“I suppose they might try,” Guttersen replied. “You gonna tell?”
“Not if you don’t tell the cops what I do for extra money.”
“I expect you’ve laid up quite a pile, working with a pawnshop. What do you do with all that money, buy drugs? Saving for college?”
In that instant, Will had realized something surprising: He could answer any way he wanted, even tell the old man the truth, an opportunity that would end when he walked out the door.
“I buy marijuana seeds sometimes,” Will had said, talking slow so he could feel what it was like not lying. “I grow it, then make a bunch more money selling tacote to rich kids. You know, weed.”
“Weed, you call it. I thought the word you drug dealers used was grass. Or . . . maryann.”
“Grass, sometimes. Smoke or tacote, they called it on the Rez—the reservation, I mean.”
Guttersen said, “I’ll be go-to-hell,” interested, but not as interested as he was pretending to be. Then the man ruined it with flattery. “I was impressed, you knowing about the Mercury dime. Most people, they’d drop a 1940-S in a Coke machine, not a second thought. You’re a go-getter for an orphan delinquent, I shit thee not.”
Will had almost told Guttersen something else true that he’d never told anyone: He was saving to buy Blue Jacket from the snooty Texans with their fancy ranch. Instead, Will had flashed his Whatever expression, then started up the stairs, telling the old man, “No need to shovel it so high. I’ll tell the church people I ain’t living here but won’t mention the gun.”
“Good. None of their damn business anyway.” The man had pushed his wheelchair to the stairwell, waiting until Will was almost at the top, to offer, “We still got thirty minutes of Garage Logic. Wouldn’t hurt to stay until the wife gets back from the hair parlor.”
“I got better things to do, mister.”
Guttersen didn’t argue—a surprise. Just sort of shrugged as he spun the chair, then settled in by the radio, his indifference saying Leave if you want, I’m not begging.
Will had stood on the stairs, thinking about it. He didn’t like the man—who would? But there was something comfortable about being with an adult you could tell to go screw himself and he’d say it right back, no hard feelings.
But the craziness with the gun was scary. And the wife sounded like most foster grandmothers, tight-cheeked do-gooders who worked so hard pretending to be sweet, they were a pain in the ass.
No thanks.
As Will reached the top of the stairs, though, he heard the old man call, “If you steal the jewelry, at least close the damn freezer door tight. Hear? But if you’re staying, there’s a can of beef jerky on the cupboard, and grab me a beer. Two beers, if you’re thirteen or older.”
It was a couple of months before Guttersen’s wife, Ruth, gave them permission to open the gun safe—Guttersen, of course, pretending he didn’t have an extra key—and drive to the shooting range. That’s where Will heard the pearl-handled revolver fired for the first time.
Loud, yeah, but as expected.
Back in Oklahoma, even shrinks and preachers packed guns. On the Rez, Christ, the Skins still had machine pistols hidden away from the days of the American Indian Movement. Will had grown up carrying a sidearm, provided by whatever ranch was paying him to ride fence. He could shoot.
Even so, he had to listen to Guttersen run his mouth, offering advice about the finer points of marksmanship, which Will had assumed was bullshit because competent shooters didn’t buy cheap weapons like a pearl-handled knockoff.
A misjudgment, he discovered.
“This shiny piece of junk’s got sentimental value,” Guttersen explained, shucking brass from the cylinder, then laying the gun aside. “It’s a fake peace-maker I used in my wrestling shows. Sheriff Bull Gutter and Outlaw Bull both. Good for close range, if you catch my meaning. But I woulda never used it in the field.”
When Will asked, “What field?,” the man didn’t answer, too busy locking the wheels on his chair, then producing a gun case from beneath his seat.
“This,” he said, “is what I used in the field. Not the sort of weapon I’d want some cop to snatch because they took it as evidence. Savvy?”
It was like that all the time, now, Geezus. Cowboy Bull and his Indian sidekick, Pony Chaser.
