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After leaving her with the night glasses, her spray can of bug repellent, and a thermos jar of black coffee, Carver got in the Olds and started for Miami. He drove north on Route 1 until well after dark, and checked into a Days Inn on the outskirts of the city.

In the morning he ate a leisurely breakfast in the motel restaurant, then he sat on a concrete bench outside in the shade, smoking a Swisher Sweet cigar and reading
USA Today.
The world’s problems were plainly visible in colorful bar graphs that suggested solutions might be equally as simple. He wished he could reduce the swirl of questions on Key Montaigne to a similar graphic display. Maybe it was in fact possible; maybe he should buy some crayons.

When he figured it was late enough, he drove the rest of the way into Miami to see Frank and Selma Everman, the drowned boy’s parents.

The address Chief Wicke had given Carver turned out to belong to the Blue Flamingo Hotel on Collins Avenue in South Miami Beach. It was an area of old art deco buildings being renovated to comprise what the developers were ambitiously describing as the “Florida Riviera.” Lots of pastel stucco and rounded corners, garish neon signs and neo-Egyptian decor of the sort seen in late-night TV movies from the twenties and thirties. An Al Capone/King Tut ambience. Carver thought that when it was finished, when the seediness had disappeared to leave only the reborn art deco essence, the Florida Riviera would be impressive indeed. Right now, the Blue Flamingo was still on the seedy side of that gradual gentrification.

It was a twenty-story building that, true to its name, was pale blue. Its peeling wooden window frames badly needed a coat of paint. But there were new tinted glass double doors beneath an ornate entrance arch with flamingos in bas-relief. Or possibly they were some sort of Egyptian bird. Carver limped through the doors and felt the welcome coolness of the lobby.

The interior renovation hadn’t caught up with the building’s exterior. The lobby floor was yellowed square tiles that long ago might have resembled veined marble. There was a long wooden counter with fancy brass bars beneath a cashier’s sign. More brasswork ran along the front edge of the counter, broken only here and there to allow room for the registration book to be signed and money or credit cards to pass from hand to hand. The lobby furniture was gray, overstuffed, and threadbare. So were the two old men slouched in armchairs and gazing wistfully out through the entrance glass at the brightness of Collins Avenue and long-ago youth. The potted ferns in the lobby were artificial and looked as if they thrived on dimness and shunned the light. Like the old men. Probably the Blue Flamingo was still primarily a residence hotel, catering mostly to retirees without the money to play out the last act of their dwindling lives in anything like luxury.

Both men glanced emotionlessly at Carver as he limped across the lobby to the desk, as if between them they’d seen about everything and he was nothing new. The desk clerk was potbellied, middle-aged, had greasy black hair that looked dyed, and an ugly mole beneath his left eye that made Carver think of cancer. He noticed Carver and said, “Be with you in a sec,” and finished leafing through what looked like invoices while Carver leaned against the desk with his elbow near a placard that said, v
isit our FLAMINGO LOUNGE!

“Okay,” the man finally said, after more than a sec, smiling and walking over to the break in the fancy, tarnished brasswork.

“What room are the Evermans in?” Carver asked. “Frank and Selma.”

The desk man gave him what might have been a surprised look, then raked his fingers through his impossibly black hair and consulted the registration book. “Five-oh-five. If you wanna call upstairs, house phones are over there.” He motioned to a lineup of dreary gray phones mounted on the wall near the desk. “Just punch out the room number.”

Carver used one of the phones and waited through ten rings on the other end of the connection. He hung up, stood for a few seconds, then decided since he’d driven all this way, he’d go upstairs and see if he could rouse the Evermans by knocking on their door, just in case they were late sleepers. If they asked who was there, he could yell in that he was from room service, come to give them their complimentary champagne-and-omelet breakfast. They might believe that.

The desk man was wrestling with paperwork again as Carver limped to the elevators.

The floor indicator’s brass dial above the middle elevator lurched numeral to numeral from 12 to 1. When the doors opened, a bedraggled woman with a preschool child that might have been either sex hurried out and through the lobby. Carver stepped in and watched them push out into the bright day as the elevator doors glided closed.

