We had been talking long enough by then for me to risk mentioning Will Chaser. I still didn’t know if he was alive or dead so I had nudged the truth closer, saying, “With your size, you should have been an athlete in the Olympics. Cuba always does very well. You could have been a great boxer or weight lifter. Boys all over the world would have admired you. Boys everywhere, even here in the United States.”
Hump had nodded, his expression saying If you say it’s true, I won’t argue. “When I was only twelve, I could lift the front end of a Lada from the ground! I could have held an entire Calina over my head, but they are difficult to balance, those ugly Russian cars.”
I suggested, “By the time you were fourteen, you probably could put a horse under your arm.”
The man made the association. “Don’t mention boys or horses to me. I never want to hear about them again. I have always distrusted horses, but now I distrust them both. The boy you call William, can you guess what my name for him was?”
I shrugged.
“Devil Child, that is what I called him. I was afraid of that brat, I admit it! What man wouldn’t be afraid of a vicious demon? Have you noticed that he ate part of my ear? It is true!”
Hump turned his head to show me and I felt another surge of admiration.
“Perhaps it was because the boy was an Indian, an Apache, he claimed, like the painted ones I watched on television in Rene’s barbershop in Havana. They are savages, you know. Why, the Devil Child even threatened to scalp me.” He lowered his voice to confide, “The child put a curse on me. He admitted it, then bragged of it!”
Hump had already let other information slip. I now knew that he and Farfel had planned the kidnapping with men from two different organizations. Choirboy wanted documents that would embarrass Rome. There was an American who took orders from another American, Tinman, although Hump didn’t say it. They wanted all the files destroyed but were also in it for the money.
I already knew why Hump and Farfel were involved, so now I was concentrating on the boy. This was the first time Hump had spoken openly of Will, but he was using the past tense.
Hump was borderline mentally retarded, I was convinced. It took him many sentences to communicate even simple facts. But he spoke with the carefully constructed syntax of a slow learner. It was unlikely he would confuse tenses, but I refused to be so easily convinced because I didn’t want to believe it.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much time around William Chaser,” I told Hump. “One time, the boy swore at me. He threatened me, too. It’s true.”
“Hah!” The man was pleased to hear it. “What a dangerous hostage he made. As I said to Farfel”-the man craned his neck to confirm that Navarro couldn’t hear-“no one will pay ransom for a demon teenager. We should kill the boy, I told him, before the U.S. demands money from us.”
I affected a casual disinterest. “Good. Sometimes, a bullet’s the best way.” “Not in this case. Because of the curse, you see. Also, we have made certain promises. Unlike Farfel, when I give my word I keep it! So we buried the boy in a box. He is less than three kilometers from here.” The man motioned toward the bay, then stopped to focus on something that surprised him. “What is that orange light in the distance?”
He was looking toward a line of mangrove islands, dark shapes on moon-blue water. Beyond the islands was an orange corona of light. It pulsed like a slow-motion explosion.
I said, “A fire. Maybe a boat,” but was thinking of Tamarindo, more worried than I’d been before.
Because his attention was still on the fire, it took a moment for Hump to reply, “We used a little fan. I connected the fan to a battery for air… for the boy, I’m telling you. By now, though”-Hump didn’t have a watch so his eyes moved to the night sky-“the battery was not strong, and the fan, it didn’t work so very well. So the brat, he is probably dead. Although, personally, I hope he is not.”
I said, “What?,” before remembering I didn’t care.
“Before I filled the grave, the boy promised he would remove the curse if I returned. I told him I would come back. I would like to. It would be a wise thing to do. He’s going to die anyway, so I could kill him later. What’s the difference?”
The man reached and lifted a necklace from beneath his shirt. “These beads are blessed to protect me from evil. I also made a small offering to the Devil Child. But it didn’t help. Not ten minutes later, Farfel crashed our boat.”
I pretended to look at the beads, as I said, “Well… the boy is an Indian.”
“An Indian priest, he told me, but used a word I do not know.”
