Kiss by John Lutz Read Free Book Online Page B

oversized second hand. The apartment had about it a decorator’s touch and an almost military neatness.
    Carver pushed down on his cane and leaned away from the window. He glanced at his watch, as if he’d had an appointment with Nora Rule and was curious as to why she hadn’t answered his ring. Then he shrugged and made his way back toward where he’d parked the Olds.
    No one around the pool paid any attention to him. The kids at the shallow end were arguing over the striped beachball; the woman with the blond spiked hair was standing hipshot, busy sipping a tall, green drink with an orange peel splayed on the glass rim. She was listening raptly to a gray-haired, paunchy guy who apparently swam wearing half a dozen gold chains draped around his neck. Across the street, beyond the palm trees gently swaying in the breeze, lay the white-flecked, undulating blue of the ocean. A few sailboats and expensive cruisers were visible frolicking beyond the breakers.
    Sun, sand, sails, drugs, God, and the army of the retired. Social Security checks worth hundreds of dollars, and execution-style murders over millions.
    Ah, Florida!

7
    D R. D AN P AULY LIVED not in an apartment but in a house on Verde Avenue, in a moderately wealthy part of town. It was a very small, brick-and-stucco home with wooden flower boxes beneath the front windows and a curved stone walk that led from the driveway to the front porch. Perfect red geraniums, and some kind of leafy vine, thrived in the flower boxes, which were in glaring sunlight. The grass in the front yard was thick; it was so weed-free and uniform in length that it appeared shorter than Carver found it to be when he probed the ground with his cane. How high could it get and still look like a putting green?
    He went through his friend-come-to-call act again. Appeared curious as to why no one had come to the door. Went to a window and peered inside, as if concerned that something might be wrong or that Dr. Pauly maybe had the TV on too loud and hadn’t heard him. Then a walk around back, to see if maybe Pauly was in the yard. Another bold peek in a window. All for the benefit of any neighbor who might be watching.
    The Pauly home was expensively furnished, but it wasn’t nearly as neat as Nurse Rule’s apartment. There were newspapers stacked on the sofa, a glass and a coffee cup resting on an end table. A pair of shoes, or maybe house slippers, was on the floor near a chair, one of them flipped upside down as if it had been removed hastily and forgotten. A bachelor lived here, Carver reminded himself. A busy and not very tidy one.
    Feeling as if he had a better idea of the who and what of Dr. Dan Pauly, as well as of the other Sunhaven staff members whose homes he’d seen today, Carver negotiated the curved walk back to the street. Dr. Macklin’s home wasn’t on his agenda; the Sunhaven administrator had family quarters at the retirement home itself. The better to rule the kingdom of the old.
    It would have been convenient if Carver had seen something through a window that gave him some idea of what was going on at Sunhaven and who was making it go on, but real-life detective work didn’t fall into place that way. Real detective work was more routine, and usually uneventful. Something like real police work, until when you least expected it a hyped-up punk with a cheap handgun zapped a bullet through your knee.
    Carver had parked the car around the corner from Dr. Pauly’s house, near a Chinese carry-out restaurant. Across the street from the restaurant was a small park with a playground, but it was too hot today for even kids to play outside. The grass was burned brown. Plastic swing seats swayed gently in the warm breeze. An American flag rippled just enough to send ropes and pulleys clanking rhythmically against its metal pole.
    When Carver was a few feet from the Olds, his cane suddenly flew out of his grip and he was on the hot concrete before he realized what had happened. The heel