Inside the case was a pistol Will had read about but never seen, a custom .45 caliber semiautomatic Kahr, polished stainless steel, with custom sights. A beautiful weapon, even though the gun had had some use.
“Where’d you carry it?” Will asked again, but Guttersen was loading rounds into a magazine, then turned his attention to a combat range. There were targets at twenty-five yards, fifty yards, and one target seventy-five yards away.
“If I had a rifle,” Will said, making conversation, “I’d take the far target and show you something.”
Guttersen shucked a round into the Kahr, and replied, “I’ll show you something right now,” then did.
Bull Guttersen could shoot.
It was another ten months before the man answered the question, “What field?,” confiding in Will something that even Guttersen’s wife was forbidden to mention: Bull’s wrestling career didn’t end in the ring, as he commonly told people.
Truth was, he had been crippled six years before in Afghanistan, at age fifty-one, after being recalled as a sergeant with his mortar unit in the Minneapolis National Guard.
Hearing that confirmed something else Will had begun to suspect. Guttersen wasn’t as old as he looked. He was old but not old. Something had happened to the man that aged him.
“I saw some action around Kabul, slept in a tent and put on a couple of wrestling shows for the USO. Didn’t even mind the scorpions too much, but then the Hummer I was in hit an IED outside Mazar-Sharif and it all went to hell.”
Guttersen didn’t tell Will that until days later, the two of them staying up late one night watching The Angel and the Badman, sitting in La-Z-Boy recliners, the fancy ones with beer holders built right into the armrests.
Guttersen had offered the information in a mild, damn-near intelligent voice Will had never heard the man use before . . . and might never hear again.
“Don’t ask for details, Pony Boy,” Bull had said, ending the conversation. “If you bring it up, or tell a soul, I’ll say it never happened, because, once folks find out the truth, they never stop asking me about it—What was it like? Musta been hell—as if they knew something about hell. People don’t know jackshit about hell, not the Real McCoy hell. Trust me on that one.”
In the same mild voice, Bull had explained, “Even if I don’t answer their damn questions, I still end up thinking about the answers. And I don’t want to recall how truly shitty it was. Just don’t got the energy for that no more.” Bull had added, being very serious, “Pony, you’d have to be a POW yourself to understand.”
Buried alive, Will wondered now, his eyes open in darkness of his coffin. Does that count?
24
I gave up on asking Barbara for help. Made a phone call from the cab, got lucky and hitched a ride on an Army training flight to MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa. The plane was a C-130, similar to the aircraft that was being loaded with the Castro Files. No movie but a cargo hold the size of a gymnasium where I could stretch out and sleep.
“The military’s standards begin where your standards end,” I enjoyed telling Tomlinson over the phone, breaking the news that he would have to find his own way home.
By eight p.m. I was standing on the patio of Nelson Myles’s winter estate, near Venice Beach, watching the man through his kitchen window. He was pouring himself a scotch and soda, mostly scotch. The sober horseman was back in the saddle.
Good. He would be loose, possibly even talkative. What I had to decide was my approach. Knock on the door and introduce myself? Or lure the man outside, then drive him to a secluded spot?
If the police weren’t already looking for me, I might have played it straight. But their low-key inquirie
s were becoming more frequent, and they’d hinted about a subpoena. Mack, owner of Dinkin’s Bay Marina, had updated me on the phone, as I drove a rental car south on I-75, looking for an exit near the Sarasota County line and a development called Falcon Landing.
There are hundreds of gated communities in Florida and many hundreds more to come. Gate or no gate, few are communities. Developers bulldoze an oversized patch of scrub, truck in sod and palms to damper the stink of bruised earth, then mask their domino trap with a woodsy name—Cedar Lakes, Cypress Vista, Oak Hills—and presto!, instant habitat for people in search of instant lives.
Falcon Landing was different. It was a thousand-acre enclave, a private retreat isolated by fencing, security and almost two miles of bay frontage and beachfront. Prices started in the eight figures, execs who owned planes were the targeted demographic and there was a strict low-density covenant that catalyzed demand and guaranteed a waiting list of buyers. Even I had heard of some of the celebrities who owned homes at the place.
