John Lutz - Flame

“True,” Desoto said. “He sees information as currency. He isn’t wrong about that, but he wants to hoard it and get rich, spend it only when he can get the most in return. Works for him, up to a point.”

Carver grunted agreement. Watched a large egret over the water, sun winking off white wings. You didn’t often see egrets around this part of the coast. They were usually farther south toward Lauderdale.

“I’ll make the moves,” Desoto said. “Call you later this afternoon, probably. Where you gonna be?”

“Most likely my office. I oughta be there when they put in the new window.”

“You should ask for Plexiglas instead of regular glass,” Desoto said. “It’s stronger and doesn’t shatter. They use it in the cockpits of military planes. Even machine-gun bullets bounce off the stuff.”

“If I thought that was gonna be a factor,” Carver said, “I’d order a sheet of steel.”

Desoto grinned and leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head and gazing out to sea. The sailboats were nearer to shore and farther south now. Only a few of them were visible around the blue-misted curve of the coast. The trawler was a distant gray form in the haze. A couple of gulls soared and screeched, not flapping their wings at all. Desoto said, “A beautiful spot, here, amigo. Beautiful place, beautiful woman. Garden of Eden stuff, eh? You’re lucky. You maybe don’t wanna fuck around and get the serpent upset.”

“McGregor doesn’t leave me much choice.”

“And you,” Desoto said, no longer grinning, “you can’t leave it alone anyway. I know you, Carver; you get your teeth sunk in and can’t turn loose. You don’t mind my saying so, you’re kinda screwy that way.”

“Edwina agrees with you.”

“Sure she does.” Desoto leaned forward again, swinging his hands around from the back of his head. He said, “She’s your lover. I’m your friend. We understand you.”

There was more truth to that than Carver liked to admit. He glared at Desoto.

Unperturbed, Desoto stared again out at the sea with rapt brown eyes. Said, “You know, I think I’ll take that drink now, amigo. Anything that’s wet and isn’t poison.”

Carver hadn’t gone back to the office. Instead he’d made love slowly and gently to Edwina. Appreciating her.

After she’d left to meet her client, he lay perfectly still on the mussed, sex-scented bed and enjoyed the cool breeze pressing in through the window. Listened to the secretive, repetitive whispers of the ocean. Gossip human ears couldn’t sort out. What did the sea know? What had it known for ages?

At eight o’clock that evening Carver answered the phone. Desoto’s Southern Bell-processed voice said, “Thought you were gonna be at your office, amigo. All I got was your answering machine when I called.” There was very faint static on the line, like sandpaper being scraped lightly over wood.

“Changed my plans,” Carver said, wishing at that moment that he hadn’t gotten the answering machine repaired. “Find out anything?”

“There’s no Ralph Palmer with any kind of record,” Desoto said. “Guy doesn’t exist. Not even as an alias.”

“He exists,” Carver said.

“The autopsy report on Wesley’s very hush-hush for some reason. Probably because Wesley was an important fella. My Miami contact was scared shitless, and that’s all he’d say. I found out a couple of things that didn’t make the news, though. Wesley was a big-shot businessman from Atlanta, Georgia. Founder and chairman of the board of Wesley Slaughter and Rendering, Incorporated.”

“Slaughter and Rendering?” Carver said. “What the hell’s that mean?”

“Means they butcher hogs. Something to do with rendering fat from them, among other things. It’s a damned big outfit. Gets pigs from all over the South, turns ’em into hams and little pork sausages, then sends ’em to various outlets.”

Carver thought that described a slaughterhouse as well as he’d ever heard. A merging of meat and manufacturing.

“I was told Wesley Slaughter and Rendering’s the largest and most successful company of its kind south of the Mason-Dixon line,” Desoto said. “And that’s saying something, ’cause it’s a very competitive business.”

“Ham-to-ham combat,” Carver said.

“Whazzat, amigo ?”

“Nothing.”

“Here’s the thing, though,” Desoto said. “The condo in Fort Lauderdale’s not Wesley’s regular address. He lives in Atlanta. The condo’s owned by his company. Corporate bigwigs are sent there for vacations from time to time. Executive privilege, eh? Don’t it make you wanna run out and buy one of those leather briefcases?”

“What about the car?” Carver asked.

“Mine’d be a BMW.”

“I mean Wesley’s car.”

“The Caddie was a rental leased by the company.”

Carver sat quietly trying to digest what he’d been told, wondering what it all meant.

“Any of this help you, amigo ?”

Carver said, “Hogs, huh?”

Booking a reservation on a flight into Atlanta on short notice was no problem. Every commercial airline flight that went anywhere in the country seemed to be routed through Hartsfield-Atlanta International Airport. It was to planes what the hive was to bees.

Carver got up early and drove through slanted morning sunlight into Orlando. Left his car in a pay lot and rode a shuttle to the airport. Boarded his plane almost immediately. Sat on the motionless, stifling Boeing 747 for an hour reading the airline magazine over and over, until he was almost ready to send away for the wristwatch with a face for each time zone. Heard the ringing in his ears begin again as finally the engines fired up and the plane taxied out onto the runway and took off. Endured the screams of the infant in the seat in front of him, the boring conversation about industrial couplers from the salesman next to him. Ate some roasted peanuts from a cellophane wrapper. Dribbled coffee on his shirt. Stood in line at the Hertz car-rental counter in Atlanta until he thought his patience or his cane might snap. And by 11:00 A.M. he was checked into the Holiday Inn on Piedmont Road in downtown Atlanta. Simple.

The hotel was a large, sand-colored structure with a high-rise section. Carver was given a room on the fourteenth floor, a pleasant, airy one with a dark green carpet and green flower-print drapes and bedspread. There was a green velvet chair on gold casters. A small sofa. The light wood dresser, writing desk, and nightstands were of the sort that are stamped out at some factory that furnishes all hotels everywhere. The walls were pale beige, as was the spacious, tiled bathroom.

Carver had rented a big Ford Victoria that he could get in and out of easily with his cane. After changing into a clean white shirt, he shrugged into the conservative blue suitcoat that matched his slacks, then knotted a plain maroon tie around his neck. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror over the washbasin; smiling back at him was a bald, middle-aged executive type. Plain vanilla, but with a no-nonsense air about him. Might be midlevel in the company, or might be the guy who could and would fire you on a whim. A real asshole with a country-club membership. Just fine, he thought.

He looked up Wesley Slaughter and Rendering in the phone directory. Then he took the elevator down to the parking garage and drove the big blue Ford out onto Piedmont and away from the downtown area.

He soon found that Atlanta was encompassed by Interstate 285, and an unwary driver could travel in circles until the gas tank hit empty, all the time thinking he was going somewhere other than around.

Carver steered with one hand, held the Hertz road map flat against the seat with the other. Finally he managed to exit from the highway and drove about ten miles before turning onto a narrow road that snaked through Georgia red-clay country. There were low rolling hills here, soft and gentle as the curves of a gracefully lounging woman. In the bright blue sky, distant birds that looked a lot like vultures wheeled on the wind and soared in unpredictable lazy patterns, as if tracing messages in the air.