Bloodfire

age where he needed glasses. Desoto would be the last to admit it; he’d probably go to contacts on the sly.

But he saw the photo well enough. “Not the dead woman,” he said. He tilted the photo at a slight angle. “A beauty, eh? Cheekbones like a movie star’s.”

There wasn’t much Desoto didn’t notice about women. And women paid the same studious attention to him.

Carver rotated the tip of his cane on the soft carpet, making a deep depression, and waited for Desoto to continue.

Desoto unbuttoned his suit coat and slid his hands in his pants pockets. Poised and casual as a male model. He said, “If this guy Ghostly contacts you again, let me know, eh?”

“You’ll be my first phone call,” Carver told him. He didn’t like what he’d stepped into. Wanted out. Wanted to stay honest and alive. He suspected those goals might not be compatible.

“I guess what you’re thinking,” Desoto said, “is that the shooter might have been aiming at you.”

“It entered my mind.” Better than the way a bullet entered Belinda Jackson’s mind. He planted the cane more firmly in the deep depression in the carpet and raised himself up from the low sofa. “But I kinda doubt it. Such a perfect fatal shot. Be a real coincidence if a miss did such a thorough job on the person next to the intended target.”

“You’re probably right, amigo. Hope so, anyway.” He removed his left hand from his pocket and rotated his wrist to glance at his watch. Gold cuff links glittered, causing light to dance over the wall near the bloodstain. “Tell you what, give me a while to gather and coordinate what we’re finding out about this initially. Come by the office this afternoon, say about three o’clock, sign a statement, and we’ll see if we can make any sense outa all this, right?”

“Sounds sensible,” Carver said. “I’ll go to a motel. Wash off what I can of what happened here. Howard Johnson’s on the Orange Blossom Trail. I’ll call you if I can’t get a room there and wind up someplace else.”

“Fine,” Desoto said. Concern deepened his large dark eyes. “You want some temporary protection?”

“No. The key word’s temporary.”

“ ’Fraid you’re right.”

Desoto walked toward the door, his expensive suit moving like a second, silky skin. He paused and glanced back at Carver. “Leaving? Or are you feeling at home by now?”

“Leaving,” Carver said. “I’ve read all the magazines.”

“Bet not the ones on the back of the closet shelf,” Desoto said.

Carver didn’t know what he meant by that, and didn’t ask. He’d decided to let the resources of the law fit available puzzle pieces together, then he’d garner whatever information Desoto would share later at headquarters.

As he limped toward where Desoto waited at the door, he couldn’t keep from looking at the dark stain on the carpet. Seeing again the left side of Belinda Jackson’s head gushing outward. Hearing again the melon-solid thwump! of the high-velocity bullet smashing through bone and brain matter in thousandths of a second. Still so vivid, all of it. In dying color. Death wasn’t something off in the distance, gradually drawing nearer so we could be ready for it. Death jumped at us unexpectedly out of bright sunlight.

In the hall Desoto reminded him: “Three o’clock, amigo.”

Carver said he could hardly wait. Which was a wisecrack to help hold the horror at bay, but also true.

5

Desoto’s office was cool. His window unit that supplemented the central air was toiling away, gurgling and humming with gusto so that the yellow ribbons tied to its grillwork were perfectly horizontal, rigid and trembling in the breeze. On the sill of the window next to the air conditioner sat Desoto’s portable Sony radio. When Carver limped into the office, Desoto swiveled in his desk chair and turned down the volume. A female vocalist’s lilting Spanish lament became faint; the drums of the band backing her up continued to throb like a heartbeat through the office.

Desoto laid aside a yellow file folder whose contents he’d been reading. He flashed his dashing smile and motioned elegantly for Carver to sit down in the ladder-backed oak chair in front of the desk.

Carver positioned his cane, leaned on it for support, and sat. The chair creaked beneath the sudden descent of his weight.

“Still hot outside?” Desoto asked. He was wearing his suit coat and had his mauve tie firmly knotted. He looked a long way from breaking a sweat.

“What do you care?” Carver asked. “You’re never bothered by the heat.”

Desoto said, “All mental, amigo. You wanna talk about the weather, or about the Jackson woman’s murder?”

“Murder,” Carver said, not bothering to mention it was Desoto who’d brought up the subject of the weather.

Desoto leaned back but kept his hands on the desk, causing his coat sleeves to ride up slightly so his cuff links glinted in the light angling through the mini-blinds. “Victim was Belinda Louella Jackson of Indianapolis. Age thirty-live, employed as a cocktail waitress. The slug that killed her was a.30–06, fired from the roof of one of the buildings that angles so it allows a clear shot through the window. Gravel on the roof was disturbed where the gunman had sat or kneeled to take aim. No ejected casing, though. If there was one, whoever shot Belinda Jackson took the time and trouble to pick up the shell before ducking through a service passage from the roof and fleeing down the fire stairs.”

“One shot. No casing. Sounds like a professional.”

“Yeah. No doubt used a scope. There’s a mark on the roof tiles where he probably rested the barrel for support. Wanted the rifle steady because he knew he’d probably only have one shot.”

Carver said, “Learn anything else about the dead woman?”

“Several things. Among them, she was the sister of the woman who lives there.”

Carver folded both hands on the crook of his cane and leaned forward in his chair. “Jackson was Elizabeth Ghostly’s maiden name?”

“Elizabeth Gomez’s,” Desoto said.

Carver said, “Explain.”

“There is no Elizabeth Ghostly. No Robert Ghostly, either. But there’s a Roberto Gomez, and he fits your client’s description. This Roberto Gomez, amigo, he gave you a line of shit. But you’re not the first. I been talking with the Miami Police; Gomez is a drug kingpin in southern Florida. Has connections in South America and deals any kinda stuff he can wholesale. Got houses and apartments all over the place. Only one the Miami police or DEA say they didn’t know about was the condo here in Orlando, where he had his wife Elizabeth stashed the past eight months.”

“Because she was pregnant,” Carver said, “and he wanted her out of any danger because of his business.”

“You’re speculating.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And you accuse me of being a romantic.”

“You are. And maybe Gomez is, too.”

“Most likely. His wife’s pregnancy’s another thing the authorities in south Florida didn’t know about Gomez.”

“Tell me some of what they do know.”

“He’s second-generation American, of Cuban descent. His father was a burglar in New York, shot to death by police nine years ago. Gomez got into narcotics trafficking up east. Arrested three times for dealing, convicted once. Did four years at Attica. Earned a reputation as a bad-ass up there. Tough con who ran his cellblock.”

It was difficult for Carver to reconcile this description with the ordinary, cocky little man who’d passed himself off as a medical supply salesman. Medical supplies, all right. He’d flirted with the truth when he said he sold heroin. “Any warrants out for Gomez?” Carver asked.