There were only two entrances to Falcon Landing. The southernmost was just north of Port Charlotte, the other near the pretty seaside town of Venice.
I approached from the north. The entrance was a limestone arch with a waterfall and a Learjet logo. At the guard station was a Wells Fargo security car and two uniformed men. The place took security more seriously than most, so I parked at public-beach access a half mile away. After changing into shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt, I belted a fanny pack around my waist and jogged back to the entrance. The guards replied to my wave with slow, uncertain salutes, but they didn’t stop me.
I can go without sleep for a couple of days, if I work out. But I hadn’t had time to do much of either in the last forty-eight hours. It felt good to be outside, alone and running in the Gulf-dense night. So good, I didn’t want to stop. Running is the best way I know to scope out an area. I picked up the pace—my way of making the run last—and mentally logged details that might be useful later.
Falcon Landing was a well-planned package: multimillion-dollar estates on ten-acre parcels, homes that looked as if they’d been layered from a tube of chocolate icing. There was a country club, clay courts, a banquet hall and restaurant that was open but not busy on this balmy, blustery January eve.
Every structure was efficiently screened by ficus or hibiscus hedges. Green zones were spacious, and there were trails and tree canopy enough to create the illusion of a Caribbean island retreat. The exception was the western edge of the property where more than a dozen small jets and prop planes were hangered on an FAA-licensed airstrip—seventy-two hundred feet long, according to signage. Members only, night traffic by appointment, corporate pilots must register with the attendant at Falcon Landing.
I wondered how tight airstrip security was.
The Myles estate was beachside, the house not visible from the road. It was shielded by islands of foliage: helicoids, birds of paradise, citrus and frangipani. There was a twelve-foot gate, wrought iron on electric tracks, with a horse-sculpture cap and a small brass plaque: SHELTER COTTAGE.
We’ll see . . .
I checked the street before ducking into the shadows where there was a chain-link fence. After dropping to the other side, I waited two minutes in case there was a perimeter alarm or a Doberman standing watch.
The house wasn’t a cottage, it was a massive three-story mansion with two-story wings at each end.
As I approached, I could hear the drumming of waves on the beach and the compressor kick of an air conditioner. Even on a flawless winter evening, the gated community types avoid contact with the reality of Florida . . . except for someone moving on the upper floor of the south wing.
I crouched and watched a woman step out onto a balcony. The moon was three days before full, not bright because of clouds but bright enough. Nelson’s wife? Yes. She was too full-bodied in her silken robe to be the daughter.
Connie Myles walked to the railing, listening to the thumping bass of New Age rock in the room behind her, then lit a cigarette. No . . . a joint. I had observed Tomlinson’s ceremonial machinations often enough to know. She inhaled several times, then pirouetted in a solitary dance, arms thrown wide, like Wendy in Peter Pan yearning to fly.
I remembered the photo I’d seen in Myles’s office of the wife who had appeared lost and haunted, shrinking ever smaller into the background of her family members’ lives. Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps the woman was simply stoned. For her sake, I hoped it was true.
When she finished smoking and had locked the French doors behind her, I worked my way past a tennis court and a small empty stable to the back lawn. The main house looked deserted, but there was activity in the north wing.
I crossed to the patio, where there was a pool house, a guest cottage and a landscaped deck with a tiki hut and lounge chairs. The pool was unlit, a graphite mirror beneath moon and stars. Lights were on in the kitchen . . . and Nelson appeared. I watched him open a fresh bottle of scotch and pour a drink.
The man was wearing a dress shirt that would fit if he gained fifteen pounds, suggesting recent weight loss. That, coupled with the scotch, meshed with what Roxanne had told me.
“Two weeks ago,” she’d said, “Nels went off the deep end. It started with a phone call—that much I know for sure. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”
Nelson was going to tell me.
At the edge of the patio was a metal trash can. I imagined the gonging sound the lid would make if raccoons dumped the thing. It was a fail-safe call to duty for a man enjoying a whiskey glow. But the wife worried me, even though she was stoned and insulated by ten thousand square feet of stucco and furniture.
