Free Tropical Heat by John Lutz Page A

actually drive dogies, then drive Jeeps to saloons with sawdust floors whereon trod barmaids with perfect teeth who served them diet beer? Carver doubted it. But then he hadn’t been everywhere.
    He was secretly glad the game was a high-scoring dull one; he didn’t mind switching off the TV and leaving. He liked pitchers’ duels.
    Carver remembered Edgewick Avenue from his drive around Del Moray the day before. It was a wide street with a grassy, palm-lined median, still in the desirable part of town, but only by a few blocks. The size and condition of the houses started slipping in this area, and an occasional Latino face could be seen among the residents. But it was still a prestige neighborhood, even if in one of the older sections of the city.
    The house with a Quill Realty sign stuck in its yard was a gloomy stone monster that looked as if it might at any moment venture ponderously down from the hill on which it was so forebodingly perched to devour the smaller houses on Edgewick Avenue. It had cupolas that looked like watchtowers, and windows that resembled malevolent eyes. It was probably old when it was built, Carver decided. Also, it had a lot of damned steps.
    Carver was breathing hard by the time he’d made it up to the porch, and stood before the house’s ten-foot-tall heavy oak doors. When he leaned on his cane and extended a hand to ring the doorbell, one of the doors opened smoothly and an attractive thirtyish woman with blond hair framing a roundly pretty, tiny-featured face smiled out at him. He had the strange feeling that she was the maid and would usher him into the den to await the master. Would she curtsy, call him “sire,” and step aside?
    “Mr. Carver?” she said crisply, and held out a hand. When he nodded, she said, “I’m Alice Hargrove.” She spoke with the slightest suggestion of a lisp, had dark crescents beneath her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept the night before, and her too-fine short hair had been rudely mussed by the wind. Her smile made everything else about her seem unimportant; it was a light that warmed.
    Carver shook the slender cool hand gently, so as not to break fine bones, and stepped into the house. Alice’s blue eyes flicked to his cane, registered no change of expression. He knew she was thinking about all the steps leading up to the house and how she might talk him into ignoring them if he turned out to be a serious prospect. You had to be wily to survive in sales.
    The house was bare and needed a lot of interior work. The walls were faded and paint was peeling from the ornate woodwork. A kidney-shaped water stain marred the high ceiling. There was a large stone fireplace in the room they were in, flanked by bookcases beneath fancy stained-glass windows that muted the sun and did wonderful Technicolor tricks with the light.
    “As you can see,” Alice said, “the place needs work but has tremendous potential.” Her voice bounced around in the emptiness.
    Carver tapped the hardwood floor with his cane. The clatter might have been heard for miles. “I plan on putting some heavy manufacturing equipment in this room,” he said. “We build locomotive engines. Do you think the floor will support the weight?”
    For only a second she was confused. “Mr. Carver, I don’t think the zoning on this property . . .” She stopped talking. An expression of fear, then admirable determination and cunning subtly transformed her round, sweet features. She tried not to move her eyes toward the door; he was between her and it, and that might mean everything. Here was the real-estate lady’s nightmare. “You’re not actually interested in buying this property, are you, Mr. Carver? Or is Carver your real name?”
    “Relax, Alice,” Carver said reassuringly. “I’m not interested in anything you’d object to. Anyway, you could outrun me if I tried anything.”
    She exhaled slowly and seemed slightly more at ease, looking dubious, waiting.
    “My time is pressing and this