Kiss

25

He was leaning hard on the cane, trudging toward his cottage by the sea, his carry-on leather suitcase slung by its shoulder strap and jostling against his hip, when he stopped and stood in the heat, staring. Behind him the ocean pounded like a heartbeat.

Someone had been digging. Carver could see the edge of what appeared to be a mound of dirt alongside the cottage, toward the back and almost out of sight.

After depositing the suitcase on the porch, he walked around the side of the cottage to where he’d seen the dirt.

He stood quietly, looking down. There was a mound of loose, sandy earth heaped next to a freshly dug hole. Stuck in the mound was a new shovel, shiny through the dirt on its blade and with a price sticker still affixed to its wooden handle. The hole was rectangular, about three feet wide, six feet long, and six feet deep. Very neat and symmetrical. Carver knew immediately that it was a grave. Knew who’d dug it, and who was meant to lie in it. If I make up my mind you’re dead, then you’re dead.

Fear he tried to deny came to life in Carver’s brain. He pushed the cold, quiet scream of it to a corner of his mind and went back around the cottage to the porch and inside.

He dropped the suitcase just inside the door, turned the air conditioner on high, and thumped with his cane into the kitchen. A clear drinking glass rested upside down on the sink. He rinsed it and filled it with cold tap water, then hurriedly drank it empty. He filled the glass again and drank deeply from it. As if he were trying to drown something within himself. Then he splashed the rest of the water down the drain, replaced the glass too hard, upside down again, with a loud clink! and pushed himself away from his leaning position on the sink.

Carver limped into the main room and sat down next to the phone. He didn’t think, didn’t move, until the window unit had stirred enough stale air to make it reasonably cool in the cottage.

Then he phoned Dr. Lee Macklin and made an appointment to see her late that afternoon at Sunhaven.

Dr. Macklin saw Carver not in her office but in her home on Sunhaven’s grounds. It was a flat-roofed extension of one of the garish Plexiglas cubes, out of sight from the highway. Built of cedar, it was rather plain from the outside but opened up inside into spacious and surprisingly luxurious quarters. There was a living room, furnished modern with a lot of polished steel and glass, carpeted in dove gray and containing matching charcoal gray sofa sections in a sunken area-what used to be called a conversation pit. A white concert-grand piano looked right at home near the powder blue drapes that lined the back windows. The lid was down on the piano, and there was a vase of fresh-cut flowers on it. White and yellow roses.

Beyond the living room was a slightly raised level bordered by a natural wood railing. Several doors led from that area to what Carver assumed was the kitchen, dining room, and bedrooms. In one corner of the vast living room there was actually a small, round pond bordered by mosaic tile and groupings of lush potted tropical plants. Light streaming in through the wide front windows was transformed by the pond into a gently wavering luminescence that played over the room and was oddly restful. Oil paintings lined the walls, mostly psychedelic seascapes, with oversized suns rising or setting for color. The ocean was there in all its moods, from placid to stormy, but in no particular order. And looking like something dreamed by Van Gogh after a bout with a bottle.

Dr. Macklin stepped down ahead of Carver into the sunken area of the living room and motioned elegantly for him to have a seat on one of the sofa sections that were arranged more or less in a square around a low, glass-topped table with chromed legs. She was out of her work mode, apparently, wearing a graceful blue silk dress. Her long dark hair was combed back sleekly and then slung forward over her right shoulder, its feathery edges resting lightly just above her breast. She was slender and beautiful, with cover-girl features and complexion. Her dark eyes were made up skillfully to appear even larger than they were.

Yet at the same time there was a businesslike air about her, a crispness and economy of movement that suggested authority, and that somehow reminded Carver of Edwina. A woman of contrasts, obviously.

As she sat down opposite Carver, a man about sixty stepped through one of the doors beyond the wood railing and smiled at them both. He was short and had a stomach paunch, and wore baggy khaki slacks and a wrinkled but expensive yellow cotton shirt with flaps on the pockets and with epaulettes. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses protruded perilously far from one of the shirt’s breast pockets, as if the exposed round lens were chancing a wondrous peek at the world.

He said, “I’m going to drive down to Vanessa’s and take advantage of the marvelous light.”

Carver realized he meant the soft early evening light favored by painters and photographers.

Dr. Macklin seemed compelled to make introductions. “This is my husband, Brian, Mr. Carver. Brian, Fred Carver.”

“Nice meeting you, Mr. Carver, but I’m afraid I have to run. Someone’s waiting for me to pick them up.”

“Your work?” Carver asked, motioning with his cane to take in the numerous wild oil paintings on the walls.

