John Lutz: Kiss

“I’m not,” Desoto said.

“When your uncle was alive, you ever go to Sunhaven to visit him?”

“Sure, lots of times.”

“Anything strike you wrong about the place then?”

Desoto’s features hardened. “Plenty. But it was like all those places: storehouses for worn-out human beings. Tear your guts out sometimes just to walk through the lobby.” He gazed out at the vast Atlantic, older than the oldest Sunhaven resident. “Ah, Jesus!”

Carver shrugged. “Seventy-six. And his mind was slipping, you said. He might get suspicious, maybe a little paranoid, cooped up in a place like that.”

“Might,” Desoto admitted.

Carver decided to be direct. “You don’t think his death was natural?”

“I think it probably was.”

“Then what’s troubling you?”

“ ‘Probably’ isn’t enough, amigo. But even if Sam’s death came when it was ordained, he was still convinced something wasn’t right about the place. I can’t get it out of my head there might be something to his suspicions.”

“It’s normal you should feel that way,” Carver said.

“Normal? There’s a word shouldn’t be tossed around. You and I both know there’s no such thing.”

“Well, whatever it is, maybe you’re just gonna have to live with it.”

“Maybe,” Desoto said. He flashed his sad white smile. “Or maybe I could hire you to look into things.”

Carver didn’t like the idea. In his grief, Desoto was probably more suspicious than he should be, searching for reason in a random universe. Old people could get the way he’d described Sam Cusanelli. Thinking there was a plot to steal their socks or cheat them out of a prune at breakfast. Damn shame, but it seemed part of growing old. Part of life and death at the places like Sunhaven that dotted the reassuringly bright Florida landscape.

But he felt sorry for Desoto. And what would a few days on this hurt? A few questions asked in order to put Desoto’s mind at ease? Carver didn’t have anything else to do right now except collect the disability pension for his bad leg and make love to Edwina here in paradise by the sea. And what was Eden without a serpent?

“I’m way over in Orlando,” Desoto said, trying to persuade Carver. “I can’t snoop around here on the coast. Not my jurisdiction. Listen, amigo, I intend to pay.”

A sleek yellow speedboat skipped past a couple of hundred yards from shore, buzzing like a hornet furious at being pinned to water. Within seconds the angry snarl became a receding, rising and falling drone, as the boat headed straight out to sea and the prop cleared the surface between waves.

“I won’t let you pay,” Carver said. “I’m doing it in the service of Uncle Sam.”

Out beyond the boat, whatever was drifting had disappeared when he wasn’t looking.

When Carver awoke the next morning Edwina was leaning over him and kissing him lightly on the lips. He stirred, gripped her shoulders, and drew her closer. Kissed the other side of her neck, her ear. Thought about other places he might kiss.

She said, “Umm,” and pulled away from him, smiling.

She was already dressed and had been kissing him good-bye, he realized. There she sat on the edge of the bed, in her tailored blue suit and with her long, dark hair pinned back, her gray-green eyes holding her smile even after her facial muscles had given up on it. She looked crisp and efficient; she was ready to tilt with the world and do real-estate business, all right. She was fierce about her career; it had given her solace and rescued her from the depression of a catastrophic marriage and divorce, and she would give it up only when they pried the condo listings from her cold dead fingers.

“Gotta go,” she said. “Beachfront property to show.”

“I’ll make it more worth your while to stay,” he told her, waking up further. The temperature outside was still bearable; the bedroom window was open and he could hear the ocean sighing beyond the swaying sheer curtains and the screen.

Edwina stood up and smoothed her skirt over her thighs. Commerce today, not sex. “I’m sure you would,” she said.

Carver had an erection. “You wouldn’t be sorry.”

“But I might be sorry later, when another agent sells the property.”

“You could afford to lose a commission.”

“It’s not the commission.”

Carver ran his palm over his bald pate, as if arranging nonexistent hair. “Yeah, I know.” There was a distant click and a low whirring sound. The central air-conditioning unit kicking in to begin its day’s valiant effort of holding the heat at bay. It was a long war that one summer would end with a burned-out fan motor or broken-down compressor; the heat would prevail. Cool air from the vent wafted over Carver’s legs.

“I just remembered, I passed Desoto’s car yesterday on the coast highway,” Edwina said. “At least I think it was his. Was he coming here?”

“Uh-huh. He wants to hire me.”

Edwina cocked her head to the side. This interested her.

“Wants me to look into Sunhaven Retirement Home,” Carver said.

“That place about ten miles outside of town? Looks like some building blocks dropped out of the sky?”

“That’s the one. Desoto’s uncle was in there for a while. He died three days ago.”

Edwina ran the tips of neatly manicured fingers along her smooth jaw line. She did that when her mind was turning over. “Does Desoto think there’s something wrong with how he died?”

Carver sat up, his stiff left leg extended straight out in front of him. He scooted forward and swiveled until he was sitting on the edge of the mattress. He reached for his cane and leaned on it. “It’s not that, exactly,” he said. “The uncle, Sam Cusanelli, told Desoto several times there was something not right about Sunhaven. But apparently he couldn’t define exactly what was wrong. Desoto didn’t take it seriously enough to look into it, even though he and the uncle were close when Desoto was a kid. Cusanelli was seventy-six and his mind played tricks on him sometimes.”

“But Desoto takes it seriously now,” Edwina said. “Why?”

Carver shook his head. “I dunno. Guilt, maybe, over something he doesn’t even remember. Grief, I’m sure. Way people’s minds work.”

“You going to look into it for him?”

“Starting today,” Carver said. “Soon as I get myself up and around.”

“You said the uncle died three days ago,” Edwina said. “We should send flowers.”

That was something that hadn’t occurred to Carver. He wasn’t good at the amenities. “I’ll find out where they should go,” he said.

“Never mind,” Edwina told him, “I’ll check the Gazette-Dispatch obituary page. You said, ‘Cusanelli’?” She didn’t ask it as if she were surprised. She knew Desoto was half Italian. She’d asked Carver about him. Women were always curious about Desoto.

“Cusanelli,” Carver confirmed.

She reversed her wrist and shot a cool gray glance at her watch. “Damn! Gotta go.”

“Good luck,” Carver said.

She was already out the door and in the hall when she called back to him, “You, too.”

Carver sat still and listened to the outside door open and shut, then the vibrant hum of the automatic garage-door opener. It sounded like a tenor with a sore throat.

The overhead door hummed closed, and briefly he heard the precision growl of Edwina’s Mercedes as she low-geared it down the curving driveway. She’d be heavy on the accelerator when she reached the highway. She was on intimate terms with speed.

After a few minutes Carver got up and limped with his cane into the bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his face to come fully alert. He slept nude, so he had only to sit on the bed again and work into his swimming trunks, and he was ready for his morning therapeutic swim.