Beth noticed him, too. She said, “Who’s the fat guy eyeballing us?”
Carver said he didn’t know.
Beth said, “Hope he ain’t the leader of the Fishback chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.” Uh-oh. Was she pumping up some anger?
“He’s probably an equal-opportunity ogler,” Carver told her, trying to head off trouble.
“I dunno. All he needs is the white hood to complete his ensemble.”
The heat-plagued waitress arrived with the Budweiser Carver had ordered, and Beth’s mineral water. Carver was glad to see her. She set the glasses on the table and said, “Lord, but it’s hot in that kitchen.”
“Bet it is,” Carver said.
“Wouldn’t you know they got me baking pies?”
“You happen to know the big fella at the bar? The one in the white jacket?”
She took a quick glance in the direction of the bar, which was all that was necessary, considering the size of the subject. “You must mean Mr. Rainer.”
“Walter Rainer?” Carver asked.
“Uh-huh. He’s a well-to-do gent, lives in a big fancy place out on Shoreline. Don’t come in here very often.”
Beth said, “Maybe it’s an occasion.”
The waitress looked at her curiously but said nothing. Instead she wiped her arm across her forehead and trudged resignedly toward the swinging doors leading to the hell that was the kitchen. With each step her rubber soles sounded like wet kisses on the heat-softened composition tiles.
“So that’s our man,” Carver said. He suspected Rainer had been apprised of his actions, and come into the Key Lime Pie so he could have a look at the troublemaker staying in Henry’s cottage.
“Man’s got eyes like a pig that can reason,” Beth observed.
“Spoken like a communications graduate.”
Rainer continued to study them dispassionately until the waitress arrived with their food, then he turned back toward the bar and hunched over his drink. The material of his tent-sized jacket stretched tautly across his shoulders as he raised his glass to sip from it.
Carver had the tuna steak again, the meal he’d had for lunch yesterday, only the more expensive evening version was decorated with parsley. Beth had blackened redfish with a salad, baked potato with sour cream, and several huge buttered dinner rolls. Her metabolism made dieting no concern of hers.
After dinner they had coffee and key lime pie. With the first bite, she licked her lips and arched her eyebrows in surprise. “This is really good! Better’n any pie I ever had in Key West.”
“I wouldn’t take you someplace served lousy food,” Carver told her.
“Well, that’s a subjective point of view.” She forked another large bite of pie into her mouth, chewed and swallowed with enthusiasm. “One thing, with Walter Rainer here, we probably don’t need to be watching his place.”
“Probably not,” Carver said, “but don’t forget Davy and Hector. They do the muscle work.”
“I can see why,” she said, glancing at Rainer’s corpulent form overflowing the bar stool. “Shame to let yourself get that heavy.”
Carver thought that was easy for her to say; she could probably eat whale blubber and it wouldn’t show up as fat. But he didn’t feel like an argument, so he kept quiet. Beth could be difficult. The late Roberto Gomez had found that out in a big way.
“What’s the plan tonight?” she asked.
“I drive up to Miami so I can talk to the drowned boy’s parents tomorrow. You use the infrared glasses and set up surveillance on the Rainer estate, particularly the boat dock.” He ate the last bite of his pie, savoring it. “Rainer’s seen you with me, so be extra careful. Don’t stray from your vantage point with the idea of working in closer for a better view. These people are as bad as the folks you met when you were with Roberto.”
She nodded. “That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. Don’t waste energy worrying over me, Fred. You know I can do whatever’s necessary.”
He did know. Doing what was necessary, no matter how difficult, was what she was all about. It was what had enabled her to escape from an opulent but corrupt existence she knew was consuming her soul like cancer. Other women would have given up, drifted on the currents of cash and stayed with the animals that were Roberto and his associates. But Beth had fought and thought her way out of the slums of Chicago long before she’d met Roberto. Not giving up was her religion. Carver’s, too. Which was why they got along so well. They gave each other room. They had to. But at times they could work together almost as beautifully as they made love, obsessive personalities sharing an obsession.
The sun was still blazing well above the horizon when they left the restaurant and crossed the baking street to where the LeBaron was parked. Half a block down from the car was a dusty black van with tinted windows. Now it was wearing a Florida license plate. Davy was leaning against the van, the faithful servant waiting for his master to come out of the bar. He nodded to Carver and smiled. The smile reminded Carver of the shark in the observation tank at the aquarium.
Beth noticed Davy and her body stiffened. She didn’t have to ask who he was; she recognized evil when she saw it, and Davy wore it like a disease he took pride in.
Carver was relieved when the van didn’t follow the LeBaron as they drove out of Fishback.
But then it wasn’t necessary for Davy to follow. He knew where to find them.
13
Carver showed Beth the foliage-concealed vantage point from which she could maintain surveillance of the Rainer estate. He didn’t have to familiarize her with the army-issue infrared binoculars for night vision; she’d used them before. She knew the tools of her late husband’s trade.
After leaving her with the night glasses, her spray can of bug repellent, and a thermos jar of black coffee, Carver got in the Olds and started for Miami. He drove north on Route 1 until well after dark, and checked into a Days Inn on the outskirts of the city.
In the morning he ate a leisurely breakfast in the motel restaurant, then he sat on a concrete bench outside in the shade, smoking a Swisher Sweet cigar and reading USA Today. The world’s problems were plainly visible in colorful bar graphs that suggested solutions might be equally as simple. He wished he could reduce the swirl of questions on Key Montaigne to a similar graphic display. Maybe it was in fact possible; maybe he should buy some crayons.
When he figured it was late enough, he drove the rest of the way into Miami to see Frank and Selma Everman, the drowned boy’s parents.
The address Chief Wicke had given Carver turned out to belong to the Blue Flamingo Hotel on Collins Avenue in South Miami Beach. It was an area of old art deco buildings being renovated to comprise what the developers were ambitiously describing as the “Florida Riviera.” Lots of pastel stucco and rounded corners, garish neon signs and neo-Egyptian decor of the sort seen in late-night TV movies from the twenties and thirties. An Al Capone/King Tut ambience. Carver thought that when it was finished, when the seediness had disappeared to leave only the reborn art deco essence, the Florida Riviera would be impressive indeed. Right now, the Blue Flamingo was still on the seedy side of that gradual gentrification.
It was a twenty-story building that, true to its name, was pale blue. Its peeling wooden window frames badly needed a coat of paint. But there were new tinted glass double doors beneath an ornate entrance arch with flamingos in bas-relief. Or possibly they were some sort of Egyptian bird. Carver limped through the doors and felt the welcome coolness of the lobby.