Spark

11

The temperature was over ninety by the time Carver got back to the Warm Sands Motel. As he parked the Olds, he noticed the little artificial beach down by the lake was crowded, and there were about a dozen preteen children splashing around in the swimming pool while their parents watched.

Heat from the pavement radiated through the thin soles of his moccasins as he limped to his room. He was perspiring by the time he closed the door behind him.

It felt cool in the room. The drapes were still closed, muffling the voices of the kids in the pool. His grip was slippery with perspiration on the crook of his cane, and his shirt was still plastered to his back from sitting in the car. He made his way into the bathroom, leaned over the washbasin, and ran cold water. After splashing some on his face, he held his wrists beneath the cool stream that twisted shimmering from spigot to drain. He felt better when he limped back into the room.

Until he saw someone standing near the bed.

Carver stood still, tightening his hold on the cane. He knew how to use it as a weapon.

“Startle you?” the man by the bed asked. He was conservatively dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, dark tie with diagonal stripes. His straight, dark hair was short and neatly combed with a part on the side, and he had the kind of clean-shaven, squarish face that prompted the description “clean cut.” His eyes were calm behind black horn-rimmed glasses that lent him a bookish air. The well-tailored suit was a fooler; Carver noticed that beneath the slimming effect of artfully draped material, the man’s shoulders, chest, and arms were immense.

“I’m not used to walking out of the bathroom and finding Clark Kent,” Carver said.

The man smiled. He might have been the muscular host of a TV game show, approving of Carver’s cleverness. Or maybe he’d been told before he’d make a great Clark Kent and knew he was really Superman.

“How’d you get in?” Carver asked.

The big man nodded toward the door. “I simply applied pressure. Anyone watching outside would think the door was unlocked and I just walked in.”

Carver stared at the sprung latch. He hadn’t heard the lock give over the running water in the bathroom with the door closed. It must have taken phenomenal strength to force entry into the room. Superman for sure.

“There must be a reason for your visit,” Carver said.

The big man crossed his arms, straining good tropical-blend wool. His hands were large, with thick, blunt fingers and squared-off, clean nails. He wasn’t sweating despite the suit coat and tie. He said, “I’ll get to the point, which is that I’m here to discourage you from continuing with the Jerome Evans investigation.”

“If you’re here,” Carver said, “there must be something to investigate.”

“Obviously.”

“Which means I’ll only be encouraged to continue.”

“Oh, not at all. The fact that my presence suggests information beyond your present knowledge does provide incentive, but that will be far outweighed by the conversation we’re about to have.”

“What kind of conversation?”

“Animated,” the man said.

He stepped toward Carver, moving smoothly for all his bulk. There was no doubt what he had in mind.

Therapeutic swimming, and the very act of locomoting with the cane, had given Carver a powerful upper body. He thought he could handle this guy, even without kryptonite.

But then, that was just the way he thought.

He waited, perfectly still, so he’d surprise the big man all the more with his sudden motion. The distance between them was closing.

Carver swiftly raised the cane and rammed its tip into the man’s sternum, inches beneath the heart. He was skilled in using the cane as a jabbing weapon, and he’d taken down some strong men that way. This time his assailant simply grunted softly and brushed the cane aside, more a comment than an expression of pain.

Striking quickly so he wouldn’t lose his balance, Carver faked another jab, then lashed out with the cane at the man’s head. A huge hand darted out and snatched away the cane before it could make contact.

Carver felt a cold panic as he tottered and started to fall.

But he didn’t fall. The big man shoved him back against the wall, supporting him in a standing position. With the speed of a top heavyweight boxer, he slammed a mammoth fist into Carver’s stomach. As Carver’s breath whooshed out of him and his mouth gaped, the man inserted the cane and pushed it until its tip pressed against the back of his throat. Carver leaned back tight against the wall, feeling the rough plaster against the back of his head, struggling not to gag.

The big man moved in closer. Carver lifted his good leg to try to knee him in the groin, but the man easily blocked it with his own leg and applied pressure with the cane. Carver choked for several seconds. His stomach, aching from the blow he’d received, went into spasms and he almost vomited.

