Bloodfire

32

McGregor covered ground in long, loose strides to within ten feet of Roberto Gomez. He carefully aimed the rifle. This time the shot was deafening. Gomez’s body jerked as the bullet slammed into it. Things stirred in the dark swamp, alarmed by the shot, then were quiet. Gomez’s outflung right arm twitched, but it had to be nerve reaction in an organism shutting itself down. He’d probably been dead when McGregor shot him the second time.

Carver looked at Beth, who was staring at McGregor almost the way she’d looked at the big alligator. McGregor glanced over at her. He was still grinning.

Carver said, “Meet McGregor.”

She nodded stupidly, almost as if it were a social introduction to someone who awed and frightened her. McGregor affected some people that way. So did spiders.

His grin became a leer as his eyes traveled up and down Beth’s nude form. He said, “So that’s what it was all about, huh? Root of all evil, after money.”

Carver lurched to where his cane lay, picked it up, and hobbled over to where Beth was leaning against the tree. He put his arm around her. Hugged her to him. Her body was rigid, unyielding. Then her breath trailed out of her and she sagged against him.

But only for a few seconds. Then her body shifted and she was standing tall on her own. She was unashamed of her nakedness, seemingly unaware of it, a dark Eve in a darker Eden. She glared at McGregor as if he were the serpent.

He said, “You oughta thank me for saving your life, dumb cunt.”

Carver said, “He shot the Brainard brothers. Roberto and Hirsh assumed I had. I assumed they’d done it.”

“Me all along,” McGregor said proudly. He pointed with the rifle at Hirsh’s now motionless form. “That asshole dead?”

“He’s dead,” Carver said. He remembered the sound of crushed cartilage and Hirsh’s gasping for air that couldn’t reach his lungs. He didn’t want to look at Hirsh’s face.

McGregor glanced again at Hirsh, then at Carver. “You know some tricks, for a gimpy ex-cop with a lotta delusions.”

Carver’s mind kept chewing on something. “How’d you come to be here?” he asked. “How’d you find us?”

McGregor said, “How’d I find you? Shit! I knew where you were the day you left. Followed you to the Beame house and had the phone tapped. First time Elizabeth here called Melanie about her son, I was listening. Traced the call to this godforsaken place. I been staying at your motel, fuckhead. Watching the two of you.”

Carver realized what McGregor had done. What it meant. Anger and bile rose bitterly in his throat. “Jesus! You’ve been waiting here in Dark Glades for Gomez to show.”

“That’s right,” McGregor said, obviously pleased with himself. “You sure as fuck do have detecting skills. But then you know what they say about how even a blind pig’ll find an acorn now and then. When you two ran and left the kid behind, you gave me a way to get Gomez to come to me, assface. All I had to do was drop a word and then stay close to you and the bitch here.”

“Bait,” Carver said. “You found out where we were, then you made sure Gomez found out, too. Then you came here and waited for him to show up and try to kill us.”

“Bait?” McGregor said. “Yeah, I guess that’s right. But don’t forget, those two swamp creeps woulda done the both of you in if I hadn’t come along. Not to mention your Gomez-and-Hirsh dilemma. Hell, I saved your asses twice over, and you’re griping at me ’cause I used you for minnows that’d attract the big fish. Some gratitude.” He leered again at Beth. The pink tip of his tongue peeked lewdly out from the wide gap between his front teeth.

“That’s not exactly proper police procedure, is it?” Carver said. “Police aren’t supposed to use citizens as bait, then mow down the bad guys from ambush without giving them a chance to surrender. You could lose your badge for that.”

“Nobody’ll know about two of the bad guys,” McGregor said, still sneaking peeks at Beth. “That’ll make my version and the odds seem plausible enough.”

Carver peeled off his shirt and gave it to Beth. She slipped it on. It covered her nudity well enough, came halfway to her knees. She gripped the bottom of the shirt and stretched it to conceal even more of her. McGregor looked disappointed.

He said, “I was gonna bury these two bad-ass brothers in the swamp, but maybe that’s not such a good idea. If anybody does look for them, the search’ll be concentrated in this area. I think we’ll take a cue from Gomez and drive them to the highway construction site. I know just where it is. Passed it on the way here.”

“What about Gomez and Hirsh?” Carver asked, wondering how McGregor was going to twist what had happened to his advantage. Twist it so it might propel him all the way to the office of mayor of Del Moray, and maybe beyond. Public service, ethics, or compassion would play no part in it. Politics and McGregor were compatible because he thought big and acted small.

“We leave Gomez and Hirsh where they are,” McGregor said. “The three of us drive the dead brothers to the construction site and bury them. Throw some dirt over them where concrete’ll be poured tomorrow. We can use that camouflaged truck of theirs to transport them. Then we drive back here and pick up my car. Park the truck by the cabin. Whole thing shouldn’t take more’n a couple hours. When we’re done, I drive you back to the motel and phone the local law and the DEA. Report that I followed Gomez and Hirsh all the way here from Del Moray and into the swamp because I had a tip about a drug pickup. They realized I was there and we fought. Gomez tried to blast me, but I shot more accurately.”

