Torch

36

That night they switched.

Beth followed the redhead and Carver the man who’d escorted the elderly woman the night before. That way neither escort would notice the same person in the background, a tall black woman or a bald man who walked with a cane. And this evening they picked up on them outside their homes instead of at Nightlinks.

The man, a darkly handsome guy who looked like an Arab terrorist who’d shaved off his beard, didn’t strike Carver as being as young as Beth had described. And he didn’t go to Nightlinks tonight. He was working, though, all dressed up and with someplace to go: black slacks, gray shirt open at the throat to show off a gold chain, unconstructed darker gray sport jacket. He got into his late-model maroon Buick, and Carver followed him to the Sea Lord Hotel.

He was in the lobby about twenty minutes before emerging with a roundish, pretty brunette on his arm. She had on a silky black skirt and a sleeveless white blouse with a glittering gold design down the front. She looked about forty and was staring up at her escort as if he’d been manufactured only for her delight.

Carver thought, Some way to make a living, as he slipped the Olds into drive and followed the maroon Buick back out onto A1A.

Nightlinks and the woman turned left and dropped south all the way to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. It was dark when they pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on El Mar Drive. El Mar ran east of A1A at that point, the last street before the beach and ocean.

Carver parked nearby and watched.

The woman waited in the Buick while the man went into the hotel lobby. He returned five minutes later, climbed back into the Buick, and the woman climbed all over him. They kissed as if interested in the Guinness record, then the man got back out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. Out of sight of the woman, he ran the back of his hand across his mouth, then worked his cheeks between thumb and forefinger. Maybe she’d loosened a tooth. It had to be an occupational hazard.

Gallant and smiling, he opened the door for the woman. She took his offered hand and climbed out, tugging down her skirt with unnecessary modesty. She was grinning as if she’d just happened upon the potential of the opposite sex. Possibly she had.

Holding hands, the two of them strolled along El Mar to a restaurant a few blocks away. The sign outside said the name of the place was Aruba. It was crowded, but somehow they got a table after only a short wait. Maybe love working its wonders.

Aruba was a good restaurant from Carver’s point of view. It was located on the beach near a wooden pier that jutted far out and was softly lighted. Tourists were out enjoying the night, some of them wandering around holding ice cream cones from a shop across the street.

He went over and bought a frozen custard cone, then found a spot where he could sit as if watching the ocean, which was kind of feisty this evening, with a strong landward breeze. Actually he was watching the Nightlinks escort and his client eating at a table by the window. From where he sat, he could also see the corner doorway where the man and woman would emerge from Aruba after their meal. He wished the people he followed would always be so cooperative.

An hour later they left their table and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The man was carrying his sport jacket. He draped it over the woman’s shoulders like a cape to protect her from the sea breeze. Carver made a mental note to remember that move.

They wandered around the area for about half an hour, not going far as they ducked in and out of souvenir shops. Carver found it easy to stay relatively out of sight and keep an eye on them. When they came out of the third shop, the woman was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat with a colorful bow on it. She removed it as the man drew her close and kissed her with conviction. Carver wasn’t surprised when they finally ended the kiss and walked hand in hand toward the hotel where the Buick was parked.

Not surprised either when they walked past the Buick. The man had already registered. He unlocked the outside door to one of the rooms and ushered the woman inside, his hand resting gently against the small of her back.

Carver went to the Olds and sat watching, listening to a Braves game on the radio.

The lights in the room were turned off in the seventh inning. Didn’t come back on until the postgame interview.

Went out again an hour later. Love and money, Carver thought, could be effective aphrodisiacs.

It was almost 2:00 A.M.when the lovers came out of the room. The woman waited in the car again while the man checked out. This time she sat with her head tilted back against the headrest, as if she might be napping.

She sat up straight when the man came outside and got into the car. They talked for a few minutes, then the Buick’s lights came on and it backed out onto El Mar.

Carver followed as it cut west on Commercial, then drove all the way to 1-95 and turned north. Love and money having been spent, they were taking the fast way back to Del Moray, rather than the scenic and romantic route along the ocean.

The woman was dropped off back at the Sea Lord, where the man had picked her up. There was a goodnight kiss, but it was perfunctory, almost businesslike. Then the man drove to his apartment on Tenth Street and presumably went to bed, this time to sleep.

Everybody seemed happy but Carver, who was tired and irritated, though he’d actually expended little energy.

Beth was in bed asleep when he got back to the cottage.

He left a note instructing her not to wake him in the morning, then lay down beside her and felt his weariness make his body seem heavy enough to sink all the way through the mattress.

Staring into darkness, he thought about the man and woman he’d followed, and the artificial happiness and passion that had seemed so real, and maybe been as real as many of life’s sustaining illusions. The ocean rushed noisily onto the beach, and the wind off the sea was moaning softly in the cottage eaves. Beth’s long thigh was resting lightly and warmly along his own. She moaned the same soft song as the wind and stirred, moving her leg closer, then away, leaving him detached and alone in the night.

He was thinking about waking her, holding her, when he fell asleep.

She had coffee ready for him when he struggled out of bed the next morning.

“Figured you’d need this, Fred.” She handed him his cup with the leaping marlin on it.