“Some people scoff at religion,” I said. “Not me. I’ve heard of voodoo curses and Santeria curses. People have died-it’s been documented. Some say they can bring the dead back to life. That, I doubt. But from an Indian? Maybe your curse isn’t fatal.”
“You think I don’t know of these things? I have Santeria priests who instruct me. Don’t make the mistake of thinking me a fool. I am not. Even Farfel now takes my advice. Sometimes, I come right out and tell Farfel what we must do! Of course… I do this privately. Why embarrass an old man?”
He was swerving off topic, so I said, “Personally, I don’t care if the kid’s dead or alive. But, if you’re asking me to help, the answer is no.”
Confused, Hump said, “Help do what?,” then demanded, “Why are you refusing me?”
“Because I can’t. I’m not taking you back to where you buried the boy just to have a curse removed.”
Hump had been leaning against the safety railing, his attention now on the shell road watching for the senator’s car to appear. He straightened. “You told me curses sometimes kill people!”
“It’s not part of our agreement. I’m taking you to Cuba, that’s all. Sorry. I follow Dr. Navarro’s orders, not yours.”
“But Farfel is not the one who has been doomed by that bastard savage! If you expect me to go with you to Havana and drink beer, then you should at least-”
That’s when the rental van appeared.
Hump crouched low as he touched the gun to my head, saying, “Get down.”
35
Men shout and bellow when they’re angry. But men who have transcended anger, who function daily with murder in their brains, are transformed when the moment finally does arrive.
The normal voice is displaced by a primitive voice that is linked, unencumbered, to the limbic cortex-the lizard brain, an aficionado like Rene Navarro might call it.
I could hear a lizard voice speaking to Navarro now, saying, “Quit lying. You think I could ever forget your face? Those eyes? Stop backing away… Farfel. You don’t have a gun? You always did. Question is, how many rounds?”
Because I had heard the wise-guy bluster of Otto Guttersen, I would not have believed it was him. It was similar in volume yet had a whispered edge that rasped, as if Guttersen’s larynx had been scarred by the memory of a long-ago scream.
“What are you talking about? I’m an associate of Dr. Ford’s. He asked me to show you aboard.” Farfel the interrogator had assumed the role of Cuban physician after stepping from the storage shed to introduce himself to Barbara and her unwelcome companion.
He was sticking to the role as Guttersen thrust his wheelchair forward, pursuing the man while making rasping accusations. Farfel had been as shocked to see Guttersen as Guttersen was to see his former tormentor.
Where had they met? No idea. Only Barbara had mentioned the showtime wrestler’s military background. But all the information I needed was in Guttersen’s venom the first time he spoke the name Farfel.
The invalid had been a POW-somewhere. As Roxanne Sofvia had said, “Does it matter which war?”
I had thought the woman naive, although her bitterness was justified. But she was right, I was wrong. These recent seconds had exposed my comfortable certainty as ignorance.
From the flybridge, peeking over the fairing, I had an elevated view of the area. The parking area was directly beneath me.
>
I could see that Guttersen was getting frustrated because of the sand, as he tried to press his attack on Farfel. And there was Barbara, dumbstruck, standing near the van, where the doors were still open, dome light on. Like the men, she was in shock.
Trailing southward was the estate’s private canal, water star-black, roiled by current where it emptied into an ocean inlet near mangrove bushes thirty yards away.
The yacht sat with its bow pointed toward the inlet, moored portside to a commercial-grade dock. The dock adjoined a party deck, where there was a chiki hut, a grill and outdoor speakers, all of it-parking area included-lighted by low-voltage lamps. The deck extended out over the water on pilings.
Farfel, I realized, wasn’t actually fleeing. Why would he? He had his laser-sighted pistol, although he hadn’t produced it. Instead, he was leading Guttersen toward the deck, where there was no railing, only a two-foot drop to the water.
Tide had flooded, current starting to turn.
“You cowardly sonuvabitch, why you running? My legs don’t work. You know why. You’re the one who did it!”
