Now the man was working hard to project an overbearing confidence, yet it only made his anxiety more apparent. He was terrified because he was trapped. Maybe he’d wanted to recapture power he had enjoyed as a younger man, but it had all gone bad. He and Yanquez had been abandoned by their partners. The boat scheduled to take them to safety—and wealth—hadn’t appeared.
There is nothing more dangerous than a killer who has been cornered. But maybe the man was so desperate that I could manipulate him into the mistake of allowing me to help.
“Tell me about the boy,” I said, “and I’ll cooperate. You want to go to Cuba? I’ll take you. Do you have the keys to his boat?” I motioned vaguely to Myles without looking because I didn’t want to take my eyes off Farfel.
The Cuban nodded. “The dock is only fifty meters from here.”
I said, “Then let’s make a trade. Tell me what happened to the boy, help me save him if he’s still alive. I’ll agree to drive the boat. I can have you in international waters in less than an hour. By sunrise, you’ll be close enough to Cuba to see Havana. But the woman stays here, understood? That’s the agreement. Just the three of us go.”
I watched the man thinking about it, probably envisioning a scenario that included throwing me overboard once the boat was in open water. He was disgusting to look at, with his rodentian cheek structure, his manicured hair and his crazed metallic eyes. Farfel: a fitting name, not only because of his dentures but because of his precise and delicate physiology.
He was older than I had pictured: mid-sixties. He looked exhausted, in his outdated tweed slacks, torn at the knees, and a white guyaberra shirt that was spattered with sea grass and blood. People who are compulsively neat sometimes react to dirt as if it were physical pain. Farfel struck me as one of those, with his perfect hair and his mannerisms.
“It is easy to pretend driving a boat to Havana is so easy,” the little man said, “but the waters of Florida are shallow, as we’ve discovered. Channels are narrow and the rich man’s boat is the size of a house. This imbecile, who is the idiot son of an associate—a medical school colleague—he ran us onto many obstacles: rocks and bars of shell. I had to wade in the water and push!” Farfel was glaring at Hump, who had positioned himself behind me. “This fool also claimed it would be easy to drive a boat to Havana. But you pretend it is different with you. Why?”
I said, “Because I’ve done it before.”
Farfel wanted to believe me, but he also wanted to keep me in my place. “Are you admitting that you are him? The man who trespassed in my country many times?”
I looked at the steel cable as if staring out the window. “Many times, yes.”
Was he asking if I was a spy? If so, he was speaking English for the benefit of Detective Palmer. He would have assumed I spoke Spanish.
Yes, he was doing it for Palmer. I understood when Farfel smiled, as if something had been confirmed, saying, “Then you are the one I have heard stories about! The famous Dr. Ford!” He laughed. “The Bearded One hated you. I heard it was because you made him appear foolish, many years ago, at a baseball game in Havana. Is such a thing true?”
I could sense Palmer looking at me, wondering what the man was talking about, thinking, Who are you?
The Bearded One. During Fidel Castro’s reign, Cubans either spoke of the dictator as the Maximum Leader or El Barbudo, the Bearded One. They rarely used his name because it was dangerous to risk even a complimentary remark. It could be interpreted as an insult by eavesdropping Party members.
Farfel knew things about me Myles could not have suspected, even from an Internet search. Farfel knew my real identity and that meant I was dead. I was sure of it now. But how I would die, and when, was still within my control.
I asked, “Mind if I stand?,” getting to my feet without waiting for permission, then saying to Farfel, “Who are you talking about, the Bearded One?”
“Sit—sit on the floor. On your hands!” Click, the man’s dentures snapped, adding emphasis.
I ignored him, watching him take another step back, hoping he’d elevate the pistol to improve his field of vision. It would give me room to dive for his legs. But I was unprepared when Yanquez—Hump—hammered the back of my neck with his elbow. Hit me so hard that I dropped to my knees.
Next, as if rehearsed, in one smooth motion Farfel took a dance step forward and kicked me hard in the ribs. When I almost caught his leg as he backed out of range, the man’s face spasmed, nervous as a jackal. From behind, Hump kicked me again, then a third time, before I curled up in a ball on the floor.
