Bloodfire (17 page)

“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 but black cunt. You just step on the worm and keep him outa my way while I learn the bitch a lesson.”

“Don’t underestimate the man,” B.J. warned. “Some of them gimps got strong upper bodies from draggin’ themselves around. ’Member that limp-legged fisherman give you a split lip last August.”

“That’n was a man and this’n’s a pile of shit,” Junior said. He was angered even more by being reminded of whatever trouble last year’s victim had given him. Great, Carver thought, just what we need, more adrenaline for Junior.

Beth hadn’t budged, but now Carver saw her move her hands beneath table level. She was digging in her purse for something. A gun, he hoped; he’d left his back at the motel.

But it was only her keys. A ring of them attached to what he at first thought was a thick ballpoint pen, but was only a cylindrical piece of brushed aluminum with a dull pointed end, large enough to keep her from losing her keys in her purse.

Junior was smiling broadly and sweating hard. He smelled stale and sour, and faintly of fish. There were perspiration stains on his bib overalls. He ducked a shoulder as he got close to Beth. Reached out for her.

Carver slashed with the cane. Felt solid contact with Junior’s wrist. Junior drew back his hand and rubbed the wrist, looking annoyed. He said, “Shouldn’t have oughta done that.” Carver knew the blow would have broken the wrist of an ordinary man, but Junior was a subspecies.

A shadow flitted in the corner of his vision. B.J. rushing him, striking like a snake.

Carver swiveled in his chair, whipped around again with the cane. It caught BJ. across the forehead and sent him reeling back. He looked astounded and enraged. Blood was flowing into his right eye from a cut at his hairline.

He said, “Why, you dirty cocksucker,” and came at Carver again.

This time Carver jabbed with the cane. The tip caught B.J. in the sternum, just below the heart. Breath
whooshed!
from him as he staggered backward. He dropped to sit on the floor and began to gasp.

Carver turned to keep Junior away from Beth.

But Beth was standing and had moved toward Junior, gripping the aluminum cylinder as if it were a peg she was about to jab into the hard ground. As Junior lunged for her she dragged the sharp keys across his eyes. Wheeled so her back was to him for an instant, and struck at his genitals with the pointed end of the cylinder. All so fast it was like a choreographed and practiced dance maneuver.

Junior released his grip on her arm. He groaned, then let out a long, whistling sigh and doubled over. His forehead was pale and creased in pain. He’d just raised his head to focus his scratched and bleeding eyes on Beth when she screamed, startling and freezing him even if he could have moved quickly. She hacked at his bull neck with the edge of her hand. Carver watched, amazed. Karate bullshit.

Beth brought up her knee and caught the side of Junior’s face. Denim swished over flesh. Carver was standing, supporting himself with his free hand on the table, He glanced at B.J., who was just struggling to his feet, still gripping his stomach. No danger there yet. Carver brought the hard walnut cane down on top of Junior’s head. The vibration of solid contact ran up his arm as he heard the
thwack!
of wood on flesh and bone.

Junior didn’t go down, but he backed away, looking puzzled and pressing his hand to the top of his head, as if unfamiliar with the bother of persistently uncooperative victims.

B.J. was standing with his lean body swaying, obviously thinking about another charge and how to handle Carver and the cane.

A deep voice said, “ ’Nuff of this shit, you
hear
!”

A broad-shouldered black man was standing near the counter. He was holding a baseball bat in his right hand. Marlene was cowering behind him and looking uncertain, as if someone had threatened to sue about a fly in the soup and she didn’t know what to do.

Junior and B.J. drifted closer together and seemed to lose interest in attacking Carver and Beth. Junior said, “This nigger-lover started it, Whiff.”

Whiffy stared at him with deep brown eyes that showed crescents of blue-tinted white beneath the pupils. He said, “I’d just as leave you didn’t talk that way in here, Junior.”

Junior said nothing, but he couldn’t meet the black man’s steady stare.

B.J. said, “Things just got outa hand, is all, Whiff.”

“You keep control of that brother of yours,” Whiffy said.

“No problem,” B.J. said. “C’mon, little bro. We was about finished here anyways.”

Beth said, “You sure as fuck were.”

Without looking at Carver and Beth, both men walked out of the restaurant. B.J. was pressing a white paper napkin to his head. Junior had one hand on his crotch. The other hand was rubbing the side of his neck where Beth had hacked at him.

Carver looked at Beth. “You okay?”

“You bet.”

Whiffy said, “Don’t imagine they’ll forget this. A black woman an’ a guy with a cane gettin’ the best of ’em, you surely fuckin’ with their machismo.”

The old guy at the end of the counter hadn’t moved. He was still staring into his coffee cup, but grinning now. Without looking up, he said, “Was the Brainard brothers started the pot boilin’, Whiff.”

“Figured such.” Whiffy laid the bat on the counter and moved toward Carver and Beth. He was average height but thick-boned and with a compact muscularity about him. Barefoot and wearing black shorts and a gray T-shirt that said BRAVES. The flesh around his eyes was puffy, as if he’d been sleeping when Marlene had summoned him to deal with a problem in the restaurant. His ebony face was pockmarked and he had a thin black mustache neatly trimmed a half inch above his upper lip. After giving Carver an appraising stare, he smiled with even, white teeth at Beth, and with a different kind of appraisal. “Siddown, you two, an’ I’ll tell you the facts of life accordin’ to the gospel in Dark Glades.”

Carver nodded to Beth and they sat. Marlene brought two Budweisers, and another glass of ice water for Beth. A tough audience like Junior and B.J. found Whiffy worth listening to, so Carver wanted to hear what he had to say.

“G
UESS YOU WORKED OUT
my name’s Whiffy,” Whiffy said. “Real name’s Willard Renfrow.”

Carver introduced himself and Beth, and shook Whiffy’s strong black hand. He noticed several fingers were crooked and had oversized knuckles, as if they were arthritic.

“They’s about four hundred folks in Dark Glades,” Whiffy said, after taking a hearty pull of Budweiser and flicking foam from his narrow mustache. “That includes the ones live outside the town proper. “ ’Bout a hundred of the citizens here are black, and they live mostly down Cypress Avenue on the east side of town. Like in a lotta towns, you’ll recognize the poor, mostly black area by the ramshackle houses an’ the old cars. Per capita income ain’t for shit. The black families in Dark Glades are descendants of north Florida slaves moved down here after the Civil War, an’ they still got a slave mentality. Civil-rights movement never really caught on in these parts, an’ these last ten years it’s backslid ’bout as far as it could go.”

A motorcycle downshifted and roared by fast outside. The kid on the Harley? Carver said, “One thing I don’t get. You’re black and you own the town’s main restaurant in the white section. And B.J. and his brother listened when you talked to them.”

“They was listenin’ to a white man.”

Carver sat wondering if there might be something in the water in Dark Glades that impaired reason.