something while he was off guard. Gaining the advantage was McGregor’s way of life.
The smooth, pale roof of the unmarked Ford dipped out of sight as the car descended the winding driveway.
Carver sat where he was and stared out at the ocean while it got completely dark and the moon took over. It made luminous the whitecaps of the breakers rolling in. One day like today was enough in anyone’s life, he thought. The rush of surf on the rocks below was like the hectic whispering of gossips.
Where was Edwina this late?
Damn McGregor!
He got up and hobbled into the house, then to the front hall, where he got his spare cane from the back of the guest closet.
Carver felt whole again with the cane, more confident. It bothered him that he’d grown so dependent on it. He was a man who loathed dependency more than loneliness. That had caused problems in his life.
He heard the garage-door opener’s wavering hum, and he limped into the living room and waited for Edwina to come in.
When she saw him she did a double take, smiled, and said wearily, “The buyer brought his attorney to the closing with him. Lawyers! They don’t do anything but make things more confusing so they take four hours instead of one.”
She tossed her purse and attache case on a chair and walked over to Carver and kissed him. He pulled her down, held her tightly, and kissed her back. They were the sort of kisses that might lead to something.
They did.
Carver was lying nude beside Edwina in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, perspiring and listening to the ocean’s now kindly whispers, when the phone rang.
Edwina stirred sleepily and beautifully. She kissed him on the arm, and then rolled to her side of the bed to stretch so she could lift the receiver. McGregor was right: the real-estate business knew no regular hours.
She mumbled a hello, then let her head drop back on the pillow and held the receiver out toward Carver. Her breasts and stomach were still reddened from the friction of his body. “For you. Dunno who.”
Carver pressed the receiver to his ear; the plastic was cool and gave off a dry, acrid scent.
Before he could say hello a voice asked, “Fred Carver?”
Carver said he was.
“Name’s Amos Burrel. I live out at Sunhaven.” The voice was aged but still vibrant, with an edge of irritability and defiance, as if its owner wished he could simply disregard the years but knew that was impossible. “You the Fred Carver visited Kearny Williams here this morning?”
“The same.”
“I got the room next to Kearny’s. Walls are paper thin. Heard everything the two of you said.”
Carver smiled, but at the same time made a mental note to speak more softly at Sunhaven. “You shoulda come over and joined the conversation,” he said.
“Nope. I think you and me better have our own conversation.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning suit you?”
“If it’s convenient for you,” Carver said.
“Hell, anytime’s convenient for me. I never leave here. Catch me when I ain’t on the pot, we can talk.”
“I’ll be there around ten,” Carver said.
“Anybody asks, tell ’em you came to visit Kearny,” Amos Burrel said. “But you come see me instead. Got that?”
“Got it,” Carver said, and hung up.
“Who was it?” Edwina asked, half asleep and staring blankly at the ceiling.
“You know that old caution about the walls having ears?”
“Sure.”
“That was Ears.”
10
Birdie Reeves recognized Carver immediately and brightened the already brilliant reception area with her country-girl smile. Even her freckles seemed to glimmer. “Here to see Mr. Williams?”
Carver nodded and mumbled and gave back the smile. Birdie had been leafing through a sheaf of papers on the curved reception desk and diligently returned to the task as he limped past. Like yesterday, there were several Sunhaven residents in the lobby area. But the cast had changed except for the two men playing checkers, who again stopped their game to observe Carver’s passage. No one had to be restrained in their rocking chair or wheelchair with a knotted sheet. No one was drooling or rambling incomprehensibly. The great dignity of age lay over the place today, and not the physical infirmities that assaulted that dignity.
In the hall, a white-uniformed attendant gave Carver a head-peck hello and bustled on. Carver passed Kearny Williams’s closed door and knocked on the next one. The knock sounded surprisingly loud.
The door opened immediately and a once tall, now stooped man with gravity-drawn features stared out at Carver. His face was long and jowly, as if it were melting, and there were wattles of flesh beneath his chin. He was wearing old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like an owl after an all-night binge, yet there was a hint of defiance in his unblinking brown eyes and even in the way he held his emaciated bent body. Not defiance of Carver, but of diminishing time. Of where his world had finally cornered him. It was a defiance that rang hollow because it was born of his personal realization of mortality and his abject fear of it. Courage had become bluff.
“Amos Burrel?” Carver asked.
“Me,” the man said.
“I’m Fred Carver.”
“Hell, I know that. C’mon with me.” He stepped into the hall and shut the door to his room. “Wish I could lock that damned thing, only they won’t let us do that here. People steal any loose item they can get their hands on in a place like this. Steal a wart right off your ass just for the joy of it if they thought it could be removed. Get their jollies that way, some people. Figure you might not be around long enough to accuse them if you ever do work out who’s the thief. Damned senior-citizen punks!”
“I thought we might talk privately in your room,” Carver said.
“Why in hell would we do that when I told you it was you and Kearny talking in his room prompted me to phone you? Think the wall’s any thicker from the other direction? Huh?”
“Guess not,” Carver said, extending the cane as far in front of him as he dared with each step and struggling to keep up. Amos was at least in his mid-seventies, but he had a long-legged, awkward stride, a kind of rhythmic lurching that covered ground amazingly fast. If the Senior Olympics had a hall-walking event, Amos would be the guy to beat.
They left the building and crossed to another by way of a walkway walled with pink plastic panels. Beyond the tinted panels were pink-hued palm trees, a pink resident gliding past, pushed in her wheelchair by a pink attendant. Beyond pink palms rolled the endless pink ocean. In the hot sunlight streaming through the panels, Carver glanced down at his hand gripping the crook of his cane. Pink.
A sign read VISITOR CENTER. An extra-wide pneumatic door hissed open, and fast Amos led Carver inside. It was much cooler in the visitor center, a relief. Carver was breathing hard. Amos wasn’t.
The color of the panels had changed; everything here had a slight copper tint. It added color to some of the residents being visited by family and friends, made them seem almost robust despite the wheelchairs, canes, and metal walkers. Despite the infirmities dragging them down. Carver wondered if there were green plastic panels anywhere at Sunhaven.
The copper-hued rectangular room was one large area where vinyl sofas and chairs were clustered about in conversation groupings. So visitors wouldn’t feel as if they and the aged residents were being eavesdropped upon, or too closely overseen by the uniformed staff that roamed casually about. Care was taken so the attendants didn’t bring to mind the word guards. The building had long, thick brown drapes along the west wall, almost like theatrical
