Bloodfire

12

When Carver drove to his office and turned off of Magellan, he saw a black Lincoln stretch limousine in his usual parking slot near Golden World Insurance. It had darkly tinted windows and several different kinds of little antennae sticking up from its trunk. An occupant could coast along unseen and listen in on broadcasts from Mars.

He parked next to the Lincoln and took care not to bump its gleaming and reflective side as he opened the Olds’s heavy, rusty door.

As he raised himself up out of the car, he heard a steady, ticking whisper and realized the limo’s motor was idling. Heat was rolling out from beneath it. The rear window on Carver’s side glided down and Gomez smiled out at him.

“C’mon into my office and talk this time,” Gomez said. “Cooler than yours.”

Carver hesitated, then figured what the hell. He limped around the smoothly idling Lincoln and opened the passenger-side rear door. Leaned down and looked inside before getting in.

The car was equipped with a well-stocked miniature bar and a color TV that was soundlessly playing a soap opera. On the other side of a glass partition sat the driver, facing straight ahead. His shoulders were slightly stooped. His thinning black hair was parted and combed sharply to the side, and tufts of gray hair sprouted from his long ears. Had to be Hirsh. He was the only occupant of the car other than Gomez and glitz.

Gomez said, “You’re letting the cool air out, Carver.”

Carver used his cane for balance and slid in to sit next to Gomez on soft leather upholstery. He pulled the foot-thick door shut and was in another world of coolness and quiet. There was no sound inside the spacious limo other than the gentle whir of an air conditioner blower, no engine vibration.

Gomez scooted around so he was half-facing Carver across the wide seat. He fixed his black button eyes on Carver and worked his out-of-sync eyebrows as if to let Carver know he was amused. “So, you been thinking about my offer?”

“Nothing to think about,” Carver said. “I already refused it.”

Gomez surprised him. “Okay. I wouldn’t wanna force somebody to work for me if he didn’t wanna give it his fucking all, you know?”

“Makes sense. Hundred and ten percent and all that.”

“Right. So what I came to tell you is we’re doing a one-eighty-degree turn here, my man. What I’m saying is stay as clear of me and mine as you can get. I don’t wanna see or hear of you again. Our business is finished, like you want it to be.”

Carver wondered if Gomez had somehow learned about Beth talking to him. It didn’t seem possible. Couldn’t have anything to do with why Gomez was here.

Unless Beth had been followed from the cottage and killed, and now Gomez was warning Carver not to tell the law about her visit or the subject of their conversation.

Carver’s mouth was dry. He said, “Why the change of direction?”

Gomez grinned. Oh, those eyebrows. “It ain’t for you to worry about.”

“Maybe you already found your missing wife.”

“Maybe. Who knows.”

Carver couldn’t let it lie. He had to probe. He had no compassion for Beth Gomez, but he didn’t like the idea of this dope-rich Napoleon dropping by now and then to control his life. Too much money and power. Too much arrogance. He said, “I know about what happened to your son.”

Gomez’s face darkened and a tremor shook his body beneath his expensive gray suit. In that instant Carver knew Beth’s fears were justified. Gomez wanted her, all right. Probably hadn’t found her yet, but wanted her. “How’d you find out about my son?” he asked in a tight voice.

Carver said, “I’m a detective, like my card says.”

“Ain’t you, though. Well, my man, I guess you know then why I want the cunt back.”

“I can imagine.”

Gomez smiled all over except for the deathlike button eyes beneath the comic brows. “I bet you can’t.” He leaned back into the encompassing tufted upholstery. The movement stirred the air and the scent of his after-shave filled the back of the limo. “Listen, I save this girl from the fucking sewer. Treat her like a goddam queen. Even used to call her Queen Elizabeth, can you believe it? She turns up pregnant ’cause she forgets to take a pill, but I’m a nice guy about it. I don’t push her into an abortion. So she stays knocked up. I don’t care, if she wants it so bad. Even get used to the idea. Could be a son, another me, you know? So I get real fond of the fatherhood role I see coming at me. I make sure she gets the best of medical attention.” He abruptly slapped the seat, startling Carver. The noise reached the front of the car, and Hirsh’s head snapped around. Hirsh saw everything was okay. Glanced at Carver through the glass as if he were viewing sea life in an aquarium, then turned back to gaze out over the steering wheel at Golden World Insurance.