Smiling confidently, the big man waited until Carver had control of himself, holding the cane steadily, keeping Carver pinned to the wall.

“You might notice,” he said, still smiling at Carver but now with a mesmerized expression, “that this will be a sort of oneway conversation. Tough enough for you just to breathe, I’m sure, so I won’t ask you to talk.”

Carver swung his right fist out at the man’s stomach. It was like hitting stucco, and the momentum of the swing pulled him out from the wall. The cane rammed against his tonsils. More choking.

“Keep trying that kind of thing and you’ll start to bleed in there, drown on your own blood. I’ve seen it happen. It’s fun to watch.”

Saliva was building around the cane, and there was the taste of blood. Carver swallowed. It hurt like hell, and he almost went into another choking fit.

That seemed to amuse the man. He was getting his jollies, all right, which infuriated Carver. “We can agree now, I’m sure, that my warning to you to stop your investigation carries some persuasiveness. So, I’m asking you at this point if you intend to be reasonable and apply your talents elsewhere. Do you?”

Carver tried to speak but only gagged. He found himself biting the cane.

“Try to manage a nod,” the man said. “That’ll be easier.”

Carver managed. He felt saliva trickle down his chin.

Another dreamy yet alert smile. The cane rotated painfully between Carver’s teeth and against the back of his throat, like a blunt drill bit. “Is that your solemn promise, Mr. Carver?”

It was harder to nod agreement this time, more agonizing.

The man slowly withdrew the cane from Carver’s mouth, pressing a forefinger against his own lips in a signal for silence. Then, without a change of expression, he jabbed the tip of the cane into Carver’s sternum, exactly as Carver had done to him.

The effect was different. Carver bounced off the wall and lost consciousness for a few seconds. He was on the floor, in the fetal position except for his stiff leg, listening to his harsh rasping struggle for breath and life.

“Gets rough now,” the man said.

The cane lashed out, over and over, against the meaty part of Carver’s shoulders and upper arms, so quickly he couldn’t ward it off. He tucked in his chin and covered his head with his arms, but that didn’t matter; his head wasn’t the target. Pain exploded through him with each impact, numbing his upper body. He could actually hear the whir of the cane each time it descended, but it didn’t allow time for him to brace for the blow.

Breathing only slightly harder, the big man finally stepped back.

“I aim to convince,” he said. He adjusted his black horn-rims with his little finger, in a way that was almost prissy. Then he raised his left arm as if about to check his wristwatch. Instead he lashed out at his own tensed forearm with such strength and swiftness that the hard walnut cane splintered across it.

He casually tossed the ruined cane onto the carpet, next to Carver, and said, “Convinced?”

Carver nodded, trying not to vomit or lose consciousness. Bile lay bitter in his throat. His good leg was curled up tight against his stomach.

“You can talk now,” the man said, deftly adjusting his glasses again on the bridge of his nose.

Carver tried to say he was convinced. It was agree or die; he was sure of it. Only an inarticulate croaking came out. He was terrified his answer might be misinterpreted.

But apparently his attacker understood. Or at least was satisfied with the effort. He very deliberately and gently prodded Carver with the toe of his shoe. Then he brushed his hands together as if whisking dust from his palms, adjusted his tie knot, and nodded good-bye. His appearance and attitude was that of a salesman who’d just completed a successful office call.

Sunlight angled across the carpet, then disappeared, as the door opened and closed. Children’s shouts from pool and beach, which had entered the room with the outside glare, were abruptly cut off.

It was suddenly very quiet. Dim. Cool.

Carver lay with his cheek pressed against the coarse carpet, still in the fetal position but for his protruding stiff leg. He surrendered and let himself plunge with increasing speed through blackness to a place where there was no pain.

When he awoke he was lying on his back on the bed and he was sweating. His shoes had been removed. The back of his throat felt as if it had been sandpapered, and his stomach ached as if he’d eaten a hundred green apples. When he tried to lift his hand from the mattress to wipe his forehead, he discovered with a sledgehammer smash of pain that his entire upper body was stiff and sore, as if he’d been in a serious auto accident.

