Scorcher

Chapter 30

Between Emmett and Nadine, Carver thought it was Nadine who was less likely to notify him if Paul contacted her. He decided to watch her, and periodically check to see if Emmett had phoned him.

He borrowed Edwina’s incredibly complicated, many-knobbed answering machine, which had a beeperless remote feature that allowed him to phone his number and punch in a code that would command the machine to play back messages. The microchip was a hell of an invention, he thought. He’d be able to call from any phone to check for messages while he was following Nadine. He wondered if this technology was an offshoot of the space program, all those tons of metal and flesh and fire hurled from a point on the coast, out of Earth’s grace and gravity, and now Carver could hear from a distance people who wanted to sell him time shares and vinyl siding.

Nadine spent most of her days at the Ray and Racquet Tennis Club on the coast highway, a sprawling white stucco complex interspersed with palm trees, angled concrete walkways, and neatly laid-out green asphalt tennis courts. There was a sunwashed symmetry about the place that hurt the eye.

Carver didn’t attempt to get past the gate, which was guarded by uniformed security in the person of a small, white-haired man toting a large, black-holstered sidearm. He looked like an ex-cop past retirement age but still willing and capable. Police work could be an occupation that got in the blood and eventually took over the entire organism.

There was only one way in and out, so Carver found a shaded, secluded spot off the highway to park the Olds. From there he could both observe the tennis-club entrance and sometimes with binoculars see Nadine seated at an outdoor table in the lounge, sipping drinks with her friends. One of the friends frequently near her at the crowded table was Mel Bingham. A lot of animated conversation went on among that group, tanned waving arms, glinting jewelry, perfect white smiles, and very sincere expressions above designer tennis shirts and gold chains. The rich at play, aimless but with style.

Occasionally Nadine would wander out to one of the courts for a singles match, and Carver would watch her through the binoculars as she destroyed her opponent with her powerful base-line game. To him she looked good enough to be a pro, and he envied as well as admired her two strong legs and the fluid mobility she took for granted. She was an intimidating figure with a racket, in a white-and-yellow tennis outfit that might have made a smaller woman seem more feminine but on her was almost a parody. A strapping, athletic girl with a firm bite on life.

In the evenings she’d usually drive into Fort Lauderdale and meet Joel Dewitt at his car lot. They did a lot of handholding and kissing. Dewitt liked to sneak up behind her, cup her breasts in his hands, and buss her on the nape of the neck. Looked like fun to Carver, too.

Sometimes they’d go out to dinner, or to a movie. They liked comedies. Almost always they returned to Dewitt’s apartment on Low Citrus Drive, where Nadine would stay until well past midnight.

Dewitt’s apartment was in a three-story sandstone building with a lighted pool whose water looked as if it needed filtering, though it wasn’t as bad as the pool at the Mermaid Motel. Red iron steps led to the upper-floor apartments, where railed balconies overlooked the pool and a row of ratty-looking, floodlighted palm trees. A flower bed along a low stone wall was colorful with azaleas and marigolds but wildly overgrown. The place could have used a caretaker who actually cared.

The building had a ground-level garage where tenants’ cars were kept out of the sun and safe from vandalism. Carver would sit in the parked Olds where he could keep an eye on the garage exit, as well as on the windows of Dewitt’s apartment. Usually, around eleven o’clock, the lights in the apartment would wink out and Carver’s imagination would switch on. He couldn’t stop flashing back to his night with Laura. All movement and softness and warmth, familiar yet strange. A new beginning and an end all packaged in a few hours; something personal yet independent of both of them that had to try its wings, and soared and fell.

Sometimes Nadine’s low-slung red Datsun would screech like a thing in agony from the garage and make a sharp turn onto the street, taking Carver by surprise. He’d have to hurriedly start the Olds and catch up to tail her. She knew no way to drive other than fast.

The Datsun had metal louvers across the rear window to keep the sun out, like exterior Venetian blinds, and it was difficult for him to know if Nadine was alone. At times she and Dewitt would leave the apartment, and Carver would think she was by herself in the car. He’d follow her several blocks, encouraged by the fact that she wasn’t heading home. Maybe she was on her way to a secret rendezvous with Paul. Then, at a traffic signal or in a brightly lighted area, he’d discover that Dewitt was with her and they were only going out for drinks or a pizza and would return to the apartment later and probably do things he didn’t want to envision.

Occasionally, when he knew she and Dewitt were set in one place for a while, Carver would phone his cottage number, key-in the answering machine for messages, and listen in the hope that he’d hear Emmett Kave’s voice, or possibly Nadine’s. He was always disappointed.

But one afternoon, when Nadine and Dewitt were at lunch, Carver finally did receive a phone message from one member of the Kave family: Adam, who wanted to see him as soon as possible and sounded disgusted and angry.

