John Lutz - Bloodfire

Beth said, “Are you offering us protection if we don’t leave?”

“Sure. But I gotta be honest, I can’t protect you ’round the clock from the Brainards. Only me and two officers on the force. We got two patrol cars, and one’s running about half the time. The city budget kinda limits what I can do for you.”

“Go talk to the Brainards,” Beth suggested. “Scare them into thinking of other matters.”

“Gotta talk gorilla to get through to them boys. Not real advanced gorilla, at that. Running drugs, poaching ’gators, whipping ass-that’s what their lives are about. You snatched a third of that away by making them into fools in Whiffy’s. Ain’t a big place, Dark Glades, and talk gets passed around like a common cold, only quicker.”

Carver said, “How big is the drug trade around here?”

Morgan shrugged. “Shit, folks in these parts grow the stuff like it was dandelions. And what they don’t grow they buy and pass on for profit. Not many other ways to make money in a place like this. Tell you the truth, I’d suspect that was why you were in town, as part of some kinda drug deal. Only if that was so, you probably wouldn’t’ve mixed it up with the Brainards; they’d have been in on the deal or known about it.” He edged toward the door, putting on his hat and fastening the strap beneath his chin. He smiled widely at them. “I just wanted to meet you two after what you did last night. Wanted to let you know how things stood in Dark Glades. We ain’t what you’d call a progressive city, I’m afraid. Around here, affirmative action means a lynching.”

Carver said, “Whiffy’s done okay.”

“Well, Whiffy, he’s another story.”

“He’s black.”

“Not exactly,” the chief said. “Not in what you’d call the Dark Glades sense. He’s been around, Whiffy has. To the big leagues and the big cities. Makes him sort of cosmopolitan. Whiffy’s different.”

Beth stood up, looking beautifully angry. “We’re all different, Chief Morgan. Don’t you watch ‘Geraldo’?”

“So you are,” Morgan said. His smile looked as if it might slip off his face and shatter at his feet like crystal. “Didn’t mean to insult you, ma’am.” He sounded genuinely sorry.

Beth didn’t answer.

At the door he turned and said, “Wish you folks’d be sensible and leave. Avoid real trouble.”

Carver said, “We’ll think about it. Thanks for the advice, Chief.”

“Do try to talk some sense into the lady.” He extended two fingers, as in a Cub Scout salute, and tapped the brim of his hat. “Been a pleasure.”

He shut the door behind him, but not before a couple of flies had found their way in.

Carver stood with both hands folded over the crook of his cane. He listened to Morgan’s car start, then the gravelly crunch of tires as it backed out of its parking slot. When it got straightened out and accelerated, there was a deeper rattle of gravel.

The flies that had been let in circled and buzzed against the light filtering through the drapes. They sounded desperate. Carver looked down at Beth, still perched on the edge of the bed with her legs crossed. He said, “We better talk about this.”

Beth said, “Sure. Talk’s cheap.”

“Sometimes life is, too.”

“I can only run from one thing at a time, Carver. You think these pissant redneck drug dealers scare me?”

My, my. “I dunno. They scare me.”

She grinned and said, “Yeah, but only up to a point.”

He looked at his new lover, the marked-for-murder wife of the drug kingpin. Not Edwina, but a woman who was in many ways still a stranger. He felt a cold and echoing emptiness.

Yet, in a stronger sense, Beth was anything but a stranger. Momentum had them. They were moving toward each other in a vortex of new and unknown passion, the age-old endless discovery. It was a whirlpool neither could resist, and neither wanted to escape.

By the time the fried eggs and bacon arrived at their table at Whiffy’s, Beth was no longer misty-eyed. Before they’d left the motel, she’d called again to check on Adam and had a lengthy, tearful phone conversation with Melanie. Carver figured there was a time limit on keeping mother and child separated. He wasn’t sure how long that might be.

Marlene the waitress gave them each a shy grin as she set the plates before them. She glanced with unabashed awe at Beth, then told them to signal when they wanted more coffee. She returned to the sizzling grill behind the counter.

There were about a dozen customers in Whiffy’s, mostly rough-looking men. Just three women, one of them very old and almost bald. No sign of Whiffy this morning. Maybe he only appeared when there was trouble, when Marlene drew him like a gun. Occasionally, one of the men would look over at Carver and Beth, features set in barely disguised hostility. The women were less reserved in letting their faces show their curiosity and disapproval. Carver experienced what Beth must have felt all her life in places like this. He wondered how a person learned to live with it and not explode.

The scent of the eggs and bacon wafted up to him, spurring his appetite. Beth was pouring cream in her coffee. She seemed calm now, completely over her phone call. And seemingly unconcerned about the attitude of Whiffy’s clientele. It was, after all, what she’d expected.

He picked up his fork and began to eat.

The eggs were greasy but good. Biscuits were terrific. Coffee strong, the way Carver liked it. He could see why Whiffy’s had no serious competition in Dark Glades.

When they were finished eating and on their second cups of coffee, Carver said, “Sure you wanna stay here? It doesn’t make much sense to me.”

“Yes it does,” Beth said. “You understand.”

“You’re running for your life,” Carver reminded her.

She sipped her coffee and considered. Above her, one of the ceiling fans ticked like a metronome as its wide blades rotated. “Might be this kinda trouble wherever we go.”

“Not in a big city. We could lose ourselves in Miami. Or maybe the Tampa area.”

“You kidding, Carver? Those are the places Roberto operates heaviest and has the most connections. You were the one came up with the idea of going to the boondocks, and it was a good one.”

“That was before we knew what kinda place this was. Before we met Junior and B.J. Brainard.”

Beth stared at him with something like pleading in her dark eyes. “Carver, you gotta understand, I just can’t run from people like Junior and B.J.; I made it the basis of my whole life, not running from them and their kind.”

“You mean you joined them instead?”

She sat back and looked as if he’d kicked her in the stomach.

He reached for his cup, then set it back down without having raised it more than an inch. “Damn it, I didn’t mean it like that, Beth! You know it.”

She gave him a neutral look that shielded all emotion. How often had she worn that mask in Gomez’s presence? “Life fucks us over, all of us.”

“True enough. Really, I wasn’t being judgmental.”

“Besides, in the beginning Roberto wasn’t the way he is now.”

“I believe you, but if you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and be judgmental about Roberto.”

“The money did it to him, Carver. You realize what it means to have that much money? You wouldn’t believe how much money, green and endless. For Roberto, there’s always a limitless supply. He expects to have everything he wants. There isn’t anything he can’t afford, and can’t have on his terms.”

“You,” Carver pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s right. But I’m the exception to the rule. That’s why he has to try to kill me.” She finished her coffee and set the cup down hard in its saucer. “The Brainards aren’t gonna be a problem, trust me. They’ll slink back into the swamp where they belong, and do whatever it is they do. I’ve seen men like that. There isn’t any substance to them.”