Kiss

9

Carver limped toward the table where McGregor sat sipping beer. McGregor watched him silently, and when Carver was about ten feet away extended a huge foot and shoved out the chair opposite him in an invitation to sit down. Playing the genial host as if he lived here. The grating noise of the metal chair legs on the bricks irritated Carver. He said nothing as he scooted the chair nearer to the table and sat down. He hooked the handle of the unopened umbrella over the back of the chair next to him.

McGregor hadn’t changed much since Carver had last seen him. He was a lanky tower of a man, awkward yet with a suggestion of coiled strength. Homely, elongated face to match his long body, with a prognathous jaw, pale blue eyes, and straight blond hair and bleached-looking eyebrows. Nobody had ever told him about good grooming. His clothes were always wrinkled, he substituted cheap lemony cologne for bathing, and he looked as if he gave himself haircuts with a dull knife. There was a wide gap between his front teeth, contributing to the most lascivious grin Carver had ever seen. He gave no indication that he’d noticed anything about Carver, but Carver knew he’d noticed everything.

Without glancing at the umbrella McGregor said, “Think it was gonna rain?”

“Couldn’t be sure it wasn’t,” Carver said.

“Where’s the cane?”

“Broke it.”

McGregor chewed on something infinitesimal for a moment, clicking his eyeteeth together and gazing out over Carver’s head. “Walnut cane, wasn’t it? That’s hard wood. Not easy to break.”

Carver wondered if McGregor would believe how the cane had really been snapped. He wasn’t sure if he believed it himself; it had been astonishing, like witnessing a magic trick. That kind of strength and hand speed was only barely possible. “Ran over it with the car,” he said.

“Careless.”

“Yeah, not the sort of thing I’d do on purpose.”

“Where’s your lady friend?”

“She’s working late. Putting together a real-estate deal.”

McGregor showed Carver his lewd grin and let it linger. “You sure?”

“Sure as I need to be.”

“I guess in that business the customers gotta work and can’t get away during regular hours, so they meet all them sexy real-estate ladies in empty houses most anytime day or night. Some of those display houses, Carver, they even got water beds, mirrors on the ceilings. You’d be surprised what’s done to close a deal.”

Bastard, Carver thought. It was time to make McGregor uncomfortable. “How come you’re not still a captain in the Fort Lauderdale police department?”

McGregor didn’t look uncomfortable or embarrassed. Few had ever remarked on his sensitivity. He pursed his lips and spat out whatever it was he’d been chewing on. “Politics. Something you never understood. Now, I tell you, this ain’t a social call. I’m on the Del Moray force these days.”

“A lieutenant, aren’t you?”

“Politics again. And again something you wouldn’t grasp, old pal. Point is, like your live-in Edwina, I’m working tonight. Report came in a while ago of a fight over on Ashland Avenue. Real lively one. This guy had a stick or a cane, swung it and broke it on something, maybe the other guy’s cranium. Couple of cars sped outta there before the police came. One of the cars was seen close enough that somebody gave us the license number. We run a make on the car, and it turns out it’s a prehistoric Oldsmobile registered to you. Christ! I think. My old buddy in some kinda jam? So I drive over here and figure I’ll ask you. I’m now asking.”

“I’m not in any sort of jam,” Carver said. He watched the darkening ocean behind McGregor. Far out at sea the lights of a ship glistened in the void of an indistinct horizon.

“Could be the witness read the license plate wrong,” McGregor said. “They do get excited and make mistakes. And you got no injuries. None I can see, anyway. Other hand, you got no cane, either. Tough gimp like you, it don’t seem logical you’d limp around all the time with an umbrella. Kinda sissified, you know what I mean. And I gotta say, it don’t look a bit like rain.” He tilted back his long head. “Hey, check out that moon!”

“I told you I ran over my cane,” Carver said.

“Yeah. Thought it was a snake, I guess.” He lowered his head, then tipped it back again to drain his beer can. He set the empty can down hard on the metal table and fixed his creepy pale eyes on Carver. “You on a case?”

“Sure. How I earn my bread.”

“Got anything to do with this scuffle over on Ashland you weren’t in?”

“No.”

“Do me any good to ask you to fill me in on the facts?”

“Nothing to fill in. No concern of the law. I know my professional boundaries. It’s not an open case with the police, and no crime I know of has been committed and needs reporting.”

“I guess a domestic thing’s what it is,” McGregor said.

“That’s right. Family matter.”

McGregor grinned. “Family, hey? Well, there’s all kinds of families. You ain’t fucking with the Mafia, are you, Carver?”

“If I was, I’d sure tell them about you and let you in on the deal.”

“And you’d let me in, too, I’m presuming, if there turned out to be a crime committed. Or if you stumbled across anything the law’d like to know. Being a relatively new man on the force, it’d be to my advantage to bring in a prize soon as possible,”

“Way I hear it,” Carver said, “you don’t need to crack a case and make an impression here; you know the mayor. Know him even better than he’d like.”

