“You find out anything about what he thought might be going on here?” she asked.
“Not much. But I’m sure something is going on, Effie, so I think you better be careful about who you talk to and what you say.”
“I promised Mr. Tiller I’d be quiet about this,” she said, “and I will.”
Beth backed away and looked down at her. “You seem the sort who keeps promises,” she said.
“You ever been a model?” Effie asked her.
Beth chuckled. “No, not me. Not even a model citizen.” She looked at Carver. “I like this girl, Fred.”
“Another reason I came here tonight,” Effie said, gaining confidence, “is to offer to help you find out what’s going on with Walter Rainer and those creeps he’s got working for him. I mean, nobody pays any attention to a kid with a bike. I can hang around in Fishback, watch and listen and report to you.”
“Yeah, your mom and dad would love that.”
“My dad’s at the station all day. My mom . . .” She stared hard at the ground and made a face by scrunching up her lips. “My mom stays around the house. She drinks some.”
Carver and Beth glanced at each other.
Carver said, “Effie, I appreciate the offer, but this might be plenty serious, and I can’t take the responsibility of putting you in any kinda danger. You come here and clean on your regular days, and I’ll tell you anything you wanna know about Mr. Tiller, but that’s about as involved as I can let you get.”
“But living here on Key Montaigne, I know I can help!”
“Damnit no, Effie! I mean it.”
“But-”
Beth raised a long forefinger to her lips and shook her head. “Best listen to him, honey. He gets in these uncompromising moods.”
Effie nodded. Gulped. She looked as if she wanted to speak but didn’t trust her voice. Jesus! What was the big deal here? Uncompromising mood? Like Charles Manson? Carver felt as if he’d just shot her dog.
She spun away angrily and stalked to her bike. Threw a freckled leg over it without looking at him.
“Why don’t you hang around awhile?” Carver asked. “Have a soda?” He shifted his weight awkwardly over his cane and didn’t know what else to say to her.
She shook her head violently, still facing away from him. Her red hair bounced and what appeared to be a bobby pin flew out, catching sunlight.
“Listen, Effie-”
But she didn’t listen. Instead she gripped the handlebars as if trying to throttle necks of geese, stood high on the pedals and rode away fast.
Beth watched the dust behind the bike settle in the dying light and said, “Don’t worry, she’ll forgive you by tomorrow.”
“I didn’t know what else to tell her,” Carver said, still feeling small enough to get lost in one of his shoes. He wondered if he’d have similar conversations with his own daughter, Ann, who was only eight now and lived with his former wife, Laura, in St. Louis. Probably not; it was Laura who’d have to deal with a teenage Ann on a daily basis. Carver wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Nothing else you coulda told her,” Beth said. “You did right, Fred.”
“Then why’s it feel so wrong?”
“C’mon into the cabin or cottage or whatever the fuck it is, and I’ll change that.”
And she did.
Later they microwaved and ate two of the frozen macaroni-and-cheese dinners he’d picked up at the Food Emporium, then watched the national and local news on television. The world was in a hell of a shape, but Key Montaigne seemed to be faring okay.
Except for whatever it was the fat and rich and influential Walter Rainer was doing that required somebody like Davy to run interference for him.
Roberto Gomez’s widow was sitting up in bed reading Kafka when Carver left to take his position in the blind and watch the Rainer estate.
Kafka! he thought, loving her a lot just then. Amazing! And in that instant he understood with striking clarity what it was a savvy old cop like Henry Tiller knew that escaped those younger and less seasoned. In this world, why should anyone on Key Montaigne be surprised at anything Walter Rainer or anyone else might be doing?
Anything!
18
The night view across the water to the Rainer estate was obscured by a low haze along the shore. The infrared binoculars enabled Carver to see little other than the vague and surreal shapes of shrubbery or palm trees.
He settled deeper into a sitting position, his stiff leg extended before him, his cane lying across his lap. Crickets screamed in the surrounding darkness, and he was sweating heavily. The temperature was sure to drop a few degrees now that the sun was down. He was all for that.
But the night stayed warm, and Carver continued to perspire. He wished he’d brought something cold in the thermos bottle instead of coffee, though he needed the caffeine to stay alert. Otherwise he might fall into a pattern of drowsiness alternating with bouts of unease at the unidentifiable sounds around him. The secluded blind could be eerie.
At a few minutes past three a wavering yellow beam on the Rainer grounds attracted his attention, a man walking with a flashlight.
Carver put down his thermos cap full of black coffee and strained forward to peer through the fog. The ghostly flashlight beam moved down to the dock area, but he couldn’t make out the form behind it. The light disappeared for a while, then reappeared like a disembodied point of energy and moved back toward the house. Someone making the rounds, checking on the dock and boat; Rainer probably seldom slept easily, even with his minions on guard.
Carver thought maybe he should have armed himself. He’d originally figured it would be better not to be carrying a gun if someone saw him and called the law. Hiding and spying on a neighbor was bad enough, even without firepower. However, it might be a good idea to see that Beth was armed during her shift on the stakeout. Things had changed with Henry’s coma and after the run-in with Davy in Miami, gotten decidedly more dangerous. Better to have conflict with Chief Wicke than to leave Beth alone and unarmed in the dark to face Davy or Hector. She wouldn’t see it that way; she’d say she was as capable of handling trouble as he was, and if she needed to be armed, so did he. Possibly she was right.
The coffee ran out around four o’clock, but Carver could still taste its bitterness along with the bologna sandwich he’d eaten a few hours before. Mosquitoes had discovered him and spread the word. He slapped at one that was enthusiastically sampling blood from his forearm and couldn’t be sure if he’d struck it or not. He wished he’d brought Beth’s insect repellent. Spray the bastards! Fog of death! He lowered the binoculars and dragged the back of his hand across his forehead. Definitely he’d been too long on surveillance.
He found himself staring at the dark water and measuring the distance from where he was to the Rainer estate. For Carver, who’d become part fish during his therapeutic swims, the swim across the cove posed no challenge.
Deciding that anything might be better than sitting here being devoured by night insects, he stripped down to only his pants and rolled the legs up tight just below his knees. Then he left the cover of the blind and used his cane to make his way down to the narrow rocky beach.
It wasn’t easy to maneuver himself over the slippery sharp stones and into the water, but finally he managed and left his cane jutting from the sand so he could find it when he returned.
The water was a cool comfort as he extended his powerful arms and struck out across the dark cove.
By the time he reached the hull of the Miss Behavin’ he was breathing hard, but he knew he had plenty of stamina left to draw on. The boat seemed much larger up close, an oversized rich man’s oversized toy.
Carver dragged himself onto land where the dock met the shore. He could see most of the house from where he lay; it was dark except for a dim glow in two of the upper windows. A breeze danced in from the sea, playing over his soaked pants.