Silencer

by James W. Hall

  He shuffled ahead till one of them gripped his shoulder.

  “My, my, Mr. Thorn, what an obedient Boy Scout you are,” Jonah said. “You salute and stand at attention. So far you’re a model prisoner. What do you say let’s keep it that way? Get a few extra merit badges, make Eagle Scout before we’re done.”

  Thorn was working on a snappy comeback, when the big one began to loosen the binding on his hands.

  “Now,” Jonah said, “here’s what’s going to happen.”

  When the cuffs were off, Thorn opened and closed his fists, trying to pump life back into his fingers.

  “Thorn, you’re headed into the belly of the whale, and that’s where you’ll stay until that big fish’s digestive juices have tenderized you a bit. You following me?”

  Thorn’s hands tingled. Not yet alive.

  Groggy, his throat so parched he wasn’t sure he could speak, Thorn squinted through the burlap hood, but all he could make out was a shadowy hulk a few feet in front of him. The big guy, Moses. Which put the shit-eater behind.

  “Now we’re going to take off your blindfold because I need that bungee cord back. Then you and the whale are going to get acquainted.”

  “What do you guys want? Money?”

  “Oh, give me a break. You’re not a nickel better off than me and my brother. Where you gonna get money?”

  “This isn’t a kidnapping? You’re not looking for a ransom?”

  “What do you think, Mo? We looking for a ransom?”

  “Put him in the hole. Enough of this shit.”

  “Let me ask you one thing, Thorn. What kind of business dealings you been involved in lately?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Let me give you some names, see if any of them ring a bell.”

  “Do this later,” Moses said. “Put him down.”

  “Look, face it,” Thorn said. “You snatched the wrong guy.”

  Behind him, Jonah unlooped the elastic cord holding the hood in place, then whipped it off Thorn’s head.

  To his left a brilliant red seam burned along the horizon. And in the high branches of nearby pines, the dim haze of dawn was spreading like pink smoke.

  The breeze carried the fetid musk of bog water and the black mud of marshland. He’d been right about the approximate location. The timing confirmed it. Leaving his house in Key Largo a little after three, arriving at this desolate place at dawn. They were somewhere north of the Everglades, close to Lake O.

  Thorn blinked. His vision was blurry, and numbness still prickled his hands. He faced the bigger man, maybe an inch or two taller than Thorn, and bulkier by thirty or forty pounds.

  “All right,” Thorn said. “You want something. I’m ready to deal.”

  “The whale’s waiting,” Jonah said from behind him.

  Thorn pivoted and swung at the smaller man. He meant it to be a sharp, efficient jab, but his arm was still numb and the punch looped slow and lazy. And Jonah was lizard quick, ducking away with a foot to spare.

  Before Thorn could make another move, a chopping blow against the back of his neck ignited a display of fireworks onto a black velvet sky. The ground wobbled and warped into another dimension.

  In a scalding flood the long night’s beer rose into his throat, and he bent forward to empty his gut.

  While his head was bowed, one of the brothers planted a foot on his butt and sent him sprawling forward, two feet or three, until he stumbled onto a wooden platform, then the ground vanished beneath him and he plunged into blackness. He clawed at the air, raked his fingertips across a pitted wall, saw it was no use, and tried to soften his body for impact.

  But he was disoriented and the drop was longer than he expected. His butt and left hip slammed against the floor, his lungs emptied, and his skull whacked some brutal outcropping, and in one brilliant bulb-flash of pain, Thorn was delivered from his body.

  EIGHT

  * * *

  IN THE FRAIL DAWN LIGHT filtering into the horse barn, Sergeant Frisco Hammond walked from stall to stall, handing out peppermint sticks. He’d started sneaking candy to the horses a month ago, now there was no turning back. He couldn’t bring himself to disappoint them.

  Down the line he went, Apollo, Serenade, Major, Striker, the big athletic Morgan, fast and strong. All the horses alert to his arrival, expectant nickerings, each of them extending their heads, slurping up the striped cane with their gentle lips. Looking for more.

