John Lutz - Hot

“No,” Carver said, “not Wicke.”

Beth gave him a smile as she laid her knife across the edge of her plate. “Now you’re beginning to understand the drug trade, Fred.”

He said nothing. Took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully.

“What’re you thinking?” she asked.

“Wondering where you got this coffee mug with the smiley face on it.”

“Back of the cabinet over the sink.”

“I never did like this beaming little bastard. I was hoping I’d about seen the last of him.” He rotated the mug on the table and saw that its glaze was finely checked. A survivor from the seventies, Carver thought.

Beth said, “The Coast Guard’ll be able to intercept that boat on its way back from Mexico, if that’s where it’s going. It’s like Rainer himself, built for luxury, not speed.”

“There’s plenty of time,” Carver agreed. “An intercept’s what I was actually sitting here considering. The idea grows on me.”

“Wicke won’t like it, you going over his head,” Beth said, “but some things you gotta do.”

That was for sure.

“Think the DEA or Coast Guard’ll listen to you?” Beth asked.

“No, but they’ll listen to Desoto, or whoever Desoto gets to contact them and request a search at sea.”

“Desoto’ll be sticking his neck out. Will he do that for you?”

“He’ll do it.” Which Carver knew was true; the thing was, he hated to ask Desoto to do it. But he remembered seeing Davy wheeling those big lightweight crates on board the Miss Behavin’. Being careful with them. Under cover of darkness. Secretly as possible.

“You could tell them about the letter.”

“Right,” Carver said, “and trespassing and burglary.”

“It was only a thought. What if they stop the boat and don’t find anything incriminating on board?”

“Then the letter meant nothing and Rainer will have made chumps of us, and his innocent act’ll be that much more convincing. He’ll be all the harder to nail. But I think something’ll be in those crates. And if the crates themselves aren’t on board during an interception and search at sea, Rainer’s explanation’ll be interesting.”

“To you, but maybe not to the DEA or Coast Guard. Rainer wouldn’t have to explain where he left the crates or why. You’re the only one saw them being loaded.”

Carver sipped his bitter coffee. “Well, there’s some satisfaction in making Rainer jettison valuable cargo, and maybe having to chance going out later and trying to retrieve it.”

“That what you’re looking for in this, Fred? Satisfaction?”

“Of one kind or another,” Carver said.

“I figured,” Beth said. “I sure as hell knew it wasn’t money.” She sank her even white teeth into her buttered toast.

Carver shoved his smiley mug away and stood up. He limped to the phone and called Desoto.

He was playing on the edge again.

And liking it.

The Miss Behavin’ didn’t return that night, but just before midnight the next night it slipped like a dark illusion along the coast and docked at the foot of the Rainer estate. Hector had been expecting it. Through the night glasses, Carver watched as he fastened lines and stood waiting as Walter Rainer made his way up on deck. With his good arm Hector helped Rainer across the short gangplank and onto land. Rainer remained supported by Hector for a few minutes while he became accustomed to being motionless. They waited for Davy, who shut down the boat’s systems and then hopped nimbly onto the dock.

Rainer and the two men stood for about five minutes talking, then, with Rainer leading the way, they walked from sight in the direction of the house. The Miss Behavin’ lay dark at her moorings.

Carver decided nothing more was likely to happen within his view that night, so he left the blind and returned to the cottage. It was a pleasure to get away from the flitting, biting insects that seemed to find him irresistible despite the bug repellent he’d sprayed on himself before taking up position among the branches. Florida insects were survivors; maybe in a few short days they had become immune to and then learned to love the stuff, become insect drug addicts.

After a quick shower to wash the camphor scent of the repellent from his skin, he went to bed and fell asleep listening to Beth’s deep and even breathing.

At eight the next morning he was drawn from sleep by gunfire. He contorted his arm to grip the headboard so he could sit up in bed, coming all the way awake.

No, not gunfire, only a knocking, on the door.

Beth, also awake, raised her head and looked sloe-eyed and sleepily over at him. “Gonna get that, Fred?”

Carver figured it was a rhetorical question, since her head dropped back onto her pillow and her eyes closed.

Without answering her, he found his cane and struggled out of bed and into his pants, limped shirtless and barefoot to the front door. Through the small window of the door, the shape of a man banging on the porch screen door was visible. Carver thumped across the porch, and the man stood with his hands at his sides, waiting while the door was unlatched and opened. Still without moving, he said, “Fred Carver?”

Carver admitted he was, then stepped outside and stood barefoot in the sun’s warmth. The breeze off the sea was still cool and felt good on his perspiring chest.

“I’m agent Rodney Martinson, with the Drug Enforcement Administration.” He flashed ID and extended his free hand, squinting at Carver with something like a smile.

Carver shook hands, thinking he might as well invite Martinson into the shade. “Wanna come up on the porch?”

“Pleasant enough out here, if it’s okay with you,” Martinson said. He was a medium-height, paunchy man with thinning hair in a short military cut, in his thirties, unremarkable except for a turned-up nose and a pencil-thin dark mustache that belonged on a prewar movie villain. He was wearing a standard gray suit and plain-toed black shoes, as if he’d just been released from an institution. A bureaucrat turned crime fighter. Carver had met him over and over.

He told Martinson sure, outside was fine, and leaned on his cane and waited. He knew why Martinson was here and wondered what he was going to say. Behind Martinson gulls were circling something out at sea, though Carver couldn’t make out the object of their attention. Their shrill, demanding cries reached him faintly on the breeze.

“The Coast Guard intercepted the Miss Behavin’ twenty miles off the coast last night,” Martinson said. “Its crew cooperated fully and a thorough search was conducted.” Martinson shrugged and shook his head. “No drugs were found. No kind of contraband. The boat was completely legal.”

Carver stared out at the circling gulls, the morning sun sparking silver off the sea. “Did the crew have a chance to jettison anything when they knew the Coast Guard was closing in for a possible search?”

“Coast Guard says no, but they do admit they can’t be positive about that.”

“Why not? Don’t they have sonar, all that kinda crap?”

“Yeah, but it’s an uncertain world. Hard to be positive about anything.”

Maybe Martinson wasn’t the typical DEA agent at that. “Were there any large wooden crates on board?” Carver asked.

Martinson’s mustache twitched, giving him a wry, man-of-the-world expression. “Crates? No. There was no cargo of any kind. Walter Rainer said the boat had docked at Jurello, a little Mexican coastal town. Said he’d gone there to look over property he might buy. He had a hundred thousand cash in a briefcase. His story is that he speculates in Mexican real estate, usually raw land, buying low by making spot cash offers to desperate owners, then holding the property awhile and reselling at a profit.”