“Nothing wrong with using a little suck to attain a position, Carver. But it still wouldn’t hurt if I made it evident I’m better at my work than anybody else in this piss-ant department. Hell, that shouldn’t be hard. I don’t plan on being a lieutenant all my career. I caught your name when the plates were run, knew you weren’t the type to foul your own nest, so if you were working on something right here in Del Moray it must be important.”

“It’s nothing for you,” Carver said. “If it turns into something, you’ll hear about it.”

“I better,” McGregor said. “And hear about it personally and confidentially, you to me, for my ears only.” His close-set little eyes got intense and mean. He was no hypocrite. He was a man who knew what he was and reveled in his own evil. “Even a mere police lieutenant can make things tough for private heat in the old hometown, hey?”

True enough, Carver had to concede.

McGregor stood up in sections, in the manner of six-and-a-half-feet-tall misplaced basketball centers. He extended his long arms and stretched languorously. Then he looked around and nodded approval, as if he were some kind of city inspector and everything checked out fine. “Hell of a nice place,” he commented. “You hooked yourself one with money. Hey, maybe you oughta marry her before she gets wise to you.”

“I’d show you out,” Carver said, “only I can watch from here and be sure you’re really gone.”

“S’okay. I wouldn’t want you following me around like a disabled Mary Poppins anyway.” He reached awkwardly behind his back, inside his ill-fitting suitcoat, and withdrew something and tossed it on the ground. Carver recognized the clatter of hard wood on bricks. He looked down and saw both halves of his broken cane. “Case you might wanna walk on your knees sometime,” McGregor said.

He ambled toward the gate, calling back over his shoulder, “You stay in touch.”

“Count on me,” Carver said.

He sat on the veranda and listened to McGregor’s car start. The bastard had parked it around behind the garage so it wouldn’t be visible and he could take Carver by surprise when he arrived. Maybe get him to say something while he was off guard. Gaining the advantage was McGregor’s way of life.

The smooth, pale roof of the unmarked Ford dipped out of sight as the car descended the winding driveway.

Carver sat where he was and stared out at the ocean while it got completely dark and the moon took over. It made luminous the whitecaps of the breakers rolling in. One day like today was enough in anyone’s life, he thought. The rush of surf on the rocks below was like the hectic whispering of gossips.

Where was Edwina this late?

Damn McGregor!

He got up and hobbled into the house, then to the front hall, where he got his spare cane from the back of the guest closet.

Carver felt whole again with the cane, more confident. It bothered him that he’d grown so dependent on it. He was a man who loathed dependency more than loneliness. That had caused problems in his life.

He heard the garage-door opener’s wavering hum, and he limped into the living room and waited for Edwina to come in.

When she saw him she did a double take, smiled, and said wearily, “The buyer brought his attorney to the closing with him. Lawyers! They don’t do anything but make things more confusing so they take four hours instead of one.”

She tossed her purse and attache case on a chair and walked over to Carver and kissed him. He pulled her down, held her tightly, and kissed her back. They were the sort of kisses that might lead to something.

They did.

Carver was lying nude beside Edwina in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, perspiring and listening to the ocean’s now kindly whispers, when the phone rang.

Edwina stirred sleepily and beautifully. She kissed him on the arm, and then rolled to her side of the bed to stretch so she could lift the receiver. McGregor was right: the real-estate business knew no regular hours.

She mumbled a hello, then let her head drop back on the pillow and held the receiver out toward Carver. Her breasts and stomach were still reddened from the friction of his body. “For you. Dunno who.”

Carver pressed the receiver to his ear; the plastic was cool and gave off a dry, acrid scent.

Before he could say hello a voice asked, “Fred Carver?”

Carver said he was.

“Name’s Amos Burrel. I live out at Sunhaven.” The voice was aged but still vibrant, with an edge of irritability and defiance, as if its owner wished he could simply disregard the years but knew that was impossible. “You the Fred Carver visited Kearny Williams here this morning?”

“The same.”

“I got the room next to Kearny’s. Walls are paper thin. Heard everything the two of you said.”

Carver smiled, but at the same time made a mental note to speak more softly at Sunhaven. “You shoulda come over and joined the conversation,” he said.

“Nope. I think you and me better have our own conversation.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning suit you?”

“If it’s convenient for you,” Carver said.

“Hell, anytime’s convenient for me. I never leave here. Catch me when I ain’t on the pot, we can talk.”

“I’ll be there around ten,” Carver said.

“Anybody asks, tell ’em you came to visit Kearny,” Amos Burrel said. “But you come see me instead. Got that?”

“Got it,” Carver said, and hung up.

“Who was it?” Edwina asked, half asleep and staring blankly at the ceiling.

“You know that old caution about the walls having ears?”

“Sure.”

“That was Ears.”