Barbara had finally recovered enough to attempt an intervention, saying, “What’s going on here? Mr. Guttersen, I think you’re overreacting. Why don’t we all calm down and discuss whatever it is that-”
Guttersen’s voice sounded close to normal as he snapped at her, “Shut up! If you want to do something useful, call one of them big shots, Minneapolis National Guard. They’ll tell you who this snake is! Or the doctors at the VA!”
“But you must be mistaken-”
Guttersen had reared his wheelchair onto the deck and was now using his fist to hammer at sand clogging the brakes. “Are you blind, lady? Look at his face! If you can’t see he’s lying, you’re dumb as rice, I shit thee not!”
Barbara was looking toward the yacht now, calling, “Ford! Where the hell are you?”
Beside me, Hump pressed the gun harder into my neck, and said, “After Farfel drowns the cripple, he’ll be mad if you answer. He told me that he would enjoy killing you more than killing the woman.”
At first I thought, Barbara. Farfel’s going to kill a senator? But then I understood. Hump was talking about Shelly Palmer.
“Navarro killed the woman detective?” I demanded.
Hump realized that he’d slipped up. “Uhhh… maybe I imagined him saying that before he returned to the stable. Yes, I’m sure now, because of our agreement.”
I felt an emotional jolt: a flurry of denial and self-reproach.. . then a flooding change in blood chemistry that was anger.
My arms were extended behind me. With my hands, I was doing what children do when they interlace their fingers and play Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open up the doors and here’s-
“Stop moving,” Farfel said. “I have never shot a gun, but I know it’s loud. My ear, it is already aching.”
He was kneeling to my right, starboard side. When I glanced at him, I noticed something in the water, something moving. It was an elongated shadow gliding across the black water toward the dock where Farfel was standing, now taunting Guttersen with his patient denials.
The shape was pointed like the snout of an alligator-a huge gator, if I was right. It had to be fourteen feet long. It was moving fast, propelled by an effortless wake.
“Are you trying to trick me?” Hump was straining to follow my gaze without turning away.
I wanted to remove my glasses and clean them. Mangrove shadows cloaked details, but the speed was right, as well as the low, surface-flush profile. It’s illegal to feed gators in Florida, which makes people even more eager to do so. The big ones come to associate people with food. Gators have killed a dozen strollers and swimmers in recent years.
If Guttersen went into the water, drowning was the least of the man’s worries.
I whispered fast, “I’ll take you to the boy. He can remove the curse like he promised if you help me disarm Farfel. Just show me where you buried him.”
My offer keyed an alpha-male response and Hump used his left hand to slap the back of my head. “He was my father’s friend! Do you take me for an idiot?”
Behind my back, I snapped my fingers inward, levered my wrists outward and my hands exited the duct tape as if exiting a cave.
“Can you swim?” I asked the man.
“Of course! Not well, but-”
Before Hump could finish, I slapped the gun away, then looped my arm under his crotch as he attempted to stand, using the man’s own upward momentum to vault him over the railing. His three hundred pounds felt light because of my adrenal surge.
The man somersaulted backward, hollering, “Hey!,” as if offended. His body imploded the water surface with the sound of a refrigerator.
I looked to see the gator’s reaction, but it had disappeared-in front of the yacht possibly. Or it was now submerged, swimming toward the vibration of the huge Cuban’s thrashing.
I looped the noose off my neck, stripped the ball of tape from my wrists and knelt.
Shelly Palmer’s pistol was on the deck. A Glock-not a favorite, but it was loaded. I checked to make sure before scrambling down the ladder. As I sprinted across the gangway, I heard a man’s scream.
I hoped it was Hump. It wasn’t.
Guttersen!
Somehow, Otto Guttersen had gotten to his feet and was choking Farfel. He was wrestling with the Cuban, driving him toward the edge of the deck, as he screamed profanities, sputtering, “Die, you sonuvabitching snake, die!”
Why wasn’t Farfel using his gun?
There was a reason.
