John Lutz - Hot

He reached the van and casually as possible attached the beeper to the inside of the back bumper, first peeling the paper from the back so the disk would be affixed with adhesive as well as magnetism. He tapped it with his forefinger. It seemed firmly mounted.

As he straightened up, one of the motel doors opened and a man in shorts and a sleeveless white undershirt stepped out. He saw Carver, looked surprised, then nodded.

After nodding back, Carver moved around, kicked the van’s left rear tire as if he owned the vehicle and was checking on it, and watched the man walk to a lighted break in the motel’s line of rooms. There was a soda machine there, and a couple of vending machines that dispensed junk food.

Carver walked around to the far side of the van and stood listening to the clunk! clunk! of the soda machine reluctantly parting with its wares. He tried to peer inside the van’s tinted windows, but the light reflecting on the outside of the glass made that impossible.

The man in the shorts and undershirt didn’t look at him as he returned to his room with two soda cans. He was wearing rubber thongs; Carver could hear them slapping his heels as he trudged to within twenty feet of the van, opened the partly latched door to his room, and disappeared inside.

Breathing easier, Carver used a more circuitous route to reach the edge of the motel lot, then made his way back to the rental car. He drove around the block and parked where he could still see Davy’s van, but where Davy wouldn’t notice him as he checked out tomorrow and drove from the motel.

Carver got the square black receiver from the shoe box and plugged it into the cigarette lighter socket. Immediately it broke into deafening cricketlike beeping, as if it were a geiger counter on top of a pile of uranium. He fumbled for the control knob and turned down the volume. Whew! Much better.

Satisfied that the transmitter and receiver were working, he twisted the car’s ignition key to Off so the lighter socket was dead.

With a final glance at the black van, he settled back in the Ford’s deep upholstery and allowed himself to doze lightly, never falling completely asleep, maintaining a twilight level of awareness. He’d done this sort of thing before and had the knack.

Though the car’s windows were down, it was warm inside and would stay warm. He knew he wouldn’t get much rest, but it was unlikely Davy could leave tomorrow without Carver knowing about it through his hunter’s sixth sense that seldom failed him.

The game was on and Van Meter was right: an essential part of him was enjoying it.

Enjoying the hell out of it.

He rested his bald pate on the padded headrest and crossed his arms, leaving his eyes narrowed to slits, feeling miserable and elated at the same time. Not quite sleeping.

Eager for morning.

Just after nine o’clock Carver knuckled sand from his eyes and watched Davy’s black van jounce over the raised concrete apron as it drove from the motel lot. It hadn’t stopped at the office; apparently Davy had paid cash, or the desk clerk had run his credit card through the night before. If Carver hadn’t been half awake and watching, he would have missed him. Davy was a guy usually better missed, but not this time.

Carver worked the ignition key and the Ford’s engine kicked to life and smoothed out. He pulled away from the curb and hung steady about a block behind the van. The beeper receiver rested next to him on the seat, already plugged into the lighter socket, but he didn’t switch it on. There was no sense using it as long as he could see the boxy black form of the van. The sun hadn’t gotten mean yet, and he drove with the window down, enjoying the cool breeze. Despite a stiff neck and the foul taste in his mouth, this wasn’t half bad; he felt as if he had things more or less under control and was shaping events.

The van stopped at a McDonald’s, and Carver waited, hungry, while Davy ambled inside and had breakfast. He was pleased to see that Davy acted nothing like a man suspicious of being followed. Carver could see him through the window, leaning back in his plastic chair and raising and lowering his plastic fork.

When Carver’s stomach growled, he was tempted to chance getting something from the drive-through window, but he decided against it. Davy might happen to glance in his direction during the exchange of cash for McMuffin. So he sat with the Ford backed into one of the lot’s yellow-bordered parking slots and waited, trying not to notice the fuzz on his teeth, or that he needed to use the rest room. These were occupational discomforts. He should have brought his plastic Porta Potti.

Finally Davy swaggered from McDonald’s as if leaving a just-docked freighter. Without glancing around, he climbed up into the van and drove from the lot. Carver started the Ford’s engine, glad to switch on the air conditioner now that the sun was higher and more serious. But he didn’t pull out of his parking slot.

Tires squealing, the van had made a U-turn and was bouncing back in through the McDonald’s exit, speeding the wrong way past irate drivers lined up at the drive-through window. Horns honked. A woman yelled something indecipherable. Carver ducked out of sight and listened to the van roar past. He realized he was smiling. Davy, Davy, you seafaring scoundrel!

He knew Davy was making sure he wasn’t being followed. When Carver figured the van had exited from the entrance driveway, he switched on the receiver, sat up behind the steering wheel and followed the beeps instead of the van itself.

It was the first time he’d ever tried to keep track of another car this way, and after some initial doubts, he found it much simpler than he’d anticipated. The variance in tone and volume of the beeps emitted by the receiver was easy to detect, and any change in the unseen van’s direction was noticeable. And when the intermittent beeping became fainter, Carver sped up and regained volume, knowing he was keeping the distance between Ford and van more or less constant. His curiosity about where Davy might lead him became sharp and goading.

Then the beeping got suddenly very loud and began a fluttering beat that was almost an unbroken electronic scream.

Startled at first, Carver realized the van had stopped.

He steered the Ford to the outside lane, slowing to around fifteen miles per hour. Davy must be parked somewhere ahead. Keeping his speed slow, Carver peered through the windshield, scanning the sunny street, not wanting to stop too close to the black van.

But before he saw the van, the beeping abruptly changed tone and began to fade again. Davy was on the move after only a brief pause. Okay, so maybe he’d only stopped for half a minute at a traffic light. Carver urged himself to be more alert, to think of that sort of thing and not jump to conclusions.

His cane shifted sideways where it leaned against the seat, its crook bumping the receiver as he veered the Ford back to the outside lane and picked up speed to keep the volume constant.

After about five minutes the beeping grew louder again, changed tone.

The van was motionless again.

But not for long. The high-pitched beeps grew farther apart and fainter. The van was now on the move, probably after another brief wait for a traffic signal to change.

Only Carver didn’t pass a traffic light for the next five blocks, and he was sure the van wasn’t farther ahead of him than that. This was-

Uh-oh. The beeping indicated the van was stopped once more. Carver pulled the Ford to the curb and waited, this time for almost two minutes. Longer than any traffic light.

Beeep beeep . . . beep . . . beep . . . beep . . .

Davy on the go again, according to the tiny transmitter on the van’s bumper.