cooperation works both ways. Get with Records and see what you can find out about Ralph Palmer, then pass it on to me.”
McGregor stood up straight. Stretched his arms so his fingertips almost touched the ceiling. Then he exhaled loudly, hitched up his pants, and tucked in his shirt. Said, “Why is it I gotta get mixed up with shitbums like you?”
“What do you expect? You got no friends.”
“You don’t either, Carver, you only think so. If they see they can use you, comes time to shit or get off the pot, they’ll shit—and all over you.”
“You the exception?” Carver asked.
“There are no exceptions.” McGregor smiled lewdly and sort of swung his weight across the small office to the door. Long legs covering the distance in two steps. Maybe flaunting his mobility in front of Carver. “Could be I’ll get back to you, Carver.”
He went out, still smiling, leaving a wake of cheap perfumy cologne polluting the thick air.
Carver sat for a minute thinking about how things were breaking. Realizing McGregor was right, it was hot in the office. Maybe the explosion had somehow screwed up the air-conditioning unit on the roof.
The lieutenant wasn’t somebody to underestimate, Carver reminded himself. Nobody was, if they possessed the ambition of Napoleon and the scruples of Attila the Hun.
He stared at the rough blank surface of the plywood covering the window, remembering the noise and shock of the explosion. The spray of broken glass. The contorted black thing behind the burning Cadillac’s steering wheel.
He sat forward in his chair and dragged the phone across the desk. Lifted a pencil and pecked out a number with the eraser.
It was time to confide in someone about his arrangement with McGregor.
Chapter 10
E DWINA SAID , “I HEARD on the news it was actually Frank Wesley who got killed outside your office.”
They were seated at the white metal table on the brick veranda. Carver was facing the ocean, looking beyond her at a cluster of colorful triangular sails out near the horizon. They were all banked at precisely the same angle into the wind and seemed to move only gradually. Big boats, maybe competing in some sort of regatta. He expected they were making their way across the wavering blue carpet of sea toward the Del Moray port, on the final leg of their course. North of them, closer to shore, a large trawler plowed its way out to sea. Commerce and play. A cloud of gulls circled gnatlike behind the trawler, no doubt feeding on jettisoned garbage.
“Fred, you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Carver said. “Sorry.”
“So it was really Wesley who hired you? Gave you a phony story?”
“Looks that way.”
“Know why he did it?”
“Not yet.”
He looked at her obliquely as he spoke, as if not wanting to acknowledge her presence. She’d come home for the afternoon but was going back out soon to meet a client. Something about helping to arrange a mortgage loan. Relaxing now, she sipped a gin-and-lemonade from a tall glass, the breeze toying with her long auburn hair. The same breeze that was propelling the sailboats, larger now, toward shore. One with a tall yellow sail had broken from the pack and was well in the lead. There was some sort of design on the sail, but he couldn’t make it out. A skull and crossbones?
Edwina said, “I sense in you a certain reticence.” She was smiling at him as she set down her glass in its ring of moisture on the table, causing ice cubes to clink faintly.
Carver was drinking beer out of the can. Budweiser. He lifted the can and said, “It’s better you don’t know anything else about this. It’s more complicated than I thought.”
“By that you mean more dangerous?”
“That, too.” He took a swig of beer. Backhanded cold foam from his upper lip. You’d think by now they’d have come up with a better design for openings in beer cans. “Somebody oughta write a letter.”
“About what?”
“Openings in beer cans. How to make them so they
McGregor stood up straight. Stretched his arms so his fingertips almost touched the ceiling. Then he exhaled loudly, hitched up his pants, and tucked in his shirt. Said, “Why is it I gotta get mixed up with shitbums like you?”
“What do you expect? You got no friends.”
“You don’t either, Carver, you only think so. If they see they can use you, comes time to shit or get off the pot, they’ll shit—and all over you.”
“You the exception?” Carver asked.
“There are no exceptions.” McGregor smiled lewdly and sort of swung his weight across the small office to the door. Long legs covering the distance in two steps. Maybe flaunting his mobility in front of Carver. “Could be I’ll get back to you, Carver.”
He went out, still smiling, leaving a wake of cheap perfumy cologne polluting the thick air.
Carver sat for a minute thinking about how things were breaking. Realizing McGregor was right, it was hot in the office. Maybe the explosion had somehow screwed up the air-conditioning unit on the roof.
The lieutenant wasn’t somebody to underestimate, Carver reminded himself. Nobody was, if they possessed the ambition of Napoleon and the scruples of Attila the Hun.
He stared at the rough blank surface of the plywood covering the window, remembering the noise and shock of the explosion. The spray of broken glass. The contorted black thing behind the burning Cadillac’s steering wheel.
He sat forward in his chair and dragged the phone across the desk. Lifted a pencil and pecked out a number with the eraser.
It was time to confide in someone about his arrangement with McGregor.
Chapter 10
E DWINA SAID , “I HEARD on the news it was actually Frank Wesley who got killed outside your office.”
They were seated at the white metal table on the brick veranda. Carver was facing the ocean, looking beyond her at a cluster of colorful triangular sails out near the horizon. They were all banked at precisely the same angle into the wind and seemed to move only gradually. Big boats, maybe competing in some sort of regatta. He expected they were making their way across the wavering blue carpet of sea toward the Del Moray port, on the final leg of their course. North of them, closer to shore, a large trawler plowed its way out to sea. Commerce and play. A cloud of gulls circled gnatlike behind the trawler, no doubt feeding on jettisoned garbage.
“Fred, you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Carver said. “Sorry.”
“So it was really Wesley who hired you? Gave you a phony story?”
“Looks that way.”
“Know why he did it?”
“Not yet.”
He looked at her obliquely as he spoke, as if not wanting to acknowledge her presence. She’d come home for the afternoon but was going back out soon to meet a client. Something about helping to arrange a mortgage loan. Relaxing now, she sipped a gin-and-lemonade from a tall glass, the breeze toying with her long auburn hair. The same breeze that was propelling the sailboats, larger now, toward shore. One with a tall yellow sail had broken from the pack and was well in the lead. There was some sort of design on the sail, but he couldn’t make it out. A skull and crossbones?
Edwina said, “I sense in you a certain reticence.” She was smiling at him as she set down her glass in its ring of moisture on the table, causing ice cubes to clink faintly.
Carver was drinking beer out of the can. Budweiser. He lifted the can and said, “It’s better you don’t know anything else about this. It’s more complicated than I thought.”
“By that you mean more dangerous?”
“That, too.” He took a swig of beer. Backhanded cold foam from his upper lip. You’d think by now they’d have come up with a better design for openings in beer cans. “Somebody oughta write a letter.”
“About what?”
“Openings in beer cans. How to make them so they
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