IT WAS A LITTLE after five when Carver struggled back into his clothes. He turned his back on a majestic sunrise and through fading shadows made his way the three hundred yards to the cottage. Serious tropical heat was building already, and sweat was rolling down his face as he pushed through the screen door and used his key on the main door. He tried not to let his cane thump on the wooden floor, didn’t want to wake Beth.
The cottage’s interior was dim, but he could see well enough to move cautiously to the bathroom. There was a long scrape on the heel of his hand from when the boat’s propellor had yanked the length of steel from his grasp. He peeled off his clothes, soaked from perspiration and the sea, and let them lie in a pile on the floor. Tidiness could wait until he woke.
After a quick shower, he toweled dry, retrieved his cane from where he’d leaned it on the washbasin, then made his way into the bedroom.
It was hot enough outside even for Beth. The air conditioner was toiling away and she was sprawled nude on top of the sheets. She opened one eye halfway, as if merely to register his presence and identity, then closed it and appeared to go back to sleep.
Still damp from the shower, he lay on his back beside her, feeling his sore hand throb and currents of cool air play over his body. She moved one of her feet slightly so her toes barely touched his ankle, continued reassurance that he was there beside her. Beneath the hum of the air conditioner he could hear her deep, even breathing. He stared for a while at the shadows fading on the ceiling, then closed his eyes. Dreamed he was being pursued by a gigantic buzzing mosquito. Or was it an airborne speedboat?
When he opened his eyes Beth was gently shaking his shoulder, telling him it was ten o’clock, when he’d said he wanted to get up. She was wearing a white blouse with a black triangle pattern. The warm denim roughness of her Levi’s lay against his bare arm.
Grabbing her wrist, he pretended he was going to pull her down into bed with him. A bluff, not like when he was a younger man. Didn’t fool her.
“I’m fully dressed, Fred. You wanna do that kinda stuff, you shoulda woke me last night.”
“You mean morning,” he said. “Five o’clock’s when I got back.”
“Hmm. Shouldn’ta woke me after all.”
He ran his tongue around the insides of his cheeks. Terrible taste. Coffee and bologna and seawater. Yuk! She was watching him with her fists on her hips as he rolled over, grabbed his cane and struggled to sit on the edge of the mattress. His feet made contact with the floor. Henry’s bedsprings squealed with his effort.
“You all the way awake, Fred?”
“Sorta. Had breakfast?”
“Nope. I read until late and just woke up about an hour ago myself. I figure tonight’s my turn to squat out there behind branches in that spooky blind and spy with binoculars, I better get all the sleep I can this morning.”
“Lemme get dressed,” Carver said, “and we’ll drive into Fishback for some breakfast.”
“We could eat here,” Beth said. “I can fix us some bacon and eggs while you’re getting yourself together.”
He stood up and waited for dizziness to pass, a lithe, muscle-ridged man leaning nude on a cane. “Let’s eat in town,” he said. “I got my reasons.”
“Such as you wanna be seen. Wanna let those dickheads across the way know you weren’t scared away.”
“I guess it’s something like that.’”
“That exactly. Go splash some water on yourself and get into some clothes so we can eat. I’m hungry.” She sounded angry, too. Ah, well.
Angry or not, as he limped toward the bathroom, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Want me to get your gun outa the suitcase?”
He said, “It wouldn’t be a bad idea, in case Fern tries to overcharge us.”
On the drive into town, Carver told Beth about what had happened last night.
“First they were going to make it look like you mighta died accidentally,” she said thoughtfully. “Then they decided to shoot you and probably hide your body. Wanted your ass real bad. Something to think about, isn’t it?”
He said, “I’ve thought about it.”
“You get the idea they knew it was you they were after?”
“They can’t be sure who it was,” Carver said, “I think.”
“Wanted you real bad,” Beth repeated softly.
She didn’t speak the rest of the way into town. He figured that was probably for the best.
Fern was indeed on duty this morning. Order pad in hand, she trudged across the tile floor of the Key Lime Pie and smiled down at Carver and Beth. There were a dozen other customers in the restaurant, all of them in booths where they could stare out the window at the cosmopolitan bustle of Fishback. The ceiling fans were ticking away at a fairly brisk speed and it was cool in there, a slight breeze from above. Smoke or steam was drifting from the kitchen, over the serving counter, but the body of air from the fans held it at bay and let only the scent of frying bacon waft out into the restaurant.
Carver glanced at the grease-spotted menu and said, “What’s good, Fern?”
“Not your chances of a long and prosperous life.”
He looked up at her. “What’s that mean?”
“Means Key Montaigne’s a small place, an’ word gets around.”
“Which word?”
“That you’re meddlin’ where you shouldn’t be, that you been warned.”
“And ignored the warning?”
“Well, you’re here, ain’t you?”
Sometimes Carver had his doubts about that, but he didn’t want to get metaphysical with Fern.
“What was that crack about long life?” Beth asked.
Fern stood solidly with pencil poised and eyes averted as she said, “This island’s kinda deceptive in some ways. Beautiful to look at, with all the green an’ the colorful flowers, the tourists walkin’ around town or goin’ out to sea in charter boats. Like paradise under a blue sky. But there’s some awful rough people here. Awful rough. An’ as a Christian woman I feel compelled to let you two know that. Now I done let you know, so that’s that.”
“Are these rough people into drugs?” Beth asked.
“I honestly ain’t sure what’s goin’ on, but maybe it’s drugs. An’ you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Okay,” Carver said.
“Two coffees, was it?”
“Right. With cream.”
When Fern returned with the coffee, Beth and Carver both ordered the scrambled egg special.
It arrived at the table within a few minutes with toast, strawberry preserves, and Canadian bacon. Fern commanded them to “Enjoy” and plodded back behind the counter.
Carver decided the Key Lime’s breakfast was its best meal. Whoever was in the kitchen was an expert fry cook.
When they’d finished eating, they each had a second cup of coffee. Then Beth went into the rest room while Carver paid the check and limped outside to smoke a Swisher Sweet cigar. He was leaning back against the front right fender of the Olds, squinting into the sun and touching flame to tobacco, when a shadow drifted across the ground in front of him.
Immediately he flicked the match away and turned, keeping a firm grip on his cane, aware of the bulk and deadliness of the Colt automatic in its holster beneath his shirt. Davy wouldn’t get the chance to move in close with the cargo hook again.
But it wasn’t Davy standing five feet away and smiling at him.
It was Walter Rainer.