Off the Chart

by James W. Hall

  Frank dusted his hands across his white shirt.

  Sugarman said, “These heavyweights? They know she’s been kidnapped, they know I’m talking to her?”

  “Can’t say for sure.” Frank took a long look at the silent computer screen. “But I’ll be making some phone calls, see if I can light a fire under anybody. I’ll write this up on the flight out to Alaska. Soon as I’m on the ground, I’ll fax it up and down the chain of command. Make sure Andy Meeker gives you a call, too. He’s the kid, the high-tech guru. He’ll get with you and if a call trace can be done, he’ll do it.”

  “Memos,” Sugarman said. “Always memos.”

  “Good or bad, that’s how we do it.”

  Sugarman looked at the blank screen.

  “Thanks, Frank.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry, Sugar. I’m really sorry. I’ll do what I can.”

  Sheffield waited another half hour, but Janey didn’t log back on and finally Frank had to leave.

  The afternoon sun was disappearing behind a thick bank of clouds out over the Florida Bay. The squirrels in Sugarman’s backyard had retreated to their hiding places before the big nocturnal birds arrived for the night’s hunting. Janey still hadn’t dialed back in.

  For the hour since Sheffield had left, Sugarman tried to occupy himself with lists of questions to ask, the observations he wanted her to make. He’d had a hopeful half hour as he jotted down the step-by-step procedure he recalled from his Boy Scout days, a trick to narrow the search zone dramatically, then as the minutes passed and the video screen stayed dark, that hope turned to worry and now that worry was taking a fast plunge into gloom.

  He occupied himself by paging through guides to birds and mammals. He found pages and pages of giant green iguanas but learned they were all abundant throughout the region, that band of rain forest and jungle that ran for over a thousand miles along the rim of the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea from Mexico to Venezuela.

  He closed the Rain Forest Mammal Guide. He held it for a moment, then cocked his arm and flung it at the far wall. He walked over and picked the book up and slammed it into the wall again. He looked at it lying on the rug. Its cover dented, its spine chafed. He stared up at the ceiling and squeezed his eyes closed and roared until his lungs ached and his throat was raw.

  When he’d gotten his breathing back under control, he picked up the guidebook and gathered together all the other volumes that exclusively featured wildlife in the islands, ruled out by the agouti, and stacked them carefully by the front door.

  He sat down in his TV chair and flicked through the local channels. Evening news on all four. On Channel 10 he caught the tail end of a press conference Jeannie had given earlier in the afternoon. With the beach in the background and Jackie at her side, she told the Channel 10 reporter that she wasn’t angry or upset that the search-and-rescue mission had been called off. It was her strong faith in reincarnation that was getting her through this difficult period. With the dark, restless surf crashing behind her, Jeannie blinked back tears and spoke into the camera, saying she was absolutely certain her daughter Janey was now living happily in a better place and time.

  Beside her, Jackie chewed gum and stared out at the waves.

  Sugarman switched off the set and went back to the desk and sat for several moments staring into the blank screen. When he finally roused himself, he began to flip through the books until he located one with several pages of kingfishers. But then he couldn’t seem to concentrate on the images, much less the tiny print, the careful, scientific descriptions of habitat, behavior, the sounds of calls, the distinctive patterns of markings.

  He set the book aside and stared into the dark computer screen, willing it to come alive.

  At seven-thirty, as the light in the branches of his oak tree was failing, Sugarman once again looked over his sheet of scribbles but saw nothing there he hadn’t seen before. Cormorant, blue heron, kingfisher, agouti, blue morpho butterfly, green iguana, smell of the sea.

  “What now, Thorn?”

  He’d been asking the same question himself and had no answer.

  The investigators were gone. The bodies carted off. Photos taken, measurements made. Yellow crime scene tape staked out in a large square around the base of the gumbo-limbo tree.

  At the end of his dock, Anne Bonny Joy and Thorn stood below the black pennant, watching a ribbon of fire simmer along the horizon.

  “You ever seen the green flash?”

  She gave him a sidelong look.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Green flash, it’s supposed to come just after sunset. You ever seen it?”

  She shook her head. Thorn touched the flagpole, staring out at the silver sheen spreading across Blackwater Sound.

  “People claim they see it, but I’ve lived here all my life and watched thousands of sunsets and never seen one green flash. So either they’re lying or else I keep blinking at the wrong second.”

  Anne was silent, waiting for him to get to the point.

  “Then again, maybe they’re not lying. Maybe I’m just one of those idiots that can’t be hypnotized. Won’t let myself surrender. Too skeptical, too locked up in my own head. Sometimes I wish I were the other kind, the one that can see the green flash. They see it because they really want to see it. I admire that, people who can suspend their disbelief, throw themselves headlong into something far-fetched and weird. Believe in the unbelievable.”

  “Like Vic,” Anne said. “Or my mother. You admire that?”

  “Hell, with Vic, it could’ve been stock cars or coin collecting.”

  “What?”

  “The pirate bullshit, that’s an accident of fate, just what happened to come along, so he latched onto it. Uses it to distract himself, or try to. Vic strikes me as a guy hungry for something he can’t find. A guy who could gobble everything in sight from now till the end of time and not satisfy his hunger.”

