He decided that wouldn’t be wise. It probably would net him nothing, and might alert Cahill to his presence in Solarville. And it wasn’t likely that Willis Davis would make himself so easy to find, even if he was in the Solarville area.
Carver drove back into town and had supper at the motel restaurant. One of the side dishes he ate was unidentifiable, but it was tasty. Something from the swamp? He decided not to ask the waitress.
In the booth across from him sat a man and woman in pinstripe business suits that might have been fashioned by the same tailor. The man had the side dish Carver had eaten, but he’d pushed his plate away after a few exploratory bites. The woman, a cool, scrubbed-looking blonde with unblinking green eyes, had played it safe and ordered a roast-beef sandwich. The two of them looked out of place sitting in the vinyl booth in a second-rate motel in a backwater town. The expensive cut and fabric of their conservative clothes, the woman’s subdued but quality jewelry, and their refined but alert behavior suggested that they were high-level executives on a slumming expedition. Maybe corporate lovers getting away to a place where no one they knew would spot them. They didn’t seem the sort to have business other than of a very private nature in Solarville. Lawyers in love? Corporate copulation? Unlikely, but possible.
Carver shook off that kind of baseless musing, futile speculation. Dirty occupation, dirty mind. He was beginning to think too much like the kind of private detective that kicked open motel doors and snapped photographs. These two were probably nothing more than wealthy tourists driving around the state with time and money to waste. Their type wasn’t unusual in almost any corner of Florida.
When he got up to pay his bill and leave, the woman glanced at her watch. Carver noticed that it was an expensive-looking Mickey Mouse watch, with what appeared to be diamonds set in each of Mickey’s hands. He walked past the man and woman toward the cashier, wondering what it would be like to have enough money to live and to buy so frivolously.
Outside he smoked one of his infrequent after-meal cigars, then he drove into town and had a few beers at a local tavern that featured a stuffed alligator suspended by wires above the bar. He said nothing, listened to the conversation around him, and learned nothing. This kind of sleuthing worked mostly on TV and in novels. Or in Desoto’s old movies.
At nine o’clock he got up and left. He was older now but no wiser. The alligator had been a nothing. If the beer and the air-conditioning hadn’t been frosty cold, the evening would have been a complete waste.
He walked around town for a while, then bought a Solarville Bugle from a newspaper vending machine and drove back to the Tumble Inn.
When he got to his room, he phoned Edwina and let her know where he was staying. She told him she’d join him in Solarville sometime the next day. He tried to talk her out of coming, but she was in no mood to be talked out of or into anything.
When Edwina had gotten off the line, Carver called Desoto and asked him to check with Records on Sam Cahill.
“Have you found Cahill?” Desoto asked.
“Sure, it was easy. He’s listed in the phone directory.”
“Under A for ‘accomplice’?”
Carver didn’t reply. He wasn’t in the frame of mind for snappy repartee. If Desoto wanted to play Abbott, let him find somebody else to be Costello.
“Did you talk to Cahill?”
“Not yet,” Carver said. “I’m going to hang back and watch him for a while. Why?”
“A description would help with Records. Cahill might be an alias.”
“I haven’t even seen him yet,” Carver said.
“Well, he’s a he,” Desoto said. “That narrows it down to a little less than half the population, amigo. Should be no problem. Do you want me to call you back on this tonight?”
“Sure.” Carver told Desoto where he was staying and gave him the phone number.
“The Tumble Inn Motel, eh? Is Edwina Talbot with you?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Desoto sounded disappointed.
“She’s arriving tomorrow.”
“Ah!”
After thanking Desoto and hanging up the phone, Carver took off his shoes, stretched out on the bed, and started to read the Bugle. A banker named Jackson was marrying a girl from Miami and the newlyweds were going to live there after a honeymoon in Hawaii. The liquor store on Loop had been robbed of several hundred dollars the day before. A skinny but pretty teen-ager who looked embarrassed in her bathing-suit photograph had been nominated by the hardware store for that year’s Gator Queen. When Carver got to the page-two article about an argument among the winners at a church bingo game, he fell asleep.
Two hours later, the jangle of the phone awakened him. That and something else. He sat up in bed, breathed in dizzily, and sank back down. He opened his eyes in the darkness and they stung; he couldn’t keep them open. Couldn’t see anyway. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he clenched his eyes shut as tightly as he could. Instinctively, he continued to grope for the ringing telephone.
Wait a second. Darkness? What about the bingo argument and the Gator Queen? He’d fallen asleep reading the paper-with the lamp on!
He breathed in, coughed violently, tried again to open his eyes but couldn’t. What the hell? His right arm flailed wildly, and he heard the clatter of his cane as he knocked it from where it was leaning against the table by the bed.
With a cold pang of fear, he suddenly understood.
The fear deepened, rushed him straight down in a roller-coaster plunge. It took him a few seconds to fully accept what was happening.
The room was full of smoke.
CHAPTER 12
Carver rolled off the bed and dropped to the floor, pressing his cheek to the rough carpet and sucking for breathable air, praying for it. He pulled more smoke into his lungs, gagged, and coughed.
For a moment he lay still, willing himself to control the terror that threatened to panic him, trying to blot out the vision of a man he’d discovered in a burned car when he was still in the police department. He hadn’t recognized the thing on the front seat as a man at first. He’d-
Carver actually snarled at himself, jolting his mind from surrender and certain death. He groped for the bed, the legs of the nightstand, to get his bearings, and began to crawl toward the door, dragging his stiff leg. Every few feet he’d press his face to the carpet and draw a cautious, shallow breath, enough air to allow himself another foot or so of progress.
Finally his rigid fingertips bumped into the smooth hard surface of the door. He scrambled against it, raising his body, found the doorknob and turned it.
The door was locked.
Carver grasped the knob tightly, squeezing frantically to keep his sweaty fingers from slipping off the slick metal, and pulled his body higher.
He found the sliding bolt lock, fumbled with it, feeling a shock of pain as he bent back a fingernail and instinctively jerked his hand away.
Grasping the lock again, more carefully, he gradually forced the bolt sideways, until it jammed. He shoved hard against it. He lost his footing then, supporting his entire weight for a second by painfully squeezing the hard metal lock between his thumb and forefinger. Then his grip was torn loose.
He wasn’t sure if the bolt had slid free. But when he fell backward, the door swung open.
Immediately the air down low was breathable, as dark smoke rolled from the room. Carver heard voices, the wailing yodel of a fire truck or police car. The siren got closer, louder, deafening, then growled to reluctant silence like a record running down. He dragged himself forward, over the hard-edged threshold, out onto the concrete in front of the open door. Then he wriggled off to the side, away from the black pall of smoke.