John Lutz - Torch

“Ah, the Winships.”

“You’ve been talking to people about the Winships, Carver. Trying to establish that somebody’s been murdered, it looks to me.”

“It is a possibility.”

“You even unearthed a girlfriend of the husband, that Maggie Rourke cunt.” Flick. “Can’t say I much blame Mark Winship for going after that. But what’s it got to do with anything except a guy riding a fresh pony?”

“He wasn’t the type to have an affair,” Carver said.

McGregor threw back his head and laughed. “Take another look at the Rourke woman, asshole. Even a jerk-off like you might leave that dark meat of yours if an operation like Maggie Rourke crooked her little finger at you and said to come hither.”

Carver felt a thrust of guilt and discomfort. What McGregor said wasn’t true. He told himself it wasn’t true.

“Besides,” McGregor said, “who knows why guys step out on the wife? The Winship marriage was private, intimate, like every marriage outside the fucking royal family.”

“Even princes and princesses enjoy some privacy.”

“Maybe they fought all the time.”

“The Royals?”

“The Winships, dumb fuck. Maybe Donna Winship let herself get fat.” He pointed out the window at the two teenagers still waiting for a bus across the street. “Look at them two skinny pieces. Probably starved themselves to get that way. Fucking bulimics upchucking in public restrooms. It’s unnatural, the way women keep themselves so skinny these days. Style, sure, but it’s deliberate deception. They’re pretending to be what they’re not. Then they get married and balloon out like the pigs they really are. Big surprise for hubby, and of course he starts looking longingly at whatever’s on the other side of the fence. It’s ruined the fine institution of marriage.”

“Quite a theory,” Carver said.

“It ain’t just a theory. I seen it happen lots of times. Inside every thin woman there’s a fat woman struggling to get out. Soon as they say ‘I do’ is when it starts to happen. The honeymoon begins and they’re scarfing down milkshakes and cheeseburgers, and don’t hold the onion.”

“So you came here to make social commentary on the divorce rate and fast food. Now that you’ve done it, why don’t you leave? I’ve got paperwork to catch up on.”

“Wipe your ass with your paperwork, Carver. I’m here-”

“I know,” Carver interrupted, “to warn me again not to poke around in the Winship case.”

McGregor shook his head and looked at Carver as if he were hopeless. “Don’t jump to conclusions like the piss-poor detective you are. Here’s what’s happened. Like the blind hog stumbling upon an occasional acorn, you happened to uncover a few things that change the picture.”

“Like Maggie Rourke?”

“Some acorn. But what it all means is this: You got my permission to go ahead and keep nosing around.”

“I thought you didn’t want any unsolved murders in your jurisdiction that might mess up your chances for a promotion.”

McGregor drew back as if aghast. “What kind of crap is that? I’m an officer of the law. Just because there’d be some personal gain in it for me, you think I’d sweep a homicide under the rug?”

“With a lot of other dirt,” Carver said. He knew now where McGregor was going.

“If anything like murder did go down with the Winships,” McGregor said, “I better be the second to know, if you’re the first.”

“So if you can’t have a non-murder, you want a murder you can say you solved.”

McGregor’s tongue probed again as he smiled. “That’s uncharacteristically astute of you. Now and again you show signs of not being completely brain dead.”

“In a way,” Carver said, “you’re sort of making me an honorary member of your department.”

“And under my direct command,” McGregor added. “Otherwise, I’ll lean on you hard. I can do that, Carver. Fact is, it’ll tickle the hell out of me to straighten you out if you aren’t a good soldier. I live for that kinda thing.”

Carver knew it was true. McGregor wasn’t above planting evidence if it was necessary to best an enemy. And anyone who stood between him and what he wanted was an enemy.

McGregor removed his fists from his hips and wiped a dirty white cuff across his nose. He pointed a long finger at Carver. “Remember, dick-face, what you know, I better know. Within seconds, if you’re near a phone.” He moved his lanky, basketball-center’s body to the door, then turned around. “This ain’t all bad for you, Carver. You don’t fuck up, and the minute I become chief you get a medal. It’s a promise.”

Laughing, he strode from the office.

Carver watched him drive out of the lot and make a right turn on Magellan. McGregor honked the unmarked’s horn as he passed the two teenage girls. One ignored him. The other, the one wearing the shorts, made an obscene gesture. Carver thought McGregor might turn the car around and make trouble for the girls, but just then a bus arrived as if to rescue them and they boarded and were gone in a haze of shimmering exhaust fumes.

Carver sat for a few minutes staring across the sun-bright street at the unoccupied bus stop, at the lonely hot metal sign and the empty bench with a liquor ad on its back, thinking about what McGregor had said.

Then he dragged the phone over to him and called Miami.

The connection was bad. Barney Travers sounded as if he were a thousand miles away instead of just down the coast in Miami. Maybe that was why Travers’s voice seemed old, even though he’d only been retired a few years. Carver asked him how he was doing.

“Waiting to die,” Travers said.

“You sick, Barney?”

“Not as I know of. That’s what retirement is, Carver, just waiting to die.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. But you’ll find out soon enough.”

Carver said, “While we’re waiting, can you tell me what you know about an escort service called Nightlinks?”

“Sure. Office is over on Telegraph Road. It’s a front for prostitution, like most escort services, but the women screw clients for money on their own time so it’s hard to prove. Even harder to tie in with Nightlinks if any of the women do get caught taking money for sex. By the time Nightlinks gets its percentage, the deed is done and nobody’s taking a fall for it.”

“Ever hear of a guy named Carl Gretch, A.K.A. Enrico Thomas?”

“In connection with Nightlinks?”

“In any connection. But he works as an escort for Nightlinks.”

“No, I don’t think I’ve heard of him. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Those guys change their names more often than their underwear. To get his real name, you’d probably have to go back beyond Carl Gretch.”

“What about Beni Ho?”

“Hah!” Travers seemed to brighten considerably. “That one I can tell you about. He’s worked as a Nightlinks escort, but he’s something more than that. He does enforcement work for various people, and he loves it. The little fart doesn’t have a bone in his body that isn’t mean. He’s a killer, though it’s never been proved in court. Watch out for him, Carver. He might not be much bigger’n a midget, but he’s dangerous and ornery as a wolverine.”

Carver watched the traffic glisten in the sun out on Magellan. He was tired of people telling him how tough Beni Ho was. The little bastard wasn’t bionic. Carver had seen him bleed. He said, “You recall if anyone ever brought charges against Nightlinks?”

“Charges, yes. Convictions, no. They’ve got the usual shark attorneys. I don’t think they were ever in any kind of real trouble. Truth is, despite Harvey Sincliff, Nightlinks has a comparatively clean record as escort services go.”