John Lutz: Burn

That didn’t make much difference. Only faint movement was visible for a few seconds in the side window, then a pale hand as the shade was lowered. The front drapes were already closed.

A few minutes after seven-thirty, Marla came out of the house again and climbed into the Toyota. This time she was wearing a simple green dress with bare shoulders and had on black patent leather high heels.

Carver followed her to a lounge called Willet’s Bullet on Tenth Street and watched her stride inside.

He sat in the heat and waited until it was almost dark before going in after her.

Willet’s Bullet was crowded, which was no surprise to Carver, who for more than an hour had watched more people enter than leave. It was one of those bars that served finger food. Half the folks at the tables along the wall opposite the long bar were eating as well as drinking. An old man with stooped shoulders was acting as bartender while two women in black-and-white outfits were serving the tables. An all-female rock group with skull makeup, wearing black plastic trash bags cut to serve as dresses, was writhing around on a large video screen and moaning loudly and rhythmically about cancer and death and hell. Apparently girls didn’t just want to have fun.

Carver saw Marla sitting alone at a small table in back, near the entrance to the rest rooms, staring at the video and sipping what looked like a glass of white wine. He sat at the bar where he could see her in the mirror and ordered a draft Budweiser.

“How long you walked with that cane?” the man next to him asked. His words were slightly slurred, and Carver figured he was only a little drunk. Just enough to be a pest, if he was talkative.

“Few years,” Carver said, studying the man in the mirror. He was about sixty-five, with a wrinkled white shirt open at the collar and red suspenders. His hair was gray and bald on top like Carver’s. But his face was pale and jowly and he had bags beneath his eyes. The much younger Carver was tan and the fringe of hair around his ears and down the back of his neck was tightly curled. His blue eyes were alert and slightly uptilted at the corners, giving him an oddly feline expression. His upper body, clad in a black pullover shirt, was lean and muscular from walking with the cane and swimming. He looked like a feral cat. The older man exchanged glances with him in the mirror, and Carver hoped he’d be sober enough to sense this wasn’t a welcome conversation.

No chance.

“I used to walk with a cane,” the man said. “Had this broken leg that just wouldn’t heal. Doctors said it was something wrong with my bone. I mean all my bones. Like in the marrow. Never drank enough milk or ate enough bananas when I was a kid.”

“That’s too bad.”

Carver was watching Marla in the mirror. She looked lonely there, a solitary drinker hypnotized by the glowing video.

“My name’s Bernie,” the man said.

Carver didn’t answer. Hint, hint.

“How’d your leg get fucked up?” Bernie asked.

“I got shot.”

“No shit? Vietnam?”

“Orlando.”

“What are you, a cop?”

“Used to be. Till I got shot.”

A tall man with slicked-back dark hair and tight Levi’s had swiveled around off his bar stool and was approaching Marla. He had a sharp profile, pouty lips, and might have done OK as an Elvis impersonator. Marla continued to stare at the video and seemed oblivious of him, but Carver suspected she knew he was there.

“You stuck with that cane forever?” Bernie asked.

“Nothing’s forever.”

“My first marriage seemed like forever,” Bernie said. “Time didn’t start to move again till after my divorce sixteen years ago. Then it went in a hurry, and all of a sudden I was old. It’s OK, though. I still enjoy sex and good food, though it’s getting harder to tell the difference. I all of a sudden got six grandchildren, too. A guy with six grandchildren has to be very near death.”

The man was standing close to Marla now, talking to her. She was looking right at him and smiling, but shaking her head no. He reached out as if to touch her and she turned away from him. The man shrugged and returned, grinning, to the two guys he’d been drinking with at the bar. It didn’t appear that Marla had come to the bar for male companionship. Unless she was waiting for someone.

“Ever consider acupuncture?” Bernie asked. “That’s what finally got me back on two sound legs. They stuck pins in my ears. I can run five miles now without breathing hard. You believe that?”

“Sure.”

“Then you must have been one piss-poor cop.”

Carver laughed. “I wouldn’t believe you if I was still a cop.”

Bernie sipped his drink. “How ’bout them Marlins?”

“They might win a pennant in ten years.”

“You don’t sound like a baseball fan.”

“I am, though. That’s the problem.”

Bernie lowered his voice. “I notice you’re more interested in that gal in the mirror than in what I’m saying.”

Carver turned to face him, catching a whiff of alcohol fumes. Bernie was drinking bourbon on the rocks and there were three swizzle sticks on the napkin next to his half-full glass. “You know her?”

“Nope. Just seen her come in a few times.”

“She ever in here looking for male company?”

“Nope. Willet’s ain’t what you’d call a meat market. Mostly working folks drop in here, just want to relax and be left alone.”

“That how she is? A loner?”

“I think so. Now and then some guy tries to get next to her, but she always sends him away. Polite, though. Seems nice enough.”

“Ever talk to her yourself?”

“Not me. She’s too young for me. Anyway, I got this prostate condition, and what it does-”

“Maybe she likes alcohol too much,” Carver suggested.

“Doubt it,” Bernie said. “She usually nurses a drink or two along, then she leaves. I think she just wants to come in here and take time out from the world like the rest of us. She don’t play the video games or nothing, and she don’t seem interested in even talking to the other women in here. A person that drinks alone has got problems, usually. It ain’t good. That poor girl’s most likely got problems.”

“Or is one,” Carver said. He planted the tip of his cane on the tile floor and stood up. “Nice talking to you, Bernie.”

“Don’t run off. Hang around, friend. I’ll buy you one.”

“Thanks,” Carver said, “but I gotta get home to the wife.”

“Hey,” Bernie said, “I know how that goes.”

Carver laid a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “Next one’s on me, Bernie.”

“Next two,” Bernie corrected, smiling broadly.

Carver made for the door.

He waited outside until Marla left alone, then he followed the Toyota back to the little house on Jacaranda Lane.

She stayed inside this time, and at 10:27 the lights winked out. He waited another twenty minutes before driving away down the winding street, enjoying the flow of air through the windows.

Her actions had all seemed innocent enough, he thought. An ordinary woman having an ordinary evening.

Almost as if she suspected someone other than Joel Brant might be watching her.

Carver eased the shower handle to cold and waited until his heart might stop before turning off the water. Then he swept the plastic curtain aside and, gripping the towel rack for support, stepped out of the tub and onto a thick, white terry-cloth bath mat. He’d had his therapeutic morning swim in the ocean and he could still feel sand he’d tracked in on the mat beneath his bare feet. With one hand on the washbasin he toweled himself dry, then he quickly shaved, rinsed his disposable razor, and replaced it in the medicine cabinet. He ran a comb through his thick fringe of wet hair then left the bathroom to get dressed.