Dead Silence

by Randy Wayne White

  Now the man was looking at me. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing? You get some kind of power rush playing the hard-ass? If you want to negotiate, let’s negotiate. We can come to an agreement. There’s another friend I can call. I can guarantee you sixty thousand—no, seventy thousand—cash. No questions, no risk. I’ve got my cell on me. Cut my hands loose and I’ll have the money waiting.”

  I replied, “I’ve already been paid,” then pushed the door closed. I walked to the passenger side, hoping to hell police didn’t choose now to cruise this dirt utility road, with its detritus of garbage and beer cans, close enough to Interstate 75 to hear the wake of traffic. No combination of lies could explain kidnapping a Who’s Who millionaire. My own distaste for what I was doing would probably have given me away before I tried. In psychological warfare, tactical cruelty is just another arrow in the quiver.

  I told myself that if I was right, what I was doing might save the boy. If wrong, Myles was tough enough to recover, then deal with it along with his long list of other personal problems.

  I opened the door, grabbed the man behind the neck and tumbled him onto the ground, hearing him say, “Why is this happening to me?,” his voice shaky. He repeated it several times, a sign he was going into shock, then yelled, “Say something! You’re driving me crazy with the damn silence. Tell me what I did wrong. Give me a name, for godsakes.”

  I cracked the slide, chambered a round, then stood over him holding the gun. Parallel to the barrel, I was gripping the ASP light, but it wasn’t on. “They said you won’t talk. So they hired me.”

  “Talk? About what? Jesus Christ, ask me anything, I’ll tell you.”

  I said, “I don’t get paid to listen,” then extended my arm, pistol a foot from his head. A moment later, I clicked on the ASP light. In the laser-white scintillation, Myles’s eyes widened as if about to be hit by a car. He jerked his head away. “You’re blinding me!”

  I said, “I’m doing you a favor,” but then dimmed the little flashlight so only the gun barrel and a wedge of the man’s face were illuminated.

  He cracked an eye. “Jesus Christ, I thought you pulled the trigger. It was so damn bright.”

  “They say it’s like that.”

  “Being shot, you mean?”

  “Close your eyes, you tell me.”

  He opened his eyes wider. “But you don’t have to kill me now. Seriously, I’ll tell you anything. But I can’t answer unless I know what they want.”

  “I’m doing what they want.”

  “Please. At least give me a minute to think this through. Just one minute, I’ll make it right, I swear—and I’ll pay you. An entirely different business deal. Isn’t that fair? I’m wealthy. I can pay you a hundred times more than they paid you.”

  I said nothing. After a long silence, he began to cry. The man had pissed his pants, I realized. He pulled his knees to his chest, fetal position, then squinched his eyes closed until he remembered, then opened his eyes wide, as if looking up at me was his only defense. He began to moan, “I’m begging you, please . . . please.”

  I felt a mounting contempt for myself that was proportional to a rising respect for the man at my feet. He had handled the bullying better than most and taken longer to break than it might have taken to break me under like circumstances. Dying clueless, among garbage, on a dead-end road, is sufficient reason to beg.

  But my assessment was premature.

  My cell phone had a digital-recorder function. I pressed the RECORD icon and dropped the phone on the ground near the man’s head. “So talk. They won’t believe me unless I get it on tape.”

  Myles opened his eyes. “Sure. What do you want me to say? I’ll tell you anything.” His eagerness to survive, his clinging devotion to hope, summarized our species yet, oddly, also debased it.

  “They want the truth.”

  “Of course! I’m a cooperative person—you’ll see. But first, I think we’d be more comfortable if—”

  I interrupted before he could mention freeing his hands, saying, “They’re looking for a missing kid. That’s all I know. You asked for a minute to figure it out. You’ve got it. So tell me: What’s the question you’re supposed to answer?”

  “I don’t know. I swear it, I have no idea.”

  I said, “Then we’re wasting time,” and leaned closer with the gun.