“Not to mention first,” Carver said, “and from cover of darkness.”

McGregor shrugged. “It’ll be assumed the swamp brothers were involved in the drug deal and disappeared. What I heard about them, nobody’ll much give a fuck what happened to them.”

“What if the alligators come back and drag away Gomez and Hirsh? Make a meal of them?”

“There’s always leftovers,” McGregor said. “Have faith in Forensics.”

“And you’ll be a hero,” Carver said. He had to admire McGregor’s audacity, but there was an obstacle. Two obstacles, “What makes you think your secret’ll be safe with us?”

McGregor’s lascivious grin crawled back onto his face. “Remember, Carver, you haven’t behaved very ethically in this. You got your livelihood to protect. As for the cunt, here, I’ll see to it she can testify in a secret, closed hearing. The law’s gonna make her spill her guts anyway, but this way there’ll be no publicity, and Gomez’s drug buddies won’t know about it and track her down and kill her.”

“You really think you can swing that kinda deal for her?”

“Know I can. She’s got knowledge to trade, and I’ll be the fucking man of the hour.” The moon glowed in his pale, sly eyes. “Only smart thing for her to do.”

“Maybe,” Carver said. A mosquito lit on the back of his hand. He flicked it away, but not before it drew blood.

“Then there’s the matter of the cocaine,” McGregor said.

“Cocaine?”

“The cocaine I brought along so if you two don’t cooperate I can say I got it outa your motel room. Gomez’s wife corrupted you, is the way the story’ll go. Promised you some of the big drug money if you’d help her. The two of you, here near the scene of a major drug deal, a possession charge won’t be easy for you to fight.”

Carver looked at Beth, who was staring at McGregor with loathing and disbelief.

“He’s right,” Carver told her. “And he’d do what he’s threatening. I know him. He would.”

Beth said, “He’s worse than the people Roberto knows. Knew.”

McGregor’s grin widened as if he’d been complimented. He said, “Okay, let’s get busy. We’ll get the plastic sheets Gomez mentioned outa the trunk of the limo. It’s parked up near the Brainards’ shack. We’ll roll the brothers in plastic, then we’ll toss some dirt over them at the construction site. By tomorrow afternoon, they’ll be safe under two feet of concrete highway, where they always wanted to be-in the fast lane.”

McGregor reached into Hirsh’s hip pocket and pulled out the key to the limo. Beth retrieved her shoes, and she and Carver followed McGregor to the shack.

The limo hadn’t been able to make it all the way over the rutted road. It was parked about a hundred yards from the shack. They got the folded plastic sheets from its cavernous trunk, even a couple of shiny new shovels; Gomez and Hirsh had come prepared for everything but their own deaths.

Already perspiring heavily in the hot night, they walked back to the clearing and stood over B.J. Brainard’s body. Carver said, “He’ll be no trouble, but Junior won’t be easy to drag back to the Blazer.”

“The three of us can manage,” McGregor said. “It’ll get done. Before morning these two’ll be underground, I’ll be back here with a shitpot full of DEA and local law, and you two’ll be back in your room at the motel. I can goddam well make this work. You don’t believe me, assface, just watch and see.”

Carver said, “Somehow I believe you.”

“Then unfold those plastic drop cloths or whatever the fuck they are. Pick up the guns and wrap them in with the bodies.” He turned to Beth. “You carry my rifle. Leave Gomez’s and Hirsh’s weapons where they are. Got it?”

Beth said she did. She stared down at her dead husband. Her features were impassive. It was impossible to guess what she was thinking. What she was reliving.

McGregor said, “Remember he was gonna feed you to the alligators.”

Beth surprised Carver. She nudged Gomez’s corpse with the toe of her shoe and said, “I remember. And further back than tonight. Good riddance, Roberto.”

McGregor looked at her with a flicker of approval.

Carver and McGregor got the bodies wrapped. Carver retrieved his Colt from where it was stuck in Junior’s belt and shoved it down his waistband at the small of his back. Then he picked up the Uzi the Brainards had confiscated from Beth, and a rifle, and wound them in plastic along with B.J.’s body.

B.J. wasn’t much of a problem. McGregor slung his plastic-clad corpse across his shoulders and carried him fireman-fashion to the truck while Carver and Beth trudged along behind.

McGregor found an old wheelbarrow in a toolshed near the shack, and they used it to transport Junior. Even then, they spent most of their time carrying him over soft mud, and Beth had to help several times when the wheelbarrow’s narrow wheel sank into the ooze.

They loaded the bodies in the cargo area of the Blazer. Carver sat in back with them and watched while McGregor opened the trunk of the blue Plymouth that had been parked at the motel. Beth dropped the rifle into the dark trunk, and McGregor hurriedly slammed down the lid and made sure the trunk was locked.