Instead, I scouted the side of the house, where I found a Range Rover parked outside the five-car garage. When I saw the New York plates and a trailer hitch, I felt a hunter’s rush . . . until I did the math. Even nonstop, the drive from the Hamptons would’ve taken more than twenty hours. It was a different Range Rover.
Will Chaser wasn’t here, unless they’d boxed him into one of those private jets—it was possible.
I wanted to discuss that with Myles, too.
Using my ASP Triad light, I settled on a place to hide, then checked the interior of the vehicle. It was the big luxury Rover, with navigation, and a security system that was sufficiently sensitive. Headlights and horn blared an alert when I forced a burglar’s shim through the door seal.
When Nelson came hurrying out, drink in hand, I waited until he was returning to the house before I surprised him.
I used duct tape, mouth and hands. Appropriate, I hoped. I got a good look at the Skull and Bones ring Myles wore, as I took care to do a professional job with the tape, thumbs out, fingers not locked.
The ring was similar to others I had seen.
Nelson Myles didn’t double the family fortune or run a successful stable or get his jet rating by being easily bullied, so I didn’t expect him to go all weepy once he recovered from the shock of being hijacked in his own vehicle. But I also didn’t anticipate his detached reaction after I’d parked, headlights off, parking lights on, and torn the tape from his mouth.
He said, “Let’s cut to the chase and save us both some time. How much do you want?”
Extortion, the first thing to come to his mind. He was drunk, I realized, in the first articulate stages of a scotch bender. I didn’t reply.
After a moment, he said, “Talk to me. I have more money than patience. Come up with a figure. If it’s reasonable, I won’t get the police involved. It has nothing to do with keeping my word, or any of that noble bullshit. I have too much on my plate right now to deal with police. So your timing couldn’t be better.” He paused, suspicious. “Or maybe someone tipped you off. Was it a woman?”
That was unexpected. He was thinking of Roxanne—also a surprise. Well . . . he knew her better than I did.
I sat looking at him, letting my eyes adjust to the dash lights, hearing the vehicle’s cooling engine and the wind in melaleuca
trees outside my open window. The man was working his lips, trying to get rid of tape residue, but didn’t offer eye contact. I was a hired hand, beneath his station—my impression.
He said, “With a phone call, I can have forty thousand cash within half an hour, anyplace you say. If you want more, we’ll have to wait until the banks open. That’s risky, in my opinion. More chance of something going wrong. But it’s your decision.”
After two minutes of silence, he added, “Personally, I’d take the cash.”
After another minute, he said, “Think it over.”
After another thirty seconds, he said, “While I’m waiting, open the door, I have to pee.”
I was going through the fanny pack, letting him watch from the corner of his eye as I removed a lab towel, the ASP light, then surgical gloves, finally a pistol.
The pistol was a recent acquisition. It was a .32 caliber Seecamp, a precision-made firearm not much larger than a candy bar. I’m not a gun aficionado, so I had done a month of research and fired a lot of weapons before deciding that the Seecamp was the finest phantom pistol on the tactical market.
Close my fingers around the little gun, it disappeared in my hand . . . phantomlike.
I did that now, closing my hand, then opening it, letting Myles fixate on the gun. He was a shrewd guy. The workmanship, the articulate density of stainless steel, were more persuasive than any threat I could make. A weekend thug or a drug hustler would flash a big, showy knife, not a scalpel. Nelson Myles was looking at a scalpel.
“If you think you’re going to intimidate me with that, you’re mistaken,” he said, sounding nervous for the first time.
I popped the magazine and thumbed out six high-impact rounds before replying, “Why would I care? It all pays the same.”
I let him watch me snap on the surgical gloves before toweling the steering wheel, then each bullet, clean. I reloaded two rounds into the magazine and killed the dome light. When I opened the door, he made a reflexive, mewing sound as he inhaled, then recovered by clearing his throat.
Dead Silence Page 24