Kiss

26

In the morning Carver drove down the heat-shimmering highway into Del Moray. On his left, the ocean rolled blue-green and too sluggish for whitecaps, as if it felt the burden of the heat and was lulled to lethargy. Gulls circled lazily above the waves, and in the gray haze of the horizon white sails seemed to hang by invisible threads attached to their points, like triangular pieces of a mobile. The fish-rot smell of the sea clung like a fog to the shore.

He went by Edwina’s house, but she wasn’t home. In the bedroom, he removed his old Colt. 38 automatic from where it was taped behind the top dresser drawer. He didn’t like carrying a gun, and he’d decided to leave the Colt here rather than go through the aggravation of dealing with airport security on his trip to New Orleans. A gun wouldn’t have been much use to him there anyway. He tucked the Colt into his waistband beneath his shirt. From Edwina’s, he drove to police headquarters.

McGregor was in his shoebox-sized office, seated behind his desk with a disgruntled look, tugging heavily at his long face. He might have been very tired. Ever the genial host, he glanced up and said, “I ain’t got time for you today.” Carver went in anyway and sat down in the chair by the desk. He began tapping his cane gently on the floor, as if in time with silent music. Or with the varying hum of the air conditioner fighting the good fight against the heat. “You ain’t got ears?” McGregor said.

“Got ears. Got questions, too.”

“Too bad. Chief’s been on my ass, Carver.”

“I’m sure you don’t deserve it.”

“You got that right. I’ll take care of the little bastard when the time comes.”

Carver knew McGregor well enough to feel sorry for the chief, who probably thought he was dealing with something human.

McGregor gnawed at his right index fingernail, detached part of it, and began working it between his eyeteeth. He liked to chew on minute objects. A nervous habit, Carver supposed.

McGregor stopped clicking his teeth and said, “Well, state your business so you can get the fuck outta here.”

“I want to know if anything happened concerning Edwina while I was gone.”

“A lotta gasoline and shoe leather was used, is all. Your lady gets around. I was hoping I’d be able to tell you she’s seeing somebody else, but no such luck. What she does is shows property, works on real-estate deals. Some go-getter. Made herself well-off and she might even make herself goddamn rich. I can understand what a guy like you sees in her. I was you, I’d grab two handfuls of that and never let go.”

“Raffy Ortiz was in New Orleans,” Carver said.

McGregor spat out the sliver of fingernail and leaned back to his chair. “Was he now?”

“He came to my hotel room. We had a chat.”

“Bet you did.”

“He might be even more screwed up in the head than you are.”

“Oh, doubtless he is. What’d he have to say?”

“Told me to drop the Sunhaven case. But I don’t think he really believes I will.”

“I don’t think he wants you to,” McGregor said. “I know how shitheads like him see shitheads like you. He’s taking his time, is all, getting his kicks playing with you before he decides to do whatever it is he’s leading up to. Foreplay, you might call it. To say Raffy Ortiz is a sadist is to say flies like sugar.”

“That’s more or less how Desoto reads it.”

“Hey, I ain’t surprised. Desoto’s a bright guy. How he got mixed up with a downhill roller like you is beyond me.”

“What shouldn’t be beyond you is that something more than watered-down Geritol is happening at Sunhaven. Otherwise Raffy Ortiz wouldn’t be commuting between here and New Orleans around the time of Kearny Williams’s death and funeral.”

“His second trip might have been just to see why you went there.”

Carver had to admit that was possible. But in the room at the Belle Grande, Raffy didn’t ask him what he was doing in New Orleans. Which suggested he already knew. He’d been watching Carver.

“Was Raffy doped up when he talked to you in New Orleans?” McGregor asked.

“I’d say so, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“I hear he’s on drugs more and more these days. And he’s losing control and falling toward bottoming out. Guy like that can be especially dangerous. As if he ain’t dangerous enough already.”

“If the law knows that much about him, why can’t he be nailed for possession?”

“That’d be kinda like nailing a great white shark for swimming in the wrong end of the pool. The guy’s not your ordinary dopehead. He’s got some heavy-duty connections, people who turn white and shit in their pants if he looks hard at them. Believe me, Raffy Ortiz wouldn’t take some short fall for carrying a little coke. He’d bounce right back onto the street meaner than ever.”

“That his drug of choice? Cocaine?”

“I couldn’t guess. Right now, I’d say you’re his drug of choice, what’s giving him his ongoing high. Sorta the way a cat gets a rush outta toying with a mouse.”

“You know him so well,” Carver said in disgust, “but you can’t get it through your dense bureaucratic head he’s into something out at Sunhaven.”

“Don’t get your blood boiling,” McGregor said. “Happens I agree with you. That’s why I lowered myself to entering into a kind of agreement with you. That’s why I got one of my men trailing around after Edwina Talbot like she was a bitch in heat and he was a hound with a hard-on.” He rested both huge palms flat on his desk, as if he were getting ready to compress the poor piece of furniture against the floor. “Edwina’s still breathing and bouncing around unbruised, Carver. That was my end of the deal. Now, what’ve you learned about Sunhaven?”

“What I’ve been trying to get across to you. I’m surer than ever something’s wrong when residents are dying out there. I talked to Dr. Macklin yesterday.”

“I talked to her, too. While you were in New Orleans. Used the subject of you as an excuse. She doesn’t like you coming around. Says everything’s hunky-dory at Sunhaven and you oughta go back to peeking through motel keyholes.”

“She said that? About motel keyholes?”

“Not exactly,” McGregor admitted, raising a pale eyebrow. “I’m paraphrasing. But the intent was there.”

“She used the same attitude on me. You meet her husband?”

“Nope, I saw her when she was alone in her office. Great legs for a doctor, hey?”

“Know anything about Brian Macklin?”

“The hubby?”

“Yeah. He’s a painter.”

“Oh? Houses or sunsets?”

“Sunsets. He’s supposed to be good. Actually sold some canvases. He’s getting ready to have a one-man show in Miami.” Miami again, Carver thought. But he didn’t mention to McGregor the frequency of the city’s name popping up. It could merely be coincidence. Miami was the large cosmopolitan area where somebody like Brian Macklin might be most likely to have his work shown.

“I’ll see what I can find out about hubby Brian,” McGregor said. “Guy must be crazy, out painting pictures instead of running up the miles on that wife of his. Being a doctor, I bet she knows some moves. Meantime, you better do what you can to stay away from Raffy Ortiz.”

Carver knew McGregor wasn’t expressing concern for him. He didn’t want Carver’s corpse to turn up somewhere and prompt a lot of questions he might have to lie about or play dumb on. Danger either way.

“I’ll try to avoid him,” Carver said. “But if I do see him, I’ll mention you know what I know.”

He was a little surprised, and unsettled, when McGregor looked genuinely frightened.

He wondered what McGregor would think if he knew Carver’s next stop was Raffy Ortiz’s condominium.