John Lutz - Hot

Carver said, “Maybe we know each other’s minds better than either of us thought.”

He turned and limped across the sun-baked concrete toward the flagstone walk.

Behind him the sprong! of the diving board reverberated and he heard Lilly Rainer enter the water again.

He called, “Nice dive!” but didn’t look back. He didn’t have to. All her dives would be perfect tens. She could afford no less.

After his conversation with Rainer, Carver was surprised to see activity across the water that night within minutes after he’d taken up position in the blind. Through the infrared binoculars he watched as Davy dollied two large crates on board the Miss Behavin’. Hector scurried back and forth between boat and house with smaller objects, what looked like plastic grocery sacks. He was using only one hand, and though the temperature was in the eighties, he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Carver was sure there was a wrist cast beneath the sleeve on the arm he wasn’t using. Hector, meet Beth, not your standard victim.

Lights glowed on the boat, but it remained at the dock after activity around it had ceased. For a long time there were only dim moonlight and screaming crickets, and a ship’s faint running lights passing slowly far out at sea. Sweating, itching, Carver shifted position to ease cramped muscles.

Just before one o’clock Walter Rainer, wearing what appeared through the binoculars to be huge white bib overalls and a white T-shirt, waddled down to the dock and boarded the boat, blending with the craft’s whiteness like a radar blip merging with the mother ship. A few minutes later Davy, now empty-handed, swaggered on board. One-armed Hector loosed lines from the cleats, but he didn’t hop on board as the Miss Behavin’s twin diesels revved up and sent a low rumbling over the water. The boat edged away from the dock.

All its lights, including running lights, suddenly winked out, and Carver could barely discern its faint form. Then there was almost total darkness, only the white wake catching glimmers of moonlight as the boat made its way out to sea at a pace that suggested nothing so much as stealth. There was no doubt the Miss Behavin’ was attempting to leave Key Montaigne without attracting attention.

Carver swept the binoculars from the shimmering wake back to the dock. All quiet and motionless over there. Hector had already returned to the house, apparently its only occupant now other than Lilly Rainer.

An insect stung or bit the back of Carver’s left hand, and he rubbed the hand across his thigh, felt another sharp sting, heard something buzz away. Letting the binoculars dangle by their leather strap slung around his neck, he gazed out at the vast blackness of sea and night sky. He wondered why Rainer would leave in the boat when he knew he or Beth might be watching. The fat man had been under surveillance for several nights now and might have known it almost from the beginning, but perhaps the pressure of whatever illicit business he was running forced him to act despite the risk.

Of course, Carver thought, there was the possibility he was meant to observe what went on. That he was being misled and set up for a fall.

Carver was curious about the large wooden crates Davy had wheeled on board. They were about the size of the crates automatic washers and dryers came in, only they seemed not nearly so heavy. Davy had managed them almost effortlessly with the two-wheel dolly, as if they contained very little weight. Maybe they were empty, and Carver was supposed to think they were full. But bales of marijuana, kilos of cocaine, would fit in such crates in Mexico, along with enough ballast to tug them beneath the surface if the Miss Behavin’ happened to be approached by the Coast Guard and had to jettison cargo. They might be specially built, with signal and flotation devices so they could be retrieved after danger had passed. That would explain why they were being onloaded at this end of the journey. Carver remembered drug runners off the Mexican coast who’d used technology that way. Barrels of narcotics were jettisoned, then later brought to the surface when radio signals triggered inflatable rings. But the Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement Administration were on to such tricks these days; whatever technology Walter Rainer’s crates might contain, there’d be no way to dump them overboard and surely recover them later.

Something touched Carver’s shoulder and he sucked in his breath and jumped.

“Me, lover.” Beth had approached him silent as a shadow. “After what happened.to me here, I figured it’d be smart for both of us to be on hand.” She looked out at the cove. “Anything going on across the way?”

He explained to her what he’d seen, what he thought.

She said, “We need to find out more, make sure we’re not being suckered.”

“Ideas?” Carver asked.

“Uh-huh. It’s a great night for a swim. Cool us off.”

He considered. He didn’t like sequels. Or reruns. “What about Rainer’s alarm system?”

“I think I know how to deal with it. You said Hector and Lilly are the only ones left over there. So you keep an eye out for trouble and I’ll get in the house and look around.”

“Hector’s still dangerous, even with a broken wrist.”

“Lilly might be more dangerous, but I don’t plan on being seen. And it’s not likely they got the small boat repaired yet, even if they see us and we have to swim for it.”

Carver said, “Where’d you learn about alarm systems?”

“Roberto was paranoid on top of having plenty to worry about. He had everything wired. Times I thought he was gonna have me wired.”

“I don’t remember tripping a wire over there.”

“Figure of speech. You probably got in range of a photoelectric alarm, kind that detects motion when its field is broken. When we get to the other side, you stay just short of where you raised a ruckus the other night, wait for me to neutralize the alarm, then move in close and watch while I see what I can find out inside the house. Good plan?”

“I’m not sure.”

But she was already removing her shoes. “Get undressed, lover.”

She was almost as strong a swimmer as he was. Carver liked to think that, anyway. He wouldn’t want to test her.

He lay on firm ground now, waiting, wet and afraid and gloriously cool in the ocean breeze. Tonight he’d made the swim with his cane tucked in his belt; it would hinder him if there was trouble, but he knew now the paucity of branches or anything else he might be able to use here as a substitute. He also knew the vulnerability he’d feel without his cane.

Beth had moved off to the side, her dark skin and black shorts and T-shirt invisible in the night. She’d dressed for this before approaching him in the blind, certain she could convince him. She’d been prepared to come here no matter who was on the grounds, no matter what the degree of danger. Well, here they were.

He saw her when she was less than ten feet in front of him, but beyond the point where he’d passed and set off the alarm.

“It was a motion alarm, all right,” she said softly. “That means they don’t have dogs patrolling, any of that kinda shit. I did my thing with it. You ready to move in close while I get inside the house?” He picked up the excitement in her voice. She was getting her jollies.

“Don’t take chances,” he warned her.

“That my Fred talking?” And she lost herself in the night.

Carver stood in a crouch with the cane and limped quietly toward the house.

He found cover behind the pool’s filtering system. He could see into the three ground-floor lighted windows from where he sat with his bad leg out in front of him. The other lighted window was upstairs, on the third floor.