Bloodfire

“Probably’d like to ask you for a date.”

“Fuck you, Carver.”

“Such spirit.”

She sipped her ice water daintily, little finger extended. Mouth didn’t match manners. “Listen, Carver, what do you think this McGregor character can really do to catch Roberto?”

“Whatever needs doing. He’ll see that the Del Moray marina and any likely landing sites along the coast’ll be watched like a clock at quitting time. He’ll take part in it himself, sleep in his car if he has to. The man’s fucked up. Wants to be mayor.”

Beth smiled. “You notice everybody wants to be what they’re not?”

Carver sampled his beer. Good and cold. “You’re no exception.”

“Yeah, I know. What about you?”

He set the glass down in its puddle of condensation on the smooth table. The video game bwipped and zoinged some more. “During the last couple years, I got divorced, got shot, lost a son, and got involved with a woman too much like me. What with my leg, the way my life took a turn, I approach things a day at a time.”

“Like a recovering addict.”

“Something like.”

“What woman you involved with, Carver?” She was tactful enough not to ask about his son.

“Private matter,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not going good for us right now.” Bwip! Zoing!

“I figured.”

He didn’t ask her how. It was better to leave Edwina out of anything that went on between them. He didn’t like the way Edwina was changing in his mind, leaving him helpless and lonely, with terrifying moments when he could feel time flowing around him and carrying him like the current of a great river.

Beth said, “You got a lotta faith in your friend McGregor.”

“He’s not my friend. Not anybody’s. That’s the way he likes it, so he can sacrifice anyone he wants in whatever game he’s playing.”

“Sounds like a total jerk.”

“He is. But he’s good at what he does. He’ll haunt the Del Moray coast like the Ancient Mariner.”

“Well, he better stoppeth more’n one in three if he’s gonna get the goods on Roberto.”

The fat man at the counter said, “Marlene, put on some music, why doncha, so we don’t have to listen to that goddam video machine fartin’ at us.”

“ ’Kay, Junior.” Marlene pushed through some swinging doors. Speakers mounted up near the ceiling crackled to life. Dolly Parton started singing about a party right next door. The man at the video machine hadn’t turned around. He was still trying to influence microchips with body English.

A red light flashed on the video screen and an electronic voice yelled “Score!” above the sound of Dolly’s. Fat Junior said, “Jesus H. Christ, I hate them ’puters!”

Marlene was back behind the counter, carrying plates on a tray out in front of her with both hands. She said. “That ain’t no computer.”

“Same fuckin’ difference, ain’t it?”

Marlene ignored his question and moved out from behind the counter. Squish-squished across the buckled linoleum and placed the plates of steaming food in front of Carver and Beth. Carver was surprised; everything looked delicious.

“Getcha anything else, jus’ lemme know,” Marlene said, and turned and walked away. Her legs were thick and brown beneath her cut-off jeans. Muscular rather than fat. A tightness moved in Carver’s groin and he averted his eyes. The waitress was a backwater kid, no more than seventeen.

“Don’t you be eyeballin’ Marlene,” Junior said. “You got your black meat there.”

Carver thought, This is gonna be trouble. A part of him had sensed it coming for a while. Something in his gut got hard and cold, and ready. He ignored Junior. Took a bite of chicken-fried steak, Chewed.

Beth was staring at him. “You catch what that asshole said?” she whispered.

“Eat your hamburger.”

“Didn’t hear me, I guess,” Junior said. “Ain’t got goddam ears maybe, you think, B.J.?”

B.J., the thin one, took another bite of beans. “Leave the man alone, Junior. He likes niggers, that’s his business. He’s a cripple. Maybe dark’ns is all he can bed.”

Junior tilted back his tiny head on his thick neck and took a long pull of beer. “Well, I don’t think that’s it. I think he’s bein’ bad-mannered, is what.”

Marlene had shrunk back against the wall near the grill. The old man at the far end of the counter was staring into his coffee cup. The skinny guy at the video machine pocketed a handful of change and loped leisurely from the restaurant. He wore rimless glasses and had greasy black hair that curled down over his forehead. He didn’t look scared. Didn’t look anything. It was time for him to leave, that was all.

Junior swiveled on his stool to face Carver directly. “Black section of town’s down t’other end of the street. Got a restaurant there serves scum like you.”

Carver said, “But it’s not in the Michelin guide like this one.”

Junior looked at B.J. “The fuck’s he talkin’ about tires for?”

B.J. shrugged and said, “Don’t know, little bro.”

Junior flexed his jaw muscles. “We don’t mix the races in this part of the country, mister.”

“Don’t you really?”

“You and the nigger bitch head for the door,” Junior said, “or you’re gonna find out for sure we don’t.”

“I think we’ll stay here for now, thanks.”

B.J. stopped eating. He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Better listen, mister. Best you and the nigger get up and leave, or my baby brother here’s might gonna turn mean.”

Carver said, “We don’t want trouble, but we plan on finishing our supper before we leave. That seems reasonable.”

Junior said, “Not to us, it don’t.”

“Ain’t no cause for any meanness, Junior,” Marlene said in a squeaky voice. “There’s gonna be a problem, I’m headin’ out back an’ get Whiffy.”

The big Harley fired up outside, then spat and roared as it accelerated down the street; the video-game player leaving. The receding rumble of the cycle’s motor seemed to have a calming effect.

“Let’s keep it light, please!” Marlene said.

For a moment Carver thought Marlene’s plea might work. Junior and B.J. were silent. Junior was glaring at Carver with his tiny, porcine eyes. B.J. was gazing curiously at Beth. His face was narrow, his dark eyes set close together and recessed under shaggy brown eyebrows. The left side of his face didn’t quite match the right, as if there’d been a tectonic shift of bone beneath the flesh.

Carver took a drink of beer and felt some of the tension leave the air. He could breathe easier. Maybe they’d get out of here okay after all. The hostile brothers seemed to have cooled down. He took another long swallow of beer, moving very deliberately to add another measure of calm.

Beth said, “How far back in the swamp were you two dumb rednecks born?”

Fat Junior’s jaw fell open. B.J. had lifted his fork, but set it back on his plate with a tiny clink. Marlene was edging toward the swinging doors to the kitchen. Carver casually removed his fingers from the cold beer glass and rested his hand on his cane.

Junior said, “Come again, nigger?” and got down off his stool. He was taller than Carver had thought, well over six feet, maybe pushing three hundred pounds. The tricep muscles in the backs of his thick arms flexed as he moved. He’d done heavy lifting sometime in his life; there was steel beneath the fat. B.J. did nothing to restrain his huge “baby brother,” and swiveled around and dropped off his stool. He was as tall as Junior.

Junior’s sunburned, beefy face folded into a grin, and his tiny eyes glittered in cruel anticipation as he swaggered toward Beth. B.J. was moving toward Carver. The brothers had silently partitioned the work. Or was it recreation?

B.J. said, “Your lady shouldn’t have talked that way to baby bro.”

“Don’t bother with the fuckin’ cripple,” Junior said. “Like you said, he ain’t enough man to be with anything