Someone groaned. Must have been him.

The mattress shifted and bedsprings sang. A cool, soft hand rested against his forehead. Familiar hand.

Beth said, “Who did this to you, Fred?”

“He didn’t leave his card,” Carver said hoarsely. At least he could still speak.

“One man?”

He nodded.

“Lord!”

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she stared down at him with her own pain and concern. She was wearing faded Levi’s, a yellow sleeveless blouse, and a headband with a daisy design on it. She looked like an African princess dressed down for the occasion. “I’m gonna call a doctor.”

“Don’t do that. I don’t want anybody from the medical center.” God, it hurt to talk!

“Then I’m gonna drive you into Orlando. Get you goddamn looked at, and I don’t want any argument.”

“Not yet.”

She stood up from the bed. “Not yet my ass!”

“Let me stay here awhile. I’m feeling better, believe it or not.”

“Not,” she said. But she made no move to pry him from the bed. She cursed under her breath. “Feeling well enough to tell me what happened?”

“Slowly,” he said.

She sat back down on the bed, her hip warm against his side. “Slow as you want. Then we’re going to see a doctor.”

And he told her.

“The cane as phallic symbol,” she said, when he was finished.

“If that’s the case, it coulda been worse.”

“Maybe it will be next time. You better take this scumbag seriously.”

He was surprised by the fear in her voice, the rage in her dark eyes. He said, “I take him seriously, all right.”

She stood up and took a few hurried steps this way and that. Tall, elegant woman. “Shit, Fred! You need to back off this one.”

He said nothing. His own rage was building. He did feel as if somehow he’d been intimately violated, symbolic oral sex. For a moment an insight: Did rape victims feel this way? His hate for the man in the horn-rimmed glasses took root deep in him, hard and fast, the craving for revenge.

“Fred?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Bet you’re not. Bet you’re feeling.”

“Feeling lousy,” he said.

He moved to struggle to a sitting position, reaching for his cane with a stab of pain. Then he remembered the casual destruction of the cane after it had been used to beat him. It had been a skillful beating, bruising but not breaking, and he was reasonably sure there was no long-term injury. He was also sure the man who’d assaulted him was a professional thug. In the unlikely event of an arrest, by the time the victim of such a beating made it into a courtroom, the bruises would have long since faded. Prosecutors were left to try to prove that photographs, if there were any, weren’t images of faked injuries.

Beth worked an arm beneath one of his and lifted gently, but it still caused a jolt of pain and he ground his teeth.

“You oughta see,” she said. “You got welts all over you. You oughta fucking see!”

“I don’t have to see to know they’re there. I don’t have my cane.”

“I know, lover. I’ll help you out to the car.”

He leaned on her strong, lithe body, taking it slow, making it to the door with its useless locks. Have to make repairs.

Outside, he squinted against the glare, and the heat hit him like a falling wall. A few people by the pool stopped what they were doing and stared as Beth helped ease him into the passenger side of her LeBaron convertible. A small, shapely woman in a red bathing suit slung a towel across her shoulders and gazed openly with her head cocked to the side. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes to the brilliance and heat of the sun.

Great! Beth had the car’s top down. That was why she wore the flowered sweatband, to keep her hair from flying in her face.

Quickly, she started the engine, raised the canvas top, and switched on the air conditioner.

Then she drove fast and artfully, leaning forward to peer through the windshield intensely and gripping the steering wheel with both hands in the ten-and-two-o’clock position. On turns, she shuffled the steering wheel through her hands instead of crossing her arms. Knew her stuff. Maybe she’d driven getaway while living with her drug-czar husband. Wheel moll, if there was such a thing.

Unfair of him to think that, Carver decided. He wasn’t one to muck around in the past, anyway. It made no difference to him what she’d done in that phase of her life; being judgmental was a game he didn’t play. Who was he, Albert Schweitzer?

The car’s interior had barely cooled down when she swerved into a circular driveway, then parked by the tinted glass doors of a hospital emergency entrance.