  “Wait! Maybe I do know something.” I watched his face. When I saw his eyes rotate upward, I knew he was assembling a lie. I touched the gun barrel to his ear. He winced but offered the lie anyway.

  “There are always questions when somebody’s kid disappears. No one’s to blame, it’s just the way it is. And let’s be honest, young girls disappear all the time. What I don’t understand is—”

  “How do you know it was a girl?” I said.

  When he replied, “Well . . . it’s only natural to assume—” I pressed the pistol into his ear.

  He lied again. “You told me it was a girl! ‘They’re looking for a missing girl,’ isn’t that what you said?”

  I began counting off seconds—“. . . thirty-nine . . . thirty-eight . . . thirty-seven . . .”—and used my foot to pin him to the ground when he tried to wiggle away.

  “Stop . . . stop, I’ll talk! But I need more information. Could be, the people who hired you got the wrong idea about the missing girl—boy—whatever. Did they say anything about finding something? Or about a type of radar—this was on a farm I own in New York where someone used ground-penetrating radar—”

  I kept counting—“. . . thirty-one . . . thirty . . . twenty-nine . . .”

  “Stop that! I’m trying to cooperate. I think what happened is, someone in that area heard about an incident, but the radar was wrong. False readings are so damn common with that sort of technology. I don’t expect you to understand. But if that’s what this is about, I’m sure the people who paid you—”

  “You made me lose count, Nels,” I said. “So we start at ten. Ten seconds.

  What’s the question? I won’t understand the answer unless I hear the question.” I was studying his eyes as I counted—“. . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .”

  “Please don’t. One more minute . . .”

  I leaned my weight on the pistol, and said, “One? Zero.”

  “No! You win!” He stopped squirming and lay in the sand panting. “I’ll tell you. The question would be . . . I guess what anyone would want to know is . . .” I watched his eyelids blink closed, then open. As he thought about it, his eyes rotated downward. “The question,” he said, “might be about a girl named Annie Sylvester. Where is the girl buried? I guess that’s the first question someone would ask.”

  “The answer?”

  It was several seconds before he could make himself say it. “She’s near the Hamptons, Long Island—that’s in New York. Annie is buried in a pasture. A horse farm called Shelter Point.”

  25

  Nine p.m. I battled the urge to rush as I drove the Range Rover south on U.S. 41 toward Venice Beach Road and Falcon Landing, governing my speed with cruise control and using the blinker to shift lanes. I didn’t know where Will Chaser was. Didn’t know if he was dead or alive, aboveground or below, and I was convinced Nelson Myles didn’t know either. But I now felt sure the boy was somewhere in Florida, probably close to Sarasota. It would be unwise to invite the attention of a traffic cop.

  Myles hadn’t told me the whole truth—yet. But I believed him when he said he hadn’t seen the boy and didn’t know where he was. I did not believe him, however, when he said he didn’t know that he’d been helping the kidnappers. Too many holes in his story, too many headlines on the television news.

  Myles said he didn’t know the men were Cuban until I told him. They had demanded money, transportation and shelter, no questions tolerated. That included questions about a crate the two men had off-loaded early that morning, after Myles landed them at Falcon Landing in his eleven-passenger Citation executive jet.

  “They said they were
smuggling illegal weapons. I didn’t ask what. Rocket launchers or an atomic bomb—my God, what do I care? My life was on the line. I didn’t even see their faces. That’s the truth. I didn’t want to see their faces!”

  My opinion of the man continued its descent.

  During the three-hour flight, Myles claimed he hadn’t opened the cockpit door. The only time he was face-to-face with the men was just before they boarded, but it was too dark to see details.

  “The man I’d been dealing with, the one in charge, he was older. Late fifties, early sixties, and very neat. Silver hair, a collar that looked starched. The man with him was twice your size and three times as wide—freakish. He was younger, judging from his voice, in his twenties or early thirties. And he wore a weird knit cap. Pointed, sort of. I got the impression he wasn’t smart—retarded, even—just from the way the boss man spoke to him. But strong—my God, he handled that crate like it was filled with newspaper instead of—”

  “Guns?” I chided.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I swear.”

