Choke (7 page)

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Carras said, getting up.

Tommy handed him a card. “If you think of anything else that might be of help to us, I’d appreciate a call,” he said. “I have to tell you that we take a serious view of this incident, and we think you should, too. Whoever sabotaged your car would be looking at a charge of attempted murder, and he might try again.”

“I wish I could take it as seriously as you, Detective,” Carras said, walking them down the stairs, “but I just can’t imagine that anyone would want to harm me. Clare, will you see the detectives out?”

“Of course, darling,” she replied. “This way, gentlemen.”

Carras left the house by the door to the pool, and his wife led the two men down the hallway to the front door.

Tommy let Daryl go ahead of him, then paused on the front porch. “Mrs. Carras,” he said quietly, “are you having an affair with anyone?”

She was obviously taken aback and didn’t speak for a moment. “No,” she said, finally. “I’m not.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said, “but if there’s someone Mr. Carras doesn’t know about that you think might want to harm him, please tell me.”

“There’s no one, Detective,” she said firmly, “no one
I
know who would want to harm Harry.”

“Thank you for your help,” Tommy said.

Tommy waited until they were around the corner before he spoke. “She’s screwing somebody,” he said. “She lied when I asked her about it, I could tell.”

“That doesn’t mean that whoever she’s screwing would want to kill her husband.”

“Didn’t you see the woman, Daryl? Didn’t you see those nipples staring at you through her robe? If you were screwing her, wouldn’t you want to kill her husband?”

“You’ve got a point,” Daryl admitted. “Oh, by the way, I picked up on something.”

“What?”

“That book I was looking at; it was autographed to somebody named Rock.”

“You mean like in Rock Hudson? That’s not a real name.”

“That’s what was in the book, though. It said, ‘To Rock, with my warm good wishes.’ I couldn’t read the signature, but it looked like a different name from the author’s.”

“It looked like an old book; maybe he bought it in a used book store.”

“It was leatherbound, but it wasn’t old; it looked pretty new to me.”

“What was the name of the book?”

“Investing Wisely,
by John Harrison. It was published in 1989.”

“Rock, huh?”

“Rock.”

C
huck stood across the net from Billy Tubbs, a cart of balls at his side. “Okay, Billy, I’m going to hit you some forehands and backhands. I want to see a proper grip, and I don’t want you to hit the ball hard—just smoothly. Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy called back.

Chuck had not let him hit anything but ground strokes, and only against the ball machine. “And if I see you lapse into your old grip, or start slamming the ball across, I’ll return you to the tender mercies of the ball machine, understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is only a drill; there’s nothing to win.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chuck fed the boy a forehand and watched carefully as he returned the ball. He fed a backhand and watched again, then he started returning the shots. For fifteen minutes he sent smooth, medium-speed shots across the net and watched Billy return them, just as he had been told. Billy, he reflected, had turned out to be able to follow instructions, when he had to, anyway, and he was pleased with the boy. He stopped the rally and walked to the net, beckoning Billy. “That’s very good,” he said. “Believe me when I tell you you’ll never have to hit a ball any harder than that to win a high school match, as long as you place the ball well. What I want you to do now is to hit your ground strokes just as you have been doing, except I want you to aim this way—right corner, center, left corner, then work your way back. Keep your swing smooth, don’t hit anything hard, and concentrate on accuracy.”

“Yes, sir,” Billy replied.

Chuck walked off the court, grabbed a towel from the stack, and flopped down on a bench next to Victor, mopping the sweat from his face.

“The boy’s coming along, isn’t he?” Victor said.

“He really is. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised.”

“So am I. I thought he would have told you to go fuck yourself by now.”

Chuck laughed. “So did I. He really has a gift for concentration, and he’s a fine natural athlete. I think if he can develop a good temperament he could make a winning pro.”

“You think temperament is something you can develop?” Victor asked. “I always thought you were born with it.”

Chuck shook his head. “Some people are, maybe, but for most of us it’s a training thing, just like hitting a good ground stroke. I was as hot-headed as Billy when I was sixteen; a good coach drilled it out of me.”

“Then why did you choke at Wimbledon?”