McGregor drove the heavily laden four-wheel-drive Blazer out of the swamp and to the interstate highway. He maneuvered the ruts and bumps as if he’d spent his entire life in Dark Glades. Like so many egomaniacs, he could rise to necessity and find dormant talents.

In less than an hour they’d reached the deserted construction site, and shortly thereafter the Brainards were buried like plastic-shrouded mummies in shallow graves. Clouds had closed in. The night was almost totally black, and only infrequent sets of speeding headlights, like tracer bullets on the distant detour, broke the darkness. The grisly job was completed in privacy.

When the last shovelful of loose earth had been tossed, McGregor stood back and placed a hand over his heart, his head bowed. For a moment Carver actually thought he was going to say a few words over the graves. What he said was, “Better thee than me, assholes.” Then he laughed. “Ready? Let’s get the fuck outa here.”

Carver was ready.

Carver and Beth stayed in Carver’s room at the Casa Grande that night. They heard distant sirens. McGregor, having a high time with Chief Morgan and the DEA. With the news media. A hero being born.

Beth snuggled close to Carver. They’d showered together, and she smelled like perfumed soap and shampoo.

She said, “You think McGregor can really make it work?”

Carver said, “Trust him.”

And fell asleep.

At Whiffy’s the next morning, the talk was of nothing other than what had happened in the swamp near the Brainards’ shack. How a big-time drug dealer and his partner had been killed during some kind of narcotics transaction, but the Brainards had escaped. Behind the long counter, Whiffy looked briefly at Carver and Beth and offered the opinion that Dark Glades had seen the last of the Brainards. Several customers agreed, and opined that that was just fine.

Carver and Beth ate their bacon and eggs silently, enjoying the cool breeze from the ticking ceiling fan.

Over fresh coffee, Beth stared across the table at Carver and said, “Guess I better tell you.”

He saw it in her eyes, though he didn’t understand it. Felt something cold close in on him. A premonition. “Tell me what?”

She inhaled and held her breath for several seconds, as if not wanting to turn the words loose. Then she said, “Adam’s not my son. He’s Melanie’s.”

Carver couldn’t believe it. He set down his cup too hard, almost breaking it against the saucer as he sloshed hot coffee onto his thumb. He sat back and stared at her.

Beth said, “I sorta borrowed Adam. Got Melanie to cooperate.”

“And your real son?”

“He died in childbirth. Not from drug addiction complications, but because he was a breech birth and the umbilical cord got wrapped around his neck. It was asphyxiation.”

“Roberto knew this? “

“No. I planted the heroin addiction story, just like I said. I didn’t know it’d turn him into an animal, out for revenge. Didn’t realize how ferociously he’d hunt me and try to kill me.”

“He was an animal to begin with, and he thought you killed his son.”

Beth bowed her head and began to sob quietly. “Christ, I don’t know, maybe I did. Maybe it happened because of the life I led. Because I let myself get pregnant by somebody like Roberto in the first place. He didn’t love me; he only married me for legal reasons-so I could refuse to testify against him if push came to shove in court. I was heartbroken when our baby died, but I saw it as an opportunity to get away. You don’t walk out on a man like Roberto; a marriage is over when he says so. If I got by with the heroin story, I figured he wouldn’t want me after the baby dying with an addiction, and that he’d think I’d be dead in a short while anyway, so he wouldn’t come looking for me. I was wrong.”

Carver said, “Jesus, you were wrong! About everything.” He tried to take a sip of coffee but found his hand was trembling too much. He placed the cup back in its saucer, gently this time, listening to the brief music of china on china as his hand shook. “You got me going, though. One lie after another.”

“Would you have helped me otherwise?” she asked calmly and sadly.

“No,” he admitted. The truth cut him like a blade. “If the baby’s not yours, why did you call Melanie from the motel?”

“I needed to keep you convinced, and I wanted to make sure Roberto hadn’t traced our moves and harmed Melanie for helping me.”

“You are something,” Carver said. “An actress good enough for the movies.”

Beth sat up straighter. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, as if she were infinitely weary, then gave Carver the look of a woman twenty years older. “I did what I had to in order to survive. Can’t you understand that?”

He said, “I do understand.”

“Then can you forgive me?”

Carver said, “No. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Another thing he couldn’t do was look at her. He put down a ten-dollar bill to cover breakfast and a tip and stood up, then he limped out of there. She let him leave without calling to him.

Well, she was finished using him.

On the drive back to Del Moray he listened to the news on the Olds’s radio. McGregor was selling his story to the DEA and the media. Carver hadn’t doubted he would, but still he was impressed. The force of McGregor’s evil and ego was such that it engulfed and persuaded.

Carver had heard enough. He switched off the radio and settled back in the sun-warmed vinyl seat. The car’s canvas top was down. He draped a wrist over the top of the steering wheel and let the wind swirl around him.

As he drove past the highway construction site, he saw a procession of cement trucks with their mixers slowly revolving, lined along the dirt shoulder and inching forward as their stacks belched dark diesel fumes. One by one pouring the Brainard brothers’ gravestone.