  Last he came to Big Girl. Eleven hundred pounds, a big-chested beauty. As usual she hung back from the gate, observing him with those neutral eyes. He’d been married to eyes like those for two years before he admitted he couldn’t awaken her. Still he tried like hell to keep it together, honeymoon weekends, counseling sessions, a fling at dirty movies. They never argued, but there was no heat either. Two long years until they both agreed it was pointless and broke off. Sheila was her name, and she had Big Girl’s eyes. Bland affect, he’d heard it called, aloof and untouchable.

  Big Girl was a roan Tennessee walker, seventeen hands tall, with a long neck, sloping shoulders. She fit the standard in all the physical ways. Large head, refined bone structure, small ears. She had the short back, long mane and tail, strong coupling and hind quarters, and carried herself with a gliding gait.

  A nearly perfect horse, until you looked into the sad liquid depths of her eyes. The flat stare, the empty watchfulness. She wasn’t rank. Not an aggressive bucker or biter like some twitchy rodeo horse. That you could fix. Enough time and training with constant reassurance. Several of the horses in the barn had been jumpy when they arrived; now every one of them was doing daily patrols with no difficulty.

  Before any horse could work the street, months of training were required to make them bombproof—safe and reliable. Exposing them to sudden noises, backfires, barking dogs, car horns, siren whoops. Then came the harder tests, the visual ones. Plastic cups blowing along the ground, a tumbling sheet of newsprint, dirtbikes flashing by, a flock of birds exploding into flight, cats, dogs, other critters let loose in front of them. All the while keeping the horses calm, comforting them, dismounting to pick up the sheet of newspaper and bring it over to the horse so he could see it was not a monster. In time, even the spookiest of them adjusted. Eventually all would even learn to tolerate the shooting range, with officers firing handguns off their backs. Every single horse, in his five years as head of the mounted unit, had come around.

  All except Big Girl.

  None of the other officers would ride her. Something didn’t feel right. She was balky, unpredictable. She reared, or backed away at some approaches, dipped and jumped sideways. The other men simply refused to trust their safety to Big Girl. The horse was damaged. Even Julia thought it was hopeless.

  Down at the east end of the barn, Julia Scarborough, the stable girl, was mucking a stall. She’d grown up with horses, ran a riding school out on the edge of the Glades, and only came into the city a few hours every day to sweep up and do a few jobs around the barn and grounds to keep her medical insurance going.

  Julia headed his way, eyes down, something on her mind. Kinky brunette hair, tan face and arms. She had the kind of face Frisco liked: good cheekbones, dark eyes, lush mouth. Some gypsy blood. For the last few months she’d been dating one of the homicide guys, so Frisco was keeping his distance.

  “You have a good Turkey Day?”

  “Whipped up some arroz con pollo,” Frisco said. “Fried plantains.”

  “So,” Julia said, done with small talk. “You’re not carrying your cell?”

  “It’s in the office. Why?”

  “What good is a cell if you never turn it on?”

  “I use it to call out,” he said. “Somebody wants to talk, they leave a message.”

  “Yeah, well, you had several of those on the office line,” she said. “From your sister-in-law. First one came in last night, eleven-thirty. Ten calls, eleven. Last one was just a while ago. She said she tried your cell, le
ft messages there, too.”

  Hammond nodded.

  “She said it was urgent.”

  “You talk to her?”

  “No, it’s on voice mail. I saved the messages. Urgent. Code red.”

  “Claire said that? Code red?”

  “No, I’m interpreting. She sounded desperate. Worse than the other times.”

  Frisco looked back at Big Girl. The horse was staring at the side of her stall, trying to ignore the two of them.

  “I’ll call when I get a chance.”

  “Is your brother smacking her around?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “If he is, you should go out there and kick his ass. That’s a great woman he’s got. She’s a strong lady. Better than that moron deserves.”

  “Their marriage is none of my business. And sure as hell isn’t any of yours.”

  “You’re chickenshit, Sergeant Hammond. If you’ll pardon my candor.”