  “Because he’s hollow,” Anne said. “A bottomless pit.”

  “Greedy people are like that sometimes. Need to have ten things going on at once to keep themselves from feeling the vacuum in their chests.”

  “I think that about nails him.”

  “What about women?”

  “Vic and women?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know for sure,” she said. “From the gossip I’ve heard, apparently there’ve been a few who threw themselves at him over the years, but he pushes them away, like he’s too busy or maybe too drained from fucking over his business competition.”

  “Maybe he’s not interested in women. I mean, the way he was holding my balls.”

  She sighed.

  “I think it’s probably something else.” She tilted her chin up, closing her eyes, and said, “There was one woman when we first got to the Keys. We were kids, teenagers sharing an apartment down in Matecumbe. Vic took up with her, Francis Colmes, our landlady. Couple of weeks after we got there, he moved all his stuff upstairs and started sharing her bed. He was eighteen, she was in her fifties. It lasted a few months, then one day she threw us both out. Threatened to call the cops. Vic never talked about it, but I could hear them up there sometimes. Francis bossing him around. Giving him chores, scolding him for not doing things right, humiliating him. It was sickening. I couldn’t stand to listen to it. His shriveled voice. Whining.”

  “Mommy’s little boy.”

  Anne’s mouth was tight for a moment as if she were fighting back the urge to scream.

  She turned her eyes toward the last scarlet tatters of the sunset.

  “After Francis Colmes, Vic didn’t seem interested. At the restaurant I’d hear about these women now and then who tried to tempt him. Went to his place, threw themselves at him. But far as I know none of them ever succeeded. He’s cold. Asexual, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Maybe he’s just waiting for you to be available. It could explain him scaring off all your boyfriends. Like they were competition.”

  “I’ve thought a
bout that,” she said.

  They were silent for a moment. A squadron of ibis coasted high above the sound, heading toward that last seam of light in the west.

  “About the green flash,” he said. “My point was that I respect you, Anne.”

  “You what?”

  “I respect you for letting go the way you did, running off with Salbone. It was crazy, reckless. But hell, without some of that, what’s the point? Play safe? Lie low? What the hell kind of life is that? Better to crash and burn out in some wild place than live happily ever after in your foxhole.”

  “You’re working yourself up to something.”

  “I’m going back to Vic’s,” he said.

  “Sign away your land?”

  “If I thought I could beat it out of him, I’d try that.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Thorn, you can’t bargain with the devil. He’ll scoop out your heart and walk away laughing.”

  “There some other choice? If I saw one, I’d take it. I’m going to give him what he wants, see if he can deliver Janey.”

  “And if he’s bullshitting you and doesn’t have the girl?”

  “Then it’s crash and burn time. Adventure hour. I’ll have to get creative.”

  “Well, I know one thing,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here when Daniel shows up. Even though nothing’s happened between you and me, he can be a very jealous man.”

  “This is my house, Anne. I’ll go when I’m damn well ready.”

  She stepped away from him, gripping the flagpole.

  “You’re angry. Well, you should be. I dragged you into this.”

  She looked out at the bay. He was angry all right. But Anne wasn’t at the top of that list.

  “You’re not afraid?” he said. “Going back to that life. It doesn’t scare the shit out of you?”

  “A little bit, sure. I’d be crazy if it didn’t.”

  “And you still don’t believe he killed Webster and the other two?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But if he did, it was unavoidable.”

  “Yeah,” Thorn said. “Unavoidable.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Thorn. I’m sorry about the little girl. I’m really sorry. You’ve got every right to be pissed at me.”

  “It’s everybody’s fault,” he said. “Yours, mine, Webster’s, Vic’s, everybody’s. There’s a lot to go around.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

  “Just do me one favor, Anne.”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t be here when I get back.”

  Twenty-Five

  “I think it’s the flu, Daddy. I’m hot and I hurt all over. Inside my bones.”

  “Aw, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

  It was almost dark outside his windows, a radio blasting from his neighbor’s house, Mrs. Selwyn, a deaf widow, listening to her big-band station.

  “I was so worried something happened to you, Janey.”

  Her face seemed on the verge of collapse. He could see her eyes glisten.

  “Janey, listen. I know the flu is terrible. But you’re going to be strong, okay? We need to keep working at this. You need to help me find where you are. We’ve made good progress, but there’s other things we have to do.”

  “I just want to lie down, Daddy. My bones hurt. I threw up all my sandwich. I really, really hurt.”

  “You need to drink a Coke, Janey. Fluids, you need fluids.”

  “I am.”

  She held the bottle up to the camera.

  “It’s still light there, isn’t it? I can see you, but you’re dimmer than before.”

  “The sun’s going down. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  “So we know you’re a good deal west of here. That’s good. Now we need to figure out just how far.”

  “I feel terrible.” Then she groaned.

  “Can you do this one thing for me, sweetie?”

  She looked woozy, her face pinched and drained, the light fading around her.

  “The animals are very loud. I think there’s a monkey out there, or something. It’s screaming.”

  “Look out your window, Janey. Look east, okay?”

