Bloodfire

7

Carver woke the next morning to the sounds of the sea, and of Edwina breathing beside him. It was like one sound. The sun had barely risen and the breeze pushing in through the open window was cool on his bare leg sticking out from beneath the thin white sheet. Edwina had worked her way completely out from beneath the sheet and was sprawled on her back with one arm slung loosely across her eyes, as if shielding them from the sun. The air conditioner hadn’t kicked in yet, and other than the rhythmic rush of ocean and breathing, the only noise in the room was the gentle ticking of the revolving ceiling fan.

Carver’s nose and left cheek were mashed into the pillow. He turned his head, which made his neck ache. Carefully, he rolled onto his side. He studied Edwina’s nude form touched by the morning light. Picked up the subtle stale scent of last night’s sex and felt something move deep in the core of him. She sighed and dropped her arms to her sides, didn’t wake up.

He thought about last night, after Edwina’s supper and several drinks at the restaurant bar. The rustle of perspiration-soaked sheets and warm flesh. Her moans. The headboard banging out its primal rhythm against the wall. They were still capable of lust, but he knew last night wasn’t any kind of resolution other than physical. They could continue to rut even as their hearts drifted further apart-if they so chose. And sooner or later neither of them would choose that kind of sex, the kind that meant nothing more than temporary satisfaction; the train to nowhere.

Carver stretched his arm and groped around on the carpet until he found his cane half under the bed. He used it to help him sit up on the edge of the mattress. The singing of the bedsprings didn’t affect Edwina. She was sleeping deeply.

He limped into the bathroom and started the shower, adjusting the taps until the water was lukewarm. After leaning his cane against the tile wall, he held on to the towel rack and stepped beneath the stinging needles of spray. Thinking how nice it would be if the water roaring through the pipes and washing so forcefully over his body could cleanse inside as well as out, dissolve the past and afford second chances.

By the time he’d toweled dry and limped nude back into the cool bedroom, Edwina was awake.

Still on her back, she’d pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness. There was nothing coy about it, he knew; she was simply cool in the morning breeze. She’d fluffed both pillows behind her head and was staring at Carver. Her dark hair was wildly tangled, making her look like a refined savage. Which she could be.

He awkwardly pulled on the Jockey shorts he’d gotten from his stash of clothes remaining at her house, switching hands to lean on his cane. Mr. Nimble.

Watching him through narrowed eyes, as if there were cigarette smoke bothering her, she said, “Leaving?”

“Yeah. I better get to the office in case somebody’s been phoning.”

“I thought you said the case you were on was ended.”

He snapped the shorts’ elastic waistband, then glanced around for the rest of his clothes. “All but the murder investigation.”

“Whose murder?”

“Woman named Belinda Jackson. Sister-in-law of my client. I mean, former client.”

“Killed here in Del Moray?”

“No. In Orlando.”

“Desoto’s territory.”

“Yeah.” He sat on the edge of the bed and struggled into his pants. He’d laid them folded on the chair, not carefully enough, because they were very wrinkled. Well, he’d been in a hurry. Barefoot, he limped to the small dresser and got out a fresh pair of socks, then went back to the bed and worked them on. He slipped his feet into the moccasins he didn’t have to bother tying. Shoelaces weren’t much trouble in the mornings, but he hated it when laces came untied in public, and he had to find someplace to sit down and contort his body simply to tie his shoe. The pitying stares made him furious.

He got a clean brown pullover shirt from the closet and yanked it over his head, then stood at the foot of the bed and tucked it into his pants. Smoothing the thick and curly fringe of gray hair around his ears and at the back of his neck, he caught his reflection in the full-length mirror. Dark pants, dark shirt, catlike blue eyes, harsh features with a scar at the right corner of his mouth that lent him a sardonic expression unless he smiled. Left earlobe missing as the result of a knife wound. He looked like a Paris hoodlum, as usual. Didn’t give a fuck, as usual.

Edwina sat up straighter and raked her red-enameled fingernails through her wild hair. It didn’t change anything. “Got time to hang around for breakfast?”

“Better not,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Sure. Well, I gotta get to work anyway. Some choice beachfront property to show.”

“Fat commission?”

“If I sell it.”

“You will.”

She nodded almost solemnly. “Yeah, sooner or later I will.”

He limped around the side of the bed to stand over her, then moved the cane close for leverage, leaned down, and kissed her forehead. Her flesh was damp and cool.

She didn’t move or look up. “ ’Bye, Fred.”

He braced on his cane and got out of there.

Across the street from Carver’s office was the pure white stucco combination courthouse and jail. In the now-glaring sunlight it looked edible, an iced pastry. Beyond it stretched the blue and glittering Atlantic. The view was the stuff of postcards.

The building that housed Carver’s office was cream-colored stucco, low and not very long and with a red tile roof. His was the end office. The other two businesses in the building were an insurance brokerage and a car-rental agency. Customers for all three enterprises came and went, but nobody was getting rich here.

Carver parked the Olds in its usual slot on the gravel lot, closer to Golden World Insurance than to his own office, because the car would be in the shade sooner there as the sun moved across Magellan and behind the building’s roofline.

He raised the canvas top so the vinyl upholstery wouldn’t melt, then limped over and unlocked the office door. Pushed into the anteroom.

The sun hadn’t really gotten mean yet today, and the air conditioning had the place comfortably cool. By two o’clock the office would begin to grow warm. Florida in June, what could he expect? The state really belonged to the reptiles and other coldblooded types.

He picked up the mail that had been dropped through the slot in the door, shuffled the envelopes, and saw nothing that promised a check. Mostly bills and ads. He’d apparently won a video recorder, if only he’d visit a new condominium development in Fort Lauderdale. Sure. He tossed the VCR offer and the rest of the obvious junk mail in the metal wastebasket near the door, then tucked the few remaining envelopes between his first and second fingers and limped across the sparsely furnished anteroom toward the open door to his office. He went inside to sit down behind his desk and check his phone messages and the rest of the mail.

Stopped after two steps and stood staring.

Somebody was already seated behind his desk, leaning back in his chair. Somebody else was standing off to the side, next to the window.

The one behind the desk said, “You look surprised.”

Carver said, “Am surprised.”

“Huh! Huh! Huh!” It was a jackal-like laugh. “Nothing in life should shock you. Not ever. That’s just the kinda world it is, you know?”

Carver knew. He said, “You Robert Ghostly this visit? Or Roberto Gomez?”