Spark by John Lutz

Author:John Lutz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780805019933
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 1993-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

22

THE SQUARISH LITTLE YELLOW vehicle was easy to keep in sight as it cut east, then made its way north on 1A1 along the shoreline. Carver noticed for the first time that there was a small dog in the Isuzu. Occasionally it would leap up to lick the driver’s face. It was too far away for Carver to see what breed it might be, but it appeared to have short hair. Once the man, still staring straight ahead at the road, reached over and ruffled the dog behind the ears. The dog shimmied its neck and head as if trying to shake off the sensation.

Carver drove with the windows down, now and then glancing to his right at the ocean rolling its inexhaustible life out on the beach. From here the splaying white surf appeared pure, unsullied by the debris carried in on the swells, the blackened seaweed and the occasional globs of oil from distant passing tankers. The ocean’s convergence with the land was as it had looked thousands, perhaps millions, of years ago, as long as it was viewed from a car doing sixty miles an hour on a road that hadn’t existed at the beginning of the century.

Several miles north of Fort Lauderdale the Isuzu slowed and then turned into the driveway of one of several luxurious private homes with ocean views. Twin stone pillars marked the mouth of the driveway, and there was a chain-link gate across it that must have been opened when the Isuzu entered, but was now closed. The house itself was out of sight except for a long, red-tiled roof.

Carver parked in the shade of a grouping of date palms, made a note of the Isuzu’s license plate number and the address of the house, then waited.

Not for long.

Twenty minutes later the Isuzu reappeared, bumping over the raised lip of the driveway, then turning south on 1A1, back the way it had come. The chesty little guy in the suit was smiling as he bounced in his seat and held onto the steering wheel with both hands. The little dog was on its hind legs, staring out the side window as if checking for road signs.

Carver started the Plymouth and fell in behind as the Isuzu built up speed, catching a glimpse of the gate gliding shut as he passed the driveway.

He leaned back in the Plymouth’s upholstery, wondering where this was all leading and what it might mean. The miles slid by beneath the car’s singing tires, as the ocean rolled on Carver’s left and the wind caressed his bare elbow propped on the hard edge of the cranked-down window. The sun began to set, and a few oncoming cars had their headlights on. The Isuzu’s lights winked on; the driver playing safe. Carver left the Plymouth’s lights dark.

On Morning Star Lane, in a going-to-seed area of Fort Lauderdale, the Isuzu parked across the street from an old apartment building with brilliant red bougainvillea growing wild up its cracked stucco walls, draping down from some of the second-floor decorative wrought-iron balconies.

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