“That had nothing to do with temperament; it was all about confidence, and at the worst possible moment, I lost my confidence. I didn’t believe I could do it, so I couldn’t.”

“Well, I guess you’ve had some time to think about it.”

“Plenty of time.”

“There’s something else you maybe ought to think about,” Victor said.

“What’s that?”

“Staying out of Clare Carras’s pants.”

Chuck looked at Victor. “You think I’m messing with Clare?”

“I think you’re screwing her socks off every chance you get, is what I think.”

“Why
do you think that?”

“Because I can look at you and look at her and tell, that’s why. And if I can figure it out, so can Harry Carras. And I’ll tell you something else, I don’t think he’s the kind of guy to take it well.”

“What makes you say that?” Chuck asked. “You know something I don’t?”

Victor shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m a good judge of character.”

“There’s more to it than that, Victor; you know something you’re not telling me.”

“I know a lot about a lot of things I’m not telling you, kid, but your personal life is really none of my business, so I’ll keep most of it to myself. Just this one piece of advice: Unless you want to start walking around with your dick in your hip pocket, you’d better watch whose wife you stick it in.”

“I guess that’s pretty good advice, generally,” Chuck said.

“It’s good advice, specifically, too,” Victor replied. He looked up. “Well, here come the Sculleys, Tommy and Rosie, my most enthusiastic new students.”

“How are they doing?” Chuck asked.

“Remarkably well. I wish all my students caught on so fast.”

“It must have been their first lesson with me that did it.”

Victor laughed, got up, and strolled toward his teaching court. He looked back over his shoulder. “Remember my advice, kid,” he called.

“I’ll remember, Victor,” Chuck called back.
For about five seconds,
he thought. Just thinking about Clare Carras made him hot. Oh, it would end, he knew that, but not for a while. They were a long way from being through with each other.

He mopped his face again and headed for his next session. It was Larry, the writer, and he’d have to remember to lose, but not by much.

T
ommy sat at the Raw Bar at Key West Bight and looked out over the little harbor as he munched a conch fritter. Occasionally he tossed the gulls a crumb, and they made a fuss as they went for it. Pelicans sat sleepily on pilings, undisturbed by the gulls, or anything else, for that matter.

Daryl poured himself some more iced tea. “So who you figure is trying to knock off Carras?” he asked.

“Before we know who Carras’s enemies are, we have to know who Carras is. You follow?”

Daryl nodded, chewing his calamari. “I guess that makes sense. You don’t think it’s anybody around here, then?”

“I only know of one candidate here,” Tommy replied, washing down the fritter with some tea.

“Who’s that?”

“The guy who’s screwing Mrs. Carras.”

“And who would that be?”

“Listen, Daryl, I’m kinda thinking out loud here, you know? This isn’t necessarily serious.”

“Okay, it’s not serious. Who you thinking about?”

“Tennis pro down at the Olde Island Racquet Club, name of Chuck Chandler.”

“Don’t know him,” Daryl said. “How do you know he’s screwing Mrs. Carras?”

“I just know, Daryl. Trouble is, he’s not the type.”

“To screw Mrs. Carras?”

“To commit murder, dummy.”

“Lots of people who aren’t the type commit murder,” Daryl said.

“Not really,” Tommy replied. “Murderers who aren’t the type are in the minority. How the hell did you get to be a detective so quick, anyway?”

“The chief is my uncle,” Daryl replied, without embarrassment. “My mother’s brother.”

“That explains a lot,” Tommy said.

“Listen, Tommy, maybe we’re off on a wild goose chase, you know? Maybe nobody tampered with Carras’s car; maybe it was just a defect in the tubing.”

“Nah,” Tommy said. “I mean, if that was all we had to go on, you might be right. But we’ve got more than that.”

“What else have we got?”

“Over there.” Tommy pointed toward the hotel marina across the way.

“Where?”

“The boat on the end of the dock; the big one.”

“Fugitive?”

“That’s the one. I’ve seen another one just like it.”

“It’s a Hatteras; lots of them up and down the coast.”

“The one I saw is on the bottom, the other side of the island.”

“The one that blew up?”

“That’s the one. It was just like that one, the
Fugitive,
that belongs to Harry Carras.”

