John Lutz - Hot

“Doubts?” Frank Everman stared at Carver. “What kinda doubts?”

“Nothing, really,” Carver said. “I just wanna make sure you’re satisfied with the way everything was done. It’s important we make it easy as possible for people who’ re gonna have similar experiences, because the sad thing is, there are plenty more kids out there living the way your Leonard did.”

Selma said, “Often times-and I know it’s a sin to think it-I do believe Lenny’s better off now. I mean, the kinda discontent and mental suffering he was in. Whatever it was made him take to the streets. And the drugs and stuff. The horrible people he took up with. He was living a life of agony and might eventually have come to an even worse end. It’s like the bible says about the wages of sin, and Lenny was led astray and into the wilderness early in life.”

Carver wondered if she imagined her dead son in hell. How couldn’t she, if she believed in an afterlife of reward and punishment?

Frank shook his head sadly. “Damned peers!”

Carver left the Evermans to their bourbon and their beer-hall music and rode the elevator down to the lobby. Their grief for their son didn’t ring quite true, didn’t seem to stab deep enough. On the other hand, it was possible they were so beaten down by poverty they’d become numbed to tragedy.

The explanation of the flat tire and the ride from Walter Rainer might well be fact, the one genuine coincidence that had tilted Henry’s suspicion to conviction.

Carver had left the Olds parked in the lot alongside the Blue Flamingo, in the shade of the adjacent hotel that was deserted and under renovation. He limped over to it and was about to unlock the door when his cane was suddenly jerked from his grasp. He heard it clatter to the pavement as he twisted, stumbled, and fell back against the warm hood of the car, supporting himself with his elbows and with his stiff leg angled out in front of him like a brace.

He was looking at Davy Mathis, who was standing on the cane, smiling and holding a wood-handled steel cargo hook that had been honed to a gleaming point.

Before Carver could move, Davy suddenly stepped in close. Carver felt something sharp and painful digging into his crotch.

He tensed his body, looked down, and saw that Davy had the point of the cargo hook pressed into his scrotum. Davy patted him down skillfully with his free hand, making sure Carver didn’t have a weapon. Carver thought of his gun back in Henry’s cottage, still in Beth’s suitcase. He hadn’t figured he’d need it to talk to bereaved parents in Miami. It might not have helped anyway; it would probably belong to Davy now.

The length of the hook allowed Davy to move back slightly and still use his and Carver’s bodies to shield what was happening from view. Anyone passing on the street might glance at them and see only two men having a casual conversation.

“You move a fuckin’ millimeter,” Davy said with a grin, “and I’m gonna gaff you and hoist you a foot off the ground. Give you a vasectomy while I’m goddamn doing it.” He made a slight upward motion, an almost imperceptible shrug, and the hook moved. Sudden pain coursed through and nauseated Carver, making him dizzy. “You and I gonna have a talk,” Davy said. He was wearing white pants and a sleeveless T-shirt; the sweat-coated hula dancer on his muscular forearm had wriggled when he made the move with the hook. He must have had fish for lunch; it was still on his breath.

“Where’s your van?” Carver asked through clenched teeth.

“Parked down the street a ways. You don’t know how lucky you are. I’m awful fond of my wheels. If you’da backed into the van the other day down in Key Montaigne, I’d have got out and gutted you asshole to belly button.”

“Then you admit it was you who tried running me off the road?”

“Sure. You gonna fuckin’ quote me?”

The point of the hook again rose a fraction of an inch, and Carver sucked in his breath. He couldn’t answer, but that was okay with Davy, who probably asked a lot of rhetorical questions.

More fish breath. “If I’d have been trying to run you off the road, Carver, you’da fuckin’ run off the road. What I was attempting was to get you to see plain reason, realize your future was someplace else.”

“Or not at all.”

“Ain’t you per-fuckin’-ceptive?”

“Were you acting on Walter Rainer’s orders?”

Davy sneered. “You’re amazing. I got you by the balls directly, and you think you’re the one doing the quizzing. Maybe I need a bigger hook. You talk when I ask you a question and not a word otherwise. Understand?”

“Yeah, I get the point.” The words came out in a wheeze.

Davy laughed and spittle tattooed Carver’s face. “Hey, maybe I really do need a bigger hook. What I come to tell you is, Henry Tiller’s nothing but an old geek talking out his asshole. There’s nothing to his fuckin’ paranoid ideas. Now, you know what that means?”

“I got a feeling I’m about to find out,” Carver said. His mind was whirling, trying to figure out a way for him to defend against the sharp cargo hook so he could go on the offensive. But there was no way. Any sudden motion would prompt Davy to hoist him like a live side of beef on the hook, and Davy would enjoy that.

The hula dancer jiggled her hips again and Carver felt the hook rotate. The twisting motion didn’t add to his pain, but it carried a psychological horror that made his insides go cold and metallic-tasting saliva collect under his tongue. “Means you oughta seriously consider moving outa the Tiller place,” Davy said, “and returning to whatever rock you live under on the mainland. You got that message loud and clear, fuckface?” Now the hook lifted another eighth of an inch and Carver heard his shrieking intake of breath as another shock of pain jolted through him. “Loud and clear?” Davy repeated.

“Loud and clear,” Carver groaned. He swallowed. Nausea threatened to reverse the process.

Davy spat in his face and smiled like a man who’d just accomplished his mission. He lowered the hook and stepped back. “I really do enjoy dealing with assholes like you. Fuckin’ small-time gimp, did you really think you were gonna cause somebody with some real grease any kinda trouble without bringing ten times more down on yourself?”

“I didn’t know Rainer had that kinda grease.”

“Well he does, and it’s green, and you don’t follow my advice, you’re gonna get a special kinda lube job.” Davy kicked Carver’s cane under the car, then moved farther back and slid the cargo hook through a belt loop so it was concealed beneath his untucked shirt. “I tried to give you a hint the day before yesterday on Shoreline you wasn’t wanted on Key Montaigne, but you insisted on ignoring it, so here we fuckin’ are.”

Davy paused as if expecting Carver to answer, but Carver remained silent. He still ached where the hook had gouged his testicles. Somewhere deep in his mind he tried to create a place the pain couldn’t reach.

Davy gave a snorting kind of laugh, then said, “Miami’s a great city. Got jai-alai, the races, nice beaches. What you wanna do now, Carver, is maybe enjoy yourself here, take in a few sights, find yourself some whore’ll bed down with a gimp, catch some rays-being careful you don’t get sunburned-then set a course to the north. Stay the fuck outa the Keys. That’s my advice, and it’s best if you got the sense to listen. Consider me a lighthouse warning you away from the rocks.”

The warning was plain enough. And if Carver had any reservations about Rainer being mixed up in something criminal, they were gone now. He must be a threat to Rainer, or Davy wouldn’t have been sicced on him. Henry must have stumbled upon some vulnerability that scared Rainer.