“ ’Fraid so,” Brian Macklin said, strangely apologetic.

“Very nice,” Carver said.

Brian nodded his thanks.

“Don’t let Brian’s modesty fool you,” Dr. Macklin said. “His work’s been displayed all over the South. He sells his paintings regularly and has his own show in Miami next month.”

“Which I’d better get to work on now, if I expect to be prepared.” Brian grinned almost impishly. He had a round, scrubbed-looking face with even features. An aged, gone-to-seed cherub. His gray hair was cut short on the sides, but it was longer and still thick on top, so it lay in a mass of loose curls. It was the hairstyle of a much younger man, say one about his wife’s age.

“Remember to be home by nine, dear.”

“Not to worry,” Brian said. “Ciao.” He went back through the door. Carver heard movement in another room, and what sounded like furniture being shoved around. Then he heard the front door close. Felt a stirring of air.

“My husband’s studio’s behind that wall,” Dr. Macklin said, gesturing vaguely with a red-nailed hand. She sounded genuinely proud of whatever success Brian enjoyed. Florida was full of would-be artists, most of whom had never sold a canvas or had their paintings displayed publicly.

“He does excellent work,” Carver said.

“Do you know art?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.” She crossed her magnificent legs; Carver heard the swish of nylon against nylon and felt a tightening in the core of him. He remembered Dr. Macklin with Nurse Rule at the Medallion Motel, how they’d kissed. The unmistakable possession and passion. Nurse Rule! Jesus! “Why did you set up this appointment, Mr. Carver?”

“I think you know I’m looking into a matter concerning Sunhaven.”

“Let’s not be cute or evasive. You’re looking into Sunhaven itself. Why?”

“Some of the residents feel there’s something wrong here.”

“I won’t ask which residents. I will ask what they think is wrong.”

“They’re not sure. Which is why I was hired.”

“By one of the residents?”

“Not exactly.”

“Be exact, Mr. Carver.”

“All right. Some people think there’s something wrong with the deaths that have occurred here in the past several months.”

“This is an old-folks’ home, Mr. Carver. Old people live to get a little older, and then they die. Death’s part of the package, I’m afraid. Unless you believe in earthly immortality. Old people imagine things. Sometimes they get unreasonable, even paranoid. Don’t you have a grasp of that?”

“I’m not old, not paranoid.”

“Ah, and what have you seen here that disturbs you?”

“Raffy Ortiz.”

The beautiful, intelligent face was blank for a moment. “That man who comes here occasionally to see Dr. Pauly?”

“That one,” Carver said.

“He’s Dr. Pauly’s patient.”

“He needs another kind of doctor. He’s a sicko who’s dealt in drugs and death all his life.”

“That might well be, but it’s no concern of mine.”

“Isn’t it?”

She leaned back on the sofa and set one of her black high-heeled shoes bobbing rhythmically. It caused the muscle in her smooth calf to flex in the same tempo. Sexy. “I’m not interested in the histories of my staff physician’s patients,” she said. “Dr. Pauly might have his problems, but he’s quite competent and discreet. If he thought Mr. Ortiz’s presence constituted some sort of danger or disturbance, he’d drop him as a patient or see him elsewhere, I’m sure.”

“What kinds of problems does Dr. Pauly have?” Carver asked.

“The usual. But you figure it out. You seem to see problems everywhere-you might as well assign some to him.”

“How about Nurse Rule? She have problems?”

No change in Dr. Macklin’s mascaraed eyes. “None that I know of. No one at Sunhaven has personal problems of such magnitude that they affect their work. That’s the pertinent point.”

“Then you don’t mind cooperating with me.”

“But I do mind. You see, I know more about Sunhaven than you or anyone else possibly could. I’m sure I can’t convince you there’s nothing here to investigate, but I can do what’s possible to see that you don’t interfere with the care and well-being of our residents. That, Mr. Carver, is an important part of my job.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt over her lean thighs, slipped a nyloned foot all the way back into the high-heeled shoe that had been dangling from her toes while she pumped her leg. “It’s a job that requires a great deal of late afternoon and evening work. So please, if you don’t mind.. ”

Carver stood up and, with the aid of his cane, climbed out of the carpeted conversation pit. A clear path to the door now.

He said, “I notice your husband’s quite a bit older than you. It’s nice to see a May-December marriage that’s working.”

“I’m more like July, Mr. Carver.”

She strode ahead of him on those long, fine legs and opened the door. The room temperature rose a few degrees immediately with the influx of outside air. Heat inundating like water.