  There was a knock on his front door. Sugarman leaned back in his chair, but he couldn’t make out a face in the small eye-level window.

  “Hold on, Janey. There’s someone at the door.”

  He trotted into the living room, pressed his eye to the window, and flipped on the porch light. He unlocked the door and opened it.

  “Hi,” Alexandra said. Lawton was standing beside her. “We came to see how you’re doing.”

  He nudged past them and ran out to the edge of his yard. He stepped out into the middle of his quiet street and looked east down toward Largo Sound. The moon was halfway over the horizon. Full and golden. He waited there until the last edge of it came into view. He tilted his watch toward the streetlight and read the time.

  Then he sprinted back to the house, waving Alex and Lawton inside.

  “I’m in the back bedroom,” he said, and trotted to the laptop.

  “Alex and Lawton are here, Janey. Look.”

  Alexandra came into the room, leaned close to the screen.

  “My God,” she said. “Where is she? What’s going on?”

  “In a minute.”

  Lawton said, “I know that little girl. Look, she’s a television star.”

  “Janey,” Sugar said. “Listen, go to your east window, okay? Turn your computer around so I can see you.”

  “Daddy, I got goose bumps on my arms. I’m cold. I’m starting to shiver.”

  “You’ve got a fever, darling. It comes with the flu. Be strong, you need to be strong. After we do this you can lie down and rest. But we have to do this now. Right now. We can’t wait.”

  She swiveled the laptop around and walked to the window, hugging herself tightly.

  She walked out of view.

  Her voice was distant, barely audible, saying, “All right.”

  “Do you see the moon coming up, any part of it?”

  “I think so,” she called out. “A little bit.”

  They were losing the illumination, Janey being absorbed into the darkness. He heard a faint screech, one of the animals from her jungle.

  “Tell me the exact second when it comes over the horizon, okay? The second you can see every bit of it rise out of the water.”

  “All right,” she said. Her voice growing weaker.

  He could see the dimming of the light in her tiny room. A minute passed, and then another.

  “It’s almost there,” she said.

  “The whole thing,” Sugarman called. “The whole big ball.”

  “Right now, Daddy. It’s above the horizon.”

  Sugarman looked at his watch and wrote down the number on the pad by his laptop. Did a quick computation. Subtracting his moonrise time from hers, then some multiplication. Got the total.

  “Okay, good. Good work, Janey.”

  She had moved back into the camera’s range.

  “I can still see you Daddy. Can you see me?”

  “Just barely, Janey. You’re pretty dark.”

  “There aren’t any lights here. The only light is from the screen. Your face is lighting up my room, but only just a little.”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked up at Alexandra. Her eyes were fixed on Janey’s shadowy image. Alex didn’t seem to be breathing.

  “What’s your battery signal say?”

  “I don’t know, Daddy. It’s lower than before. It’s running down.”

  “What about that sign? Is it still hidden?”

  “Yeah. Behind a palm frond.”

  Sugarman pawed through the books on his desk until he found the atlas. He paged quickly to the largest map he could find of the Caribbean Sea and checked the longitude.

  “This is good, Janey. You did great. I’ve got your longitude now, or something close to it. You’re at eighty-four degrees west. That’s somewhere along the coast of northern Central Ame
rica. Do you understand me, Janey?”

  “I sure as hell don’t,” Lawton said. “What’re you talking about?”

  Alexandra shushed him.

  “I don’t feel good, Daddy. I’m hot now. Really hot.”

  “Is there still ice in your cooler?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a sheet or a towel?”

  “There’s a sheet, yeah, on the bed.”

  “Soak a corner of it in the water in the cooler and press it on your forehead, Janey, and hold it there. That’s what your mother and I used to do when you had a fever.”

  “Does Mommy know where I am?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet. I will. As soon as I have something definite. I’ll call her.”

  “And tell Jackie hello, too. Okay? I love them. I miss them.”

  “I’ll tell them, I will.” Sugar closed his eyes briefly and opened them again. “But we need to turn your computer off now. I need to think some more, figure out what to do next. But you can log back on anytime. I’ll be here. Right here waiting.”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Her voice was growing feeble and he could no longer see the outline of her face in the darkness.

  “Wait a minute, Janey.”

  “What?”

  “That bird you saw. It was a kingfisher? Can you describe it?”

  “Yeah, I think so. But it was little and green. Like that car we had when you and Mommy were still married. A weird green.”

  “The Chevy,” he said. “Metallic green?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “with a brown breast, and its throat was lighter brown.”

  “Tufted like the kingfishers in Florida?”

  “No, it had a smooth head, I think. But it had a kingfisher beak, long and narrow. But I don’t know. It might’ve been something else. Not a kingfisher at all.”

  “I’ll look it up, sweetie. I’ll tell you next time we talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “So we should go now, I guess.” Sugarman glanced up at Alexandra. She’d closed her eyes and bowed her head and was shaking it slightly.

  “Okay, I’m turning it off now, Daddy. I’ll call you when I feel better. Bye.”

  “I love you, sweetie,” he said. “I love you.”

  But she didn’t answer. The screen dark, the connection broken.