Armont sneered. “Hah! Why should he ask? You might deny him the pleasure of slicing your guts out. You don’t know these Marielitos, Carver. Not the ones that stayed in southern Florida, anyway.”
Carver thought that some of the Marielitos he’d dealt with in Orlando weren’t the sort you’d want your maiden aunt to date, but he said nothing.
“This Lujan might have just felt like killing somebody today,” Armont said. He wanted to believe that, Carver knew. That would be the simplest explanation for him.
And maybe it was the most likely explanation. Carver hadn’t been in town long enough for Lujan to take a bus in, rent a car, and try to do a contract murder. Unless Lujan had been following him before he’d come to Solarville.
“What bus did he arrive on?” Carver asked.
“No bus,” Armont said. “He drove. He rented the car five days ago in Miami under another name with forged identification. It looks like he didn’t expect to be in town long enough to have to get a motel room, so he set up housekeeping in a bus-station locker.”
“Do you know when he got into town?”
Armont shook his head. “There’s no way to pin down the time. Even come close. But I know what you’re thinking. I had my men ask around; nobody remembers seeing him earlier, either in town or around the Tumble Inn before the fire.”
“What about priors?”
“Lujan’s got a record of playing with knives in Miami. But the police there don’t have anything on him before 1981. And there’s no way to know his background in Cuba. He cut up a few people seriously in Miami, though; seems he was one of those guys fascinated by sharp steel.”
“Which is why he might have tried to kill me just for sport.”
“Exactly. He’s killed for sport before, even though he managed to avoid prosecution.” Armont suddenly dropped into his desk chair and sighed, as if some silent signal had allowed him finally to take his weight off his feet. “You probably know that some Marielitos have tattoos on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger. Lujan’s tattoo was of an arrow and the word madre. That’s ‘mother’ in Spanish, but to a Marielito that tattoo signified that Lujan’s specialty was murder. His mother probably wouldn’t claim him. He was fond of killing.”
Carver had gathered that, on the road outside of town. “Any drug arrests on Lujan’s record?” he asked.
Armont arched an eyebrow at him. “Sure. Cocaine possession. I’d be surprised if there hadn’t been any narcotics charges against a hard-ass guy like Lujan. Against any Marielito.” Armont shifted to the side in his chair and frowned. “Funny you should mention drugs. There’s a DEA agent named Alex Burr who’s coming into town tomorrow to talk with you. I’m supposed to tell you to be available.”
Carver had seen the Orlando police work in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration. It was a federal organization formed for the express and vital purpose of winning the government’s declared war on illicit drugs and the people who sold them. And the DEA had slowed the flow of narcotics coming into the U.S. by ship or plane, though the width and density of that flow was such that it could be temporarily lessened but not stemmed. Carver didn’t like the idea of talking to a government agent. They had a knack for stuffing things into cubbyholes where they didn’t fit.
“What’s the DEA got to do with this?”
Armont shrugged his muscle-bunched shoulders. “Federal. You know how they are. They got ways of finding out things almost before they happen. Sometimes they even make them happen. And the DEA is all over Florida these days, what with the government’s war on drug trafficking. Florida is where it’s happening, all that coastline, the little inlets and islands where boats can go without being seen, where drugs can be transferred. Most of the drug game is played south of here and along the coasts, but to the DEA Florida is a war zone. All of Florida.”
Carver took a chance. “I’ve heard narcotics crops are grown in this part of the state.”
Armont grinned at him. Carver didn’t like the grin. “I’ve heard that too, Carver.”
“The Malone brothers have been mentioned in that context.”
The grin stayed. “You’ll have to ask them about that. I already have asked; it’ll get you nowhere.”
“Maybe the rumors are only that.”
“Tongues do wag of their own accord,” Armont said.
Carver thought now seemed a good time to go, if he was still free. He stood up. “Will you let me know if you learn anything more about Lujan?”
“Sure,” Armont said. “And you let me know what you learn.” He seemed to dismiss Carver from his mind and bowed his head to size up the paperwork that had accumulated on his desk while he’d been delving into attempted murder. Carver remembered how the chief had wielded his pen viciously on the last visit. Judging by the sour expression on his wide face, Armont didn’t care for paper. Crinkly, irritating stuff. He gave the impression that any second he might wad it all up in one big ball and toss it aside.
Carver set his cane, leaned on it, and headed for the door. It would be good to get out into the free, hot air.
“Make sure you stick around for this Burr character,” Armont said behind him.
After leaving police headquarters, Carver walked down the street to Wilt’s Shell Station, where his car had been towed. Wilt was there, full of grease and gab. He tried without luck to sell Carver a new set of radial whitewalls. Carver put the cost of the tow and tire repair on his Visa card, then drove from the station.
On the way to the Tumble Inn, he began thinking about the expression on Lujan’s face when he’d come with the knife and the gleaming dullness of death in his eyes staring up from the swamp. Sudden death always carried with it surprise and a hint of prophecy. When Carver drove past the point on the road where it had all happened, his hands began to tremble on the steering wheel. It took a few minutes for them to be still.
He parked the Olds by his room, then walked back across the parking lot to cut through the lobby to the motel restaurant. He needed something to eat, and a couple of cold beers.
The swamp seemed to loom around him, dank and threatening, full of life, full of death. None of it subject to reason. There were eyes watching from the black shade beneath the moss-draped trees. And eyes not watching. Eyes like Lujan’s.
When Carver entered the Tumble Inn lobby, he saw Edwina sitting on the stiff vinyl chair near the desk. She was wearing a white blouse and a pastel yellow skirt and had her long, nyloned legs crossed. The air-conditioning in the humid lobby was fighting a losing battle, but Edwina looked cool as a glacier queen on her throne. She sensed him near her and looked up from the tattered Newsweek she’d been reading. The magazine had a photograph of a marijuana plant on its slick cover.
She said, “I hope you’ve kept busy.”
CHAPTER 17
After Edwina had checked in at the Tumble Inn, Carver took her to dinner at The Flame. They sat in a booth near the back, where they could see the regular customers, and the few tourists who’d been driving through and stopped to eat. The place was crowded; Carver noticed that most of the regulars-easy to spot by their casual clothes and familiarity with the waitresses-were having the Seminole Sizzler steak special.
There was a boisterous conversation among half a dozen men at the counter over the relative merits of different types of shotguns. It interested Carver because two of the men had been referred to as Sean and Gary. The Malone brothers. They were short, muscular men with similar strong, handsome faces. Sean was the heavier of the two, in his mid-thirties, about five years older than Gary, who told everybody to hell with shotguns, he was a good enough shot to use a rifle; shotguns were for blind men and pussies. Both Malone brothers had amused blue eyes, and noses that seemed to have been broken several times and never set. Sean dribbled his beer when he drank, and he laughed a lot with an annoying, nasal giggle; Gary’s remark about blind men and pussies ranked high on his list of things funny.
“Is this the best place in town to eat?” Edwina asked.
“It is for us.” Carver sipped his water, which was cold but tasted as if it had been pumped straight from the swamp. “This is where Sam Cahill has some of his meals. Besides, you might be surprised by the food and service here.”
