Burn

21

Carver slept most of the afternoon on the sofa, awakened only occasionally by Beth so she could assess his condition and feed him a pill. Did all women love to dispense medicine?

He came fully awake a few minutes past eleven o’clock, in bed without recalling how he’d gotten there. Beth was sleeping beside him, resting on her back, her long body covered by the thin white sheet, which made her look ethereal. Carver had worked his way out from beneath the sheet and lay naked on top of it. The room was dimly lit by moonlight, and the only sounds were the rushing of the surf and the whisper of Beth’s deep breathing, seeming to become one sound. It was warm in the room, with very little breeze sifting through the screened window. It occurred to Carver that he no longer had a headache.

He moved his hands and brushed his ribs with his fingertips. The elastic support was gone, as Dr. Woosman had instructed for nighttime. Beth had been playing nurse again. He rolled partly onto his side, causing a twinge of pain in the damaged rib, and felt along the wall and floor for his cane. He couldn’t find it. Looking around, moving tentatively for fear of hurting his side or igniting a headache, he didn’t see the cane. Maybe he’d misplaced it.

Or maybe Beth had deliberately moved it out of his reach to discourage him from getting out of bed.

The possibility irritated Carver so that he came wide awake. He was especially sensitive to being deprived of the cane, of his mobility. It evoked a helpless feeling out of proportion to reality. Years ago a woman had told him that since being shot and made lame, his cane had become a phallic symbol for him and he felt deprived of his virility without it. He never had figured out if she was right.

Though he felt a persistent weariness throughout his body, and a precarious balance on the edge of pain, he knew it was pointless to try going back to sleep. He slowly struggled to a sitting position without disturbing Beth, then he stood up, bending over and using the mattress for support.

He hobbled to the TV near the foot of the bed and got the remote from on top of it, switched it on with the volume off, then worked his way back into bed. The rib felt OK. The headache stayed dormant. He aimed the remote at the TV and ran up the channels until Jay Leno appeared. Then, very gradually, he increased the volume to the point where he could barely understand what was being said but Beth wouldn’t be disturbed.

Beth muttered in her sleep and rolled onto her side, facing away from him. Quickly he lowered the volume another notch and her breathing evened out into the measured rhythm of deep sleep.

He couldn’t make out what was being said on TV now, but he didn’t really care. Leno was interviewing a tiny, pixielike brunette actress who looked vaguely familiar and waved her arms around a lot as she talked. Every few minutes Leno would say something and they’d both laugh uncontrollably. That would cause the pixie’s nose to crinkle in a way that was undeniably precious, and she would lean forward in her chair and squeeze her clenched fists between her knees as if she had to go to the bathroom.

She was cute, all right. Carver wondered if in twenty years she would be a character actress. It didn’t seem possible.

Leno pointed to the camera, said something to the pixie, and the picture faded to a local commercial, a customized van dealer in Del Moray standing in front of a gizmoed-up Ford Aerostar and grinning and talking and throwing phony money into the air simultaneously.

Real money went like that sometimes, Carver thought.

Ignoring the incomprehensible low-volume chatter emitted by the TV, he stared at the van, picturing it dusty black with tinted windows, and decided it was probably the model van he’d seen pull into the lot outside his office a few minutes before the giant with mechanic’s fingernails had entered and beaten him.

The odds were, he decided, that his attacker had been trying to warn him away from asking questions concerning Marla Cloy. Of course, there was no way to be sure. But another run-in with the man wouldn’t be wise so soon after the first, so Carver decided to play the odds and follow Joel Brant tomorrow rather than Marla. He wasn’t too obstinate to give himself time to heal.

The commercial was over and the camera caught the pixielike actress with a serious expression. Damned if she didn’t look like a pocket-size Ava Gardner. Then she realized she was on camera and grinned, crinkling her nose. She moved over a seat as Leno stood, applauding vigorously, and Eric Clapton strolled into the picture, tall and lanky and smiling and waving to the audience.

Carver thought Clapton was great, and he decided that if he played his guitar and sang it might be worth risking waking Beth by raising the TV’s volume.

But within minutes after Clapton had sat down and selfconsciously scratched his scraggly beard with a forefinger, Carver was asleep.

He was awake before six the next morning and thought he’d be able to get away from the cottage without rousing Beth, but when he came out of the bathroom after showering and shaving, there she was in her terry-cloth robe, seated at the breakfast counter. She was drinking a cup of the coffee Carver had made in the Braun brewer.

“Where you going, Fred?”

“I plan on making it an easy day,” he said. “Maybe follow Brant around and see what kind of mischief he gets into.” He gripped his cane and made his way into the sleeping area.

By the time he’d dressed and returned to the kitchen, she was munching soda crackers and had poured a second cup of coffee for him. It was the second time in the last few days he’d seen her eating dry crackers.

“Maybe I should go with you,” she said.

“How can you eat crackers for breakfast?” he asked.

“So I’m not going,” she said, keying off his mood. She didn’t say anything about the crackers; she was still in some kind of denial and not willing to talk about how pregnancy had strangely altered her diet.

“How about using Burrow’s resources to see what you can find out about Brant Development?” he asked.

“Sure. That oughta keep me out of your hair for a while.”

He smiled, passing his hand over his bald pate.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Almost normal if I don’t do any deep breathing. Want to help me with this bracer?” He held up the elastic support that had been draped over a stool.

She came around the counter and he raised his pullover shirt while she fastened the brace around his lower ribs. He felt a little pain now, and he wondered if she’d deliberately cinched the support too tight so she could make her point that he should rest another day. They’d fallen into fighting petty subterranean duels.

“Want some breakfast?” she asked.

He tucked in his shirt. “No. I’ll get something to eat at a drive-through. People in construction start work early, so I want to be outside Brant’s condo before seven.”

“He’s a boss,” Beth said. “They don’t start at any seven o’clock.”

“They do if they own the company and they’re successful.” He downed half the coffee she’d poured for him. Now that his rib support was in place, he made his way back into the sleeping area.

As quietly as possible, he got his Colt.38 semiautomatic from where it was taped to the back of his top dresser drawer. He used the leather belt holster and concealed the gun beneath his shirt.

Beth seemed not to notice that his shirt was again untucked when he returned to the main room. Pregnancy might have taken the edge off her alertness.

“OK if I take your car today?” he asked. “Brant might recognize mine.”

She got down off her stool and walked to where her purse sat on a table near the door. After fishing out her key ring, she detached one of the keys and came to him, kissed him lightly on the lips, then handed him the key. Her kiss tasted like coffee. He held his body slightly away from her so she wouldn’t feel the gun.

“Don’t forget these,” she said, and with her other hand gave him the vial of pills Dr. Woosman had prescribed.

He brushed his lips against her forehead, which was surprisingly cool. “Thanks. I’ll take one if I need it.”

She returned to her stool at the breakfast counter, and he headed toward the door.

“Fred.”

He turned.

“Don’t wait any longer than you have to, if you’ve gotta use that gun.”

He nodded and left her drinking coffee and munching dry crackers and thinking God knew what.