John Lutz - Scorcher

“So why are you telling me this, Mr. Fanning?”

“Call me Nick. And I’m butting in because I owe a lot to Adam Kave, at least enough to set the record straight about him and Paul. Adam’s an exceptional man, Carver, a man who was driven by something in his youth that demanded unequivocal success, and still drives and demands. He’s not like the rest of us. He created a multi-million-dollar empire from nothing but an idea.” Fanning’s voice had taken on a lilt that was almost evangelical. He’s not like the rest of us.

“And now it’s the seventh day and he’s resting?”

“No, now he rules his kingdom. That’s the real stuff of his life. Exercising the unbendable will that enabled him to succeed spectacularly in business in the first place.”

“The Kave stubborn streak.”

“Sure. You can call it that if you want to simplify it. While Adam’s equipped to found and control business empires, he isn’t well equipped to be a father. He doesn’t know how and he never took the time to learn. But I’ve seen him try. It’s the only thing I’ve seen him try at and fail. And he fails as big as he succeeds. It’s painful to observe. He doesn’t know how to talk to Paul, even how to take a pass at it.”

“He still try?”

“The last few years he’s tried. But maybe it’s too late. There are emotions there he doesn’t seem able to handle; he grapples with them and loses and can’t figure out why. The thing for you to remember, Carver, is that at the base of all their troubles, Adam loves Paul even if Paul doesn’t know it.”

“And vice versa?” Carver asked.

“Yes,” Fanning said after a pause. “Paul would, deep down, like nothing more than to please his father. To earn the symbolic stamp of approval. Can you understand that?”

Carver thought back to his own childhood and felt a pang of resentment. He understood.

“Apparently approval can be earned,” he said. “Adam’s satisfied with your performance.”

“Yeah, but I’m not his son.”

“I’ll keep what you said in mind, Nick. Incidentally, did you mention this phone number to anyone?”

“No, of course not. Why?”

“Nothing. I only wondered.”

“When you find Paul, Carver, tell him his father loves him. God knows, Adam can’t do it himself. Fatherly love has made him mute when it comes to Paul.”

“I’ll tell him,” Carver said. “The idea is for me to help Paul, remember. To save him.”

“I know. Maybe only somebody from outside the family can do that. Don’t give up on the job.”

“I intend to keep at it,” Carver said.

He hung up the phone. You weren’t supposed to feel full thirty minutes after Oriental food, but the spicy Hunan beef rested in his stomach like a stone from the Great Wall of China. Carver closed his eyes for a minute, seeing only swimming fragments of golden sun that had followed him into his room. He didn’t feel good about what he’d just told Nick Fanning. Or about what Fanning had said about Adam actually being fond of Paul.

Somebody loved even Hitler, he told himself, and picked up the phone again and played the numbers to reach Desoto, oddly comforted by the thought.

“Somebody loved even Hitler,” he said, when Desoto had answered the phone and identified himself.

“Plenty of people would still love him, amigo , if Germany had won the war.”

“A measure of how fucked-up the world is,” Carver said. “How’d you know where to reach me?”

“I called McGregor and he told me.”

“How did he know?”

“He didn’t say. He’s the kind that hoards information like a squirrel hoards nuts. Knowledge is power, McGregor figures, and he’d just as soon not share it.”

“Not share anything.”

“Except blame, amigo. He’s good at passing that around. He’s one sneaky bastardo , a watcher who plans before he moves.”

He’s watching me. Having me shadowed. Carver automatically glanced at the sliding glass doors to outside, as if expecting to see McGregor or one of his men hunkered down and staring in through the crack in the drapes, like a peeping Tom.

“I’m sorry, amigo , but I’ve got something to tell you that will only worsen that fucked-up condition you mentioned. A woman here in Orlando burned to death in her shop a few hours ago. We’re still putting things together, but there’s not much doubt it’s just like the other killings.”

The knot in Carver’s stomach got heavier; his heart moved higher in his chest and fluttered. “Fifteen minutes ago I got a phone call.” He told Desoto what the caller had said. How the man had graphically described a woman burning.

“She was burned that way,” Desoto said quietly.

“Christ!. .”

“Paul Kave’s taunting you,” Desoto said. “Making it a game. Showing he can take the play away from you and be the hunter.”

For an instant Carver saw a tiger. “Why?”

“Amusement, amigo. Twisted kind of sex thing, maybe. We’ve both seen it. This time it’s mixed up with burning people to death. Know what? — I’m afraid for you.”

“I’m afraid for me, too.”

“Ah, but you feel something more potent than fear. And that’s what worries me, Carver.”

“I’ll worry enough for both of us.”

“I sincerely hope.”

“Any witnesses to the last murder?”

“None. What was left of the victim was discovered by customers when they walked into her dress shop over on Orange Avenue.”

“Orange in downtown Orlando?”

“Yeah. Not all that far from police headquarters. You want details by phone, or are you driving here?”

“I’ll check out now and get there soon as possible.”

“I oughta be in my office till late evening,” Desoto said. “Should have an autopsy prelim by the time you get here.”

“That’s fast.”

“There isn’t much left to autopsy,” Desoto said sadly. “This was a thorough job. Not an inch of her wasn’t burned. Sacra Madre! ” Soft hissing on the line was the only sound Carver heard for a while. Desoto breathing into the receiver? Carver waited. He knew Desoto was thinking about the dead woman, reliving fresh and vivid impressions. Homicide cops were bedeviled creatures.

“ Amigo, you think even Hitler ever did anything like this? I mean, personally?”

“If he didn’t,” Carver said, “I bet he could have worked up to it.”

It was something he thought about most of the way into Orlando, whether a murderer of historic proportion and bureaucratic distance like Hitler was actually as evil as Paul Kave, who stood face-to-face with his victims and watched their blazing agony and death throes. Worked painlessly inside their tortured flesh as an observer and enjoyed. The nature of evil was elusive. Like the truth.

When he reached the Bee Line Expressway on the outskirts of Orlando, he wondered if the white Ford rental behind him was the one that had haunted his rearview mirror all the way up from Pompano Beach.

Desoto asked Carver, “You wanna see the body?”

“No.”

“I don’t blame you.”

They were in Desoto’s office in the Municipal Justice Building. The air-conditioner behind Desoto’s desk was toiling away, humming up its miniature windstorm and elevating the yellow ribbons tied to its grille. It had its work cut out for it; though it was late evening, the temperature outside was ninety-two and the humidity was thick enough to swim in.

Desoto, in his vanilla-colored suit, white shirt, and pale mauve tie, appeared cool as always. He never perspired; maybe he didn’t have pores. But he must have felt the heat. “It’s the boiling tropics in this part of the country, amigo, despite all those Disney World commercials the tourists see on TV.”