Free Flame by John Lutz Page A

a point.”
    Carver grunted agreement. Watched a large egret over the water, sun winking off white wings. You didn’t often see egrets around this part of the coast. They were usually farther south toward Lauderdale.
    “I’ll make the moves,” Desoto said. “Call you later this afternoon, probably. Where you gonna be?”
    “Most likely my office. I oughta be there when they put in the new window.”
    “You should ask for Plexiglas instead of regular glass,” Desoto said. “It’s stronger and doesn’t shatter. They use it in the cockpits of military planes. Even machine-gun bullets bounce off the stuff.”
    “If I thought that was gonna be a factor,” Carver said, “I’d order a sheet of steel.”
    Desoto grinned and leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head and gazing out to sea. The sailboats were nearer to shore and farther south now. Only a few of them were visible around the blue-misted curve of the coast. The trawler was a distant gray form in the haze. A couple of gulls soared and screeched, not flapping their wings at all. Desoto said, “A beautiful spot, here, amigo. Beautiful place, beautiful woman. Garden of Eden stuff, eh? You’re lucky. You maybe don’t wanna fuck around and get the serpent upset.”
    “McGregor doesn’t leave me much choice.”
    “And you,” Desoto said, no longer grinning, “you can’t leave it alone anyway. I know you, Carver; you get your teeth sunk in and can’t turn loose. You don’t mind my saying so, you’re kinda screwy that way.”
    “Edwina agrees with you.”
    “Sure she does.” Desoto leaned forward again, swinging his hands around from the back of his head. He said, “She’s your lover. I’m your friend. We understand you.”
    There was more truth to that than Carver liked to admit. He glared at Desoto.
    Unperturbed, Desoto stared again out at the sea with rapt brown eyes. Said, “You know, I think I’ll take that drink now, amigo. Anything that’s wet and isn’t poison.”
    Carver hadn’t gone back to the office. Instead he’d made love slowly and gently to Edwina. Appreciating her.
    After she’d left to meet her client, he lay perfectly still on the mussed, sex-scented bed and enjoyed the cool breeze pressing in through the window. Listened to the secretive, repetitive whispers of the ocean. Gossip human ears couldn’t sort out. What did the sea know? What had it known for ages?
    At eight o’clock that evening Carver answered the phone. Desoto’s Southern Bell-processed voice said, “Thought you were gonna be at your office, amigo. All I got was your answering machine when I called.” There was very faint static on the line, like sandpaper being scraped lightly over wood.
    “Changed my plans,” Carver said, wishing at that moment that he hadn’t gotten the answering machine repaired. “Find out anything?”
    “There’s no Ralph Palmer with any kind of record,” Desoto said. “Guy doesn’t exist. Not even as an alias.”
    “He exists,” Carver said.
    “The autopsy report on Wesley’s very hush-hush for some reason. Probably because Wesley was an important fella. My Miami contact was scared shitless, and that’s all he’d say. I found out a couple of things that didn’t make the news, though. Wesley was a big-shot businessman from Atlanta, Georgia. Founder and chairman of the board of Wesley Slaughter and Rendering, Incorporated.”
    “Slaughter and Rendering?” Carver said. “What the hell’s that mean?”
    “Means they butcher hogs. Something to do with rendering fat from them, among other things. It’s a damned big outfit. Gets pigs from all over the South, turns ’em into hams and little pork sausages, then sends ’em to various outlets.”
    Carver thought that described a slaughterhouse as well as he’d ever heard. A merging of meat and manufacturing.
    “I was told Wesley Slaughter and Rendering’s the largest and most successful company of its kind south of the Mason-Dixon line,” Desoto said. “And