A moment later, I heard the snap of precision metal. It was Farfel thumbing back the hammer of his gun. As I lay there, some perverse, frightened instinct in me wanted this nightmare to end and hoped he would shoot. I preferred a bullet to a drill.
Instead, Farfel produced a phone from his pocket—my cell phone—saying, “If you do something so stupid again, I will kill you. But I can see that . . .”—he was reading my face—“. . . I believe that the threat does not frighten you. So!”—he swung the pistol toward Palmer—“I will shoot the woman first. I will shoot her above the abdomen. The solar plexus, I think. Dr. Ford, have you ever seen a person with a wound in this sensitive area?”
Farfel had years of experience reading fear in the faces of frightened men and he read mine accurately. Yes, I knew what he was threatening and I didn’t want to see the woman suffer that sort of agony.
“Good,” he said, relaxing a little. “You will do what I tell you to do. Understood? Sit! You will look at me when I speak. You will answer when I ask a question.”
Slowly, I got to my knees, then sat with my legs crossed, saying, “Anything you want, name it.”
The slang puzzled him, because he replied, “The senator who is your friend—what is the name, Barbara Hayes-Sorrento?—the woman from your government who controls the property stolen from the Bearded One. The senator telephoned you earlier. Now you will telephone her.”
He placed the phone on the floor and moved away to give me room.
“The senator will be in Florida tonight,” Farfel said, sounding proud he’d manipulated information. “She lands at midnight in Tampa. The senator told me this personally, so I know it to be true.”
Midnight? It was after one a.m. now. Maybe there’d been a layover in Atlanta and Barbara called me just before boarding.
I listened to Farfel say, “You will tell your famous friend to meet you, not us. You will tell the senator that you are alone. If you choose, say you have found the obnoxious little brat. I don’t care what you tell her but convince her to come.”
“Come where?”
“Here! Where the boat is docked. Are all boat drivers idiots? Tell her it is important. You will have the boat running and will invite her for a voyage—” The man paused midsentence, head tilted, his attention shifting to a faraway sound. It was a familiar sound to me: the rhythmic strokes of helicopter blades.
A helicopter . . .
To me, it was the sound of a cavalry bugler. As I listened, I experienced the buoyant optimism it had produced in me years ago in a faraway jungle.
I risked a glance at Shelly Palmer as the chopper approached. She was staring at the ceiling, her expression eager. The helicopter was coming straight for us. No mistaking the thrashing whompa-whompa-whompa of its blades.
I moved my head as if tuning an antenna. Was the aircraft descending?
No . . .
The building shuddered as the chopper roared overhead, flying low and fast toward the southwest.
The helicopter wasn’t coming for us. It was the aircraft Myles had been promised. He’d been told the sheriff ’s department would check Tamarindo for unusual activity. But if the multimillionaire wasn’t on the island to meet the crew, would they keep looking?
Farfel was rattled. He began to pace again, muttering. His reaction explained why he wanted to lure Barbara onto the boat. He needed a more important hostage to guarantee his escape. He needed his
original target, a U.S. senator.
I wasn’t convinced that law enforcement was closing in, but the Cubans believed it. It showed.
Farfel used his eyes to communicate something to Hump as he shouted at me, “Why haven’t you done what I told you to do? Are you stubborn as well as stupid?” His eyes moved to the phone. It was midway between us on the floor.
I started to reply, but he talked over me, demanding, “Call the senator now. Convince her, say whatever is necessary. But I warn you, don’t attempt your silly code words to trick me. Mr. Myles told us the meaning of those numbers, eight and seven. He told me everything I wanted to—”
I didn’t hear him finish because Hump collapsed his weight on me. No finesse, just dropped his body down on me with the weight of a floor safe. The unexpected impact dazed me and might have broken my neck if I hadn’t turned first, alerted by the sound of his feet.