He needed it, all right. His mind was still webbed with sleep and his body seemed to respond to each of his brain’s commands a few seconds after they were given. He sipped. The coffee was too hot but his tongue was thickly coated and didn’t get scalded. That was how it felt, anyway; maybe he simply hadn’t yet picked up the sensation of pain. “Time’s it?” he asked.

“Nine-thirty. Late for you to be getting up.”

“Got in late last night. I’m getting too old for that kind of thing, stolen wild sex in hotel rooms.”

“Is that why you look so used up this morning?”

“Probably. I feel foggy and deprived.”

“Deprived, huh? We can fix that.”

“Not now,” he said, “or someone would have to fix me.”

“Poor Fred. Voyeurism can be so wearing.” She got the glass pot and topped off his coffee. Maybe she wanted it hot enough to sear his entire intestinal tract. “Gonna have your swim?” she asked, returning the pot to its burner.

“Not this morning.”

“Say, you must have had some workout last night!”

He was getting tired of being punctured by verbal darts. He sipped some more coffee, feeling it burn the roof of his mouth this time, then found his cane and stood up. He made his way into the bathroom and showered and shaved. As he got dressed in the screened-off bedroom area, he smelled bacon frying.

When he returned to the cottage’s main room, he found that Beth had a plate of bacon and eggs on the breakfast counter for him along with a fresh cup of coffee.

“You act very much like a wife sometimes,” he said, sitting on a stool.

She didn’t answer. Instead she carried her coffee outside onto the porch.

By the time he’d finished eating he felt human again. Up to the Bronze Age, anyway. He joined Beth on the porch.

She was sitting in one of the webbed aluminum lounge chairs. She had on some kind of wispy white dress that the wind parted to reveal her calves and a good stretch of thigh. . . . Some workout you didn’t have last night.

Carver sat down in the chair next to hers and propped his good leg up on the porch rail. He stared out at the ocean rolling beyond his moccasin. Clouds were stacked high on the horizon but didn’t seem to be moving.

“What about your night?” he said.

“Same old same old,” Beth told him. “Our redheaded friend spent time with a man in a motel room, then returned to Nightlinks. She was inside the office for about fifteen minutes, probably looking at profiles, then she came out and drove to meet another man at another motel. She was back home by ten o’clock.”

“Looking at profiles?”

“Escort services usually ask a prospective client certain questions, develop a kind of profile of the man-or woman-so they can provide the right escort. But the service and the escorts also use the profiles to screen clients. The redhead is hooking, Fred. My guess is she takes on the late callers, goes into the office sometimes to see what’s acceptable, the least risky. Otherwise she’d do business from home. She probably wants to talk to whoever’s handling the phone at Nightlinks and get their personal impression of the men she might go to meet.”

“Did you get the Johns’ license plate numbers last night?” Carver asked.

“They’re in my notebook on the table with my computer.” She adjusted her dress so it covered her legs, reminding him for an instant of the plump woman working herself out of the Buick last night. “What about your guy?”

“He’s hooking, too,” Carver said.

“Sometimes it seems like the whole world’s hooking, one way or another,” she said.

“Sometimes.” He let his foot drop from the rail to thunk on the plank porch. Reached for his cane. “Gotta make a phone call.”

“Man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do,” Beth said, not moving.

Carver couldn’t quite make out what kind of mood she was in. But he knew that was part of why he loved her, not knowing exactly where he stood or what to expect next. She was a package of surprises, some of them harrowing. Hadn’t she said some men were drawn to dangerous women?

He phoned Desoto and asked him to run the license plate numbers he and Beth had collected during the last two nights. He also told Desoto why he wanted them.

“You give this information to McGregor yet?” Desoto asked.

Carver knew what he was thinking. “Not yet. But don’t worry, I’m not withholding information in a homicide investigation, since McGregor insists the Winships’ deaths were suicide.”

“What about Carl Gretch?”

“That’s murder, but it’s your case, not McGregor’s. That’s why I just gave you this information.”

“And asked for information from me.”

“Sure. But I wouldn’t take for granted there’s any connection between Nightlinks and Carl Gretch’s death.”

“Everything’s connected in some way or other with everything else. Haven’t you noticed?”

“I’ve noticed you’re the second person I’ve met this morning in a philosophical frame of mind.”

“Murder does that to people. To the people who weren’t murdered, anyway. Speaking of murder, what’s going on with the little Oriental destruction machine?”

“Beni Ho? He’s walking with a cane now. Also with revenge in his heart.”

“He’s all the more dangerous crippled.”

“That’s what Beth said.”

“Hm. Listen to Beth on this one. I’ll get back to you soon as I can on the license numbers.”

Carver hung up the phone, then he returned to the porch and sat down again next to Beth. She was still staring straight ahead at the ocean. The sea wind hadn’t budged the clouds stacked on the horizon, but it had parted her dress again, revealing her legs.

“What now?” she asked, not looking at him.

“We wait for Desoto to call back.”

“You ask him to run those plates?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Might be a little while before he calls.”

“Might.”

She finally looked over at him and smiled. It was a smile he knew. “Know how we might pass that time?”

“Not charades?”

“Not charades,” she said.