  Frisco sighed. Julia and Claire Hammond had never met, but they’d bonded on the phone. Since last September, when Earl Hammond buried his wife of sixty years, Rachel Sue, Claire had been campaigning to get Frisco out for a visit at Coquina Ranch. Reunite the family at least for a Sunday brunch, something that might perk up the old man. She’d enlisted Julia to join the nagging.

  “I’m just saying, Sergeant, you should listen to the damn messages. She sounded bad. Crying, verge of hysteria. Something’s happened.”

  “When I get a chance.”

  “You keep your family at arm’s length,” Julia said. “What’re you afraid of? You’ll piss off your little brother, your granddad? Well, hey, guess what? They’re already mad. You’re not singing from the Hammond hymnal. You live in the big bad city, turned your back on that patch of earth. So see, since they’re already pissed, you can’t use that as an excuse.”

  “You’re about a mile over the line, Julia. You sure you want to keep going?”

  “I’ve been that woman,” Julia said. “Crying out for help. And no one came for me, either. Nobody. And I made a few urgent, code red calls.”

  Frisco waited. The peppermint was growing sticky in his hand. Julia wasn’t going to stop until she was done. She was on the civilian payroll, so he had no real authority over her, and probably wouldn’t use it if he had.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll call later. All right? That make you happy?”

  “If you want me happy, call now.”

  He waved her off. That’s enough, back to work.

  Julia held her ground, taking a moment to drill him with her dark eyes. When she was done, she shook her head at him, at all men, their willful stupidity.

  “Oh, and Lieutenant Rizzo called this morning.”

  “Yeah? You speak to him?”

  “I did. He says to put Big Girl on the street this week. Get her in the rotation or cut her loose. City can’t afford a horse that isn’t pulling her weight.”

  With that, Julia turned and marched back down the row of stalls.

  Frisco turned to Big Girl, raised his hand slowly so not to frighten her, and held out the peppermint. He clucked his tongue, but she hung back. Eyes on his eyes. Same stare-down every day. She snorted once, holding her head high.

  “It’s okay, girl. It’s good.”

  He slipped the curled end of the candy cane into his mouth and sucked.

  After a wary moment, she stepped forward a foot.

  He withdrew the candy, giving his lips a wet smack, then stuck his hand through the stall door a second time. Big Girl came forward another step, lowering her head. He flattened his hand, letting the peppermint lie there.

  When she took it, her lips and whiskers were a brisk tickle against his flesh. Not like the gluttonous slurps of the others.

  He looked back down the barn to see if the other horses were watching. None were. He snuck a second stick of peppermint through the slats and waited. Big Girl blew out a flutter and ducked her head and whisked the second bribe from his palm. First time she’d had an extra helping. That was progress.

  Frisco knew more about how Big Girl got those eyes than how his ex-wife got hers. Big Girl was born on a pharmaceutical ranch in Canada. Her mother was penned in a tiny stall, unable to turn around or lie down in the straw. The mare was repeatedly impregnated and was connected twenty-four/seven to plumbing that collected her urine. That horse urine was the main ingredient in Premarin, a drug used to treat menopausal symptoms. Big Girl was taken from that Premarin mare at birth, stashed in isolation, fed, watered, but only that. Never weaned properly or allowed to learn what mares have to teach. Hence, the eyes. The empty look. An acute lack of mothering.

  Big Girl had been liberated from the Canadian farm by some do-good group. Passed along to a family that found her too difficult, passed along again, then last summer she was donated to Miami PD. Hammond asked about her past, but the donor claimed he didn’t know. The horse’s eyes were wrong; Frisco could see that. But he was one animal short for his troop, so he accepted the gift.

  At seven sharp, an hour before his men were scheduled to arrive, Frisco saddled Big Girl and let her wander around the ring while he went back into the office for a last sip of coffee and to get his Glock and radio. He looked at the blinking light on the message machine, then locked up the office and went outside.

  These days it was rare for Hammond to go on patrol. He had more than enough chores in the barn. Writing up the daily work schedules, special events assignments, updating the files on stable and horse management. Confirm blacksmith visits, set up vet appointments. Check the tack and feed orders. Make sure the stock of borium-coated shoes was sufficient.

