Flame

Chapter 27

Driving through the warm night, Carver wished he could return home to bed and Edwina, tell her what he was doing. But he knew it would be a possibly fatal mistake. The odds were good that Ogden-rather, the enigmatic Frank Wesley-had someone watching Edwina. Carver they didn’t have to watch; he was attached to the end of a leash in the grasp of Walter Ogden. If he did something wrong he’d be punished by Edwina’s horrendous rendezvous with Vincent Butcher.

If he did something wrong.

But if he did nothing, and if he slipped the leash, that would be different. If no one knew where he was. Or why. Then the result would be uncertainty. Edwina would be safe because Ogden wouldn’t want to eliminate Carver’s possible remaining value by harming her. Also, Van Meter’s man Hans and the DEA would be watching over her. Jefferson and Palma would think Courtney Romano might be able to tell them where Carver had gone, but they’d be wrong.

Carver was going to move completely off the game board. Suddenly he’d no longer be a factor except by his absence, which could be interpreted a number of ways, but not with the certainty that would prompt action.

The Olds’s canvas top was up but all the windows were cranked down. Wind boomed and swirled through the car’s interior. Taut canvas slapped against the steel struts as Carver pushed the car hard along the Orange Blossom Trail toward Orlando. Flying night insects met hard and instant death against the windshield; Carver had to use the squirts and wipers now and then in order to see clearly.

At the Orlando airport he parked the Olds in an inconspicuous slot in a park-and-fly lot, then rolled up the windows, climbed out, and locked the doors. He limped around to the trunk and removed his scuffed leather suitcase. Lugged the suitcase over to the next row of cars and down about a hundred feet, where he’d left the green Ford he’d rented earlier.

He placed the suitcase on the passenger-side front seat of the Ford, then limped around to the driver’s side and lowered himself in behind the steering wheel. Experienced that new-car smell everyone with big payments bragged about.

He’d asked for a Ford with the biggest motor they had, and Hertz had accommodated. The car’s engine turned over on the first try and throbbed with quiet power. He backed out of the parking slot, slipped the automatic gearshift lever into drive, and the Ford jerked forward and wanted to fly. Carver smiled.

It was just past three A.M. when he drove from the lot.

The sun was only a faint and uneven red smear on the eastern horizon, like a novice painter’s mistake, when Carver killed the Ford’s headlights, tapped the brake pedal, and turned off the highway. He was jouncing over the narrow road that led through the rows of citrus trees to the small airstrip and abandoned house.

Carver braked gently and then parked about a hundred yards from the house, which he could barely see as a squat, dark form beyond the trees. Then he climbed out from behind the wheel and hobbled over uneven ground toward the decrepit structure, feeling ahead of him with the cane like a blind man. The only sound was the screaming of crickets in the field behind the house. If they were aware of Carver’s presence, they didn’t seem to mind enough to lapse into wary silence.

He kept to the side of the road, tasting the grit of powdery dust he couldn’t see. The Colt in its belt holster was gouging the top of his right thigh with each step. He adjusted the holster. Didn’t help. Hell with it. Sweat trickled down his rib cage. Some ran down his forehead and into his eyes. Stung. He wiped his face with his hand, wiped his hands on his pants leg, and kept limping through the velvet darkness toward the house.

It took him a few minutes to assure himself the house was unoccupied. Then he let himself in through the unlocked porch screen door and stood very still, peering around at the blackness.

It was even darker in the house than outside, and the screams of the crickets were muted. The place smelled musty, and the faint scent of greasy beef and onion lingered from the McDonald’s debris he’d seen on his last visit. But now it had about it the cloying sweetness of garbage, and it almost turned his stomach. He swallowed saliva that tasted metallic, but he felt the nausea recede.

After a few minutes his eyes adjusted to the dark and he could make out objects. He limped over to the table, leaned on it, and used the crook of his cane to lift the nearby upended chair. Then he sat down in the chair. It creaked loudly, like Van Meter’s delicate desk chair, and for a moment he was afraid it might splinter beneath him. But it held.

He placed the Colt automatic before him on the table. Waited for sunrise.

When the crickets had quieted and shafts of daylight lanced through the dirt-smeared windows, Carver left the house and returned to the Ford. It was parked beneath some of the older and larger orange trees that had thick foliage. The trees were dotted with oranges, probably Valencias, but they were too small for picking.

He opened the car’s trunk and removed the suitcase. Opened the suitcase and removed a ball of thin but strong twine and a pocketknife. He placed the twine and knife on the Ford’s grained vinyl roof and then limped around and slid the key in the ignition. Twisted it to the accessory position, then lowered the front left power window so he’d have a handhold to help him climb onto the car.

With the aid of the cane, he managed to pull himself up onto the hood. The thin steel gave and sprang back, pinging loudly beneath his weight. Thanks, Detroit. Careful not to step on the wipers, he clambered up onto the car’s roof. Hertz wouldn’t approve, but what the hell, he had more at stake than they did.

It took him about twenty minutes to bend the trees’ lower and smaller branches and tie them so they were interwoven over the Ford. Crude but effective camouflage.

Sweating as if he’d been digging ditches, he slid back down to the ground, satisfied that the car couldn’t be seen from the air or the road.

He raised the window, removed the key from the ignition switch, and locked the car. Then he trudged back to the house, lugging the scuffed leather suitcase.

Seated again at the table, he got a thermos of hot coffee from the suitcase, poured some into the metal cap, then calmly sipped it. The steamy aroma whetted his appetite, but he decided not to eat anything until lunch. He knew he’d have to wait here a long time. Maybe days. Maybe a week. And maybe his waiting would be useless and he’d simply have to give up and try a different approach. He’d come prepared to wait. In the suitcase were a few changes of clothes, a small portable radio, some bottled drinking water, a box of granola bars, and some canned soup and packaged junk food. Also a large thermos of soup, some of which he was prepared to drink cold after the first day. Lunch.

Like most cops and former cops, Carver possessed a smoldering kind of patience that was almost infinite. Waiting was something he did very well. He could retreat into himself and block out everything else, but simultaneously retain an automatic alertness. Cops learned to do that instead of going mad with boredom.

He finished the coffee and then leaned back in the old wood chair and sat quietly, his eyes half closed. Not awake, not asleep. Not watching, yet aware. If the slightest change occurred anywhere around him, he’d know.

Nothing moved in the dim, ruined house. The day grew brighter, and the occasional moan of a passing truck on the distant highway drifted lazily to Carver. He didn’t seem to notice. Last night had been long and exhausting, but he knew he couldn’t afford to fall completely asleep. Not here. Not now.

He didn’t mind. In a way, he’d gone on the offensive. Made moves that would confuse. He liked that.

Something small and frantic scampered lightly across the roof. In a four-footed hurry. Most likely a squirrel.

Carver ignored it. Probably it was on its way to feast on an orange. Maybe later Carver would follow the squirrel’s example. Go out and try to find an orange ripe enough to eat. Have that with his soup.

He sat in the increasing heat and waited, his heart ticking out measured beats like the timer on a bomb.