Carver said, “I came here on the off-chance you’d help me clear away whatever misconceptions there are about Sunhaven. Instead you’ve only added to my suspicions.”

“I think you carry your suspicions with you like building blocks, and place one atop the other whenever you want, no matter what you see or hear.”

No common ground here, Carver decided, and pushed past the perfumed, feminine warmth of Dr. Macklin and out into the diffused evening light so coveted by her husband.

“Please leave Sunhaven alone, Mr. Carver,” she said behind him. It was a plea for mercy, and it was a warning.

“I can’t,” he told her, and limped to his car through the soft sunlight that made everything seem unreal.

Or at Sunhaven, maybe it was unreal.

Instead of driving out of the parking lot, he circled around to the main building, parked, and went inside.

The lobby was deserted except for an old woman in a robe who was shuffling toward him on her way to a door at the far end of the building.

When she noticed Carver’s cane, she flashed him a sunken smile of kinship and for a moment raised her own cane. It had a rubber tip and made no sound, but her leather-soled slippers scuffed loudly on the smooth floor.

“Here for supper?” she asked. “Chicken casserole.”

“Another evening, thanks,” Carver said.

So it was dinnertime at Sunhaven. He remembered Desoto describing the dining room as a mess hall.

“Got no bones in it,” the woman assured him.

“Sorry, I’m not hungry.”

“Suit yourself,” the old woman said. She sounded somewhat insulted, as if he’d turned down an invitation for a meal she’d prepared. She shuffled back up to speed and moved away from him.

A white-uniformed attendant charged into the lobby and asked if he could help Carver. He was a tall, slender man with black wavy hair and the kind of pencil-thin mustache Errol Flynn used to wear. Deeply etched lines from the corners of his lips to the wings of his nose gave his age away. He was closing fast on the half-century mark.

Carver hadn’t seen the man before and wasn’t afraid of being recognized, so he asked if Birdie Reeves was around. The attendant told him Birdie had finished her day and left Sunhaven a little after five o’clock. Carver thanked him and went back outside to his car, aware the attendant was watching him.

He hoped no one else was watching.

When he got back to his cottage, he phoned Birdie at home.

She didn’t seem pleased to hear from him.

“I need a favor,” he told her.

“Well, if I can do it, Mr. Carver.” But not if it sounds too difficult.

“I need copies of the files of residents who died at Sunhaven during the past year.”

After a long pause she said, “I dunno about that.” She sounded somehow unnatural. Distraught. Her voice dragging.

“It’s very important. Will you get them for me?”

“It makes me scared, that kinda sneaking around.”

“ Can you do it? I mean, do you have access to the files?”

“No.”

“Birdie?”

“What you’re asking would be awful hard to do.”

“But possible?”

“Well, barely so.”

“Think about it, Birdie. If you can get file copies, mail them to me. Or phone me if you’d rather, and I’ll meet you somewhere or drive over to your apartment to get them.”

He made sure she had a pencil, then gave her his address slowly while she wrote it down. He hoped she was writing as he dictated. It would be hard to blame her if she wasn’t paying attention to him and was reading one of her supermarket tabloids while he talked.

The truth was he felt a little guilty. He was using Birdie, imposing his will on her to get what he wanted, as had other men in her life. She had no real choice but to try to get the files. Not if she didn’t want to run the risk of being sent back to Indiana. Ends justifying means, Carver told himself, but he wasn’t so sure. Maybe ends and means were one and the same.

“I’ll do my darndest,” Birdie assured him, still sounding frightened. She hung up, leaving him feeling low enough to crawl under the phone.

He replaced the receiver and sat there in the quiet, darkening cottage. It was as if he could see through the wall to the open grave only twenty feet from him. His grave. His own personal eternal resting place. He noticed the broken pieces of his cane propped now in the corner where he’d set them after McGregor returned them to him at Edwina’s. Carver didn’t want Edwina to see them and had tossed them into the Olds. Driven here with them. The ends were sharp and would poke holes in a plastic trash bag; he’d put them out next week when the bulk refuse pickup was scheduled. The cane had been snapped in half simply by the force of abruptly checked momentum. Carver could imagine the strength and ability that must take. His own upper body was unusually powerful, but he possessed only a fraction of Raffy Ortiz’s conditioning and quickness.

He stared at the broken pieces of cane until the cottage was almost completely dark. Then he picked up the phone again and pecked out Desoto’s number. To get an address on Raffy Ortiz.

Carver wasn’t superstitious or easily influenced by the power of suggestion. He also wasn’t out of time. The grave on the other side of the wall wasn’t yet occupied.