John Lutz - Torch

As the coat draped to the side when he was being placed in the car with the receptionist and the blond, he noticed Carver and his eyes caught fire. He spat in Carver’s direction. Would have again, only the cop loading him into the car had gotten spittle on his shoes so he gave Sincliff an extra hard shove and slammed the door. Sincliff glared out through the window at Carver for a few seconds, then lifted his coat again to hide his face.

“That man is not your friend,” Geary said.

Carver said, “It’s probably my taste in clothes, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going where everyone dresses alike.”

Geary gave his widest smile for the cameras, revealing large yellow canine teeth.

One of the print journalists was trying to get Geary aside for a brief interview as Carver moved away.

“Do you know the man who was arrested?” the woman from Channel 6 News asked, when Carver had reached the fringe of onlookers.

“Nobody really knows anybody else,” Carver said, and on through the heat to where his car was parked. Let her ponder that one and try to fit her conclusions into a seven-second sound-bite.

He drove to his office and settled in behind his desk, deciding to make himself wait until eight o’clock before calling McGregor.

“So what do you have from tonight’s raid?” he asked, when McGregor had come to the phone.

“One thing I have is you sticking your face in where it don’t belong. Don’t think I didn’t notice you at Nightlinks, piss-head.”

“I didn’t upstage you. Did you get what you need on Sincliff?”

“It looks good, especially if you and your dark meat come through like you promised. Warrants are being issued for the Johns you named. Miami’s already arrested Reverend Devine. He’s denying everything, calling it a plot against him perpetrated by his enemies in the liberal Hollywood cabal that wants to keep getting rich foisting off its values on the public.”

“Sad day for the family. What about Maggie Rourke?”

“She’s in custody here now, talking and talking. You were right about her and the way the operation worked, Carver. Some of the escorts would lie down for cash at night. Next day the little gook would make the rounds and collect Nightlinks’ percentage of the take and turn it over to Rourke. She’d bank it, then invest it under a phony account at Burnair and Crosley, using the name and social security number of a man who’s been dead for twenty years. She keeps saying the dead guy paid all his taxes so she’s clean with the IRS.”

“Kind of person you’d want to handle your money,” Carver said.

“Only thing I’d want her to handle’s my dick. I don’t trust anyone with what I stuck my neck out for and stole fair and square.”

Carver decided not to comment on that. “So the only link between Sincliff and the prostitution money was when Beni Ho collected it and turned it over to Maggie Rourke. Without that, the most you could prove was that Nightlinks escorts might be engaged in prostitution on their own.”

“But we’ve got that and more. We’ve got these shit-asses set up for penitentiary time, Carver, so you and Beth better hold up your end of the bargain and help make it stick in court.”

“It’ll stick,” Carver assured him. “You’ll be Florida’s Eliot Ness.”

“I’m that already,” McGregor said with apparent seriousness. “I’m figuring to be another Hoover.”

“You’ve got a real chance,” Carver told him. “What about Beni Ho?”

“Don’t have him yet, but we will. The high-price lawyers are already here quoting the Constitution, so all these people will be out on bail soon, money not being scarce with them.”

“What else do you have?” Carver asked.

“Whaddya mean?” McGregor sounded confused. “What else is there? You think Nightlinks was into white slavery or treason?”

Carver wasn’t sure if McGregor was being devious or if he was actually puzzled. The towering degenerate could play any role the situation required.

“What else did you find when you searched through the Nightlinks files?” Carver asked.

“You mean the names? There were some names that’ll surprise people, maybe even more than Reverend Devine’s. Believe me, Carver, some of Del Moray’s chamber-of-commerce types are gonna be shit-faced when the news breaks. I’m gonna enjoy hell out of that.”

“What about state politicians?” Carver asked, laying out an obvious side road for McGregor to start down. If he didn’t humor Carver and take it, his confusion was probably real.

McGregor didn’t answer for a long time. His nasal breathing came over the line as a series of muted rasps. Then he said, “You’re not asking about any state politicians, dick-face. What do you know that you didn’t tell me?”

Carver barely heard him. He was sitting back, his mind searching for where he might have gone wrong. It was still possible McGregor knew everything and was playing it close, but he doubted that. McGregor’s voice was full of genuine puzzlement and rage.

“Carver! Carver!”

Then Carver realized that if he was wrong about Nightlinks . . .

“Carver! You asshole! Carv-”

Carver hung up.

The phone rang as soon as he’d replaced the receiver. He snatched it up, knowing it was too soon for McGregor to be calling back.

Beth.

“I saw it on the news,” she said. “It looks like Sincliff is going to fall all the way this time. And Reverend Devine can’t be happy.”

Carver said, “The only one happy is McGregor. Though not without some minor irritation.”

“You oughta feel good about this, Fred. I know I do. By the way, Jeff ran down the history of Dredge Industries. It’s a shell corporation, used to be one of a number of companies set up for swamp drainage. Incorporated in Delaware in eighty-six, became a subsidiary of the Brightmore Company in eighty-nine, apparently for tax purposes. Brightmore held title to the cottage where Maggie was staying. Then Brightmore, along with Dredge Industries, was acquired in ninety-two by Modelers, Inc. President and CEO of Modelers is Vincent McLain Walton.”

It came together in his mind with a click so definite he could almost hear it. He couldn’t speak for a moment.

“Fred?”

“We can talk later,” he said. He knew Sincliff and the others would soon be back on the street. And the Nightlinks raid had been all over the local news for hours.

“What’s going on, Fred?”

“No time to explain.”

“Okay,” she said, knowing it was futile arguing with him. “But let me in on it first. For Burrow. And for us.”

“Us first,” he said as he replaced the receiver.

The phone was jangling again as he grabbed his cane and made for the door. He let it ring as he burst out into the heat and lowering light of the humid evening. Didn’t even pause to see if the caller would leave a message.

His course was as clear to him now as the shining, righteous way to salvation was clear to Reverend Devine.

The hot sunlight was golden in the dusk as Carver parked the Olds in front of the Walton Agency on Sunburst Avenue. The low beige brick building looked like a military bunker that had been converted to civilian use and landscaped with lush bushes and palm trees. There was no sign of activity. The modeling agency might have been closed.

But it wasn’t. When Carver pushed on the brass plate of the tinted glass door, it swung open. He stepped inside and stood in sudden coolness on plush brown carpeting. A lamp on an end table next to a small sofa with what looked like an Aztec design on its back was glowing feebly, in anticipation of the night. Verna, the overly made-up receptionist with the candy-red lips, wasn’t behind the front desk. The room was unoccupied, and quiet except for the sound of cars swishing past out on Sunburst.