Burn

25

“I’ve been to the library,” Beth said when Carver had parked the car and limped toward the cottage. She was sitting in the shade on the porch, her Toshiba computer glowing in her lap. Carver didn’t blame it.

“So have I,” he said, taking the porch steps and lowering himself into the webbed lounger next to her aluminum-framed chair. “In the middle of the afternoon.”

“I went there not long after you left here this morning,” she said. “Had to go out for crackers anyway.”

He didn’t know if she was kidding, so he kept quiet.

“We should have coordinated our efforts,” she said. “I expect you were there for the same reason I was.”

“Reference room?”

“Right. To check the Gazette-Dispatch back issues on the Brant accident.”

He nodded.

“Duplication of effort,” she said.

“We screwed up, all right,” Carver said, squinting out at the sun glancing off the calm sea. “One of us should have been on Marla or Brant. She claimed Brant threatened her again. This time at a McDonald’s near her house, at the same time I was looking at microfilm.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Of course not. It probably didn’t happen.”

“You’re coming around to my way of thinking, Fred. Marla Cloy might not be a typical harassed female, though I confess I can’t quite figure out her game.”

Carver didn’t remind her that that originally had been his approach to the case, the reason Joel Brant had hired him. Then he’d drifted away from that theory; maybe Brant was using him and in a clever double game really was a threat to Marla. It might be either way. And now … he didn’t know.

It was complicated and confusing, just as Beth predicted it would be. He didn’t remind her of that, either. It was best not to push a pregnant woman who’d driven miles for crackers.

“The accident must have been terrible for Brant,” she said. “The decapitation, the fact that he was driving and had alcohol in his bloodstream. It might have been enough to unhinge him mentally. Make him unpredictable.”

Carver stared at her. “Good Lord, are we switching positions on this again?”

“I never had a firm position,” she said.

“Oh? I thought yours was the feminist position.”

“You don’t understand. You’re as much a feminist as I am, Fred.”

That surprised him.

“You’re a humanist,” she explained. “That’s somebody who believes in a life directed toward the well-being of other people. You might not know it, but that’s why you run around like a combination bloodhound and pit bull, searching out truths that will provide the gift of justice.”

“I thought it was my fee,” he said.

“One reason, anyway. A humanist is automatically a feminist. A feminist isn’t automatically a humanist, but should be.” She switched off her computer and closed its lid, then carefully set it down on the plank floor beside her chair. “There’s something else I don’t have a firm position on.”

He knew what she was going to say, and dreaded hearing it. Time was nudging them into a corner, forcing a decision before it was too late. You delayed in some things and you belonged to fate.

“I went into Del Moray for another reason,” she said. “I made an appointment for next week at an abortion clinic.”

A coldness moved through him. “I thought you said you were undecided.”

“I am. But you can’t just walk in and have the procedure the same day. The only other clinic in Del Moray closed last year after threats and demonstrations by pro-lifers. Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail through a window. It didn’t ignite, but it injured one of the patients. The doctors there called it quits, so there’s a long waiting list of patients.”

“Jesus!” Carver said.

“They say He has something to do with it. How do you feel about this, lover?”

He was numb. “I’m not sure. I can’t deny you’re the one carrying the baby, so it’s your decision.”

“I know that. But I don’t want to make it without you.”

He looked over at her and smiled. “Should I force you to carry a child to term? Is that really an option for me?”

“No,” she admitted. “I just want you to know I don’t take it lightly. The people demonstrating in front of the clinics … I see their point, Fred. At least the ones who are nonviolent. Don’t agree with it, but I sure see it.”

“You’re saying this is a close call.”

“Yes. And I’m sure it is for most women. Remember my telling you about the breech birth the last time I was pregnant? About Roberto’s son strangling on the umbilical cord?”

“I remember.”

“I was secretly glad, Fred. I didn’t want to bring a child into that world of drugs and cheap money and violence. The illicit drug business itself seduces and destroys people like a narcotic. Money’s addictive. Money’s a drug. In the recovery room afterward, I told the doctor I was glad the child died.”

