John Lutz - Torch

“That she was involved with another man.”

Maggie stared at Carver for a while, then threw back her head and gave a half laugh, half cry. A gull cried down near the sea, as if in answer. “You’re sure about that?” Maggie asked.

“She told me so.”

“Jesus! If only Mark had known!”

“Are you positive he didn’t know?”

“Don’t you think he would have told me?” She bowed her head slightly now, causing her auburn hair to fall forward and conceal most of her face. The sun glistened on her oiled, golden shoulders. “It would have taken so much burden off him if he’d known. He really cared about not hurting Donna. So did I, really. Neither of us wanted to cause pain, we simply wanted each other.”

The tragic geometry of love, Carver thought. He said, “Do you know, or did Mark ever mention, a man named Enrico Thomas?”

“No.”

“What about Carl Gretch?”

“Not him, either. Was Donna involved with one of them?”

“They’re the same man,” Carver said.

Now Maggie raised her head and stared at him. “What is he, some kind of con artist?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure which kind.”

“Getting mixed up with somebody like that sure doesn’t sound like Donna Winship. She was . . . well, plain vanilla, if you know what I mean.”

“She was vulnerable,” Carver said. “Mark was withdrawing from her, and along came Gretch. Men like that can sense weakness in a woman, and they know how to close in on it.”

“God, I wish Mark had known!” she said softly.

“It might not have made any difference.”

“I hate that fucking word-might!”

Carver was getting miserably hot, standing there in the sun. Sweat was stinging the corners of his eyes. “I don’t like that word either. It’s part of the reason I do this kind of work.” He handed Maggie his business card and said, “Will you call me if you hear or remember anything about Mark or Donna? Maybe something Mark might have said?”

She accepted the card, leaving sun block on his hand where their fingers brushed. “Sure. Why not?”

He thanked her for her time, then left her to continue grieving in the sun. It had to be hell, carrying so much sorrow for someone you couldn’t admit having loved. The sidelong glances and gossip would continue for her, and to confront them head-on would only make matters worse.

Narrow wooden steps led up to firmer but still sandy soil. Carver was glad to be off the soft beach with his cane. He walked around to the front of the cottage where his car was parked. It was a secluded and shady spot, concealed from the road by shrubbery and a row of wind-bent palm trees and paved with white powdered rock that had become packed and hard as concrete beneath years of rain and the compression of tires. A three- or four-year-old black Nissan Stanza was parked in the shade. There was a red plastic rose taped to its antenna, making it easier to locate in parking lots. Carver was headed toward the Olds, looking forward to starting the engine and setting the air conditioner on high, when he caught movement in the corner of his vision.

He stopped walking and turned, leaning on his cane.

The little Oriental martial arts whizbang stepped out from the shade of the palms and smiled at him. He was wearing dark brown pleated slacks and an untucked white shirt that was laced up the front with rawhide rather than buttoned. He seemed relaxed, his arms and shoulders loose and his hands folded lightly in front of him.

He said, “Mr. Carver, you didn’t heed my cautionary advice.”

“I don’t take advice well,” Carver said. He was gripping his cane hard, knowing the little man would go for it first to put him on the ground.

“I could sense that about you from the beginning,” the man said, edging toward Carver. “You possess admirable but dangerous determination. It borders on obsessiveness, I’m sure. Even when you were at a terrible disadvantage in Gretch’s apartment and agreeing to everything I suggested, I discerned a certain lack of sincerity in you. Would you be more sincere and truthful if I asked why you were talking to the woman on the beach?”

“No.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s Mr. Gretch’s life that you must stay out of, as I tried so hard to impress upon you without breaking any part of you or separating flesh from bone. So painful.” His tiny but muscular body took on a sudden tenseness and deadliness, and his hands unfolded and moved out in front of him. His knees flexed slightly so that he was in a slight crouch, and he began moving in on Carver. “Now the lesson must be more forcefully taught.”

Carver quickly snatched the Colt from beneath his loose-fitting shirt and snapped the safety off, jacking a round into the chamber, then another, so the first round was ejected in the sunlight and the Oriental man would know the gun was loaded. “It’s ready to fire,” he said.

His tiny assailant stopped and stood very still. “But are you ready? I don’t think so, and I’m an excellent judge of such qualities. It takes a certain uncommon willingness to shoot someone, Mr. Carver. I doubt if you possess that rare callousness of soul.”

Holding the gun steady, Carver said, “I possess it.”

The man began walking smoothly and slowly in a circle around Carver. “People who can kill recognize the trait in others. I don’t see it in you at all. No, you’re not a killer, Mr. Carver. Few men are. They think they are, but when it comes time to muster the nerve to actually squeeze the trigger, they find they are too decent, too human. We don’t kill our own so easily. We must first learn how to overcome certain inhibitions.” He was walking faster. The circle, with Carver in its center, was becoming smaller. Carver set the tip of his cane and moved around it as an axis, always facing the tiny, dangerous man with the unfailing grin. Only about ten feet separated them now.

Carver said, “I suggest you don’t come any nearer.”

“I don’t believe you’ve overcome your very human and decent inhibitions, Mr. Carver.”

Carver shot him in the leg.

It wasn’t easy. He remembered his pain and disbelief when he’d been shot in the knee, and he moved his aim higher on the thigh. The gun wasn’t as steady as it should have been.

The little man went down, his grin replaced by an expression of shock.

Seated on the hard ground, he ignored Carver and examined his bleeding thigh with what seemed a mild curiosity. Then with both hands and surprising ease, he ripped off part of the tail of his white shirt, knotted it, and wrapped it around the leg as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding. The brown pants were dark with blood. The wetness spread to below the knee as he struggled to his feet. There was a pattern of blood on the ground near his feet, more blood marring one of his supple brown shoes.

Carver couldn’t believe it. The guy was really something. He was grinning again, bright as ever, and hobbling toward him. Toward the gun. A splinter of doubt pricked Carver. The little bastard might be right about him; he wasn’t sure if he could squeeze the trigger again.

“I misjudged you,” the tiny Oriental man said.

“You’re doing it again,” Carver told him, wondering if it was true.

The man stopped and stood unsteadily, his wounded leg trembling but still supporting weight. Carver leveled the gun at his heart. It was steady now.

Still smiling, the little man nodded as if in admiration. He shuffled backward, then turned and walked stiffly and proudly along the driveway and out of sight behind the shrubbery near the highway.

Carver had to be impressed. He was sure the bullet had missed bone and the injury was superficial, but a gunshot wound was a gunshot wound, and most men would be on the ground and screaming. This guy was walking around as if he’d suffered a charley horse.