By the time my head cleared, I was lying on my belly, struggling to breathe beneath Hump’s bulk. He weighed more than three hundred pounds.
I heard Farfel giving instructions, telling Hump to pull my arms behind my back, to make sure I couldn’t move. As I looked up, Farfel was walking toward me. He had the phone in one hand, the electric drill in the other, feeding out the extension cord as he crossed the floor.
Palmer was yelling, “What are you doing? This is crazy! Why?,” as I experimented with Hump’s weight, testing to see if I could find purchase with my shoes and create enough lift to get my knees under me. The giant lay atop me like a blanket, most of his weight centered on my upper body. That was good for me, bad for him. So I didn’t struggle as he levered my left wrist up behind my shoulder blades.
I was lying on my right arm. He wanted that, too, but I pretended I couldn’t move when he tried to thread his hand under my bicep and pry my hidden wrist free.
In Spanish, Hump told Farfel, “I have him, don’t worry. He can’t move now.” He was breathing heavily, already winded.
Hump was wrong. Only another wrestler would understand, but the man had positioned himself too close to my shoulders to control the strongest part on my body: my legs. He was riding too high, in wrestling terms, a mistake all beginners make.
Hump could have weighed four hundred pounds, it would have made no difference. Whenever I wanted, I could loop my right hand over the back of his neck, then buck him forward and over my head as I scrambled free from beneath him. Out the back door: more wrestling slang.
Next to my head—that’s where Farfel would soon be kneeling. He had done the same thing to Nelson Myles when Myles was talking to me on the phone, used the drill to intimidate. As Farfel drew nearer, he pressed the drill’s trigger for effect, its cat-high whine like fingernails on a blackboard.
I arched my back to take a look. The little man was grinning, enjoying himself, letting Palmer see the drill, holding the thing like a trophy, revving it like a motorcycle. Showing off his power, as Farfel had probably done a hundred times before to torment prisoners.
The woman was on her feet now, still yelling, demanding that he stop, saying, “I’ll make your goddamn call for you. I’ll do anything you want, just stop, please!”
I wanted her to shut up, to move away and to let Farfel get closer. I wanted him close enough to kneel and to touch the drill to my skull. If I timed it right, if I synchronized the movement of my legs and free hand, Hump would soon somersault atop Farfel, crushing the little man instead of me.
But Palmer didn’t move away. She continued screaming, so angry she was now taking zombie steps toward Farfel, who appeared irritated at first, then vicious. Before I could reassess, he used the drill to club the woman. Hit her fast with the butt, knocking her to the ground. Then Farfel dropped down over her, his knees pinning her shoulders and framing her face like a vise.
“This is a better way,” he called to me, speaking Spanish now as he returned his attention to Palmer. He released the drill’s trigger as he leaned over her but didn’t wait for the bit to stop before he touched its steel to the detective’s head.
The woman’s scream extended into the gradual silence of the slowing drill. There was blood but just a trickle. Farfel had only pierced her skin.
“A hole in the lady’s forehead,” he called to me. “Even a fish doctor knows the significance of the frontal lobe. Do what I tell you to do or I will begin my experiment. Later, I will make notes!” Because he was more articulate in Spanish, the man sounded even more desperate and insane.
I did what I was told. I called Barbara Hayes-Sorrento. It was maddening how easy it was to convince her that I needed to see her. Barbara said she was in a van, driving from the airport to Siesta Key, only twenty miles north.
I wanted her to be suspicious of my monotone sincerity, of my indifferent urging. She wasn’t, and I couldn’t risk making my lies more obvious.
But, as I calmly gave her directions, she was curious about one oddity.
“What’s that weird whining noise in the background?” she asked. “The phone I gave you is expensive. Did you get it wet or what?”
33
Maybe I’ve done it, Will Chaser thought. Some good luck, finally.
He was hoping he had hammered his head against the coffin so hard, so relentlessly, that he was now unconscious and only dreaming. It struck him as a possibility because the water was up to his cheekbones now, but he no longer cared.
Must be pouring down raining outside.
