She looked too pale even to contain any blood. She smiled. That made Carver feel good. “Guess not.”
“Birdie, you scared?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Of losing your job, or of something else?”
“I’m not sure. I wonder what might be going on out there. It’s creepy to think people you know might be mixed up in… whatever. I mean, it’s like folks live in two worlds. There’s one we see, and another one nobody talks about.”
Like the one in Indianapolis.
Carver said, “Birdie, I saw Linda Redmond. She sends her love and wants you to call her sometime.”
Birdie winced; she’d been kicked hard in the psyche. “You went to Indianapolis? You saw Linda? You talked to her?”
“Want her phone number?”
Birdie swallowed. Carver actually heard her Adam’s apple work. “Tell you, Mr. Carver, I got Linda’s number. Had it since I left that place. But I never called her.”
“Why not?”
“Well, let’s just say she’s done enough for me. More’n she had to. I was trouble for her and I don’t wanna be again.”
“She doesn’t see you as trouble. Though she says you shouldn’t go back to Indianapolis, and she’s probably right. But if you ask me, it wouldn’t hurt to call her and talk.”
Birdie’s lower lip did a tremulous dance. She dug her front teeth into it and said nothing. She stood that way for a while. Wasn’t going to talk. Not about back home in Indiana. Finally the teeth loosened their pressure and the lip stayed steady. She had hold of her emotions.
Carver said, “As long as you got these names without being seen, I think you’ll be safe enough out at Sunhaven. You might attract more suspicion if you don’t go in this afternoon.”
“Oh, I’m gonna go to work. No other reason, I need the money bad. I’ll say my mouth’s still sore from the dentist.”
“That’d be my advice,” Carver told her. He leaned nearer with the cane, reached out with his free hand and patted her arm. “Thanks, Birdie. You’ve been a big help. I really appreciate it.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes; she turned her face away sharply, as if he’d struck her. Not many adults had thanked her or given her words of approval. Not when it counted. She had a hunger for it and she wouldn’t-and probably couldn’t-admit it, except maybe only to herself momentarily in the dim, dawn hang-point between sleep and wakefulness.
At that moment, though he’d never met the man and never would, Carver hated Clement Reeves.
John Lutz
Kiss
30
C ARVER STOPPED AT S ANDERSON’S Drugstore on Ocean Drive, which had old-fashioned enclosed phone booths in the back where he knew he could talk confidentially and without interruption. The rows of stationery supplies, motor oil, hardware, and everything else other than drugs were laid out neat and orderly and cool. He limped toward the back of the drugstore, past a middle-aged woman with frizzy red hair who was trying to decide what kind of home perm to buy. There was a tiny prescription counter just before you got to the phones, but there was no pharmacist in sight.
Of the four booths along the back wall, one was occupied by a young black girl grinning and chomping gum as she gabbed. She gave Carver a look as if he’d interfered with her constitutional right to privacy and yanked the booth’s accordion door shut so he couldn’t overhear. He squeezed into the booth at the other end, propped his cane in the corner, and called Desoto.
“So where we at, amigo?” Desoto asked. There was tango music in the background. In Desoto’s soul.
“We got a link.” Carver told him about finding the phone number of Melba’s Place impressed on ribbon from Raffy Ortiz’s typewriter.
“You didn’t mention how you got that ribbon,” Desoto said.
“That’s right, I didn’t. Thing is, Ortiz is mixed up with Kearny Williams’s family, mixed up with Sunhaven, and if there’s anything wrong with how Kearny died he’s mixed up with that, too.”
Desoto said, “Yeah, and mixed up with Dr. Pauly.”
Carver was puzzled. “Sure. He sees him every once in a while-supposed to be a patient.”
“I mean before that, a few years ago in Miami.” Carver caught the hard edge in Desoto’s voice and knew he had something. Desoto said, “Word I got is Pauly was the one who supplied Raffy and some of his friends with designer drugs. Didn’t have much choice, because he’s an addict himself and Raffy knew it.”
Carver said, “Lots of doctors do drugs.”
“Um-hm. Too true, amigo. But Ortiz somehow found out Pauly was hooked, or maybe he even got something else on him. He’s an industrious guy for a killing machine, that Raffy. And the people he ran with down there, ones who use drugs, they’re always on the watch for a doctor they can bend. Nobody can supply like a medical man.”
“Or medical woman,” Carver said.
“A thought. Point is, he got Pauly to supply him with drugs to sell, and once that started Pauly was on the pin forever. Understand, my friend, when the operation went bust in Miami, Pauly wasn’t brought in or even mentioned, He’s clean on the deal far as the law’s concerned.”
“How good’s your source of information?”
“Top grade. Somebody I know in Miami leaned on one of Raffy’s old running mates, a guy looking at a life stretch in Raiford. He’s informed before and it’s always turned out true, and his ass is really in the wringer this time. A murder charge that’ll stick. He knows whatever he tells the law better pan out as gold. They were striking a plea-bargain deal, so I had my friend ask hard about Raffy. The informer isn’t brave or stupid enough to give us anything solid on Raffy, but the Dr. Pauly thing came out. Curiouser and curiouser, eh?”
“Sure is,” Carver said. Faintly, he could hear the girl in the other end booth screech and giggle. He said, “You should know I got a list.”
“Now I do know,” Desoto said. “List of what?”
“The deaths out at Sunhaven the last year.”
“Hmm. At this point, McGregor could have obtained that for you. You should have asked him. Why not let the bastard earn the taxpayers’ money he pockets twice a month?”
“This way McGregor doesn’t know I have the list. Neither does Sunhaven.”
“See your point. Should I ask how you obtained such a list?”
“You could say I got an ally, leave it at that.” Desoto said, “It’s left.”
Carver told Desoto he’d keep him posted and then hung up. The girl in the other booth was screeching again, enjoying life. Enjoying youth and not knowing it.
He found an aisle where no one was browsing and stood next to a display of window shades and narrow plastic blinds and looked more closely at the list Birdie had given him.
She’d copied not only names from the files, but the cities the deceased residents were from. Four of the nine, including Sam Cusanelli, were from Florida, one of the women from right here in Del Moray. The dead men had found their way into Sunhaven from a variety of places but, except for one from Iowa, all of their hometowns were in the south: Dallas, Texas; Morristown, Tennessee; Rome, Georgia. Two of the men were from Miami, Florida. Miami again. And of course there was Kearny Williams from New Orleans.
Before leaving the drugstore, Carver bought a pack of Swisher Sweet cigars at the front counter, where a couple of teenage girls were studiously taking some kind of inventory of Kodak film. One of the girls had a phone tucked between her jaw and shoulder. She giggled. He wondered if she might be talking with the girl back in the phone booth.
He smoked a cigar on the drive out to Sunhaven.
Birdie hadn’t made it in to work yet. The attendant with the Errol Flynn mustache was behind the reception counter. There were bags under his eyes today and he looked haggard, maybe hung over; ten years older than he’d appeared last time Carver had seen him. No more leading-man roles. Carver told him he wanted to see Dr. Pauly.
“Not in today,” the attendant said. He tapped a pencil point rapidly on the desk, as if impatiently wishing he were someplace else. Carver didn’t blame him.