John Lutz - Flame

“About what?”

“Openings in beer cans. How to make them so they don’t dribble beer when you tilt the can.”

“You use a glass, that solves it.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Or maybe the cans are okay and it’s my lip that’s the problem.”

“Or maybe you’re being evasive because you don’t want to involve me beyond a certain point in this case.”

“Best if you don’t get involved.”

“I don’t mind. What you do for a living, you need somebody to talk to now and then. I want that somebody to be me.”

He sighed. Smiled at her. Knew she was right about that part of it, but she still underestimated the danger.

“You glad you’re working out of an office now and not the house?”

“If I’d still been using this place as my office,” he told her, “Wesley would have been blown up over there in the driveway. Blast mighta taken down part of the house.”

Her face got tight and pale. She hadn’t thought of that. A trickle of perspiration ran down her cheek right in front of her ear, then down her neck, leaving a shimmering track. Beautiful women didn’t sweat, they glistened.

“So, yeah,” he said, “I’m glad I’m working out of the office. It’s a shitty business sometimes. That’s why the less you’re connected with what I’m doing, the better off we both are.”

She looked at him, her gray eyes serious and her smooth fighting chin jutting out at an almost jaunty angle. Sometimes she could look as strong-willed as she was. She’d exorcised some formidable internal demons, and not much that came at her from the outside scared her anymore. Tough lady. “When you feel like talking to me about it,” she told him stubbornly, “you can.”

“I know that. I appreciate it. I don’t tell you enough how much I appreciate it.”

Ice clinked again, musically this time, as she tossed back her head and finished her drink. Grinned with the wetness still on her lips. “Maybe you can show me instead of telling me.”

He felt a tightening in the core of him, but he ignored it. Said, “Desoto’s due to show up here any minute.”

She said, “Good. I feel better if he’s involved in whatever it is you’re planning.”

“I’m not planning anything,” Carver said. “Just trying to puzzle out and muddle through. Keep McGregor off my ass and hang on to my investigator’s license.”

“Would McGregor really make that kind of trouble for you?”

“Sure. The way he gets his jollies.”

“But you and he are in this together; it takes two to have an agreement.”

“I can’t prove he’s involved. His word against mine.”

“But if it really was Wesley in his car, and he lied to you about his identity, how can McGregor harm you? What’s he got for leverage?”

“The fact that the man who was murdered right outside my office was my client, and I neglected to mention it to the police. Any way you turn it, it’s still withholding evidence in a homicide investigation.”

“Can he prove that?”

“Somebody can. Somebody else knows about it. Whoever saw Wesley enter and leave my office. That means McGregor might be able to prove it. So I’ve gotta keep going on this and get it puzzled out.”

She ran her fingertips lightly down the side of her empty glass and said, “You couldn’t stop picking at the case anyway, could you?”

“No,” he admitted. She knew him too well. The way Laura had. Yet in ways Laura had never dreamed existed.

Tires crunched on gravel, faded to silence. A car door slammed.

“Desoto,” Edwina said. She stood up, carrying her empty glass, and ambled over to the wooden gate. Arrived there the same time as Desoto and held the gate open for him. He gave her a peck on the cheek and they talked for a minute or two without looking over at Carver, then Edwina walked toward the house. Desoto watched the elegant sway of her hips with an appreciation so blatant there was an innocence about it. He simply loved women, did Desoto. They loved him back.

Orlando Police Lieutenant Alfonso Desoto strolled through sunlight and shadow toward where Carver was seated at the round white table. He was impeccably dressed as always. Maybe even slept that way. Tailored cream-colored suit, lavender shirt, mauve tie, black shoes that looked made for dancing. Carver couldn’t remember ever seeing him sweat. Gold glittered on his wrists, his fingers, his tie clasp. He was a tall, slim-waisted man with broad shoulders and a large, noble head. Half Mexican and half Italian, he was handsome in the classic Latin manner, with a sharp profile, gentle dark eyes, and sleek black hair the wind never dared to muss. Watching him approach, Carver wondered when he’d stop walking and break into a tango.

He smiled at Carver; perfect white teeth in a gold complexion. “Have I told you that yours is a beautiful woman, amigo ?”

“Yeah, but you probably told her more often.”

Desoto unbuttoned his suitcoat and sat down in the white metal chair opposite Carver’s. As he adjusted the chair’s position, steel legs scraped noisily over the bricks. He said, “I want to make sure you know you’re lucky. That you appreciate her.”

“We were just talking about that,” Carver said. The scraping of the metal chair legs had started the steady ringing in his ears again. Like a distant tuning fork vibrating. He tried to ignore it, regard it as background noise, like the sound of the sea. “She’s aware I appreciate her.”

“As it should be,” Desoto said. “Women are too often taken for granted. Even women like Edwina. The best things in life we take for granted, you notice?”

“That’s because they’re the steadiest.”

The breeze got under the table’s umbrella. Lifted it slightly and snapped the material taut. The umbrella shaft moved with the wind.

“Thanks for coming here,” Carver said, changing the subject. “I’d have been glad to drive over to Orlando.”

Desoto shrugged. “No trouble. I had police business in Vero Beach, so I was gonna be in the area. Planned on dropping in on you anyway.”

Carver nudged his beer can with a knuckle. “Want one of these? Or anything else to drink?”

Desoto shook his head. “Edwina already asked and I told her no thanks.” He rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands. Gold cuff links peeked out from beneath his suitcoat sleeves. “I didn’t like the way you sounded on the phone. You in some kinda trouble, amigo ?”

Carver said, “I stepped-or I guess I was pushed-into something nastier and deeper than I suspected.” He told Desoto about Wesley-Renway coming to his office, the car bombing, the pressure-forged arrangement with McGregor, the two hard cases in Wesley’s condo in Fort Lauderdale.

When he was finished he felt better. Noticed the ringing in his ears had stopped.

Desoto had listened quietly, with a calm, almost melancholy expression on his dark and dramatic features. Then he said, “That McGregor, he’s some asshole, eh?”

“He hasn’t changed,” Carver said. “Still giving ambition a bad name.”

“This Renway is still missing?”

“Far as I know. Though nobody’s reported him as such. Nobody around who cares, really.”

“That’s kinda curious, eh? That Wesley would say he’s this average-joe kinda guy Renway, living in a trailer here in Del Moray.”

“There’s a lot I’m curious about,” Carver said. “Can you contact somebody in Miami without making ripples?”

“You know I can.”

“Find out what there is to know about Wesley. And about a guy named Ralph Palmer. Hispanic, probably Cuban. About six feet tall, speaks with a slight accent. Handles guns as casually as if they were cooking utensils. I asked McGregor to check, but you know how that’ll go. If he does come up with something it won’t reach me, especially if it’s valuable information.”