Outside the window, along the line of ground-floor rooms, Carver saw Curt, wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt lettered Slow Is Better, sauntering along carrying a gas-powered weed trimmer. Carver wished people would run out of things to say on T-shirts.
“Do you think I should be there when you talk to Burr?” Edwina asked.
“No. I might be able to learn something from his questions. And he might not ask the same questions if he knows the extent of your relationship with Willis. DEA agents have the suspicious minds of witch burners who’ve been to college.”
“You mean he might think I know where Willis is.”
“He might. On the other hand, he might take the official view that Willis is dead. It’s Silverio Lujan who drew DEA attention. He was a Marielito who died an unnatural death. To the government, that means narcotics.”
“I know Willis wouldn’t be mixed up in drugs.”
“You might be right.”
The weed trimmer kicked into life behind the motel and began to chortle and buzz, like a gigantic insect in the swamp making determined passes at its prey. The wavering sound made the heat outside seem thicker, palpable as clear, still water.
Edwina stood up without having touched her fresh cup of coffee.
“Where are you going?” Carver asked. There were things he wanted to say to her, even though she wouldn’t listen. He preferred having her around in case she changed her mind.
“To my room. To pack, to rest, to think.”
He watched her walk from the restaurant. He didn’t ask her what she was going to think about. He knew. Willis.
Carver thought about Laura. But not for long, and with lessened pain. She was definitely alive and had made it abundantly clear that she no longer wanted or needed him. Not like Willis and Edwina. Emotional ties had been cut, the loose ends knotted. That was the critical difference. Finality.
He sipped his coffee and watched the shadows and sunlight sharpen in contrast on the parking lot.
Alex Burr had borrowed Armont’s office to talk with Carver, but he acted as if it were his office. He was a trim and athletic-looking blond man who wore a black eye patch. The patch might have made him a romantic figure ten years ago, but his lean features had become a bit jowly with his forty-odd years, and there was a pouch beneath his visible unblinking blue eye. His hair was straight and professionally styled, worn longish to hide the straps from the eye patch. He’d removed his coat but hadn’t loosened his small, neat tie knot. His pants had sharp creases and his white dress shirt was spotless and starched and would do any laundry-detergent commercial proud. He hadn’t rolled up his sleeves; that would be giving in to mere heat. He reminded Carver of a middle-aged German duelist lost in time.
But Burr didn’t say Achtung! or flip his gloves in Carver’s face. Instead he stood up behind Armont’s desk, smiled, extended a hand, and assured Carver he wouldn’t take up much of his time. Carver figured he had probably said that to people who were serving twenty years.
They shook hands, and Burr waited while Carver sat down and rested his cane against the desk.
Then Burr sat down slowly, with an odd familiarity, in Armont’s chair and said, “Do you have any idea why Lujan would try to kill you?”
“No,” Carver said. “I was hoping you might.”
“Had you had any contact with him before yesterday?”
“Not that I know of.”
Burr began to rotate back and forth slightly in Armont’s swivel chair, as if it were something he did habitually every day. “We checked on you with the Orlando police. You come out clean, at least on the surface. Lujan doesn’t look clean by any standards. He was involved in smuggling schemes and drug dealing in the Miami area since the early eighties. The company he ran with is rough, but no rougher than Lujan. He liked to cut people. He killed before with a knife, we’re sure, though we could never nail him. The gang he was with used him to even scores. Nobody knows how many times. He wasn’t a big fish, but he was the kind that swam in a big pond and would lead you to larger fish. We’ve been keeping track of him.”
“Then maybe you know what brought him to Solarville,” Carver said.
“No, we don’t,” Burr admitted. His single blue eye blinked in annoyance. There was a sharp intensity about it from its task of doing double duty. “But if we knew what brought you here, maybe we could guess about Lujan.”
“Was he mixed up in something current around Miami?” Carver asked.
Burr smiled; it made him look positively dashing. “Guys like Lujan are always mixed up in something current. He was a Marielito.”
“I thought we’d sent the worst of them back to Cuba last year,” Carver said.
“Not the worst and the smartest. They slipped through the net early and set up shop. They’re organized. They’re into drugs, prostitution, gambling, extortion; the gamut of crime, anything illegal and profitable. But especially drugs. And they’re bad people, Carver. Bad beyond belief. Narcotics has always been a rough business, but now it’s rougher.”
“Do you know who Lujan worked for in south Florida?”
“He worked for whoever wanted somebody killed.”
Carver thought about that. This knife for hire. It reduced the odds on Lujan’s attack on him being a coincidence, unrelated to his mission in Solarville, almost to nil.
Burr leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “Now, about what brought you to Solarville and led to a dead Marielito…”
Carver told him about everything, including the missing hundred thousand dollars. He had no choice. Burr was federal and not to be crossed. Too many of these guys suffered from the Eliot Ness syndrome.
None of it quite tied in with Lujan. When he had finished talking, Carver sat and watched Burr consider it all. The blue eye caught the light from the window and looked perplexed.
“Lujan might have come here to meet the Malone brothers,” Carver suggested. “Snowbirds of a feather…”
“We know about the Malones,” Burr said. “Lujan was small-time, but even he wouldn’t get involved with a couple of backwater bunglers like the Malones.”
“Big oaks from little yokels grow,” Carver said.
Burr frowned at him. Apparently he wasn’t one for puns or maxims. But that was to be expected: The DEA didn’t joke much. “It might be a good idea if you left Solarville,” he said. The line about the oaks must have done it.
“I’m planning to, as soon as we’re finished with this conversation. There isn’t much I can do here now.”
“Except maybe finally get burned or stabbed to death.”
“Had Lujan ever been a firebug?”
Burr shook his head. “Never. That bothers me.” Like Carver, he couldn’t quite see the Tumble Inn fire as an accident, even though there was nothing to rule out that possibility.
Each man knew what the other was thinking. “Not Lujan,” Burr said. “He liked knives, not flames. What fire does for a pyromaniac, knives did for Lujan.”
Carver nodded. He understood. If the motel fire had been deliberate, probably someone other than Silverio Lujan had set it. This was a world of specialists.
“Where are you going when you leave Solarville?” Burr asked.
“Del Moray.”
Burr leaned over the desk and gave Carver a white business card with several phone numbers engraved on it in official-looking small black print. “We want to know what you know, when you know it. Understand?”
“Sure,” Carver said. He knew there was no need to tell Burr how to get in touch with him. He angled the cane straight down, set the tip, and levered himself to his feet. “Anything else?”
“Not for now.”
Carver knew Burr was watching him limp from the office, wondering how a cripple like Carver could have killed a hard-ass Marielito. Wondering a lot of things. Some of them the same things Carver was wondering.