Across the lounge, the old checker player with the hawk nose was locked in a serious game with an obese old guy Carver hadn’t seen before. The game was down to kings and hatchet face had four black ones to his opponent’s two red. The outcome was easy to predict but the fat guy, a scrapper, kept fighting, moving toward opposite corners of the board to engage in a holding action.
“Maybe they’ll let you sit and watch the next game,” the attendant said to Carver. Might have been sarcastic, but Carver wasn’t sure.
“You expect Dr. Pauly in later today?”
The attendant said, “Expected him here by now. He was due early this morning.”
“He call in?”
“No, sir. Not while I been on the desk. Wanna leave your phone number, I can tell him you were by.”
The hatchet-faced player shouted “Gotcha!”
Carver said, “No, nevermind,” and went out.
Nurse Rule, vigilant as ever, was standing with her arms crossed and her buttocks pressed against a front fender of the Olds. The sun’s glare made her broad features appear harsh and vaguely mongoloid, but the combative glint in her eye would have been there even in shadow.
When Carver got close to her he stopped and leaned with both hands on his cane. He didn’t say anything. The drone of insects was loud from the grass beyond the lot.
She said, “May I ask your business here?”
“I suppose so; you’re in charge.”
“I’m surprised to hear you acknowledge that, Mr. Carver. Doesn’t answer my question, though, does it?”
“I came to see Dr. Pauly. He isn’t here.”
She stared at him, still with her arms crossed, her blocky body motionless as a rock and firmly rooted as an oak. “Why’d you want to see him?”
“Can’t tell you,” Carver said. “Patient-client stuff.”
“You’re sure you didn’t come here to see Amos Burrel? Or Birdie Reeves?”
“I told you-Dr. Pauly. Know where he is?”
“No. He didn’t phone.”
“Maybe he’s with Raffy Ortiz.”
She shifted away from the car. Lowered her arms to her sides. She was bulky but balanced, ready to move in any direction. “Why do you say that?”
“They know each other, that’s all. How come you object to my talking to Birdie, if there’s nothing outside the rules going on here?”
“It’s for Birdie’s sake.”
“I got a good idea why you might say that. But I don’t believe it.”
“She’s an innocent young girl.”
“One you were all over until you got warned away.”
Nurse Rule stood straighter and inhaled. Stomach in, chest out, like a soldier at attention. A speech that would have made Oliver North proud was coming, Carver could sense it. “I’m not ashamed of my sexuality, Mr. Carver. When I found out Birdie was fifteen instead of eighteen I backed off. My private life’s no business of a shit-disturber like you, but for what it’s worth, I don’t molest children. And I don’t like seeing them taken advantage of, which is why I object to you and Raffy Ortiz sniffing around Birdie.”
“Raffy Ortiz bothered Birdie?”
“He did. I had a talk with him in his car and warned him about it. Warned him sternly. Since then he’s stayed away from her when he’s come to see Dr. Pauly. You damn well better follow suit.”
Carver remembered the blond woman, Melanie Star, in the Polaroid shots. The adhesive tape over her mouth, some of it over her hair. The drugged, gloomy expression in her eyes. He didn’t want to think about what Raffy might have had in mind for Birdie.
Nurse Rule said, “I mean it. Stay clear of Birdie. Don’t see her here or anyplace else.”
“What if I told you I was trying to help her?”
“I wouldn’t believe you. I can tell the type of man you are. Like the rest of your kind, like Raffy Ortiz. You think with your crotch; it’s a male trait.”
Carver said, “Well, sometimes it works out as if I did.”
“I’ll just bet.” She shifted her weight in a way that conveyed menace. “Time to leave, Mr. Carver.”
He smiled, squinting into the bright sun, and nodded. Then he limped toward the car door. No sense arguing with Nurse Rule while she was protecting her territory. And God it was miserably hot, standing here in the parking lot! Though she didn’t seem to be in any discomfort. She wasn’t even perspiring.
As he was lowering himself in behind the steering wheel, Nurse Rule, seeming a little surprised by his sudden compliance, walked around to stand near him and said, “What do you know about Raffy Ortiz?”
“More than you wish I knew.” Carver closed the door. He twisted the key to start the engine. Tapped the accelerator so the car roared and vibrated with throaty power. Nurse Rule glared at him and didn’t move.
She watched him back the Olds out of its parking slot and drive away, the expression on her face unchanging.
31
Carver drove to a restaurant on Marina Drive, where he sat at the bar and had a dozen oysters on the half shell with lemon while he sipped beer. His kind of lunch.
Outside the wide window the bright white hulls of pleasure boats belonging to Del Moray’s wealthier citizens bobbed gently at their moorings in unison, as if doing a slow and lazy dance. The brilliant sunlight seemed to purify the air and gave objects a dazzling clarity. People in expensive sportswear and flashing gold and silver jewelry wandered along the dock. Lots of stomach paunches and white shoes, white belts, and white hair. In the past few years Del Moray had become essentially a rich retirement community. It was what enabled Edwina to make so much money turning real estate. It was what had raised the median age of the small city on the coast well up into the bracket of graying hair and growing waistlines. And what made “retirement homes” like Sunhaven such lucrative operations.
After lunch Carver phoned Sunhaven and was told by Birdie that Dr. Pauly hadn’t arrived to make his regular rounds, and that he still hadn’t phoned in. The restaurant phone was in the open, at the far end of the bar, and the mingled sounds of conversation, ice clinking in glasses, and occasional loud laughter made hearing Birdie’s small voice difficult. It was like listening to someone from another, distant universe.
“Everything okay there?” Carver asked.
“Just fine,” Birdie said.
“I mean, about the toothache.”
“That? It’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“Sure.”
She seemed hesitant to talk, and Carver didn’t feel like forcing her.
He told her good-bye and hung up, then left the restaurant to drive to Pauly’s house on Verde Avenue. It was good to get away from the crowded bar and inane cocktail chatter.
The sun hadn’t let up at all. He could still taste the oysters and beer and felt a little queasy in the heat.
Verde was an old street, one of the first in Del Moray, and was lined with tall, gracefully bent palm trees and spreading sugar oaks. The houses were of varying size and architecture and set on large lots. Dr. Pauly’s little house with its window flower boxes looked cool recessed in the deep shade of its overgrown yard.
As soon as Carver stepped up on the low concrete porch he saw that the door was open a crack.
He sounded the door chimes, but no one came. Birds were nattering like crazy in the backyard. An orange-striped cat emerged from beneath an azalea bush, gazed with disinterest at Carver, then slunk in the direction of the birds like a minitiger on the hunt.
Because the foliage was so thick, Carver wasn’t very noticeable from the street. That was fine with him. He left the porch, found some firm ground with the tip of his cane, and limped to the attached one-car garage. It had a wooden overhead door with a line of small windows in it. He moved close, raised himself up slightly with a push on the cane, and peered inside.
Sunlight slanted into the garage at a sharp angle, swirling with dust and fractioning the dimness. He saw a power lawnmower with a drooping grass bag attached, metal shelves against the back wall that seemed to contain assorted junk and lawn-care tools. A few loose, unfinished boards and what looked like a length of pipe were laid crookedly overhead on the rafters. A paint-spattered aluminum extension ladder rested horizontally on hooks along the side wall away from the house. No car.