Torch

24

Beth followed Carver back to Del Moray, then to the taco stand on Magellan, where they sat in the shade of an umbrella over one of the tiny round tables and ate a late lunch-early supper. A warm salt breeze was wafting in, carrying the scent of the ocean. The sun was still bearing down hard, and Carver’s knee and forearm that were outside the circle of the umbrella’s shade were hot.

Beth bit into her brittle taco, chewed, swallowed with apparent difficulty, and said, “I don’t understand why you like this place, Fred. Stuff tastes like a cardboard meat-pie.”

“Try more sauce.”

She tore the corner off one of the little plastic containers of hot sauce and squeezed some onto her taco. She took another cautious bite, chewed, said nothing, and sipped Pepsi-Cola through a straw.

As they ate, Carver told her about his conversation with Carl Gretch. As he ate, actually. Beth only sipped soda and watched the sunlit pleasure boats bobbing in unison at their moorings as he talked.

When he was finished talking, she continued staring at the boats. “Not much of what Gretch told you rings true, Fred.”

“Of course not. Not even his story about how he met Donna Winship. Question is, why would he tell me how much he loved her? Why would he care what I thought?”

“I think we should find out. I keep trying to imagine Donna and Mark both dying as suicides, and I can’t. The more we learn, the more questions present themselves.”

“Starting again tomorrow,” Carver said, “you keep a loose watch on Gretch’s apartment and see where he goes if he leaves. Or who visits him if he stays put. When we’re finished here, I’ll drive over and try to talk to Harvey Sincliff at Nightlinks.”

She discovered taco sauce on her index finger and licked it off. “Gonna phone first?”

“No. I’d rather catch him unprepared.”

“I’ve gotta do some work on an article for Burrow,” Beth said, “then I’ll drive back to Orlando tonight and stay in a motel so I can be outside Gretch’s apartment early in the morning.”

“He strikes me as the type who’d sleep late.”

Beth winked. “You’d just rather have me with you than in a motel.”

“Can’t deny it.”

She glanced at her watch. “I’d better get going now and warm up my computer.” She slid the uneaten half of her taco over to Carver. “You consume this instrument of culinary masochism.”

“I don’t think Gretch will suspect he’s being watched now, but be careful anyway,” he said, as she stood up to leave.

Tall, tall woman, she leaned far down to peer beneath the edge of the umbrella at him. “You figure Gretch thinks you actually believed his story?”

“No, but he knows I can’t do anything about it one way or the other.”

She straightened up and he could no longer see her face. “I might stop for a hamburger on the way home, Fred. Viva la Mexico, but screw their food.”

He watched her walk away. Then he slid his chair over so he was completely out of the sun and ate the rest of her taco.

The Nightlinks office address was on the end of a strip shopping center in an otherwise desolate stretch of Telegraph Road. The office’s glass door and show window were tinted midnight blue and had gold scrollwork on them but no lettering.

The shopping center was one long, continuous building with a brick facade and a flat roof with air-conditioning units mounted on it. The units were partly shielded from view by low, wooden privacy fences that looked more as if they belonged in someone’s backyard than on a roof. Power and phone lines ran from a pole with a large transformer on it to a corner of the building. A row of birds sat on the top cable, looking out over the parking lot. The shop next to Nightlinks was closed and its windows were soaped solid. Next to it was a dry cleaner, then a used-book store, a pharmacy, an Everything-Is-A-Dollar store, then a tavern called the Aero Lounge that had a sign with a three-bladed yellow propeller that slowly rotated. On the other side of Nightlinks was a driveway that led around the cinder block wall to the rear of the building for deliveries, then a vacant lot high with weeds.

Carver parked in the nearest space, about halfway down the row of shops, and was about to climb from the car when he saw an attractive redheaded woman come out of Nightlinks. He watched her lower herself with a great show of legs into a black sports car and drive away.

She hadn’t been gone more than a few seconds when a well-dressed man of about thirty entered Nightlinks.

Carver thought he’d sit where he was and watch for a while.

Ten minutes later, the man came out accompanied by a blond woman in a red dress and very high heels. Just behind them walked a small, lean man dressed as a cowboy. The cowboy drove away alone in a battered pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear window. The other man and the blond woman left together in a yellow Lincoln Town Car.

Except for a Federal Express delivery, there was no activity during the next twenty minutes. The Olds was heating up and some men in work clothes who’d entered the Aero Lounge had given him a curious glance. Suspicious character in an old convertible, he knew he couldn’t stay where he was much longer without answering some questions. He decided it was time to see if Harvey Sincliff was in.