“Did you tell Roberto?”

“No. He wanted a son. Afterward, when he learned what I’d said, he wanted to kill me. Others intervened, and I went away for a long time. Eventually he swore he forgave me, but I don’t think he ever really did.”

“He didn’t kill you,” Carver said. “That’s as much forgiveness as you could expect from Roberto Gomez.”

“I don’t often talk about those years. There’s no point to it. But I remember my guilt and fear. I don’t want to decide alone.”

“I don’t know if I can help you,” Carver said.

“Maybe you can’t. But I wanted you to know ahead of time I might abort. At least I’ve told you that. We’re in it together.”

Carver watched a sailboat far out in the sunny haze. “I don’t know what to do,” he said helplessly.

“Now you know how I feel, though,” she said. “I wanted you to understand.”

He reached over and held her hand, watching sunlight glimmer and move like inexorable time over the ocean. The waves foamed higher and higher on the beach as the tide slowly rose, reminding of things gestating, always. Life was as persistent as death.

The cordless phone chirped alongside her chair and her hand jumped beneath his. She answered the phone, then gave it to Carver.

Desoto.

“A few pieces of news, amigo.” “Good or bad?”

“It’s not that simple. What do you think this is, Disney World? The big man who beat up on you is a giant will-o’-the wisp, which in itself is odd. But he might be Achilles Jones, out of Georgia. Not much is known about him even by the Georgia law, other than that he rides a big Harley motorcycle and is rumored to have killed people. They say he has some sort of mental deficiency, the IQ of a child. People hire him for things like beating up other people, and he no doubt gets his money in other ways, but he has no police record. No one seems to know where he came from. One day he was just there. Georgia State Patrol heard about him, even pursued him once after he beat a truck driver almost to death in a motel restaurant. That’s one of the places they got his name and description, and an idea he wasn’t quite right in the head. He’s right in the body, though. The driver he beat up used to be an NFL lineman. So Jones is genuinely tough even in his weight class. Nature compensates, I guess.”

“Was he registered at the motel?” Carver asked.

“Yes. As Achilles Jones of Atlanta. They never heard of him there, though. Handwriting like a child’s, and he spelled it ‘Atlantis.’ The address he put down doesn’t exist. He’s probably a thug-for-hire without roots. There are freelancers like that, though usually not so conspicuous. We’re checking to see if anyone like him was sprung from a mental institution.”

“I doubt if they rode Harleys in Atlantis. If there really was an Atlantis. If there really is an Achilles Jones.”

“Slow progress, I admit.”

“Hardly progress at all. We know nothing about the giant in my office except who he might be pretending to be.”

“It’s more than we knew before.”

“Hardly qualifies as news, though,” Carver said. “What’s your other scoop?”

“A body was found a few hours ago in a rental car in a parking lot downtown. Little guy dressed like a Wall Street banker down on his luck. At first the lot attendant thought he was sleeping, then he saw that his head was turned the wrong way so he was staring backward. His neck was broken.”

Carver felt his breath turn icy in his chest. “Charley Spotto,” he said.

“That’s right. Did you know him?”

Carver told him he did know Spotto, and told him how.

“You’re a strong swimmer, amigo,” Desoto said, “but you’re in shark-infested waters.”

“Achilles Jones is the shark that killed Spotto,” Carver said.

“Maybe. He’s number one on our list right now. I’m afraid it’s not a very long list. We need to keep each other informed on this matter.”

“Don’t worry about that from this end,” Carver said. “I’m the one with the most to lose.”

After hanging up, he told Beth what Desoto had said, saving news of Spotto’s death until last.

She looked at him with a kind of deep sadness in her dark eyes. He wondered if she was weighing his world as she had Roberto Gomez’s.

Then she stood up. “I’m going inside and get a beer, Fred. You want one?”

He told her yes. She hardly ever drank beer.

The screen door slammed behind her and he stared out at the ocean. Life and death.