Carver was sure he knew what Adam wanted with him. He thought he should get back in the Olds and drive straight to the estate and level with Adam Kave. Tell him about Chipper, about McGregor, the entire convoluted tangle of lies and deception. Get everything out in the open and make his quest for vengeance burn hot and pure again. There was nothing Adam or McGregor could do now to stop him from finding Paul Kave and the truth. And nothing anyone could do to protect Paul, or Carver, from the fire of that truth.

But Carver didn’t leave right away for the Kave estate. He stayed in the stifling phone booth near the tennis club and called McGregor first.

After a series of switches from one headquarters line to another, there was a muted clatter on the other end of the connection, and McGregor came to the phone.

“I think Laura talked to Adam Kave,” Carver told him.

“Balls! How sure are you?”

“Very. She stormed out of my place last week furious with me. Did everything but yell back that she was going to the Kave family. And just now I got a message on my answering machine: Adam Kave wants to see me as soon as I can get to the estate. He sounded hot as one of his barbecued kraut dogs.”

“Used all your charm on your ex-wife, did you?” McGregor said nastily.

“Charmed her about like you did. She gave me the impression she didn’t like or trust you. Mentioned something about her skin crawling.”

“Ah, she’s being coy.” But McGregor was wisecracking absently; there was an edge of intense concern in his voice. He was the type who calmed himself or bought time with his own inane patter while he got his balance. It didn’t take him long to regain equilibrium. “Hey, Carver, why don’t you avoid old Adam for a while?”

“No. I’m driving out now to talk to him.”

“Why meet trouble halfway?”

“Because it’s trouble I caused.”

“Find ethics or something?”

“Never could shake them, I guess.”

“It’s people like you cause most of the problems in this world.”

“Doesn’t some of the evidence against Paul Kave make you stop and think?” Carver asked.

“Stop and think and you’re lost,” McGregor said. “Trick is to keep moving and thinking at the same time.”

“If Paul-”

McGregor interrupted. “Don’t lay this bullshit on me, Carver. I don’t wanna hear it. I mean it!”

“What do you want?”

“For you to stay away from Adam Kave.”

“Sorry,” Carver said, “can’t do that. However bent the arrangement is, he’s still my client. I should talk to him, tell him what he oughta know.”

McGregor lost his patience. “Why the fuck call me if you’re gonna do what you want anyway? No, wait a goddamned minute! It’s not that you shouldn’t have phoned, come to think of it. I got something to say in this matter, way I see it.”

“We don’t see it the same way. Can’t you get it straight Adam Kave’s on to us? I thought I owed you enough to inform you what’s happening, so you don’t get caught by surprise.”

“You mean when the chief struts in here and rips my rank off? Chews my poor cop’s ass and puts me back in a uniform and a patrol car?”

“It’ll be more than that, and you know it.”

“Don’t ever bet on me taking a fall, stranger. You’d lose the farm on that one.”

Carver felt his features alter in a slight smile. “You’re such a survivor.”

“Way I figure it, too. I’m still here; there are plenty who ain’t.”

“You set this up with the Kave family, remember? You recommended me.”

“Nope. Don’t remember a thing about that. Somebody record that conversation? For that matter, who the hell is this? Do I know you? Do I? Hey, let’s have a look at your American Express card, see if I recognize the name.”

This new tack didn’t really surprise Carver. It was possible, he realized; McGregor could play dumb, toss out angry denials, and slip through unscathed in his quest for job and rank retention and even promotion. He was a convincing guy in his sick way. And his arrangement with Carver couldn’t be proved. People like McGregor learned early how to obscure their tracks, and got better at it as life wore on. Takers who were also keepers.

“I won’t mention to Adam that you know who I really am,” Carver said.

“I don’t know who you really are, pal. Know your name, is all. Heard you was a troublemaker. Maybe went a little whacky after your son got baked. Hell, can’t blame you for that. But I tell you, it gets thin. Time passes, you gotta try and forget instead of getting snagged on what happened. Attempting to stir up some shit is all you’re doing.”

“What do you think, the phones are bugged there at police headquarters?” Carver said. “Jesus, can’t you talk straight?”

“It’s your hearing ain’t quite straight,” McGregor said. “I got work to do now, pal, so call somebody else and tell ’em your smoke-dreams. You on booze or drugs, fella? You talk like your brain’s lost some circuits.” He was rolling now, laying out grounds for denial and letting Carver know the new rules. That’s what this conversation had become about, letting Carver know.

“Listen, McGregor-”

“Sorry, dumb fuck, I’m not so lonely I gotta pass the time with a crank caller.”

“You must be. You’ve got no friends.”

But McGregor had hung up. The first step in taking on a new and innocent attitude. Blending back into the bureaucracy. He’d be good at it.

Carver left the cramped, ovenlike phone booth and limped across the pavement toward his car, which by now would also be sizzling in the sun. In each direction on the highway, heat vapor rose shimmering and gave the illusion of wetness on the flat concrete. As he neared the Olds, a small lizard regarded him warily, then darted into green-tinted shadows and became instantly invisible.

Carver wished he were as adaptable. But then, what kind of life was it if you were a reptile?

Ask McGregor.