It felt good to get out of the hot car and straighten up. As he got closer to the building, he noticed small gold lettering near the bottom of the blue-tinted window, spelling out the name of the company. Very discreet. When he opened the door, a bell chimed and a thin woman of about forty seated behind a low gray reception desk smiled at him. The office was surprisingly plush, done in grays and blues. The reception area was small, though. There was a door behind the woman’s desk that no doubt led to bigger and better things.

The woman, who was attractive despite protruding teeth, asked if she could help Carver.

He said that maybe she could.

Her eyes took him in, assessing and categorizing. Part of her job. “We have several escorts available,” she told him, “though not for tonight.”

“I only want to talk with someone,” Carver said.

“That’s fine. Our people are all very good listeners.” She reached into a desk drawer and got out a pink and white form. “We take all major credit cards but no personal checks. We’ll need to know a few things about you.”

“My name is Fred Carver,” he said. “It’s Mr. Sincliff I need to see.”

Her smile stuck but her teeth retracted half an inch. “Are you in sales?”

“No. It concerns one of his employees. Carl Gretch.”

Now she stopped smiling altogether. It made her look years older, emaciated rather than fashionably thin. It was as if the smile, the thinness, were all an act, as McGregor had said. McGregor would assess her as single and on the hunt, searching for a man and a cake.

“Are you with the police?” she asked.

“No.”

She looked uncertain for a moment, then said, “It’s almost five o’clock; I’m not sure Mr. Sincliff is still here.”

“Could you please check?”

He thought she might refuse, but her smile returned. She asked Carver to excuse her and went through the door behind the desk. She was much taller than she’d appeared sitting down, and had long legs with remarkably slender ankles.

A minute later she came back and sat down, leaving the door open. A medium-sized man with a stomach paunch appeared there. He wore a harried expression, a neat white shirt, and plaid suspenders, and looked like an accountant with books that refused to balance. His dark hair was thinning and combed sideways from a clean part, and there was an expression of abstract concern on his face that appeared permanent. His head was too small for his body, and his tiny dark eyes were set so close together that at a glance he appeared cross-eyed. It was the eyes that gave him the concerned expression.

He smiled, somehow still looking troubled, and said, “Please come in, Mr. Carver.”

Carver followed him through a hall to a door near the far end of the building. Then he stepped aside and let Carver pass ahead of him into a spacious, musty-smelling office with a blue area rug over a gray tile floor. There was a large desk in the office, a table with a computer, printer, and copy machine on it. There was a window with closed blinds to the left of Carver, a wooden bookshelf and a line of dark gray file cabinets to his right. A cigar-store Indian that looked genuine stood stoically in a corner. Collector plates were arranged in a diamond pattern on the wall near the desk. John Kennedy was there. Elvis was there. So was John Wayne.

So was Beni Ho.

But not on a plate.

He was standing as still as the wooden Indian, leaning against the wall near the plates and smiling.

Carver heard the door close behind him, and Harvey Sincliff moved out in front of him and sat down behind the desk. Beni Ho stepped out a few feet from the wall and lifted the cane he was using for support to show it to Carver.

“You and I are alike now, Carver.”

Carver said, “I’m taller.”

“I don’t think that’s what you came here to talk about,” Sincliff said. “My receptionist said you mentioned Carl Gretch.”

“Why is Mr. Ho here?” Carver asked.

“He’s my employee.”

“Does that mean bodyguard?”

“If you like. Mr. Ho is still a capable man, even with his cane. Something you should understand, Mr. Carver.” Beni Ho continued smiling, but he lifted his arm slightly, elbow out, so Carver could see the holstered handgun tucked tight against his ribs beneath his jacket.

“Why would you think you need protection to talk to me, Mr. Sincliff?”

“I’m not a violent man,” Sincliff said, “and you have a formidable reputation, Mr. Carver.”

Mr. Ho, Mr. Carver, Mr. Sincliff. We sound like the New York Times, Carver thought. “While Mr. Ho is here,” he said, “we might as well talk about him. I understand he works for you as an escort as well as a bodyguard?”

“On occasion. He’s versatile.”

“What about Mr. Carl Gretch?”

“Not as versatile, I’m sure. And he doesn’t work for me, whoever he is. I’ve never heard of him.”

“Then why did you agree to see me?”

“Politeness. And curiosity. As I said, you have a reputation.”