  Going riding was dead last on his work sheet. Fifteen years on the force, including a five-year stint on SWAT, and this is what it came down to, making up duty rosters for the Mounted Unit.

  It was seven-thirty when he headed Big Girl up Third Street toward Miami PD Headquarters. A northwest wind was kicking trash down the street. Every tumbling cup sent clenches through the mare’s sides. But she was walking straight, head high, and the reins were loose in his hand.

  Frisco believed, yes, they could do this. They had to do this or he’d have to find a new home for Big Girl. Hammond hated the thought of a fine horse like her going round and round the same dirt ring with squalling eight-year-olds in her saddle.

  He moved her under the I-95 overpass. Even early on this holiday Friday, a few cars and trucks were booming overhead. Frisco brought the horse to a halt. A good test—the wind, the highway noise, some early workers barreling into the heart of downtown Miami. The sunlight flickered at the edges of the street like a wildfire racing across the grasslands.

  She held her position, waited.

  Hammond’s plan was to follow Third Street from Lummus Park where the Miami PD horse barn was located, go six blocks east into the skyscraper canyons, and emerge at Bayfront Park. Do a walk around Bayside Marketplace, let the early-morning tourists gawk at her, then loop back by ten or so. Nothing too taxing. With any of the other horses, it would have been a cakewalk. But nobody had ridden Big Girl beyond a block of the barn without her freezing up and having to be bullied back.

  He talked to her as they went, kept his voice even and firm. Everything cool. The tension was coming and going in her flesh, but she moved steadily. Two blocks, three. Crossing into new territory.

  Then shit, wouldn’t you know? A couple of vagrants were crossing the street to pat the horse, make nice. He knew one of them, Jethro Kurtz, a red-haired vet from Idaho who’d wound up in Miami and had been in and out of jail for possession. Aside from being a confirmed crackhead, he wasn’t a bad guy.

  Hammond raised his hand to wave them off, but stopped himself. This was part of the test. Big Girl had to do this. She had to have a public face. She had to accept strangers, let them draw close, touch her.

  With a sloppy, stoned smile, Kurtz held his hand out to Big Girl. She swung to her left, ducked her head, but Frisco rode the spook and got her still.

  Kurt
z kept coming. Big Girl watched him out of that eye, turning her ears backward in alarm. Frisco spoke to her calmly, patted her neck. She stayed aloof, watchful. No more shying back, which at that moment was about the best Hammond could wish for. Hold her ground, learn that people weren’t dangerous.

  All the other horses discovered quickly what magical power they wielded. Big Girl had yet to realize she was magnetic. She drew them to her as she had Jethro Kurtz the doper. Like all big horses clopping through that concrete landscape, she had a mysterious ability to awe or intimidate. Twin powers that Hammond saw registered in the faces of everyone he encountered while he was on horseback. Horses struck some psychic chord. That was a big reason the city footed the bill for the mounted unit.

  When it came to crowd control, a single horse and rider could do the job of twenty foot patrolmen. Hammond had seen the crowds part, mobs of protestors or spring-break drunks stumbling away in panic. And the other side of the equation was equally important. Community service. Spreading a positive image of Miami PD. Hard to believe, but a cop on horseback ambling through the hood could convert a gang of pissed-off punks into cooing kids, at least for a few minutes. And if Frisco and the horse came back day after day, who the hell knew? One kid might be saved. What was the dollar value of that? Frisco Hammond was fairly sure his own love of horses had saved his ass from one kind of hard time or another.

  “I used to have a horse.” Kurtz was sliding his hand across her muzzle, then down to her throat latch.

  “That right?”

  “You don’t believe it, but I did. A pony, and when I outgrew that, the old man got me a real horse. An Appaloosa. Big-ass horse. ’Bout as big as this one. You wouldn’t know it, looking at me now, but back in the day, I was a rich little fuck.”

  Frisco removed his sunglasses and wiped them on his shirt sleeve, one-handing the reins. Staying cool, sending Big Girl that signal, calm, calm.