Free Kiss by John Lutz

still reddened from the friction of his body. “For you. Dunno who.”
    Carver pressed the receiver to his ear; the plastic was cool and gave off a dry, acrid scent.
    Before he could say hello a voice asked, “Fred Carver?”
    Carver said he was.
    “Name’s Amos Burrel. I live out at Sunhaven.” The voice was aged but still vibrant, with an edge of irritability and defiance, as if its owner wished he could simply disregard the years but knew that was impossible. “You the Fred Carver visited Kearny Williams here this morning?”
    “The same.”
    “I got the room next to Kearny’s. Walls are paper thin. Heard everything the two of you said.”
    Carver smiled, but at the same time made a mental note to speak more softly at Sunhaven. “You shoulda come over and joined the conversation,” he said.
    “Nope. I think you and me better have our own conversation.”
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow morning suit you?”
    “If it’s convenient for you,” Carver said.
    “Hell, anytime’s convenient for me. I never leave here. Catch me when I ain’t on the pot, we can talk.”
    “I’ll be there around ten,” Carver said.
    “Anybody asks, tell ’em you came to visit Kearny,” Amos Burrel said. “But you come see me instead. Got that?”
    “Got it,” Carver said, and hung up.
    “Who was it?” Edwina asked, half asleep and staring blankly at the ceiling.
    “You know that old caution about the walls having ears?”
    “Sure.”
    “That was Ears.”

10
    B IRDIE R EEVES RECOGNIZED Carver immediately and brightened the already brilliant reception area with her country-girl smile. Even her freckles seemed to glimmer. “Here to see Mr. Williams?”
    Carver nodded and mumbled and gave back the smile. Birdie had been leafing through a sheaf of papers on the curved reception desk and diligently returned to the task as he limped past. Like yesterday, there were several Sunhaven residents in the lobby area. But the cast had changed except for the two men playing checkers, who again stopped their game to observe Carver’s passage. No one had to be restrained in their rocking chair or wheelchair with a knotted sheet. No one was drooling or rambling incomprehensibly. The great dignity of age lay over the place today, and not the physical infirmities that assaulted that dignity.
    In the hall, a white-uniformed attendant gave Carver a head-peck hello and bustled on. Carver passed Kearny Williams’s closed door and knocked on the next one. The knock sounded surprisingly loud.
    The door opened immediately and a once tall, now stooped man with gravity-drawn features stared out at Carver. His face was long and jowly, as if it were melting, and there were wattles of flesh beneath his chin. He was wearing old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like an owl after an all-night binge, yet there was a hint of defiance in his unblinking brown eyes and even in the way he held his emaciated bent body. Not defiance of Carver, but of diminishing time. Of where his world had finally cornered him. It was a defiance that rang hollow because it was born of his personal realization of mortality and his abject fear of it. Courage had become bluff.
    “Amos Burrel?” Carver asked.
    “Me,” the man said.
    “I’m Fred Carver.”
    “Hell, I know that. C’mon with me.” He stepped into the hall and shut the door to his room. “Wish I could lock that damned thing, only they won’t let us do that here. People steal any loose item they can get their hands on in a place like this. Steal a wart right off your ass just for the joy of it if they thought it could be removed. Get their jollies that way, some people. Figure you might not be around long enough to accuse them if you ever do work out who’s the thief. Damned senior-citizen punks!”
    “I thought we might talk privately in your room,” Carver said.
    “Why in hell would we do that when I told you it was you and Kearny talking in his room prompted me to phone you? Think the