Hot

30

Just after nine o’clock Carver knuckled sand from his eyes and watched Davy’s black van jounce over the raised concrete apron as it drove from the motel lot. It hadn’t stopped at the office; apparently Davy had paid cash, or the desk clerk had run his credit card through the night before. If Carver hadn’t been half awake and watching, he would have missed him. Davy was a guy usually better missed, but not this time.

Carver worked the ignition key and the Ford’s engine kicked to life and smoothed out. He pulled away from the curb and hung steady about a block behind the van. The beeper receiver rested next to him on the seat, already plugged into the lighter socket, but he didn’t switch it on. There was no sense using it as long as he could see the boxy black form of the van. The sun hadn’t gotten mean yet, and he drove with the window down, enjoying the cool breeze. Despite a stiff neck and the foul taste in his mouth, this wasn’t half bad; he felt as if he had things more or less under control and was shaping events.

The van stopped at a McDonald’s, and Carver waited, hungry, while Davy ambled inside and had breakfast. He was pleased to see that Davy acted nothing like a man suspicious of being followed. Carver could see him through the window, leaning back in his plastic chair and raising and lowering his plastic fork.

When Carver’s stomach growled, he was tempted to chance getting something from the drive-through window, but he decided against it. Davy might happen to glance in his direction during the exchange of cash for McMuffin. So he sat with the Ford backed into one of the lot’s yellow-bordered parking slots and waited, trying not to notice the fuzz on his teeth, or that he needed to use the rest room. These were occupational discomforts. He should have brought his plastic Porta Potti.

Finally Davy swaggered from McDonald’s as if leaving a just-docked freighter. Without glancing around, he climbed up into the van and drove from the lot. Carver started the Ford’s engine, glad to switch on the air conditioner now that the sun was higher and more serious. But he didn’t pull out of his parking slot.

Tires squealing, the van had made a U-turn and was bouncing back in through the McDonald’s exit, speeding the wrong way past irate drivers lined up at the drive-through window. Horns honked. A woman yelled something indecipherable. Carver ducked out of sight and listened to the van roar past. He realized he was smiling. Davy, Davy, you seafaring scoundrel!

He knew Davy was making sure he wasn’t being followed. When Carver figured the van had exited from the entrance driveway, he switched on the receiver, sat up behind the steering wheel and followed the beeps instead of the van itself.

It was the first time he’d ever tried to keep track of another car this way, and after some initial doubts, he found it much simpler than he’d anticipated. The variance in tone and volume of the beeps emitted by the receiver was easy to detect, and any change in the unseen van’s direction was noticeable. And when the intermittent beeping became fainter, Carver sped up and regained volume, knowing he was keeping the distance between Ford and van more or less constant. His curiosity about where Davy might lead him became sharp and goading.

Then the beeping got suddenly very loud and began a fluttering beat that was almost an unbroken electronic scream.

Startled at first, Carver realized the van had stopped.

He steered the Ford to the outside lane, slowing to around fifteen miles per hour. Davy must be parked somewhere ahead. Keeping his speed slow, Carver peered through the windshield, scanning the sunny street, not wanting to stop too close to the black van.

But before he saw the van, the beeping abruptly changed tone and began to fade again. Davy was on the move after only a brief pause. Okay, so maybe he’d only stopped for half a minute at a traffic light. Carver urged himself to be more alert, to think of that sort of thing and not jump to conclusions.

His cane shifted sideways where it leaned against the seat, its crook bumping the receiver as he veered the Ford back to the outside lane and picked up speed to keep the volume constant.

After about five minutes the beeping grew louder again, changed tone.

The van was motionless again.

But not for long. The high-pitched beeps grew farther apart and fainter. The van was now on the move, probably after another brief wait for a traffic signal to change.

Only Carver didn’t pass a traffic light for the next five blocks, and he was sure the van wasn’t farther ahead of him than that. This was-

Uh-oh. The beeping indicated the van was stopped once more. Carver pulled the Ford to the curb and waited, this time for almost two minutes. Longer than any traffic light.

Beeep beeep . . . beep . . . beep . . . beep . . .

Davy on the go again, according to the tiny transmitter on the van’s bumper.

Stop, start, stop, start. What the hell was the game here?

Carver studied the wide, four-lane avenue ahead of him. Heavy Miami traffic, even this late in the morning. Lots of pedestrians on the sidewalk, window shopping, standing at-

Goddamnit!

He swerved around a pickup truck and goosed the Ford’s speed up to fifty, flying past slower traffic in the curb lane. The beeping got louder and louder.

Became almost unbearably loud and constant.

And Carver saw the bus.

He parked.

Watched the bus pull away after picking up passengers.

The beeping receded.

Two blocks farther down, when the lumbering vehicle angled to the curb to pick up and drop off more passengers, the beeping flared again. It faded as the bus rumbled away, leaving a dark haze of diesel exhaust.

Carver’s heart took a dive. He swerved the Ford to the curb lane and parked, switching off the receiver. Then he slapped the dashboard hard enough to sting his hand and make something drop with a tiny tinkling sound somewhere in the car.

Davy had figured it out, maybe even seen him plant the bumper beeper on the van last night at the motel. He’d tricked Carver, been toying with him. Placed the beeper on the back of a bus while he went about his business, leaving Carver to start and stop along the vehicle’s route. Davy’s little joke.

Not funny to Carver.

After sitting for a while seething and trying to think in the glaring sunlight, he decided there was only one way he might salvage something from this trip north. Still smelling diesel fumes, he almost broke the Ford’s key twisting it in the ignition to restart the engine. Then he drove to the Blue Flamingo Hotel. There was the slim possibility the Evermans had checked back in. And if they hadn’t, he could talk to some of the other residents and try to get a line on where they might have gone.

And there was another possibility. He was sure Davy was wily enough to figure out his trail might be picked up again at the Blue Flamingo, yet Davy’s arrogance and sadistic streak might compel him to go to the hotel for no reason other than to taunt Carver. How likely that was, Carver wasn’t sure, but he decided to give psychology a chance.

He’d leave the Ford parked out of sight, then check into one of the nearby hotels that was a notch above the Blue Flamingo and buy some shorts and sunglasses, a hat to protect his bald head from the sun. Maybe he’d smear a glob of that white suntan lotion on his nose, become unrecognizable. There was no shortage of men who walked with canes in this area. He could wander unobtrusively down Collins Avenue, or possibly along the beach like a shell collector, and wait to see if Davy showed up at the Blue Flamingo. Carver the man of a thousand disguises.

If Davy showed, Carver would attach the second transmitter to the van, this time someplace where it wouldn’t be noticed.

If Davy didn’t show, at least Carver would return to Key Montaigne with an enviable tan, and feeling qualified to drive a bus in Miami.