Bloodfire by John Lutz Page B

it.”
    “That ain’t the purpose of me being here,” Gomez said. “I want you to keep looking for Beth. It’s obvious she’s in danger, and I want her found before something happens to her.”
    “The police can find her.”
    “I don’t want the police in on it.”
    “Why not?”
    “Nature of my business and all, it ain’t a good idea.”
    Carver saw his point. But he said, “I’m done with you, Gomez. I’ll give you back your retainer.”
    “I won’t take it back.”
    “Okay. I’ll spend it. But that changes nothing.”
    “Why do you want out, Carver?”
    “You come to me with a shitpot fulla lies, hire me under false pretenses, and I wind up standing next to a woman when a high-power slug tears into her.”
    “Coulda been you instead, huh? That it? You chickenshit, my man?”
    “Believe it.”
    Gomez’s eyebrows did their dance and he flashed sharp white teeth. “I don’t believe it. I do research before I hire somebody, Carver. You got humongous balls, they tell me; they clank when you walk. That’s why I wanted you and not some sleazy keyhole-peeper’d piss in his pants first time something serious happened.”
    “Somebody getting shot in the head, that’s serious,” Carver said. “Serious enough to discourage me, anyway.”
    Gomez crossed his arms and planted his feet wide. Ultimatum time. “Let’s put it this way, Carver: You keep searching for Beth, or Hirsh here’ll see they’ll be searching for your fucking remains.”
    Carver looked at Hirsh, who gave him a slow smile and a nod. There was a thick gold watch chain draped across his vest, emphasizing a stomach paunch. Hirsh had about him the air of a rough-hewn thug who’d somehow lived long enough to become half a gentleman.
    Gomez said, “People I hire, they don’t quit.”
    “Then I’ve broken new ground.”
    “ Under the fucking ground’s where you’ll be.”
    Carver said, “I still quit.”
    “Stubborn fucker!”
    “Sure. Those humongous balls.” He closed his hand on the cane, ready to lash and stab with it if Hirsh came away from the wall with malice in mind.
    Gomez wriggled and jiggled his eyebrows. He seemed puzzled. “Sure you wanna do this, Carver?”
    “It’s done.”
    “Don’t make goddamn sense.”
    “Does to me.”
    Gomez stared at him. “Tell you, in a way I gotta fucking admire you.”
    “Just business,” Carver said. “I don’t work for clients who aren’t straight with me.”
    “Well, maybe I can see that. Business is something I understand.”
    “I’ve heard that about you.”
    “Huh! Huh! Huh!” The annoying nasal laugh again. “I just bet you heard plenty, if you asked the right people.”
    He kept facing Carver and backed slowly toward the door. “C’mon, Hirsh.”
    Hirsh straightened up away from where he’d been leaning, then ambled over to stand by the door like a theater usher. He was wearing French cuffs, black in contrast to his white shirt. He had incredibly long arms. Huge, gnarled hands with thick, splayed fingers, like sausages flattened at the ends.
    “So you think about it,” Gomez said, fading toward the anteroom while Hirsh watched Carver and everything else in the office.
    “Nothing to think about,” Carver said. “It’s done. I already quit, sure as Nixon.”
    “Think about it,” Gomez said again. “There’s a guaranteed twenty thousand dollars in it for you if you keep looking for Beth, whether you find her or not.” He edged past Hirsh and started to cross the anteroom. Hirsh smiled sadly at Carver and followed.
    After they’d gone, Carver stayed sitting behind his desk for quite a while, thinking about Gomez’s offer, and what Gomez’s guarantee was worth.
    He decided he really had quit, and he had every reason to stay quit. Nothing about the case called to him.
    “Fred Carver?” said a voice from the anteroom.

9
    C ARVER STOOD UP and limped over to the office door. A short, stocky man stood military-erect in the anteroom, holding a white