Gomez said, “All I do for the bitch, and what do I find out? She’s been dipping into the stock. Got herself a habit. She’s a fucking heroin user, already halfway to hell. You know the average life of somebody’s been on that stuff super-heavy, Carver?”

“Couple of years?”

“At best. I mean, I sell it, so I oughta know. But I tell you, I never suspected. She’s built real lean anyway, so there wasn’t any weight loss to tip me off. And she’s smart. Took mail-order college courses, all that shit. Probably what fucked her up. But she knew how to trick me into thinking she was clean; I give her that. Fooled me until the doctor came and told me about how her addiction killed my baby son. How the heroin in the mother’s blood found its way into the womb and the baby’s own blood. I didn’t know the news’d hit me so hard, not till I heard it.” He was trembling, either from pity or rage. “A tiny body like that, Carver, it can’t handle that shit. That’s what the doctor told me. He didn’t say it in those words, but any way you say it, my son died less than an hour after he was born.”

“What’d Beth say when you saw her?”

“I never did see her after I heard. When I got to the medical clinic, she was smart enough to have cleared the hell out. I been looking for her ever since, and I’ll fucking keep looking.”

Carver didn’t doubt it.

Gomez was sitting stiffly, powerful jaw muscles flexing like living beings beneath his skin as he clenched his teeth. A vein in his neck was throbbing, a blue hammer pounding out time.

“If her habit’s gonna kill her soon enough anyway,” Carver said, “why should you bother looking for her?”

Gomez gave a kind of snorting laugh, as if Carver’s question was so stupid it didn’t warrant an answer.

Maybe Gomez was right. When Carver’s son died, he’d felt the same way.

Gomez’s chest heaved. A stillness came over his body. He was himself again, the emotionless, tough entrepreneur in the toughest of businesses. “You ain’t in, so you’re out, Carver. All the way out. That’s what I want you to understand. I don’t want you around complicating things. Because if I figure it’d be less complicated to see that you disappear in the swamp country, then you’ll be introduced to some alligators. We clear on that?”

Carver said, “Alligators or crocodiles?”

Gomez didn’t blink. “The hard-guy act’ll carry you only so far. Till you become food.” He rapped on the glass partition and Hirsh made a slight movement, reaching for something.

There was a muted click from the door next to Carver. He hadn’t realized he was locked in.

Gomez was staring straight ahead. He said, “Good luck, stranger.”

Carver worked the door handle. Pushed open the vaultlike door and felt hot outside air close in on him. He said, “Wait here a minute, okay?” and didn’t move until Gomez had nodded.

Then he limped into his office and over to the file cabinet. He unlocked the fireproof bottom drawer and got out the envelope containing the thousand dollars Gomez had given him as a retainer to find his wife.

When he returned to stand by the back of the limo, Gomez lowered the power window. The soap-opera volume was up now on the TV; a woman said, “God, I love you, Damien. I’ll love you forever!” Carver had never known anyone named Damien. He handed Gomez the envelope, then watched him lift the flap and look inside. Money was obviously his intimate friend.

Gomez frowned. He didn’t understand this and didn’t like it. “Why you giving this back?”

Carver said, “I didn’t earn it.”

“That don’t mean shit to me, Carver.”

“Guess it wouldn’t.”

Gomez stared at him with eyes that seemed to absorb rather than reflect light. He said, “Stay out of my life, you hear?”

Carver said, “I’m glad to be out of it.”

The tinted window slid back up and the limo backed out of its parking slot, made a sharp turn to the driveway, then accelerated smoothly out onto Magellan.

Carver stood in the searing sun, watching the long black car until it disappeared, wondering himself why he’d returned the money.