No . . . He pictured Buffalo-head cracking the lid and remembered the winter-blue sky, the warm sunlight.
Because he had overheard the Cubans talking, Will knew he was on an island, somewhere in Florida, so now he thought, Could be the ocean is leaking in.
But that didn’t make sense either. He’d gotten a look at the hole dug by Buffalo-head. The hole was about four feet deep, with only a glaze of water at the bottom. Back home in Oklahoma, it took weeks of rain to raise the level of a lake.
Unless . . . unless the leak has something to do with tides.
All the boy knew about tides was that there were high tides and there were low tides. But it was his understanding that ocean tides changed only once a month, somehow related to the moon phase.
Just my shitty luck, he thought. They bury me on the only day there’s a high tide.
He lifted his mouth to the coffin lid and screamed, “Goddamn it!”
Then he told himself, Relax, stay cool. Now it really can’t get any worse.
That calmed him. His abrupt, overwhelming anger faded.
Hours ago, the thought of suffocating had terrified Will. He had curled his body, positioning his mouth as close as he could to the PVC pipe that supposedly was providing him with air.
Will had refused to allow his brain to explore how that would feel, running out of air. Gradually, though, he had given in to his fear, opening up his imagination to peek at the horror.
Never again. Not after what he had experienced. The panic his imagination had created now frightened Will more than the reality of death.
For the first time, Will had lost control. It had happened when Hump closed the lid for the second time and had filled the grave so solidly with dirt that the rhythmic whoosh of the man’s shovel became but a faint, distant whisper.
The panic Will experienced had started at the base of his skull, then burned like a chemical moving through his veins. It had paralyzed his lungs until it was like those terrible nightmares where he wanted to scream, to shout out a warning, but he couldn’t.
That had terrified him even more, so Will finally lost his grip on the careful emotional tethers he’d constructed. He had screamed and shrieked. He had gone so crazy with fear that he had broken his fingernails off, clawing at the lid, trying to get out. He had used his face to bang and hammer at the wood until he could taste the blood streaming down from his forehead.
No . . . he didn’t want that feeling to return. Anything but that. It was better to drown calmly than to endure that horror again.
Unconscious . .
. he hoped he was.
As the water rose around him, the boy settled comfortably. He imagined he was in a swimming pool, floating on his back. Bull Guttersen came into his mind, but there was no longer any comfort in the old man.
Guttersen wasn’t his home, not really—probably never could be—because Otto Guttersen was who he was and Will was who he was, a nobody kid from the Rez who most likely would end up a sad, drunken Skin, just another roadside attraction playing dress-up for tourists, pretending to be an Indian warrior, something, Will was now convinced, that had never truly existed beyond the late-night cowboy fantasies of Hollywood.
What was so bad about dying now? Dying in the dead, dead silence surrounding his own heartbeat and the privacy of his own Indian despair.
Nothing. Not a damn thing wrong about it!
Will chose to allow his mind to float, just as his body was now floating, which took some effort because the skull had wedged itself between his neck and the coffin’s air tube. The skull prodded at him as if demanding attention.
After a while, though, Will’s imagination drifted free. Images of the Rez came into his brain, the scent of hay and lathered horses, the faces of girls and women he had lusted after, even though he had not experienced even a momentary sexual thought since the Cubans had kidnapped him. Had Will realized it, he would have been surprised, but he didn’t think of it.
Fear was to blame for that, too.
Every drifting image was familiar, rooted in some life experience, until Will’s consciousness slipped into what he knew must be a dream.
He had never been in Florida yet he now envisioned the Everglades, which he had seen in National Geographic, but never, never anything like what flooded his brain now.
Plains of gold came into his mind, dotted with mushroom domes of mist-blue, a sea of grass clear to the horizon that didn’t slow the wind. Wind spun designs in the grass, drifting streaks and swirls on fields as yellow as a pretty girl’s hair, then mussed and dust-deviled and spread its way toward cypress hammocks in the distance: domes of shade in so much sunlight that it hurt Will’s eyes.
Dead Silence Page 33