The fifth-floor hall was warm and smelled musty, and the white paint on the gently rounded walls was mildewed in places and beginning to flake. Every ten feet or so tarnished brass chandeliers cast dim pools of light. Carver had to be careful not to let his cane snag in a loose thread on the worn and faded blue carpet that should have been replaced a decade ago.

He knocked softly on the door to 505, then loudly with the crook of his cane. Tried the knob to make sure the door was locked. Knocked again. The door to 508 across the hall opened and an old woman with wild white hair glared silently out at him, but no one came to 505’s door. Carver smiled at the woman and said he was sorry if he woke her. She smiled back and closed the door gently, as if
she
didn’t want to wake
him.

So maybe the Evermans had gone out for breakfast or their morning walk. He decided to drive to the hospital and see Henry, then return later in the morning and try again to catch one or both of them in their room.

He took the elevator back down to the lobby, thought better of leaving a message for the Evermans, and limped outside past the old men in the armchairs. One of them was reading a crinkled
Miami Herald
now. It looked like yesterday’s edition.

When Carver arrived at Faith United Hospital, he was afraid visiting hours might not have begun, so he acted as if he belonged and limped purposefully past the nurses’ station without stopping and talking to anyone.

The door to Henry’s room was closed. He worked its large push-handle, like something on a theater exit, and eased it open so he could peek inside. He didn’t want to embarrass Henry by charging in when the nurse was removing the bedpan.

But the bed was empty.

Carver felt a cold apprehension.

“You looking for Mr. Tiller?”

He turned and was staring at the inquisitive features of a nurse approximately his size. The name tag on her white uniform said she was Pru, short for “Prudence,” Carver assumed. He said he was looking for Henry, then added, “He isn’t. . . ?”

“No,” the nurse said, with something like a smile, “he’s become comatose and was taken to ICU this morning.”

“ICU?”

“The intensive care unit.”

“But how’d that happen? He was doing so well.”

“Are you family?”

“A friend. Can I see Henry?”

“You can look in on him. I’m afraid he won’t know you’re there.” She shot a glance at a large round wall clock with oversized black numerals that looked as if they belonged on an antique watch. “Listen, the doctors are due to make their rounds soon. Why don’t you wait in Intensive Care and I’ll have Dr. Montrose talk to you.”

“All right,” Carver said, “where’s —”

She interrupted him and gave directions to Intensive Care. Pru wasn’t a woman with time to spare.

“Doctor’ll see you soon as he can,” she assured him, then strode down the hall and disappeared into one of the other rooms.

It was permissible only to view Henry through an observation window. His eyes were closed and he was pale. He looked untroubled and oddly younger, as if his mind had been wiped clean, worries and all. One of his fingers twitched regularly, but that was the only movement in the small green room. There was what looked like a feeding tube running into one of his nostrils, an intravenous tube leading to a needle in the back of his right hand, and another tube, probably a drain, that disappeared beneath the white sheet midway up his still body.

Carver didn’t like the way Henry looked. Not at all. He went back to the ICU waiting room and watched some daytime TV until a harried-looking man in white trudged in and asked for him. Dr. Montrose.

“Your friend’s latest CAT scan and MRI revealed extreme trauma to the right temporal region of the brain,” the doctor explained. He reeked of some chemical that made Carver dizzy.

“I didn’t think he hit his head,” Carver said.

“He wouldn’t necessarily have had to. Hemorrhaging might have occurred due to extreme and sudden movement of the brain inside the cranium. An accident like Mr. Tiller’s could cause that to happen. The impact would be that of the brain’s outer membrane contacting the inside of the skull. It’s similar to what happens to a boxer when he’s punched hard enough.”

“He seemed okay yesterday when I talked to him on the phone.”

“He probably felt relatively well, too. It took time for the pressure and resultant impairment to develop. Early this morning his left side was partially paralyzed. Then he lost consciousness and hasn’t yet regained it.” Dr. Montrose raised his shoulders beneath his white jacket. “Someone his age, it’s even possible this is a coincidental stroke and had nothing to do with the accident.”

Carver knew what Henry would think of that possibility. “How likely is that?” he asked.