“How do you know that?”

“There was a picture in Carras’s living room of him and his wife aboard it. I could read the name. I wonder if the name means something.”

“You think Carras is a fugitive?”

“Of a kind,” Tommy replied. “I suppose he could be a fugitive from the law, but maybe he’s running from something or somebody else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but a guy doesn’t change his name at his age unless he’s running from
something.”

“Ex-wife, maybe? Or even a current wife?”

“That’s a possibility, but wives, even mean ones, can be handled with lawyers. You don’t have to run from them. Also, Carras obviously ran with some money in his pockets—a lot of money, probably. Look at the way he lives—big house, Mercedes, airplane, yacht. That takes big bucks.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Say you’re Carras, in a previous existence. Your work makes it possible to put your hands on a lot of somebody else’s money.”

“Why somebody else’s? Why couldn’t it be his?”

“Because you don’t have to become somebody else to spend your own money, Daryl.”

“I suppose. Unless there’s a wife breathing down your neck.”

“Forget the wife for just a minute. So you’re Carras,” Tommy continued, “and you want to take all this money and run, okay? Well, you can’t just write a check and get on a plane. That kind of stealing takes lots of planning. You’ve got to find a way to move the money, hide the money, but still have it accessible. I mean, you don’t just fill up the trunk of your car and drive off into the sunset, paying your way with hundred-dollar bills.”

“He must deal in cash only,” Daryl said. “According to his credit report, he doesn’t have any credit cards or charge accounts.”

“True, but he has a checking account at First State. He’s got to feed that from somewhere. I bet he’s got a brokerage account or two, probably in Miami or another city. If he knows about money, it would annoy him to have a lot of cash sitting around earning nothing. He’d want it invested, but where he could get his hands on it.”

“He probably doesn’t pay any taxes, either,” Daryl said.

“Good point. Brokerage houses report your earnings to the IRS. Pretty soon, they’d be knocking on his door. He’s been in Key West for seven months, is what he said. That’s probably not long enough for the tax people to catch up with him.”

“Maybe he plans to move on before they catch up; maybe he plans to change his name again.
But,”
Daryl said, raising a finger, “if he’s on the run, why does he have all this
stuff?
House, car, boat, airplane? That’s a pretty big tail to drag around with you, isn’t it?”

“You’re right about that,” Tommy agreed. “So maybe he’s not planning to decamp again. But let’s get back to the boat. Right after I move down here I’m having dinner at Louie’s Backyard on my wife’s birthday, and the big yacht goes up in flames.”

“But it wasn’t Carras’s yacht,” Daryl pointed out.

“But one just like it.”

“Ooooh, now I’m getting it,” Daryl said. “Whoever is trying to punch Carras’s ticket mistakes the other yacht for his and blows it up.”

“Now you’re following me.” The waitress brought the check. Tommy left some money on the table and beckoned Daryl to follow him. They walked out of the restaurant and down to the water’s edge.

Daryl spoke up. “Doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“Why not?”

“If you’re Carras and you’re running from somebody and then a yacht just like yours goes up in smoke, and somebody sabotages your Mercedes, wouldn’t you notice? I mean, we couldn’t have been bringing him much in the way of news when we told him about the fuel line. Wouldn’t all this mean that whoever is looking for Carras has found him and is trying to do him in? So wouldn’t Carras be running? ‘Course, I’m just thinking out loud here, Tommy.”

Tommy looked at him sharply. “Don’t be a smartass, kid.”

“Okay, straighten me out, Tommy. Make it all make sense.”

“I think I’m back to the wife’s lover,” Tommy said. “That, Carras wouldn’t know about, so he wouldn’t have any reason to run.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that, but all we’ve got for a lover is the tennis pro, and you say he isn’t the type.”

“Yeah, and there’s another problem,” Tommy said. “When the yacht blew up, Carras and his wife were having dinner with the tennis pro. I saw them together. So it wouldn’t make much sense for the pro to blow up the yacht while he was having dinner with his victim. He’d expect the victim to be aboard, and maybe Mrs. Carras, too. Also, I don’t think the tennis pro had been in town long enough to get that involved with Carras’s wife at that time. I’ll have to check on that.”