Finally she drove across an intersection with four-way stop signs, then parked her car on Widmar Avenue, in a neighborhood of small shops and apartment buildings.
Carver pulled over to the curb half a block away, on the other side of the intersection, his car’s headlights already off. He scooted low in the seat behind the steering wheel. His car might have been parked there when Adelle drove up, simply the last in a row of parked cars.
She got out of her car and walked toward him. She was dressed down, wearing jeans, a dark T-shirt, and what looked like white jogging shoes. From this distance and in the faint light, she might have been a young woman in her twenties, with a spirited walk that suggested she had no cares. He was afraid she was going to keep coming and would recognize his car, then notice him slumped down behind the wheel. But at the intersection, she turned and entered the second building from the corner, moving quickly yet taking the time to glance up and down the street before disappearing inside.
It was one of several run-down four-story apartment buildings. Carver looked at his watch: 1:30 A.M. Most of the tenants should be asleep.
He saw that most of them probably were, as there were lights on in only one unit, on the third floor. Blinds were down on all of the apartment’s windows and he couldn’t see inside.
After waiting a few minutes, he grabbed his cane, climbed out of the Olds, and crossed the intersection toward the building. A three-legged stray dog, some kind of terrier, standing near the mouth of an alley, watched Carver as if thinking maybe it could use one of those cane things.
He entered the lobby carefully, not letting the street door make noise that might be heard upstairs. The lobby had a cracked and dirty tile floor and smelled like stale bacon grease. The walls were painted a dull green with some kind of sand finish that didn’t do much to conceal old cracks and patches.
Carver moved quietly in his moccasins. It was an old building, cheaply constructed, and even small sounds from upstairs were seeping down to him: a window fan humming away and ticking metal against metal; the faint, ratchety noise of someone snoring behind a door at the top of the first flight of wooden stairs. Felt-tip graffiti on the wall next to a door that probably led to a storage room listed things that a woman named Betty would do. Carver read the list and didn’t believe half of it. He examined the bank of tarnished brass mailboxes. The name slot above one of the boxes for an apartment on the third floor, 3-F, was blank.
He looked around, noting that the fire stairs were inside the building and there would be no exterior steel fire escape. Then he began climbing the stairs, staying to one side so they wouldn’t creak so loudly, placing the tip of his cane carefully on the split rubber treads that were nailed to the steps and curled up at the edges.
The third-floor hall was narrow and dim, painted with the same rough-finish green paint that was in the lobby. A wide black stripe ran horizontally four feet above the floor, but it was badly painted and had dripped onto the green and run down the edges of some of the dark wood door jambs. Carver stood in the stifling heat and calculated which of the doors led to the apartment whose lights were still glowing. A sliver of light along a threshold confirmed his guess.
He limped to the door quietly, still breathing a little hard from climbing the stairs, and smiled. 3-F was stenciled in black on the old, darkly varnished door.
A soft sound wafted from the other side of the door. Then again, slightly louder.
A woman moaning.
Carver moved closer, leaning on his cane and bowing his head, his ear close to the door. Again he heard the moaning. And something else. Faint but urgent movement. An ancient and unmistakable rhythm.
A couple was making love in the apartment.
Adelle, Adelle! Carver thought.
What now? He could kick open the door, rush in, and catch them in the act. If he had a camera, he could pin them to the legal mat with the incontrovertible evidence of photographs. If he hadn’t left the gun with Beth, he could wave it at them and freeze them in immoral passion, undeniable guilt, and complicity while he phoned for Wicker and the police.
Instead of any of those things, he raised his cane and knocked gently on the door.
The rhythmic sounds ceased.
He heard a frantic female voice, then a soothing male voice. There were faint footsteps, the soft creaking of a wood floor, and the metallic click of a lock being released.
The door opened about six inches, and Dr. Benedict peered out.
As Carver was staring in astonishment, something slammed into his shoulder and he bounced off a wall and found himself lying on the thin, coarse green carpet on the hall floor.
Ezekiel Masterson was looming above him, smiling and moving toward him with the look of a predator confident that dinner had been disabled.
40
Masterson was clean-shaven and neatly dressed, as usual, but not wearing his blue business suit. He had on creased black slacks and a gray silk shirt with a bold sunrise pattern printed across its chest. A brimmed straw hat with a rainbow-colored band was perched squarely on his head. The shirt’s top buttons were undone, and a thick gold chain glinted among dark chest hairs just above where the sun was rising. With his getup and black horn-rimmed glasses, he looked like a bean counter on vacation, trying to pretend he was casual and relaxed. It was difficult to believe he was a self-righteous homicidal maniac.
Carver believed. Struggling to stand up, he lashed out with his cane and struck Masterson in the shin bone, then raised the cane and just missed his head with the backswing, sending the jaunty straw hat sailing. The big man blinked in pain and backed away a step. Then he used his forefinger to adjust his horn-rimmed glasses, as if to see Carver more clearly, and came at him again.
Carver, halfway to his feet and leaning against the wall, jabbed at Masterson’s face with the cane, but Masterson snatched the cane away and tossed it aside. He threw a powerful punch toward Carver’s midsection, but Carver scooted along the wall and took much of the blow’s force on his hip, which ignited with pain, then went numb.
Missing full impact with his punch threw Masterson off balance, and he stumbled a few steps. The sudden motion had caused a heavy gold cross on his thick neck chain to work out from beneath his silk shirt and dangle on his chest.
He found himself standing next to Carver’s cane, propped at an angle against the wall where he’d flung it. Masterson smiled, drew back a gigantic foot, then stomped hard on the middle of the cane and broke it. He studied the two pieces of the cane, then bent low and scooped up the broken half that had the sharpest point. Holding the cane up with both hands in front of his face, he declared, “The arm and the terrible swift sword of the Lord!”
“Poetic,” Carver said, “but it’s only my cane.”
Masterson moved in on him more slowly now, and with great caution.
When he was a few feet away, he made a move as if to swing at Carver’s head with the cane, then with amazing quickness and dexterity he stooped in a momentary squat with one bent knee and kicked Carver’s good leg out from under him.
Carver landed hard on the carpet. He rolled over to avoid the kick Masterson aimed at him. The big man knew how to fight and was deadly with his feet. Carver couldn’t avoid the second kick, which caught him in the side. He was sure he heard a rib crack. Breath shot out of him and he tried to curl his body into the fetal position for protection.
Masterson would have none of that. He bent low and punched Carver in the forehead, causing a pain as if his skull had been cleaved. Carver fought off dizziness and nausea as he felt himself being forced onto his back.