough to come to Florida in the summer.
Even in the shade, the sun got to be too much after about five minutes, so he flicked the cigar butt away and got back in the Olds.
It wasn’t much cooler in there. Carver started the car and got back on the sun-blanched highway. The Olds’s prehistoric engine didn’t mind the heat. Not like a little four-cylinder, flailing away at peak efficiency just to hold the speed limit.
He set the air conditioner on high, and after about twenty minutes he could touch the vinyl upholstery without burning himself.
Today it was marimba music. A syncopated song of lament throbbing like a strong but irregular heartbeat from the portable radio on the sill behind Desoto’s desk. Next to it the yellow ribbons tied to the air conditioner grill whipped from side to side like pennants in a sea breeze. Made the office look cool, anyway.
Desoto sat behind the desk thinking about what Carver had just told him. He had his white shirtsleeves rolled up in concession to the heat, but his ice-blue silk tie remained tightly knotted. He was even wearing a thin gold tie bar to keep the knot at a stylish angle.
When Carver was done talking, Desoto said, “Sometimes they’re like wolves, amigo. They just lie back and watch. Nothing happens till you run, then they give chase.”
“You saying I should leave Edwina in Del Moray?”
“Might be the best thing. You gonna tell her she’s been photographed and is being watched?”
“I don’t know yet how to play it,” Carver said, “I’m not sure I should tell her.”
“She’ll be pissed off if you don’t.”
“Pissed off if I do. And she might try something stupid, like confronting Butcher.” Jesus, earlobes!
Desoto leaned back in his chair. Laced his fingers behind his head carefully and lightly, so as not to muss his sleek dark hair. More a pose than a relaxed attitude. As if there might be some photographer sneaking around here, snapping shots for a most-eligible-bachelor calendar. He said, “I think you should bring McGregor into this. Let him assign somebody undercover to protect her.”
“I thought of that. Don’t like it but I might do it.”
“As it is, you got no choice but to play along with the Atlanta crowd. You’ll be spying on the DEA while the government knows about it. Spying on the Wesley operation all the time you’re doing that.” He shot Carver his matinee-idol smile. Handsome matador out of place and costume. “What’s that mean, I wonder; you’re a double agent? Triple?”
Carver said, “Means I’m in the middle.”
Desoto brought his arms around in front of him and sat forward. Folded his hands on the desk. The breeze from the air conditioner stirred the dark hair on his right forearm. The marimba band harmonized softly and earnestly in Spanish. “This citrus ranch with the deserted house,” Desoto said, “you think it’s nothing but a drug drop?”
“I don’t know. Seems to me it’s too dangerous to be used as that. More likely a place for small aircraft to land so they can shuttle people in and out of Florida without drawing attention. Speaking of which . . .”
“I checked as soon as you phoned from the restaurant,” Desoto said. “Vincent Butcher took a twelve-thirty commercial flight back to Atlanta. Looks like his job was to fly down early and set up a rental car, so Ogden and Courtney Romano could get here at their convenience and he could pick them up when they landed. Play the chauffeur.”
“These people,” Carver said, “they’ve got clout and balls. They know the DEA’s watching them and still they plan on operating.”
“Not balls,” Desoto said, “it’s the money. So much money they don’t have the balls to turn away from it. So they chance almost anything. Do almost anything to anybody. The profit’s the thing, so fuck the risk. It clouds their thinking, amigo. Gives the good guys the advantage in the war on drugs and creates the impression it’s a war that can be won.”
“You don’t think it can be?”
Desoto shook his head sadly. “Ever see the monthly statistics on drugs confiscated? Arrests made? Compare them to estimates of what’s flowing into the country from every place else in the world? Hell, it doesn’t even have to come from outside the country; people grow the shit in their basements under ultraviolet lights,”