Then he spat grit from his mouth, sat down on the hard ground in what little shade the Olds provided, and hoped he’d done the right thing.
High and far away, the large bird was still circling above the swamp, its arced wings fixed to the wind.
CHAPTER 16
Carver was free to leave Solarville police headquarters late that afternoon. Armont had waited for the coroner’s preliminary report and lab findings before speaking with him. The chief didn’t like somebody coming into his quiet if corrupt little town and causing problems. Not that he seriously thought Carver had murdered the Latino, but problems of the sort that were raised could lead to problems of another sort. And Armont didn’t need more problems of any sort.
“We snooped around and found the dead man’s clothes and identification in a locker at the bus station,” he’d said to Carver, when Carver had sat down before Armont’s desk. Armont remained standing behind the desk, absently rubbing his protruding stomach with his left hand, as if he suspected he might give birth to something he had grave doubts about. “His name was Silverio Lujan. He was a Marielito.”
Carver knew about Marielitos. In 1980 Castro emptied the prisons and mental institutions of Cuba and sent the inmates, along with legitimate refugees, in the boat lift from Mariel harbor in Cuba to Florida. Only a small percentage of the Mariel refugees were Marielito Banditos, as the press called them for a while. But their numbers were in the thousands. Some of them never were set free on American soil. And many of them had been returned to Cuba by agreement with Castro in 1985. But thousands remained in the United States, and they were criminals of such fierce nature that even the hardest homegrown criminals feared them in or out of prison. It hadn’t taken long for the Marielitos to become deeply involved in drugs, prostitution, and murder.
Murder.
“Why would a Marielito try to kill me?” Carver asked.
Armont stopped massaging his stomach paunch and let both hands drop to his sides, as if suddenly they had become unbearably heavy. “Maybe somebody hired him. He did an expert job of driving a honed piece of steel into your tire, so it would go flat suddenly in a short distance when the metal worked its way loose. Nifty. Or maybe he wanted to rob you.”
“He never asked for money,” Carver said.
Armont sneered. “Hah! Why should he ask? You might deny him the pleasure of slicing your guts out. You don’t know these Marielitos, Carver. Not the ones that stayed in southern Florida, anyway.”
Carver thought that some of the Marielitos he’d dealt with in Orlando weren’t the sort you’d want your maiden aunt to date, but he said nothing.
“This Lujan might have just felt like killing somebody today,” Armont said. He wanted to believe that, Carver knew. That would be the simplest explanation for him.
And maybe it was the most likely explanation. Carver hadn’t been in town long enough for Lujan to take a bus in, rent a car, and try to do a contract murder. Unless Lujan had been following him before he’d come to Solarville.
“What bus did he arrive on?” Carver asked.
“No bus,” Armont said. “He drove. He rented the car five days ago in Miami under another name with forged identification. It looks like he didn’t expect to be in town long enough to have to get a motel room, so he set up housekeeping in a bus-station locker.”
“Do you know when he got into town?”
Armont shook his head. “There’s no way to pin down the time. Even come close. But I know what you’re thinking. I had my men ask around; nobody remembers seeing him earlier, either in town or around the Tumble Inn before the fire.”
“What about priors?”
“Lujan’s got a record of playing with knives in Miami. But the police there don’t have anything on him before 1981. And there’s no way to know his background in Cuba. He cut up a few people seriously in Miami, though; seems he was one of those guys fascinated by sharp steel.”
“Which is why he might have tried to kill me just for sport.”
“Exactly. He’s killed for sport before, even though he managed to avoid prosecution.” Armont suddenly dropped into his desk chair and sighed, as if some silent signal had allowed him finally to take his weight off his feet. “You probably know that some Marielitos have tattoos on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger. Lujan’s tattoo was of an arrow and the word madre. That’s ‘mother’ in Spanish, but to a Marielito that tattoo signified that Lujan’s specialty was murder. His mother probably wouldn’t claim him. He was fond of killing.”
Carver had gathered that, on the road outside of town. “Any drug arrests on Lujan’s record?” he asked.
Armont arched an eyebrow at him. “Sure. Cocaine possession. I’d be surprised if there hadn’t been any narcotics charges against a hard-ass guy like Lujan. Against any Marielito.” Armont shifted to the side in his chair and frowned. “Funny you should mention drugs. There’s a DEA agent named Alex Burr who’s coming into town tomorrow to talk with you. I’m supposed to tell you to be available.”
Carver had seen the Orlando police work in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration. It was a federal organization formed for the express and vital purpose of winning the government’s declared war on illicit drugs and the people who sold them. And the DEA had slowed the flow of narcotics coming into the U.S. by ship or plane, though the width and density of that flow was such that it could be temporarily lessened but not stemmed. Carver didn’t like the idea of talking to a government agent. They had a knack for stuffing things into cubbyholes where they didn’t fit.
“What’s the DEA got to do with this?”
Armont shrugged his muscle-bunched shoulders. “Federal. You know how they are. They got ways of finding out things almost before they happen. Sometimes they even make them happen. And the DEA is all over Florida these days, what with the government’s war on drug trafficking. Florida is where it’s happening, all that coastline, the little inlets and islands where boats can go without being seen, where drugs can be transferred. Most of the drug game is played south of here and along the coasts, but to the DEA Florida is a war zone. All of Florida.”
Carver took a chance. “I’ve heard narcotics crops are grown in this part of the state.”
Armont grinned at him. Carver didn’t like the grin. “I’ve heard that too, Carver.”
“The Malone brothers have been mentioned in that context.”
The grin stayed. “You’ll have to ask them about that. I already have asked; it’ll get you nowhere.”
“Maybe the rumors are only that.”
“Tongues do wag of their own accord,” Armont said.
Carver thought now seemed a good time to go, if he was still free. He stood up. “Will you let me know if you learn anything more about Lujan?”
“Sure,” Armont said. “And you let me know what you learn.” He seemed to dismiss Carver from his mind and bowed his head to size up the paperwork that had accumulated on his desk while he’d been delving into attempted murder. Carver remembered how the chief had wielded his pen viciously on the last visit. Judging by the sour expression on his wide face, Armont didn’t care for paper. Crinkly, irritating stuff. He gave the impression that any second he might wad it all up in one big ball and toss it aside.
Carver set his cane, leaned on it, and headed for the door. It would be good to get out into the free, hot air.
“Make sure you stick around for this Burr character,” Armont said behind him.
After leaving police headquarters, Carver walked down the street to Wilt’s Shell Station, where his car had been towed. Wilt was there, full of grease and gab. He tried without luck to sell Carver a new set of radial whitewalls. Carver put the cost of the tow and tire repair on his Visa card, then drove from the station.
On the way to the Tumble Inn, he began thinking about the expression on Lujan’s face when he’d come with the knife and the gleaming dullness of death in his eyes staring up from the swamp. Sudden death always carried with it surprise and a hint of prophecy. When Carver drove past the point on the road where it had all happened, his hands began to tremble on the steering wheel. It took a few minutes for them to be still.