“Not very,” the doctor admitted, “but I’ve seen it happen. Especially with patients Mr. Tiller’s age.”

“So what’s the prognosis?”

“I’m afraid we’re in a wait-and-see mode, Mr. Carver. But I have to be honest with you, he might never regain consciousness. Are you family? We might need you to sign some forms.”

“Just a friend,” Carver said. “I don’t think he has any family left.”

“I see.” Dr. Montrose looked thoughtful. “Would you like us to call if anything else develops?”

Carver said he would. He thanked Dr. Montrose, then left his name and the phone number of Henry’s cottage with Pru at the nurses’ station.

Then he went downstairs, sat in the quiet coolness of the hospital cafeteria, and had a salad and a dry roast beef sandwich for lunch. He was sure Henry had been run down deliberately. To think otherwise would be stretching anyone’s idea of the limits of coincidence.

The game might be about to change. If Henry died, Carver would be investigating a murder.

Of course, if Henry died, Carver would no longer have a client. Questions could be left unanswered. There’d be nothing compelling him to continue his investigation.

Like hell there wouldn’t.

He left his sandwich half eaten and drove back to the Blue Flamingo, fighting the heat and frustration of sitting still every few blocks in the sluggish Miami traffic. Maybe Frank and Selma Everman had returned.

Maybe something about this Miami trip would go right.

T
HIS TIME
C
ARVER
didn’t phone upstairs first. He limped across the Blue Flamingo’s lobby and stepped into an elevator waiting with open doors. The lobby had been deserted except for an ancient black man napping or dead in one of the armchairs. The desk clerk was facing the other way, apparently checking cubbyholes for room keys or messages while he talked on the phone.

Carver’s luck was beginning to change. On the fourth floor the elevator stopped and a skinny little man with haunted dark eyes and thin black hair pasted severely sideways over a bald spot got in. Entering the elevator with him was the smell of perfumy cologne or deodorant and stale sweat, nauseating in such close quarters. The man was holding a gray plastic ice container with a blue flamingo decal on it. It was full of ice, which apparently was available on the hotel’s even-numbered floors. The man glanced at the control panel, saw that the only glowing button said 5, and simply stood with his head tilted back, staring solemnly at a point above where the elevator doors met. He’d never acknowledged Carver’s presence and might as well have been alone. Elevator etiquette.

On the fifth floor Carver hung back and let the man with the ice leave the elevator first. When the man turned left, Carver held the Open button in so the elevator would stay as it was, and waited a few seconds before stepping out into the hall. He stood leaning on his cane and bowed his head, as if trying to remember something, playing it casual.

The man with the ice bucket had paused and knocked on a door. Now he was shifting his weight from side to side, like a worn-down nervous boxer who has no punch left and is afraid of getting hurt. As the door opened and he edged inside, he looked back at Carver with the hostile’ hope of the poor and dispossessed.

Only when Carver approached the door and saw the room number was he sure it was 505; the man with the ice must be Frank Everman, and probably his wife, Selma, had let him into the room. There was music playing in 505.

Carver rapped firmly three times on the door with his cane. Everman had seen him and knew
he’d
been seen, so Carver wasn’t going to go away. No use pretending the room was unoccupied; there was little choice for Everman but to open the door to nasty and persistent reality.

Which he did.

Everman was no longer holding the ice bucket, and was wiping his damp hands on his blue polyester pants. He was about fifty, but the deeply etched map of pain that was his face said it had been a tough half-century. The top two buttons of his white shirt were unfastened to reveal what appeared to be a rawhide necklace disappearing among his gray chest hairs. He was short as well as skinny, and he looked up at Carver as if he’d just done something wrong and been struck a blow in anger. There was little hope in his eyes now, and only a glimmer of hostility. He wasn’t sure about Carver, despite the cane. He’d been around enough to recognize a certain dangerous kind of man.

Behind him, standing in the middle of the room and peering over his shoulder, was a tall but stooped woman with gray hair, badly fitted dentures, and a bewildered expression. She was wearing baggy green slacks and a yellow blouse with a stain on it that looked like coffee. There was a robust polka playing in the room, a slightly cracked record, heavy on the tuba and accordion.