By the time I got to the men, Guttersen had the Cuban pinned, his body dwarfing the man, but I could see that Farfel was faceup, eyes glassy, as the big wrestler, clearly not a fraud, used an effective choke hold to position Farfel’s head over the water. Guttersen was using the wooden planking as a fulcrum, trying to snap the man’s neck
… or snap the man’s head off.
Barbara was pulling at Guttersen’s shoulders, yelling, “Stop, stop, stop! He’s dead! I think he’s dead!”
As I helped the woman calm Guttersen, I could see that she was right. But Guttersen hadn’t killed Farfel. It took me a dizzying, confused moment to understand. Protruding from beneath Farfel’s Adam’s apple was the steel point of a hunting arrow. It had pierced an area near the jugular, had maybe nicked it, judging from the amount of blood.
An arrow?
From the adjoining dock, I heard a momentary splashing. I didn’t look, assuming it was Hump. But then we all turned when we heard a boy’s voice ask, “Where’d I hit him?”
Will Chaser!
Will was no longer dressed like a cowboy, as when I’d first seen him. He was nearly naked, face smoke-smudged, blood-crusted, carrying a bow and withered quiver as he approached, his hair tied back Apache style with a blue wind band.
His black eyes reflected a momentary red-sparked gleam when he looked at me, a look of recognition.
Beneath lights at the dock’s edge, where a kayak was tied, Hump, dog-paddling, was now calling, “Dr. Navarro, be careful! Devil Child is back!”
Barbara had sagged against me. I disentangled myself from her arms, saying, “Call nine-one-one. We need an ambulance now.” Running toward the horse stable, I added, “Then cancel the ransom flight.”
When I entered the stable and knelt beside the body of Shelly Palmer, I saw that we could cancel the ambulance, too.
Farfel had used the drill.
36
The morning of the deadline, Sunday, January twenty-fifth, I got five hours’ sleep, put my skiff on a trailer, then rendezvoused with Tomlinson near Southwest Regional Airport.
“Any news?” he asked, swinging his backpack into the bed of my old Chevy pickup.
I told him I was too tired to talk, for him to sit back and I’d share everything telepathically. After a few beats, I added, “But the kid’s okay. He’s not too fond of me, but he’s safe.”
Tomlinson had already seen new
s bulletins on CNN while waiting for his flight. But he must have read the weariness in my face because he told me, “The kid’s a solid judge of character. Tell me the rest later,” then dozed most of the trip.
At two p.m. we met Jibreel Sudderram and two fellow FBI agents at Falcon Landing and chauffeured them to Tamarindo Island. Because it was my boat, I had asked Sudderram earlier to play the bad guy and inform a U.S. senator there wasn’t enough room for her aboard.
Legally, it was almost true, even though my skiff has carried as many as fifteen. But Barbara had been on a combination power binge and talking jag since she’d seen blood pumping from the Cuban interrogator’s neck. I didn’t want to listen to her endless cell-phone conversations or babysit her questions.
The agents were trained to be patient with civilians. I was not.
The lady’s protests were neutralized by the fact that one of the agents was female. Besides, as I rationalized for our little group, Barbara had already acknowledged that Tomlinson was a credible psychic by attending one of his lectures, so she had no choice but to accept the decision that he might be useful.
The agents didn’t consider Tomlinson a psychic, nor did I. It was a concession I would never have made but that the senator had, so it was excuse enough to bring him along.
“Right?” I asked Agent Sudderram.
The man looked as tired as me, but the news about the boy had improved his mood.
He replied, “Why bother her with details?”
Will Chaser had been taken to a Sarasota hospital. Procedure and common sense mandated a physical exam and that he be interviewed by child psychologists before he could be questioned by police.
It had been only fourteen hours so it was possible the boy was still in shock, but he appeared to be handling everything okay, Agent Sudderram told Tomlinson and me as I maneuvered the skiff through mangrove cuts, then down the winding channel toward Tamarindo.
Five minutes later, Sudderram was still briefing us as I dropped off plane and idled toward the island’s narrow dock, NO TRESPASSING signs freshly guano-streaked as cormorants, spooked from pilings, then struggled toward laborious flight.
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