John Lutz - Bloodfire

“Nothing to think about,” Carver said. “It’s done. I already quit, sure as Nixon.”

“Think about it,” Gomez said again. “There’s a guaranteed twenty thousand dollars in it for you if you keep looking for Beth, whether you find her or not.” He edged past Hirsh and started to cross the anteroom. Hirsh smiled sadly at Carver and followed.

After they’d gone, Carver stayed sitting behind his desk for quite a while, thinking about Gomez’s offer, and what Gomez’s guarantee was worth.

He decided he really had quit, and he had every reason to stay quit. Nothing about the case called to him.

“Fred Carver?” said a voice from the anteroom.

Carver stood up and limped over to the office door. A short, stocky man stood military-erect in the anteroom, holding a white snap-brimmed straw hat in both hands. He was wearing a neat brown suit, brown shoes, white shirt with a dark brown tie. His visage was stern, his jaw was firm, and he wore his brown hair in a bristle cut. There was an indentation around his head where his hat had pressed. When he saw Carver he said again, “Fred Carver?”

“Me.”

“I’m agent Dan Strait, Drug Enforcement Administration.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“You have the look.”

Strait smiled. He still looked stern. “It’s a handicap sometimes. I just walk into a place and toilets flush.”

“Well, I’m clean,” Carver said. “You can search the office for illegal substances.”

For a moment Strait seemed to consider the offer. Then he said, “I need to talk to you about the Belinda Jackson murder.”

Carver said he’d figured that. He invited Strait into the office and stood aside to let him pass. Strait walked as if he were leading a parade that was behind schedule.

Carver sat back down behind his desk. Strait flashed his official ID, just as a matter of form, then took the small black vinyl chair. He unbuttoned his brown suit coat and crossed his legs, laid his hat in his lap. “I read the police report on the case. You were in the condo when Miss Jackson was shot, right?”

Carver said that was right. A truck rumbled past outside on Magellan, shifting gears and sending mild vibrations through the office. Carver imagined he could smell exhaust fumes.

Strait said, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why were you in the condo?”

“The owner hired me to find his wife. She disappeared from home, so that’s where I thought I’d start looking.”

“Ah, yes. And your client is-”

“Was,” Carver interrupted. “He was in here ten minutes ago and I told him I was off the case.”

Strait looked surprised. He tapped the stiff brim of his hat with the fingertips of both hands. “Roberto Gomez was here ten minutes ago?”

“Why? You looking for him?”

“We want to talk to him about the death of his sister-in-law. And we usually know where he is.”

“Now you know where he was. Along with a guy he called Hirsh.”

“And you gave him back his money and bowed out of the missing-wife case, huh?”

“He wouldn’t take his money, but I bowed out anyway.”

Strait smiled. “Sounds like Gomez; money means nothing and everything to him.

Carver said, “That’s not unique. This Gomez as bad as they say?”

“I don’t know what they say, but he’s as bad as they come. Drug money does that to people.”

“What about Hirsh?”

Strait kept his legs crossed. He stopped tapping the hatbrim and crossed his arms. “Hirsh has a record as an enforcer in New Jersey. That’s where he hooked up with Gomez, who’s from Brooklyn and was a punk criminal in the Northeast before he got into drugs and went south and into the big time. Hirsh is in his sixties, but he’s still rough as a cob and not to be fucked with. He does most of Gomez’s heavy work. And that’s all it is to Hirsh, a job of work. Gomez is a sadistic bastard and gets his jollies watching, but Hirsh might as well be shooting a paper target as a human being. He’s a strange man. He brings a kind of dignity to being a killer for pay, but he’s still nothing but exactly that: a hired thug.”

Carver said, “How big-time is Gomez?”

“He’s one of the major players. Maybe the biggest in Florida. He’s kept his upper East Coast connections and is able to funnel a lot of narcotics from South America into the New York area. And he’s cunning enough to keep changing pickup and drop-off points, and even methods of transport. We’ve been trying to nail his ass for the past three years and we still haven’t got enough to indict. Part of the reason is his ruthlessness; a hotshot like Gomez, we have to work our way up the ladder to build a case. And he doesn’t hesitate to saw off the rungs beneath him. Our agents cultivate informers, and Gomez somehow suspects who they are and they simply disappear.”

Carver wasn’t interested in the details of Gomez’s operation. Drug dealers were more common than Amway dealers in Florida. He said, “So who do you think’s after his wife? And why?”

Strait gnawed his lower lip, no doubt mulling over whether he should talk freely with Carver. It was he who’d come to Carver’s office, apparently to gain Carver’s cooperation.

He finally decided as Carver thought he would. He said, “Well, it might be a rival drug faction, wants to kill her out of vengeance for something Gomez did. He gives plenty of people plenty of reason, and it’s no secret he’s possessive about his wife.”

“Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way about hubby. Maybe she’s had enough of Gomez and simply skipped out on him.”

“Possibly. But it’s more likely she found out somebody’s trying to kill her and she’s on the run.”

“She figures Gomez can’t give her enough protection?”

“Could be. Or maybe it is Gomez she’s running from. Maybe it’s him trying to kill her and he hired you to find her so he could get to her.”

“I thought you said he loved her.”

“I said he was possessive about her. Anyway, love can flip to hate quick as you can turn an ankle.”

“She doesn’t look easy to hate,” Carver said, “but then I never met her.”

“She’s class and he’s scum,” Strait said. “That’s what makes their marriage work. I’ve seen it before. You know how it goes, she’s Gomez’s prize possession and his chief reward. He’s a sleazebag who fought his way to the bottom, and a woman like that allows him to think he’s on top.”

“How long they been together?”

“Only a few years. Elizabeth grew up in the slums of Chicago. Got the looks to travel with the rich and famous and found her way to Miami. That’s where she met Gomez. And after the embezzler con man she was living with went to prison, she and Gomez became thick.”

“Embezzler still in prison?”

“He was knifed to death there a year ago.”

“Maybe Elizabeth thinks Gomez is responsible.”

“Maybe she does, and probably he is responsible. Gomez has influence on both sides of the wall. But a woman like that, it’d make little difference to her. It wouldn’t be the reason she might leave Gomez. She might even feel flattered he had somebody killed for her.”

“That how she is?”

“Must be. Or she wouldn’t have married Gomez.”

Carver thought that made sense, but he wished he’d found Elizabeth Gomez so he could know why she’d disappeared. If she was still alive. Maybe whoever had killed her sister had rectified the mistake and caught up with Elizabeth by now.

“What else do you know about Gomez?” Strait asked.

“Only what you read in the police report. He came to my place up the coast. Said his name was Bob Ghostly and he wanted someone to search for his missing wife. He passed himself off as a medical supply salesman.”