  All other contact was by cell phone, Myles told me, or over the Internet.

  “The man told me how much money he wanted, where to be, what to do, and I did it. Anyone in my position would’ve done the same. These people have been bleeding me dry for more than two weeks and I’m sick of it! They have no idea how far out of their class they are, but they’ll find out one day. You, too. That’s not a threat. It’s a fact.”

  “Poor Nelson,” I replied. “You’ve had it rough, all because of a girl who wasn’t in your class either.”

  The man’s story meshed with the bank records I’d found at Shelter House and also with what I already suspected: an interrogator from the Cuban Program had discovered that a wealthy American was a murderer—a story he’d probably heard from an American POW. Torture a man long enough and he will spill his own personal secrets, then volunteer secrets about everyone he knows, hoping to earn a break from pain.

  Myles hadn’t yet provided the connection—who was the POW?—but I had a pretty good idea who it was. So I was backing off, letting him get to it in his own way.

  Because it was safer to talk in a moving car, I’d been driving for about twenty minutes, making random turns, but gradually traveling southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico and Falcon Landing. Myles tried subtle manipulation to hurry me back to his gated community, implying he might talk more freely when he was close to home. I thought I understood his motivation. But I badly misread his intent.

  I stopped only once. Got out of the car, so Myles couldn’t eavesdrop, and telephoned Barbara, then Harrington, finally Tomlinson. No one answered, so I left the same message: “The boy’s in Florida, possibly Sarasota County. Tell the FBI and anyone else who can help. I’m right this time, trust me.”

  My determination to find Will Chaser was now fueled by an additional source: my systematic humiliation of Nelson Myles. I’m no actor. A bully within me had surfaced, and the realization added yet another blemish to my already-tattered self-image. The only justification now was finding the boy.

  The better I got to know my victim, however, the easier it was to rationalize. Myles possessed a mountainous ego that didn’t leave room for a conscience, or a heart, or people of value in his tiny, privileged world.

  Now it was 9:15 p.m. Traffic was busy on Palmetto Road, as I turned south and crossed Bee Ridge. I was listening to Myles once again attempt to justify murdering a thirteen-year-old girl the summer of his senior year at Yale.

  “She was a tease—you can ask anyone who knew Annie. Thirteen going on twenty-one, you’ve met the type. I was just a kid myself. Drunk, and I’d smoked grass, and it was the first time I’d ever snorted coke. I was celebrating because I’d been accepted into a very elite fraternity. Next morning, I couldn’t remember anything. Don’t expect me to remember every detail now.”

  “Don’t expect me not to expect,” I said.

  “It’s a manner of speech. I’m trying to explain how it happened. Little bits and pieces flash back, but never in order, so I’ve got to stitch it together even for me to understand. It was night, and I was on the beach alone. I’d been at a party and got too drunk, but I was smart enough to leave. The party was getting dangerous: a bunch of locals with an attitude had showed up. So I took a bucket of balls and a golf club down to the beach to hit a few while I sobered up.

  “A driver?” I said.

  He thought for a moment. “No, an iron. A seven iron.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  I was picturing the golf bag I’d seen in Norvin Tomlinson’s room, as he told me, “Next thing I remember, Annie was standing in front me. This was in June, a warm night. She’d just gotten out of the water. She was wearing a white T-shirt, no bra, and bikini shorts. How would you react?”

  I didn’t answer. There was a stoplight ahead and I wanted to time it right. I’d used the master switch to lock all the doors but wasn’t certain there was an override on the passenger side. If I slowed to a stop, he might try to jump.

  “Women never do that sort of thing accidentally,” he said. “I don’t care if they’re thirteen or thirty.” The man buried has face in his hands and made a groaning sound. “My God . . . there ought to be a law.”

  I said, “There is,” not hiding my contempt.