“So you don’t know Carl Gretch, even by reputation. Do you know Enrico Thomas?”

“Of course. He’s one of our escorts, but on a part-time basis. I believe he has another job.”

“Thomas and Gretch are the same man.”

“You don’t say.”

“How did he get involved with Donna Winship?”

“The woman who was struck and killed by a truck? If Enrico was dating her, it had nothing to do with Nightlinks. Though we have plenty of repeat business, usually it’s with out-of-town clients who come to Florida infrequently. Executives who need an escort for the evening to attend some official function. Whatever you might think, ours is a respectable enterprise.”

“Then why him?” Carver nodded toward Beni Ho.

“He works for me,” Sincliff said. “His life outside this business is no concern of mine. A lot of folks have the wrong idea about what we do here, and some of them make threats. I knew of Mr. Ho’s expertise in the martial arts, so I added protection to his duties. Other aspects of his reputation are immaterial.”

“Is Enrico Thomas good at his work?”

“All our escorts are ladies and gentlemen who know how to behave in public.”

“And in private?”

“That’s their business. That’s why it’s called private.” Sincliff leaned forward and picked up a paper clip from the desk. He began bending it back and forth. “I have to be honest, Mr. Carver, I don’t like it when someone assumes the worst of my business, then comes in here talking as if I’m guilty of some sort of crime. People sometimes need escorts, and I supply them and make a profit. It’s that simple and there’s nothing more to it. If you can’t see it as an exercise in capitalism, think of it as the grown-up equivalent of a date for the prom.”

“I don’t dance anymore,” Carver said.

“You will at least one more time with me,” Beni Ho hissed softly through his smile.

Ignoring him, Carver said to Sincliff, “A city the size of Del Moray wouldn’t seem to have enough conventions or trade shows to support a business like Nightlinks.”

“We don’t just do business in Del Moray. We’re linked by computer to branches in Orlando, Miami, and the Tampa area. That’s why I didn’t realize Carl Whazzisname and Enrico Thomas were the same man. I hardly know Enrico. Most of our communication is done by phone or fax.”

Sincliff dropped the mangled paperclip into a glass ashtray and stood up. Explanation time was over. “Did you learn anything useful here, Mr. Carver?”

“Probably. In time, I’ll know for sure.”

“Time’s something I’m short of today, I’m afraid. Mr. Ho will walk you out.”

Carver headed for the door, aware of Ho trailing him off to the side, like a shadow of a man with a cane.

Carver passed through the reception area, careful to keep Ho at a distance on his right, a blurred figure in his peripheral vision. If Ho moved closer, Carver was ready to act with the cane.

The toothy woman at the desk was silent as he went outside. The door opened and closed again seconds after he’d stepped out into the heat. Ho was still following him.

They played the same shadow game as Carver made his way to where the Olds was parked. As he reached the car door, he heard Ho stop walking behind him on the gravel.

He turned and faced Ho, not surprised to see that he was smiling. Leaning on his cane about five feet away and smiling.

Ho said, “We’ve become mirror images.”

Carver said, “I hope not.”

“I have a gun just as you do, Mr. Carver. Is it my turn to shoot you in the leg?”

Carver didn’t answer. He was close enough to strike Ho’s arm with the cane if the little man went for the gun inside his jacket.

“I come from a very hard place, Mr. Carver. Fear lived in me like an animal that devoured me from the inside. First my youth, then my trust, then my love and compassion, and finally my ability to feel even fear. But I have other feelings. I can and will do anything necessary to achieve my desires.”

“You sound hardly human,” Carver said.

“You should know.”

Carver didn’t ask what he meant.

“I will choose when and where, Mr. Carver, and I will make you regret you shot me. It’s a point of honor.”

“You’ve been seeing the wrong kind of movies.”

“No. You understand me, I know. Because I understand you. Though unfortunately, that understanding came too late to prevent my being shot. As I said, we are mirror images. We both know the code and live by it.”

“Then you know I’ll shoot you again,” Carver said. “And not in the leg.”

“Yes, I’m sure now that you will if you can.”

Sincliff appeared in the office entrance and waved for Ho to come back inside.

“We have our understanding,” Ho said, shifting his weight over his cane and beginning to back away. “I don’t like being hindered, having to wait to heal.”

Carver said, “Nothing in life is easy, least of all me.”

Ho nodded ever so slightly, then turned completely away from Carver and hobbled back inside with his cane.

Carver stood in the sun and watched him, for more than one reason not liking what he saw.