John Lutz - Spark

“Well, running out on your parole officer’s not the best play, but that’s not the same as chancing going back behind the walls on a drug charge. Beed got clean enough in prison that he’s an alky now.” Again the ruined smile. “It’s a more socially acceptable substance, not to mention legal, but despite the fact he’s a physical fitness freak, he’s just as addicted as ever and eventually it’ll take him down. An addict’s an addict, legal drug or not. I don’t shit myself or anybody else about that. Thing is, Beed don’t run in any of his old circles these days. That’s why I can’t tell you where you might find him, or even who else might know.”

Carver slipped the hundred into his pocket, watching Brethwaite stare at it until it disappeared. He was wasted and dying and needed the money; he was telling the truth.

“You ever consider going into a rehab program, Lou?” Carver asked. Had Oprah Winfrey ever considered a diet?

“I’m on a waiting list. Been on it for eight months.” Staring down at his dirty bare feet, Brethwaite sniffled again and said, “I do have something for you might be worth one of them fifties.”

Carver pulled out one of the bills and held it between thumb and forefinger. He knew Brethwaite, knew he was about to part with fifty dollars’ worth of truth. In a perverted way, his honesty kept him alive day to day, the currency he exchanged for dollars.

“I heard a guy crossed Beed a few months back down in Miami-don’t ask me how or why, ’cause I don’t know. I only tell you what I do know. Anyway, you ever see that movie where the dude who crossed the Mafia wakes up one fine morning and finds a horse’s head next to him in bed?”

Carver nodded.

“Well, this guy in Miami found his wife’s head resting on her pillow like usual, but nothing else under the covers. Still ain’t found the rest of her.” Brethwaite’s lips danced as he stared hard at Carver. “That give you an idea what kinda geek you’re looking for?”

Carver handed him the fifty, then turned around and limped back to the car. His stomach didn’t feel so good, and he hated the fear that hindered his limbs like arthritis.

“Helluva movie, anyway,” Brethwaite said behind him, an instant before the trailer’s flimsy door slammed shut and rattled.

Carver was in more of a mood for a musical.

After leaving Lou Brethwaite, Carver phoned Lloyd Van Meter from a booth on Silver Star Road. Van Meter was one of the more successful private investigators in Florida, with offices in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. He agreed to meet Carver that evening at Bixby’s Lounge on Magnolia Avenue.

The night was hot and thick as gauze when Carver parked in Bixby’s lot, then limped into the lounge through the wide entrance flanked by flickering neon palm trees.

It was almost cold in Bixby’s; it felt like ice being applied where Carver’s shirt was plastered to his flesh with perspiration. The spacious main room was starting to fill with the late-night crowd. Most of the round tables were occupied, the five-piece band had started playing, and half a dozen couples were dancing slowly on the small square floor in back. It wouldn’t be long before the music and the dancing would accelerate in noise and motion. Right now, Carver thought, Bixby’s seemed comparatively peaceful. Stillness before storm.

It was easy to spot Van Meter’s 300-plus pounds perched on a stool near the end of the long mahogany and glass-brick bar. He was wearing a green suit with a muted gray chalk stripe, green leather loafers with silver-tipped toes, a yellow shirt with what looked in the back bar mirror to be a red and green tie. He noticed Carver in the mirror and turned and smiled. He had a broad face and flowing white beard that with his bulk lent him an authoritative, biblical air, like one of those color illustrations in a dime-store religious tract. His commanding presence, his vivid awning-size clothes, as usual took Carver aback for a moment. There sat Moses sipping a beer after a spree through the K-mart men’s department.

They shook hands and Carver took the stool next to him, hooking the crook of his cane over the bar’s leather elbow rest. The bartender came and took his order for a Budweiser.

“You seem agitated,” Van Meter said. “Your same feisty self only more so.”

“I’ve got a problem,” Carver said.

“Guys like you have always got those.”

“His name’s Adam Beed.”

Van Meter stroked his beard, sipped his beer. “That’s a problem, all right.”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“Sure. In a darkly legendary way. Like Vlad the Impaler. Never met the legend and I got no desire to.” He grinned at Carver. “But I guess I’m gonna, right?”

“Not exactly,” Carver said. “I only need you to locate him.” The bartender brought his Bud, poured exactly half of it into a glass as carefully as if it were an explosive, and walked away. Carver lifted the glass, said “Cheers,” and downed most of the beer.

“Why would you want to find Adam Beed?” Van Meter asked.

“Because he found me,” Carver said.

Van Meter stared at him but didn’t push it.

“Has to do with a job I’m on out in Solartown,” Carver said. He gave Van Meter a brief summary of the case.

“The old folks at play,” Van Meter said. Then he glanced at his hulking gray reflection in the mirror and sighed. “Well, I’m getting there myself. Just like you, Fred. Like us all.”

Carver didn’t want to wax melancholy over advancing age. He said, “My drug contacts aren’t going to do me any good. Beed’s a physical health nut, a weight lifter and martial arts expert in a major way. He’s also off illegal narcotics, making his drug of choice alcohol these days. Fanatically disciplined as he is, and worshiping his own muscles, he must have a helluva battle with booze. Control freaks always do. And there seems no doubt he’s an alcoholic.”

“A killing machine that drinks,” Van Meter reflected. “Now there’s a dangerous combination.”

“I’m not asking you to take away his car keys,” Carver said. “I got pressures that keep me from spending time tracking him down. You’ve got more contacts, people working for you. You can check with AA chapters, gyms, martial arts studios, much easier than I can.”

“It’ll take time,” Van Meter said. “This one’ll have to cost you, Fred. Gotta cover my expenses.”

“I didn’t expect it for free,” Carver told him.

“You mentioned Beth was working with you on this.”

Carver nodded.

“I’ll help you on it, just so she don’t get mixed up in looking for Beed. I heard about something he’s supposed to have done a few months ago down in Miami.”

“Me, too.”

“Scary, huh?”

Carver shrugged. “People like Beed are part of the work we do.”

“The work I do, in this instance.”

“You afraid to take the job?” Carver asked.

Van Meter leaned back on his stool, looking astonished and slightly angry, as if he might pull the Ten Commandments out of a pocket and set Carver straight on a few things. “Fred, Fred, you insult me. I’ll assign someone else to it.”

Carver smiled. “You’re getting smarter as the years pass.”

“Not you, Fred. That’s how come I worry about you. Why I worry about Beth, who seems to suffer from some of the same rash impulses. We need to concern ourselves with Beth, since Adam Beed’s involved in what you’re mucking around in. From what I’ve heard, he’s a kinky kinda homicidal maniac who’s got no love for women. His mother must have drop-kicked him or something. The shrinks might say he looks at a woman, even a woman like Beth, and sees his mother. Sets him off, maybe.”