  “But the girl started it! She wanted me to make a pass at her. When I finally did, though, she laughed and ran, so I threw the goddamn club . . . like a joke, you know, to scare her. It’s what kids that age do. Jesus!”

  “Twenty-one years old,” I said, “and still a boy.”

  He missed the sarcasm. “Exactly. I didn’t mean to hurt her. But she turned her head and the club hit her in the eye. I got scared. Even she didn’t realize how bad it was. There was a lot of blood and I panicked. Anyone would’ve freaked out in that situation. Plus, I had my family’s reputation to protect. Father was about to be named ambassador to—”

  I said, “Nelson!” He was on a talking jag and didn’t hear me. “Myles!” When he was listening, I said, “What’s par for killing a girl? How many strokes? After the second time you hit her, you claim she called you a name. What did she do to deserve it the third time? The fourth?”

  “You don’t understand how it was.”

  I said, “You’re goddamn right I don’t understand.”

  Myles looked out the window and rubbed his swollen ear. “I’m getting sick of your questions.”

  “Try a dose of truth. It might help.”

  “I’ve told you everything I remember. It was a long time ago. The boy who was on the beach that night doesn’t even exist. I’m not responsible, he was responsible. I’m a different person now.”

  I said, “Prove it. The girl’s dead, but maybe you can help me save the boy. Find him alive, it’ll earn you points with the jury.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know anything about the kid. I told you about Annie. Why wouldn’t I tell you where the boy is?”

  “Maybe you know more than you think. The Cuban could’ve said something that meant nothing to you but might make sense to me.”

  “Really? You’re that much smarter? I find that unlikely. Know what I think?” I waited. “I think you know more than you’re admitting. Why are you so sure the man is Cuban? You expect me to talk but don’t share anything.”

  I replied patiently, “Tell me the story again. Start at the beginning—every detail.”

  He groaned. “Just take me home. I feel like I’m going to vomit. And I need a shower. I’ve never felt so filthy in my life. Take me back to Falcon Landing, maybe I’ll feel better. We can talk there.”

  It was a typical reaction for an assault victim. It was also a symptom. The rich man’s brain was reassembling his self-image, piece by piece, as he transitioned through predictable stages. He had been apologetic, then ingratiating. Pride, indignation and anger would reboot next. Myles would become increasingly contentious or closemouthed. I h
ad to short-circuit that process. There was more I wanted to know.

  I shifted lanes, looking for a place to turn around, then flicked the turn signal.

  “What are you doing?”

  I said, “Taking you back.”

  “Not to that goddamn dirt road!”

  “I should’ve done what they hired me to do.”

  Myles slapped the dash, then leaned his head on his forearms. “Jesus Christ! Haven’t I been through enough? It would be easier if you asked questions. Instead, you just sit there hardly saying a word. You do it on purpose. You know it drives me crazy.”

  I said, “When you stack the lies high enough, they’ll implode. That’s when I ask questions.”

  “Go to hell,” he said, but got serious when he realized I was still slowing to turn.

  “Jesus! Okay, I’ll tell the story again. But who the hell do you think you are, treating me this way? Do you have any idea who I am?”

  I said, “Let me guess: You’re rich and you know a lot of powerful people.”

  “An understatement. You have no idea.”

  “Guys like you,” I said, baiting him, “you’re all the same. You lie to feel important. Next, you’ll start bragging about all the sports stars and famous politicians you know. Buddies from some yacht club or some rich-kid fraternity who can bury me if you just say the word.” My tone told him Bullshit, but I didn’t hit it too hard. I wanted him to talk about Skull and Bones.

  Myles said, “If I told you how many senators and presidents that’re in my fraternity, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  I replied, “Then don’t bother.”

  He was shaking his head, letting me know how dense I was. “My beach house where you jumped me? Three neighbors are from the same fraternity. One’s a federal judge, one’s on the board of the International Bank and the other’s a leading member of Congress. That’s who you’re dealing with. Now do you understand?”