John Lutz - Flame

Courtney said in a calm, Deep South voice that held a hint of Spanish, “He talks like a real rough man, don’t he, though?”

“Not actually,” Ogden said. “But I hope he’s a sensible one. What I’d sure like to know, Mr. Carver, is why you went to Wesley Slaughter and Rendering and represented yourself as someone else. And why you just attended the memorial service for a man you never met.”

“Didn’t stay for the service, actually.”

“Smart fucker,” Butcher said. Then to Ogden: “Sometimes them kind’s the most fun. Don’t take ’em long to realize they ain’t so smart, though, then they’re like all the rest. People an’ hogs; ain’t none of ’em more’n just blood, guts, an’ bone.”

Carver thought he saw Courtney shiver. Genuine revulsion? Or more playing for effect?

Ogden, using a more reasonable tone of voice, said, “It’s this way, Mr. Carver. Wesley Slaughter and Rendering’s in a very competitive business, and there’s some delicate negotiations going on that will continue despite Mr. Wesley’s death. We don’t want anything happening that might upset those negotiations.” He smiled. “This all clear to you?”

“Sure. You think I’m an industrial spy.”

“I think it’d be smart of you not to show your face around Wesley Slaughter and Rendering again. Not to ask any more questions about poor Mr. Wesley. Not to trespass on private property. Spy on grieving widows. That kinda thing.”

“Or?”

Butcher smiled. Carver like him better leering.

Carver said, “Your buddies tried to scare me off this case down in Florida. They the ones aimed you at me?”

Butcher stiffened. Drew invisible little circles in the air with the point of the knife. Ogden seemed genuinely puzzled. “What buddies in Florida?”

“You know the two. Down in Fort Lauderdale. Black guy and a Hispanic.”

Courtney drew in her breath sharply.

“Their act wasn’t nearly as frightening as yours, though,” Carver said. “Guns and tough talk was all. Gun can do more damage in a second, but there’s something unsettling about a knife.”

Butcher said, “Ain’t there, though?”

Ogden said, “Well, you shoulda listened to those fellas, Mr. Carver. Been best all around.” He reached into his suitcoat and drew a fat white business envelope from an inside pocket. “Here’s the way we can do it,” he said. “There’s a lotta money in this envelope, and I’m gonna leave it down at the desk for you. Come morning, you and that envelope be gone. You understand?”

Carver said, “People don’t run other people out of town anymore. Not even very often in the movies.”

“Ain’t no movie,” Butcher said.

“If I reclaim that envelope tomorrow, you’ll wish you’d beat me to it,” Ogden said. “We clear on that?”

Still looking at Ogden, Carver pointed with his cane at Butcher. “Didn’t you just hear Butcher say this wasn’t a movie?”

“Think on it,” Ogden said. “Whatever it is, it’s up to you whether it has a happy ending.”

Courtney stood up from the bed. She was shorter than Carver had imagined. Nicely built but thick through the waist. She drawled, “You better listen and do, Mr. Carver.”

“He’s been given time to consider,” Ogden said. He started toward the door. Butcher followed. Then Courtney. Like ducks in a row.

As he passed Carver, Butcher reached into his pants pocket and held up what looked like a rawhide necklace strung with about half a dozen tiny misshapen beads of leather. Said, “I carry this here for luck, Carver.”

“They’re earlobes,” Ogden explained. “Real ones, you can be sure. He’s got him a little eccentricity and sorta collects them.”

Courtney looked bored but slightly ill.

Carver said, “They bring you luck, Butcher?”

“More luck than the folks I cut ’em from,” Butcher said logically, grinning and slipping the leather loop back into his pocket, He smoothly inserted the long-bladed knife into its sheath beneath his shirt.

Ogden smiled and said, “Don’t trust too much in your luck, Mr. Carver.” He held the door open as Courtney and Butcher slid past him into the hall. Shook his head and said in an amused, boys-will-be-boys tone, “Earlobes. Ain’t that something?”

“Something,” Carver agreed.

But the door had already closed.

The next morning, as he limped through the Holiday Inn lobby, Carver tried not to look at the envelope stuffed in the box beneath his room number. A lot of money, Ogden had said. And, to Ogden, a lot would indeed be a lot. There was no telling how much was in the bulging white envelope. Maybe even six figures. Possibilities endless and shining.

Better not think about that.

But his mind kept returning to the knowledge of the envelope the way the tip of a tongue keeps returning to an aching tooth. And finding decay.

He got the Ford from the hotel garage and drove through iridescent streets damp from a dawn rain to the Atlanta Public Library, only about six blocks away on the corner of Carnegie Way and Forsyth.

The library was a gray stone building with dark-tinted windows. There was a wide concrete area out front that seemed to be home to half a dozen street people. This was a teeming corner, with lots of traffic, both car and pedestrian. Busy Atlantans rushing here and there, conducting the business of the New South.

Inside, the library was cool and spacious, with beige carpet and cream-colored walls. Carver pushed through a turnstile, and a woman at an information desk told him newspaper back issues were kept on microfilm on the fourth floor, then with a darting glance at his cane directed him to an elevator.

Same beige carpet on the fourth floor. Same cream-colored walls. Microfilm records were stored in rows of multicolored file drawers, while current newspapers were kept in racks in their original form.

After removing the appropriately dated small cardboard boxes from one of many gray drawers, he sat at one of half a dozen blue-and-gray viewers and got busy.

He had to sift through several microfilm spools before he found what he wanted in a July 12, 1970, edition of the Constitution. The moving of Wesley Slaughter and Rendering’s corporate headquarters to Atlanta from New Orleans, along with plans to construct a vast operation south of the city, was front-page news in the financial section. There was a separate item on Wesley himself, recounting how he’d been born in New Orleans into one of the city’s oldest and most prestigious families. His father had been a local political kingmaker, his father a two-term congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wesley had made a name for himself as a high-school halfback, but he hadn’t played college football because of a knee injury. He’d attended Washington and Lee University, graduating magna cum laude within three years. In a surprising move, he’d used family money to buy into Clark Rendering with a college friend, Keith Adkins. The two of them soon had corporate control. Within five years Adkins left the company, whose name was changed to Wesley Slaughter and Rendering. Under Wesley’s guidance, it soon became the largest operation of its kind in the South. Wesley was also a member of an organization called the Southern Christian Businessmen’s League, as well as several other civic groups.

Next to the news item was a photograph of Frank Wesley in his forties, dark hair worn long over the ears, drooping dark mustache, the sort of smile people associate with daredevil pilots and heartbreakers. Nice-looking guy in a suit and tie, posed with his arms crossed, a freshly slaughtered hog dangling upside-down on a meat hook in the background. Today’s carcass, tomorrow’s bacon.