Flame

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Outside the window the sun bore down with the brilliance and blanching effect of a cosmic tanning lamp. It made the eyes ache. Magellan Avenue was a wide, pale ribbon of pavement. The white stucco combination courthouse and jail across the street looked as if it were constructed of meringue skimmed from the richest of pies. Beyond it, the sun-sparked sea undulated with a shallow glitter that suggested sequins suspended just below the surface like mischievous half-formed thoughts.

Inside the office, Carver sat quietly in his new chair, leaning back with his lame leg propped up on his gleaming new desk. Through the silence in the office he could barely hear the surf breaking on the narrow white beach beyond the buildings on the other side of Magellan. The fetid fish scent of the sea seeped into the cool office with the sound of the waves.

He’d been content working out of his home-Edwina’s home actually-a few miles north on the coast highway, but Edwina was in real estate and had mentioned a possible good deal in a building in downtown Del Moray. At first he had resisted the suggestion. Discussion ensued. Positions wavered. Some dangerous situations had developed in the recent past, and Carver thought it might be a good idea to separate his business from Edwina as much as possible, to protect her. So in the end it was Carver who’d insisted, and who now sat in the quiet office with nothing to do except organize paper clips and rubber bands, though they were already pretty well whipped into shape.

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